Well, I have been in Japan the last couple of days hanging out with Mike my brother who has been taking better care of his blog on the subject than I have.

I came two nights ago and we stayed at a hostel, got up the next morning and wandered around Tokyo for a bit. We went to a huge park with several museums and a zoo. We went to art museum and saw Monet's "Water Lillies" which is one of those pieces popular on posters that you can get at Hobby Lobby. It was really cool to see the original. We also rented a swan paddle boat at the park pond and nearly were massacred by ducks and geese and sea gulls when we threw a bit of bread in the water. We had lunch at a little Japanese noodle restaurant, and had to just point at a couple of items in the menu since they didn't have pictures in them. It turned out alright. Then we made our way to ARI and got in, just in time to catch the end of dinner. The guys then proceeded to the guys dorm where we drank a bit of wine, and watched "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Yesterday I worked at ARI with him and it was fun. We took care of chickens, and collected fire wood. Last night a group of us went to a local church for candlelight service, then came back and watched "Love Actually."

We got up this morning and opened presents. Mike got a tarp tent, and I got a certificate for a monster puppet from monsterpuppest.com. We also found chocolate and the traditional set of legos in our stocking, along with a tooth brush and huge peppermint stick all we did was feed the chickens, and then had the rest of the day off. We rode bikes to the store, played ultimate Frisbee, read, played music, and walked to and around town.

We are heading out to north Japan tomorrow to look around and visit a Mennonite ex-pat and his organic farm.

I just wanted to say happy Christ Mass to everyone!!

Annyong!

Well, its my last day in Korea. I am almost packed. I said goodbye to everyone at church tonight and I am going to miss them.

I am not really ready to reflect on my eleven months here.

I have had a lot of fun the last few weeks. I have eaten way too many pizzas with Mike my roommate. I discovered some awesome hot chocolate at Accapellos, a coffee shop in Yesan, and wished I had tried them there earlier.

Last Thursday all the church and school staff went out and had a five course meal of Duck. We had it grilled, with kimchi sauce, roasted, and in a soup. Then we had a ice yogurt dessert. It was the most fantastic meal I have had here I think, and I have had some pretty good ones.

Then we went bowling in Yesan. We played two games, guys against guys and girls against girls. For the guys, the pastors (Pastors: Cheong, Kim, Lee and Kong) were on one team and the other four of us, (Mike, James, Brother Kim, and I) were on the other. The pastors won. James used to run a bowling alley in the states, so he helped me get from lowest of all in the first game to beating Mike in the second. It was a blast all the way around. Now before you go thinking they did all this for me, because I was leaving it was also the Pastors Wife's birthday, and a goodbye dinner for Pastor Kong and his family because he got a new job in another church. His daughter, Kong Ju'n A, or "Paige" (her English name) is in my seven year old's class, and one of my favorite students. I am definitely going to miss that family.

So now I am almost packed. I am going to unplug this computer and pack it as soon as I am done typing this. I am heading to the air port tomorrow, and flying to Japan to see Mike (my brother, not my roommate) who is working at ARI there. Though if you follow this blog you probably already know that. A week later it a nice long 11 hour or so flight from Tokyo to Dallas Fort Worth and home!

Peace!

Remember Remember...

Okay I suppose since I told everyone about a week ago that I would post another post, I should. Lets see, November...

Well the big news is that I am back to plan A2 v3.6. Plan A after college was: join Peace Corps, go to the Clown Conservatory, join Circus, Clown for x number of years, go to Grad school and get a doctorate in Folklore and study clowning academically. Well, the Peace Corps fell through and I came here to Korea and taught. Hence A2. After that I didn't really think about it. So when it got about three months out of leaving I started coming up with plan B which was stick around Korea and teach until the Clown Conservatory. Then it was B2 with staying a whole nother year and teach and save money. But I have now decided to face my fears of the unknown and go ahead and move back to a version of plan A2 which is to go home see the folks and maybe if I have the money to do it, see some friends around the states as well, and then set myself up in San Francisco and work and apply to the Clown Conservatory (just need to make my audition DVD now!). Also thrown into all of this, is seeing Mike in Japan for Christmas and probably new years as well. I am sure it all will work out.

But lets see. What actually HAPPENED. Not much. Well okay a few things.

Mike (roommate) and I went back to the National Park we went to when I first came here. It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was pleasant, and there was no ice like last time and the trees were all sorts of different colors.

One of the best pictures of Mike and me ever.

A pool. It was my desktop background for about a week or so after I got back
Stone staircases are awsome!

We had thanksgiving. Mike and I were going to make hamburgers with some very expensive ground beef I bought after a communication failure at a local butchers (I was trying to buy ground pork) but I had forgot to defrost the meat. So we ordered some pizza and ate that. I missed the family all brand rolls. As it turns out, we had the hamburgers on Monday, and they were amazingly delicious. I think they ground up some steak strips for me.

Sunday night was the church dance off. Yes, you read it right. Dance off. It was probably the most foreign thing I have seen here. All the various groups in the church, I am not even sure what all of them were, had a team and something prepared. The other teachers and I were a part of the Kindergarten team so we teachers acted out the Story tree Story "The Big Turnip" which is about a farmer and his wife who want this big turnip but it is sooooooo BIG! that the enlist the help of their animals one by one to help them pull it out. Originally it is the Farmer, his wife, the Cow, the horse and the lamb. Our version was limited by costume availability and was the farmer (James), his wife (Beth), the Kangaroo (yours truly), the Frog (Mike), and the Chicken (Mrs Lee) and the turnip was played by Mrs Chang.



Then we and the Kindergartners danced and sang the songs that go with the story. It was well received, and much to my surprise not the weirdest nor funniest dance that evening. There was the youth group who danced and then did outrageous things to each other, there was the synchronized swimming dancers, the middle aged ladies in black face doing the macarana to a praise song, the old men holding hands and rocking and singing for their dance, the satirical parade group, the group of middle age men in animal costumes (the same ones we wore, but more of them) and lipstick, and to cap it all off, the transvestite pastors. The macarana women won. Everyone walked home with washer detergent.

Yay Korea!

Oh and I shaved and got a hair cut. I have yet to hear anyone go "Aw you looked so good in that beard what were you thinking?" and lots of people going "Oh Robert very handsome" and giving me thumbs up signs so I suppose it is a good thing.

edit: My Blackbelt came in!!

Victory is mine!!

Black Belt

FINALLY 15 years after I started in it, I am a Black Belt in Taekwondo!! Yay! Huzzah! and general exclamations of happiness. I will getting the actual belt (it has to be embroidered with my name first) next month, and the certificate saying I can teach TKD in Korea in February. I probably won't be here for the later so they will forward it to Wesley and it will be sent it to me.

Just so y'all know.

Has it really been a month? I wasn't really planning on writing anything until I could take some pictures with my black belt on. But since that hasn't happened yet, I should point out that other things have indeed happened this last month.

Like... um... uh...

Black belt test? Well I suppose so. Yes that did happen. We traveled all the way to Deacheon, and took it with like nine hundred other red and black belts (some of the black belts were testing for their second and third degrees). I was in a gymnasium on a basketball court, the environment where I started Taekwondo, which was nice and mythic for me. We sat for about five hours watching others test before I got to test.

I am not in this picture. This is just some the people there before things really got started.

