Weekend Update

It's Thursday and I know the suspense is killing many of you. As you stare at your computer screens I can hear your minds working out one important question, "Where are the photos from the weekend Cam?" Worry no more, here they come.

This weekend was a celebratory one. First off, it was my old colleague and friend Michelle's birthday, secondly there was Chang Young's going away party and then there was some smokingloon site keeper's own birthday that happened to pass. To those who remembered, thanks for the emails I love you. For those who sheepishly forgot, leave a comment now and I forgive you. If you don't, the good karma police will be visiting soon. (Can you feel the guilt stomping on your chest? Good, say happy birthday.)

The night started out at the most popular Thai restaurant in Itaewon, Buddha's Belly. You now need a reservation to eat and drink at this place and we had neither so we went early and promised to be out before the eight o'clock table came. From here we went over to "The Sand Bar" where there is literally a good six inches of white sand hugging the floor. Because Korean building's heat themselves from the floor up the white sand is warm white sand that you can dig your naked toes into.




After a couple of bottles a wine for the boys, multiple sex on the beach for Michelle and Jack Cokes for Min Joo we headed off to B-one Bar/B1 bar where there was a dance floor Michelle had been craving. Michelle is an old friend here that has a birthday two days before mine. Recently she has had her whole life turned upside down and is now slowly getting back on track. It was a great time to see her as she is looking forward to her new year with excitement. It was amazing to celebrate together and we have vowed to stay in better touch now that she is a free bird.





After Michelle got her groove on we went up to Soho where there was a Drag King show taking place. The bar was busier than I was expecting and we made it there for a few more drinks. We ended up leaving Michelle talking up guy from Australia and headed out for a three A.M BBQ. There is nothing better than Samgyupsal to soak up booze at the end of the night. Eggs, bacon and toast are great for Canada, England can have it's curries and Japan can toss off to all the ramien it wants. Thick pieces of bacon grilled over charcoal is the perfect meal to gain calories to and end the night on. This was where we said goodbye to Chan Young as he left for England on Monday sporting the same excited grin as the last picture.

Playtime Ends Today

Today was the 59th graduation day at Onsin Elementary. I sat next to the new Special Education teacher and she filled me into what was going on. And with only 21 graduating students it was a lot of, "Our school is so small so this is special." Each kid won a scholarship and a different award that in larger schools maybe two or three kids per class would end up getting.

Our school also has a rock band that played a few songs. The little girls singing are from first and second grade who had some of the cheesiest dance moves around gaining extra ahhs from all the grandmothers. Then it was the turn for the sixth graders to rock out in their hanboks. They had their moms come up to lead a song in the kids' honour. It wasn't pretty but luckily our assistant principal is a goof so he got the whole room swaying along as the fifth graders used as seat fillers are showing.


I slept through most of the ceremony inside but was told the kids bowed to their parents and several boring speeches were given. We headed outside where balloons appeared and the kids, in between posing for pictures, flocked to. The kids were angels around their parents and grandparents becoming particularily shy about using their English. This of course lead me to peppering them with questions just to embarrass them for my own selfish entertainment. I love seeing noisy clowns tamed into upstanding polite individuals.


One kid told me the balloons were for them to attach a piece a paper to. On this paper the kids had written their dreams for the future and at the sound of the gong they all released them in hopes of the future (a polluted balloon infested forest kind of future).


This last picture is of me with four of the five bad boys in the class. Week one at school before I learnt their names I gave them each a number, Bad Boy 1 through 5. They did turned out to be pretty good kids once they learnt my rules. I was bugging them today because a couple of them used some hair products for the first time this year and came to school with new hairdos. I wanted to bug them about the pink in their hanboks but somehow Koreans are able to pull this colour off just as well as Don Johnson. They all looked good today and made my grade six grad (there wasn't one) look even worse. But they do need to celebrate because life as they know it has ended. From now on until University there is no more playtime.

Dirty, Dirty Pigs

Tomorrow is graduation day at school and the teachers have been asked to dress up. Anyone who knows me, knows my dislike for ties and dressing up. My friend Chan Young wore one tie that I brought myself to enjoy although for very inappropriate reasons. Enjoy the dirty pigs.

A Web of Music

Yesterday night I flicked on the TV and saw the reunited Police starting out the Grammy awards. Immediately I noticed Stings's huge arms and lifted my arms up to the TV screen to compare while making a mental note that I'm a weakling. I also noted that I'm not interested in American Pop music so I turned the show off and went searching for some decent music. I stumbled on this amazing website where you enter a group or musician you enjoy. The site then searches out other groups that have a similar sound or influence. From there you can pick any of the bands and continue your search. I started out with Suede and my music map ended like this:



After a long time of playing around I was suprised by how acurate the whole thing was. I love most of the bands it recomended and came across some bands I've heard about but not really checked out before. Because I know you care, these are the ones I'm going to be downloading soon:
The Stone Roses
Belle and Sebastian
Joy Division
Kaiser Chiefs

A Day in December

My school computer hates me. It hates the pictures I take and simply refuses to read them from my camera's memory card. It's annoying, but I don't hate my computer. How can I when we spend so much quality time together. Today I had only one class and a lot of free time.

These are some pictures I have been meaning to upload since December when I went to Insadong to load up on Christmas presents. Insadong is one of Seoul's busiest touristy places. It's a tiny road that gets flooded with people on the weekends who want to shop, visit art galleries or settle in at one of the many tea houses. I love the feel of the area and because almost everyone walks down the street with a camera in hand.

These first pictures are from the beginning of the street where performers act out different traditional Korean customs. Today it was a wedding ceremony. (On other days it's been a court ceremony where the prisoner is sent to jail and I also seen dancers with long ribbons attached to their hats gyrating about).

There was a small tent set up for a lady to play music from while another showed off her linguistic abilities explaining what was happening in Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese.

Further down the road there is a huge new complex that has been built to house even more shops. It's a cool building that winds upwards and it is always jammed packed. There are a ton of stores in it but they always seem to be empty with a million people window shopping there way to the open roof. These pictures are of an exhibit to honour the traditional Korean artist Andy Warhol.

Spring Like...Not Me

I don't mean to gloat as Mr. Winter slams Canada yet again but the weather here has hints of Miss Spring soon coming. This week is a huge improvement on the frigid cold (-5 to 10) last week gave us. To celebrate the change in weather I've started to jog outside again. My legs ache with pain to prove it. Walking down hills they get all wobbly and I fell like I could fall at any moment. Getting back into shape after two months away from the gym isn't fun. Or pretty. I'm glad the path next to the river is under construction because like most construction sights there is nobody around.

Road Trip...Ganghwa Island

This weekend we finally made it out for our much talked about road trip. We went to Ganghwa Island just outside of Incheon and about an hour west of Seoul. We rented out a pension which is Konglish for penthouse/mansion but is more like a cottage you can rent out.

Here's about the only nice picture from the weekend. We took it shortly after arriving at the Nakcho Pension. In this picture are Rachel Lynn, Yun Jeong, Min Jung (SJ's cousin) and Ye-hi (her friend) in the front and Sung Ho, Saejin and I lining the back.

On this top floor were three other rooms that could be rented out. This weekend there was only one other group on our floor and five or six more in the surrounding buildings. During the summer it can get pretty rowdy in these places as companies book them out and the salary men and women go crazy on soju and fresh air.

The view of the farmers fields out back where a farmer was burning dead grass and beyond the smoke is the ocean.

The first of many poses.


An inside view of the living room. There was another separate bedroom and two segregated bathrooms. The woman's had the hot water and sink while the men's housed the washing machine. I'm not sure what message the owners of the place were trying to send with that set up.

RL, SJ and Sung Ho posing first.

RL, Sung Ho and I doing our best impression of Kim Jung Il.

Road Trip...Ganghwa Island

As the sun set our stomachs began their chorus for food. As a non cooker I was very pleased to see Rachel Lynn, Seajin and Sung Ho step up to take on the task of feeding our hunger.

Here RL and SJ are busily preparing the food we had brought with us. While shopping for the stuff we had a hard time fitting all the food (and drink) into our cart. At the time we thought we had bought too much, but by the end of the trip the only left overs were the liquids. (Not the boozy kind of course we took care of them, but were left with milk, coke and orange juice).

Sung Ho battled the smoke and cold and grilled us some of the finest tasting meat ever.

An Action shot of Sung Ho at work while the vultures (me included) picked away at the cooked meat that came off the grill.

We started with pork while the potatoes and garlic roasted away on top of the coals. Next up were prawns but because I hate seafood I refused to acknowledges their presence.

The baby potatoes were magical and went well with the fried onions RL brought out to us.

The next meat to grace our gullets was chicken breasts.
They tasted amazing but it was around this time that Yun Jeong and I went inside to lay on the heated floors under blankets to thaw out. It really wasn't that cold but I honestly cannot handle cold weather anymore. As I lay down Saejin brought some of the beef they were now working on for me and Yun Jeong to sample. On the hot floors I napped and a half hour later the rest of the crew joined us inside.


We mostly just sat around and enjoyed the beer and conversations that flowed.



We continued to pose ridiculously for photos...that was until the wrestling started. Rachel Lynn was raised by a family of thugs and went around the house challenging people fight.


Admitedly she did win most of the battles. My excuse was that the ring wasn't big enough for me to reach Terminal Velocity (my wrestling identity and killer move).

We drank for a couple more hours having set one o'clock as our bedtime. The Korean girls didn't last as long as the cooks and I but by choosing to sleep next to the table we drank at I know they weren't sleeping well.


The next morning Sj kick started the day by whipping up some spicy kimchi ramien.