An invitation to craziness...

Well, things appear to be changing once again.

It seems the director of my school is leaving at the end of the month. She's apparently got another job lined up at a bigger school in Ulsan and wants to take Cathy and me with her. This offer, of course, is pending the continuance of late payments of salary that the school has steadily supplied for us. It would take a lot to dislodge me before my contract is up, though. While the late payments and poor accomodations suck, I'm pretty fond of Milyang and moreso of Laura. So to pull me off to another city, even though it is only an hour bus ride away, would take a guarantee of equal or better pay that would arrive on time, all the time, a much nicer apartment, and a contract that would end at the same time as Laura's at the end of July. Likely, this is not to be and I'll struggle through my contract here, but it is good to know there are options out there should the late-pay situation get worse and become a no-pay situation. I'm not sure who's going to be our new director, likely the owner will take over. I'm also not sure what will happen with Cathy. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she left for Ulsan seeing as she hasn't been paid in two months. I seriously would be completely incapable of teaching everyone by myself, so the hiring of another teacher would be essential for the school to survive, but how can you hire people when you already can't afford to pay the employees you have? And here I thought things were stabilizing...

Other school things are changing as well. I will begin taking a bus out to Bugok three days a week to teach the doctors. This is because my director has been driving me there and, well, she's leaving. This really isn't that big a deal other than the fact that at the bus station in Bugok, when we stopped to investigate the bus times, we were accosted by a rather angry man who seemed to hate me on sight. Actually, accosted is a pretty mild term to describe the encounter. This man, who by the looks of it hangs out at the bus station frequently, immediately started yelling things at me as we entered the building. He got right up to us, kept yelling, took a full on swing at me while completely ignoring my director who had interposed her slight five-foot-nothing frame between us. I had no idea what to do. My director seemed only mildly concerned by this guy and led me across the room to check the schedule. He followed, his white robe and long hair flowing behind him (seriously), and proceeded to whack me across the back of the head with a roll of paper, all the while yellling more. Having seen the bus times, we left. He didn't follow us outside. I am more than a little concerned that he will be there again every time I show up at the Bugok station. Not such a great welcoming committee they have there.

And now, the final change... I turn 30 on Sunday. I hereby am inviting you all to join me in celebrating this with bowling and drinking on Saturday night (keep in mind that Saturday night here is early Saturday morning in Canada). I realize it's short notice, but I will cover your food and accomodations (spare room or heated floor). Airfare not included, but you should be able to find some good last minute deals to Seoul, I'm sure. I expect you all to be there. I'll give you more specific directions by email when you let me know what time your flight arrives.

See you all soon!

Guy

Six months, time to take stock...

Well, it's been a little over six months in Korea now and to mark the occasion, I've decided to make a couple of lists. The first, all the things that irritate me about being here. The second, all the things I love about being here. So, here they are (and the lists themselves are in no particular order):

The Bothersome

1) The dreadful missing of my friends and family. Random talks on messenger and occasional emails just aren't enough. I need to be able to sit in a room with my people. This is easily the hardest part about being here.

2) Inconsistent working conditions. I really would like to have a job where my daily schedule isn't randomly shifted on me at the last second as well as a job where I get paid in full and on time. So far, they haven't missed giving out any actual money, but I've only been paid on time once, and that was the first time. And what's with taking away our photocopier? How can a school survive without a photocopier? I just don't get it.

3) Smart-ass students who refuse to put in any effort. I realize this has nothing specifically to do with Korea, it is a general teachers lament, but I include it here because I doubt I would be teaching if I were not in Korea.

4) Bizarre text books that have me teach the students such interesting sentences as, "Fasten your pants," or, "Take off your pants." I find the pants obsession a little concerning. Some other examples of strange things I am forced to teach are an entire chapter dedicated to the proper usage of the word "mustn't," a unit that has the students tell me detailed instructions on finishing a level in a video game, and various words such as "cardiogram," and "filet mignon." That last one isn't even English! Grr. I could go on and on about the text books, really, but I'll stop there.

5) The inability to walk around town without some random person, usually a middle/high school boy, yelling "Hello!" to me. At first it seems kind of funny, but after six months of it, it gets quite irritating. I suggest that everyone at home yell, "Anyeong haseyo!" to every Korean they see. Those of you in Vancouver could be a little busy.

6) The food, while good, can get a little redundant after a while. This would probably be less of a problem if I were in a bigger city with better access to food from elsewhere, but I'm in Miryang and all that is available is Korean food, pizza (which pales in comparison to what is available at home) and McDonald's (which is the same everywhere, except that here, they don't have breakfast). I would love to have a good caesar salad (or any salad that doesn't consist of shredded cabbage topped with thousand island dressing and ketchup), or a falafel, or good Mexican food, or Indian food, or a turkey dinner, or...

7) The beer sucks. It's weak (4.5%), it doesn't taste all that great, and it's not all that cheap in comparison to beer at home. That said, I still drink it.

8) The unavailability of certain products such as deodorant and my brand of shampoo (well, not so much my brand, Head & Shoulders, but the specific kind I use which has selenium, not zinc). I'm told that deodorant is available in the bigger cities, but that it is prohibitively expensive and I highly doubt my brand (Tom's of Maine, calendula or scentless) will be among those shipped in. Decent toothpaste is also nonexistent (why would anyone use pine flavoured toothpaste?). I brought supplies of each of these, but they are starting to dwindle. I may request a care package soon...

9) My apartment still sucks. Laura and I cleaned it on the weekend, making it livable for the first time since sometime before I arrived, but the computer room is simply an awful place to be (too hot in the summer, frozen in the fall/winter), the kitchen still features a toilet, and the walls are still covered in water stains and full of bugs. It is not a pleasant place at all.

10) Korean music is terrible. I've explained it all before in previous posts, though, so I won't elaborate further.

I'm sure I could come up with all sorts of other things if I really wanted to, but I think these ten items cover the major irritations I have with being here. Now, onto the good stuff:

Things That Make Me Happy

1) Meeting Laura. Sure, she's from Canada, too, but I doubt I would have met her there. Since we met, my time here has become far more enjoyable, so much so that we're both thinking of staying for another year. She has made what some might have considered a questionable journey worthwhile and more.

2) I'm making decent money here and don't have to pay rent which makes it actually possible to pay back my student loans. If I were at home, I don't think it would have been possible.

3) The food is good and cheap. I know, I complained about it in the above list, but I do like Korean food and it is so very, very cheap.

4) The textbooks, while being mostly stupid, do offer up some amusing bits. My personal favourites are the sentences that sound like euphemisms. Last week I got to teach the sentence, "He eats the big sandwich." I want to work that into a conversation somehow. Here are some samples of how I may try to do so: "Hey, do you know Tony?" "Tony? Pfft. That guy eats the big sandwich." Or, "Hey, did you hear what happened to Tony?" "Yeah, I heard he ate the big sandwich last night. So sad." Or lastly, "That Tony guy, wow, he sure eats the big sandwich, if you know what I mean..."

5) The students who laugh and ask questions and want to show you the things they made at their real schools and who just seem happy to learn stuff. To me, they are the lone redeeming quality to teaching. I would like to have more of them, or have at least one in every class. Sadly, that is not the case.

6) The ease of traveling across the country. Train or bus will get you anywhere in South Korea cheaply and within 8 hours at the most. Can't say that for home, can you? It makes exploring so much easier and completely possible on weekends and for those of us without a car. Even within the cities, it is easy to get around. Buses are common and fairly simple to use (if you have a guide book, anyway) and taxis are extremely plentiful and quite cheap.

7) The people are generally quite friendly and they want to make you happy. Makes for good hospitality.

8) The scenery, when not being bulldozed, is quite beautiful. The mountains are steep and the valleys are narrow. Not much flat land here. It can be quite beautiful.

9) I'm in a band! I have attempted this at home before, but nothing ever came of it. It actually is a functioning band here. It is so much fun and my guitar playing has improved immensely since joining. Wheeee!!!

10) The experience in general is great. I love just being able to experience a different culture, try to figure out how to interact, see all the interesting things, hear the stories and histories, and learn the language (which is coming slowly, but I have mastered the alphabet and am able to read things with increasing quickness. Now, if only I could understand what I'm reading... I also don't understand spoken Korean in the least. I can pick out a word or two here and there, but I'm a long way from being able to carry on even a halting conversation).

So, those are my lists. The urge to come home battles constantly with the urge to stay for another year. Right now, I'm leaning towards staying. I will be home in the summer though, August by the looks of it. I wanted to come in the winter at some time, but I haven't been able to save any money due to my excessive student loan payments. Laura and I want to make good long visits with everyone and I really want everyone to meet her (and she wants to meet everyone, too). Anyway, that's all for now. Onto the next six months...

Guy

To the bat cave!

Ah, what a good weekend.

As mentioned last time, Laura and I decided to go to place called Donghae (which, literally translated, means East Sea), up on the northeast coast. It was actually a random choice of places. We originally wanted to go to Gwangju, which is on the complete opposite end of the country, but were advised that if we wanted to see the north part of the country, this would likely be the last time it would be pleasant to do so before spring, so Donghae it was.

It started with a lovely seven hour train ride overnight from Milyang. For some reason, they decided to crank the heat on the train making for a rather uncomfortable ride. We survived despite the havoc it wreaked with Laura's cold. The other unfortunate thing about the train ride was that it was taken at night, thus denying us the opportunity to gawk at the scenery. The night travel was a good thing in theory, though, as supposedly we could sleep while traveling. The sleep on the train sucked, but the train did get us there for 6am giving us plenty of time to check the place out.

