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Day 2 started with a meeting in the yeogwan we stayed at., where the principal gave a little speech and then said a few words about different teachers, resulting in them standing up and bowing and us all clapping, even though I had no idea what was going on, and most of the Korean teachers looked hungover or half-asleep.

After this we walked to breakfast, on the way a couple of the older male teachers found some big beetles on the ground which they picked up and kept. At breakfast we had some bottles of Korean wine on the table and a bunch of the teachers were drinking that but at that point I wasn't interested in it at all. 

In the morning I quickly packed my stuff into my new bags and headed to school, glad that classes were done for the week and we'd soon be leaving to go experience some Korean culture. Things were looking good right away: one of the younger women teachers was wearing a purple shirt with Bomberman on it, which some of you may know is a classic Super Nintendo game that me and my roommates in Madison played a lot.

Around ten AM we put away our stuff at school and headed out to the bus. Arriving at an empty row near the back, I stepped over a box full of cans and sat down, pulling out my iPod and book and prepared to pass the time on the long bus ride. About 20 minutes later, my plans were spoiled. I noticed that the box of cans which I had assumed were sodas or juice or energy drinks or something, were actually Cass beer 12oz cans, stacked 2 high in a big box, and at about 10:30 one of the male teachers had already taken one and started drinking.

Shortly after that, one of the trip leaders got up and started talking a bunch in Korean over the bus' PA system, and then they fired up the TV in the front of the bus which turned out to be connected to a karaoke machine. Now it was closer to 11, and a couple teachers came to the back and started handing out beers to everyone, and soon the "noraebus" (singing bus) was in full swing. 

Being the last week of school, my coteachers said I could do whatever I wanted in class, so I decided to teach a lesson about Michael Jackson. My lesson began with the entire 13 minute Thriller video, after which I talked about the Jackson 5 while my coteacher translated, and then I played a live performance of "I Want You Back," when Michael was still young and cute. Then I talked a couple more minutes before getting to Thriller the album, at which point they see Billie Jean was one of the most popular songs from it and they start to demand I play it, which is exactly what I had planned.

I chose the live performance of Billie Jean from the Motown 25 concert, and multiple classes cheered and/or requested I play it "one more time!" when the video finished, and I would just show them the moonwalk part a couple more times. Then I moved on to Bad, and "Man in the Mirror", featuring a great montage of him performing to giant crowds and screaming women, as well as the words subtitled on the video karaoke-style. After that video the kids are super impressed by Michael's skills and I sum up his career and then play "We are the World" to end the class. In a couple classes where we had time, the kids requested "Dangerous," and a lot of kids knew and could sing along with the parts of the song where he says "dangerous," but a couple kids actually really knew the song and were humming along with the drum rolls and such.

So, despite my best efforts, I've fallen behind in writing once again, but here's my recap of the weekend's events. On Friday, we decided to go to Omaejib for barbecue pork, and we met up around 8pm there, so that some of the folks that teach at Hagwons until 8 or so would be able to show up. The picture above was taken on my walk to dinner.

After dinner, we took a short trip down the street to Nox, where we drank beer and soju for a while, until deciding to head to a noraebong, a karaoke room. With most of us being pretty wasted at this point, we got straight into the music, including a few Michael Jackson homages. Some other highlights were a performance of Eminem's "Stan" with me and Graham alternating between Eminem and Dido every verse/chorus, and Tim singing a Korean song and doing it well (in terms of lyrical accuracy, not singing ability). 

Today (Thursday) was also a half day because of testing week, but instead of going home at 1, we all hung out until 2 and when all the students were gone the teachers gathered in the new gym to compete in a grueling multi-athlon of events like tossing hula hoops onto big orange cones as pictured above.

The teachers were divided into three teams: first grade, second grade, and third grade (my team). We started off with a little bit of group stretching and then prepared for the first event, tug-of-rope. This tug-of-rope involved three ropes laying on the center of the basketball court, and each time lined up behind the baselines, and when the whistle was blown you had to run out and grab the rope and pull 2 of the 3 to your side. To make it tricky, men could only touch the rope once a woman had. Our team actually lost this event to the first grade teachers, just barely. We got a little confused about our strategy on the final round and too many people ended up on one rope and they were able to take the other two easily. 

Wednesday was again a school half day because of tests, so I told Graham I got off at 1pm and asked him if we could go to a baseball game. He said he had some things to do in Seoul and was planning to go around 1 or 2pm and then we could go to the game after that at 6:30. I went straight from school to the bank to get some more cash and went across the street to the bus stop where I met up with Graham around 1:30.