I think it went well. I was a bit enthusiastic perhaps in my shadow free sparring, they kept on telling me "slow down" but after fifteen years of waiting to get there, I was pretty excited. We still haven't gotten official word yet as to results. But I think all is well and expect to have a black belt around my waist in the next couple of weeks.

What else? We finished a term with the older kids. That was good. Now we have a new schedule with some new books which I like so far and our classes are very small which is great.

Also and perhaps more interestingly we had our English Musical with the kindergartners. I can't believe I didn't mention we were doing this in my last post. What it was, was that we (read Beth) made a play version of the story tree version (you remember storytree right?) of the Shoemaker and the Elves. I think it was one of the six year old classes stories. We had the seven and six years olds act it out (complete with all the dialogue in English) and all the three classes, do various songs and dances from the book and video. We also just for fun, had them all answer questions like "What is your name?" and "Who is in your family?" and "What is the velocity of a unladen swallow?" and we sang "Jesus Loves me" in English. So it started as a simple idea and grew into a extremely complex and involved month and a half long project. I drove all the English teachers crazy except me, who had all ready been through the fire of endless repetition of story tree songs and words over the last four or five months. I ate up getting to teach the seven year olds their lines, and watching the same two minutes of video to teach the five year olds the song and dance was broken up nicely by their acting up and me trying to get them to pay attention at all. Towards the end of it, I had no problem letting the Korean teachers direct, do the music and panic.
Naturally as with most all theater productions with small children it went off quite well and everyone had fun.

This is the kids singing a song.

Well, okay, at least the parents, kids and I did. The other teachers were very glad it was over. One of the students parents took us all out to dinner afterwords and I had some delicious spaghetti.

Other big happenings... Halloween of course! We had a "harvest festival" Halloween afternoon and got the kids to play games, eat food and win prizes. I got to practice my almost nonexistent balloon twisting skills. I didn't dress up for it but I did wear my red hat, and twisted a hat for myself, Mike and James. I also made several swords and a couple of puppies that I gave away. I was great fun, and I got to try a great traditional fried sweet bread made by Soo Min's mother. It was masshita!! (delicious).

Look at all the funness!

No applause. Just throw money.

I also hit Seoul this last weekend and saw a beautiful palace there. These are all pretty self explanatory pictures...



Oh I am planning on hitting the states only for a about a month and then comming back to Korea to teach some more and earn enough money to pay off student loans and get a good start on paying for the Clown Conservatory.

That pretty much covers the month.

Peace!

September...

September... teaching... lots of teaching. I went to Seoul, and got some supplies, more books mainly and I also spent some quality time failing to find a magic shop in the rain. I did find a nice coffee and wine house to sit and read in though.

I also have been jogging and I am pleased to say that I can now jog for thirty minutes straight. This ability has greatly increased my fitness over all, and now I am not completely winded after free sparring matches in Tae-Kwon-Do or at least not as completely winded as I was.

If it looks like we are about to knee each other, we probably did. I am in the blue.

Me and my sparring partners, who are better than me, but slightly smaller which somewhat intimidates them. The little black belt on the right was my photographer for the night.

(to continue...) But is this good enough? Am I content just to run in giant circles and also kick people for fun and health? Of course not! So now my roommate Mike and I have decided to start to follow the crossfit workout. "Crossfit" is short for "cross fitness" which means it makes you fit for any sport you want. It does this by working out a couple of bits of your body intensley at a time. All the workouts should take about twenty minutes and there is a daily workout posted on the crossfit website. They are all pretty high impact, and difficult. However you can scale them down and work your way up. All you have to do is get a hold of the equitment or figure out substitutes (which they help with) and do it. So it should be good. We started today, and like they said, it was intense.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but secretly, besides the obvious health benifits, I am doing this in anticipation of going to the Clown Conservatory.

Lets see... Ah! Mike and I also went to the mountain near Doeksan last weekend. We saw wild goats, some squirrles and a snake, as well as ofcourse a huge mountain we hiked up. This time I did bring my camera.

A view from about half way up the mountain.

Me. You asked for it. :)

Another one of me by a small waterfall on the mountain

Going down?

Finally, I am delighted to say that my spiritual awakening to the always present presence of God is still going well. Miraculously well really. I don't know how describe it adequetly other than to say that I have started to be able to actually do the things Jesus tells us to do out of love rather than because it is the imposed right thing to do or out of fear that people may think ill of me if I don't do them. It is incredibly liberating. The weirdest thing though is I can see God helping me.

For instance, Mike and I had planned to go to the PC cafe after I got out of Tae Kwon Do. But the guys at TKD asked me if I wanted to eat with them. I said yes. Then I remembered that I had told mike I would meet him after TKD and I didn't know how long we would be and I didn't want him to worry about me or get upset that I didn't show up on time. But then I came back to the present and let it go. Thinking that we were going somewhere to eat. I go down stairs from the gym and walk outside. Looking for further instruction, I turn and there is Mike coming around the corner to go to the bathroom on the first floor of the building my TKD gym is in. We exchange news and there is no problem. If I had come outside two minutes before or after or if I hadn't come down at all thinking we were going somewhere (turns out we weren't, one of the blackbelts went and got some microwave burgers from the cornerstore down stairs) we would have missed eachother and he would have been wondering about where I was and concerned for me and I would have had a hard time not feeling guilty about it.

Now this may seem like a small thing. A conicidence perhaps. But there have been an awful lot of them lately and they all revolve around grace, love, need, and peace. I have been seeing what I need to see, and hearing what I need to hear.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found
Was blind, but now I see...

I get it.

Peace.

Teaching and Being.

So... yeah, teaching... I have been back teaching for a couple of weeks. New classes, same material, but with more time to do it. So it is great. In this time I have found the best teaching aid ever: The Crocodile Dentist Game. Someone left it in James' class and my students picked it up and started playing with it. I kept it in class and have been using it a lot. The basic gist is that you press down a tooth and it stays down, then the next person does it, and the next as well until someone hits the trigger tooth with changes every time. Then the croc "bites" you. Doesn't hurt, but does surprise you. I go around the room with it and the bitten person has to read, or answer the question. They love it. Some of the girls even do "dun DUN dun DUN" sounds from Jaws when it gets near them or their friends.

So... yeah being... I have been reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now and A New Earth and they have truly brought together a whole lot of what I have thought about over the last few years in my spiritual life. Mainly about the peace and joy of God, which is found essentially by being present with God in the Now as in right here where and when I am which is always the same: here and now. Because really where else would you be? I picked them up after hearing his interview on NPR's Speaking of Faith, which I found intriguing. His ideas seemed to mesh with thoughts I have had after reading such disperse books as The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Dune (the serise) by Frank Herbert The New Testament, The Perrenial Philosophy by Adolus Huxeley, Why Is That So Funny? by John Wright and also several movies like Kung Fu Panda, The Empire Strikes Back and I Heart Hucklebees. Moreover, and more importantly I know exactly what he is talking about and can feel the truth in it. So I have been be-ing more... more humble... more aware of the life, and the Christ within me and God around me than I was before over the last few days. It is amazing. I highly highly recommend both books. Peace!

Vacation!

So for the last couple of weeks I have been on vacation. It was a pretty active vacation but I did manage to not let my self stress out over it, trying to see everything in Korea, or alternatively, panicking about money, and how while I had some, it was not a terrible lot.

So this is how it went.

