Shrimp and Beer

I didn't have any crab boil, so I had to make my own.

I couldn't live in Korea without Tony's

The finished product.

Jaeyoun enjoying them; notice the gloves!

If you visit this blog regularly, you have seen that I have not been that diligent in posting. I was spending too much time here and actually was spending too much time on the internet itself. I found myself being drug into hours of looking at Korean blogs and basically wasting a lot of time. In the last few weeks, I have fallen in love with google reader and now use it to read all of my favorite blogs. This has cut down a considerable portion of my time on the net. I have also been trying to convert more of my free time into study time. I am still working on the Sogang series and am a few chapters into 1B. I also picked up a couple of other books to use for supplements and review.


I really can't believe that it is already May. My parents are coming in late July, so my dad and I have been busy trying to find the perfect flight for them. We will be spending most of their visit in the Suwon/Seoul area, but will spend a couple of days on Jeju, so that they can meet Jaeyoun's parents. Jaeyoun will be coming to Jeju for the first day, but will have to leave early the next day due to work obligations. Her departure will leave me without a translator and her father has already announced that I have 2 months to study and that I can translate anything he needs to say to my parents.(If you know my Korean level, you know how funny that is) This has been one of the main motivators for studying. Every time I think I am going to surprise him with my improvement, he stumps me on the phone with something that I know, but that is phrased in a different way. 아이구.

I also found a couple of videos on youtube that really want to make me study harder. I am regular reader of his blog as well.

Children's Day!

Near Seoul City Hall, The restored Cheonggyecheon creek in Seoul. I left Dongtan with one of our new teachers, Alex, and we headed into Seoul for the day. I didn't think it was going to be this crowded. We headed for Gangnam first and then over to Seoul City Hall. We also ran into Roxy, who I haven't seen in a long time. I also have a great story to tell about the kid who tried to bite me on the subway!(Look for that in a later post!)

Mikeal's Mom came to visit and we went out for dinner and drinks. I don't have any good pictures though and will try and get some tonight when we all have dinner again.

English Park Part II

One of the missions that the children had to complete.

I have no idea who they were supposed to be.

If you speak any Korea, you will know why this was funny.

Dinner for working overtime.

English Park Part I

In The Dog House

Picked this from some Korean user submitted site.

Testing Google Reader

Test Test Test

Lately

I just read that my last post was from a week ago Sunday. I have been trying to hit the books lately. I have finally moved on past the 1A book of the Sogang series. I still am having a little trouble with the formal polite style{(스) ㅂ 니다} that is used for news reporting and speeches and other formal situations. I really should practice on this a few more days before moving on to 1B, but I have been stuck on that last chapter of 1A for two weeks now and if I don't move on I am going to be stuck for awhile.

I have been trying to go biking a bit more too. I am trying to lose a little extra weight that I have put on. Saturday's weather was unbelievable great and everyone else in Dongtan must have thought so too. I nearly ran over a bunch of children trying to make my way through Central Park.

Sunday, Jaeyoun and I made our way to Seoul to pick up some Kimchi from her sister.(Welcome to my world...hahaha) We did make a stop at Burger King and Kyobo Book Store on the way back. My backpack was filled with bags of Kimchi and I kept wondering if at any minute was my bag going to give way and spread 100lbs of Kimchi all over the bookstore floor. Surly this happened before.

My brother and his new wife should be returning back to Mississippi after a week in Rome. I guess somebody had to take the Pope's place while he was in the States.

I have also been trying to work on some logistics for my parents visit this July. They are coming in a couple days before my vacation starts. We will have to work on flight plans soon. Jaeyoun and I are both excited about them coming and we will be heading down to Jeju for a couple of days to stay with her parents during my parents visit. This should not only be very interesting, but very entertaining to say the least. I think both of our parents will be fine and I am sure there will be some cultural misunderstandings, but it will sure be interesting.

Have you watched the Jason Beghe videos? Jason got out of the grips of Scientology about 1 year ago and has just completed a series of interviews with Mark Bunker. Very Interesting Stuff. If you follow these kind of things, you will recognize Mark Bunker or as he has been tagged by Anonymous, Wise Beard Man."His words are wise, his face beard" I have been reading about Anonymous's protest of Scientology for a couple of months now and the videos on you tube are great. You can search for any of the above words and find what I am talking about!