At first, checking the place out consisted of wandering around, cold, hungry and tired, from motel to motel trying to find one that had someone behind the counter to give us a room. After about an hour of this, we finally succeeded. Our room was, well, kind of icky, but seeing as we just planned on using it as a base to explore, it would do.

After a quick nap, it was time for some food then some exploring. We found a cheap and tasty place nearby the motel. We had some tasty chol-myun (cold noodles with veggies and a spicy sauce, really tasty) and pizza mandu (mandu are dumplings and these were fried dumplings with pizza sauce and cheese on them). Then we were off... to the bat cave.

The bat cave was very interesting. Actually, everything from its unpronounceable name (Cheongokcheonyeondonggul, as listed in the Lonely Planet) to the fact that it was in the middle of the city made it appealing to us. It turned out to be bat-less, at least as far as we could tell, but it did have strings of colourful light along the railings and on certain bits of jutting rock that one might otherwise crack one's head on and these lights more than made up for our disappointment in the lack of bats. The cave itself was pretty cool. Stalactites and stalagmites, weird bacon-like formations, and one rather phallic bit of stone that everyone seemed to want a picture of (well, ok, it was one lady, but she seemed to make an extra effort to get that picture). The signs labeling certain things thought to be of extra interest were pretty interesting themselves. According to the signs, nearly half of everything in the cave was "Mysterious," and one thing was actually described as being "bacon-like," despite the fact that it clearly wasn't. The bacon-like formations were elsewhere. The exit from the cave was lined with glass cases containing a variety of geodes which fairly likely had nothing to with the cave, but were pretty stones nonetheless.

After our cave adventure, we decided to venture down to the water. The waterfront in Donghae is very pretty. We found this cliff-lined beach with fishermen and playing children on it. As well, there was the pretty little restaurant/coffee chop that looked like it could have been transported directly out of Nova Scotia. We sat up on the third floor, drinking our bad and overpriced coffee (something one just gets used to here), and looking out at the fishing boats on the East Sea (or, Sea of Japan as anyone outside of Korea would know it). It was really quite pleasant.

Due to our lack of sleep and the fact that we both had, to differing degrees, colds, we were pretty tired by this point so we made our way back to the motel for another quick nap.

A few hours later, we emerged refreshed and made our way back into town for dinner and some beer. We found a nice seafood restaurant and had eel and salmon rice hotpots. Tasty! Afterwards we went to the 11th floor of a building to a place called Sky Beer. It was full of well dressed young Koreans. It seemed to be everyone's birthday that night as at numerous times the lights would dim, birthday music would blare out of the speakers, strobe lights would come on and a cake would be delivered to a table accompanied full of happy people detonating those loud popping streamer things. Laura and I just sat at our slightly isolated table and observed it all, enjoying the spectacle and attempting to converse over the din. Just as we were figuring on leaving, our pitcher of beer done and our feeling of exhaustion returning, we mysteriously found that a second pitcher of beer had been delivered to our table. We didn't order it. We didn't want it. And we didn't want to pay for it. When the waitress returned to add it to our bill, we used various hand motions, grunts and head shakings to indicate that this beer was not ours and we wanted to leave. She seemed to understand as it was not added to our bill. Why the beer came to our table is still a mystery.

We slept well that night and got up mid-morning. Our train back to Milyang didn't leave until 2-ish so we casually got some food (pizza don-gas - pork cutlet with pizza sauce and cheese, and more chol-myun) then wandered about the area around the train station in search of snacks for the ride. We found those and discovered we still had a few hours so continued our wandering. We ended up at the Mukho fish market (Mukho is the slightly smaller town just north of Donghae - they may as well be the same city) which was really cool and was just asking to have pictures taken of it. Still don't have a digital camera or a scanner, so it will be a while before I can show anything from these, assuming they turn out at all, but it was a cool place with buckets of live squid swimming around and row upon row of all sorts of fish of various sizes, shapes and colours.

Well, that pretty much took care of the rest of our time and we were off to catch our train. The ride back was long and uneventful, but the scenery was really pretty, at least those parts that weren't being bulldozed to make a new expressway (I really think this country just wants to become one giant, thousand lane highway).

So, in a week I will have been here for six months. Half way through my contract and currently debating whether I want to sign on for another. If I do, it likely will not be with this same school or likely even in Milyang. I have lots of time to decide on that though. Regardless of that decision, I will be back in Canada at the end of my year here, at the very least for an extended visit before coming back. We'll see how things go the rest of the way. I'll be sure to keep you all updated.

Guy

Peppero Day

Well, yesterday was Nov. 11. A special day here in Korea: Peppero Day. Those of unfamiliar with Korea may be asking yourself, "What is this Peppero of which he speaks?" Well, it may be familiar to those of you in the know about Asian snack food in general because at home (and in Japan), it is known as Pocky. If you are not in the know about Pocky, I will now explain: Pocky is a thin stick of dry cookie, coated in a chocolatey substance or some other tasty confection.

Yes, an entire day has been dedicated to them here. The sheer marketing genius behind this astounds me. I believe the brainstorming session may have been a little like this (only, in Korean):

"Peppero sales have been slipping, especially during November. What can we do about this?"
thoughtful pause
"We could try putting them in fancier packages..."
"We've done that, didn't help."
more thoughtful pausing
"Well... the sticks kinda look like 1's... um, maybe, it being November, you know, the eleventh month, we could make it Peppero month or something..."
"I like your thinking, but a whole month is probably too much. Maybe just a day. I know! 11/11! Yes! We'll make millions!"

And that is the story of Peppero Day, as interpreted by me. I was given many sticks of Peppero by my students. Pure choco-stick fun!

In other news, it appears that I am gaining another class outside my institute. It starts on Monday and involves students from middle school to adults. Not sure what to expect, really.

Laura and I are going to a small city called Donghae for a few days. It's on the NE coast of the country. Hopefully, it will be good. We figured that this might be our last chance to travel before winter comes along. The weather here is still quite nice (it's mid-November and we still have mosquitoes) and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that (not the mosquitoes; they take advantage of me, though - I feel so used).

Well, that's about all today. I may still try to type up the full stories of the hike, the trip to Andong, etc. Time is lacking lately though, but I will try.

Guy

Laura, Doogie, and Ethan

Well, it's been far too long and far too much has happened in that time for me to get into any real details, but a quick glossing over is certainly in order here.

First and foremost, it should be known that Debb and I have decided to part ways. We both have found others to be with and the distance/time factor certainly has played a role. However, we plan on remaining close and so far, we're keeping true to that. My new "other" is a girl from Saskatchewan by the name of Laura. She's quick, with an abstract and sometimes silly wit, she's an excellent photographer and has a degree in graphic art, she enjoys eating strange food and drinking beer, she has a strange obsession with monkeys (no, wait a minute, that's me), she's tall, pretty, has cute freckles across her nose and cheeks, and really wants to meet all my friends and family. She's been in Milyang for almost 4 months now and we've been seeing each other basically since the last time I posted on here. Things are still new with her but it all feels pretty good right now. My description doesn't really do her justice, so if anyone has any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Other than spending basically all of my free time with Laura, my past month has consisted of me climbing an 1189m mountain on a day that got progressively colder, wetter and windier as it went along making for a rather uncomfortable and brief stay at the top, going to the city of Andong and the nearby Korean traditional folk village, another visit to Pusan this time with Laura (we went to get her alien registration card) instead of by myself, the progression of the band I'm in from disorganized and unproductive to disorganized and surprisingly good at our selected songs (Laura has joined the band as a keyboard/tambourine player and singer, as well), taking on a new class teaching doctors (one of whom calls himself 'Doogie') at a psychiatric hospital in a nearby hotsprings resort town, meeting up with Matt, Sean, and the new guy in town, Andy (he's from Liverpool), and pondering the inexplicable appearance of a framed picture of Ethan Hawke, taken directly out of Reality Bites, in my stairwell.

Hmm, that really is a quick glossing over. Perhaps I'll get into more details about all of the above items later, but right now I'm too hungry and tired to say much more. I promise to do better next time, and next time will come much sooner, too.

...and yet more adventures from Busan.

Last night was pure confusion, but before I get into that I should let you all know that I'm no longer sick. The cold has subsided and I think I must give credit to my Korean acquaintances who supplied me with a non-stop barrage of remedies such as bottles of vitamin C drink, chicken-ginseng soup (samga-tang), and a vile tasting murky brown/green liquid that I think was devised to eliminate any psychosomatic illnesses (if being sick means having to drink this, no one will pretend - Buckley's has nothing on this stuff). Regardless, it seemed to work, so I thank them.

So yes, the confusion...

I had intended originally on spending my five day Chusok holiday (I've heard it referred to as Korean Christmas as well as Korean Thanksgiving, but I'll just call it Chusok) just relaxing, not going anywhere at all. This was partly due to being sick last week, partly due to a lack of funds to go anywhere. This plan was forestalled by Han Tae and the rest of the band (Yong and Dong Un). They insisted we go to Busan to see live bands. Yong has a car, they would pay for food and we would drink little to nothing. Inexpensive and convenient. They made it clear I had no real choice in the matter, plus it sounded fine to me.

So, we all met up at about 5:30 last evening and made our way to Busan. One of the first things they told me was that they'd never driven to Busan before and weren't exactly sure how to get there. I didn't think much of that as I was fairly certain the highway would be easy to find and road signs would be fairly helpful. For the most part, that assumption turned out to be true. We got a bit lost once we entered Busan, but finding Busan itself was no problem.

