Settling In

Just hanging out on the Right Bank of Lake Geneva

 Now that I've had a few days to unpack and get settled in I figured it was probably time for me to write up another post so I don't lose my dedicated readers. It really is too early for me to say how I have been adjusting on the whole; I slept in until 1 PM on Monday, which while not great, was fine since I don't begin my internship until Wednesday. However, for the most part, I feel like I'll be able to get into a pretty good routine in Geneva.

The John Knox Centre, where I am living while in Geneva, is very conveniently located. It was a short bus ride from the airport to the nearest bus stop and then just a 15 minute schlep uphill with my bags to the Centre. For those of you that have been able to view my pictures on Facebook, you know that my room is not very spacious at all and it has taken a little getting used to but thankfully I packed well (wonder where I learned that?) and there has been enough closet and shelving space for all my things. I also have a desk but I haven't used it much; it's more comfortable for me to use my computer in bed. The Centre is located in the village of Pregny, which is roughly a 20-30 minute walk from the Place des Nations a.k.a. the UN headquarters. The Centre is also just 750 meters from where I'll be working which is great. Public transportation in Geneva has been pretty accessible as well and there are bus stops located nearby. I actually just went on my first grocery run at the local COOP supermarche. Next to the Centre there is also a great trail that serves as the perimeter to a vast area of fields and there is a great view of the mountain range surrounding Geneva and Lake Geneva. I look forward to going on many nice runs/walks along this trail.

Now to the really fun stuff...On Sunday I met up with two of the other students who are from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University who are participating on the same program as me but are working for different organizations. One of the students had been here for a week already and the other student arrived just a few hours before I did last Saturday so we all decided that we should go exploring and get to know a part of the city that wasn't Pregny. We ventured out towards Lake Geneva heading down to the Right Bank. Geneva is similar to Paris where there is a Left Bank and a Right Bank, but instead of being divided by a river like the Seine, Geneva is split up by the lake. Anyways, after taking in the scenery along the lakeshore, we hopped aboard a water taxi and went across the lake, past the famous Jet d'Eau to the Left Bank, where the Vieille Ville (Old Town) of Geneva is located. This is definitely the more historical part of Geneva and it was interesting to walk along the cobblestone roads and stumble upon Catholic cathedrals that were converted after the Reformation into Calvinist churches along with many other landmarks. We even found ourselves in a  park with human-sized chess boards and checker boards and we were able to play (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5BTOaGoJ8), even if we were the only tourists there; it was a popular place for the older gentlemen of Geneva.

View of Lake Geneva and the Jet d'Eau

I've spent most of my time since filling out various forms that are necessary for my organization to have before I can begin my internship position. However, yesterday evening we met with a man named Werner who is a close acquaintance of one of the Maxwell School faculty who helped to arrange this internship program. Werner was very nice and took us around and then out to dinner at a nice cafe where I had steak du boeuf avec une sauce aux poivre vert which was delicious. Afterwards he drove us to Pregny's neighboring village, Chambesy, where we had a great view of Lake Geneva at dusk and then from there we headed to a remote location down on the lakefront for a great view of Geneva at night. All in all it was quite a nice welcome to Geneva! That's all for now, I'll try and get another post up by the end of the weekend.

Oops!! Wrong Werner!

What I'm listening to: "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" - LCD Soundsystem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8JrQ9w5jY

Jetting Off to Geneva

View of the Jet d'Eau and Lake Geneva with the city in the background

It certainly has been a while since I last posted on the blog but I figured now would be a good opportunity for me to get everyone up to speed with how I've been and what I have on tap over the summer. As most of you probably know, I never did get around to writing up my 2 months of travel around Southeast Asia after finishing my teaching career in Korea and I'm sorry about that; I hope that at some point in the future I will be able to sit down and be able to concisely write about those 2 months and post it to this blog. Most of you also probably know that I was fortunate enough to be selected for a summer internship in Geneva, Switzerland with an international organization. Unfortunately because I'm not sure about how strict this agency is about what gets posted on the Internet, I'm going to leave my position and agency unlisted until I find out more about their social media policies. Anyways, I'm leaving tomorrow evening and I thought that the blog would be a good forum for me to communicate with all of you about my happenings while in Switzerland. Additionally I will be taking plenty of pictures and uploading them so there should be lots of eye candy for everyone. You can access these pictures from this blog by clicking on the link to My Picasa Pics on the right hand side of the blog. Otherwise I'll be posting them on Facebook as well. If you would like to subscribe to the blog via email you can do so by signing up on the right hand side of the blog. Lastly, the URL for the blog has changed, I figured wolfishinkorea didn't really apply anymore so the new URL address for the blog is wolfishworldadventures.blogspot.com, please make sure to bookmark it! And of course, I couldn't forget what I'm sure was a highlight of the blog for many.

