Photographer

One day I'll take photos like this guy!

Open Mic

You walk up to the stage and the lights are on you. You practiced all you could at home and now the time has finally come. Yeejin tested your sound and it sounded good. You're ready. When your turn comes and you sit down in front of the mic, and all of the people are looking at you, all of the sudden everything is different and you're scared. The sound is coming from the side, not the guitar. In fact, it's impossible to look at the guitar while singing into the mic. The people are staring at you....waiting. You have to play perfectly now...there's no stopping. You're at Open Mic night!

One of my favorite things about living in Jeju has been the Open Mic nights. Nothing has done more for improving my guitar playing and public display of confidence. Live performance in Jeju is unfortunately a rarity, so this is our chance to do it ourselves. The audience is 100% supportive and will cheer you on, dance, and enjoy every bit of your performance, sometimes as if you were the latest rock star. It's fun and exhilarating and I'm always preparing for the next one.

Some people read poetry

I got some friends together and

we played some live Swing music

for our swing dancing friends to dance to!

Bangseonmoon

Jeju Furey Beach Volleyball 2

Come spend a weekend the way we spend most of ours...

The skies were blue and there and the wind was light. The weather was absolutely perfect. People started coming to beach to set up their tents on Friday night. The organizers and helpers worked their butts off to create 6 courts, clean the sand, and prepare the beach for an amazing weekend, the likes of which Iho has never seen.

On October 10-11, 2009, Ninteen separate three men/three women teams came to Iho beach in Jeju, Korea to participate in the second Jeju Furey Beach Volleyball fundraiser tournament. There was a healthy mix of Korean and foreign competitors in the round-robin tournament. All proceeds from the tournament go towards the Furey Foundation, a benefit for the family of the late Nathan Furey.

There were 6 courts total.

Five courts would play simultaneously,

with an extra court in the back for practice.

Slowly!

Each team shared refereeing duties.

Sometimes the sun was too intense for Sang Soo!

During the breaks, people threw footballs, frisbees, and even danced!

Every team had 3 men and 3 women

Dan Nabben, on the right, the head organizer,

put together a smooth tourney

This was my team, the Peace Frogs.

This was our most exciting game,

when we played the all powerful "Hero Squad"

Congratulations to the winners! Red Sun!

Korea Mainland Climbing and Cruising

I've lived in Jeju for about 3 years now and I've only been to the mainland one time (not including Seoul). Last year, my friends Dan and Troy took a motorcycle cruise around all of Korea for a week and raved about it. At the end of August and the first week of September, I decided to finally see it for myself, I cruised for three days by myself, then I met up with Darren and Christine for a week of rock climbing. I took a ferry from Jeju to Nokdong, travelled around the southeastern corner of Korea. I mostly stayed in Jeollanam-do, but poked my way into the neighboring provinces. I met up with Darren and Christine and we climbed at Yongseo Pokpo, and Seonunsan.

I took the ferry from Jeju to Nokdong. The ride was about 4 hours and quite comfortable. As you can see, the weather was great, so you can either hang out in the ferry and get some food, drink a beer, or go outside and relax on the deck. I met a nice gentleman on the ferry who kind of took me under his wing. When the trip was over, and arrived, he decided to treat me to this amazing sushi dinner.

My motorcycle is a 125cc motorcycle. If you know anything about motorcycles, that's not much. Most motorcycles in The States start at 400. In fact, its hard to even find even a 250cc on most websites I've seen! I honestly don't have any experience riding a larger sized motorcycle, but riding a 125cc is really all you need to have fun. You can't cruise on the highways, but if you're on a motorcycle on a highway, you need to re-think what you're doing buy a Cadillac (or a Lincoln). When you get off of the main roads and onto the back roads the driving on the motorcycle is spectacular. It had enough power to go 110km/h (the speed limit is never more than 80km/h). It has plenty of power to go up hills, and coasting downhills, its light enough that you don't have to use the brakes much. The roads in Korea are smooth, have lots of turns, and are absolutely gorgeous. I would suggest to anyone to ride a bike through Korea. The backroads are not well marked, so just learn to read a little Korean, get a good map, and you'll be well on your way.

I was driving through the mountains, and it was beginning to rain, so I stopped by this man. He introduced himself with incredible English and invited me over for lunch. He was a true hermit, living in a shack by the river. He used to teach German at a well known university in Seoul, but was fired after refusing to do his military service. After he divorced his wife, he decided to live the simple life and at 77 years old, he makes his living raising 19 goats. The lunch was simple but delicious, bean sprout soup, and the conversation was excellent. You never know who you might meet when you're travelling alone.

When travelling through Korea, you are travelling through the mountains (watch out for squirrels!). They say that Korea is something like 80% mountains. Mostly they remind me of the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern US. Not big, but very beautiful. I stopped by a an area called Maisan (Horse Ear Mountain). There is a temple here with many huge stone piles, stacked by the monks that have stood for a couple hundred years without falling down. It rained the day before, and my camera lens got moist and gave a cool softening effect on the edges of the picture! Sometimes you just get lucky!

Here's a picture for my mom. Do you see those little round cushions that they're sitting on? They're strapped to their butts and when they stand up they look really silly, but they have a nice little seat following them around.

I don't have many pictures from the cruising part of my trip. It's tough to ride a motorcycle and take pictures at the same time. Plus you're cruising and its so fun that you don't want to stop and take pictures...you could be stopping every 5 minutes! Plus, everything was strapped to the bike and it was a bit of a pain to get the camera out.

Next I met up with Darren and Christine for a bit of rock climbing. First we went to Yongseo Pokpo (Yongseo Waterfall). This place was really nice and a good place to go first. The wall is generally vertical with comfortable holds with nice edges. We spent 3 days climbing here.

One of the rooms we stayed in had a Karaoke machine! We rocked it all night!

The pictures below are from the second place we went, Seonunsan. The climbing there was absolutely amazing. It's mostly overhanging and boasts some of the hardest routes in Korea. Here's a sampling of pictures, I'll try to find more pictures for more of an overview of the whole area and put them in another post.

The Screaming Monk

We met a monk from the local temple who was a rock climber and showed us around a little bit. He was very friendly and climbed really hard. When he was at his limit, I've never heard anyone scream so loud....he was known by us as "The Screaming Monk"

Until next time!