Week 1.

Saturday: slept in and then hung out in Yesan. Simple.

Sunday: I took the train to Daejeon, because I had read that there was a Anglican Church somewhere there abouts that had a English service, and it is also close to a couple of big national parks. I figured I would check out the church hang about in Daejeon the rest of the day, check in to a Hostel, and then check out the parks over the next couple of days. I ended up not finding the church or the hostel. But determined not to worry about this, I hung out that night in Deajeon, and ended up staying up all night in a PC bar.

Monday: Very tired, I took the train back to Sapgyo, and bascially crashed on my bed and slept the rest of the day.

Teusday: Refreshed, and determined not to let my failure in Deajeon keep me down, I went to Seoul. I met up with a friend there from the INFP forum I am on, and we hung out all afternoon. I ended up going to see "The Dark Knight" which was all the hype said it was, and I successfully checked into a Hostel at 2am.

Wendsday: I woke up, had some breakfast, and checked out of the hostel. I went and wandered round Seoul. Went to the Nagwan the musical instrument market, and ended up buying a set of "boom sticks" which are tuned tubes you can hit anything with and they make a note. They have great comic potential, so I felt justified. I also got a set of actual banjo strings for the banjo. However, I also realized that if I stayed in Seoul for much longer I would have no money very quickly, so I went and got a ticket back to Sabgyo. But before I went and did that. I took a very long subway ride to pick up a Slack-line set that I found for 10,000 won or about 10 dollars. A couple who were leaving the country were selling it, and I found out about it on Facebook market place which is a very handy thing for the ex-pat community in South Korea. They ended up giving it to me for free since that is how they got it, and they were impressed that I knew what it is. Here is me on my slack-line behind the school.

I did make the train home. I slept comfortably in my bed, and planned on going to the beach early the next day.

Thursday: I slept in. I got up bout 10am. But I managed to pack a couple things get a ticket and hop on the train to Daechon where the closest beach is. It was a packed ride there and back. Lots of people had the same idea. Unfortunately it was actually pretty boring beach, the tide was incredibly fast. The waves were small and most people were being entertained mainly by friends, a resource I lacked. But I made the best of it and had some fun just floating and generally hanging about.

Then I came home.

Friday: Slept in, tried out the slack-line and went to Yesan, and about midnight, jogged and got soaking wet from rain.

Saturday: Slept in, and went to Yesan. I think you might see a pattern.

Week 2

Sunday: Slept in. Then about 11 pm put on some clothes and went and jogged.

Monday: Slept in. Went to Yesan and transferred money to my home account to pay student loans. It made me feel better.

Teusday: Payday! But I slept in and then went and played on my slack-line for a while.

Wenesday: I slept in and then I went to Doeksan to wander around a provincial park they have there. I forgot my camera but I made a couple of sketches. It was a really cool place. It felt like walking in middle earth. I climbed up to a ridge then went along the ridge to a peak where there was a great view of Yesan County, and a big pile of stones with a stile in them:


I then went down the trail from the peak, which about a fourth of the way down started following a spring fed stream, and when through a lot of cataracts, pools and small waterfalls. It was great. I learned on this trip that Koreans don't believe in switch backs. Their trails are almost straing up, made out of stone stair cases. It was hard going up, and sometimes even hard coming down. But ended up at home in one piece, and bought a ticket to Busan for the next morning.

Thursday: I somehow managed not to sleep in and packed and got to the train in pleanty of time. To get to Busan from Sapgyo, you first have to go up to Cheonan and transfer to a KTX bullet train. The bullet train was cool. Extremely smooth and extremely fast it has a 300km/h cruising speed which is 186 mp/h. Towns and mountains were practically flying by.

When I got to Busan, I found a computer and tracked down all the hostels I could find in Busan, and I got a room for few nights. It took me a bit to find. It was with in a apartment building and I had to call again to discover what floor it was on. But I checked in, and then had to decide what to actually do in Busan. I ended up going to The Busan Aquarium which was quite good, and complete with a tank tunnel where sharks, turtles and rays would swim over you.


The only weird thing about it was the Disney knock off show, complete with mermaids and people singing songs from Beauty and the Beast in Korean. I back tracked and looked at the jelly fish for the duration. It also had a really cool 360 seal tank.

You crawled through a very short low tunnel into the middle of the seal's tank. It was so cool.

I had some dinner, some coffee, and wandered the beach that the Aquarium was at, which was almost Mediterranean. Then I went back to the Hostel before the subways stopped and I had to take a cab. I hung out there talking to people (Irish, German, and Japanese) and then went to bed.

Friday: Friday was the best day of my entire vacation. I got up and decied that I would check out a giant fortress in north Busan. When I say Giant, that is what I mean. It is huge, vast, not all that high of a wall, but you have to climb up a mountain first and after climbing a mountain in full armor, I am pretty sure a ten foot wall would be pretty daunting.

But of course the same applied to a lightly packed tourist. So I actually spent most of the day way below the fortress, in a sizable park filled with Temples, shrines, streams, a folk performance center, a carnival park, and a marine natural history museum.


It was a very wet day, so not much was open and not many people were there, but that was fine by me. I wandered around the park and into the Folk performance center where a group was practicing "Dongrae Hak Chum" or "Crane's Dancing." Being people used to having tourist wandering in, they invited me to join them, and so I did. It was a very slow simple graceful dance. When they stopped warming up, I got off the stage and watched them rehersing their actual dance before moving on.

I then wandered around some more and went to the Marine Natural history Museum, which was pretty cool except to the stuffed penguin with a bow tie and the fact that the night before I had gone to the aquarium.

I then left the park and got some lunch, then wandered back, and ended up starting going up one of the trails up to the fortress on the mountain. I ended up going about a third of the way up, which is how far the stream went up, stopping at every interesting water fall, natural cave or any other interesting spot. It was amazing. Words fail me. Here are some pictures.


I then went back down, and on impulse took the Sky line tram thing to the top of the mountain. This was at about 4:30pm. It turned out that there was a cloud on top of the mountain. It was very foggy. But I figured that since I was there, I should go find the fortress. One of the gates was about half a kilometer away.


But it turns out that the trails are not well marked and it took be a bit to find it. Coming back I almost got lost. It was getting dark, it was foggy and I did not know my way around. I ended up back tracking to the last sign (I learned the hard way about going off trail looking for the right one on mountains long ago) and after several nerve wracking minutes with "Into the Woods" playing in my head I found the Skyline station again.

I went down, and went and found a place to buy some dry pants (the only thing I didn't have a dry set of back at the hostel) and got something to eat, and went back to the hostel, and hung out the rest of the night talking with people and sipping whiskey (Irish, Belgian, French, Japanese, Korean (the people not the whiskey)) then went to bed.

Saturday: I got up, and decided to explore the market down town. I love markets. They are so exotic to me even though they more often then not, sell the usual suspects. I spent most of the day just wandering around the market looking at stuff. I ended up buying a huge foam prop pistol which has great comic potential, and works well into a gag I have envisioned that is basically a pantomime with a banjo that thinks it is a helium balloon. The gun is perfect for breaking out and shooting the banjo with which then "deflates" and hits me in the head. Hilarious right?

I also got my first haircut here in Korea there. It was great. It was a hair cut place for men, and they had a poster of nine styles you could get, all numbered. So I didn't have to explain anything. And it cost only 6 bucks.