What I'm listening to: "Caught By The River" by Doves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE7W44TPXvM

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER, SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER!!

Okay, so the last day of elementary school in South Korea isn't quite like the last day of middle school/high school in 1976 Texas, but it's close.  Right now I'm still kind of in disbelief at how quickly two years has flown by.  Technically I have two days of "goodbye" classes when I get back from vacation in August, but for all intents and  purposes, today was the last day regular classes for me.  I have two weeks of English summer camp coming up to close out July and that's pretty much it.  I apologize for the long time in between blog posts the last few months.  I want to make the content I put up on this blog as interesting as possible, which is why I have kept from posting some of the more mundane experiences that I've had here.  That being said, this blog post is gonna be pretty long because a lot of funny and interesting things have happened in the last few weeks.

I'll start with a little school story that happened a few weeks ago.  Back in February my school had a decent amount of changeover in the teaching and administrative staff.  One of the new administrative staff, a man named Mr. Song, joined our school.  His main duties, as I understand them, are to stock the cafeteria with the necessary food and cooking supplies and to also help out in the administrative office with paperwork, etc...the normal school bureaucracy routine.  Anyways, Mr. Song has a real passion for learning English, which naturally led him to me.  So, back in February, when we had a lot of free time and no classes, he would drop by and ask me some questions and I would try and help him understand the answers to his questions.  Obviously once school started up again in March, neither of us had the free time we had before, so we couldn't meet up and chat as often.  But, now that the spring semester was coming to a close, we had some more free time again.  As it so happens, Mr. Song found out that I really like music (he's heard me playing piano from time to time), and as it turns out, he has been practicing/learning guitar and is pretty good.  He started up a band with a few other teachers from my school and another elementary school nearby.  They have been learning a few Korean songs, but a few weeks ago, he came to me with a question about an English song.  He had come across the song "Come on Feel the Noise," by Quiet Riot, an 80's hair metal band.  He had a question about the spelling, because the version he came across was spelled differently (I'll let you use your imagination to figure out what was misspelled).  I had to explain to him the difference in spelling without revealing too much or cracking up in hysterical laughter.  Well, it turns out, the reason he wanted to know about the song is because he wanted me to sing LEAD VOCALS on the song with his band.  I put this off for a few weeks because a. I don't really know the song all that well and b. I didn't really want to do it all.  Finally, last week I gave in and tried to channel my inner Roger Daltrey/Eddie Vedder (I think that's what I sounded like, but I can't be too certain) and gave it the old college try.  Apparently I wasn't too bad and now they want me to perform the song for all the teachers on my last day (I'm not so sure about this, lyrical content aside), so we'll see if this actually happens.  Anyways, here's what I'll look and sound like if we do end up going through and performing for everyone.

The last two weeks of school have pretty much been a joke.  Last week the students had final exams on Tuesday and then we went on a field trip to a water park on Thursday.  Originally my plan was to just hang out with the other teachers indoors or out by the pools, but I still brought my swimsuit just in case.  Two of the younger male teachers decided they were going to go swimming as well and I decided that I probably should join them or fear the wrath of the entire student body.  So I went in and almost instantly I had ten students dangling off of each of my arms.  Swimming at a water park in Korea is a different experience than it is back home.  In Korea, everybody needs to wear a life jacket and a bathing cap.  I didn't have a bathing cap, so I lasted in the water as long as I could before any of the lifeguards noticed.  I remember going swimming with my cabin at camp but that was tame compared to swimming with all of my students.  It was so crazy, I'm glad I'm a pretty good swimmer, otherwise I might've been in trouble.  

