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.