There was confusion once we arrived in the city as we didn't know exactly how to get to the university area. I was no help at first. I only knew the train and subway. However, once we finally did encounter the subway line, I became the guide. It is a strange experience to be a Canadian guiding three Koreans around a Korean city. I managed to get us where we wanted to be and after some parking issues, which will have a role to play later in the story, found us a place to eat.

I had eaten at this place before. I had scallops and noodles there the night I met all those new people from a couple of postings ago. My Korean friends did the ordering, as was expected. The food was not what I expected. It was Korean BBQ, but along with the regular pork were thick slabs of pig skin and bits of cow intestine. I turned off the part of my mind that screamed, "Good lord! You're not eating that, are you?!" and ate it. Both were remarkably flavourless. The textures were odd. The skin was softish while the intestines were quite chewy.

Anyway, after dinner we made our way to Soultrane and found out there was a big thing going on involving three bars and a whole lot of bands. We bought the passes and made our way inside. It was a completely different crowd than usual and I saw none of the people I know there other than those who work at the bar. We watched a bit of one band there who covered the likes of Good Charlotte and Blink182 and got bored fairly quickly.

Next up was Moo Monk. I had been there once before on my first trip to Busan. We walked in during a set of a woman fronted rock band. It was the first time I had seen a female in a band here. The drummer was also female. They were pretty good. They did an almost dead on version of You Oughta Know. We left after their set and made our way to the third of the three bars we had passes to get into.

I had never been to this place before. It's called Queen. We were greeted by the sound of creepy organ music. This very quickly changed into full on head banging speed goth metal. It was great. The guitarists and singer all did the whole twirling of their long, straight hair thing. The drummer was amazing. Everybody but the keyboardist was extremely active in their headbanging. She just passively stood there and played her music with an intent look on her face. It made for a good contrast. Unfortunately, I was the only one of the four of us who enjoyed it, the other three just found it humorous and quickly wanted to leave.

We went back to Soultrane where we watched another band that covered some bland pseudo-punk and at midnight my bandmates wanted to call it a night and go home.

At this point, we had to find the car. At first, we had parked right next to the subway station, but when we got to the restaurant we were told that the car would likely be towed if it were left there. So, Yong and Dong Un went to go move the car. They came back shortly and it was forgotten about. But now we had to find it again, and they weren't sure where it was. We wandered around the general subway station area, stopped for some food and some coffee and after making many wrong turns and doubling back frequently, we finally found the car.

This doubling back thing turned out to be a theme for the rest of the night. I can't count the number of times we pulled a u-turn because nobody was sure where to go to get back home. All I know is that we were at various points in construction sites, on barren, narrow country roads, and we ended up at the same toll booth about five times. Eventually we got ourselves on the main highway and made our way towards Miryang. However, we missed some turn offs along the way, apparently, as we suddenly found ourselves in the province to the north of the one we usually find ourselves in. We passed through Gyeongju and eventually turned around in Daegu and found the highway that would take us to Miryang.

All in all, a trip that costs 3000\ (approximately $3) by train and takes 45 minutes ended up taking 4 hours and likely costing a hell of a lot more in gas money. But hey, it was an adventure for sure.

I slept late today, obviously. Have spent all of it just lounging around, other than getting some groceries. I still have 3 days off. Not sure what I'm going to do. I have literally no money left and don't get paid until next weekend (or possibly even next Monday), which seriously curtails my possible activity. I'm sure I'll come up with something, though.

Guy

Waiting for the drugs to kick in...

Well, I'm sick. This is my first, non-alcohol or head smashing induced illness in Korea. It's not fun. I'm completely stuffed up, but hopefully the incessant sneezing will take care of that soon. The director of my school brought me some medicine at the end of the day. I have no idea what it is. Two capsules of some sort and a pouch of something. The stuff in the pouch looked like food for miniature rabbits but tasted oddly like tea. As I said, I have no idea what it was, but I apologize in advance if this update becomes painfully incoherent as it starts to take effect.

The illness actually started on Friday night, a slight scratchiness in my throat. I went out with my fellow aliens that night, again had a great time. Leave it a guy who's been here for five years (Matt) to find to places in the city that have a good atmosphere. This time it was a very nice BBQ restaurant. The food was tasty, the side dishes were plentiful and varied and it was pretty cheap. After that we migrated to Blue Moon and ordered giant armour-plated jug of beer after giant armour-plated jug of beer. It was fun. After a few hours of merriment there, we still felt like enjoying ourselves and made our way down the block to a late night restaurant. It was there that I finally tried the infamous silkworm larvae of Korea. Mmm-mm, was it nasty, but I can now add silkworm larvae to the list that was started in Mexico with grasshoppers. After that, it was pretty late and everyone dispersed. I hung out with Laura, sitting around talking for a few more hours, finally got to bed by 4:30 am.

On Saturday, I felt awful. I slept late, my throat was worse (gee, I wonder how that happened, what with all the drinking and bar talking and staying up late). I decided early that I wasn't going to make it to Busan that night. I was wrong, but I'll get into that later. I hung out with Laura for a while, but we both were feeling pretty rotten so it didn't last long.

At 8:00 that night I decided that I needed to do something and I decided that I wasn't too late to make it down to Busan to see Astroboy's final show. I knew it was a bad idea, having already cancelled on Han Tae and informed my friends in Busan that I wouldn't be there as well as being very tired and increasingly sick, but I did it anyway. It proved to be an even stupider decision than originally estimated. When I got to Soultrane, I was quickly ignored by the friends that were there. Feeling a little odd and realizing that I still had a half hour or so before the show started, I went over to Crossroads. Again, I was mightily ignored by those I knew, with the exception of the people behind the bar, including Hyuk, the guitarist/singer for Astroboy. But he was busy getting ready and didn't have much time to talk. I had a beer, and made my way back to Soultrane for the show. The show was great. It's sad that it was the last.

Right before the show, Jonathan showed up and he was his usual friendly self. After the show he seemed to take in the situation of me being ignored and offered to take me to a different club where he was DJ-ing that night. I went. I did not have a good time. It was a typical dance club scene, which is not what I'm into. The only person I knew was very busy putting on the music. I got irritated quickly and fled after about an hour.

Fleeing was a strange decision as I was in a part of the city I didn't know at about 3:00 in the morning. The busses/subway weren't running and I had no more money for a room or a taxi to the train station. Being me, I used my map studying skills and walked to the train station. It took two hours. That was fine as it got me there right on time to catch the first train home.

I slept very deeply on Sunday. I still got up by noon and ended up spending the day with Laura and Alex. I finally got to see the places where other foreigners live in Milyang and I am very jealous. Laura's place is tiny, yes, but its clean, bug free, the ceiling doesn't leak and it has actual cupboards and drawers as well as laundry facilities. Alex's place is amazing. At home, her place might be considered slightly small, but it's not really. It was extremely nice. The colours chosen are soft and soothing, it has an air conditioner and private laundry facilities. It was a dream apartment, and by that I mean I would kill for it at home, not just here. Anyway, Sunday ended up as another very late night.

Monday was a long day. I started off feeling ill, but strangely got better as the day progressed. Tuesday was perfectly fine, health-wise. My throat was still a little sore, but seemed to be getting better. Han Tae took me out for lunch, a yummy bowl of dolsot bibimbap, and I also had spicy-ish chicken that was cooked with a combination of a grill and a hair dryer with Laura that night. It was good.

I slept great Tuesday night and woke up feeling wonderful today. Han Tae came by for lunch and brought along Yong, the other guitarist for our fledgling band, which we have decided to call Junior Panthers. Don't know if that name will stick, but we'll see. Anyway, all was going relatively well until I got to work. Gradually, I descended into this current state of abject illness.

Speaking of which, I am starting to feel the drugs coming on. I'm a bit loopy and can feel myself starting to float a bit. I should stop typing now.

Guy

We're not alone out here... I've been discovered by aliens.

Since making my last posting, where I predicted that this week would likely progress in a remarkably similar fashion to last week, things have changed significantly.

It turns out that I am not the only foreigner who lives in Milyang. In fact, there appear to be quite a few. I met four of them last night. One of them, Matt, has lived here for 5 years. He was randomly looking around for Milyang related stuff online and stumbled across this blog. In turn, he invited me to join him and his co-workers for beer last night.

It was a great time. He works with a guy named Sean, whom I had met once before at a bar (yet strangley neglected to mention it), and a girl named Laura who has been here about 6 weeks. As well, another lady by the name of Alex joined us, she's been here about six weeks as well. She works at a different school altogether. Matt's girlfriend, Ji Yeon, also came along. I am still a bit amazed that I haven't run into these people before, with the exception of Sean whom I had run into once.

Anyway, we all met at a place called Hof Village. I'd been there once before with James a while back. It has a big sign outside proclaiming it be a "Western Bar." We sat around, getting to know one another for a while, ordered some food, drank some beer. The food was fairly typical, but one part is worth mentioning. The menu called it turkey. Matt and Ji Yeon called it turkey. All of my senses called it ham. It looked like ham, it smelled like ham, it felt like ham, it even sounded like ham, but most importantly, it tasted like ham. Laura, Sean, Alex and I were assured that it was turkey. It came with a bone. A large leg bone. I really wish I could have taken it home and looked more closely at it to determine whether it was turkey or pig. You'd think it should be blantanly obvious, and well, it probably should be for a guy that took a faunal remains analysis course (which I have), but it wasn't. They took the bone away before I could grab it, so that opportunity was lost. Regardless, it tasted good with mustard.

