some recent photos

these first ones are from some bar around the samsung coex.

i came out of my apartment one morning and one of the doors was getting walled in.  stepped outside and the windows were bricked.

one afternoon jeongook and i went to this big park in bundang, the name escapes me now.  lots of sculptures everywhere and a big bungee platform on the lake.

some flowers that hyunjoo's mom got for becoming a middle school principal.

a few more shots from that trip to jebu-do.  the dog can't be left alone, so he got to go too.

only about a quarter of this small island remains, as the u.s. military decided that it would be target practice at some point.  apparently the surrounding water is littered with the bomb shells, never cleaned up.  there is an outdoor sculpture really close to here that is made of much of the used artillery.  a lot of koreans were/are pretty pissed about the destruction of this island and you can't blame them.  the sculpture is a commentary about it.  the day i went to the sculpture i didn't have my camera, so there are no photos of it.

a bit more from the neighborhood.

here's that big hill that got leveled.

yepp, i'm a genius

after having a cold for nearly a month that i just couldn't beat down and thinking i might possibly have bronchitis or something, i finally gave in and went to a dr.  he did an extremely minimal/quick physical exam, told me i had type-b flu and that i was going to get sicker.  i found this a little unsettling, but decided that i had been sick long enough and started taking the half-dozen assorted color/shape pills without any explanation as to what each was or what symptoms they were for.  well it happened, i got a whole lot sicker within a few hours of taking the first dose (this has me a bit skeptical).  at this point i couldn't do more than lay in bed with the cold-sweats and try to sleep.

the following day, hyunjoo brought me home from her house.  upon arriving i decided that it was time to wash my blue jacket.  don't know why it had to be then, as i'd been debating about it for a month, but it went straight into the machine.  for a few days i was looking for my ipod, tracing my steps, thinking that i had left it somewhere.  i finally thought i should check the pockets of the clothes i had previously worn and there it was in my blue jacket.  i'm a freaking genius.  at this point it had been a few days since it went in the wash, so i was hoping that it was dry internally.  it would turn on, but everything was all screwy and discombobulated.  i decided to plug it into the computer and itunes opened right up and everything seemed normal.  i could get it to play when plugged in, but as soon as i unplugged it, it went crazy and nonfunctional again.

ipods cost like three times as much in korea as in the states, so i've replaced it with the domestic samsung yepp.  the yepp is comparable to the shuffle but with a simple screen.  it seems to be great so far.

edit:  scratch that claim to greatness.  for some reason it won't play songs sequentially.  without fail they play 3,5,7,9,10,8,6,4,2,1.  must be a bug that i can't figure out how to fix and the world wide internet doesn't have an answer either.

봉산탈 / 춘향가

재 얼굴 봉산탈 같에요?

i went to a gepik workshop and all i got was this awesome mask!

all i learned at the time was that this particular mask, 봉산탈 (bongsan-tal), came from north korea.  this website here gives a good description of the dance-drama that this mask is part of.

on a similar note, tom and i met hyunkyung one friday night at the 국립중앙극장 (national theater) to watch sangil perform in 춘향가 (choon-hyang story).  sangil played the male lead, mong-ryong, in this traditional story which is kind of like romeo and juliet.  it was shown with sub-titles, which was nice, but i regret ever looking at now, as too much of my attention was fixated on reading through most of the play.  i really found the stage design simple yet powerful and wish i had seen more of what was happening on it throughout the play.  next time i'll just watch, to hell with the words.

a few shots

just wanted to share a few images.  don't forget that you can click on them for larger viewing.

this first one is up on a big hill between my apartment and school.  you can only see it a little, because of my location, but a big chunk has been taken out of the middle of this hill.  where the hill once was, is now a gaping void going nearly to ground level.  it appears that some kind of large warehouse type building will probably be constructed in it's place.

when i was walking around in this area taking photos, the ajoshi that owns the house and cow farm down below, came out yelling at me.  i tried to tell him that i was an artist, but instead i told him i was a picture and he just walked away.  i think he thought i was spying on him or something.  it's too bad he came out when he did, as i had just spotted two dead cows that had been dumped on the backside of the hill.  i really wanted to try to get closer and takes some shots of them.

this next one here is just a big giant pit with a rice field in the bottom.

the next two are from jebu-do.  i took a trip there with hyunjoo and here family one sunday.  those rocks on the left are the same as in the photos here.

here's one last one from the neighborhood.

more shots on the way.