Anyways I wandered around the market then went to Busan Tower which is a big 110 m tall tower on a hill next to the market where for a small fee, you can ascend to the top and look out at Busan. It was a nice view. Busan is a port city nestled in a valley between high mountains. How could it not be? It also had a Musical instruments of the world museum right next to it. The second floor was filled with percussion instruments to bang on which was a lot of fun and I spent a good thirty minutes there showing off and having ones I wasn't familiar with explained to me.


Coming back down from the tower plaza was a little old lady who had a bird fortune telling set up. She had a cage with two finches in it, and a box of folded up pieces of papers stacked vertically in front of it so that the edges faced up. She would open the cage and a finch would hop out, and pick a piece of paper out of the box, and that would be your fortune. It was cool, but being a missionary, I decided that maybe it wasnt such a hot idea to do myself. They take such things seriously here.

I then went and got some dinner, and watched "The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." It really didn't make much sense, even for a Mummy Movie. However, it was the only thing in English on and was entertaining enough.

Then I went back to the Hostel and hung out talking with people (Australian, Austrian, Korean, Japanese) and then went to bed.

Sunday: I got up, packed up, and went to the train station and bought a ticket for Sapgyo. I had a couple of hours to kill, so I went back to the market a couple of stops over and had breakfast at MacDonalds. The first MacDonalds breakfast I have had in seven months. It was great. I the took one last look around the market, and then hopped on the subway back to the train station. I got on the train and came back to Sapgyo. That is pretty much all there is to it. The rest of the day I rested here at the apartment, and even cleaned some of the dishes in the sink, then went to bed.

And that was my Summer vacation. I was a lot less stressed by the end of it which was what vacations are supposed to do. This took me several hours to write down. So I hope you enjoyed it!

Peace!

Banjo banjo boinging bright...

So I have a banjo! Whoo Hoo! Huzzah! Hallelujah! and general exclamations along a similar theme!

Here is the story.

I was walking along one day on my way to a wedding with a couple of friends and a old man with a loong hoary beard grabbed my arm and told me some boring story about nearly being strangled by a sea bird. I know it didn't make much sense to me either, and later there was a banjo.

Okay so that is not how it happened, and wouldn't make any sense if it did.

Here is how it really happened:

I was at a coffee shop talking this guitar, a pretty little Epiphone with some nice inlay, when along comes this double bass and starts talking big, I stand up and he is already up right and we have it out. When I woke up there was this cute banjo standing over me bandaging my head. It was love at first sight need I say more?

Alright so that was not praticuarly truth filled either.

But seriously, I was roaming the Yellow sea with some Peruvian Pickle Pirates, looking for the fabled Golden Bananas of Barbadoo.... Okay so maybe it wasn't exactly the Yellow Sea we were in... okay! okay! There wasn't a sea. The Pirates and I - What? Ok no Pirates either. I was alone on dry land. In Yesan. On a Wenesday. It was a fairly nice day. But I was on a Quest! (And this part is true.) A Quest! Which I will always think of as the "Quest for the Can!" [cue Dramatic symphonic flourish]

The Quest for the Can:

Following the failed "Quest for a Banjo, Pereferably an Affordable One!" I resolved that I should make a banjo from found material, also known as a Canjo. A banjo is basically three things. A Neck, a drum, and a some strings. I "found" a sutible neck on the electirc guitar I had but never played. Strings are easy to find no problem. Wood and screws to join everything together was as common as, well, wood and screws. So I had everything I needed. Except a drum. Or drum substitute. As told last time sutible substues are... shallow drums like Bohdrans and tamborines and thin metal enclosed things like cookie tins and gas cans. So I started searching. And searching and searching here, there, over yonder and in between. In Sapgyo, Yesan, Seoul. Nothing. Nada. Nilch. For two weeks.

Then I went to one of the Music shops in Yesan and asked about tamborines to a guy there and then explained what I wanted it for, and he said he had a banjo, with no strings on it at home. I said "oh" and then we jamed out for an hour on guitar.

I thought about this for a couple of days and did a slow double take, and went back and asked "Hey can I buy your banjo?" he (Mr. Kim) said "let me go home and get it" so I hung out in the store for an hour or so jamming out again Mr Kim came back, and brought in this poor beat up banjo, no strings, no bridge, dirty with the finger board starting to peel up. "Needs a little more than strings, I can have it fixed in a week" so he started fixing and I started jamming again. Before I left for the evening he told me "three or four days." I asked him about money and he said we'll talk about it later.

So in three or four days I went back. He finished fixing it up, put some strings (they are a bit big but work) on it handed to me, I tuned it and then we jammed out. I ask him how much again, and he said "Not for sale, I am letting you borrow it, bring it back before you go." I told him I would and thanked him profusely, and then went to the bus stop where I hopped on a bus (after about a twenty minute wait) and rode into the sun set.

And thus was the surprising and entirely unexpected end of " The Quest for the Can."

Summer vacation start tomorrow night! WHOO HOO!

Not wet. Not Hump day.

So today I didn't go to Seoul and I did not walk in the rain anywhere. Because it was not raining, and I am going to Seoul tomorrow. Instead, I woke up at the crack of 11am and went to Yesan and read Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: "Why are you Robert, a English major, with a thousand pages of War and Peace which, by the way, you dragged half way around the world to read, staring at you, reading Tom Clancy?!" To this unvoiced question of yours I would like give this answer:



I am sorry for sounding like I was completely down and out last weekend. It generated a lot of concern. I mean I was kind of down and out. I mean who wouldn't be after trudging through the rain banjoless all day?

But I hate to think of myself as a whining problem finding person, especially when I am, so I have decided in light of a certain lack of used banjos, that I am going to just to have to make one. I have a pretty awful cheap electric guitar that I got at the flea market that had no banjos when I was trying to get one for the praise band. I have not played it in like four months but the neck is easily unattached and so I am going to take it and make a canjo of some sort with it. I am still looking for something to use for the drum, I can't seem to find any metal cookie tins, but some other options might be a shallow hand drum or tambourine, or a metal oil can. I am looking.

In other positive not feeling sorry for myself news, I am done with Story Tree! The Dark Haired Korean Goldilocks and the Three Bears turned out to be a hit, every five year old loves to trespassing, theft, destruction of property and squatting followed by three hungry angry bears chasing the culprit out of the house. It helped that I told it correctly too. The book's version really didn't have that punch of suspense when the bears come home. So the last couple of days have been Looney Tunes day on youtube.

Also last week I forgot to mention that I dropped by the juggling shop in Seoul and got three really comfortable nice looking professional juggling balls. Something I can actually perform with. They are the ones that are practically invisible in the video above.

Penultimately, my long, long, long, long long loooooooonnnnnng awaited black belt test is Monday! I am sure I will pass just fine. We actually did some one step sparring on friday. I was extremely excited about that. Hopefully we will do more. I will have pictures by the way.

Finally, today I managed to jog for five minutes three times with only five minutes of walking in between. It is the first time I have been able to do it. Monday I only managed the first five minutes. This is really cool because I am seeing some improvement.

Wet. on humpday.

So today I was soaked.

I went to Seoul today. I walked in the rain to the station. I arrived and it was raining. I walked over the place in the rain, until it cleared up right I was going back to the station to go home. My backpack was also soaked along with my Korea tourism book. I will probably have to get another one, because it was a good book.