After the Western Bar, we made our way to a place that is about a 30 second walk from my apartment. This place, called Sor, is absolutely amazing. It is so retro 60's-70's and in a very classy lounge kind of way. I love it. The booths are like little rooms with beaded curtain entrances. The lighting and walls give it the perfect atmosphere. In fact, I think it may be the first place I've been to in Korea with a real atmosphere to it. The owner, an interesting Korean guy who used to play guitar and now plays the drums due to a hand injury, has a rather large wall full of old records. He played us specially selected songs all night and sat at the table with us for long periods of time. We drank beer and lemon flavoured soju (very tasty) and talked about work, speaking Korean, music and many, many other things.

All in all, last night was probably the most comfortable I've felt in this city yet. Thank you Matt for contacting me. This isn't to say I haven't enjoyed my time with Edward or HanTae or James or Cathy, but this was the most comfortable yet. Everyone was so great.

I'll stop gushing now.

As said before, I'll be backin Busan again on Saturday to watch Astroboy's final show. Laura said she'd like to come along and Han Tae said he would, too, so it should be a blast.

That's all.

Guy

When exactly does night become morning?

Well, as promised, I went to Busan. I've actually been twice since I last posted. That sangria party I mentioned last time was actually this past weekend, not the one before as I previously thought, but no matter (I'm really not sure what it was all about, actually, as nobody was drinking sangria from what I could see and it just seemed like a rather typical Saturday night at the bar, but I'll talk about it more later). Fun was had on both trips, regardless.

The first of the two weekends was quite a lot of fun. Until I hit the bar on Saturday night, I had a bit of a running commentary going on in my notebook, so I'm going to just copy it here (it's so much easier that way) with maybe a few slight edits for the sake of grammar and the children (won't anybody think of the children!!!). Anyway, here it is (it will be followed by a report of this past weekends shenanigans):

Milyang Station

Everyone here looks so damned young. How old are those two girls? They could be 12. They could be 23. I have yet to guess anyones age right here. I think I'll just give up. Train will be here soon. Yay! Food when I get to Busan. Food makes me smile.

At a coffee shop near Pusan University

I really wish I lived here. There's so much going on. This area in particular is great. So many shops, restaurants, bars, and the people watching is absolutely fantastic. I also like how here, while I'm still considered a bit of a freak, the reaction is more subdued. It's more a sort of "Oh, look, another one" kind of attitude as opposed to the "Oh my god! Look at the Alien!!!" reaction I still get in Milyang, even after three months.

All I can think of to write about is girls right now. I like to think its just an interest of mine, along the same lines as my interests in music, beer, food, books, and art. I'm not even really looking at them in a lustful way, although I suppose it is always there, at least in the background. But I would consider myself more of an appreciator of beauty in its many forms than I would consider myself just some horndog guy looking for hot chicks, however I could just be putting a nicer sounding phrase on the same thing. But in a way, it is true. It's not like I feel the need to possess all these girls, just like I don't need to possess every nice piece of art I see. That said, I could sure use a good painting or two in my apartment to make it more appealing to live in. I'll just let that topic go for now. Miss you Debb!

So, how long should I stay here (the coffee shop, not Busan)? I'm not sure what else to do. It's still very early (mid afternoon) and I've decided that I have nothing I really need to do at all. If the music here was in any way decent I'd consider staying here for a few hours, but it's fucking terrible. Maybe I'll go looking for a good stationery store. They're always entertaining here and I need a few things anyway. Yeah, I'll go do that.

Comfy internet/coffee place, still near Pusan University

I like this place. The couches are really comfy and the internet is free. Sure the coffee is horrbly weak and highly overpriced, but it all balances out. If I can spend 3000\ on a bad cup of coffee but manage to stay here for a few hours, it's no waste. The stationery store was fruitful. I just can't enough of the great sayings and pictures on Korean notebooks. They're just so much fun. I had sushi for lunch. So good. I am satisfied and content right now. I've only been here a few hours and I can already call this trip a success. Next up is dinner and drinking. I found a Mexican restaurant I may go to for dinner, but I don't know if it will be worth it. I get the feeling Korean style Mexican food will leave something to be desired. Another option is Chinese. That spicy seafood soup Dave recommended to me sounds great. We'll see.

Mexican Restaurant

Well, here I am. It's expensive, that's for sure. The pictures on the menu look good, though, and the restaurant itself is very nice. A bit warm though. The music is interesting. I've now heard three songs: Flashdance, Ain't No Mountain, an a rather interesting 60's chamber pop song (and no, I actually have no idea what chamber pop is, but the phrase seems to fit so I'm keeping it). Oh... new song. The theme from Fame. Flashdance and Fame separated by two completely non-80's dance drama related songs. Interesting.

Ahh. It's much cooler by the window.

You know what? I'm really tired of eating alone. It's fairly rare that I take a meal with someone. Well, the nachos have arrived (cheapest thing on the menu). No company, though. I could ask the waiter to join me, but he seems otherwise occupied. As expected, fake cheese, but everything else looks good. There's even guacamole. Now the taste test... Hmm, not bad. The guac is decent and there are actual jalapenos. the salsa is a bit weak and I already mentioned the cheese.

Well, I thought the music mix couldn't get stranger, but it has. How does one follow Boney M and Donna Summer with Chris DeBerge? It's just not right. I have to get out of here. The nachos and the music are depressing me. Bar time.

So, the bar...

Well, I ended up staying at the bar for a good ten hours (actually, alternating between two, Crossroads and Soultrane, but they're across the street from each other and owned/staffed by the same people so they might as well be one place) . I drank, I talked about books and music, I danced until 5am. After that, I was pretty tired, so I caught a train home to Milyang and passed out.

The intervening week was pretty nondescript. The groupies have settled down a bit. They still gather about when they see me, but they seek me out less and are far quieter about it. As well as groupies though, I've discovered that one of the little girls in my kids class, Suzy, has a crush on me. Cathy said she thought so but I didn't believe her until I found a crayon picture on my desk of myself and Suzy surrounded by a heart (she labelled us both). She later made me put the picture in my daytimer. It's so cute.

Well, onto this most recent weekend, which was also a lot of fun. It started off inauspiciously, though. Everybody I was supposed to meet up with in Busan on Saturday cancelled on me (Han Tae cancelled earlier on Friday, Cathy cancelled that night, and Edward just didn't show up). None of my Busan friends were at the bar when I got there, either. I sat around by myself for a few hours, talking to the cute bartender girl (who's university major is German literature of all things), watching another bartender (who is also the bassist for Astroboy) do card tricks, and generally just doing nothing.

After a while of this, a very attractive Korean girl invited me to join her and her friends. I was startled, but quickly agreed. They were all very friendly and we all talked for a while. Her friends are very nice, and they were very drunk. After a bit, they decided they wanted to go for food and invited me along. We had tasty scallops and yummy soup and intoxicating soju. We talked a lot more, drank a whole bunch, then we finished the food and she and her friends left. I went back to Soultrane.

I was really drunk by this point and suddenly found myself alone again. I decided to dance away my frustration, but it was really crowded on the dance floor and nobody would let me actually dance with them (everyone turned their backs to me), so I just ended up more frustrated. I drank some more, then decided I needed some air.

I went outside, sat on the curb and put my head on my arms. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, really. Frustration and alcohol are never a good mix. Anyway, I was sitting like this for a while when I felt someone tap my head. I looked up and there was a girl, a fellow alien, standing there. She asks if I'm ok and I say I'm fine and she says ok and leaves. I figured that was the end of that and put my head back down. Moments later, though, she comes back with her friend and they ask me how to get to Crossroads. I take them there.

We get some beer, sit down, and chat. The girl who tapped my head is from Vancouver. Her name is Jocelyn. She's been here for almost exactly the same amount of time that I have. Her friend is from England and has been here for 9 months. Her name is Catherine. They're staying in Seoul and had come down to Busan for the weekend.

Catherine ended up leaving early (well, relatively as it was about 3:30am by this point). Jocelyn and I sat around drinking and talking, then this guy from New Zealand joins us. He's a little older than me, and has this intense, almost creepy way about him. He was nice enough though, a lot of fun to talk to. His name is Adam. We end up closing the bar down, but still wanted to go do stuff. The suggestion is made to find a karaoke room (nori-bang). Trying to figure out the controls at those places is difficult. We struggled mightily. After some fiddling and button pushing, a good time was eventually had by all.

It was light out when we emerged and I eventually stumbled back to Milyang for some much needed sleep.

Well, it's Monday night now. I'm going to assume that the rest of this week will go much the same as the others, but if not, I'll let you know. I'll most likely be back in Busan on the weekend as its Astroboy's final show (the singer/guitarist has to take his requisite 2 years in the army now). I don't want to miss that.

You'll hear from me soon, I'm sure.

Guy

I've got groupies. The doctor gave me an ointment, said it should clear up soon.

Well, first off, I'll apologize for taking so long to update stuff. My computer here has been fairly messed up for some time now and it finally died on the weekend. No one is quite sure why it died, but it did. However, they have quite generously replaced the dead one with a different, and much better computer. I am quite pleased, despite the loss of my files.

Keeping on the topic of computers, the ones from the school disappeared overnight (further increasing my gratitude towards them for putting a new one up in my room). It seems someone climbed in a window and took the two computer towers away, but nothing else. The printers, monitors, keyboards, a TV, Cathy's cellphone, and various other things of value were left untouched. Everybody is very confused. The police came by and everything.

