weekend done with SEOUL!

Hey all! few fun updates to send back home... :)

Summer is here and things are finally starting to pick up out-doors-wise. Sarah has bought her own climbing gear and we are almost ready to start hitting some rocks full force! in the meantime, we have been showing her mother and daughter around Korea! We'll get to that later though...

Wednesday we got to go on a field trip with my school and checked out the local zoo. It was a little bit shabby of a zoo but apparently the best they've got around here. It kind of reminded me of Como Zoo where the anmials hung out on concrete in small spaces and looked mostly unhappy and lifeless. I think maybe i've been spoiled into a zoo snob though now after living so close to Omaha Eppley for that year plus. Hard to enjoy any other now!

But the kids had fun of course and we got to spend the day in beautful sunny and 70's weather instead of in the classroom. The highligh of the zoo was the safari ride where we actually drove a mostly-glass bus through the 'cages' which were much bigger and more comfortable looking. Lions, tigers, bears (oh, my... i know), zebras, giraffes, an elephant, etc that could walk right up to the bus! Very cool. : ) here's a couple of pics from the day.


William looking in awe at the giraffe :)

The driver was throwing them snacks! This was the most fun for me and the kids alike i think!

Thursday, i played hookey from Korean class again to go climbing with the crew.... only to find out that the wall was closed all weekend for a competition on Sunday. BUMMER. so i tracked down the other place i've been meaning to in daejeon which is the local bouldering gym. a friend had given me directions so i headed out with his map in hand.

I expected a bouldering gym but instead i found the COOLEST basement i've ever seen! This gym seemed to be someones old basesment totally converted into a massive bouldering area totally packed with holds and routes of all kinds! even all alone, i had an awesome climb sess and then headed to our now-regular screen golf thursday night! - improving but still have a LOT of work to do!



If i have my way, this is exactly what my basement will look like someday. visible in this picture are less than HALF of the holds that were on these walls. no square foot left uncovered! SIGH dream come true! :)


Then comes Friday. An advisor to my boss offered me dinner after work and i would have been a fool to turn him down eventhough it cut my packing time for Seoul down to about 15 minutes. I crammed some stuff in a backpack, shoveled in some food and headed to meet Sarah at the bus stop so we could go meet her mom and sister at the airport. We had about 3 hours to manage a 2 hour trip so we are way ahead of schedule, until...... bus is SOLD OUT! instead, we have to walk to the subway, subway to the intercity train station, train to Seoul and then use Seoul's massive subway system to get to the airport almost an hour away from there - it ended up taking us over 3 hours!! Not to mention, there had been a delay in one of the connecting flights for Sarah's family and we were not even sure if they had gotten off the ground in Tokyo or not!

amidst all of this, a thought occured to me... "man, am i glad the marathon is Sunday and not Saturday! I can't imagine how terrible it would be to have to run already tomorrow morning after all of these mix ups and run-arounds..... OH S***." It struck me just as i was thinking about how bad it would be that it actually was the case! I had Sunday the 29th in my head and realized that could not be correct. I called muc who was at his computer and he confirmed - i had barely eaten, barely slept and we still were nowhere NEAR going to bed.

Finally, as we sat helpless outside of the baggage claim, Sarah's mom and sister appeared magically form behind the big double-doors and life became good again!! we shuttled to a nearby hotel, checked in set my plans for morning and passed out.

I slept for about 3 hours and BARELY decided to force myself to put my feet on the floor and make my way to this race... it probably would have been better if i just stayed in bed but instead, almost 3 hours later, i was toe-ing the line in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world 'ready' to race. Being outside the US, there were no mile markers - only Kilometers so that certainly was an adjustment but i kept on pace for the first 18Km (about 12 miles? - i was actually on pace for my best half time ever until right about this point!). The last few Km's were MURDEROUS however... i slowed significantly, was dizzy to the point of worrying about passing out and was in pain all over my body. I finished just under 1:36 - about a minute and a half over my best time - and practically collapsed outside of the finishing gate.

I have never had to work that hard on a race or been that fatigued after one. Maybe major over-share but i actually had to pee in my shorts a little bit becuase i could barely control my body functions and was too exhausted to move anywhere more appropriate. it took me 20 minutes to walk away from the finishing gate!!

Bottom line of that story is....... I WILL NEVER RUN A RACE THAT UNPREPARED AGAIN!!

then the tourism began! I met back up with the gals (Sarah's sister loves when i say that word - gals - guess they don't have it in the south :)) and they were very patient with me as i hobbled on behind them as we tourized Seoul for the 2 days that would follow. We saw it all and did it all, i would swear by how tired i was!

