Sorry its been so long,

Anyong Hasseo!

I apologize for taking so long to update this blog, life has just been busy.

My plan was to post updates about the days that have gone by because I've got a lot to write about! From my last whirlwind trip to Seoul to meeting Beeker and our escapades in Gwangju to exploring the May 18th Cemetary, I've been a busy kid. But fate doesn't want to play that way.

I'm back in Seoul for my vacation, it was the last resort after everything else that Paul and I tried fell through, But I found out from a site that my Mom pointed out to me off of Whit and Lindsay's blog about a play being put on here in Seoul. Called JUMP, it's a non-verbal Musical about a family of Tae Kwon Do Masters, a young nerd who is secretly fantastic at Tae Kwon Do who loves their daughter. and two inept burglars. Doesn't sound like the most intricate plot sure, but you make an epic with almost no dialogue.

The choreography was stunning, the martial arts amazingly intense and absolutely mind blowing and the comedic timing was brilliant. I have nothing bad to say about this play. On top of that, it started with a "very old man" hobbling through the audience and hitting people out of the way with his cane. This man, the stage manager, tries to climb the stage, but can't and points to a member of the audience to lift his legs up one at a time onto the stage. Guess what being the only white kid in the third row (Actually the whole theatre, I think) Meant I got to do. It was fun!

Well I think that's it for now. I'm going to go enjoy more of Seoul, I'll catch you guys up to speed later. See you around!

J

I need a spot...

In every place that I've lived, there has been a Spot, a place that I could and would go to anytime something got under my skin. If I need to cool off, re-evaluate, soul search, scream at the world or just take a step back and try to look at it in a new light. Growing up it was the playground on Maplehurst road, Its where I came to the final decision to drop ritalin, the court with the Socrates ball was my place for my first three years of University, where I decided three times that I was not following the degree for me, and then it was the trail down by river when I moved downtown. Even in my last summer at home I adopted the spot of my friends Luke and Chris, the bridge we called Bob. I'm not saying that I've had a hard life, but at the times where it feels like I've lost my footing, gone off the edge and all the other metaphors, these spots have been my godsend, whether its the fresh air, the change of location, the perceived isolation, they always help.

I have no Spot in Korea. I need one.

Can you bring me the Mountain, please?

As of two days ago, I've been in Korea for one month, as of today I've been actually living here for that long as well.

On the eve of my one month aniversary I decided to go hiking up the nearby mountain, I'd been told that while getting to the top was a workout, it wasn't impossible and its always been something I wanted to do since I got here. Well I scaled the forest paths, complete with helpful stepping stones and stairs that become much less helpful when they're covered in slick snow and ice. Well I was just a few dozen feet from the crest of the peak, So proud of myself for making it to the top, and I turned around to glance back, and saw a much bigger mountain to my left....

.....nutbunnies.....

Well I didn't make it all the way to the top, but there is always next month. I did make it up to the smaller peak .

In regards to the title of this blog. I'm pretty proud of how much Korean I've learned since I've arrived. I can say hello, thankyou, goodbye, can ask how much things are and at times order things verbally. Sometimes I slip up, as happpened a few minutes ago when I was ordering lunch.

Jamie: "Annyong Hasseo! Meudung, Chuseo." (Translation of what Jamie THOUGHT he said: Hello, Can you bring me some Dumplings?"

what Jamie actually said "Hello, Can you bring me the Mountain"

Live and learn, here are some of the other fun things I've seen. (Fun being a relative word)

Times can be up, down, and sometimes they just turn you around.

This post doesn't really have a point, I don't know where its going to go or exactly what it will be, supposedly deep philisophical musings, that in truth are pretty corny? Maybe... Annecdotes about my past few days? perhaps. I just don't know

I find myself in a state of apathy right now, not really towards my life, I actually am enjoying my life a lot more than I expected to be two weeks ago, but I think after the long couple of days I've had, and the realization that I'm even more busy over the next few days just wears me out. I'm excited for it. But I'm tired!

Which gives us our first side note! To anyone who has just arrived or is thinking of coming over, I tell you this: The first bit is rough, but it gets better fast!

I can already hear the chorus of "I told you so's" coming from friends and family, but its true. I'm still not sure I can make this full year, there are still rough moments and hard times but it does get easier. Espeacially if you put yourself out there. In these short 3 weeks I've made more friends than I can count, some of whom I already count as among my nearest and dearest. I've experienced a culture that is both completely different from my own and yet at the same time shockingly similar. And I've only started, in truth I haven't seen that much yet.

I've had days where life feels normal. Not even "I'm used to being on an adventure" kind of normal, but regular joe kind of stuff. Wake up - Eat - Go to work - come home - veg or chill with friends - rinse repeat. That when something happens to point out that I'm on the wrong side of the world it really hits you, the bus full of people staring at you, the kids that run up and pester you constantly (SO AWKWARD when you are in a public bath house) or a number of other little things that it is wierd!

But life is, all in all good. I'm going out with a whole bunch of friends tomorrow for Shabu Shabu (I'm not really sure what this is) and then out for some Galbi and a movie with a friend on Friday, and then some sort of an activity on Saturday, possibly skating, possibly museum hopping, and I still haven't been hiking yet.

I did go skating again, alone on my break a couple days ago, it was fun. Still a little crowded but manageable, I got some good exercise out of it.

Oh! one last note: I bought a guitar last night, needed something to stress relief on, I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I think that's it for now, later!

Movie Madness and a little taste home (Really little)

Hey again everyone!

Well its Sunday night here and I'm sitting in PC Bang near my home.

