Friday, June 29, 2007

BBBBBBBBRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

I love bikes!

I've been needing to do a bit of a refresher on my slow riding and there are a number of folks here who have bikes but have little or no riding experience, so I decided to head over to Mokpo and see if anyone wanted to do some motorbike exercises.

Virginia and Christa were the only two who braved the elements and came along. Actually it wasn't too bad as far as the weather went. It was just overcast and gloomy for most of the day, only deciding to bucket down on our journey home.

Anyway, the exercises were a lot of fun and I think some time soon, I'll have another day of exercises when the weather is a little nicer.

Here's some photos Christa took.



Teacher in the classroom.



On your mark, get set....



Head up, eyes forward... where you look is where you go.



Smile for the camera.



Look Mum... I can ride!



Please, please, please be careful with my baby.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Matt's Magic Sajik Music Party

Once again, the musical brilliance that is Matt, put together another night of great music at the now famous pagoda on the top of the hill in Sajik Park. About 60 people came at different stages through the night and many new and some old faces got up to perform.
The variety of music was amazing. Rock, pop, country, classic and Korean music were just a sample of what was heard during the night and I think it's safe to say, everyone had a great time.

Here's a few photos of the event...


The organizer, MC and general funny man, "Matt the Musical Maestro"


Amazing Korean Trio with amazing harmonies.






Country never looked so fun.


I wish I could play like him!






Elton John... eat your heart out!


And yes, yours truly even had a bash.

Thanks Matt for another great event. Hope to see ya at the next one.

PS about 62000 won was raised for the Sung Bin Girl's orphanage in Gwangju! Great job everyone.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Wow... Only 87% of the worlds countries left to visit!











Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Randomness of Korean Car Washes

So I took my car for a drive to find a car wash this afternoon. It's just a tad dirty since the whole block has been turned into a construction site and the friendly workers decided to pour cement over my car and didn't bother washing it off. That plus the fact that every time it rains here, a nice (approximately inch thick) layer of dust that settles on it makes it look like I've taken it out-back for a month, means that it wasn't the cleanest car in town.

I finally find a place that has an automatic car wash and I stop to line up for it. He tells me I'm second in line. Ok... no worries I don't mind waiting. Then a lady turns up in a car and she is told to park her car and leave the keys in the door. Mind you, we are both in a spare allotment across the street and well away from the actual car wash. Anyone could come and jump in and drive away. But she seems to think this is normal and off she goes.

Well, the guy finally finishes washing the car and so I go to pull into the "next car" waiting area. As I'm pulling it, he motions for me to go to the "self service" wash area. You know... the place that bascially has a hose and a broom for you to wash your own car. I motion to the automatic wash and he just looks at my car and says NO! And points again to the self service wash.

Apparently he was afraid my car would make his car wash too dirty!

On top of this, he wouldn't show me which buttons I had to press to get the machine to work. So out of a whole minute and a half on the clock... I got a whopping 30 seconds to use the machine.

Bugger going back there again. Next time I'll get a broom and bucket and do my own bloody car!!!

Monday, June 11, 2007

English Competitions and The Land Down Under

On Friday I had the dubious pleasure of being a judge for an English competition for the region. This means I get the whole day off school for a couple of hours work in Damyang, a beautiful place just outside Gwangju that is surrounded by mountains and amazingly beautiful scenery.

I was judging the high school students and was a little surprised to find that on average, they weren't much better than my girls middle school I taught at last year. I'm not sure if I should be sad at the low level of the schools in the region, or happy that my old school was so amazing. A little of both I think.

Anyway, for the lead up to the competition, I've been helping two of the girls at the Wando Girls Middle School. They are super cute (as is their teacher ;) and they were very thankful for the help. One of them has decided to call me "big brother".
On Saturday, I met up with them and the super cute teacher to have lunch and see how they went in the competition. Sadly they weren't to confident with the results, but we spent a fun afternoon hanging out in Gwangju. At one stage I commented that I really did feel like a big brother being dragged out shopping with his sisters... Not that I've ever done that with my real sisters. But I have done it with many adopted sisters over they years.

