Practice

Last night we went to the recording studio to practice with the band. Kat wants to play drums with us so we wanted to see how it would. Troy has set a tentative date for our first proper show in about a month and a half. This studio is awesome...it's so cheap, only about $10 an hour. We don't go there for recording, but practicing (if you record, only $20 an hour! so cheap!). They have a drumset there and big amps that you can plug into to play loud. It was super fun and we just went to try out a few songs to see what works and what doesn't work. I definitely learned that I need to plug in my acoustic guitar....or maybe buy an electric????? who knows????

Ice Climbing

Lindsey on the Ice

Yeongdong Ice Park

Last weekend, I went to the mainland and to go ice climbing with Lindsey. We went to an ice park near the small town of Yeongdong, near Daejeon. The ice is all man made, pumped from the river below and sprayed over the cliff with little shower heads. That weekend there was a major climbing festival and competition. We didn't compete, but it was a super time and met lots and lots of people. It was really crowded!

Nagging Sickness

Life during the past week has been as good as it can be, but I've had this nagging sore throat ever since New Years Day at the bar where they play the music too loud and I end up yelling all night. Its funny about living in Korea...sometimes I get sicker than I ever did before. I know I'm not the only one that has this problem and I know that this is one of the difficulties about going to another country halfway across the world. But it is one of those difficulties, and it is something that I guess you just have to be prepared for and deal with. Today was the first day I felt 100% better and its funny about how I got better. I asked my students what they do for a sore throat, and they said to gargle salt water. That's what I used to do as a kid too! So I tried it out again and life is much better now that I can sleep at night!

Birthday Hallasan Hike

Emma, and our New Slovakian Friends on Hallasan

Wednesday was my birthday and what a great day to have Wednesdays off! This is a bit of a special birthday for me since I turned 29, but in Korea, they count your age from conception, so you're a year older than your western age. I get to try out being 30 for a year! To celebrate, I went on a hike up Hallasan with my friend Emma. We woke up super early and got a good view of the sunrise on the drive to the mountain. The weather was nearly perfect, blue skies and warm with little wind. I think Hallasan is easier to hike in the winter time since you put these little mini spike/crampon things on your feet. The snow covers most of the stairs, so you don't have to be so careful about your foot placement. At the top, we met a Slovakian couple who are on a long Asia trip, visiting South Korean Buddhist temples. They turned out to be climbers and super nice folks. We invited them out to the saunas then to dinner at the Bagdad Cafe (Indian Restaurant) and had a good dinner with them and Darren, Christine, and Sam. It was a perfect birthday!

Haenyo

The weather over the past week has been incredible! Nearly 15C lately. I went for a bit of a cruise on Sunday and at the end of the day we saw the Haenyos out diving. Everyone in Jeju will tell you that Jeju is famous for three things...Wind, Rocks, and Women. These are the famous women free-divers of Jeju.

Gardeners

When I'm at home and practicing my guitar, I like to watch the gardeners outside my window. This picture doesn't show how amazing I think this is. This garden is right on the corner of quite a busy intersection. I don't know how people decide who gets to use the land, but every little section belongs to different people. The people around here use every bit of land possible for something!

Students

I like to think that most of my students are happy and enjoy my classes!

Some of my classes can be pretty large (for Korean hagwons)

Sometimes they even study hard!

Although I post pictures of climbing, turkeys and bands, the central point of my life is my work as an English teacher. Lately I think I've kinda been neglecting that aspect of my life here in Korea on my blog, so here's some photos of some students. I teach both upper elementary and middle school students, sometimes in the same class. As a reminder, I teach two classes a day. Each class is three hours long. Lately it seems like the end of the evening class can get pretty grueling since it finishes at 10pm!

