The Bowling Times News

Lately it seems that bowling has become an alternative to going out drinking. We have good fun doing it and between the competitive ones a bit of cash exchanges hands. My friend Teddy owns bar Bliss (our local watering hole) and he has also started to join us for some games. Unfortunately for him his game is way behind the rest of us so he wanted some pointers to help him catch up to the rest of the crew. He called me this afternoon and I met him for a couple of hours. If you continue to read below he put a little write up about our afternoon on the facebook homepage for his bar. Here is what took place (according to Ted):

Breaking News
By Bull Shitter , AP sport writer

All time top Seed bowler, Cameron Metcalf, from Canada was beaten by a rookie, Ted Park, from Republic Of Korea in Hannam bowling center this afternoon. This is the biggest upset in Korean bowling history. The winner, Ted Park, tried to be humble but he could not conceal his glee meanwhile the loser, Cameron Metcalf, tried to be cool but he could not conceal his anger and decided not to play against him anymore. He knows very well he will only lose face whatever the result is. This is saddest year for Cameron. For him the year is still too long to end.

***What Ted fails to mention is that one game I bowled a score of 201 and this obviously tired my arm out. Not to mention the fact I skied all night the previous night getting home at 7 am and waking up at 11:30 this morning. yes I am making excuses. Had this been a three game series I would of been the winner. Had this been a 5 game series I would have been a winner. Sadly I agreed to a two hour window of games and in his old age he out foxed me for the victory. Now I have to put up with his bragging for the rest of my stay here or until I stop going to his bar. In my bitter mood boycotting Bliss is a possibility (obviously starting after New Year's Eve.)

Night Skiing

If I have a little drink in me I will agree to almost anything. This time on Christmas Eve I agreed to join ChanYoung for some midnight skiing. Thankfully I am on holiday because the bus leaves Sadang Station at nine o'clock, you arrive just before midnight to rent your skis and then you go crazy for a few hours of cold skiing before heading back to Seoul at 5 am. It should be a good time but my body will hate me tomorrow as I have a bunch of running around planned for the day.


Our Midnight arrival. You then go through all the credit cards you own and figure out which one gives you the biggest discount before using Saejin's who wasn't even there. What I love about Korea is that for a simple ten bucks you can rent a ski jacket and pants to use for the night which makes jean skiers even more of outcasts than the ones in Canada.


Ready to help the snowboarders tackle the baby hill.


Chan Young buckling up.


Heading up to the bigger baby hill. Vivaldi park had some tough trails but they weren't open at night. I'm crap at skiing but wanted off the beginner run so I had fun convincing beginner snowboarders they could handle the mid range slope. It was fun standing at the top and watching Chan Young fall every twenty metres before skiing down with a straight face to make sure he wasn't sporting a broken limb.


Chul Gyu picked up snowboarding quickly and next time we go I will make him try the harder runs with me.

We had a good night and I will look into doing it again during my week long vacation at the start of February.

Staff Christmas Party

Last night (December 23rd) the school went out for Christmas dinner. We started the afternoon off bowling. We were split into four teams of three where Mr. Oh made a rule that the three losing teams had to each buy a round of drinks later in the night. Trouble here is that in Korea "a round" of drinks is multiple drinks in one bar, the next round means more drinks but in a new location. My team was made up of the English department and we stunk. We lost bad.

Over a dinner of stuffed roasted duck I did my best to refute each and every drink offered to me. The rest of the staff drank way more than I have ever seen any of them drink. The principal never drinks and so when he got up to leave he echoed what MR Oh had been saying that nobody was to leave until all four rounds were done. There is an unwritten law that you should all stick together so once the principal was gone and I saw the other "non drinking" teachers start tipping back soju I knew I was stuck going out.

It turned into a good night predictably ending in lots of drink for some and some good dancing fun in a singing room. Today I feel alright just a tad sleepy but luckily I made up a story while out drinking about having to make a potato salad for our Christmas Eve party so the vice principal gave me permission to leave the school right after lunch.

Visa Issues

This latest contract has been a pain in the ass to get confirmed by immigration. After four months of waiting, a lot of bureaucratic door slamming, missing and wrong papers coming from the RCMP, it was the Winnipeg Police who came through with seeing my ID and printing out one simple paper from their computer. Thanks to my aunt and cousin in Winnipeg I can now almost 99.9 percent confirm I will be given my proper Visa instead of this four month long temporary one. Thankfully this is my last year here and I won't have to deal with this problem again. (This being said until I have the right stamp done I'm still leery.)

