Rainy Season and Spending the Entire Day Naked

So the rainy season has officially begun and its bullshit. Pretty much is has poured rain since Wednesday and will probably continue to do some for at least another week. For the few moments a day when its not raining it is so painfully humid that I would almost prefer rain.
Last weekend I went with some friends to Daegu- its the third largest city in Korea and only about an hour by train from Busan. It was great to get away for a weekend and I really liked Daegu. We pretty much spent second of our 36 hour trip eating and drinking. As the location of one of our lovely military bases it has the best western food that I have come across while here. We started things off with some cocktails at one of the few restaurants with outside seating. Koreans seem to fear the sun and getting tan so there are no places to sit and eat/drink outside. Its a travesty. We followed that up with a delicious meal at a french restaurant called Dijon. I had my fill of red meat as don't every cook it for myself. I had beef carpacio (delicious) followed by an amazing steak au poivre and it was amazing. Perfectly cooked. I was very impressed. We then hit up all the hotspots for the rest of the night. The next day we went to the Holy Grill which I had heard many storied of as it serves amazing western brunch with some of the best bloody marys I've ever had. The rest of the day was spent wondering from restaurant to restaurant alternatively drinking and eating until we made it back to the Holy Grill for dinner. It was a lovely little trip and I can't wait to go back and eat more!
With all the rain there are very few options for activities. Its pretty much spend the day sitting around watching movies (todays activity), eating/shopping/movies at Shinsegae or getting naked and lounging around one of the Korean baths. We opted for the baths yesterday as we conveniently live right down the street from the largest bath in all of Asia! It was a very relaxing and very naked experience. I got a "message/scrub" in which about an inch of my skin was rubbed off by a woman wearing underwear. It was quite aggressive and she was quite thorough (I don't think my butt needed as much scrubbing as it received). I definitely fell freshened up afterwards and so much skin was removed that my tattoos look band new.
We followed up our 3 hours of bathing by crossing the street and having a dinner buffet with all you can drink wine at a hotel. It was delicious and I pretty much ate myself into a coma. Today has pretty much just been sitting around watching movies as I refuse to leave my apartment until the sun is shining and I can go to the beach.

Instead of Coachella, Bonnaroo, Camp Bisco, Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits.....

So the worst part by far of being in Korea is that lack of the activities that make me happiest: live music and awesome museums. I have been pretty spoiled in the last few years as living in New York I have had the opportunity to see tons of bands and got to go to every museum for free! Anyway, sadly the museum/art scene is pretty weak in Busan, I am sure that it is great in Seoul but I haven't really had a chance to spend much time there. The music scene is not much better but super randomly the band Toro y Moi came to Busan and played right near where I work! Of course Danielle and I (and it seemed every cool person in Busan) was thrilled at the opportunity to not only see some live music but to see a band that a) we actually knew and b) was actually good! Pretty exciting stuff as most of the time when I go online I get reminded that people in American are doing things like going to Bonnaroo this weekend. Anyway, the show was great and everyone there was super psyched to hear some good music. Hopefully this wont be a one time thing and the venue will get some other sweet American bands. Anyway, the show was last Wednesday and Danielle and I went straight from work so my pictures are not as blurry as they tend to be at concerts because I was sober as a rock. The one benefit of seeing bands in foreign countries (this happened in Australia too with Danielle) is the opportunity to actually meet and hang out with the musicians as the venues tend to be tiny.

He looked just like a young Ghandi

Matching hipster white sneakers

So maybe not quite sober as a rock....

Did you not know that I am super artsy?

Added to the list of musicians that Danielle and I have met together. Sadly Korean's don't always take the best pictures....

Start of a New Term!

Just about to finish up the first week of the new term. It has been a pretty busy and exhausting week. We have track A and B for each level which means that Danielle and I had to figure out how to teach track B as it is a little different than last term. In addition, I am teaching almost all new levels so I have been trying to figure out the differences and how to teach each level. It is also hard to remember everyone's names and train the students to do things the way you want them to.  I am teaching some more upper level courses which I am enjoying but they take a lot longer to prepare for so thats kinda a bummer. I have one class of elementary students in a lower level that is pretty much all boys and it is pretty frustrating trying to get them to focus but I am sure it will only get easier once I scare them a bit. I am teaching an iBT prep course which I taught for the first time last night and it was pretty intimidating. The kids are almost all in 9th grade and they seem so much older than that middle school kids. One of the students is about 6'4" and towers over me. They are also all super smart and I feel like I am going to need to step up m game to really make a difference in their test scores. Its also going to be a challenging class because it really isn't designed to be that fun. I imagine its pretty much the same as any test prep class which means that I am really going to have to work to make it fun.
It is always hard to tell if students like you or like your teaching but its been really nice this week because students that I had last term have come by my classroom to say hi during their breaks and tell me about their new classes. It has been great to get some confirmation that students did actually enjoy class with me! One student, who I have again this term, asked me to help her with a English competition. Of course she asked me on Friday and it was due on Tuesday. It was a Samsung the Power of Positive Thinking for Young Leaders competition and she was supposed to record a 3 minute speech on the power of positive thinking and send it in. I gave her my email and tried to get her to do it but of course over the weekend she lost interest. So even though she didn't do it I was really flattered that she asked me to help her. She is definitely one of the students that I have connected with the most and I am really happy that I have her in my class again this term.
It is finally getting warm here- we have had the longest spring ever. Hopefully soon we will be spending our weekends at the beach!