Christmas

Carving the Christmas Turkey

Everyone enjoys the spread

Although I had to work, I had a pretty good Christmas. My friends Amy and Joel are some of the lucky few in Jeju with an oven in their apartment and ordered an 18lb turkey from Seoul. I haven't had turkey in a year and a half and boy was it delicious. I had to work on Christmas Day, thanks to the corporation that I work for, but it wasn't so bad when Emma and Amy delivered me some turkey! The best Christmas present ever!

The Thread

We're Rock Stars! I love Jeju because its like our own little playground in a way. You can pretty much do anything you want! Troy, Betsy, and I decided to become rock stars and we were the opening band for a show at the Led Zeppelin bar last weekend. Our band name is "The Thread" and we played 4 songs lasting 12 minutes! It went pretty well, though the sound was a bit rough due to the electronic equipment. It's a lot different than just playing in your apartment! Our friends Powernomic$ put on a fantastic show, and it was fun being the opening band!

Korean Class

My Korean Teacher

Some Students in the Class

For about a month now, I've been taking a Korean Language class at the Jeju Migrant Worker's Center. It's been a pretty good class for me. The level was actually way too easy for me, but the teacher spoke super fast and was a little difficult to understand. The best part was that she didn't speak any English, and she'd also use children's stories in class that I could break down at home then go to class and practice reading.

The class itself was a bit of an experience since it was full of mostly Phillipino and Vietnamese girls who married Korean husbands over the internet. The girls on the left in the bottom picture are from the Phillipines and the girl between Danielle and I is from Myanmar.

Danielle Teacher

Here's Danielle, the other 'new' teacher at our school. She's practically a veteran now since she's been here five months! She's from some little town near Vancouver, probably less than an hour's drive away from Node. Danielle is here to make a little money and get some teaching experience to get her teacher's certificate back in Canada. These days in Jeju she takes belly-dancing classes, studies Korean, and paints at the arboretum.

Node Teacher

Its probably about time I wrote up about the new teachers at my school (new 4 months ago)! This is Node. He's a pretty wild and crazy guy as you can tell. He loves coffee, games, and now climbing. He's a young one, fresh out of college and came to save some money for grad school in philosophy. Node spends most of his free time writing a book and talking me into getting off my lazy butt and going climbing.

Visitors from the Mainland

Lindsey came down from the mainland for a bit of climbing in Jeju. I had a super awesome time showing Lindsey Jeju's modest little climbing area. She found my blog through the www.koreaontherocks.com message board. She mentioned something about tele-skiing at a ski area 45 mins from her house.....sounds like a trip to the mainland soon!

Ultimate Frisbee

This is quite possibly the worst picture on the blog (I forgot my telephoto lens), but I wanted to write about ultimate frisbee and show a picture of the dirt fields at all of the schools. Every Saturday, a large number of foreigners on Jeju get together to play some Ultimate Frisbee. Ryan did it last year, but I never went because of climbing. Troy talked me into checking it out last weekend and it was fantastic. There were probably about 25 people of all abilities. You could just hop in and run around a bit. It was super fun and I'd suggest it to anyone on the island. There's even an international tournament that comes to the island in the spring.

Diaper Party

My friend Mark is having a baby in January, so while the girls were having a baby shower, Troy put together a 'diaper party' for Mark. I've never heard of a diaper party, but it sure was my kind of party! We hiked Halla Mountain up to the top. It was a nice day for a hike, but the top was quite windy and chilly. This was 2 weeks ago, and the last day before the snow came.

Mark on the Trail

It was tough, we were practically crawling our way up!

Nice stick

Mark: Future Father of baby Noah

We were pretty exhausted when we got to the top

Still... Busy! Busy! Busy!

Things have been absolutely crazy lately and I can't believe how fast the time has flown lately. My co-teacher, Brad, has gone on vacation to LA for 2 weeks, so for one week I had to cover for his classes, which included about 4 hrs of prep a day! I had no time to do anything! It was great to get out of my rut of a routine with my classes and try some more advanced level classes. Now, I'm glad to be back into my classes and try my new teaching tricks!