Don's Birthday

The last Friday of November we all got together for Don's birthday. We started the night off with a mountain of meat from platter choice at a Greek restaurant before heading to do some Karaoke at Bliss fueled by lake of beer. We finished the night off at Soho with a river of shots to make us dance. Don had fun but we all predictably felt like crap the next day. It had been a longtime since we went wild like that and I have now turned into one of those thirty somethings who complains about not being able to drink like I used to.

The miracle of floor heating

The problem with my latest apartment is that it doesn't have a dryer. I have to hang my clothes and it can take a full 24 hours for things to dry. When it comes to washing the bedding it can take longer but now that it's winter the drying times can be cut in half using the floors. As I type, almost every open inch of flooring has a wet blanket on it and hopefully by the time I head off for a friend's going away party things will be dry.

Long time no post.

For the last month I have been terrible at updating. No real reason and it's not that I haven't been up to much because I have. I just kind of let things get backed up and have been lazy about signing in. On Thursday night Heidi called me from Texas around 11:30 pm and she asked if I was alive because I have forgotten to reply to her emails. This reminder put in my head I should be posting more. Anyway, it was amazing hearing from her again and we ended up chatting for nearly two and a half hours about everything, nothing and covered every detail about her up coming wedding (the donkey and sombrero being the best wedding option ever.) She also sent me a picture of her wedding dress and she will look amazing walking out on the beach.

I badly want to go to the wedding but it is in Mexico and a package deal that you can only get from Canada or the States. For me it means paying nearly double the price because I have to first get to North America before heading off to Mexico. (If anyone knows the upcoming numbers on the lottery and feels like passing them on to me I think I can come up with the money.)

The only trouble with Heidi's phone call was that
1: It was late.
2: Heidi's hello had undertones to them that invited me to get up, open the fridge and start drinking.
3: Being a two and a half hour chat this led to too many late night beer on a school night.
4: I ended up sleeping in by twenty minutes and was a tad late for school.

Cirque de Soleil

This past Wednesday Saejin and I went to the Olympic Stadium in search of the big top and Cirque du Soleil performance of Alegria. I have always wanted to see a show by Cirque du Soleil and so forked out a good chunk of change to sit right up near the front. It was definitely well worth it. I enjoyed almost every performance and the singer and music that went along with the show were fantastic. I am so tempted to break into the tent to play around on the trampolines, trapezes and swinging ropes one of these nights. What I won't be doing anytime soon (or ever) is folding my body in half. It's wrong. This part of the show left me feeling very, very frightened as body parts moved into places (I assume) you only see in photos of car crashes.

The Evolution of Dance

Heidi sent me this link some time ago and because it was a forward en mass I took my time getting round to watching it. I finally did put in the six minutes this week and loved the whole thing. Seeing as today is Rachel Lynn's birthday I thought I'd post it in honour of her dancing skills.

Where's Uranus?

Wednesday afternoon all the Elementary Schools in Gwangmyeong converged on an outdoor park and set up tents to have an English Festival. Each school had to come up with a mini lesson to teach to kids as they wandered around using their English in hopes of getting some candy. I know it cost the school board a good chunk of change and I'm not 100 percent sure of the effectiveness of this but the kids that did come had fun. This is what I love about Korea, kids will actually stick around and practice their English on foreigners instead of running off ten minutes after the opening ceremony to hang out in front of convenience stores scaring old people.

Our tent was a space themed tent where kids had to give directions. We first played a game of Simon Says to go over turning left, right and going straight. The kids then had to come up to our map of the universe, select a piece of paper from a box and then guide their rocket ship using the target language to the planet their paper told them to go. I of course had to suppress my third grade chuckles each and every time I was given a slip of paper where I had to ask, "Where's Uranus?" Good times.

Halloween

I love Halloween even though I have long stopped dressing up for it. I have been building the day up for my kids this last week and almost 80 percent of the school (it's a small school) came with make-up or a mask on to get some "Canadian Candy" today at lunch. To make it fit the curriculum more, when they came into the classroom I made them sing an English song to get their fatty calories from me. It was good fun but not as much fun as I will have tonight.

Saejin and I are meeting up for dinner but unbeknownst to him, Chan Yeong is joining us too and he told me he will be in Halloween spirit (he owns a bar here) he will be dressed up in a Wonder Woman outfit. Seeing as Saejin ran away from Heidi and Rachel Lynn when they were all decked out in wigs and fishnet stockings on for Saint Patrick's Day a few years back I can't wait to see what he will do tonight. Good times.

Vivaldi weekend

Three weeks ago Saejin, Tony, Don, Joon and I took advantage of the long weekend and headed out of town bright and early (we left Tony's place at seven am to avoid traffic). We headed East of the city heading to Vivaldi Resort where there is a ski hill, hiking and a giant Water park.


Being much too early to check in we decided to get sporty with dance offs,


Air hockey,


and a ping pong tourney.