Other than the computers disappearing, things school-wise have seemed to straighten themselves out. I have been absolutely guaranteed by the owner that the school will not close. As well, they have altered my pay schedule, telling me that this way they can promise to get me all my money on time, every time, which is good. They'll be adding the intervening days between when I was supposed to get paid and when I actually am to my total. To top off the good news about the school, I am very happy to be back to the regular schedule of starting at around 1:00 pm and finishing at 7:00 pm. The summer schedule was truly starting to wear on me (that and the extraordinary heat). The bad news concerning the school is that James quit about a week and a half ago, so its just me and Cathy running all the classes now. Strangely, though, things seem more organized than before.

In some entertaining news, I discovered on Monday that I seem to have developed groupies. I wouldn't say it if I wasn't absolutely certain about it. I'm not an ego type of guy, but these girls, all about 14-15 years old, are truly acting like groupies. When I go outside and they see me, they scream and run up to me to talk to me. As well, they hang around outside the school, looking in windows of classrooms I'm teaching in and waving to me. To top it all off, they actually squealed and yelled to me from across the street, "EEEEEEEEK! We love you Steve!" I am seriously not exaggerating any of this. They even bought me ice cream. I'm just not sure how to deal with this. Their numbers are growing, too. On Monday, there were just two of them. Yesterday, there were three. Today there was a whole pack of waving, giggling, and squealing teenage girls watching me teach. I am truly baffled by this phenomenon. It's distracting to say the least, but also pretty humorous. I'm sure they'll settle down soon enough. I'm no Beatle.

Speaking of which, I may be the first person ever to develop groupies, then start a band. Well, ok, I haven't truly started a band, but Han Tae (the only one of the guys from the TOEIC who still comes to class) and I have decided to start practicing songs together. He sings but plays no instrument, I play guitar but don't sing. Plus, we seem to have similar tastes in music, so it should all be good. I may even attempt to strengthen my ties to the people who run those bars I like in Pusan and eventually try to get us a gig there if we feel confident enough.

Speaking of Han Tae and the university class, I went out for beer with him and Chang Won on Sunday night. It was a lot of fun. They both want to meet all my friends and seem almost excited as I am that Debb will be coming out here this winter. As well, they want to come visit me in Canada next year sometime. On a slight side note regarding Han Tae, he gave me this packet of yellow powder the other day. It was apparently vitamin C, but really it was Fun Dip with out the candy stick. Healthy Fun Dip, how great is that? He also gave me a stick of nicotine gum, which I thought was very odd as he knows I don't smoke. But then again, chewing gum isn't smoking, is it?

So yes, it appears that since I mentioned feeling lonely and isolated on here, my social life has greatly improved. I've also been invited to a Sangria Party on Saturday in Pusan by the girl I had my great music talk with last time I was there, Remi (whose family name is Doh, which, when said in the proper Korean order of family name first, makes her name Do-Re-Mi, interestingly enough). I'm not sure what a Sangria Party entails other than drinking sangria, but I'm sure going to find out.

In more traditional Korean culture news, I watched some traditional dancing on Sunday. It was rather interesting, especially the audience participation. People, caught up in the drums and rhythm, would come out of the audience and join the dancers, sometimes taking their drum or horn away from them to play it themselves. There was also this tug-of-war type thing using a large rope ring with ropes extending off of it that people pulled in every direction, thus making the large ring not move. Eventually one side was declared the winner by a guy standing on the ring. Don't worry if you don't understand, I don't think I do either, and I watched it happen. Hopefully my pictures will turn out and I can help clarify it a bit for you
later.

Anyway, I'm doing a lot better since the last time I posted. I have started to get cravings for some home food, though. I still love Korean food, don't get me wrong, but a nice big slice of baked ham or a salmon steak or some real cheese or good beer that doesn't cost $6 a bottle or... ack, I should stop.

So yeah, I'll be in Pusan again on the weekend for that Sangria Party. I promise to post more often now that I have a computer again.

Guy

Aliens, Knights, Music Lovers, Love Motels, and Mormons

Right, Pusan. Ok.

Friday was not a good day. It started with some unexpected information that I won't get into here, but it did set the tone for the rest of the day. I got through my classes until noon, at which point a guy by the name of In Soh, who I had met only once before, came to meet me and accompany me to Pusan. In Soh is a good guy, about 20 years old, but not much fun to hang around with. He readily admitted to me that he wants to do things with me mostly to improve his English. That's fine, I guess, especially since he decided to pay for everything that day and was getting me a place to sleep that night. So, I spent a full day with him.

We got to Pusan and picked up my new ID card. I am now officially an alien according to Koreans. Let the probing begin. Anyway, after this In Soh had decided that a movie would be a good idea. That sounded alright. Unfortunately, the location was at a giant mall. I hate the mall, and this one was basically what you would get if you took Metrotown and stood it on end (tall, instead of long). I consoled myself with the thought that we were just there to see a movie, then we'd go somewhere else. How wrong I was. We went to get our movie tickets, only to discover that the only movie we could settle on to see, King Arthur (which I will discuss further), didn't start for another three hours. Meanwhile, In Soh's 13 year old cousin had joined us. We wandered around the mall for an hour or so, not really looking at anything, just wandering, then they decided they wanted to play video games. I did not. So, I found a seat in a corner and wrote/read stuff for an hour and a half. I realize that malls and consumerism are as much a part of Korean culture as ancient temples and soju, but I can experience it at home if I ever choose to. I didn't come across the ocean to go to the damned mall. I was starting to feel somewhat bitter when they found me and we prepared for the movie. By this I mean we purchased snacks (popcorn and soda, despite the availability of dried, roasted squid) and stood around for a while. We finally went in to the theatre itself about 10 minutes before the movie was to start.

King Arthur is a terrible movie. Extremely cheesy with bad acting and only a few moments of unintentional humour. It was really a brutally bad movie. The special effects were obvious, the story line attempted to incorporate new archaeological "facts" and failed, and it was too damned long.

Ok, I'm done that rant now.

We finally left the mall after the movie. I was exhausted and really hungry. Luckily, we were headed to In Soh's cousins house, where we would be staying. The family was extremely nice and made me feel very comfortable. They kept feeding me. First, a tasty meat dish with rice, which had me stuffed. Then, after popping in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a pizza arrived, specially ordered for the alien. I appreciated it, but was far too full. I managed to eat one piece, though, and smile graciously throughout. After the movie, the time came to pass out. Sleep came slowly though, and it was a short sleep as the entire household woke up and started moving loudly around at 6:00am.

Breakfast on Saturday was again provided by In Soh's Aunt. It was some sort of fried doughy substance sprinkled with cinnamon and dipped in honey. It was... chewy. After breakfast, In Soh's uncle dropped us off at Haeundae Beach, Korea's most popular beach. It was cloudy and threatening to rain, so it wasn't very populated that day. In Soh and I wandered back and forth along the beach for about two hours. We didn't say much, we didn't do much. It wasn't very exciting or very interesting. Then we decided to have lunch. I had my favourite, naeng-myun, which I seasoned well with tasty spicy things, much to In Soh's amazement and occasional protest. It was yummy. After lunch, In Soh went to the train station to go back to Milyang and I wandered about Pusan for a while.

I ended up back up by the university, where I spent most of my time on my last trip. I randomly looked around the area until I got hungry then found a place to eat. I looked at the menu, asked about a few things, and decided on a rice dish they recommended. It was simply bizarre. Not what I expected in the least. What it was was a pile of rice with a thick, dark brown sauce with chunks in it poured over top. It had a chocolatey taste and the chunks were potato and bits of pork. I was really hungry, so I ate it, but I won't be getting it again.

After that it was off to the bar. I hung around Soul Trane, one of the bars I went to last time, for a good while. Jonathan, one of the people I met last time, arrived and we talked for a bit then played some pool against a couple of ultra-competitive US army jerks. Jonathan and I, not very good at pool, managed to get them down to where we were battling for the 8 ball. They won, and were complete asses about it. More of them kept coming in, so we figured that it was time to change venues. We ended up at Crossroads, which I briefly visited before. I stayed much longer this time. I met a group of bitter English teachers who's only wish was to get home. They actually had countdowns to departure programmed into their cell phones so they could check how many months/days/hours/seconds until they got to go. I actually ended up sitting with them for some time. They weren't too bad, and they had their reasons for wanting to leave, I just thought it was a little excessive.

During my time with the bitter people, Jonathan had gone back to Soul Trane to meet some other people. As well, some bands played. They were fairly mediocre folksy stuff. Jonathan came back with his girlfriend and her best friend, Remi. Remi and got along really well and got into a really good music conversation. She got the bar to play some good, original Korean music, something I have been lamenting the lack of for some time.

It eventually came to light that I would not be able to sleep at Jonathan's place that night, as we had arranged earlier, due to the fact that it's a studio apartment and his girlfriend was coming over that night. Instead, he lent me some cash and set me up at a motel. This motel was completely unlike the one I stayed at last time. It was quite plainly a love motel. Right outside the elevator was a machine called the "Love Box" dispensing a variety of products. Inside the room there was red track lighting, a heart shaped headboard, strategically placed condoms, and the first channel the TV went to was porn. It was all rather humorous. I was pretty drunk, so I turned the TV back off and went to sleep.

