Mud, mud, everywhere...

I’ve decided to try something new. I’m sitting outside at a park writing this. (Actually it’s the closest thing I have to a decent park in my area. It’s about a half acre park above a parking garage. You have to give them credit for the green concept at least-even though it’d be nice to have a decent park-you know-on the ground somewhere)

Anyway, as those of you who’ve got me facebooked know I had a pretty interesting weekend this weekend, so might as well get that out of the way.

This weekend was the 10^th annual Boryeong Mud Festival. It’s an event that is just as it sounds. It’s a festival of mud. You can run in it, you can jump in it, you can slide through it, you can mud wrestle, you can even paint yourself in it. It’s a day of mud.

The event is held in Daechon, which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Seoul. (Only about 100 miles, but it’s mountains and traffic the whole way), but the event is actually held on the beach. So I had my first taste of the yellow sea. They say the East sea is much more beautiful(what with the not having the Chinese to pollute it and all), but the Yellow sea was still beautiful I thought. (Though I may have just been dying to get away from the 15 million people and to any sort of nature.)

It was a lot of fun, but it didn’t really follow any specific or extravagant time line. We showed up early-got sun burned-jumped in the mud-swam in the ocean-jumped back in the mud. Alex, Erin, and I(Tazz and James went home) decided to stay the night and next day so we were also there for the evenings festivities. There were fireworks, some mega Korean pop star concert and lots of drunken westerners-so obviously it was a party. Things were a bit too strange for me to trust myself with drinking all that much, so I more sat back and watched the sublime. I ended up joining a party of about 10 New Zealanders on the beach. Usually I’ve gotten along well with all the Kiwis I’ve met, but this group was just bland-well except for the girl on speed, she was pretty entertaining. (I don’t actually think she was on speed, but she sure acted like it. More than once some one would be mid conversation and she’d leap off to chase down a bright light.-Not kidding-she left a conversation with me because she saw someone juggling fire.)

Anyway, my night with the Kiwis got boring quick. A guy can only swap “how bad is Korea” stories for so long. Luckily I was saved by high tide. We kind of lost track of where the water was and were quickly reminded when we were nailed by a wave. It was 2 AM, time for bed anyway.

Sunday I was tired and sunburnt so we didn’t do much of the mud sliding or sea diving or anything. Our bus back didn’t leave till 3 though so we spent most of the day watching the waves roll in. (And maybe looking at the girls juuuust a bit.)

Odd fact, it’s pretty much agreed upon by the guys over here that the Korean girls in Korea are better looking that the Western girls here. I can’t explain it, but like zero attractive girls decide to teach over here-and really I mean that in both physical and personal attributes. It's not just that few of them are hot, it's also that I have met few that meet my other criteria for taking any more of any sort of special interest in. There are of course exceptions, but for the most part this seems to be the case. As for dating one of the cute, and generally available, Korean girls-there’s a number of reasons why I couldn’t seriously date a Korean woman. Mostly to do with language barriers. It’s hard to really know someone on a 500 word vocabulary. And yes, I know dating a beautiful woman who doesn’t speak your language is a lot of guys dreams-but I’ve never been that type of guy. For me to date a Korean she’d have to be REALLY bilingual, and REALLY Westernized.

Luckily, I’m not especially concerned or trying for any sort of romance while I’m over here. So that clears up those occasional pesky questions of “Do you have a girlfriend” that I seem to get from time to time. Let’s just call give it-like always-a no.

They say pictures are worth a thousand words, and I think this is prime example of that. So here's pictures

Here's 3 pictures. They're probably worth 3,000 words.

This is the yellow sea. Look it up on a map if you want to see how far away I am.

The Group. (Me, James-DMZ NZ guy, Tazz, Erin, Alex)


Solo Shot.

Some other thoughts, or answers to a few questions I’ve had.

I do my laundry at home. I have a washing machine, though it’s not quite the system we have at home. As I’ve stated before I am not living in any sort of apartment any of you would ever conceive of. Korea is for the most part normal, just like America, apartments. I however was gypped into living in something that would be condemned in America. Anyway, my bathroom is about 4 ft by 6 ft. In that space is my toilet, a space in the floor, and the washing machine. The space in the floor is what you would call my “shower” there’s a shower hose and a drain in the floor and you just stand on the floor and take a shower. It’s more like a hosing down than an actual shower, but really after 5 months I’ve gotten used to it. (Although I’m REALLY looking forward to a proper shower when I get back). My laundry machine is right next to the drain in the floor, that’s where my washer drains. So, when my clothes are washing there’s no shower taking. Also, I have no drier, so on most days you’ll find my apartment covered with clothes hanging from doors and nails in the wall and what not. It’s really not a pretty set up, but I’m ok with it, and try to avoid being there as much as possible. (Which usually I manage to do-but only by spending far too much money shopping)

To clarify one other thing-when I mentioned in the past that I would be home in 8 months or 20 months, I meant from that time. I WILL be home at beginning of March next year-probably for about a month-and then I’ll come back over for another 12 month contract. All contracts over here for ESL teaching are 12 months. So it’s a matter of whether or not I do one year or two. I’d say I’m 80% doing a second year right now, but the number fluxuates. Also, I still keep an eye out for jobs that interest me in the states. If I managed to get a good enough job(making enough money) I’d gladly leave and come home. (Right now probably) I like Korea, my job is so-so. I’m not in-love with any of it. (Though I’d say it’s 99.999% sure that I’ll finish my contract-I’m not big on breaking contracts, for me to leave before March it’d have to be a friggin dream job)

I’m not sure of much else to say. Life’s been good. I’m really looking forward to China at this point. 10 days. I’ll probably update once more before that, and then I’ll be gone for the week. This weekend will almost for sure be a quiet weekend-both to save some money and to build a little anticipation-things are always better when you have to wait for them.

One other funny point. I always read the identifications of my taxi drivers. It’s just good practice while I’m in the cab. Yesterday I got a ride from a guy who’s name was Lee-Dong-Gi. However, if you were to Americanize that his name would be Donkey Lee. Let’s just hope the poor man never goes to America.

Ok, I’m done.