A demonstration of ancient battle and martial arts near Seoul Tower. Fun! :)

One of the last things we did was to take an elevator to the top of Seoul Tower where you have a 360 degree view of the entire city from about 1000 ft above sea level. They had distances to most major cities in the world written on the window that pointed toward them so i couldn't help but think about home and take the picture below:

Heading THAT way soon!!! it's strange the things that i'm looking forward to seeing and doing back home (other than the obvious friends and family of course!)


1. My cat!! i miss little blue more than i realized i would!!
2. Taco Bell, Davani's and Subway.... to name a few.
3. Driving a car! will i remember how??
4. Twins Games!!... this would be higher on the list if i wasn't too lazy to go and re-write this now
5. Hot tub! haven't found one here!
6. non-smoking clubs and restaurants - seems like everyone smokes here.
7. having a sofa to lounge on... my apt is bare bones.
8. listening in on conversations when you're bored... tough to do if you don't know the language their speaking.... reminds me of everyone constantly telling secrets around you... i wanna know!! :)
9. Bowling, casino nights, Karaokee on a stage instead of a little room!
10. Bonfires and the cabin!

AH, it's all coming up so soon!!!!!! can't wait! :) especially now after writing this!

This week: wednesday off for yet another holiday!! hiking and exploring with Sarah's fam, Busan city on the coast Friday night and Jeju Island Saturday!

thanks for reading! see you SOON!!

Overdue update!

Ah, my dear friends and family! Sorry for the delay if anyone's been checking in regularly hoping for an update (Mom :) )! I've been finding it tough to find time lately. There's always so much to do around here. Anyways, there a lot to say so I will try to sum it up as best I can without getting to wordy.


Last weekend Sarah, Muc and I packed up our things and headed to Seoul late on Friday night. We got there after midnight but still had enough energies to enjoy a couple of beers outside the convenience store that was near our hotel. We B.S.ed with some local peoples who seemed eager to practice their English along with their hospitality, and then we headed off for a few hours of sleep in our skeezy over-priced hotel.


The next morning, we met up with a group called Adventure Korea and sat in the back of their bus as it quickly flooded with foreingers - 'waeguk-eun' as we're called here. Our first stop was the Demilitarized Zone - famed as DMZ - which is the area surrounding the deadly border between North and South Korea. For an area a couple miles deep and hundreds accross said to be 'demilitarized' there sure is an aweful lot of military personell around. Can't say that I blame the south since the north was found to be digging invasion tunnels all along the border during the 70's. Four of such tunnels have been found over the years and the search continues for what they believe to be another dozen or more that exist!!


Although the media is continuously ominous about the Korean situation and there is a constant high strung tension at the border are, it has been years since any actual physical conflict there. The talks from both sides are wanting to unify so they have that in common! Only problem - which is no slight one - is that both sides want to unify with one condition... that their government system prevail.


It was an awakening and educational experience - truly felt like standing on a tower looking over into the Berlin Wall.




All able-bodied South Korean men are required at least two years of military service before their 30 years old. Most of them do-so straight out of secondary school so the DMZ - especially touristic areas of it - are manned with young guys like the fella in this picture who seemed to enjoy a good hug-five as much as the next reasonable person.


If you think that 2 year mandatory military service seems harsh, you should know that the north requires something more like 15 years!!! From age 18 to your early 30's in a military run by a communistic dictator (or so we were told by our South Korean tour guide). It warps your brain to know that people still live like this in our world!!!

Muc and Sarah in one of the infiltration tunnels - a very interesting thing to see, but when you get down there you realize one thing that should have been obvious all along.... it's just a tunnel. :)

A panaramic view from one of the observatories into North Korea. Here we are, free as the day we were born and to be two miles north means you have no life of your own - strange feeling!

Finally of the last things we did on that eventful Saturday was to track down this beautiful bridge....... and bungee jump off of it! All 3 of us got the job done - it being the first time for Muc and I. We all LOVED it and came out unscathed minus some popped blood-vessels in Muc's eyeball. It actually looks pretty cool and he's been able to torture his young students with it in the meantime! Here is a link to my video below if you haven't already seen it on facebook. listed in 'videos' on my profile, there are a couple more videos of the weekend too - one being of us trying to catch catfish with our bare hands in a rice patty swamp marsh; some kind of Korean rite of passage?? :)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=185106315&v=app_2392950137#!/video/video.php?v=617182740532

I've been here for 2 and a half month now and have been with Sarah mostly everyday since day 10 that I arrived. She is fast becoming one of my best friends and we're really doing well aside from missing all of our family and friends back home!

