My coteacher had to write up some kind of blurb about himself for our parents. Don't ask me why this request came halfway through the school year. So I asked him what he wrote and he spent about five minutes trying to express it in perfect English, which was unnecessary because it was pretty basic, an "I'm Mr. Park and I'm responsible for teaching your children English" kinda thing. We went to lunch and then like an hour later, in our office, out of nowhere, he suddenly exclaimed, "Ah, I got it!" and told me again what he had written, this time using the exact English expressions he wanted to use. I hope he hadn't been thinking about that for the *entire* hour, but I'm not sure.

So I haven't explained much of anything about my life here as I've been quite busy and when I'm not busy, I'm sleeping. Trying to adjust to the working life again and all that. It seems like I need about ten hours' sleep per day and I never get it, so I end up sleeping through two or three evenings per week, which drastically cuts down my free time...

Anyway, so two weekends ago I went to Suwon, the nearest biggish city, to meet up with a new friend, some guy who spends most of his life studying Korean and Japanese and who works in the same program I do (but much closer to Seoul). We met at the subway station where we passed a Mexican band playing and then got outside only to find another band, this one a Falun Gong marching band. Who knew? This is them.



Then we climbed up to Hwaseong Fortress which is a nice enough walk. Here's a view of Suwon from the top.



Here's me leaning on the fence next to a sign that says "Don't lean on the fence" (because I'm a rebel like that) with Suwon in the background.



Here's a view down toward the bottom part of the fortress. I have no pictures because of the crowd, but we got to see an archery/rifle demonstration at the bottom. Guys dressed up as Korean palace guards shot bows and then old rifles of the sort you have to light with a match first, and then they let a couple of kids come up and try it (I'm short, like a kid! Let me fire the gun! Pleeeease!)



On the way back from the fortress we saw a shop, sadly closed, which sells old Korean money... so there's a plan for a Saturday afternoon sometime after I've been paid.

Here's some Engrish also seen on the way back.



Then last weekend on Saturday I went up to Seoul for the first time since I've been back and spent Saturday evening with Bob, Kyehyun, and their kitty Kwenchana. Kwenchana hates me and runs away when I go near, but apparently if she really hates people she bites them. And I thought MY cat was a bitch! oh well. Maybe we'll make friends eventually. Meanwhile I got to eat amazing Korean food and watch something or other about two brothers battling the forces of darkness.

Sunday was an Adventure Korea rafting and bungee jumping trip. Rafting was fun, but tame, and after hobbling around all week with blisters caused by wet sandy shoes, I've been reminded of the importance of wearing appropriate footwear for your activities. I would say I've learnt the importance, but I think the probability of me doing the exact same shit again next time is high. I have no pictures of me rafting because, well, I was busy paddling, but here are some other people doing it:



I was lucky and got on a fun raft with nine girls and one guy, all very funny and entertaining. There were tons of water fights between the various rafts, because here in Korea, fun isn't fun unless you do it with two hundred other people all at the same time. Bit of a pain in the ass having all those rafts on the river at once.

The best thing I have to say about bungee jumping is that it allowed me to meet a few cool people. Jumping off a bridge is a pretty stupid thing to do, I think, rope or no. I did it mostly as a sort of science project to see how I'd react to such an extreme situation. well, I did go through with it, and the initial fall wasn't terrible, but I didn't feel terribly good afterwards and wondered why I'd wasted the money. As for my reaction, I didn't have a lot of time to think things through and so never really got past the panic stage. A longer jump might have helped.

This, by the way, is a fun afternoon's entertainment for the local Koreans who have picnics down below, play terrible loud music, get drunk, let off firecrackers, and cheer on the jumpers. After I jumped and got picked up by the guy in the boat at the bottom of the jump and stumbled off the boat to shore, shaking tremendously, I was met by a rather drunk ajosshi who escorted me over to his friends' picnic table and I had some beer with them and a couple of the other jumpers. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon watching other people jump and talking to some of the people on the trip. One guy had taped his video camera to his hand and recorded the view during his jump.

So that's it for the moment; I have all kinds of ideas for fun stuff to do here in Korea, but most of it will have to wait until I get paid...