Then, last weekend, all the teachers from my school went on a teachers trip to Seonyudo, an island on the west coast of Korea, about 2 1/2 hours south of Suwon.  I didn't know what to expect from the trip, other than some awesome seafood meals and a decent amount of alcohol consumption to celebrate the end of the semester.  We took a bus from school down to Gunsan, where we hopped on boats to cruise over to the island.  Seonyudo is part of an island chain and we were able to check out the other islands by boat before landing at Seonyudo.  Our approach to Seonyudo reminded me of the scene in Shutter Island when Leo and Mark Ruffalo are approaching, the combination of fog and rain set the mood.  That night after we settled into our pension, we had an incredible seafood dinner, complete with many varieties of raw fish and spicy fish stew.  After dinner, the restaurant brought over buckets, literally buckets!!, of shellfish that we grilled and ate outside our pension.  The next activity was a trip to the local noraebang to belt out some classics and standards.  I am proud to say I rocked the Temptations,"My Girl," for a 100%.  It was definitely a fun night and Saturday also proved to be a fun day.  Originally we were supposed to bike around the island, but it was pretty wet so we took golf carts instead.  Afterwards, it had cleared up a bit and we were able to bike around for a little while before we had to depart.  We stopped for lunch in Gunsan afterwards and had a great crab meal.  We got back to school Saturday afternoon and then I headed in to Seoul to celebrate Judy's birthday.

Sunday was also a pretty eventful day.  The spring league Frisbee playoffs had been postponed due to the monsoons that have dropped down on Korea the last few weeks.  If you haven't seen in the weather, it's been pretty wet here since July began.  Anyways, Sunday was the new designated day, but the field was so soft and muddy that cleats weren't allowed, so we played barefoot (getting back to our roots!).  My team finished 2nd in the league, so we had a bye into the semifinals.  We ended up winning in semifinals 13-9 and got to watch the other semifinal to see who our finals opponent would be.  The finals was close to start, but my team went on a pretty long run and ended up winning the final.  It was a little anticlimactic, but it still felt good.  This was the first tournament that I had won in quite some time.  

So, that's about all from here.  This weekend is Mudfest down in Boryeong, which if you don't know about or don't remember, you can check out my blog post about the event last year.  http://wolfishinkorea.blogspot.com/2010/07/wethotmuddy-fun.html

Otherwise, I'm cashing in on all the Harry Potter hysteria and made a Harry Potter themed summer camp, hopefully the students enjoy it.

Here are some pics:

Some of the teachers and myself on the boat over to Seonyudo.

CHAMPIONS with our PIG OF GLORY!!

What I'm listening to: "Jemimah Surrender" by The Band

Toro y Moi concert

It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks here as I was in final preparations for the GRE and getting through the day to day of teaching school through the recent warm weather.  Luckily, I had a chance to catch the Toro y Moi concert last Thursday as a brief respite from my studying and the mundane work week.  The concert was good while it lasted, but unfortunately, it only lasted for 45 minutes.  It seems that the venue where the concert was held (V-Hall in Hongdae) must have some new deal or new management because they have been cutting sets short at pretty much every concert held there since the start of the new year.  They are definitely pushing people to go to an after party at another club, which is pretty lame, given that I spent 1,000 won for each minute of music I heard last Thursday night.  Again, I don't have anything against the musicians, I doubt it's their fault and I heard that they were pretty friendly with the audience at the after party.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go because I wanted to get a good night's rest back in Suwon.  It's sad to think that this was potentially my last concert experience in Korea, especially given how successful the rest of the concerts I've gone to have been in comparison to the Toro y Moi concert.  The music was great though, and definitely got my mind off of the test, if only for a few brief hours.

It's hard to believe that in a month I'm pretty much finished with teaching in South Korea.  I'll have more to reflect on then I'm sure, but my immediate thoughts right now are that it has definitely been a very valuable experience that I'll remember for the rest of my life.  The frisbee season has a few weeks left as well and then that will come to a close.  In my head I've tried to come up with a short bucket list of things or places I'd like to see that I haven't been to or done yet.  So far not too much comes to mind, but I'm still working on it.  I figured I'd drop in and give everyone a brief update while I had the time this afternoon.  Hope everyone is well wherever you may be!

