I'm A Winner! (or, Men Are Stupid!)

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!

A busy week, in brief

Monday: Okay, nothing special happened Monday. Fair enough.

Tuesday: Went to Outback Steakhouse with some teachers from Seonhwa Elementary. I'd never been there before actually, in the US or Korea. Not bad, and it was fun. The same group is going to go somewhere again in two weeks, with some drinking this time.

Wednesday: School got out early for some reason, and I went to get noodles with 2 teachers from Jungang Elementary. And tonight I'm meeting a group of teachers from the same school for some food and beverages (probably soju).

Thursday: Some kindergarten teachers are taking me on a hike to a temple. Too bad the weather is so cold these days...

Friday: My main co-teacher has been really generous to me, so I offered to take her and her family out for dinner. Should be fun. Also, I don't have to go to school, because there's a big EPIK teachers conference during the day. That should be a nice break from the usual "grind".

Yeah, busy week, but it's better than being bored in my apartment. I'm the kind of person who needs a good bit of alone time, so I probably couldn't handle this much stuff every week, but it's fun on occasion.

Now...to find something to do on Saturday...

View of Daejeon

Jungang Elementary School is kind of up on a hill, so there is a pretty good view of the city. I took a few pictures and I'm posting them here for you to see. Click to enlarge.








That's all for now. Enjoy!

Daejeon Expo Bridge

I promised pictures in my last post...well here they are!

The Daejeon Expo Bridge was built for the 1993 Expo in Daejeon. It's one of many structures built specifically for that expo.

I think it looks pretty cool at night, but hey, judge for yourself! Pics below!

As usual, you can click for a larger view.










A couple of the are a little blurry! Sorry, I didn't have a tripod!

Also, for reference, here is a link to a picture of the Expo Bridge in broad daylight.

I think it looks pretty cool myself! What do you think?

"You want me to chew a sock...?" "NO, CHUSEOK!"

First, let me apologize for my bad attempt at a humorous title.

I'm sorry!

Moving on, this weekend Korea celebrated "Chuseok", which is a big harvest festival type of celebration. Korean families get together, enjoy food and drink, and basically just enjoy some nice time with relatives. If you're interested, here's more information about Chuseok.

For me, Chuseok meant a nice 4 day vacation. A bunch of my EPIK teachers went to Seoul, but I decided I'd be a little bit more low key and spend the weekend around Daejeon. In hindsight, I definitely made the correct decision, for a few reasons. I'll explain in my day-by-day breakdown below.

Wednesday - School's Out!

I actually had work on Wednesday, but I got out a few hours early. Because I and some others didn't have school on Thursday, a couple of us decided to go out for some food and drinks. I originally thought I was meeting only one other guy, but he invited a guy, which made it 3 people. But then, the 3 of us ran into another group of friends, and we ended up going to get some samgyeopsal as a big group. In that respect, things worked out great.

Afterward, we went to a convenience store, bought some drinks, and sat down at a picnic table to enjoy them. After doing that for awhile, we decided we'd hit up one of the dance clubs in the area. My put my legendary dance moves to work for a few hours, and then wandered around with a couple of people for a bit before catching a taxi home.

Sounds like a good night, right? Well, for the most part it was. But, if you remember my last blog post, I've been dealing with a lingering cold-ish type illness. I was still kind of sick on Wednesday, but I figured I was in good enough shape to go out for a night on the town.

Thursday - Licensed to Ill

But oh boy, was I wrong. When I woke up on Thursday, I felt terrrrrrible. My whole body just didn't feel good all over. And that was just in the morning.

Later that night, I started to feel pretty warm, so I decided to check my temperature (courtesy of the thermometer given to me at EPIK orientation). It clocked in at 38.3C, which translates to 101F. Being the "tough guy" I am (haha), I decided I'd sleep it out and call somebody to help me out if was still in bad shape the next morning. And hey, I'm writing this blog, right? So my decision worked out fine. However, I do kind of wonder if my temperature went any higher after that, because I was either having some REAAAALLY weird dreams, or just straight up hallucinating. I don't know, but it was quite the experience. I wasn't enjoying it at the time, but in hindsight it was pretty cool. Anyway, I had trouble sleeping for awhile, but then I cranked up my AC pretty high and managed to fall asleep.

