My Korean Bar Mitzvahs

In Korea, you become a man the first time you eat a "certain" meal...but we'll get to that. First, a short lesson in linguistics. Koreans are very literal when they name their meat. Sogogi ("so" = "cow" and "gogi" = "meat") is beef. Mulgogi ("mul" = "water") is fish. That "certain" meal I referred to is a soup made with gaegogi. I had it for dinner on Wednesday. It tasted pretty good.

That's not beef. By the way...."gae" = "dog"

More Fun Conversation

Talking about their plastic spoons during snack time:

"Teacher, I'm pink." ~Student 1
"Don't say, 'I'm pink.' Say, 'My spoon is pink.'" ~Me
"Teacher, I'm yellow." ~Student 2
"Well, I guess that's true." ~Me

Fourth of July

Well, this is long overdue, but I thought I'd put up a post about my July 4th in Korea. This is my first 4th outside of the country. I spent most of my day trying to indoctrinate my students about the awesomeness of the USA. We talked about freedom and then made some Stars and Stripes vests in art class.


Of course, before we could make our vests, we had to listen to the national anthem. I couldn't teach these guys to sing it (they're a little too young) so we just listened to it with our hands over our hearts. I tried to get a moment of silence out of them, but as you'll see, that was pretty much impossible. Click HERE to watch the video (Sorry for the link. I haven't been able to get the video loaded onto this page). I would like to say that I was a bit annoyed at trying to find a respectable version of the anthem online. Go to YouTube and search "Star Spangled Banner." You get a thousand versions of people singing it like it's "I Believe I Can Fly." O-o-o-oh say can you see-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee. Come on folks. This is a song about a battle for our country's freedom, not your tryout for American friggin' Idol.

But I digress....After work, I met Trash and we decided to have dinner at the most American place we could find. That's right. We went to HOOTERS. hahaha.



I still love those wings. Anyway, after that, we took the bus back to my apartment, and for once, living next to the military base really paid off. The American Military was setting off huge fireworks in the middle of the base and they were easily visible on the ride to my apartment.

Overall, it was a pretty good Fourth, but it'd be hard to top last year....seeing the premier of Transformers knowing I'd be leaving the country soon ;)

Boryeong Mud Festival

Trash and I went to Daecheon Beach this weekend for the Boryeong Mud Festival. The mud there is known for being extremely good for your skin. Basically, over a period of 9 days, 1.5million people (mostly foreigners) travel to the beach for the festival. Things were quite different. On the ride out, almost every Korean on our bus was a girl....with her foreign boyfriend. As we drove down the highway, every bus was filled with foreigners. Truly, this weekend is the annual, great, white migration out of Seoul.

The festival itself was great fun. We arrived and immediately painted ourselves with the mud in the buckets strewn about. We COVERED ourselves. It was great. There were some foreigner cover bands playing....they were ok. There were wrestling pits and a huge mudslide. It was quite great. The ocean water was absolutely perfect. We spent a lot of time just floating around and cleaning off the mud...and then putting on a fresh layer. The whole day was great.

We cleaned ourselves up one last time. Then we had Pizza Hut deliver on the beach. We ate, met my friend Alana, and watched the most amazing fireworks I've ever seen. They were launched from a big barge just off the coast.

Overall, Mud Fest was fantastic. I wish I had time to go back again this year.

(Here are some pictures from the festival: Set #1 and Set #2)

The Year in Review

I can hardly believe it, but today is the last day of my first year in Korea. I arrived a little before midnight on July 11, 2007...one year ago. This year has really gone by so quickly. So many things have happened. I worked for EG in 노원 (Nowon) for 7 months, not a good experience. I started a new job in 압구정 (Apgujeong). This place is much better. I went from living on the outskirts of town to being in the center of downtown. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of time when I just sat around in my apartment. It was lonely at times. Now, I have to try to have nights alone at home because I've met so many great people and am out all the time. I was blessed enough to find a great church with amazing people (that you Google). I've read more in this one year than in the previous 3 since I graduated from university. When I got here, I could barely order a cheeseburger at McDonald's. Now, I've learned a decent amount of Korean and am taking classes to learn more (and I eat way more Korean food that Western food now). Finally, and this is probably my favorite one, I met, and started dating, the coolest girl in the world.