What I'm listening to: "Wordless Chorus" by My Morning Jacket featuring Erykah Badu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUWBOdK7h1w

Also if you want to check out Toro y Moi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gqh4e1S6j0

Beijing Bonanza!

Hey all,

As it turns out, I'm still really good at procrastinating.  Now, all joking aside (at least for now) here is my write up of Beijing that most of you have been anxiously waiting for.  I apologize for making you wait so long, just know that the anticipation was definitely worth it.

I suppose I should start at the beginning; I arrived in Beijing on Friday evening after a nice, short week of work thanks in part to Children's Day and Sports Day (I love school holidays!).  Getting to and from the airport in Beijing is pretty pain-free.  They built a fast train into the heart of the city in preparation for the 2008 Olympics and it was definitely a good decision.  The train took roughly 30 minutes to get into the heart of Beijing and it was another 30 minutes on the subway to reach my hostel.  I chose to stay at a hostel called the Chinese Box Hostel (http://www.boxhostel.com/tour.html#p1), which is located in a hutong, an traditional Chinese neighborhood, of which there are still several all around Beijing.  It was also pretty close to the metro, which made traveling around Beijing pretty easy and accessible.  By the time I got to my hostel, I was pretty hungry and tired, so I dropped my things off and went exploring around the neighborhood for some food.  I ended up at a Muslim Chinese restaurant that had some pretty good Chinese cuisine and some excellent bread that was similar to naan.  Afterwards I hung around the hostel and met some of the people there and called it a night.

When I woke up on Saturday I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  I had a general idea of what I wanted to see, but I wasn't sure in what order I should do everything.  One of my roommates had decided that he wanted to go cycling around Beijing and stop at a few different destinations along the way.  I figured that this would be a pretty interesting way to explore Beijing, especially since it was my first full day in the city, what better way to see Beijing then by bike, just like the locals do everyday!  We were able to rent bikes from our hostel and then we were off, cruising around the city.  The weather was perfect for a long day of cycling around the city, as would be the case almost every day of the trip, with the exception of a downpour on Sunday night.  The first stop on our bike tour of Beijing was Beihai Park, which was pretty close to our hostel (maybe a 20 minute bike ride).  It is a huge park and is famous for the White Dagoba it houses.  Check it out:

White Dagoba at Beihai Park

While we were at the park, we also stumbled upon a traditional Chinese wedding, full of traditional garb and dragons!

The wedding attracted quite a crowd and after we took our pictures, we moved on.  From Beihai Park, we cycled our way to another group of parks that were along a lake.  This area was pretty nice; there were plenty of cafes lining the streets and it seemed very European, almost reminiscent of being in Amsterdam, minus the bridges.  We also went and checked out the Bell and Drum Tower, which are both centuries old.  Here's  a pic of me on my bike in front of the Bell Tower:

After a little more biking around, we were getting ready for a meal.  My hostel buddy had read about this amazing burger place in Beijing and had been craving it ever since.  I thought the idea of a really good burger joint in Beijing was pretty interesting and so we ended up biking out to Sanlitun, which is an area of Beijing that has been recently given a major face lift both before the 2008 Olympics and afterwards as well.  There is a very large outdoor mall there called the West Village, which could be anywhere in the western world.  Conveniently enough, this is where our burger restaurant was located.  Let's Burger was in very few words, simply delightful.  I ordered an Australian Double (two Australian Angus beef patties, cheese, a fried egg, bacon, and the usual toppings) and my friend ordered the Let's Burger special (one Angus beef patty, cheese, avocado spread, smoked salmon, and a tiger shrimp on top).  Check these bad boys out!

My delicious Australian Double

The Let's Burger Special

In addition to amazing burgers, Let's Burger also has delectable fries and a plethora of different sauces, ranging from the traditional (ketchup, mustard, mayo, Tabasco sauce) to the more unique (curry mayonnaise and chocolate mayonnaise).  If you are ever in Beijing and craving a burger, this is definitely the place.  Please, I beg you, don't waste your time on McDonalds.