This was the first time I was able to use my brand new T-Money card which I bought on Monday, after Graham told me on Sunday I should get one. With the card, a bus ride is 1,700W and you just place it on the little scanner and it beeps and you are good to go. If you pay in cash the ride costs 1,800W. Also, you don't even have to take the card out of your wallet and Graham was saying that women just plop their handbags down on the card readers and it works. Also, with the T-Money card you get a free transfer from bus to subway and subway to bus within a certain period of time, although it might charge you if you ride the train for a while. 

So Monday at school I had absolutely nothing to do, even though it wasn't a test day yet (the testing runs Tuesday through Friday) the teacher I am with in my Monday classes borrowed them to do test review, so I just got to sit around in the office all day. I told Tim I wanted to go to the kimbap shop at around 6:30 or 7, and he decided we should meet at the pizza place near his house and then maybe go to a real restaurant, and since Aldrin decided to come into Maseok too we ended up going to get shabu shabu, which Tim described as "Japanese fusion" with a mushroom and vegetable spicy soup to which we added thin slices of dried beef, and then once all that was gone we dumped a big bowl of noodles into the sauce to cook, and after noodles the meal was finished off with some eggy rice. Not surprisingly, this meal also cost us 11,000W each.

After dinner we dropped into a Family Mart to get some beer and ice cream treats, and then headed to Tim's apartment to watch TV. After a few episodes of Peep Show and one of Father Ted (British comedies), we watched a Louis Theroux (British) documentary about gangsta rap that was pretty funny and very interesting. Not really a very interesting night to read about I know, but it is notable because it completed the to-do list of restaurants in Maseok.

Tuesday was the first day of testing, so I did nothing at school except research the extremely evil hornets we encountered on our Cheonmasan hike, and then after school I Skyped with Hilary (at her camp in Minnesota) for a couple hours, taking advantage of the fact that I went home at 1pm because of the test half-day. I know that except for amazingly deadly hornets this post is really not exciting at all, so I'll use it as an opportunity to apologize for being such a lazy blogger and not writing about the past week or so until now, and also for double posting about Cheonmasan and Seoul because I had the pictures uploaded before I had written anything. I promise you, the coming posts about Wednesday and Thursday of this week should be very interesting.

After watching the Mariners beat the Dodgers in the morning, I met Graham at 2:50pm at the Paris Baguette to go to Seoul. The original plan had been Guri but Graham decided we should go to Seoul instead. We got on the 1115 bus at around 3:05 and on the bus ride in Graham pointed out to me all the towns we were passing and what they had that was of interest, and also where I would get off and on the bus if I wanted to go there. We took the bus all the way to Jamsil in Seoul which is apparently where Hye-hyun lives, and then we got onto the subway to Samseong station.

At Samseong we went in the Coex mall where we found pretty much all American shops and restaurants, including McDonald's where we ate lunch and numerous Nike stores. Graham also showed me where I can buy English books, which may come in handy if I ever finish these epic Robert K. Massie WWI books.

We wandered the mall for a while, then took the subway back to Jamsil and wandered the Lotte mall there for a little bit until it was time to go back on the bus. Not a very exciting trip but I learned how to get in and out of Seoul and where I can go shopping if I need to, and where I can get delicious American food. If you check out my Flickr photo set you will see some of the notable and interesting things we saw, but it was a very short trip. One of the most useful things I found out on this trip is that the 1200 bus coming back to Maseok stops about 30 seconds away from my apartment, which means getting to and from Seoul/other areas will be even easier than I thought.

If you've already looked through my pictures then you'll see that I went hiking up a mountain on Saturday. The plan was to meet up with Tim, Graham and Aldrin at Tim's apartment at 9am, and then set out for the climb. On my way to Tim's I got some sandwiches, six water bottles and a bunch of bananas, and I ended up at Tim's apartment building at exactly 9. At this point I assumed I was the first to get there, and I didn't know the code for the outer door of Tim's building so I waited outside. I also assumed that Tim was probably inside hungover and/or passed out, so I waited for Graham and Aldrin to show up. After a few minutes, Graham did show up, sticking his head out of the window to see if I was outside; apparently I was last to get there. Tim was hungover though, so Aldrin was giving him some water and while we waited for him to be ready we watched bits and pieces of Louis Theroux documentaries.

Eventually we set around around 9:50 or so, walking through Maseok to the base of Cheonmasan took us about half an hour, and then we started up the mountain. About ten minutes later we reach the first rest area and Tim decides we should stop here. After sitting for about ten minutes, Tim says "I'm going to be honest with you guys, I'm not climbing to the top of this mountain today," so he decides to go home while we continue on. This turned out to be a really good decision.