Live Via Cell Phone

I gave a toast on Saturday morning. My parents called at like 9 to and put me on the speaker phone to speak at the dinner rehearsal for Brent's wedding. I thought it was going to be easier, since I couldn't see them, but I still got a little choked up. Today, I listened to the ceremony via my dad who had his phone in his pocket. It sounded great and I can't wait to see the pictures and video. Congratulations to Brent and Elizabeth.

Days Like These

It has been a rough week so far. I have had a ton of work to do at the school and my Korean lessons are killing me this week with the introduction of new formal endings and grammar styles.

Also, my little brother is getting married this weekend and the fact that I am not going to be there is really hurting. It never really was real that I wasn't going to be there for his wedding when we talked last Christmas. He is marrying a wonderful girl and I wish them all the happiness in the world. My whole family will be there this weekend, except for me! It sucks and I know that I should be there....

Kindness

I spent today studying and recovering from a busy week. I decided that I was going to finally get Jayoun's bike fixed and went around to try and find and air pump to buy. I walked into a random stationary store less than 5 minutes from my house and asked the owner in Korean if he had an air pump. He turned to me and in English asked "What are you looking for?" I told him about the bike and he handed me his personal air pump. I asked if I could buy one, he said no. He told me to take his and bring it back when I am done. This is the first time I have ever been in the store and was really appreciated his kindness. I will try and do some shopping there and I will have to convince Jaeyoun to do the same.

I fixed the bike and spent a fews hours riding around Dongtan. I rode over to the school to pop in and grab a few papers. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and studying Korean. Jaeyoun and I had sushi for dinner and have been pretty much been studying the rest of the night(How exciting for a Saturday night)

This is comforting!

Read Here

"but even if the damages wildly exceeded expectations it seems unlikely more than 10 percent of Seoul's area would see widespread destruction."

Never thought it out like this before, and I am not in Seoul, so I have nothing to worry about right?

Near Meat

Ok...First wow...two and I have fallen behind on Saturday's Super Seven. I guess the topic is not that interesting to me..hahaha......I will get back on track soon!

The boss took the teachers to a restaurant that only severed vegetarian meals, except there were all kind of meat dishes offered that contained something I can only call near-meat. It put a hurting on me. I was pretty much done for Saturday after I took some medicine that knocked me out!


I just finished doing my taxes, could they make those damn forms any more complicated.

I am still working hard on Korean and continue to study about 1 to 2 hours per day. I actually bought a couple of books today to read along with my studies. One of them covers Korean idioms and the other is a Korean story book for children. I will be able to use the story book a little bit further down the road when I know more grammar. The idiom book can be used now, since there is English translation to go along with it. I recently set a goal to finish book 2B of the Sogang series by the end of this year. Since I am just now finishing 1A, I have 3 books to go! That breaks down to about 24 chapters. If I do one chapter a week, I will still have time to take a little longer on the more difficult chapters. I really could make it 1 and half weeks per chapter, but I like the pace that I am going at now and a little built in off time will be nice too.

Last Couple of Weeks

I really don't know what has happened to the last couple of weeks. I have been pretty busy with work and trying to study Korean on a regular basis. I think I should probably cut out all the beer drinking and get back to my normal regular-not-so-many-beer-nights self.

I have been trying to study more and more Korean these days and last week came across a post that Amanda from Amanda Takes Off wrote about her Korean study habits. You can access it here. I was glad to see that she is using the same books as me and she has given me a few ideas to add to the way that I study the language. She is a few books a head of me in the series and sounds like she really has her method of study down, while I am trying something new about everyday.

I just finished Chapter 4 of Book 1A and am finally glad that I can now use all the verbs I know in the past tense. I knew the difference, but had never looked at the style of conjugation, so this week has had a huge impact on the amount of proper conversation that I can have. I never knew exactly how to conjugate the words, so I am taking baby steps, but it is definitely a good feeling.

22 Reasons Why English Is Hard

I found this little gem while searching for an old George Carlin/Gallagher bit about English pronunciation. I read through these and actually had to stop and slow down on a few of them! Have fun!

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) He decided to comb the tomb to find the bomb.