After eating, we worked hard to keep biking around the city.  We checked out the Workers' Stadium area and then made our way back to our hostel after accomplishing all that we had set out to do.  I had found out earlier Saturday morning that a friend of a friend from Suwon was traveling in Beijing at the same time I was and coincidentally, was staying at the same hostel that I was.  I met him shortly after I got back to the hostel and it turned out that Joe and I were staying in the same room.  We went and met up with a friend of mine, Rob, from Ultimate, who lives in Beijing.  He took us for some awesome lamb skewers for dinner and then out to meet some of his friends.  We went to one bar that night that had an incredible selection of micro-brews from the Eastern USA, which are impossible to find in Korea.  Needless to say that this was a treat.  It was definitely a good decision to meet up with Rob and his friends; they showed us a great time around Beijing's nightlife.

That being said, Joe and I were ready to go do some more exploring on Sunday.  The first place headed to was the Beijing Zoo to check out the the famous pandas and some other crazy creatures.  

The pandas were the most interesting part of the zoo, but it was definitely nice to see some of the different monkeys and apes that I had learned about a few years ago back at Madison.  After the zoo we headed for the Summer Palace.  Unfortunately, this is when it started to rain, but that was okay with us, we just brought out our rain gear and went on our way.  The Summer Palace is a beautiful area filled with different buildings and the main palace and it's built around a lake.  Many of the buildings are well restored and the forest area provides for many scenic walks around the grounds.  Here are a few pics of the Summer Palace.

After making our way through the Summer Palace, we took the metro back to our hostel to get out of the rain.  We were hoping the weather would die down so we could go get some authentic Peking duck for dinner, but that wasn't the case, so we popped in to a local restaurant around the corner that had delicious dumplings.  We ordered maybe 6 different kinds of dumplings and all of them were amazing.  I can't get over how, no matter what ethnic cuisine they originate from, dumplings are always delicious.

Joe and I decided that Monday was going to be the day we went to check out the Great Wall.  I don't think you could ask for a better day, especially given the rain that Beijing received the night before.  The weather was definitely in our favor; sunny and between 20-24 Celsius all day.  We chose to go to the Jinshanling section of the Wall, which is a little more remote and less crowded.  We had to wake up at 6 am to catch our shuttle to another shuttle which drove us three hours into the northern Chinese countryside to Jinshanling.  When we arrived at Jinshanling, there was literally no one there.  We took the cable car to the top and then we had pretty much an entire section of the Great Wall to roam around for a few hours.  It is truly an impressive sight and definitely a wonder.  I feel like the pictures do it must more justice than any amount of words will, so here you are:

Joe and I at the Great Wall

We walked on the Wall for a few hours before we were worn out enough to start heading down the mountain.  At the bottom, we had a buffet lunch waiting for us, unfortunately it wasn't that great, but that's besides the point, the Great Wall experience was everything I could've hoped it would be.  When we got back to our hostel, we were pretty exhausted and had a pretty relaxed night.

Tuesday was the last day in Beijing for Joe and myself, but thankfully, we both booked evening flights to give ourselves enough time to have at least a half day of sightseeing.  We started off by heading out to the Olympic area to check out the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest Stadium.  Both are pretty cool architectural feats up close.  Take a look for yourself:

From the Olympic area, we made our way over to the Temple of Heaven, basically traversing across the city. The Temple of Heaven was also very interesting.  The area includes a large park and many historical temples and other buildings.  We went through there a little quickly because we wanted to fit in everything we had left to do.  Across the street from the Temple of Heaven is the Pearl Market, which we went to check out next.  In addition to pearls, the merchants also sell knockoff clothes, shoes, silks, and other accessories.  I was able to find a few nice polo shirts and only paid $12, so I was pretty happy about that.  At this point, Joe and I split up, because he wanted to do some more shopping and I still had to get to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and also eat Peking duck.  I'm not quite sure how I did this, but in under four hours, I was able to check all of these things off my Beijing to-do checklist.  

I arrived at the airport safe and sound and returned back to Korea on Tuesday night.  The past two weeks have been pretty good for me.  The weather has gotten really nice, although you can feel that summer is definitely on its way soon.  Last weekend we had a frisbee tournament in Busan.  But, this was a little different, we played on the beach.  The weather was great again (although it was raining in Seoul) and it was an excellent weekend, although my feet and legs were pretty sore at the beginning of this week.  I can't believe how quickly time has been going by lately, so hard to believe that it's going to be June next week.  I've been prepping pretty hard for the GREs and feel prepared to take them in two weeks.  After that, it's all summer time mode with some extensive trip planning thrown in as well.