Yeah, I would say it's been a great year. There are definitely things and people I miss about home, and I'm looking forward to visiting next spring, but life is good in the R.O.K., and there is more to come :)

The Times to Come

It's been awhile since I just gave an update simply about day-to-day life here in the good ol' ROK (that's Republic of Korea for those of you who may have just said to yourselves, "I thought he was in South Korea.") so I thought I'd give a quick preview of the next month. I will not be spending another weekend in Seoul for 4 weeks! This is actually a big deal. I've only been out of the city limits a half dozen times in this first year so getting out four weeks in a row is HUGE!

This weekend, Trash and I will be heading to the Boryeong Mud Festival. You can click that link to find out more about it, but the basics are that several tons of mud are dug up and dumped on the beach. Then, for 9 days, over a million people play in it. Some may find that disgusting, but for those of you who know me, you know that I'm pumped. Actually, last year's festival started the day after I arrived in Korea. I didn't find out about it until the day before it ended, and I was still just trying to adjust to regular life over here. I wasn't about to venture out of the city on my own...but I have been looking forward to this weekend all year.

The following weekend, I'll be reliving my first trek out of Seoul. Last year, I went rafting and bungee jumping with Adventure Korea. This year, I'll be heading to the same river but as a weekend adventure with friends from my church. The bungee jumping isn't a scheduled part of the trip, but I mentioned it, and we may swing by. I sure hope so. The nice thing is, this won't just be a day trip. We'll be heading out Friday night, rafting saturday afternoon and heading back Sunday morning. It should be a refreshing weekend spent with some of the people who have blessed me the most this year (Unfortunately, several of my closest friends at church have recently moved back the the USA).

The weekend after rafting, my summer vacation starts. I will be off work from Saturday until the following Sunday. This is my first full week of vacation is almost two years! I'm really excited. Trash and I went through several tentative itineraries, but since the last week of July is the absolute PEAK of tourist season, all the flights were just too expensive so we decided to just stay in country and spend the week traveling around Korea. We're going to visit our friend Bang's house on the East Coast, watch the sun rise over the East Sea (known as the Sea of Japan to every other country in the world haha), visit the capital of the Silla Empire (one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea - founded in 57B.C.), hang out on the beach in Busan and round out the week at Everland. It should be a pretty great week.

So that's the skinny of what's coming up this month. I'm really excited and will be sure to post updates and photos. I'll also have a post about this past Fourth of July pretty soon. Yes, there will be another video of my students that I'm sure many of you will find amusing.

Fighting TV Addiction

I'm trying to start reading more again, like when I first came to Korea. I thought this excerpt moving enough to post here. This is taken from a personal letter of Leo Tolstoy:


"What about you, Lev Nikolayevich, you preach very well, but do you carry out what you preach?" This is the most natural of questions and one that is always asked of me; it is usually asked victoriously, as though it were a way of stopping my mouth. "You preach, but how do you live?" And I answer that I do not preach, that I am not able to preach, although I passionately wish to. I can preach only through my actions, and my actions are vile....And I answer that I am guilty, and vile, and worthy of contempt for my failure to carry them out.

At the same time, not in order to justify, but simply in order to explain my lack of consistency, I say: "Look at my present life and then at my former life, and you will see that I do attempt to carry them out. It is true that I have not fulfilled one thousandth part of them [Christian precepts], and I am ashamed of this, but I have failed to fulfil them not because I did not wish to, but because I was unable to. Teach me how to escape from the net of temptations that surrounds me, help me and I will fulfil them; even without help I wish and hope to fulfil them.

"Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: 'Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!' No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support."
~Leo Tolstoy


I find the third paragraph resonates with me the most. All to often, God is judged by our feeble, failed attempts to live up to the calling He has placed on our lives. Being yet another example of failure and hypocrisy by which God is measured, and found wanting, is perhaps the most debilitating fear in my life. Here, Tolstoy pens a moving metaphor in which to respond to such accusations against the so-called shortcomings of God. I only hope that someday I may have the gift to produce my own words which people will find as thought-provoking and persuasive.

Pennsylvania-Dutch Koreans

From my 1st grade Reading Comprehension class:

"What will Arthur do to make money?" -Me
"Arthur will to make money wash bikes." -Student

Sound Dutch to you too??