Last post in July

Just thought I'd send a quick video for you guys. It always cracks me up how Koreans use totally different sounds for their animals. These are some of my boys who were ready and willing to give me some animal noises. Enjoy. Talk to you all after Cambodia. Cheers.

Mudfest

Well folks, sorry for the late post. I am sitting here a couple days after mudfest, and after a full recovery. I did not take my camera out for fear of the poor thing, but a friend of mine was there and took a few pictures, and one with me in it (for proof.) That I'll put up.


The first part of the trip we went to a mud training course where we all put on army duds and did mud wrestling, chicken fighting (its a korean thing) and other mud related shenanigans. The losers had to pay the price.

Thanks to my natural athleticism (and dangerous charm), I rarely had to take a punishment, though our team did lose our first round of chicken fighting and had to do a few pushups in the mud. It only served to put war into our minds. 

Some guy actually broke his leg at the training course (kind of puts a damper on the celebration) I didn't see it happen but some scottish gents (and good ole boys as well) that we ended up hanging out with a bit were with him at the time. Considering the things they were having us do, I'd be surprised to hear thats not a common occurrence. They had a giant blow up ring set up in the middle of these acres (upon acres) of mud that we had to throw people out of royal rumble wrastlin' style. I bruised up my wrist pretty bad, but I'm surviving well. 

After that we headed to the beach, had a few beers and a few hours relaxing on the beach and swimming. There were mud slides and and colored mud painting. Some people got really into the mud paint with their countries flag painted on them or other designs. No pictures of that but heres a few of the mud. 

At night there was a lot of drinking, and way too much soju for any of us. I got a little....well I had a bit of a good time followed by a much worse one. They had a concert where Korean pop group Super Junior played (I know it's hard to believe, but those are all guys.) But I don't really remember much of the concert. I got separated from the group and couldn't find the hotel, and ended up sleeping in some conference room of a different hotel I had made my way too. When I woke up the next day I had no idea where I was, and it turns out I was about a forty minute walk away from the beach where we were staying. Laying off the Soju for a little while, I think. Once I found the rest of the group we packed our stuff, laid on the beach for a bit more, and then went home. 

And thats about it for now. A week from today I will be on a plane to Cambodia, expect a big post afterwards. Ankgor Wat may possibly be the coolest looking place on Earth. I've only circumstantial evidence of that so far, but I'll be back with something more than conjecture soon enough. I may or may not post this upcoming weekend, so hold off, (if you can) for there's surely more to come. 

 

Cheers.

Night Stay!

         Overnight camp with the kids. Fun times. They got to school around 3pm saturday, and stayed until 9am sunday morning. Luckily for ECC, our contracts made it so we didn't have to get paid! ... well that part sucked, but whatever, we had a lot of fun with the kids.  Pictured: Fun.

              In total, 51 kids showed up for the night stay. We were divided into teams with one korean teacher, one foreign teacher, and 7-9 kids. This is my team. Justin, Tom, Rose, Anna, Alice, Amy, Peter, Chloe, back row and then front row from left to right. We all got together and had to decide our team name, and then decorate a poster. It took me and my partner teacher Lisa a long time to goad the kids into choosing a name. They didn't like any of my great suggestions. One of our kids said team A+, so we went with it. Then we decorated a sign, and got our kids into our assigned room. 

 Our kids laid their mats out for sleeping on, and we played a few Korean games (think like duck duck goose) in a circle while we were waiting for their dinner to be ready. Dinner was a rooftop bbq. They had tiny stoves and were laying down strips of what the kids told me was "Pig Belly" on them. Looked like bacon to me. Then they'd wrap them in giant lettuce leaves, put spicy sauce on them and stuff em in. Delicious, apparently. There was watermelon too, that was delicious, factually. 

          

After supper we played a lot of games with the teachers, we did charades and the winners of each game would win prizes. The kids had a good time laughing at the teachers doing the charades. Then we went back to our room and had to come up with an idea for a talent show. We ended up doing the can-can while one of our girls played it on the ocarina. Thats right folks, the can-can is an international language. Ive no pictures of it (I was a little busy at the time) But I'll give you a video of the winner of the single talent show portion of the event. Joanne danced to a korean pop song. It seems the more risqué the dance is, the more the parents want their kids to learn it. That's all for now. Next week - Mudfest. I encourage everyone to take a look at the pictures on the wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boryeong_Mud_Festival I will soon be that guy with the hobo-sized bottle of beer. Can't wait.

Schedule as follows -

This weekend our school is having an overnight camp thing for the kids, with games and snacks and a visit to the park. Next weekend we're going to Mudfest on the southern coast for wacky hijinks and many drinks. Then we have one week of school (and the start of summer intensive) and then CAMBODIA! for a week. As far as the plan looks right now, Mr. Tylor Perry will be stepping off a plane and into our school on August 1st, so look out for a lot of good pictures to come in the next little while. I haven't touched my camera in more than a week, so everyone just hold on.