The next morning, Sunday, I woke up, watched South Korea beat Mexico in Olympic soccer, then proceeded to get lost. I made the mistake of trusting my Lonely Planet map from three years ago and wandered far, far away from the subway. Thankfully, my general sense of direction helped me out and three hours later I found the subway again. I made my way to the fish market area and got myself some tasty sashimi done Korean style (meaning it was doused in hot stuff and mixed with rice and greens in a large bowl). I was satisfied with my food and my somewhat strange trip to Pusan. It was time to go back to Milyang.

Well, since then, not much has happened, other than my MP3 player breaking, which is actually pretty terrible. I need my music, but it will get fixed. It's Wednesday night now and I've spent the last three and a half days in a strange state of emotional flux. I'm up one hour or two and down the next. It's been weird. Actually, I've been like this more or less for the last two or three weeks, but its been more so this week. I think its a bit of homesickness, a sense of isolation, and knowing that a bigger, more entertaining city is out there with people I identify with, but I'm here and alone in this small city. I'm pretty sure I'll come to terms with things soon enough, plus I'll be doing more traveling soon, I hope. It'll all be good.

Oh yeah, I ran into Mormons today. They were hanging around outside the grocery store like kids at a 7-11. I was approached by one, and he asked me all the Heavenly Father questions. I expressed my lack of interest and he stopped bothering me. I really dislike the very idea of missionary work. Believe whatever you want, but don't try to tell people its the only way and that their way is wrong. It bugs me to no end. Such ignorant arrogance. I found it kind of interesting to run into them though, considering my last posting compared teaching English to missionary work.

That's all for now.

Guy

25: Converting the Masses

So, not much has happened in the past week and a half, thus the lack of updates. I've just been teaching my classes, which have been pretty uneventful, and going for walks or sitting at the computer. I sure know how to live it up!

I did go out on Saturday with Edward and a some new people he brought along. We had a tasty pork bone soup called gamja-tang and much soju. I think I've managed to adjust myself to soju as it didn't hit me very hard this time at all. Afterwards we all went out for beer and a good time was had by all.

My real reason for writing this today is that I got into a discussion today with Cathy about how we give all the Korean students English names. It's apparently a school rule to assign a new 'English-friendly' name to all students. I have been uneasy about this from the start as I know how attached to my own name I am (this despite the fact I am going by Steave here...). Anyway, my uneasiness about this has grown with the fact that many students are resistant to changing their names. I see this as not being a problem. We transcribe their proper Korean name into the Roman alphabet and I learn how to pronounce them, usually quite poorly. The discussion I had with Cathy was just that, a discussion, as we both agreed that changing someone's name against their will just isn't right. One student, who got named Fred, requested that I call him Dae Won from now on. I fully support him in that.

This discussion of name appropriation got me thinking even deeper on things, thoughts I'm sure have gone through almost every ESL teachers mind when abroad. Are we not just new missionaries spreading our words to the unconverted and thus, unknowledgeable? Is the Anglicisation of the world really an honourable goal? While it is true that many, maybe even most, Koreans seek out English, there are quite a few who only learn it because it is a required subject in school or because their parents force them to. As well, of those who seek it out, their primary motivation is to get a good paying job with a trading company. This would be logical if they traded mostly with English speaking companies but, quite rightly, Korea trades mostly with Japan and China. That said, Japanese and Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) are taught, but are not required learning or as actively sought out.

English here appears to be almost a national obsession. As I mentioned, it is required subject for all students, and most children and many adults seek outside schooling to reinforce those classes (thus, I have a job). I just wonder whether it is a symptom of the constant presence of American influence here since the Korean War or a true quest to gain knowledge of a foreign language. It's not so much that Koreans are so ardent in their pursuit of the English language, but that English seems to be the second or third language of choice worldwide while native English speakers are the least likely to bother learning another language. It just seems like arrogance to me, and its all nicely summed up in the "you should take on an English name because we don't want to try to learn how to pronounce your real one" attitude.

I am never one to criticize someone else for trying to gain more knowledge. I just am concerned that I may be an unintentional agent of cultural attack. I am one of those who believes that language plays a very integral role in cultural identity. From what I see of Korea, and admittedly it is not much yet, it is grasping very strongly onto American culture and quickly forgetting many things Korean. As of this point, the Korean language is still easily the most dominant, but with the huge number of active English language academies and the knowledge of English being demanded by schools, corporations and government, I kind of have to wonder how long things will remain this way.

Korean culture in no way appears to be weak, but the ubiquitous presence of Starbucks, McDonald's, English language academies and the fact that everyone here seems to have a brand new car and a cell phone leads me to wonder about later.

These really are just musings of an uninformed outsider, though. Most likely I am dead wrong and Koreans just grab what they like from western culture and ignore the rest, but at times it seems so pervasive that I can't help but think of myself as a new missionary, here to convert to "right" path.

***

Well, on a far less serious note, I just opened up a can of "Spicy Squids." I had bought it two weeks ago, but for some reason never opened it. They were tasty. I'll get them again. Really, how can one resist a label that says that?

That's all today. I go to Pusan again on Friday, so maybe more news this weekend.

Guy

24: Pusan

Pusan was so much fun. My train ride down was uneventful and quite quick. The scenery was pretty spectacular in spots. I can't wait to go on longer trips around the country! Once I arrived in Pusan, I very quickly took care of the ID card stuff I had to do there (still have to back in two weeks to pick it up), but then I was free to explore for as long as my money held out. Which wouldn't be long, really.

I set myself up for a night at a nice little hotel, or yeogwan as they're called here. It was cheap, clean and had air conditioning, a working TV, a private bathroom, a real shower with hot water, and appeared to be bug free. Thus, it was significantly more attractive than my apartment in Miryang which has none of the above amenities except cheapness and a private bathroom. I didn't spend much time in there, though, as I wanted to explore.

My first goal was to familiarize myself with the subway system. That was simple enough. What a great, clean, efficient system they have. It goes practically everywhere in city (which is huge), and is super cheap and easy to use. I especially like how certain stops have their own special song played as they announce the stop. I also liked how the subway cars were air conditioned. That's pretty sweet on a hot and humid day.

I took the subway to the Jagalchi/Nampo area in the south central area of town. It was full of stores and restaurants and such. Very much a shopping district. Also nearby was the Jagalchi fish market, which was, as the name implies, full of fish. I had decided upon leaving my hotel room that there was no way I could not look like a tourist, what with the Lonely Planet guide and camera, so I decided to go all out and be a tourist. I went up the Pusan Tower. It has a rather pretty park surrounding it and some ancient structure too, one of which contained the biggest bell I have ever seen. Anyway, the views from the tower were quite good and I got a really good idea of just how big this city is. I met a rather nice man named Peter, from Washington, DC, while up there. He was actually born in Korea, but his parents moved to the US when he was 6 or so. He speaks no Korean. He relayed to me how troublesome this can be. He looks Korean, so people assume he speaks it, and when he explains that he can't, they start to speak in Japanese to him. We talked for a good while about how we're enjoying it here and some of the little things that confuse of frustrate us, then he wandered off.

After this I hopped back on the subway and went up to the university area and wandered around there. That's a pretty hopping area. So much going on and so many people. I decided that it would be a good place to come back to that night for beer.

Before I did that though, I needed a nap. I was unbelievably tired. So, I made my way back to my room and passed out for 2-3 hours. I woke up hungry. I remembered seeing a sushi place up by the university, and that sounded good. Mmm, real sushi, with fish and such. I had been craving it for a good long time and now I would satisfy that craving. It was good. Not the best I've ever had, but certainly enough to dull the craving.

After that, it was time to search out a good place for beer. The Lonely Planet guided me to a place called Monk. It was a good place, and I happened to come in on a night where a band was playing. Sweet! They set up a few minutes after I arrived and as soon as the first chord was played I recognized it. Ends up they were an Alice in Chains cover band. They were really good. The singer managed to sound almost exactly like Layne Staley. I was impressed. Their set was pretty short though and the bar emptied out almost immediately afterwards. I had picked up an ad for a group of bars in the area though, and it had a map on the back. I decided to go to a place called Soul Trane. This was a good choice. As soon as I walked in I was welcomed by a pair of fellow North Americans, a girl from Toronto and a guy from Chicago. Their names are Tiffany and Jonathan, respectively. They were great. They introduced me to all their Korean friends, some of whom were in a punk cover band that would be playing later that night. Two bands in one night! Great! We sat and drank for a bit, Jonathan took me briefly over to another bar to meet some other people, then we came back to see the Astro Boys, as the punk band is called. They were amazing. They played a Ramones song, a bunch of Rancid, a Weezer song, and a Billy Joel song. Everything was done with great energy and the bass player was awesome.

I have criticized much of the music I've heard in Korea, and justifiably so. The stuff you hear everywhere is pure crap pop junk taken from the mould that American recording companies have created. But, after watching those two bands in Pusan, I see that there is hope for Korean music. Sure, they were cover bands, and yes they were still covering American music. But the energy they had and the skill with which they played their instruments and engaged the audience leads me to believe that it is only a matter of time before a true underground music scene develops here with original music being written and performed. For all I know, it already has and I haven't seen it yet. But I feel better about Korean music now.

Anyway, after the show I went back to my hotel. I missed the last subway (why does it stop running before midnight?) and had to take a taxi. It was pricier than expected, but nothing too exorbitant. I slept later than expected and woke up more hungover than expected, leading me to tally up my beer total from the night before. Turns out the hangover was not out of line. So, with my beer drinking and cab taking, my money was getting perilously low. But I still had enough to eat, do a couple of things, and catch my train back to Miryang (oh yeah, I finally have established the proper way to pronounce Miryang; it's Milyahng and should be spelled that way for stupid foreigners like me).