I had a lot of fun today, which was great as in the original plan I kind of had today as a write-off. Honestly most Sundays are. I recover from my weekend, take a few trips to stalk up on things I want or need and that's normally it. Or at least has been so far.

But I was down at Speakeasy's again last night, I know I go there a lot, but there's a lot of fun people that I meet and get to know down there, but back to the point. I was playing a game of darts with Paul and talking to our friend Krystin about home, because she's a Canadian like me, from Ontario, I believe.

Side note #2: The myth that every young person in Canada goes to Fort Mac is wrong, they all come here!

But as we talk she laments that she wanted to go skating, but when they had tried it was closed. I agreed that I really missed home and could use a reminder, so we decided to try today.

Well, skating in Korea is interesting, to say the least. This is a popular activity on Sundays because the line up went out the front door. You get your skates from the rental place, all of which look like rollerblades with blades instead of wheels and then go stand in the rink, waiting for the ice to be cleaned. I have no idea what the official man in the middle of the ice was saying to us, but it seemed important. Then they let you on the ice. There were three things with Krystin and I noticed. The first is that you are not allowed in the middle of the rink. You get to skate around the ice, counter clockwise and if you get to close to the line and the pylons, they blow a whistle at you, randomnly there was a figure skater in the middle at one point. The second was how crowded this place was. We could hardly move! Which unfortunately meant no fast laps around the ice. The third was how bad they all were! This is one of the times where I really wished I could speak Korean to try and help these poor people, I mean there were people who seemed to tip toe on the edge of their skates and just tried to walk on the ice as if they were running. Needless to say, I saw a lot of people fall down this afternoon.

In all honesty, I didn't get the fix I was looking for from skating today. I've never been that good but I really like it and I just wanted to be able to glide around the ice a bit, but between the crowds and dodging to make sure I didn't barrel some poor person over or skate on them, I didn't get it. So I'm going to go back again every few days, find out when its open and see if I can find a time that's less crowded.

Aside from that we went and grabbed some lunch at Heim Pizza, still haven't figured out how to order my pizza, but here the Peperoni pizza is good enough, that stuff is DELICIOUS! I don't think I can get enough of it. And then we went and saw Yes Man. This is the second time I've seen it, but still just as hilarious! That's pretty much my day today, Back to work tomorrow.

See you!

This City is Play-doh....

Happy New Years!

I hope everyone at home and abroad had a great New Years, all in all mine wasn't too shabby. I'm still making these updates from PC Bangs so once again no pictures yet. But I'm building up a stockpile to swamp facebook and smatter around here when I can.

So for my New Years really started the night before, with a going away party that my boss was throwing for Fred. Now Fred is an old pro at this stuff, this being his second year in Gwangju that has just passed and the man has become a really good friend of mine in these short weeks. Its wierd to explain but every once and awhile I meet a guy that I just click in with right away, Phippy was one, Luke is another, and I guess that over here its Fred and Paul.

But alas, yesterday was Fred's last day at our school so Don took the entire staff out for dinner. We went to a Galbi Restaurant not too far from here. Now Galbi, for the unaware, is probably my favorite Korean food. How it works is that they bring out these plates of leaves and a whole bunch of veggies, sauces, and things that you're never sure what you're eating, and then they take these sort of sheets of beef, normally attached to one bone, and cook it in front of you. You cut it all up as it cooks then you put your meat in a leaf with rice, sauces, veggies, whatever you want and you chow down! So we ate, and ate, and ate... and chatted and all the things friends do, and after that we all went to a Norea Bang. This is those Kareoke type places you may have heard of, You and your friends get a room and basically sing to each other. But its addictive! I have no idea why but this is one of the funnest times I've had in a long time. Its nerver wracking getting up at first but after that you really want to go back up. I sang twice, both times with Paul, the first time we sang "wake me up, when September Ends" and the second we sang "Burning Love" which we got a score of a hundred on!

The next night my co-teachers and myself went to Sharon's and made chicken Fajitas, they were delicious! After that Sharon and Jolene decided to call it a night, Paul, Fred, Myself and our bud David went downtown to the Egg Bar.

Now I know a few were hoping for pictures of the Egg Bar, but you're going to be dissapointed. I mean I took plenty but the egg didn't come until long after I had forgotten about taking pictures, and aside from that the place just looks like a bar. But we had a huge crowd out and I met a lot more people, and got closer with the boys. I met some more new people and some old pros. We drank Soju (disgusting!) and Fruit Soju (Delicious!) Fred, Paul, David and I shot fireworks off in the street (Its accepted here a lot more, though I was later told, just as illegal...oops...^_^) And Fred and I had a lot of deep talks and heart to hearts. I've promised that I will be visiting him in his new home on Jeju Island whenever and as often as I can, and he gave me a lot of good advice. Explaining to me that Gwangju is not Seoul and it's not Busan, and that this place can be horrid or it can be fantastic. This place is what you make it. All of this was expertly capped off with "This city is like Play-doh!"

In the short time that I've known him Fred as become a sounding board, a good friend and a mentor and I'm sad to see him go. Can't wait to try surfing with him this Summer though!

So that was the end of my 2008. Its wierd, if I was in Canada I either would have gone to a party or gone out for drinks with my friends, and here on the other side of the world, I went out for drinks with my friend! There's a quote from the movie "The Beach" (I never actually saw it, heard its awful) "People will travel across the globe, just to wath movies" And honestly, it as at least partially true.

I'm not going to go into today. 2009 has not started off pleasantly for me at all, but I've got some time to turn it around.

see ya!

J