But the good news was I got to play a banjo today!!! I have missed my banjos a lot the last six months, and while trudging through the rain I finally found the musical instrument market. In it I found six banjos, all to expensive for me and closed backs to boot, but I played one anyways and it felt good.

My nose is fine at the moment. It still runs some but in a normal way.

I have now been officially here for six months. It's humpday! Yay!

and I was doing so well there...

Well it now actually hot here, and muggy. I have been waiting for it all summer, and now it happened. Being in a place with four seasons is weird when you come from a place with only two: Hot and winter.

My sinuses have been acting up a whole bunch lately too. I had a low level headache all last week, and last night I got a nose bleed in my right nostril. Before all that I felt stuffy, though I could breath just fine. I am just doing the stoic thing with all of it because none of it is debilitating.

A couple of weekends ago I went and saw a exhibit called "The Glory of Persia" at the National Museum in Seoul put on jointly by the South Korean, and Iranian governments. It was really cool. It had by far the most beautiful gold pieces I have ever seen outside of a movie.

I also found a park where a whole lot of GO and asian Chess was going on. I attracted a small crowd by drawing a couple of guys playing GO in my sketch book. One of the gentlemen watching me asked me to draw him, but I was too close and did a portrait which I haven't attempted in years. He didn't like it much, but he like the drawing of the GO game quite a bit.

I went ahead and invested in a computer. A small desktop, which works wonderfully. I was going to hold out and keep on my laptop, but the thing is on its last leg and driving me crazy. I got the computer custom built at the Digital Market in Yongson station with everything I wanted for well below my budget. It is defintly coming back to the states with me.

What else? Oh yeah I have been having fun with my spiritual life. I have been reading The Perennial Philosopy by Adolus Huxeley which I found at one of the used book stores in Seoul. It is about the common thought threads of the saints and mystics around the world. I bought it because I had been listening to Speaking of Faith programs, and they got me thinking about some things, namely, my center, and being present in the here and now, and how I have been ok with now, but not so much with "here." My mind is often far far way back in Texas. Anyways I was thinking about mysticism again, and happened upon the book and bought it. It is very good, and if you are spiritually inclined you should definitly check it out.

But now I have to go. I was given "homework" for TKD which was to streach everyday. So I am going to go out to the cool evening (er midnight) air and do that before bed.

Peace!

And I'm Freeeeee! Freeee sparring!

Quite unexpectedly I might add. I walked in to Taekwondo this evening, and the master and all the black belts were there and said "Hey Robert free sparring!" So I put my stuff away, and streatched out and watched a couple of bouts. Then the master pointed to me and motioned for me to put on the gear. So I did.

They had to get a size five chest pad out for me, and the helmet was nice and snug. Then the master asked me how many rounds I wanted to fight. I thought he was asking me how many times I had free sparred before (probably about... ten), but once he and the other teaching black belts figured out the word "minute" we agreed on three one minute rounds. My opponent was one of the teaching black belts, and he is as big as I am. We shook hands then turned to the master and bowed to him, and then bowed to each other went into fighting stance and the ref, a black belt I haven't seen before yelled "shi-jawc!" which is "Start!" in Korean and my opponent opened with a back kick and then for the next 59 seconds kicked me around the room. I got maybe five kicks off. None of them connected. I did get a few punches in but into a chest pad they don't do much. The good news was that he wasn't going for the head, and I never went down. Also I was bouncing off the kicks pretty easily but I was not fast enough in my counter kicks. After the first round ended, the master asked me if I wanted to go on.

Now I have been watching "Fight Quest" on Discovery channel. It is about two American martial artists, going around the world learning different fighting styles in five days then fighting masters of the styles. Last night I watched "Rocky" for the first time ever. After thinking about it for a moment, I said "No, thats enough, I need more training." Whether they understood the last bit I don't know. But it was true. Part of me wanted to do all three rounds. I had plenty of energy. I was breathing heavy but not winded. But I realized I was also totally unprepared for a free-sparring match. I haven't trained for it here, we have been doing forms for months. Most of my kicks are slow, (but strong) and the high ones are low. There a lot of practice games you do also before free-sparring that I hadn't done (that the black belts have) to improve speed and reading your opponent. It has been years since I have done anything like this.

But even though I feel like a little bit of a wimp for not going all three rounds, I learned some valuable stuff tonight. The main thing is that I now really have to work hard so it doesn't happen again. I hope they realize this also and let or preferably make me train harder with them.

Another good thing to this end am delighted to mention, is that I have been getting up in the mornings, instead of sleeping in. Also I have been eating small oranges for snacks, using the stairs instead of the elevator and quit drinking cokes. Now I need to make time in the mornings to stretch and exercise some. I am going up to Seoul tomorrow, and I think I am going to find a wind/exercise suit.

Oh and also I want to add that I have put up more pictures including ones from Everland.

Roller coaster oo oo oo....

So last a bunch of us piled in a small bus and took some students to Everland.

Everland is one of the not exactly not Disney theme parks in Korea. It was a fun day. We went on a holiday, so there were a lot of people there. When we got there, we made our way straight for the T-Express, the parks new wood roller coaster which features a nice 77 degree drop to get you started.

Now as anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan of roller-coasters. I once went through the entire line for Mr Freeze at Six Flags and then didn't get on. But I like to think that I learned something from that and similar experiences: going to a theme park and not going on rides is boring and expensive. So I decided, that I would go on the ride because three minutes of terror after a hour of standing in line doing nothing for a hour and a half is better than standing around doing nothing with three minutes of doing nothing at the end of it. So I got on the ride.

With James the roller-coaster fanatic. He was disappointed you couldn't look up see the track move as the car hit a curve like you can on the Texas Giant. He said that the best place to ride a coaster is in the last car, for much the same reason the best place to ride a school bus is on the back seat. It is nice and bumpy, and by the time the motion reaches you, the vehicle is totally committed to it. So I found my self waiting for the next car, just so he and I could ride in the back.

The ride itself? Let me just put it this way: James was the only person on the whole car with his hands raised.

But I did survive and by the end of it, I found that I was rather enjoying my self. So when we got off, I went a head and bought the T-shirt, just so everyone knows that I have been there and done that.

The rest of the day consisted of small rides, and lunch. The small rides were: Columbus' viking ship swing, and a Rodeo Tilt-a-whirl. We had a lot of hurry up and wait there. Part of the problem is we got stuck in a crowd watching a parade that divided the park. It was a pretty smooth move on the parks' part, you have to watch the show, but annoyed us to no end. What was fun about it was that Brother Lee and Nathan, one of the guys that helps out at the school, held of some inflatable axes that a couple of the kids had bought so everyone knew where to go.

All in all it was a good time. I wish we had had more time.

The rest of the weekend was pretty normal. I went to Yesan on Saturday, and had some ice cream, and got some sandals since socks have been bugging me lately.

Sunday was church church church. I some how have lost the calluses on my fingers. I guess I haven't played enough guitar lately. Ah well.

Story Tree

This is a story about Story Tree. It is actually in my head a talking blues story about Story Tree, but you are going to just have to hallucinate the guitar playing in the background, and Woody Guthrie saying all this. Actually make it Ramblin' Jack Elliot because this is going to be a rambling talking blues story about Story Tree, and if you don't know what he sounds like think of Steve Martian saying it cause he wrote a song called "Rambling Man," and you probably do know what he sounds like.