So, what to do? Well, first, I needed to eat. I went out for some naengmyun, which is cold, thin noodles in a broth of ice water and spices. It is sooooo good, especially on a hot day. After that, I decided that some mountain climbing was in order. Right in the middle of Pusan is a place called Kumgang Park. Its a massive mountainous park that used to be a fortress. It's completely surrounded by the city. Now, when I say mountains, I don't mean some hills that people have attached the word mountain to. These are true mountains, the tallest rising over 800m from sea level (and remember that Pusan is a port city, so is at sea level). The first part of the climb up was done by cable car. Its a great way to climb a mountain, for sure. It takes you the first 540m up, basically to the top of the first peak. According to the pamphlet I received, the cable car was built in 1967 and "is still receiving much love from residents of the city."

At the top of the cable car ride was a rather nice forest park area, which I think the pamphlet describes better than I can:

"The thick forest of pine trees at the top of the Mt. Kumjeong is the best rest place to make residents of the city feel naturally clean and at the same time becomes a field of natural learning to children."

Not being a resident of the city, I was exempt from this natural cleanliness and proceeded to explore the area, shamed by my foreign filth.

To say the park and the views from it were spectacular does not begin to do it justice. The old fortress that was built up there is an amazing thing in that they built a stone wall 17km around the tops of these mountains and some rather beautiful gates. I took many pictures which I hope to post eventually. My hike up the other mountains was long and exhausting and I ended up with a pretty nice sunburn, but it was worth it. The weathered granite rock formations jutting out of the mountain sides and surrounded by trees were simply awesome. The breeze at the peaks was extremely invigorating and the views completely astonished me. I love this place. I was hiking for a good 4 hours before I decided to make my way back down for some food. I never made it the top of the highest peak. As a matter of fact, I only made it about halfway through the park.

I was extremely sore and tired and dirty when I got to the bottom of the mountains and back into town. I forget what I ate, but I know I ate something then made my way back to the train station for the trek back to Miryang.

I love Pusan. There is still so much there that I want to explore, plus there is the potential for a much more active social life and the watching of live music. I'll be going back as often as I can.

Steave

23: Banned, concussed, and tortured through song.

Well, many things have happened since I reported in last time. For one, I found out why I was unable to view my blog. I guess the government of South Korea had placed a nation wide block on blogs of various sorts, so no one in the country was able to access them. Apparently, they've lifted the ban. Not sure what the reasoning behind it was, but I guess all is well now.

Anyway, other than that, I went out with Edward on Saturday. Not a group thing this time. We just happened to run into each other earlier in the day and decided to go for food and beer later. The food was chicken and ginseng soup. It was alright, a little bland, though. This is a very traditional summer food here. When it gets hot out, ginseng soup is the food of choice for most Koreans. Edward told me that the ginseng gives your body strength and helps mediate the effects of heat. This was good to hear as the temperature has been brutal lately. I know, its summer and its hot, that's how it works so I should stop complaining, but when the temperature hovers around 39C with 95% humidity for over a week complaining just becomes a part of life. Well, after food came a change of location and beer, as per usual. I spent Sunday cleaning and doing laundry while hungover.

On Monday we started our new schedules at work. I'd be teaching seven classes from 9:30am to 4:10pm with three 30-50 minute breaks scattered about in there. Not a bad schedule, really.

However, I ended up only teaching the first two of those seven and I don't remember much from the second one. You see, my first half hour break comes right after my first class and I used that to go upstairs and grab some stuff I forgot. I went to pick something up which had fallen on the floor under the window in my living room (I don't remember what it was), and stood up rather quickly, forgetting that the window is inset into the slanted wall and above me was a solid concrete overhang. I whacked the back of my head really hard, but after the initial pain I felt alright.

I went back downstairs to get ready for my second class, which is with a little boy by the name of Michael. As that class progressed, I started to feel very dizzy, weak, and sick to my stomach. I realized pretty much right away I had hit my head harder than originally thought and now had a concussion. By the time class was over, I could barely stand and just wanted to lie down and vomit.

There was no way I could possibly teach vocabulary to seven year olds, which was coming up immediately. This was recognized quickly by Cathy who told the director. She went to get James, the best of the English speakers, to find out what happened. I told them. It was in a scattered and confused way, but I know I was emphatic about the fact that I had hit my head. They offered the diagnoses of 1) food poisoning, 2) alcohol poisoning, and 3) heat stroke. I continued to insist that no, I ate no bad food, had no alcohol since Saturday, have been sitting in an air conditioned room all morning, and that I HIT MY HEAD. I wasn't rude about it, but they didn't seem to think that hitting my head could cause these symptoms.

Regardless, they were all very concerned and insisted they take me to the hospital. It sounded like a good idea to me, so everyone except Cathy, who had to stay and teach all the classes on her own, piled into a car and we went to the hospital. When I say everyone, I mean the director, James, and some lady who was sitting in the office with the director. I think it was her sister or sister-in-law, but I can't be sure. Once at the hospital I was shuffled about a bit, like at any hospital, then ended up on a gurney in the corner of a large room populated with various groaning people. Time had become meaningless, but I was feeling less horrible when a doctor arrived. He waggled some fingers in front of my eyes, asked me what happened, first in Korean, then English. I told him. He said to me, and I quote, "you have, I think... ear disease." I explained to him once more that I had hit my head on concrete. He nodded, then told me he wanted me to have a CT scan and to stay in the hospital for a week.

Now, I'm not generally one to argue with doctors, nor one to mess around with my health, but I thought both of these measures were a little excessive. I discussed this with James, in a still rather scattered way, and he agreed. The nurse then handed us the potential invoice. That sealed the deal. I would go home, no CT scan, no extended hospital stay. The doctor walked by at that point and James told him our decision. He waved and said he was going golfing, apparently. So, we up and left. At no point did they see my ID or anything, so I don't think I'll get billed, and no one else seemed overly concerned about doing this, so I just went along.

The got me up to my room and I sat there. I just stare at nothing for an endless period of time. I could think pretty clearly at this point, but couldn't read or eat and didn't want to move around or sleep. So I stared and listened to music.

Some time later, one of my students pops up out of nowhere. I was still sitting and staring and didn't notice him until he tapped something on the floor. I look over and there is Tom, an 11 year old boy, kneeling outside my bedroom door with a pack of AA batteries in his hand. He slides them across the floor without a word and then leaves as silently and abruptly as he had arrived. I decided to wait until later to think about how weird that was.

I eventually was able to read and started to feel remarkably better. My queasiness had turned to hunger, so I decide to get up and make some food. I got up, stepped on a package of batteries, confirming that that was not a concussion induced hallucination. Even now, two days later, it makes no sense to me. Why did he think I needed new batteries? Oh well. I felt even better after eating and spent a peaceful night at home punctuated only by James bringing me Tylenol and the director from the other academy next door bringing me a strange milky/icy concoction with red beans and marshmallows. I politely ate it despite its overpowering sweetness. It was a rather nice gesture, I thought.

Tuesday morning I felt pretty good, but once I actually had to concentrate on teaching, I felt ill again. I managed to get through the day, but I did fall asleep at my desk during one of my breaks and ended up sleeping through a class (Tom's, incidentally, denying me the chance to ask about the batteries). My fellow teachers decided that they shouldn't wake me up. I made sure to tell them that if it happened again the next day to kick me awake. I made it through the rest of the day alright. I was a little off and slow, but I got through it.

On Wednesday, I was perfectly fine. The whole day, I felt completely normal (well, as normal as I can feel, anyway). Classes went well and two of the guys from my TOEIC class (Chang-wan and Han-tai) invited me to go to a folk festival that night to see a play called Heaven and Hell. They told me it was a musical about Zeus and Pluto, so I went in expecting a classical-type Greek/Roman play with song and dance and performed in Korean.

Well, I was partially correct. There was much song and dance. It was performed in Korean. Other than that, it was nothing at all like what I was expecting. The music was absolutely awful. It was basically a Korean version of 'nSync and Christina Aguilera. There were many points where I found myself wishing death for either them or myself. It was that bad.

However, when they weren't singing, it was actually rather entertaining. The actors worked very well together and with the audience (it was partially interactive) and despite the language barrier, I could figure out what was going on, for the most part. There was some good physical humour and a very heavy dose of sexual innuendo.

The basic scenario of the play was your typical violin-playing-boy makes fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl mad, girl leaves, boy searches for girl, girl joins gang of toughs who wear leather pants or camouflage and falls in love with leader, and boy challenges entire gang to dance competition which ends in a draw. At this point it got really bizarre and began to involve Zeus (which was pronounced more like Zaius, as in Dr.), Diana, Thera, Cupid, and some other gods I didn't get the names of. They danced provocatively with each other, then with the gang of toughs, then with the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl who had shed her fluffy pink dress in favour of tight jeans and a sparkly mid-riff revealing top (which I think was meant to signify her loss of innocence since joining the gang of toughs). At one point Zeus ends up dancing alone with Cupid while making buzzing noises. Cupid then rips his clothes off leaving him wearing a mesh shirt, wings, and a golden thong. He jumps and dances around the stage, Cupid leaves and the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl-who-lost-her-innocence-and-now- wears-tight-jeans-and-shows-off-her-belly-button comes back out to dance with him. There has been no sign of our violin-playing-boy for over an hour, but the gang of toughs comes back and challenges the gods to a dance competition. This also appears to end inconclusively. Finally, the violin-playing-boy returns. The girl has changed back into her fluffy pink dress and bids a fond farewell to the gang, especially her nemesis, a girl with an attitude and very tight leather pants. Everyone seems genuinely happy that the boy and girl are reunited, however the girl ends up wearing wings and on a ladder above everyone, which I took to signify that she was dead. However, everyone, including the violin-playing-boy, are still quite happy. The show ends with more insipid pop music. I left the show very confused.

