I moved to Japan!!

Hello from JAPAN!! I still can't believe I'm here, honestly. :P

Flight was great, made friends with a couple of college kids who were part of a Philipino dance troupe (though they were Japanese) on tour in America, and they helped me practice my terrible Japanese - it's a little less terrible now! After the flight, my company helped me navigate the intense mesh network of trains that is the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, and after a short walk from the train station, I arrived at my apartment.



That's the entrance-way, with a little galley kitchen. I sleep directly above the entrance-way, if you can believe it.



This is the main room of my place, with mid-afternoon light. The computer-looking screen is actually my TV, which has all kinds of special features which I have no idea how to use. Exciting to look at though.



From the other direction. The first time I saw the loft I jumped with glee, no kiddin.



On the ladder, which is a scary place to be half-awake from jet-lag in the middle of the night, heading to the bathroom. No injuries, so far so good.



The crowning prize - a toilet that squirts your butt with water. What else could I need? Maybe an air dry button, I'm still trying to figure out if it has one ...

Right now I'm heading off to downtown Tokyo, all the teachers hired this semester with my company have a seminar for the next two days to get to know each other and the company curriculum, will post more when I get back. :) Miss you guys

I moved to Japan!!

Hello from JAPAN!! I still can't believe I'm here, honestly. :P

Flight was great, made friends with a couple of college kids who were part of a Philipino dance troupe (though they were Japanese) on tour in America, and they helped me practice my terrible Japanese - it's a little less terrible now! After the flight, my company helped me navigate the intense mesh network of trains that is the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, and after a short walk from the train station, I arrived at my apartment.



That's the entrance-way, with a little galley kitchen. I sleep directly above the entrance-way, if you can believe it.



This is the main room of my place, with mid-afternoon light. The computer-looking screen is actually my TV, which has all kinds of special features which I have no idea how to use. Exciting to look at though.



From the other direction. The first time I saw the loft I jumped with glee, no kiddin.



On the ladder, which is a scary place to be half-awake from jet-lag in the middle of the night, heading to the bathroom. No injuries, so far so good.



The crowning prize - a toilet that squirts your butt with water. What else could I need? Maybe an air dry button, I'm still trying to figure out if it has one ...

Right now I'm heading off to downtown Tokyo, all the teachers hired this semester with my company have a seminar for the next two days to get to know each other and the company curriculum, will post more when I get back. :) Miss you guys

vermont, new york, boston, franklin

I'm sitting in my kitchen in Franklin, sipping on some 설록차 (Jeju Sulloc Plantation green tea), and I'm realizing I only have a little more than a week left here in the States. September 22nd - Yokohama!!

I'm way behind on uploading pictures, those will hopefully be up in the next few days. I bought a Canon G9 and I couldn't be happier.



A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul. ~Whitman

microwaves

Ahh, microwaves. Those magical devices whose delicate "whhrrrrr"ing sound gently transform your cold spaghetti and meatballs from last night into a deliciously warm breakfast of champions. I was looking closer at the microwave in our dormitory and here's what I found on the pre-sets:



1) Reheat rice
2) Reheat stew
3) Reheat milk
4) Frozen pizza
5) Frozen dumplings
6) Steam egg
7) Ramen
8) Cook potatoes
9) Sterilize a nursing bottle

Glorious mix of east and west. Also seen recently - Konglish t-shirts:



Brilliant flowers on the edge of campus:



And ... my students threw me a party for teacher's day!



My camera is currently broken, which is why all of these were taken with my cell phone. I'm thinking about a Nikon or a Canon dSLR - any suggestions?

bike trip

I love the joys of the mountains,
wandering completely free,
feeding a crippled body another day,
thinking thoughts that go nowhere.
Sometimes I open an old sutra,
more often I climb a stone tower
and peer down a thousand-foot cliff
or up where clouds curl around
where the windblown winter moon
looks like a lone-flying crane.

- Hanshan (Cold Mountain 寒山)




Ready to start!



I ended up joining the army!



At Hwasun Beach where we spent our first night, with a great view of Sanbangsan.


I met some squid on the coast!



This is how much money I had when I was finished. I made it!

Fear is the mindkiller.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Anyone else a Dune fan? I'm reading Heretics of Dune right now, it's blowing me away.

weekends

It's Spring! And weekends lately have been memorable.



A few weeks ago I played frisbee with the Jeju C team. It was so good to run around in the sun with other good people from the island - plus all over Korea, China, and Taiwan.





We had a sports day for the little kids who take afternoon classes at the university.



Don't let their cuteness fool you! These kids are vicious tug-of-war monsters ...



Oh! And went shopping the other day and found this new summer fashion must-have:



I'm now taking shipping requests for bizzare Konglish shirts. ;)

real fight clubs

1999 was a great year for movies - American Beauty, The Matrix, and of course Fight Club. As some of you know, my senior thesis partly on Buddhist themes in Fight Club, so I was really excited to watch this:



Aren't sports supposed to be substitutions for the old hunting/male dominance instincts? Sports aren't enough? I dunno though, beating each other with keyboards looks pretty sweet.

Life! Is! Wonder! Ful!

The other day, after raining in the morning, the sky cleared up dramatically and I could see that the western horizon would be almost completely clear.



So I climbed up the small mountain in the back of the university and I took some pictures of the setting sun.



I've seen the sunset on the beach a couple of times - but never from a mountain halfway across an island. Life is just astonishing sometimes.

life in korea

Have you guys ever seen SNL's classic Chronicles of Narnia rap?

This is the same idea, Korea-style. Just watch it - hilarious. So many inside jokes - the visors and the gloves in the beginning are all the rage here for ajjumas (middle aged married women) to wear walking about town, to avoid the sun.

april showers

Today is Voting Day! While Korea elects a new parliament, I've been going through some of the pictures I took in the past few weeks.

