my tutorial on making ramen

Merry Christmas from Korea

Alright well, as I'm sure I owe many updates on what all has been going on and what not. I will try my best to catch everyone up to date, as much as possible... Yes these are pictures of me. I'll explain more later.

     So, where did we leave off. second week was rust ending, right... K well,  since then nothing extremely exciting has happened. Ummm the leader of North Korea died... Everyone was in a panic about that for a solid 5 mins and then we returned to a normals lives because as it turns out, nobody cares! The way i see it, if they're still letting military go home for Christmas and my kids (kindergartens and 3rd and 4th graders) aren't talking about then it's probably not that big of a deal. Yes he was a dick, yes it's big news that he's dead, who knows what's gonna happen with the next person to take control (his youngest son from my understanding)... Blah blah blah... To be honest, i'm kinda excited to see what the new kid will do with this new found power he has. Personally, i'm hoping he rebels again dear old dad like a good teenager would and turns the country around. I think the world would shit a brick if out of no where N. Korea suddenly moved to the top of the list. But enough about that stuff...

Mexican food! Fajitas and Coronas (compliments of my friend Millie)

    This last week has seen it's share of Christmas related festivities. There was the "Christmas Party" at cream (a coffee shop/bar a couple blocks away), followed by another work related Christmas party where we ate Vietnamese food and as a company drank a lot of Soju. Then there was the Ugly Sweater party that was held at the local Xpat/foreigner bar. This one actually turned out to be a lot of fun cause once the bar started to close down we went to NoreBong which is Korean for Karaoke. These people love them some karaoke, there were litterally thousands of songs to choose from. Your be proud, I sang a Christmas song (chestnuts roasting on an open fire, i think) and a couple solid Queen songs, tried to find some Blink-182 or Jack Johnson but no luck... i put in a request for some though. OH WOW!!!! Yeah so after that we were all leaving and me and a girl got in a cab to head back to our neighborhood and our cabby backed over one of the girls we were with! Fortunately she was ok, just a little shookin up. One of the big things here in Korea is when the cops do show up, it doesn't matter who started anything, it's who ever is hurt the worse get "blood-money" from the other person involved. So this meant i spent 20 mins hold back a recently run over girl from beating the life out of a possibly inebriated cabby before the cops could get there. Not sure what she actually got out of it, someone said they think she got like 500 bucks and it all got swept away, not bad for a scraped knee if you ask me.


































     The following morning i caught the train from the Expo Center up to Suncheon to spend Christmas with Rachel and Nathan (my roommates from last year). Cause a cab to their place from the station, stopped and picked up some fruit and we were off to another Christmas party. Met a bunch of new people, mostly teacher, some lifers, all friendly and before we knew it it was Christmas! Christmas day was a slow start we all wanted to just rest for a bit, Rachel made an amazing breakfast of pancakes, bacon eggs and coffee. We watched some Christmas movies and more or less just chilled for the day. Nathan made fish and chips for dinner which was amazing and i cant wait to make my own once i finally get some money! Any day now...

    Other than that, nothing's really that new... teaching is same ol' same ol' kids are crazy. Lord bless all of my old teachers, for i knew not what i did... I got to be Santa for the kids at my school, hense the pictures above. All in all it was pretty fun. On that note, i'm tired. Love everyone, thanks for reading...

Finishing up week two in Yeosu

     Alright well let me start by saying thanks to everyone who kept me in their thoughts while i was i was sick. The last week pretty much sucked as far as that goes, but i think i'm mostly on the mend. Haven't had a fever in a couple days, no more sweats, no nausea, just congestion in my chest and in my head. Other than that i'm doing pretty well as far as i'm concerned. Life is good. My kids are, well... kids. they get excited about some things and are completely bored by others. I'm teaching kindergarten in the mornings ans then elementary schoolers in the afternoons and evening. All in all it's not too bad. Just a lot of steps to follow and rules to learn and what not.

     This weekend i went to the market! There's a neighborhood that's broken up into different markets, so i just spent half a day wandering about. There's a produce market, a fish market,




















a meat market (no pun intended)





a grain market, a clothing market and then a part of the market where all the vendors are either cooking something or willing to cook what ever it is you've bought, for a small fee...

     The to top off the market experience there was an awesome christmas party sat night that i made fruit salad for! i'll be honest, i had a bunch of fruit in the apartment left over from the previous people that needed to get used... So it didn't go to waste!!! yeah!!!!

     And now i'm getting ready to crash for the night and start up an all new week! I dont get any time off what so ever for Christmas, cause it's on Sat or Sun or something i dont work those days anyways, so whah whah whah. But i think we're having a "work"  Christmas party on thurs and then i heard rumor of an awesome ugly sweater party on christmas eve for everyone who is still in town and not spending it with their loved ones :( on that note, i'm sorry i'll be missing christmas with everyone. I hope everyone has a wonderful christmas and keep me in your thoughts, at least for the stuffing and egg nog...

     so i've been sick for three days now... not sure with what, flu maybe but i got my shot before i came over. weird, it was the only shot that's required and somehow the only thing i've got... hmmmm, feel like there might be something workin here. But either way, fever, head ache, sinus mess, the works, needless to say, my last couple days have been pretty... bad.

     In other news! tonight dinner consisted of "spaghetti" flavored ramin (trust me dont bother)

On that note, i'm still sick so i'm going to bed, wish me luck and i'll update more once i can. love you all, thanks for reading.

the tour of my new place...

Since i got here i've drank my weight in coffee

These people are serious about their coffee, i'm teaching kindergarten in the mornings and my kids are telling me what kinds of coffee they had that day... seriously! i feel like i didn't have coffee till i was in my teens, or at least i didn't like it until then...
 
So this is where i live. Yeosu as it turns out is decent sized but spread out over the whole peninsula. All the "districts" are broken up so i live in Yeosu-dong, Dong is just who you say district but in a weird turn of events it's also how you describe my specific neighborhood as well. So if i catch a cab and want to get home, i just tell him to take me to Yeosu-dong and he knows where to take me, although in a different conversation i could be talking about Yeosu-dongs and be speaking of the different districts through out all of Yeosu... if that makes any sense.Eithe way, i'm in a dope part of town. There are all sorts of status all over and tons of ran street art, the main walk is all shopped up and i;ll try to get some better pictures to put up so you can understand what i mean a little better. I live in kind of the "hopping" part of town, most of the bars and good legit restaurants are all in my neighborhood. There is literally a coffee shop on every block. They love some coffee here like no place I've ever been, puts Seattle to shame. They also don't like it with sugar or creamer.




I've eaten some pretty awesome foods since i've been here. Lots of spices and delicous tid bits of all sorts of things.

Rachel and Nathan came down from Suncheon over the weekend and we went down to the Expo site to check out all the new buildings and what not. Looks like it'll end up being a pretty crazy set up. really excited to be living so close to it and cant wait to see how it turns out!