The guitar has been consuming my life lately. My teacher seems to ask so much of me that I can barely keep up and spend so much time playing that climbing and korean language studying have gone by the wayside.

This week has been busy, too. My friends Mark and Shannon are having a baby in a few months. While the girls had a baby shower, we had a diaper party and climbed up Halla Mountain. It was a great trip, probably the last weekend up the mountain without snow in a while.

I also had a visitor from the mainland this week, Lindsey. I had an amazing time showing her around and taking her out climbing. She's a really great girl, one of the best I've met in Korea, and she's really inspired me to make time again for climbing and also got me excited about going up to the mainland to climb.

My work computer has been on the fritz and replaced, so I haven't been able to upload pictures lately. Apparently it's fixed, so I'll get it back this weekend and put some pictures up.

Guitar Lessons

I've been taking guitar lessons for the last three weeks. When I went to my friends Sam and Young-Sook's Wedding, they had a band playing and I asked the guitar player for some guitar lessons. These lessons have been totally intense. He's teaching me some serious music theory while teaching me the guitar. It's very frustrating, because I can't do these simple things he asks me to do, but at the same time, it's absolutely fantastic. In the end, it's kicking my butt. It seems like I spend so much time practicing. I love it though and I hope to get better soon!

Busy Busy Busy

It seemed like I was beginning to be stuck in a bit of a rut towards the end of my first contract. I was basically becoming lazy. It seemed like the laziness was about to come back on full speed, but these past few weeks have been awesome. I've been able to keep myself ridiculously busy. Its actually been almost to the point of overload. I was taking Korean lessons with my friend Jin everyday which meant about 3 hrs total a day of studying Korean. I was barely finding time to play guitar and study personal economics (its funny how your focus shifts when you're no longer earning poverty wages). Now, Jin left for Thailand and the US to visit John, so hopefully I'll find a new Korean teacher soon. Also, at the wedding last weekend, I finally met an awesome guitar teacher. I've been wanting to take guitar lessons for years and this is finally my opportunity!

Blue Agave Halloween Party

Superheros!

Ajumma and Ajosshi (Middle aged woman and man)

Mummy and Crazy Guy

The guy on the left used to have a knife through the neck, and the guy on the right isn't wearing a costume

A nice mask

I try to stay away from posting multiple pictures in one post, but I got a couple of decent party pics at the Blue Agave's Halloween Party the other day. I'm having a difficult time with my camera in low light places. I end up using the flash on automatic mode and the pictures just end up looking like point and shoot pictures. It was a fun evening though being paparazzi!

Volcanic Rock

Tuesday Morning Football

I have no pictures, but this morning, I had my friends Node and Troy over for a small Tuesday Morning Football party. There's a 13 hour time difference between here and Eastern Standard Time in the US, so the NFL Monday Night Football is on Tuesday morning at 9:30. We had our coffee and croisants then troy came with some dumplings and california rolls later. The Indianapolis Colts won! Woohoo!

Pumpkin Festival

Although my picture is not of a pumpkin, it was taken at a pumpkin festival this weekend. These folks are a local school band, playing traditional Korean drums.

Hee Sun's Wedding

Hee Sun's Wedding

Hee Sun and I at the pre-wedding lunch

Hee Sun, one of the members of the climbing gym got married the other weekend. I was invited to go to the wedding reception the day before, then the wedding day. Korean weddings are quite a big production. It's really two or three days worth of ceremonies and preperations. The meal we had the day before was a traditional Jeju meal with seaweed soup and pork. The wedding itself is quite different than any weddings I've been to. Its in a small room in a hotel or a ballroom or something, not a church. Outside the room, there's kids and old men in suits being loud and noisy. After the ceremony, I think they do a private family ritual involving lots of bowing.

Speaking of weddings, my cousin Amy is getting married this weekend. Congratulations! Sorry I can't make it!

Camping

A roof climb at Musucheon, there's a 5.13 crux pulling out of the roof.