That's all from here, hope everybody and everything is well wherever my readers may be.

What I'm listening to: "Deep Blue Sea" by Grizzly Bear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEDqk67AhsE

    

Passover and Jeju Dirty Dozens Tournament 2011

Hey all,

I apologize again for another long overdue blog post.  I got caught up doing some other things (frisbee practices, dinners, GRE study, watching NHL and NBA playoffs, etc...) and ended up forgetting to put something new up. But, the good news is that now I have some free time to get a few new posts up on the blog.  As some of you know, I just got back from a trip to Beijing over the long weekend that we had in South Korea, so I'll have another new post up, hopefully in a day or two, about that trip.  For now, I'll just stick with the month of April (Passover and the Jeju frisbee tournament).

I know some of my dedicated readers were concerned about how I was going to celebrate Passover in Korea this year.  Last year, as some of you might remember, I went to the Air Force base in Osan for Seder.  Unfortunately, this year, Seder was being held on a Friday, instead of Monday or Tuesday, so I couldn't make it down to the base, because I was flying out to Jeju that night.  Instead, on Tuesday night, we had a mini-Seder at my friend Raef's apartment.  For the first time in a few years, I actually made something to bring to Seder.  I found a pretty easy charoset recipe (which is pretty easy to make in general) and made a pretty solid batch.  We also had some chicken, delicious potatoes, some great vegetables, and of course, matzo ball soup.  Seder was very enjoyable and I wish I had taken some pictures so you could see how we celebrated.  Alas, you'll just have to use your imaginations.  The best part about Seder was probably the great leftovers I got to take home with me.  It was a full week's worth of good food.

In the middle of Passover, we had the Jeju Dirty Dozens Frisbee Tournament (April 22-24).  I left for Jeju Friday after school and got in at a decent time Friday night, enough time to have a little fun at the registration party and catch up with some friends who I hadn't seen in a little while.  The whole weekend was pretty windy, which as you can imagine, plays a huge factor at a frisbee tournament.  Luckily for my team, it was a positive factor for most of the weekend.  Our team was seeded 8th at the tournament and we lucked out in being able to sleep in Saturday morning, because our first game wasn't until the second round of games.  Our first game on Saturday was against Huwa (from Shanghai).  We came out pretty strong, thanks to the hard work of our zone defense and took half time 6-4 and continued our strong play in the second half to win our first game.  The second game of Saturday was against Shiok (from Singapore).  They were a little tougher of an opponent, but again, the zone defense played a huge role in our team's success on the field.  We took half time again and eventually won our second game as well.  Next up for us was the #1 seed in the tournament and the top team in our pool, Iku (from Japan).  We started the game trading points to 2-2, but then Iku got out on a run and took half 3-6.  We came out flat in the second half and Iku ended up winning 5-9.  After completing pool play, we had a cross-over game (played for Sunday's seeding) against Whisby Nation, who had already won their pool.  We started off trading points with them as well, up to 4-4, but then Whisby started pulling away.  They took half 4-6 and in the second half, we ran out of steam and lost.  Yet, we were pretty happy with our overall play on Saturday, going 2-2, meaning we had already beaten our seed and were now seeded 4th going into Sunday.

There was a tournament dinner and party on Saturday night, as per usual at frisbee gatherings, and the theme this year was mustaches.  Here is just a sample of how people incorporated the theme.

The party didn't last too long on Saturday night, mostly because people were tired out from a day of Ultimate and were gearing up for a big day on Sunday.

Sunday was a big day for all teams, including ours.  We weren't just content with beating our seed at the tournament; now that we had accomplished that goal, we looked to contend for finals on Sunday.  Our first game Sunday was the quarter-finals against SARS (a mix of players from Beijing and Hong Kong).  This game was super close the entire way through and after going down 5-7, we scored two points in a row to take the game to universe point (sudden death).  We ended up winning the game on universe point 8-7, which was huge for our team.  Here's a pic of me actually jumping for a "d;" don't let the picture fool you, I actually got the "d," just with my right hand.

It may appear like I lost the "d" here,
but I actually hit the disc with my right hand.