Looks like were off to a good start.

It was back in the year 2008, which is in fact this year, cause even ramlin' talking blues songs have conventions though rhyme and meter is not among them, and bunch a big brown boxes arrived at the Kindergarten.
They were full of books.
Slim books
with "Story Tree" written in big black letters on their covers.
Yay.
New curriculum.

As the title said they were all little stories
And our principal said not to worry,
Just tell each story, a page at a time
a page for a week and you will be fine.
We said "What?"
And then he said it again
in English.
Because he was talking to his assistant in Korean the first time.
But though he said it again we were still confused
Beth and I didn't know what to do
The instructions were written in the Korean script,
we were feeling ill equipped,
but that was okay that was fine,
We're Americans we can get by
We
can improvise.

So I got took the books, the tapes, the puppet cut outs, and a guitar and went down stairs to teach.
Now each story you should know
is a retelling of a fable from long ago
For my class it was the Ant and Grasshopper who share some food
then the Big turnip, which tasted good,
then the Ugly Duckling whose friends are rude
and next the Tortise and the Hare, renamed the Turtle and the Rabbit
Then last Goldilocks and The Three Bears who have a eating habit.

Each story was four sections long
each section had a song
based on children's songs from around the world.
Each section had about four lines
like "Hello how are you?"
and "Your are ugly, go away."
and "I am not slow"
and "I can fly!"
Dull.
To say the least.
And sometimes grammatically incorrect.
especially when you have to stretch it for thirty minutes for five days.
But of course there are other things, like getting them to pay attention and to sing the songs which I play my own arrangements of on guitar and the "puppets" which I let them hold to tell the stories with which they enjoy mightily, especially when we did "the big turnip" and all had to pull the turnip together.
They liked the falling over part.
Who wouldn't?
and don't forget the video.

But the thing that really bothers me
about these story trees,
is the stories as told don't make much sense
which is hard to take when you grew up with them.

The Ant the Grasshopper become friends
which completely ruins the moral at the end.
The big turnip is just that big
instead of getting more the pull the should have learned to dig.
The Ugly duckling turns to a swan and finds he can fly
which he could have done as a ugly duck by the bye.
The Rabbit admits the turtle is really fast,
when really he lost cause he was a lazy ass.
As for Goldilocks I haven't looked
I am too afraid to open the book
before I need too.

But now my friends I have to go
I just thought that you should know
if you ever find yourself seeing story tree
it is time to run it is time to flee.
Cause if you don't you will rue
the day you got the Story Tree Ramlin' talkin' blues.

I just realized the last few posts haven't had titles so this one does.

So it turns out, my TKD instructor has notice the mixture of passion and abject boredom on my face. I got to join two other red belts who have been training for sparring tonight. I actually got to kick some tonight. Also he double checked my residence license. I think he might be looking for a loop hole to get me tested for black belt sooner than October. He said originally that I could test six months after I got my card which was in late March. But he was looking at the dates on the card so that could mean that he found the rule was six month since I have been here which would make the test in the next couple of months. But I don't know for sure. He didn't explain since... well he couldn't. He knows about as much English as I do Korean. But even if it turns out to be nothing, it is encouraging.

Also I think I should add that I am in much better shape than when I arrived. I have lost about ten or fifteen pounds, and a couple of inches off my waist. I can now wear ties with my top shirt button buttoned. I still am quite "fat" compared to most Koreans, but at least I am not easily winded too. (it is weird seeing almost no overweight people) I have started weight lifting with my roommates weights.

Teaching is going fine. I am having a good time with all my classes, even the ones that give me trouble.

So much to tell, I just don't.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. We started a new semester with the older kids, last week, and that has been nice. We are using different books which I like much better than the one we used last time. It is a pain in the butt to try and teach a curriculum that you think is pretty stupid. This one is much better even though the grammar book is for British English rather than American.

I have been starting to get somewhat homesick lately. Mainly it has just been small things. Like they do their sideways break falls in Taekwondo slightly differently, and it doesn't make any sense to me. Then I just had to go visit the Zoo in Seoul. I saw American Bison, Armadillos, Coyotes, raccoons, mountain lions, Longhorn cattle, Red eared slider turtles, annnnd a desert in a green house, right next to the rain forest. Someone had even thoughtfully cut some graffiti into some prickly pear which made me laugh.

The Zoo also had a pretty good seal and dolphin show. I got to see other animals I have not seen in a long time: Ant Eaters, Sloths, all manner of dear, Rhinos and Hippos, Sea lions, lion cubs, and a baby monkey hanging out with its mother. It was a pretty neat and large Zoo.

Korea is really interesting when it comes to parks. They tend to mix all the different kinds as much as possible. For example the Seoul Grand Park Zoo, about the size of the San Antonio Zoo, but it is only one of five parks at Seoul Grand Park. There is also, a Petting Zoo six (or was it 11?) Kilometers of hiking trails, a art museum, and a Disney want to be theme park. You say sure efficiency of space Rob. But they don't just on a large scale. A couple of weeks ago, the Wesely school and church staff, went to a small park which had hiking trails, a small zoo, which included a black bear, and it's cub, a pretty good play ground and a wonderful botanical garden and flowers all along the paved trail. Koreans unlike Americans, don't have any qualms about mixing artifice and nature, or simply "improving" nature. It's interesting.

I know I need to update this more often. I will try.

So now I am 25 years old. Why 25? Well it seems like a nice round number, and I was born 25 years ago back in 1983 when people who were born in 1958 were only 25, and people born in 1933 were 50. Ofcourse people who were born in 1908 were 75 then, and people born in 1983 around the time Abilene was founded, would have been a hundred.

Anyhow, I celebrated by investing in the making of some quite delicious bacon cheese burgers, and onion rings, as well as a heavy cake even though I had to make it myself. I also made some onion dip, and bought five small bags of potato chips to go with it. I then invited my fellow English teachers to partake of it which we did. James actually made the hamburgers which were fantastic. Karen, a Korean English teacher who came over, was convinced we would all have heart attacks and die at any moment it was that good.

I also called the family on skype which was fortuitous because Katie and Oree were just about to leave to go work at a Outdoor Camp in North Carolina.

All in all it was a good birthday for being thousands of miles away from the family!

Well, the big news is that I got some (over two hundred pictures) up on the web from the last couple of months. They are from three or four trips to Seoul, and one to Cheongju. I only have comments on 100 of them so far. Here are some highlights... In no particular order...

Two of the four jugglers at the juggling club, juggling clubs.

The Semi-Annual Volley ball tournament. Our team, the Wesley School people, had a surprising victory, beating the Old mans team and the Married peoples team. This is the Youth team and the Married peoples team. The Married peoples team one this one.

This is the Church Service and raffle after the tournament. The people in front in chairs blocking everyone elses view are the old people.

I won 24 rolls of toilet paper in the raffle. They almost gave me a shovel, but I think they really asked themselves. "What would he use a shovel for?" and thought better of it.

Teaching my students some juggling after a hard day of English worksheet.

This is the coolest section of children's books in a used book store ever. I found "Dr. Seuss' ABCs" and "Where the Wild things Are." here.

Mike looking at a part of the 4.1 km wall of a Fortress we went to in Cheongju.

A nice view from the Museum at Cheongju.

