A Tribute

I'm writing this post as a tribute to a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. Well, the blood is an overstatement and I don't know about the tears, although it COULD be true. The hard work and sweat are dead on, however. The subject of my tribute goes by many names... most of which have the six-letter word
D - O - N - K - E - Y in them (but that's a completely different story and one better told by him). I knew him simply as:
La Capitan de el Constipaciono'... sounds pretty regal, doesn't it? It was a title bequeathed to him by myself and our good friend Ryan. His legal, and Christian name is Jason Roberts...yeah, I too prefer the other one's.

It was around the end of June or early July of '05 when he showed up at the YES Youngdo branch in Yeongtong, South Korea where both Ryan and I were working. I was introduced quickly in-between classes and took note that this "New Guy" was from Mississppi, right next door to my home state, the most interesting state in the entire US, home of the previous NCAA National football champions and multiple College Baseball World Champions, known for its cuisine, friendly people, Southern hospitality, Mardi Gras parades, and site of the largest single addition of land to the USA bought from France....LOUISIANA. Now, just to let you know, this school had some 22 foreign teachers and a whole mix of different personalities so becoming friends with them (and in some cases staying on speaking terms) was almost an impossibility. While me and Ryan were good friends and had worked together for nearly a year at a different branch of the same school, and the pickings were slim when it came to finding cool people to hang out with after work (besisdes ourselves of course), we decided to see what this "Newbie" was made of.

Now Mr. Roberts, or the "Donkey tamer" as I like to call him, was a big guy when we first met. But all that soon changed once we became friends, started hanging out, and when he finally decided to join me and my other new recruit, Ryan, at the gym. Along with a lot of hard work and early mornings, strange face contortions and grunting, claims of being 6'6", and of course the obligatory making up of names for the hot chicks in the gym, he shedded those pounds and took on a new air of confidence. So, you don't believe me huh? Just take a look at some photos of him before and after on his web album (sorry blogger's not lettin me upload photos at the moment).

I decided to post this after chatting with Jason today at which time he thanked me again for the help, and told me a pretty awesome story of people noticing his results. J.R. As I said to you earlier on messenger, you couldn't have done it without putting in all the effort yourself...I was jut there to crack the whip so to speak. Next step = Quit Smoking!!!

Korean Castle

Anyone who has ever lived in Asia, Japan and Korea specifically, will know what I mean when I say living quarters for teachers are usually quite cramped. Of course, this varies from city to city and company to company. Moving out of a bigger city may either get you a bigger apartment or a really old, dilapidated one. I've been pretty fortunate over the past six years (WOW...has it really been that long) in that I've always been out in a livable place. I have taken to the country in this contract, the biggest reason being because of the high salary and saving potential here. This is where I am (look for the red pentagon on the southern coast):


Now, the first year I spent here in Korea was a one-room studio type apartment...very, very cozy, but surprisingly comfortable. It was in a new building built by the school I was employed with (YES Youngdo) so things were nice n' clean. Later I found out I was being charged the commercial rate for electricity and gas because the school used the first floor as storage. :( Here it is:



That's tiny compared to western standards, but for a single guy, used to the small sized accommodation, it's Okay. Compare that to my new place here in Goseong...man, not much of a comparison.
Here's my bedroom:
Living room:
Kitchen:
and finally bathroom:
I do have two more bedrooms, but don't use them and feel no need to post pics of them. So, if you counted correctly...large bedroom...separate kitchen...full bathroom...two more bedrooms...plus a rather large balcony. I'm liking the extra space.

I found a little fishing shop (with the help of Mr. Yoon) around the corner from my school. So, I picked up some bait and plan to do a little fishing tomorrow morning if the weather holds up. I'll bring the camera along and snap a few shots of the monster fish I catch.

quote from Gone Fishin, "That's a 10....borderline 11!"

Vandals!!!

Only a day after posting my "new ride" post, vandals struck at my apartment and I was an unfortunate victim. My precious SUPER CAB was maliciously knocked over sometime between Monday 9pm and Tuesday 10:30am. I was P.O'd to say the least. The thing that got me was how the person who knocked it over, during which time the brake handle was snapped off, picked the bike back up and took the broken handle from the scene. Did they think I just wouldn't notice? I had it fixed yesterday and it cost me a whopping 4000 won ($4.00) so it was virtually painless. When I first saw the bike...I didn't understand what had happened. I thought maybe some xenophobic person had broken it off intentionally.
I then noticed the bits of sand on the end of the throttle, and eureka...figured out someone must have knocked it over. "Elementary my dear Watson."
Apparently this sort of thing happens often here and no one usually steps up to take the blame.

On brighter note...I went for a hike with my boss' husband on Wednesday. I thought it would be a walk in the park but it turned out to be pretty challenging for me...guess I need to start getting back in shape as I thought my heart was about to bust out through my shirt at a couple of steep inclines. Here's a photo from somewhere near the top as we made our way back down. You can see the Fall colors are just starting to show around here and from what I hear, they will be their best around the second week of December.

After the hike, I had lunch with Mr. Yoon (Boss' husband) and one of his friends whom I had meet a week or so ago, Mr. Baek. We had a dish called Chuo-Tang or something like that, and although the taste was quite strong, I found it delicious and gladly emptied my bowl. A few shots of the spread we had.


If you notice, we are all seated on the floor. This is very common here in Korea as many authentic-style restaurants are situated this way. I usually have to stretch out my legs after about 10 minutes or so but Koreans can stay cross-legged for eternity...or so it seems. I'll be back to post some pics of my apartment and eventually a few shots of my sleepy town.