After beating SARS, we had another shot at Iku, who we had lost to on Saturday.  We started this game very strong, playing very aggressive offense and defense and went up 6-4, before letting up three points in a row to give up half time 6-7.  The second half was a determined battle between both sides, who traded points until Iku got a second upwind break point, which was just enough for them to pull away from our team.  In the end, we lost 9-10, but it was a very hard fought game for both teams.  A loss in the semis meant that we had finished tied for 3rd place with the Seoul A team.  Overall, Jeju was a pretty awesome experience for our team, who finally came together after a month or so of indifferent practices and played one full and exciting weekend of Ultimate.

Since Jeju, life has been pretty good.  Spring has definitely sprung here in Korea, although the last few days have been a bit wet.  Last week was a pretty easy week for teaching.  My school had Sports Day practices almost everyday, which meant that on Wednesday and Friday, my classes were cancelled.  In addition, last Thursday was Children's Day, so we didn't have school.  Just by luck, Children's Day coincided with Cinco de Mayo and one of the Mexican restaurants in Seoul held an outdoor music and food celebration for the holiday.  The weather was really nice and it ended up being a great way to spend the day off.  That's all from here for now, a full write-up of the Beijing trip will be up in the next few days, so stay tuned.

All April's Fools

Again another long time in between posts, I apologize for that again.  I've been caught up between frisbee and GRE studying and haven't had a good opportunity to sit down and collect all my thoughts until right now.  Anyways, the guys on the left are MGMT and I saw them in concert on April 1st in Seoul.  Another good concert, but probably not worth the 100,000 won it cost to see them live.  I'd already seen them before at Bonaroo in 2009 and that was a much better show than this last one, but maybe that was partly due to them being at the end of a long tour this time around.  Overall still enjoyable, just probably would've been much more enjoyable for say 30,000 won.  In addition to seeing another concert, it seems late March/April is prime birthday time.  Nate's birthday was March 25th and we celebrated that weekend by going to a authentic Memphis BBQ restaurant for some ribs and a night out in Gangnam.  Needless to say a good time was had by all.  The following weekend was Keith's birthday and this time we went to a Brazilian steakhouse in Gangnam area (actually closer to Apgujeong) called Mercado for some meat and then some more meat followed by another serving of you guessed it, meat.  This meat was extraordinary.  I think the last time I went to a Brazilian steakhouse was November 2008, Thanksgiving break at Fogo de Chao with the family.  I had meat overkill that night and I literally couldn't eat meat for a few weeks afterwards.  Even the smell of meat cooking was enough to set me off.  Luckily that didn't happen this time, just enjoyed the high quality beef without overdoing it. 

Meanwhile, frisbee has been picking up a lot as we edge closer to the Jeju tournament and coincidentally, the weather has also begun to be spring like, with temperatures in the low 60s recently which is great!  I'm really looking forward to the tournament; we just got our jerseys in and they look great. 

School wise not too much is going on, just making it through week to week.  Last Friday afternoon, most of the teachers took a little hiking trip to a mountain on the border between Suwon and Yongin, which was enjoyable.  Afterwards we had a great dinner, also always enjoyable. 

Not quite sure what's on tap for this weekend.  Potentially seeing the Suwon Bluewings play some soccer on Friday or maybe an LG Twins baseball game.  Also more birthdays, really it's out of control how many April birthdays there are!  Oh, and how could I forget the most important news of all.  Most of you remember the fiasco I wrote about in dealing with getting a Chinese travel visa in Korea.  Well, at least I'm putting it to good use.  I'm heading to China for a quick trip the first weekend in May (May 6-10).  We have a long weekend because of Buddha's birthday (see, even more birthdays!) so I have the following Monday and Tuesday off of school.  Unfortunately I can't go for longer, but I'm going to get in 4 days in Beijing, which I heard is plenty of time.  I'm planning on going to Great Wall one day and figure out the rest in the next few weeks.  I also found a pretty cool hostel located in one of the older neighborhoods that is surrounded with little tea houses and markets, so that should be pretty interesting.

That's pretty much all from this end right now.  I have to get my racquet restrung, but then I'll try and get out and play some tennis, hopefully soon.

What I'm listening to: "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" by Fleet Foxes (really really good, the entire album is!  Thanks Yoda!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jbXOz7PXEg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwXsvwklvfA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqnxPGwpo4