Oh Korea

"The South Korean government now supports more than 40 treatment programs to deal with video game and Internet addiction."

"A South Korean man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks."

"Every second household in South Korea has a broadband connection to the internet."

I think you guessed that children here play on their computer way to much. They even have professional video game players that are actually nationally famous. This post isn't about this but it might help you understand why I thought this next story was really funny.

Our text book follows the seasons. Right around christmas the video's on the cd started having snow and christmas songs in them. In one of the video's there are three kids talking about making a snowman after a heavy snow storm. While talking one of the boys (Bill) gets hit in the face by a snow ball by another kid (Joon). Joon starts laughing as anyone would and then you see his face turn to a fearful look. The other three are now chasing him with the base of the previous mentioned snow man over their heads. The children laughed and I did too. After the video I asked them, "What happened to Bill in this video?" Most of the kis in the other classes were able to say at least part of the right answer which was, "Joon hit bill in the face with a snowball." In one of my classes, a lower level one at that, everyone is silent for about 20 seconds. Right after that there were some words being thrown out such as "throw" and "snow ball." One kid even shouted out "Jay-kuh I love you." Although it's a good answer it isn't the right one. Out of no where, this kid who never speaks, or even looks up jumps up as excited as I have ever seen him and shouts out, "SNOW BALL HEAD SHOT!" Immediately I had a flash back to my teenage days of playing counter strike online with friends. When you shoot someone in the face the computer games spits out the phrase "HEAD SHOT." I couldn't help but start laughing, the rest of the class (even the kid) joined in too. Who said video games never taught anyone anything?


Video games for the most part are def. unhealthy for children in America. Lets talk about something a little better for good living. This past Sunday I went hiking with some friends. We climbed Apsan. Ap=Forward, San=Mountain. So combine the two and you get Forward Mountain...I hope. It is a mountain on the South rim of Daegu. We met downtown and made our way over. A buddy of mine brought his dog, a 3 year old bull terrier. Very cute animal, but a funny looking face. We got to the mountain and hiked up. It was a little more than a mile, but parts of it were very steep. All in all not too hard. The puppy was having a blast. He let her off the leash and she ran up the mountain and waiting until we got closer then jetted away again. It was really warm and was a great day to hike. We made it to the top after about 1 1/2. I realized then why it was a famous mountain. There were a number of different viewing places you could hike around to, but from every one of them you got an amazing panoramic view of the entire city of Daegu. You could see everything. At the top we met this Korean kid who's english was pretty kick ass. He started talking to us and introduced his twin brothers. Nice kids, and obviously he was excited to speak English. We were being nice of course since we are all teachers, then he went away and came back with some home made Gim Bop that his mother and father brought along on the hike. Gim bop is Korean sushi. It was really good, and we ate a lot. I gave him one of my nutri-grain bars but by his face I knew he didn't like it. They tagged along with us till the end of the hike and then left after getting someone's e-mail address. After the hike it was only appropriate to go to a Jim Jill Bong with the crew so we did. Mad relaxing. If you guys don't know what a Jim Jill Bong is read my past post about it. Pretty close to the beginning of when I got here. After that, went to downtown and got some good food, took a bus back watched a movie and passed out. GREAT day.

This will be my last post for at least until January 13th because I will be on vacation. I'll be in India and Thailand until the 13th. I can't wait, I leave Friday. For now I must leave you! I have to go dress up as Santa Claus for my Hapkido peoples. I'm the only white person they know so it's only appropriate. After that it's downtown for an ugly sweater x-mas party. Trust me, I bought an ugly fucking sweater. Got it for 2 bucks that is how ugly it is. Take care ladies and gentlemen, i'll have A LOT to write about when I get back.

p.s- GOT MY VIDEO CAMERA TODAY, SOME OF YOU SHOULD EXPECT DVD'S.

India Auto Rickshaw Spectacular

Some of you have been informed already about my upcoming adventure. Dec. 29th I will be leaving for India to participate in the 2007 CEAT Autorickshaw charity race. My friend from orientation, Art, and myself are leaving from Seoul (the capital of Korea) on the 29th at 1050 in the morning. We land in Thailand at 4:45 pm and have a one night lay over there. It will be nice cause i'll get to see a little of Bangkok. We leave the next morning at 1055am and land in Chennai India 1245pm. We are getting picked up from the airport by transportation provided by the event. When we get there the fun begins. This race is a team event. Each team recieves a Tuk Tuk, or Autorickshaw, that they will use for the duration of the event. The Auto rickshaw is basically a motorcycle taxi. One wheel in the front, two in the back and bench seat behind the drivers seat all enclosed with a roof. Forget the doors here. They vary in size but basically on the smaller side. It's gonna be funny Art is about 6' 2". I'll take plenty of pictures of him squeezing in. Some are in better shape than others but they are all basically guaranteed to break at least once in the event. But hey, getting them fixed is all part of the fun. Since they are really popular in India there is no shortage of repair men. Even the smallest town has at least one specialist. THE RACE: It is a 10 day, 600+ mile race down the South East coast of India. It starts in Chennai and we work our way down the coast. We race in every type of terrain India has to offer. From deserted roads to thick jungles, from busy paved city streets to dirt roads in a monsoon. The race is tour de France style so we start at a checkpoint and end at another one for the day. That night we all get dinner and hang out until the next morning. The people with the best time at the end of the race win. Let me say right away I don't give 5 shits about winning, the experience in itself is rewarding enough for me. We will be seeing places that many tourists have never been. I plan on stopping many times when ever we want to get out and look around. My team name is The Hanuman-iacs. It was Art's idea and a very good one at that. Hanuman is a monkey god in India. He went around India in his time and caused all sorts of trouble, he is very popular among the Indian people. It should help us out especially in the smaller towns. Adding iacs to the end to make maniacs was just as necessary as taking showers. It made it THAT much better. When we get there first thing is to go through the check in process. Right after that we learn how to actually drive the thing. Since I drive a bike I think it will be easier for me than others but all in all it shouldn't be too hard. Basic gears and clutch so we should be good to go. Next we get to paint our rickshaw. It should be obvious that we are going to paint a big picture of a monkey on the thing. I requested orange base paint so we can be seen better but I don't know if that will work out. Either way, there will be painting. After the first day of learning how to drive we all hang out together, the next morning the race starts. I can't explain how excited I am about this whole thing so I won't even try. I bought a video camera specifically to film the event so i'll make some DVD's and put stuff on my facebook. I'll have this footage when I get home so if ya'll wanna see what's good it'll be there. After we finish the race it will be January 9th...yes new years will be celebrated in India...IN A COCONUT GROVE! Off the hoooook. We fly out of India on the 10th (hopefully with tailor made suits and jewlery cause it's maaad cheap) and land in Bangkok later that night. We are going to an Island right off the coast. Art lived there for 6 months while teaching so he knows the area. We got a little cabin literally on the beach and i'm gonna chill there until the 13th when I fly out. I can't wait. Jealous?

Sorry

Sorry i've been slowing down with the posts. Just getting busy again...and what i'm not busy i'm lazy. But I should be writing more tomorrow. Some things to look forward to. My India Autorickshaw race is coming up, my co-workers birthday was wed night, and I had my first hapkido sparing match at practice. Tonight is a friends birthday party...yeah happy birthday amelia and peter...so maybe there will be something to write about there. Keep reading, probably write tomorrow.