But in case you've found this website, and you're looking for me:
Yes, I'm still alive and well. I no longer live in Korea, but the adventures haven't stopped!
Good golly Miss Molly, are those cobwebs on the ceiling? It looks like no one has cleaned here in ages!
...is basically like this
Minus the sweet ride :(
So, I did something pretty dumb this weekend.
In Korea, there's a chain of restaurants/bars called "Garten Bier". The drinks are pretty cheap, and you aren't required to buy food like at some other places (a common practice in Korea), so it 's a good place to meet up with friends.
Anyway, one of the other gimmicks they have is a sort of "mini-fridge" for your beer. The table has a built in cooling apparatus, which cools your beer. And the beer glasses fit in perfectly. Pictures below.
Anyway, I challenged my friend to see who could keep put their hand inside the beer holder, and keep it in the longest. My friend is from Toronto, which is further north than Wisconsin or Minnesota, the two states I've lived in. But, he's always complaining about how cold it is here, so I give him crap from time to time. So, that's why I put forth the challenge.
I didn't keep track of how long I kept my hand in, but it was definitely over 10 minutes (although we started with the cooler off, so it took awhile to cool down.) It was a struggle.
And after I took my hand out, I realized I had some minor frostbite.
Needless to say, after a couple days, my hand now looks like this:
It's a little sore to the touch now, but I don't have any loss of motion in my hands, which is the only thing I was really worried about.
And hey, you know what? My friend quit before I did, and it's a good thing he did, because his hand doesn't look nearly as bad as mine. I guess he didn't have his pressed against the metal as tightly.
So, in the end, I'm a winner!
And that' s what counts!
Well...it's Tuesday here, but it's still Monday somewhere, so here goes.
2NE1 were one of the first K-pop groups I started listening to after I arrived over here.
Honestly, especially by Korean girl group standards, they aren't that attractive, but I totally dig CL, the "lead rapper".
The music is catchy as hell too. I actually recommend listening to the whole mini-album instead of just the single.
Anyway, here's a live video.
2NE1 were one of the first K-pop groups I started listening to after I arrived over here.
Honestly, especially by Korean girl group standards, they aren't that attractive, but I totally dig CL, the "lead rapper".
The music is catchy as hell too. I actually recommend listening to the whole mini-album instead of just the single.
Anyway, here's a live video.
And a link to the whole mini-album:
And if for some reason, you want it in wav instead of mp3, you can get it here.
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Well, today you're in luck!
I missed Music Monday last week, and I actually had a couple people tell me they also missed it. So, no promises, but I'll make a better effort to get something up every week.
Anyway, this week I'm giving you double the music to make up for last week. Well...sort of. It's two songs, but they're both from the same mini-album.
The group is Big Bang. They're a pretty big deal in Korea, and they've actually crossed over into Japan as well. You can read more about them here.
The first song is "Haru Haru", which roughly means "Day by Day". The song is kind a of hip-hop ballad...or something like that. I dunno, give it a listen!
There's also a music video, but I posted a live version. Mostly because of T.O.P.'s big red gloves.
The second song is "Oh My Friend", which features the Korean ska/punk band No Brain. It's definitely a rock song, and it's also the first Big Bang song I liked. I had actually heard of No Brain before, and when I heard this on TV I recognized the singers voice...it's quite distinct. Anyway, enjoy!
If you want both of these songs, the download link is below!
It's been awhile since I've written anything here. I have a lot of things I could write about, positive and negative, but I haven't really been in the mood to share. I'm not exactly in a writing mood right now either, but I have some downtime at school and a story to share, so here goes.
My co-teacher and her family have been very kind to me, so a few weeks ago I offered to invite them out to dinner, my treat. The date was postponed a couple of weeks, but it finally happened this past Saturday.
We started out at a shabu-shabu restaurant, with 5 people: my co-teacher, her husband, her daughter, one of her brothers, and me. We ate some delicious shabu-shabu and drank some soju. It was a pretty good meal, although in a rare display, I was actually have a little bit of trouble with the soju. I think I can blame Friday night for that...
Anyway, the food was good, and afterward we went up to my co-teacher and her husband's apartment. To be honest, in many ways, it really wasn't anything special. We just sat around, ate some more, chatted about random things, and played drinking games. Eventually my co-teacher's other brother showed up. I had met him briefly one time before, but I had a chance to interact with him a bit more this time. Both of her brothers are pretty cool, and they do their best to communicate with me despite limited English ability, which I appreciate.
This continued until pretty late, and I eventually started to feel pretty tired, so they let me go to sleep in one of the side rooms. Then I think the people who were still up played some Wii Sports. Late the next morning, everybody woke up, we had some breakfast, and then I went home with my co-teacher's brothers in a taxi. And that was that.
As I said above, on the surface this experience might not seem like anything special, but it was actually pretty important to me.
Why?
Well, I've been in Korea for about 3 months now, yeah? Especially the past few weeks, I've really been feeling like an outsider here at times. And I suppose that's only natural, because I am an outsider here. And because of my living and working situation, I think I feel it here even more than I did in Japan.
So, to chill with my co-teacher's family for a night, and feel almost like a part of her family for that time was a pretty big deal for me. It reminded me that despite Korea not being my home, it's still possible to feel at home here.
Really, I wouldn't say I'm homesick. If you asked me right now if I'd like to stay here another year, I'd say yes. I've having a good experience overall. But some days are better or worse than others, and that's something that's probably amplified a little bit here. Today I'm feeling a little down, but I'm sure something will come along to cheer me up.
And frankly, despite what I've been feeling recently, I know I've felt like an outsider before even in my home country, probably to an even greater extent than I feel it here now. So, I know I can survive this feeling. The key is to keep moving forward, and that is something that I know I can manage.
Alright, today we're going with a Korean ballad. Stuff like this is pretty popular over here.
I choose this song for two reasons:
1) The video is kind of strange...I can't decide if it's sad or just kind of ridiculous and over the top. Especially the ending...
2) It's pretty slow, so I think with a little bit of work I could probably sing it at noraebang. Badly. But hey, you have to start somewhere...
Anyway, enjoy!
You can download the whole mini-album below.
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