From here we headed up to the top of the hill to check out the views.



Joon did all the shopping for us so we had bags full of goodies to take up to the room and more cases of beer than make logical sense for a two night excursion (we ended up lugging half of it back down when we went home.) Somehow we managed to get it all up there in a single trip and took in the view from the balcony.


While others took an afternoon nap Saejin and i went for a mini hike up one of the trails and had a drink at one of the outdoor cafes.




Joon met us a bit later and we went to check out the water park that we were going to the next day. Ocean World was a blast. The slides weren't the best I have been on but their wave pool is amazing. You have to wear a lifejacket for this one because every five minutes a single giant sized wave spills out to eerie music carrying you away.


We went back to the room and tried to put a dent in the beer. Once we had a good belly full we headed out for the evenings fun. An hour of singing.


A couple of games of bowling.


And back in time for an outdoor barbecue.


The next day we had a lie in, hit Ocean World and Sauna before going out to eat some more Korean goodness. A good time was had by all and we may try returning sometime this winter to try out the ski hill.

Cough, Hack, Sniffle, Snort.

The fall here has been long, warm and the perfect breading grounds for giant, hungry mosquitoes. (I hadn't really noticed them until Seajin went off to Singapore for a few days and because they tend to ignore my blood when other options are available I suddenly became popular and woke up with a head spotted like a fourteen year old.) the week thought the weather has suddenly moved into it's late fall stage being a wet, cold mess that reminds people that they own jackets.

It has also brought on a rash of maladies and because parents in Korea will send a kid to school as long as they can walk, it seems that everyone around has a cough or a sniffle. I was feeling rough from Wednesday to Friday and while teaching my sixth graders there was a point early in the class right after I coughed into my armpit the rest of the class picked up on their own need to spread germs. It was interrupting the reading we were doing so I stopped and made everyone cover their mouths (Korean kids aren't taught this) and gave them permisson to hack away. They obediently responded and I then made a new rule that the next person to cough, hack, sniffle or snort would be sent out. Unfortunately for me the kids were listening and when I next sniffled they quickly called me out. I hate hypocrites so I bowed my head and took the next couple of minutes staring into the class through the big double glass doors.

Test day

Every so often a test day pops up on the schedual. For the kids it means having four periods of tests in the morning and the afternoons off to relax. For the other teachers it means a dreaded day of checking out the kids results as our school has some of the lowest scoring kids in all of Gwangmeyong. The teachers feel the stress but when they bring up the grades to the parents they tend to not care, our school is one of the only ones in Korea where parents are more concerned with kids enjoying their Elementary School life rather than turning them into studybots. For me the day is a beautiful break from the norm, it means a day to:

a...catch up on movies
b...watch some hockey on the huge touch screen in class
c...read
d...nap at my desk

In my opinion this is the best way to make a wage.

A New Law

Driving has and never will be my strong point (ask the garage door I backed into to validate this statement). What I am good at is back seat driving. No matter how unappreciated this valuable skill is I still freely give it. I am proud of my sense of direction, take me somewhere once and 97 percent of the time (I've done the math) I can navigate my way back. Unfortunately for me when I see a GPS mounted on a car's dashboard I'm left feeling redundant. These things in theory are amazing and they turn driving into the ultimate video game. Windows pop up when you near a new task, distances count down and the estimated time shown gives you a goal to beat. When you add in a warning voice that wisely champions you along with charm suddenly you have made driving fun. It really is a fool proof system.

That is until you enter humans into the equation and getting lost three times today I should blame the principal at the wheel but he isn't alone. Sadly I have now been in cars having to reroute mid drive more times than I want to admit. Sure, I should of done more than willing the drivers to turn with mind control and hidden arm restures to point out the drivers blindness/deafness but I believe in these GPS'. So seeing as I just watched the last American debate I want to talk presidential for a moment and put forth a new law. I propose that before anyone is sold one of these gizmos they must climb into a booth where they prove they understand how the f'ing things work.

One of the (many) pitfalls of being Canadian

When I came over to Korea I had the whole Canadiana thing down. I had a flag on my backpack (removed quickly and quietly after arriving), loved beer and followed hockey scores as closely as I could. It was much harder back then but has improved with companies realising the Internet is our friend.

Four years ago, I got highlights from TSN. Three years ago I could find the torrents and if I successfully avoided scores it was like watching live. Last year I found some illegal sites that let you watch live but this meant some fuzzy, jumpy action but when you needed a fix it was all good. This year I am in heaven. I just bought a years subscription to the NHL Gamecentre Live and this let's me see any game being televised live with perfect sound and little to no buffering. To make the day even more orgasmic I can watch four games at a time and click over to the ones where good stuff is happening. Completely over the top but I can live with this and I did.