반지하 (ban-jee-ha): the half-basement

these two are located at the entrance to my village (i think it's small enough to be one).  they protect it.

as stated, here's my half-basement apartment.  it's a nice setup and i like it more than my previous place.  it's bigger, much quieter, much darker when i want it to be, a good size bed, a sofa that i have yet to sit on, a bigger refrigerator, more storage space.

i bought a bike.   since there's lots of safe space to ride through the rice fields out here, i figured it would be nice have and do.  i'm getting a little fat on my belly, maybe this will knock some of it off.

i've been busy and have other experiences and photos to share, but no long post today.  more to come soon.

round two: 석천 (seokcheon), south korea

in case you were wondering, i made it to korea as scheduled.  15 hours in the air was a bit rough with only patches of sleep, but i had my own movie theater/video game console on this flight, which was a first for me, so that kept me occupied a bit.  when i landed, there was a cab driver waiting for me who had a sign with my name on it.  that always makes things so easy.  i had a pleasant ride south with another arriving teacher, thomas.  he was heading to a middle school about an hour away from where i am.  i haven't heard from him since being dropped off at my school, so i hope he's adjusting well.

i'm in 석천 (seokcheon) this time, which is nowhere.  it's located on the west coast about an hour southwest of where i was last time in suwon.  that's not too bad of a bus ride, but getting to the 'local' bus station in jo-am is a bit of a hassle.  a bus stops at the bus stop near my apartment only a few times a day and i still haven't figured out exactly when those times are.  so i can call a taxi to come pick me up and take me to jo-am if i want to go somewhere on the weekends, but no matter how hard i try with the best korean i've got, they have a difficult time figuring out that i want a taxi to come pick me up.  they'll figure out soon enough that i'm the only foreigner in this apartment, that's in the middle of nowhere, that wants a ride and send one right away.

that's my apartment building on the right (click photo to enlarge).

i have a half-basement apartment that is quite a bit larger than my old places in the gok.  i'll post some interior pics sometime.  it snowed a few inches one night last week, it's snowing again tonight.  here's a 7am sunrise shot out from one of the ground-level windows in my kitchen.

the raised rows and wooden stakes are for planting a new crop of ginseng.

here's my school, 석천초등학교 (seokcheon elementary).  it's fairly small because it's so rural.  about half of the students' parents work at a local kia factory, the remainder are mostly farmers and fishermen.  i haven't started teaching yet, but i'll be primarily teaching 3rd-6th graders.  i'll have a couple of extra (outside of the core curriculum) classes, composed of 1st-2nd graders, as well as a parent and a teacher class.  i get free school lunch everyday and i would say that it's probably better quality than what i remember of public school lunches.  all of the lunch ladies know that i'm a vegetarian, so if there's a whole bunch of meat in the dishes one day, they set some aside just for me that doesn't.  that makes it especially awesome and i really appreciate the effort.

on the left we have king sejong, who invented hangeul, and on the right i believe we have a famous maritime admiral whose name i don't know (it could be there in hangeul, but i don't know which part would be his name, i could guess but i'd probably be wrong).

this right here is a korean swing called a 그네 (geu-nae).

well, it's approaching my bed time of 10pm (which is about 5 hours earlier than i'm used to, but i'm adjusting) so it's time for a late, but light dinner and some sleepy time tea.

i'm out

due to the incompetence of the united states postal service, i just received my visa back from the consulate nearly a week after it should have arrived.

i'm leaving my parents' in an hour to go to the airport.  i'll be arriving in korea on friday afternoon (korean time).

we'll see how this year fares.  stay posted for more happenings in the east.