I can't belive the wedding is coming up in a couple of weeks!! I have some big things to do in the meantime too however - including rock climbing and baseball yet today, Seoul next weekend to meet Sarah's mom and sister when they land to visit, a half marathon the following day and Jeju Island the weekend after that!!

I love you guys and will seen you soon!! Thanks for reading! :)

Work hard, play hard!

I thought i should throw out a quick not about Korean drinking culture - because it is a serious matter here!

In Korea, people are VERY demanding of themselves - mentally and physically. it is common to work 12 hour days 6 days each week! Even children have their school all day, then come to a private English school (like the one where I work) after that, then home for a dinner break of less than one hour and again back out to another English academy, violin, piano, taekwondo or Chinese.... Imagine growing up getting used to 16-hour days monday through Friday and then feeling a relief when you only have to attend 6 to 8 hours on the weekends!!


Kids really never get to be kids here! it makes it hard for me to get angry when they start to fall asleep in class or just seem like they have had a really hard week (every week). I once heard that most Asian families never invest their money into 401K or retirement plans at all - instead they dump EVERYTHING they have into making their kids brilliant, and therefore rich and able to support the retired parents. talk about pressure on a 6 year old only child!!!!


It's no wonder that the Asian youth are so much smarter, hard-working and driven to succeed compared to ours back home who are obese and masters of nothing but video games! but is it worth sacrificing your whole childhood for a few extra bucks when you're older?!? you be the judge i guess.


anyways; that work ethic transfers over to the adults and that's where the 16-hour days come into play. how do you compensate for spending more than half of your waking hours at work?? well, the Koreans' answer seems to be: PARTY HARD. they drink profusely whenver afforded the chance and they love to be waited on hand and foot all the while! i believe that's why the service is so good here - 'these guys just finished a 75 hour week and they wanna have a good time; let's see to it!'. this seems to be the standard!


Here is what you must know (to the best of my 2-month knowledge) to drink in Korea:


1. Soju: quintessencial Korean liquor - Korean whiskey or Korean rice wine you will hear it translated. really, it tastes like watered-down vodka, is about 30 proof and roughly a dollar a bottle. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.


2. The younger person (and therefore lower social standing) at the table will pour the drink for the older ones with two hands on the bottle.


3. An 'equal' or 'near-equal' will hold both hands on the cup while it is filled for them. An older person can (and will boastfully) hold the cup out with one hand while you fill it.


4. When the youngest person has filled the cups for everyone else, he/she sets the bottle down on the table so someone else can fill their cup. finally, a cheers and everyone can begin.


5. AS SOON AS ANYONE finishes their cup, another person at the table sitting nearby must fill it again for them! if is disrespectful to not notice an empty glass. if you do not want to be filled up again, DO NOT drink the whole cup in front of you. You must leave a good quarter of the cup left in the bottom or someone will fill it - even if it means they have to order another bottle!!



THERE! now you know how - and why - they drink in Korea! now you have no reason NOT to come and visit me! :)

Feels like SUMMER!!!

Hey gang!! Quick note to update the week here:

Last Wednesday was a Korean national holiday called Children's Day where the entire country (and most of Eastern Asia) is off and supposed to treat their kids to something special (I guess??). They don't move their holidays to cause a 3-day weekend here so Weds it stayed which broke up the week BEAUTIFULLY! with no kids of my own to treat to anything, Sarah and I treated ourselves to a relaxing day downtown including, a tatoo parlor that was so sketchy we had to RUN away from what Sarah had been considering, getting abducted by giant slices of toast - seen below, the arcade, batting cages and finally Galma park right near my house. We were chatting at the park with muc and enjoying a beer when i got recruited into some pick up basketball! sorry to generalize, but people are short here and basketball is NOT the most popular game in Korea - what i'm saying is; for the first time in my life i felt good at basketball! one more advantage to add to the list! ;) the whole day was beautiful and, naturally it beat the pants off of working!


Friday came and we celebrated our Irish friend, Paddy's, early birthday at one of our new favorite local bars, "yellow taxi". the Irish sterotypes stop with his name however since his birthday shot request was not for whiskey, but TEQUILA. Cheers, buddy! sorry we missed out on Busan Saturday night! :) Picture below is Paddy, Alastair and a friend of Al's.



