A Journey In The....Second Month

Gosh it is just so hard to believe that it has been another month since I arrived in Korea.  It is just going so fast I really can't keep track of what's happening around me it seems.  I really haven't been doing a very good job of blogging.  Life gets in the way it seems sometimes or perhaps I just get lazy :( LAME.  I guess I don't always know what to talk about.  If anyone reading this has a question on something they would like to learn more about feel free to message me or something, or comment on the blog.

So far this last month I have:

become more acquainted with my job

gone to a huge (and polluted) city, Busan

 -Saw a cool aquarium
 -Saw a strange ice cream shop
 -Saw a wild fish market
 -Had what may of been Cuban food
 -May have developed a respiratory illness from the pollution :D (Can't prove it)
 -Saw a pretty neat beach (Hae-Un-Dae)

got a cellphone (although there may be some problems with that)

learned how to say "don't do that" in Korean (which can be a lifesaver when dealing with little kids)

read a few books (Deuteronomy, the Fellowship of the Ring, Star Wars: Vector Prime, Anthem)

ate some good pizza

saw an old temple (Gilsang Temple)

climbed a long staircase in the mountains

saw an unfinished interstate

enjoyed good company with good Christian folks

saw some amazing football matches

and probably more I can't remember.

Its hard to believe that after this next month is over I'll already be 25% thorough my year here.  It's just flying by.

I think I'll add some pictures of this last month:

A nice looking bulgogi pizza...

...the crumbs of that bulgogi pizza

A Chuseok gathering at church :D

That long staircase in the mountains

A tree on the mountain trail

The unfinished interstate

Gilsang Temple from above

(I searched the mountains for a few hours to locate this place only to find it at the bottom of the mountain)

Eastern architecture at it's finest

I went artistic

A close-up

Extremely detailed

The Busan subway (with my friend Wes)

Some of Busan in the distance

Skyscrapers in Busan

Posing on a rocky part of the shore of Hae-Un-Dae

The original carving from the man who gave Hae-Un-Dae its name

May be around 1000 years old

A really cool and funny no smoking sign

My friend Wes posing in front of an aquarium at the Busan Aquarium

Me in front of a rather large shark mouth 

Inside a bubble thing

The strange ice cream shop.  Am I the only one who sees some potential copyright issues in this photo?

A cool sign of Busan Aquarium

The sign for the fish market (wasn't really just a fish market I guess) 

The large market.  Was really cool.

A Fantastic Beverage :)

Peach tea in Korea (whether it be in little cans like the one in the picture or any other kind I can get my hands on) has quickly become one of my most favored beverages in Korea.

Korean Outsourcing

Although a Korean may of lost his/her job to this machine, am I the only person who thinks this picture is humorous??

Not Camera Shy

One of my students not being camera shy :D

Littering in Korea

Although my time in Korea has been quite good some things have really "irk'd" during that time.  One of which is littering.  I feel that littering is just as big of a problem in the U.S. as it seems to be here but I just see so much more of it here than back home.  Probably partially the size difference from where I'm from to where I came.

There is trash pretty much everywhere I walk here when I really think about it.  Whether it be small pieces of paper or giant piles of litter that have piled up in the bottom of drains.  I've seen quite a few young people opening things and just dropping the wrappers on the ground...I mean come on people, is it really so hard to hold on to it until you find a trash can?  It's really quite silly, everyone carries some kind of bag around in this country I've noticed, so why don't they just stash their trash until they find that garbage can?

Probably the most terrible thing that makes me want to pull my hair out of my scalp is the amount of litter I see when I'm hiking.  It is just annoying.  It's like the people don't care about maintaining the natural beauty of a mountain.  I have seen this in America too...

Here are just a few pictures of litter I've seen while hiking in the mountains

I'm not particularly left wing or some Al Gore "inconvenient truth" supporter, I just don't like feeling like I live in a giant trash can.

That is all for my ranting on that subject :D

Fake Lego's

So about a month ago I was wondering the streets of South Korea and came upon a store called Alpha Mart. I had been in this store before but hadn't really explored it much. As I walked around I found nestled in the back corner of the store a little toy area.  I'm kind of a kid at heart I guess so I began to look at everything and lots of smiles crossed my face.

At one point my eyes fell on some boxes with pictures on them that looked like Lego's.  I'm an absolute freak for Lego's so I was excited to see them in Korea.  As I look closer, however, I found that they were impostors.

These were not Lego's at all.  They were copies!  The brand is called Enlighten and it is a company in China as far as I can tell.  Basically this Chinese company stole the Lego design and started making there own under a different name.  I was so struck by this find that I decided to buy a few.  They were very cheap.

These literally look exactly like Lego's.  However the quality is a lot worse.  The pieces are not shiny and they are not very smooth like real Lego's.

Anyways see for yourself...

My Tiny Students

A short video of  my little students enjoying some post-class time.