Friday - Bridge Expedition

On Friday, I still felt kind of sick, but significantly better than on Thursday. A couple days before I had decided that I would venture to the Daejeon Expo Bridge at night to get check it out. I considered putting it off because I still felt kind of crappy, but ultimately decided that going out for a bit would probably be good for me. Anyway, I got some pretty decent pictures of it, and I plan to make another post within the next day just for the purpose of posting them. Keep an eye out.

Oh, I almost forgot! I decided to give my apartment manager a bottle of wine as a Chuseok gift. 5 minutes later he comes back to my apartment and gives me a plate of Chuseok food. Not a bad deal!

Saturday - Chuseok!

Saturday was pretty cool actually. My main co-teacher had me over to her family's house for a Chuseok breakfast. Her mother, husband, 2 brothers, daughter, and another friend were in attendance. The food was really, really good. Also, my co-teachers (~18-month old) daughter was wearing traditional Chuseok clothing that looked really cute (kind of like this, only better). I wish I had brought my camera so that I could've taken some pictures.

While the celebration was really cool, unfortunately I still wasn't feeling 100%, and they could definitely tell. They gave me some cold medicine, some leftover food, and told me to go home to get some rest. I'm glad I could join them for a bit though.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I spend a lot of time resting. However, that evening, I heard my doorbell ring, and when I opened it there was the apartment manager with a whole tray full of food! I was really surprised. Unfortunately, while I was really appreciative, my appetite wasn't up to eating a whole lot of it. I made a good dent, but ended up returning the tray and some of the food back to his wife...

From what I've gathered, most restaurants and families seem to prepare too much food for meals, but I still felt kind of bad for returning the tray with some of it uneaten. Also, my small refrigerator was already pretty full, so I didn't have much of a choice. Hopefully I didn't commit some sort of cultural faux pas.

On a final note, I managed to watch (on the internet) the Wisconsin Badgers football team pound the Minnesota Gophers. A good chunk of the game anyway.

Sunday - Today

Uh, yeah, today has been pretty boring.

I continued to try to sleep off my sickness. My sinuses and cough and getting really loose, which is usually a sign I'm getting over something, so hopefully that prognosis comes true.

And now I'm writing on my blog.

In Closing

Well, I'd say I had a reasonably successful Chuseok, especially given that I was sick for most of it. Like I said, it's a good thing I decided not to go to Seoul, because I would've been about as fun to hang out with as a pet rock. I'm glad I got to eat a bunch of traditional, home-cooked Chuseok food too! Also, checking out the Expo Bridge was a nice way to relax and walk around outside for a bit.

Anyway, look for the Expo Bridge pics tomorrow! Peace out!

IT'S DAEJEON!

Hey all, I just made it into Daejeon 2 days ago, and so far, things have been going well.

I have my own place, but I don't have internet yet, so I'm currently writing from a PCbang, which is what the Koreans call a PC Cafe. It's probably a bit different than what you would expect though, because I'm basically surrounded by Koreans playing Starcraft and other games.

My apartment is a little small, but the location is GREAT! I am within walking distance of both of my schools, and about a 20 minute walk from a big bustling downtown area that is full of stores, bars, and shops. And there's a noraebang (Korean karaoke) place on the same block as me. So, things are so far so good in that regard!

I've only met one of my co-teachers, but she has been very friendly so far. I'm going to be teaching at two elementary schools, and in at least one of them, I am the first ever foreign teacher. My co-teacher said she was nervous about meeting her new foreigner teacher, but after meeting me, she is very relieved. I guess I made a good first impression! :) She and her husband took me out for food and drinks last night. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to meeting the other teachers at both my schools and joining them for school outings.

Anyway, I'm going to end this here, but there are still lots of things I'd like to write about. I still want to make a post summing up EPIK Orientation, particularly. I'll probably write it up on my laptop and post it later.

'Til next time!

P.S. Watching Japanese anime dubbed in Korean is a total mindf***.