Some pinwheels in anticipation of Childrens day at one of the Palaces in Seoul.
The Sign really says it all.

This is Seoul (and korea) to me. It is looking out from another Palace in Seoul.

This is the Goblin flea Market. I almost had a heart attack when I walked in.

The view up the hill I climbed over and back again twice looking for the Juggling shop.

Hope you enjoyed it.

For my Courlophobic Comrades

As most all of you have realized by now, one of my greater ambitions in life is to become a professional Clown. When I have told people this there are two... no three basic reactions:

1) "Cool!"
2) "What? are you serious?"
3) "I am scared of clowns."

Sometimes there is a mixture of them, but mostly it will be one. It is to those with the last reaction this post is dedicated. (especially to Mad4books daughter)

To me the whole "scared of clowns" and "Coulrophobia" (the official word) thing is weird. I like clowns, and have always liked clowns. I think they are funny and interesting and touching to watch. I think they tell us much about ourselves on a level we shoved in the closet along time ago.

But I know not everyone feels this way. I get told so on a pretty regular basis, by friends, co-workers, and strangers (even when I was in Clown at Art Walk people would come up to me just to tell me!). The problem is that they often still laugh at me anyways when I act the clown. You might say "But Robert, how is that a problem? Isn't that good?" It is, but it is still a problem. Because shows there is a gap between Clowns and the Idea of Clowns.

What is a clown? That is a huge debate. I have six or seven books on clowning and none of them quite agree. My favorite is "Clowning is a credible idiot playing for a audience." Which is John Wright's definition in Why is that So Funny?. That is how I think of clowning.

Unfortunetley as hinted at, the popular idea of clowns is quite different. It has been tied into the trickster archetype which is quite a different kettle of fish, altogether. For starters, the trickster is smarter than his audience. He is a con-man, the opposite of a clown. He will play stupid and be revealed as clever, where as a clown will play smart and be revealed a idiot. There are tricks both ways, but with one the joke is on the audience, and the other the joke is on the performer. The fool and trickster can be thought of two sides of the same coin, but they can never be the same thing.

Even more damning, Clowning has become its symbols rather than the symbols pointing to it. In other words, if you have a big red nose, and a white painted face, you must be a clown. This is as... as... well as foolish, as saying "if you have a white lab coat, and a stethoscope, around your neck, you must be a medical doctor." This is a HUGE problem. Why should be pretty obvious. Once the thing is its symbols, people only pay attention to the symbols and not what they signify. It is probably one the reasons that one of the Ten Commandments bans, graven images. For clowns it means you have to contend with everything people have seen done in a big red nose and white face which is a pretty outrageous and unfair demand. You might say "Why don't you get rid of all that make up and the red nose?" which is where some of the clown world has moved. But, again, the make up and nose is a part of the heritage of the art. It is a symbol of it, and it is practical, since it brings attention to the clowns facial expressions.

Finally we have that ubiquitous authoritative entity known as "The media." The Media, are very a kin to clowns. They are story tellers. Stories are driven by conflict. Clown performances make terrible stories... unless something goes wrong.

"CLOWN BRINGS LAUGHTER AT COMEDY CLOWN SHOW" Boring.
"NO ONE LAUGHS AT COMEDY CLOWN SHOW" Interesting!

So all you hear is the second. Clown characters in movies, TV shows and books are often as not, not clowns, but tricksters or con-men disguised as clowns. But their actions tell all. They are not credible idiots.

Last but not least there is the problem of bad clowns. Not as in evil or un-moral, but as in simply not funny.

Myself included more than I want to admit.

Which brings us back full circle. Never forget that clowns are people. Idiots, dressed up with makeup and unnatural noses yes, but still people. The root cause of fear of clowns is the fact that most people don't actually know any clowns personally. Clowns are something other, not your college buddy, or your co-worker, or sibling or cousin. The ultimate solution is naturally, knowing someone who is a clown. The great thing is, if you are reading this, you do!

One of my favorite things to hear, and I have heard it a couple of times is "Clowns usually freak me out, but not you Robert, I think because I actually know you."

I hope to hear it a lot more in the future.

New Post, New Pastor

So, we have a new pastor at the Church. He has been here for about three weeks I believe and we all really like him. The English teachers and his family (wife, and two sons 18&19) had dinner at a local restaurant and it was delicious. His sons it turns out are getting ready to go to University in the Philippines where the family just moved from, but in the mean time they have been sitting at the house bored out their minds for the last three weeks. Since their English is good, and like playing guitar and Sudden Attack, they are quickly becoming Mike's and mine best friends.

In other news, I have instituted a new curriculum for my seven year olds using Dr Seusses ABCs. It has been a hit so far.

In other other news, I think I seriously want to get into the San Fransisco Clown Conservatory when I get back in the States. I want to clown, and I want to be good at it. I have been practicing mime when I can working through the book on it I brought with me. I also continue to juggle, and walk into obvious pranks by my kids.

We clean out the fridge a couple of nights ago. Yay! for that.

I still haven't up loaded pictures.

I need to I know.

This weekend Mike and I go adventuring to Cheongju, to museums, a fortress and a Zoo.

Last Saturday I went to the National Museum in Seoul. I saw some great art, and some neat history stuff there. Going in, I passed about ten school groups, to said "Hello! How are you, nice to meet you." Standing in line for the tickets, I was asked where I was from, and what I was doing in Seoul. I am sure their English teachers would be proud. Also there is a fantastic park at the national museum. There is even a out door gym complete with bench press weights. I have pictures of all this. I do need to get it them up.

Also I want to plug my brother Mikes blog "Hike With Mike." He is trying to get funds together to come to Japan to volunteer for ARI. A group that teaches sustainable agriculture and urban agriculture to leaders in third world communities.

Okay, you asked for it!

Well, I am still alive and well. I know it doesn't seem like it since I haven't updated here, but the rumors that I was kidnapped by Korean kangaroo pirates and taken to Indonesia in order to teach island giraffs how to tap dance the polka were greatly exagerated.

It is saturday here, and I am in Yesan at a PC bong. I was trying to play "Sudden Attack" but the compter doesnt like me, so I decided not to waste a buck, and type on my blog.

I am in Yesan on a whim. I wasn't planning to go anywhere to day, but as I was walking to the fried chicken place, the bus for Yesan pulled up, to the bus stop I was passing and I got on it. So I came and had lunch at the "Burger" place in town, and then came to the PC bong. I think I will go to the good Icecream/coffee place here, and get a mocha and read here in a little bit.

So what's been up? Alot really. I don't know why I don't post more here. But I think I will stick to just three points:

1) I made a bunch of bean bags out of socks, and some kind of grain, and I have been teaching my students to juggle. I have been doing this between classes, and in fact in classes, but only after the students have gotten some work done. It has helped with my most troublesome class a bit, and is ofcourse alot of fun.

2) James, Beth, Abby, and I went to a english speaking church last sunday. It was the International Lutheran Church, and it felt so good to go to a liturgical service in english again, with traditional hymns and a pipe organ. I almost cried. We had communion! I thanked the Pastor afterwards and he nodded and said pretty much "thats what we are here for." He was from Iowa, and here for two years. The post rotates between three Lutheran sub-denonminations which is neat. It is kind of like Uncle Ray's cruise ship ministry.