Easter

Happy Easter!
I hope everyone is having a great Easter Sunday. If you are in Korean, then the weather is probably not the greatest, since it has been raining since yesterday. Jaeyoun and I have plans to go to mass in Suwon. I was able to talk to my parents in Mississippi and this is one of the times of the year that I really hate being away from family.



I have been really busy, so this week's Super 7 will be delayed a couple of days.

Exchange rates

Right now the exchange is 1,000 Korean won for .982 U.S. dollars. I am not sending that much money home right now, but it still will hurt me a little bit. I have been use to getting over a dollar and then some for 1,000 won. Usually, I end up sending a 1,000,000 won at time back to the states. I was getting over a 1,000 U.S. dollars and was able to cover the fees for sending money with the extra. Now, It won't be that way! I am hoping that there will be a turn around before Jaeyoun and I send all of our savings back next year. For the past few weeks, I have been trying to figure out how much we are going to be able to save. I am gonna have to stop doing that and just wait and figure out what the rate will be, or at least just concentrate on how much won we can save. As I was typing it just went up to .983 dollars maybe that is a sign that it will continue to go back up, but I won't hold my breath!

7 Beautiful Korean Women

1. 김아중 Kim Ah-jung

2.이효리 Lee Hyo-ri

3. 전지현 Jun Ji-Hyun
4. 한채영 Han Chae-young
5. 김태희 Kim Tae-hee


6. 아이비 or 박은혜 Ivy
7. 심민아 Shim Min-ah

This has to have been the easiest Super 7 to research. I shouldn't say the easiest, but at least it has been the most interesting. Next week's topic will not be nearly as fun.(see below) At least now, I will get a share of hits from those people that search for "Hot Korean Girls" or "Hot Asian Women"( see I told you I was looking for hits) Right now the most popular image that sends people this way is the picture of the cow tongue. There were a ton of beautiful Korean women that I could have posted here and I have probably left a few that most people would have included. The last two are really posted because they were probably the first Korean stars that I actually saw on TV when I first arrived in Korea, sentimental value I guess. This may be the only Super Seven that I actually do an update with a part 2 and maybe 3 or 4. Since I left out so many that should be added to this list.

Credit for helping me name some the faces that I knew and for the photos go to the following sites:

1. The Grand Narrative with this post on Kim Ah Jung and soju advertisements. I had seen her face everywhere and could not recall her name. I have been reading James's blog for the past few weeks or so and need to add him to the blog roll.

2. K-Popped They are Malaysian, but blog about Korean pop culture.

3. Hot Korean Girls (Maybe NSFW, but it says no nudity) Never knew this site existed.(Not that I go looking for those kind of sites)

4. Hottest Korean Celebrities It doesn't look like this site has been updated in awhile.

5. Pop Seoul I love this site. It drives my students crazy when I start talking about Korean pop star news. They are so curious to how I know these things when my Korean is not strong enough to get the news on Naver or other media outlets.

6. I used a few random forum sites that got linked in Google images, but I won't link to them due to the NSFW content.



Next Week's Topic 7 Handsome Korean Men

Man I'm Drained

I had a late night out with the coworkers on Thursday, so it looks like this weekend is going to be a lazy one. Our school is getting two new teachers on Saturday and they will be training this weekend. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of people they are. We found out our vacation times for this summer, so now I can start preparing for my parents trip to Korea. It should be very interesting for both of them. Having never traveled in Asia before, they will surly have a good time. I am trying to complete a mental list of where all to take them. I actually started checking out air tickets and man are they expensive these days.

My Korean torture studies are going slow and steady. I didn't make that much progress this week because of my lack of dedicated time to studying, but I hope to make up for it this week.

Gnome in Argentina

Ok this is freaking me out a little bit.....It must be fake. check out the story here
Or you can watch the video here. I don't know what to think, except that is is probably staged, but if it is they fooled a bunch of different news outlets.

Bill Kapoun Passes Away

I was just getting ready to write a post about how I encourage everyone to donate to Bill's fund who was burned in a fire in a Haebongchon last week. I was looking over the facebook group and just noticed where his sister posted that he died last night. I really hated to read this, but at the same time I know that he was in a lot of pain. I never knew him, but felt like I did after seeing all the pictures of his life before the accident. I still plan on donating and I hope that everyone else will as well. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.