At some point during the afternoon I came across two of my friends from Mokpo; Neal and Crystal. While I was talking to them, the girls were giggling and whispering behind me so much (while looking at Neal) that finally he stopped talking mid sentence and asked them what they were giggling about. They turned bright red and one of them got up the courage to tell him that he was "soooo handsome". At which point I think Neal got a little embarrassed.
Then a minute later, two more guys that Neal knew came up and started talking. To be fair, one was very tall and both were fairly good looking, so you can imagine how the girls were now reacting. When we walked away I turned to laugh at them and they just said to me, "Stu we love you!" They weren't so much loving me... but loving the fact that hanging out with me, they got to meet all my good looking friends. Too bad these kids are only about 16 years old. They would have loved to go along to one of my get togethers.

So after all this fun in the city, I jumped on Billie and headed down to my next party. Virginia had her house warming BBQ in Mokpo. It was a fancy dress with the theme of any song title. At first I was thinking I might do "You can leave your hat on" but very quickly chickened out of this one.
Then I was thinking about dressing up like a bottle and handing out little phrases like "Be good to your mother" or "You are so cool".... can you guess? That's right: "Message in a bottle."
My next thought was to make a little boat out of cardboard and wear it around my waist & stick months of the calendar on the sides & have a bottle of water hidden in it that dripped.... "6 months in a leaking boat"
However all these were a little difficult to do last minute (except the first one I guess), so I settled on buying a white t-shirt and some pens and drew on it a tall man (6' 4"), a VW van, a woman who glowed and a beer keg that was flowing beer. There was a lightning bolt and a strange lady giving out breakfast and a guy throwing up. There was also a man running towards some shelter and a guy who was selling bread with a sign saying Brussels behind him.
Have you got it yet?
Oh and of course there was a large map of Australia drawn upside down.
You must have guessed it by now....




"Travelling in a fried out combie, On a hippie trail, full of zombie.
I met a strange lady. She made me nervous. She took me in and gave me breakfast.



How about now?


"And she said, 'Do you come from the Land Down Under? Where women glow and men plunder.....'"

You got it. "Land Down Under" by Men at Work.

Kind of appropriate I do feel.

So the BBQ was lots of fun. drinking and eating on the rooftop overlooking the see and islands off shore. Always a nice way to spend the afternoon. The party moved into the apartment and got much louder. By the time we decided to move on to a new location (p-club) I'm sure the combined association of Koreans living in that apartment were already drawing up a formal complaint and petition to get the waygook kicked out of there.

P-club was the usual bar thing. Nothing exciting. I got to spend about the last half an hour listening to the mumblings of a drunken Queenslander... you know... the kind of person you hate to meet overseas cause they give your country a bad name. Mind you, he wasn't loud and obnoxious. He just couldn't string to coherent words together.

Sunday was kind of interesting. I went to a local gym with Melisa (The Other Wando Chick) and saw a Korean sport called Gumdo. How this sport differs from Kendo, I'm not too sure. In fact, a friend here who came along and knows Kendo fairly well, said it was the same sport. But as I'd never seen either, I found it great to watch.
Everyone was dressed in big baggy pants and lots of padding, with a face mask that looked like the grill of an old MG sportster. They were in a square and faced off, then started wacking each other with swords made out of bamboo. Talk about fun.
I was watching the kids first and couldn't believe the obvious skill with a sword of these little people who probably maxed out at five foot tall. Man they could move fast.
The bigger people were fairly good too. I have to say, I'm proud of one of my students from the girls school who was there competing. She won 3 of her 4 fights. She did much better than the rest of her club.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for this week.
Till next time......

"...... where beer does flow and men chunder. Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You'd better run, you'd better take cover.........."

Monday, June 04, 2007

A post for the sake of posting...

Had another busy weekend. Went to Suncheon on Friday arvo to take Virginia over to collect her cat and hamster and take them to their new home in Mokpo.

Went out Friday night to Julianna's and didn't get in till the sun was coming up. Then got up 2 hours later with a massive hangover to drive Virginia, cat and rodent back to Mokpo via Gwangju. Possibly the worst I've felt since arriving in Korea. Urg!

Got back home Sat evening and crashed very early.

Yesterday was a much nicer day. I jumped on Billie and took her for a ride, island hopping from Wando across to the mainland, up to Gangjin and back down to Wando. About a 150km ride including some exploring on the islands.

I found the most beautiful hill with nice views and some goats. There were black goats all over the place. So of course you can guess what that island is "most famous" for in the food department. I'll have to go back there and try some.

A really beautiful day topped off in the evening by going out to dinner with one of my (also beautiful) co-teachers and two students from the all girls school, who are competing in an English competition. We had an "English only" meal so that the students could practice speaking in English. A lovely meal with three lovely ladies.

:)

The end... I'm going home now... work's over.
See ya.