Samgyupsal, cell phone, and beer....the Korean Camping Experience. (The chips were my idea)

After living in Korea for more than one year, I finally got my first Korean camping experience. I went to the Musucheon River (only about 10 minutes from my house) with some of my climbing friends, Juin, Won Bin, and a couple others. We only camped one night, but got about $70 worth of food between 4-5 people (a lot of food!). We had some great Samgyupsal (barbecued bacon) for dinner, then some Kimchi Chiggae (Kimchi soup) for breakfast. I played my guitar while everyone drank soju and we had a great evening around the campfire.

The next morning, we went climbing and I got on my first 5.12 at Musucheon. I didn't quite get it, but maybe next week! Before we left, everyone had a go at the wild roof climb in the top picture. On this climb, the first 6 bolts are only about 8 feet off the ground! You have to spot the climber while he clips the bolts. If he falls while clipping, he'll hit the ground.

Mini Crab

Here's a goofy picture for ya!

Last weekend was spent with the CDI family, we went to the traditional 5 day market, then to a cultural festival downtown. In between, we stopped for some sashimi for lunch, and they gave us these mini-crabs as a side dish. You eat the whole thing! It was actually pretty good. Quite crunchy.

I've been a little slow on the blog lately since I've decided not to get internet in my new apartment. I seem to waste too much time surfing and doing random useless stuff that it doesn't make sense to have internet in my house. Fortunately, I have my own computer at work, so I can just come in a little early everyday and update the blog, read the news, and check email. I'll still update the blog regularly, I'll get a card-reader to transfer my photos from my laptop to the work computer.

Rock Climbing in Yangshuo, China

Here I am again, telling people about another of my amazing vacations. I'm sorry to say that as usual, I didn't see the main touristy sites. I didn't see the Great Wall. I didn't go to Beijing, and I didn't go to Shanghai. I had three weeks...and I went rock climbing....and it was awesome.

I went to Yangshuo, which is very close to the larger town of Guilin in the Southeast of China. The landscape is absolutely incredible. The thousands upon thousands of limestone karst formations aren't just in one small place, but everywhere for miles and miles. It really is a rock climber's paradise, especially nowadays since it's a bit of a virgin paradise. People have only been rock climbing here for less than 15 years, and only a handful of the karsts have established routes. The majority are sport climbs, with bolts and anchors, but there's the odd multipitch here and there for the trad climbers.

The town of Yangshuo is a quickly growing tourist town filled with chinese tourists and nagging salesmen. It probably has the most number of English speakers of any small town in China. The streets are filled with coffee shops and cafes serving Chinese and Western food. You can get off the main drag and find cheaper and more delicious food in the local markets.

Like I said I went to Yangshuo for rock climbing and I did some climbing most every day. On days that I didn't climb, I still went out to the crags to take some pictures. I found the joys of sitting at the top of the climb for 2 hours while my legs fell asleep, taking millions of pictures, then spending hours deleting all of them but the one or two good ones. I met some absolutely amazing people of all different backgrounds and nationalities. We all got along together very well and all of the friends I met were able to help me grow in many ways.

Before I left, I spent three days in Jeju camping at the beach

Yangshuo is a busy town, full of Chinese and International tourists

You take a short walk through the smaller villages to get to the crags

Matt showed us how to prepare for the climbs

The climbing was sometimes in interesting places

The views were amazing

The climbs were fun and technical

Sometimes VERY technical

I spent a lot of time at the Karst Cafe

This is our chef at the local night market

Sometimes we might eat near the crags

You can take a rest while you're climbing!

Go for a swim in the river

Have a drink in the bar

Relax by the riverside

We usually chartered a mini-bus to go to the crags

This picture is NOT taken from the front seat.....

There's still 4 more people that you can't see in this picture

You can also go to the crags by bike

But the roads are a bit...unpredictable

Its always fun climbing

It's especially fun in the moon!

Put your feet back on!

Music at the crag is always a nice treat

He's almost got it!

I met some great friends

Where will I go next?