3) After church last sunday, I went and got some books from the bookstore in Itaewon, and then went to the goblin market and got a electric guitar for about 45 bucks! It was cheaper than putting in a pickup on my acoustic guitar. It is naturally not the greatest guitar in the world, but then again it is nice and mythic getting a guitar from a Goblin market. It is a well used guitar too. Someone really played it alot, hard. It does work though and that is the important thing. Now I might be able to hear what I am doing in the prasie band.

In other news the Cherry trees are blosoming. I still have a lot of pictures to put up. Maybe tonight.

and now the news... (always a weird word to me "News" - plural "new...")

Er... so I seem to have lost my blogging discipline and have been getting calls of concern.

So lets see...

My desk chair in my bedroom is breaking. I have to balance the seat on the pole. It is pretty amusing right now in a annoying sort of way, but I think I will have to aquire a new one from the school soon before I hurt myself.

I did go back to the juggling shop last Saturday, and I did find the "goblin market." In fact I didn't get really good look at the market because by the time I found it (right where it was supposed to be of course) It was time to go to the juggling club. The cool thing is though I can now pass juggle. That is, stand in front of another person and we both juggle three balls and pass them between us. I also learned a couple of other tricks I need to work on. Particularly juggling behind my back.

What's really funny about the flea market, was that I saw about five Autoharps. I saw the first one and I said "Hey cool, a Autoharp." After the fifth one, and without seeing any banjos I was thinking "What? Of all the instruments, why Autoharp?" I think it is a tootsie roll pop question.

In other random news I have been giving tests to my students with mixed results. The best are my youngest class "backpack starter" class. I am giving a test to my backpack 6 students tomorrow. I am not sure what will happen. I don't expect much but maybe they will surprise me. They sure didn't want to study for it today.

Pictures... I am working on it... thinking about working on it... I am on a new computer whose USB ports claim to be working but aren't. The only way I can get pictures up is to set up my laptop again. I can do it, I just haven't sorry!

I will try to post more here so everyone knows I am alive and well.

Peace!

How was Seoul? eh... wait a minute... again?

So I went to Seoul.

Again.

Hey it is a big city. A huge city. There is a lot to do and see there. I got a book, a visual tourist atlas of Korea that told me so, and I have to admit it was right.

But I am a head of myself. I went to Seoul with a plan. I was going to get some stuff. I even made a list: Computer RAM, USB port, TKD Book, Guitar Pickup, and Korean Dictionary. Then I was going to go to the Juggling shop for the Juggling club meeting.

Well, so here is how it went. James, Beth, two of my co-teachers Abby their daughter and I got on the train at 7:13ish am. After about thirty minutes James and I hung out in the Snack car, and got on the internet just for the fun of it. We talked for most of the trip, and Beth and Abby joined us and Abby got to play arcade tetris for the first time, and for a three year old she wasn't half bad.

In Seoul James and I got off a stop before our usual stop there and went to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. The doughnuts were the first fresh ones I have ever had at a Krispy Kreme, and I have now learned that the hype around them is quite justified. After a couple of doughnuts each
and getting a dozen more for later, we took the Subway to Yongsan station where Beth and Abby were. We got train tickets home, and then visted a booth in the Electronics mart that James knew for the RAM, and USB port. I got the port (I just got a "old" desktop from the school last week and I am fixing it up just a bit) but ofcourse I forgot to write down what kind of ram it takes, so James is going to get it for me on Wednesday when he goes to Seoul to do something or another. We also visited the Book store at Yongson station and I found that Visual Atlas I mentioned earlier.

From there we parted company, and I got on the Subway on a quest for a foreign music store I heard about near Itaewon, where the American army base is. I found it, but it was closed. So I walked back to the main street of Itaewon, and went to the Foreigners Used Book store and picked up a TaeKwonDo book, and a English to Korean dictionary. Then I walked some more, and ran into James, Beth, and Abby. We walked some more together, but we all had things to do so they went to a watch shop, and I went on the Subway on a quest for American Pizza.

The best I could manage was Pizza Hut. A very nice Pizza Hut at Seoul Station that James had told me about. So I had a good nine inch American style Pepperoni Pizza sans corn.

While I was waiting for my Pizza, I took a look at the Atlas, which has a very large illustrated section on Seoul. I found some cool festivals... and a Flea Market. If you have known me at all he last few years, you know I am a sucker for Flea Markets, and the book said there was a Huge flea market (sometimes called "The Goblin Market" how cool is that?) in a soccer stadium. So I resolved that if I had anytime after juggling, I would check this place out.

But first things first, I took the train down to Sadang Station where the Juggling shop was. I went there, and found out that the meeting of the club was a maybe today, but stay and see. So I did and had a wonderful time talking to the owner So Sang Man or "George" and his wife, the lady who had broke her foot mountain unicycling. I also got to meet their one year old daughter. One other kid did show up for the juggling club, but didn't stay too long. I learned some basic Diablo, which is the yoyo thing controlled by a string attached to two sticks. George also showed me how to juggle four balls in preparation for juggling five balls. All in all it was a great time, and I promised to help him with the English on the English version of the website, which actually isn't that bad. Both of them speak English fairly well.

So after a couple of hours and a couple of new friends later, I left the Juggling shop, and went on my third quest for the day which was to find this flea market. I had about three hours to kill before the train back to Sapgyo left. To get to this market was a straight shot on the blue line... eleven stops which is as many stops as I have ever done at one time.

When I got there, I immediately found the market. It started in the subway station and then spilled onto the street, and then went on, and on and on and on and on and on. I never did find the "flea market" I think it was closed. But it didn't matter. There were stalls, everywhere. In plazas, on the sidewalks, in the tunnels that go under the street, in tunnels that I have no idea what their origional purpose was. They were in buildings, and under them, and they just went on and on, selling all kinds of stuff, but at the part I explored it was mostly clothes of all descriptions. I also found a pet section and a book section. I even found two shops selling bags and bags of buttons. I barely explored it. For two hours of straight wandering I probably only saw a fifth of it if that much. It was overwhelming. And that was with half the places closing up because of night and drizzle. It brought to mind every vast fair, bazzar and out door market I have ever read about. I always suspected those authors of using some literary license, when they described such places... how wrong I was. I did buy a couple of umbrellas (one real one and a tiny red panda one for clowning) and a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz. If you have never been to such a place, you really should sometime. I am going back to Seoul next week for the juggling club, and I have resolved to explore that place further, this time in the morning, and hopefully when it is not drizzling. Maybe I will find a instrument section.

I left the market about an hour before my train was do to go, and headed back to Yongsan Station. I got some Baskin Robin's for dinner (I tried some chicken on a stick from one of the stalls at the market, but it needed some sauce which it didn't have since I didn't know how to say "sauce please but not the kid that makes ones head explode") and waited for my train. On the train I slept.

Until one of my students tapped me on the head to say hi. The one in the picture standing on her desk in a earlier blog actually. She was really excited to see me on the train, and she gave me some crackers and a ginsing mint hard candy. She had been in Seoul that day with her Mom. When we reached Sapgyo station about thirty minutes later, it was raining so I gave her mom my umbrella so she could pull up her car, and she gave me a ride back to my apartment.

And that is a full account of my day in Seoul. I know it lacked elves, dragons, pirates, or ninjas, or even insidious mob bosses. I wasn't knocked out of the way in a chase scene at the market. Heck, I never even got to "The Goblin Market." But it was pretty neat anyways.