Tender Bloglings everywhere, life's no fun without a good scare!

Ah so yet another adventure has passed through my system...wait that didn't sound right. Hmm. Let us start at the beginning. Savvy? Friday was one of the worst days of teaching yet due to it being the last day before we have break. A week vacation actually. Anyway half the students were there and the other half that was there couldn't pay attention to save their lives. It was like trying to teach a chicken to play basketball so it could try out for the NBA in two hours. Nonetheless these kids were so hyped up with energy that they could have followed a fly around the room and never broken eye contact with it. Oh well. I can't blame them for being excited for some time off. I know when I was in school breaks were the greatest things ever. I can't imagine what these kids feel because they go year round. After this harsh day I met up with Paul and we went to the T.G.I. Fridays near me to see what it would be like here. It was pretty good. We had a waitress named Me so the jokes never ceased. Then we headed towards Paul's place, crashed, and got up early to get a jump on our second try at an adventure.
We got up Saturday morning, headed to the subway, and got to the correct station and met up with the people of Adventure Korea. The bus ride was supposed to be 3.5 hrs but due to the summer break the traffic made the bus trip almost 8 hours. Nothin I couldn't handle. We finally arrived at Yongyeon cave. Paul and I were expecting a really cool cave like the ones you might happen across in the states. We were wrong. Paul still enjoyed the cave but in all truth the way the cave was presented clouded my judgment of it and came up with poor results. They had installed a metal walkway that you could not stray from, lights in odd places (even multicolored lights), and they had fountains in there too. I really wasn't pleased with this cave but oh well. We then headed to our "accommodation" and that was a little strange too. We had to group up into six people per room and we slept on the floor on these pads and it looked like it might be comfy but it really wasn't. After putting our stuff in the rooms we walked up the hill our accommodation was on; to a film festival. We saw a Korean horror film called 1 Million. It was like a cross between the Japanese film Battle Royale and the States t.v. show Survivor. I wasn't too fond of the movie but that didn't bug me. Some of our fellow westerner travelers were talking loudly during the film and being obnoxious. There was a Korean man who got up during the movie and was yelling but we are not sure it was at our fellow travelers. Either way they were rude. We left the movie, shot off some fireworks and then headed to bed since the next day we would be getting up early to hike a mountain.

Sunday Morning we got up really early, got dressed, shoved some breakfast down, and headed to Mt. Taebaek. We hiked all the way up, got some great shots of some great scenery, and then hiked down. Here are pics that document this adventure. After the hike we piled back in the bus and went to the accommodation to get our stuff. We then headed towards this place that was supposed to have wind turbines and one European looking windmill. We got to the bottom of the mountain that they were on and the bus couldn't take us any further. There was a one lane street going up the rest of the mountain and it wound around a lot. In other words no bus so we had to take cars and what not up there. We were told that the girls would get in cars and all the guys would get in the trucks. Finally the truck came and it was most similar to a pickup truck here. We had people sitting in it and sitting in the cab and the other people, including me, had to stand in the cab and hold on to the back. We got most of the way up the mountain and then this ladies car broke down in front of our truck so we pulled off so other cars could get around and head down the mountain. Since our truck was stuck from the ladies car being in the way we all decided to try to walk the rest of the way and if her car got out of the way the truck would pick us up for the rest of the way up. Anyway we were about to hop out of the truck when the lady in the busted car gets on her cellphone and gets out of her car. What happens then you say? Well her car starts to roll backwards towards the cliff of the mountain. One of the guys traveling with us flies out of the back of the truck and into the ladies car and pulls the brake. He saved the car and what does the lady do? Keeps talking on her cellphone and walking up the street. She didn't give a damn about her car. We were all amazed. So we all got out and started walking up the street. This is when we noticed that the entire mountain was a cabbage farm. So we walked for a few minutes and the truck finally got to us. We all piled back in and I was the last and as I was adjusting to hold on the truck took off and I flew backwards...
...I fell onto all the people sitting in the cab, fortunately, and not out of the damn truck and down cabbage patch mountain. Everyone freaked out and asked me if I was alright. I was more worried about the people I fell on. We finally got up the mountain to where the wind turbines and windmill were and there was much rejoicing. There was so much fog up there that we could not see anything so we did not stay for long. We all piled back into the cars and went down the cabbage mountain again. I got into a car instead of the truck. No one had issues in the truck on the way down so all was good. Then due to the fog and the early part of sunflower season, so they aren't in bloom yet, we decided to not go to the sunflower fields. I was a little sad at that but it made no difference. We headed back to Seoul, exchanged info with our new friends and headed for home.
Now today was my first day of my break so I took it to rest for a little longer than usual and then I wanted to explore. Today I found heaven. As we know from my previous blogs that I have been seeking a DVD player that would play my DVDs and today was meant for that. I had learned from Krystal, a girl I met over the weekend, about a site where ex-pats give tips on how to live in S.K. I tested that site and found an electronics mart in Yongsan which was about and hour and a half away by subway. I went there expecting something to look like a bazaar but full of electronic booths. Instead what I got was a mega mall filled with electronic booths/departments and all sorts of other stores. I found my DVD player, which I will talk about in a minute, and then explored the mall. It just got better and better. I came across loads of restaurants and then my heart skipped a beat when I found a movie theater with an IMAX screen. I thought I was going to drop dead there because I couldn't believe my luck. It even smelled like a movie theater, so tears of joy came to my eyes. Not only do I have a working DVD player now but I know where I can see movies in IMAX!! I continued to go around the mall to see the other stores and restaurants since I was curious and hungry. What did I find? I found a Popeyes!! I was soooooo excited to find Popeyes here in Korea that I didn't even care about the other restaurants and I just went straight in. The chicken here is as tasty as it is at home. It doesn't have the same spices of course but oh man was it good. I then grabbed an incredibly delicious green tea frappucino and headed to the subway. I went home to start editing photos and to test the player. The dvd player works and it gets better. It has a port that reads sandisks. I have my minisandisk and its sandisk adapter so I loaded some movies onto it from my external harddrive and stuck it into the DVD player. IT WORKS!! That means that any of the movies I have on my external I can watch on my DVD player now and on a full t.v. instead of a computer screen.
All of this had been so great. After watching one movie I headed into Suji to find food and instead found other Westerners. I keep making more friends and doing more things. I am so happy to be here but I do still miss all of you. Now since I am so tired I am just going to chill to a movie and drift to slumberland. Unitl next time everyone. Take what you can, give nothing back. Drink up me hearties, yo ho!!

Blog Shout out: This one goes out to Will and Dana for moving to LA. Good luck with the move guys and let me know how it goes. Do me a favor and give LA a right hook to the face and say "That's just a taste of what you will get when Joel returns."