Saturday we went to one of Daejeon's theme parks, Kumdori Land with muc and had a blast! i'm especially proud of my newest addition to the international hug-five collection shown below and proudly displayed as my facebook profile pic. I'm reasonably sure i saw the mascott teaching it to a couple of korean children shortly after. ;)



picture below shows muc maybe not enjoying the rides as much as I did! :) sorry muc, too funny to not post!

Sunday morning, I attempted to run a 10K race but got shut out at the gate. I couldn't figure out how to register online since there was no English function and so i figured i'd show up and go for it at the gate... not so lucky. made our way back to the rock wall later on in the day though and that always makes up for any misfortunes that may have happened. Another good friend from back home who came over here with me, Marilyn, came with us and overcame her fear of heights enough to climb all the way to the top of the 60+ foot wall on her first go! was very impressive and i have a feeling she'll be back! :)

Otherwise, everything is GOOD to say the least. enjoyed the more relaxing weekend in daejeon quite a bit as it will be the last one for a while - some wild and crazy weekend adventures come up each of the next 5 or 6 ending with two glorious weekends back home and adding another little sis to the family - no my mom's not pregnant.... i mean Michelle is marrying Tony.

Speaking of Mama, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MA!!! you're the best and I love you a ton!! Thank you sooo much for all the love and support over the years! i'll give you a call in the (my) morning (your Sunday evening).

SUMMERTIME!! GO LIVE!

Weekend perfection!

Well, these past few days have been unexpectedly amazing without even leaving Daejeon!

Korea is mostly mountains which leaves only about 30% of the total land available for buildings to accomodate the more than 50 million residents. And it's only half the size of Minnesota to begin with. To put it into perspective; picture cutting Minnesota in half; then, take away 70% of the land and make it too mountainous to do much with. Finally, then; multiply the population of the state by 10! Yeah, 50 million people in an useable area about the size of New Jersey.

I'm sure you get the idea... there's not a lot of space that goes to waste here! Businesses stacked on top of eachother for 8 or more stories, generically identical skyscrapper apartment building complexes as far as you can see, elevators to move your car up and down in the parking ramp because they didn't have room for an exit when they built it, cars parked on the street, sidewalk, driveways and alleys 3 or more deep with no way out. It's crazy here! it seems that most cars leave a contact cell phone number in driverside window of their car so that they could be reached if one of the dozens of cars they just parked in needs to leave (imagine that??). The streets are narrow, the buildings tall and the people in a hurry! keeps things interesting!!

So with all the crowding, i'm sure you can imagine that there is little to no room left for golf-courses. Korea's solution? Screen golf!!

It's not unheard of back home, i know. But these things are impressively accurate from driving to putting! as with almost everywhere, you are free to bring a backpack full of beer, snacks and soju and enjoy as you please! golf for a couple hours or as long as you make it take to get through 9 holes for about 14 dollars each!

This has become our new Thursday night tradition recently! picture above to prove how terrible my stroke still is despite increasing the practice! :)

Saturday morning allowed me to find some incredible running trails along the Han river about a half mile from my house! As I got further away from the downtown area, paved river path turned into shoddy bricks, turned into dirt trails, turned into full-fledged mountain hiking/running/mnt biking trails!! i ended up on top of a mountain before i ever could bring myself to turn around and got waaaay more of a workout that day than i had bargained for when i set out. good thing too because i've recently registered for a half marathon in Seoul at the end of this month! :)

After that, Outback steakhouse with my babe and lots of darts and beer to follow!

Sunday was sent from Heaven as i met up with some climbing folk i had met at the bars here and they took me to the Daejeon climbing wall!!!! a more than 60-foot wall put up by the city, totally free and open every day about 4 subway stops from me! SWEET GLORY!!!

ISN'T IT LOVELY???? :)

We got Sarah back in the action too! she hadn't climbed for a couple years since college but jumped right back in and looked like a natural after getting her feet off the ground!! very excited to have met a dozen AWESOME new climber folks here in my city just as the summer is starting up!!!

Then off to the Daejeon Hanwa Eagles basball stadium for some 'triple-A' equivalent baseball with Sarah, muc and company! picture the St Paul Saints prices and sized ball-park paired with Viking-serious fans! These people are NUTS about their semi-pro baseball. The game went to extra innings and the crowd was insanely into the action the whole time so of course we had a blast.... oh did I mention; once again FEEL FREE TO BRING YOUR OWN BEER!! that's right, byob (or snacks or a whole meal - anything) to beautiful summer baseball!

Some St Paul schwennies reppin' the Twinks in S.K.

A quote came over me while I was running on Saturday morning that I thought i might share: "It's better to die living than to live a whole life like you're already dead!"

Cheers, thanks for checking in!! :)