I took advantage of a morning with a couple of spares and caught most of the Calgary game. Unfortunately lunch made me miss all but the last three minutes of the third period and when I got home tonight to check out the highlights I see that TSN (because they televised it) now has the full game minus commercials on demand. (The hockey gods are real!) In their honour I bought a beer and am now watching all the fun. Life is good.

To end this giant piece of Canada, I have to bring up a subject only Canadians will understand and talk about. The hockey song on TSN is wrong. It doesn't belong on any other network than our beloved CBC. What makes it worse is that TSN are seriously addicted to it and have abused its history by using it way too much. It is to be used on a Saturday only and then just at the beginning of the game. OK, I'm done I have to get back to the Flames first win.

Canadian Election

Great little video that helps explain the boring and very unnecessary Canadian election.

The Daily Show

Half my family is American and I do honestly love America. What I don't like are the political choices that have been made (and given) over the last eight years. A TV staple of mine is The Daily Show and I just watched Jon Stewart sum up the last couple of election choices by pointing how the Conservatives win. They smugly win by saying:

"You know, I'm from a small town and we've got good values and anybody else who isn't in it. (Head tilt for angry Jon to take over) Stop pretending like a small town is any different than New York City. You know what New York City is, it's a small town stuck together in one building. I'm very angry."

And you are right Jon. Small towns hide their social problems and pretend (because of scale) that all is good and nowhere near what the evil cities vices offer but come on shake your heads middle America people all over are the same. I hope beyond hope that Obama actually wins because while I don't hate McCain (if he can be his old self) his running mate as interviews have shown is a moron. America and the World deserves better.

Ajuma Life

Exhausted from the day in the sun I got to school with a less than stellar work ethic. This funk lasted until one minute into my first class when the third grade teacher told me we all had the afternoon off. It was just the pick me up I needed.

I took advantage of the afternoon off and walked home instead of taking the subway. While checking out some of the backstreets I can across these two ajumas lugging huge bags of red peppers through town. I'm glad tomorrow is the start of the long weekend and a car full of us are headed out to Daemyung Resort for some R and R.

The scorekeeper

Today was sports day at school and I was given the all important role of manning the scoreboard quickly popping up points whenever a blue or white flag was raised at the end of a game. Sounds easy except the teachers forgot to raise said flags.

This forced me into a state of attention (most of the time) but whenever it came to the kindies, 1st and 2nd graders' games it was next to impossible to tell who had won because the kids didn't care who won. They used the final whistle to simply jump around and scream as kids are wont to do. When the third and fourth graders (who all suffer from horrible attention spans) did battle their games proved to be much too long and tended to end with a mob of kids chasing each other all over school yard recreating K-1 fights. As the scorekeeper, the real pressure came from the oldest kids and their set of eyes followed each and every point that graced the board.

It was a perfect fall day in a blue sky, cool breeze, round sun sort of way. The only imperfection in my day came from having only one side of my face catching the suns rays. This has me with a great new look, skittle red on the left and toothpaste white owning the right. As for the score the blue team made a miraculous come back in the final relay race and forced a draw of 600 points each.

Jujubes and chestnuts

No classes today as the kids are outside doing a dress rehearsal for their sports day on Wednesday. With today being a write off, Wednesday all planned for and Friday being part of a long weekend this week should fly by. My co teacher and I went outside to putter around and the Principal soon took us off on a tour of the garden. He started out the tour doing his best old man taekwondo kicks against a Chestnut tree and quickly made it clear I was to take over. After a nice workout chestnuts started hailing down on us. He handed me my share of the grub and we then headed off to the jujube trees at the back of the yard. Most of the jujube on the tree weren't even close to being ripe but the principal waded into the spider infested trees and picked us off some to sample. This was my first time trying them off the tree and I recommend them to anybody. Here are some pictures I took the other day of the school yard.


The principal doing some gardening in his suit.


The little pond where most of school trees are.


Required Admiral Lee statue.


The principal used his trusty, rusty chainsaw and made a whole bunch of totems himself.


One of the many spiders in the garden.

Eve and Leoni's BBQ

Over the Chuseok weekend Eve and Leoni had a bunch of us over for a barbecue. It was a laid back affair with wine, meat and bananas wrapped in bacon. Thanks to chefs Raymond and Leoni I got to find a nice patch on the deck to sit back and relax.


Eve and Raymond enjoying the last of the summer like weather.


The Korean corner of the deck.


The English side.


Don and sir Eddie.


It has been confirmed that anything wrapped in bacon works, the best dish of the night wwere the bananas wrapped in bacon with lemon juice sprinkled on top. Sounds terrible but they were very, very tasty.


Homemade South African sausages.