I went hiking on some back trails and ran into a Jeju deer.



They have these amazing board game cafes here in Korea, and I found out I can still play a mean game of Jenga. Cathy kicked my ass though in Rummikub (that game is amazing!!).



It's cherry blossom season here on Jeju Island. Everywhere you go, is gorgeous.



This pretty much sums up my kids' class.



We went out for my friend Mano's birthday and found this great restaurant - "boned rid - a specialty store" - Engrish!



Then we went and got something in our teeths.



And - my computer's been overheating, so I decided to put it in the fridge to cool off for a while (didn't help).



Today has been wet and gloomy but we had a few nice days this week. At the north gate of campus, we've got a little village of restaurants, and they've got their outdoor patio tables out now, and it's been great to just put my feet up down there, take a stack of quizes and homeworks to correct, and have a bowl of gelato. Yes - gelato! in Korea! Small miracles.

Halla-san!

Last Monday was a beautiful sunny day, so we thought we'd take the time I had between classes (9-4, split shifts like whoa!) to go up Mount Halla, the volcanic center of Jeju Island. We took the Yeongsil course, which is the shortest and perhaps the most beautiful. Here's the Yeongsil rocks between trees:



The path up the mountain (and you can almost see the ocean in the distance...):



There were ice crystals on the vegetation as we climbed to higher altitudes:



Me at the top! This course doesn't lead up to the very top of the mountain (it's closed off), so this is as far as you can get. And there's the peak, just taunting you:



Oh - and here's one from last week, frog's eggs and tiny tadpoles in a local stream. I've never seen anything like this before!



Even though these past couple of weeks have been great, I've been missing home a lot lately. Thinking of you guys!

scuba diving video!

After a bit of tinkering I edited together a few bits of the scuba diving video my class received at the end of our Open Water Certificate dives. That's me doing the peace sign by the camera in the beginning ... yup. That's me. :) Enjoy!

back from Thailand!

Well, I'm back in Korea! We arrived last Sunday night and collapsed at our local pub and ordered a big pot of bu-dae-chigae, a kimchi soup with all kinds of things like dumplings and sausages mixed in, and chilled out after about 24 hours of flights and waiting. Wow, I'm realizing as I re-read what I just wrote that it might not seem to appealing to you, but believe me, that soup is AMAZING.

But before there was the weariness of returning from a long trip there was ... THAILAND!!





Suzanne came down from Chiang Mai and hung out for a few days on the beach in Koh Phangan and played frisbee with us. Oh yeah, and we got some killer beachside massages.



Then we headed north on the ferry to a little island called Koh Tao, which has one of the best reputations for scuba diving schools in the world. Plus - beautiful sunsets.



Here's one of me right before suiting up for a dive! They gave us a DVD to take home with footage from one of our dives, I'll try and edit it and put some clips on Youtube a little later. The waters were crystal clear, I couldn't believe the colors of the coral and anenomes down there.



Back in Bangkok on our way out, we made friends with one of the ladies running the street food carts. Those three piles of food in the background are different types of noodles - Thai and Chinese. Man, I really love food. That's all for now, more to come! The school year just started here and I've been busy making lesson plans - I'm teaching my first credit classes this semester! Wish me luck ...

bangkok to koh phangan!

I'm in Koh Phangan! We made it yesterday afternoon, after being crammed on a ferry with hundreds of other backpackers and their backpacks. I wish I had pictures to show you - unfortunately I haven't yet found a place that can read my camera's SIM card, but here are a few highlights of our trip so far ...

- Finding a temple in a side street in Bangkok's Chinatown where the men were playing volleyball with a wicker ball ... but with their feet (though there was a volleyball net) ... and the women were on the sidelines, drinking beer.
- "Ten baht! Anywhere in bangkok, one hour!" "Sir, are you going to take us to tailors and jewelry stores and make us buy things?" "You just look, no buy, it's okay!" "No thanks." "Okay, five baht, anywhere, one hour!"
- Street Pad Thai in Bangkok, geren curry everywhere.
- Watching the sun set over the sea at our resort beach.

Oh and one more - as I'm typing this, a little lizard is running along the wall, heading for the power cables, I hope this post is autosaving because I think maybe the power will jus

Thailand, Flickr gallery

We're going to Thailand tomorrow!! It feels really surreal, but getting realer by the moment, our bags are packed and sitting ready by the sofa, we'll just grab them and go tomorrow morning. I refuse to bring shoes, so I'll be wearing 4 socks and sandals on the way to the airport in this cold mountain weather. Foolish! :)

I've been trying to dig through all of my pictures over the last few years to find the best ones, and to put them together in one set on Flickr. Here's what I've got so far, I'll be adding more when I get back from Thailand. Enjoy!

Flickr gallery set

back from the dead!

Well I haven't posted in a long while - almost 2 months, I guess. January ate me, unfortunately. I got food poisoning, then feverish bronchitis, all while our intensive English camps at the university were in full swing. But now I've bundled up the remaining bits of my body, sold them on eBay, and bought that brand new body I've always wanted. I'm back in action! :) Here's some other stuff that's been going on:

Nightly, Cathy transforms herself into a delightful ogress, much like Princess Fiona of Shrek fame:



We went on a little field trip to the site of Tae-wang-sa-shin-gi, a historical drama filmed on Jeju Island. Unfortunately, the rice wine had runneth dry.



Plus, I almost got bagged in a basket and sent to Marrakesh! Narrow escape.



Cathy and Mano and sparklers, New Year's 2008.



English camp dramas sometimes (often?) involve pirates, sailors, Pikachu (sans head) and dressing in drag.



Going to Thailand in 8 days!! More pictures to follow ...