My conclusions about the meaning of this performance are that girls who wear leather pants and boys who wear black and ride motorcycles are of the devil, but can be redeemed through bad pop music and the influence of girls in fluffy pink dresses. As well, to be good, you must wear either pink or white, but you can still dance all sexy-like. Oh yeah, and its ok to wear only a thong and wings. Zeus said so.

Aside from the show, I had a good time just hanging around Han-Tai, Chang-wan and their friends. I learned that they are in a band, and Chang-wan apparently has a fanclub, which may explain his propensity for pick up lines.

So, yeah, that's my past few days. Tomorrow morning I catch train to Pusan to get my residence permit card and explore a bit. I'll let you know how that went later.

Steave

22: What is it?

Well, the wet season continues. It doesn't rain very often at all, although when it does it's an absolute downpour. Still, all remains in a constantly damp state. This dampness is quite clearly a combination of extremely high humidity and excessive perspiration. It makes hanging ones clothes to dry a three day enterprise, despite the intense heat. My fan has been rendered useless as it now just blows hot, wet air at me. However, to look on the bright side of things, this weather appears to have two favourable aspects. For one, the mosquitoes appear to despise it more than I do and have failed to appear for a number of days. Now that I've said that, though, I'm sure they'll come back in force. The other benefit is that for about five to ten seconds after turning on the tap after getting home from work, I have hot water! Not that I want a hot shower or anything, but its nice to not have to boil water to wash the dishes. This discovery has led me to question the source of my water. I've deduced that the water storage is on the roof, thus the heating during the day and the large cistern sitting up there. So, is my water rain water? Or does it come from the water treatment plant I've heard so much about? I don't know. But it is at least pumped to the roof, if it does not fall there, where lately it gets well heated by this steaming country.

It was in this palpably hot, damp air that all of the kids (every class except the TOEIC class and the 15 year old girl) and teachers went out on a field trip today. We went down to the river, pretty much the same place I took the the TOEIC class last week. It was interesting in that it seemed an awful lot like they were taking me on a field trip as well as the other way around. They showed me things, told me what they were in Korean, and I told them what they were in English. All in all, I didn't serve that much of a real purpose on the trip as James and Cathy (who varies the spelling of her name between 'K' and 'C') translated the English words for them so they understood them more quickly, and then proceeded to help them with pronunciation too. I really felt more like a participant today, not a teacher. As for the heat, it is good to know that this heat is not normal, as everybody was uncomfortable and commenting on how hot it was, not just the weakling foreigner.

Before the field trip today, I had a rather entertaining TOEIC class. I think I mentioned before that I'm alternating every Friday between field trips and music study. Well, this week was music study. I had a request last time for something a little heavier (I played the Cure last time), and specifically for Skid Row. Now, I don't have any Skid Row on my mp3 player, nor do I ever intend to. But, I wanted to find something that would appeal to them. So, I thought about it and decided on Epic by Faith No More. Half the class liked the song, the other half didn't. Two of the guys only like lighter stuff and one guy wanted really heavy music. Next time, I play two songs, a soft-ish one by a band I haven't determined yet and one heavy song, maybe something by Kittie. Anyway, after we discussed what we thought of the song musically, we moved on to the lyrics. After explaining what slang was and definining such words/phrases as 'groovy', 'outta sight', and 'knock you off your feet' we began to discuss what the song meant. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so their homework assignment is to tell me in English their opinion of what the answer is to the question, "What is it?" And I stressed that "it's it" is not what I'm looking for. And to be fair, as those lyrics are so vague, I promised them I would come in with an interpretation as well.

My TOEIC class is so very easily my most entertaining. Just getting to sit around talking about stuff and have it called teaching is great. The week, up until today's class, was spent working on their skills in giving directions and describing people and places. I had them describe me, and was told by Chang-won that I have sexy lips. Obviously, I haven't broken him of his pick-up line habit yet. Still, they're my best class. I really like how they're willing to try to explain things to me even if they have no idea how. It makes classes go by so much better than those with my more reluctant students.

Well, on a completely different subject, I went on a bit of a walking adventure a few nights ago. I figured I'd spend the hour or so after work but before dark wandering around taking pictures. I ended up in a part of town I'd never been before, then I went around a corner and realized I was no longer actually in town at all. I walked along this farm road behind the hill that the temple in what I thought was the middle of town is on, knowing that it would lead me back in the general direction of home. It did just that, but once I'd gotten around the hill I noticed that the water level in the river had risen considerably and the road was washed out the rest of the way. It was really starting to get dark at this point and it was a long way back if I went around on the unlit road I had come in on which, incidentally, was also infested with rather large spiders. My only other option was to go over the hill. The hill is steep. The paths are narrow, windy and and at points slippery. Darkness was truly my enemy at this point. I decided that the quick route over the hill was the best route (really, any route that avoids large spiders is a good choice)in order to take advantage of the little bit of light left. I scrambled and slipped my way unscathed to the other side and got home with what I hope will be some good pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I do have some to share with you. The nature-ish ones are from my hike up to the Buddhist temple as recorded in Korean Dispatch #5. The social scenes are from 20: Can't come up with a clever title this time, sorry.

Well, here they are:


this is actually a house just across the street from the school


this is a Buddhist temple at the bottom of the mountain


and this is some bamboo part of the way up the mountain.

Debb did all the borders for these ones. It's kind of funny, really, to think that I had to take these pictures and develop them in Korea, but I sent them to Canada to be scanned in, then they got sent back to me in digital form to be posted here so people in Canada and elsewhere can see them.

These next shots were all taken by Edward at our last outing:


Cathy on the left, and two new people whose names I sadly don't remember. I do remember that the girl on the right is Cathy's friend from Pusan, though.


Me (with glowing redeye), Chu-Myun, Cathy and one of the two girls from the previous photo whose name I can't recall. She came in with Chu-Myun, though.


Peter on the right, and yet another person whose name eludes me. In my defence, I was introduced to many people that night and that was two weeks ago. Haven't seen any of them since (except Cathy, who I work with) to help drill their names into my head. You're lucky I remember the ones I do.


and this is me with the girls from the previous pictures.


at the Blue Moon bar, at the end of the evening. Note the elaborate fruit plate.

So, yes. You are now up to date, and have some pictures. As I get more pictures from Debb, I'll post them for you all. Have a lovely time.

Steave

21: Pick up lines, dragonflies, and a twist. And can I get that to go?

Hello all!
 
This past week has yet again been a quick one, but with an interesting twist at the end. I'll get to that in a bit.
 
My classes went fairly well. My favourite class is the TOEIC one with the university students. They actually seem like they want to be there for the most part, which is nice. They're picking up English phrases pretty quickly and I think they are now able to introduce themselves to people in English. My next goal is make those introductions not sound like a personals ad. Here's an example from earlier this week, "Hello, my name is Chang-wan. I'm 24 years old and I like walks along the river and hiking through the beautiful mountains." Actually, and this may just be my twisted mind, but I find that almost anything they say in an introduction sounds remarkably like some sort of pick up line. Another example, this time from the middle of an introductory conversation but again from Chang-wan, "Do you like to walk in the rain? I'd like you to visit my house." There are many examples of this, but I'll let it go for now. However, when they aren't sounding like they want to pick you up, they sound extremely formal, using phrases like, "Good evening, how do you do?" and "I would be honored for you to accept my invitation to dinner tomorrow evening." I really need to work on getting them to sound more casual, but I guess that will come with time.
 
The other classes all are sticking to their patterns of studious 11 year old boys, a reluctant 15 year old girl, and children bringing large, live insects to class. Things will change a bit next week though, as I'm told that every Friday will now be field trip day. I had my first field trip yesterday, and it was with the university students. We walked along the river, talked about hiking and music. It was fun. There were dragonflies everywhere. I've never seen so many of them.  But the field trips with that class will be every second Friday. Its the kids class I'll have to take out every Friday from now on. That has me very nervous as I often have a hard time controlling them in class. I can see them just wandering off or making me look like a complete ass somehow. I may in fact be a complete ass sometimes, but I don't actually want to look like one. One other schedule change is that I will be staying at the school until 7:30 each evening. They didn't tell what the reason was, just that I will be. So, anyone who was looking forward to talking to me on messenger in the wee hours of the morning (aka, Debb), you'll now have to stay up even later or just wait until the next day before I go to work.
 
So, that was my week for the most part. Now for the twist. After I was told about the schedule changes and field trips I was told another tidbit of information. Apparently if the school doesn't double its enrollment by the end of August, they're going to close it down. Now, before you get upset or worried, fear not, things are being taken care of. Should this school closure come to pass, I will simply (?) be placed at another school, likely in another city. This isn't that big a deal for me. I'm adaptable. Plus this will give me a greater exposure to Korea in general and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm fine with staying if the school stays open, but the thought of moving is pretty exciting to the truth. And starting anew somewhere else means I'll get my name back! Yay!
 
An now we are again caught up. Until next time,
 
Steave