"Hiking"

So it only took Danielle and I about 3 months to figure out that there was an awesome park/hiking area a 10 minute walk behind our apartments. We finally went on Sunday to explore and do a little walking and it turns out that there is quite a lot of hiking to be done! We took a cable car up the mountain and then followed a route that had been suggested to us by a very helpful volunteer at the entrance. He had approached us and of course stood way to close to us because Koreans have never heard of personal space and of course it seemed like he was either just a creeper or a missionary of some sort but it turned out that he was extremely helpful and provided us with a nice little route as well as maps. Once we got to the top we set out on what ended up being a lovely hour and a half "hike". I say "hike" not because it wasn't actually hiking, it was definitely a hiking trail, some parts more challenging than others but because unlike all the Koreans who were dressed head to toe in hiking gear and all had fancy backpacks and walking sticks Danielle and I (mostly me) were not quite as prepared.

Inside a little Buddhist temple. These flowers covered the ceiling and i am guessing had prayers written on them.

The beautiful alter. A super nice couple explained to us that whenever they came hiking in this park they would stop here and bow three times and pray for health and wealth for them and their family.

Buddhas carved into the rock.

Extreme hiking gear

My hiking gear. I will also note that I have finally fulfilled my Vermont hippy roots and purchased my first pair of Birkenstocks.

We tried to get a woman to take our picture but she did not understand what we wanted to we got her daughter to take the picture but unfortunately she was about 2 feet below us and not the best photographer.

My much better picture of Danielle

There was a bus to take you to the bottom of the mountain and they jammed themselves so tightly in that I am surprised no one fainted.

Koreans are very good at making lines.

Depressing....

Woke up to this lovely article in the New York Times about student suicide in Korea. It seems to be rampant. It was brought up in one of my classes and everyone knew someone or knew of someone that had committed suicide. The oldest kids I teach are in 8th grade. It is very messed up and it doesn't really seem like there is a lot being done (though I could just not be well informed). One of my students said that they were given a card with a number to call if they wanted to talk to anyone but their parents would be notified if they called the number which seems pretty counterproductive.

3 Months of Real Life is Waaaaay Too Long

So we are coming up on three months living and teaching in Korea! We finish our term next week and the following Monday will have a whole new set of classes and students and hopefully will be able to correct all of the mistakes we made with our first classes. The time here has gone really fast but more due to the fact that I feel like I am constantly working than the fact that I am constantly having fun. Not to say that there hasn't been lots of fun. I spent Saturday (after a stupid morning of having to work) drinking sangria and beating people at hearts and eating and it was lovely. But mostly I work. Getting out at ten makes the day seem so much longer, I would really prefer a more standard schedule but I do enjoy my hot yoga in the mornings.
It is pretty overwhelming to think that only three months have gone by though and that we will continue to work non-stop until we leave. So nine more months to go. Not that I am counting or anything. I am just not used to a seemingly endless work schedule. While Busan is a great city it doesn't quite have the fun concerts and outside eating that most places in the US have and there seems to be a bit of a lack of exciting things to look forward to. To try and remedy that I have just ordered the Korea Lonely Planet- one would think that it would have occurred to me to bring this key item but no, I needed to fit all my shoes in the suitcase. Anyway, I am hoping with the arrival of this book Danielle and I will begin planning a few more outings or simply a little more sight seeing around Busan. I am also excited for the coming summer. Its been wonderfully warm the last couple of days and will probably continue to heat up until I never leave my apartment because I can't really handle heat and humidity. Until then I plan on making use of our roof which, though not as exciting as 2 Sutton Place South does have some nice greenery and benches. I spent about 30 mins up there on Sunday and got sunburned. It was awesome. Soon it will be beach weather and then everything will be wonderful.
I feel guilty that I have done relatively little in the three months that I have been here but I try to remind myself that if I was living and working full time in the US I would probably be sitting on my ass 90% of the time too. But since I am not in the US that excuse doesn't quite fly. I am only planning on being here a year and I definitely want to take advantage of that. But I tell myself that that doesn't mean that I can't spend a Sunday here and there sitting on my sofa all day eating and watching TV.
Besides work seeming eternal things are going well, summer is on its way and my mom has promised to send me a care package with New Yorkers (but I definitely miss you all)!

World DJ Fest

So last weekends adventure to Seoul was quite successful and quite tiring. We left Busan at 10 and got to Seoul about 2.5 hours later. After a quick lunch of some delicious mexican we began our subway journey out to the festival. It took about an hour and the train was pretty crowded so we had to stand for most of the time. Next we had a 15 min walk to the festival. We had been concerned about being cold as we were not camping so we had brought a fair amount of clothing with us which was super heavy and annoying to carry and were regretting this at first but after the sun went down we were definitely glad to have lots of warm clothes. The festival was great, probably the best people watching ever- the Koreans really go all out. Music was pretty good though of course we didn't know any of the groups. It was definitely hard to stay up all night after a long day of traveling and we ended up taking a "nap" in the back of one of the music tents with about 100 other people while the music was still blasting. At around 3 am we decided to head back to the subway as we were cold and uncomfortable. At the subway we had to wait until about 6 for the trains to start and then ride the train cram full of smell and dirty people for an hour. When we got back to Seoul station we were able to get an earlier train and made it back to our apartments by noon. It was definitely exhausting but really nice to get out of Busan for a weekend and be around some live music!