Black Belt Test

July 1stIn the Dojang before the test

We started the morning at our dojang around 8:45, warmed-up and then practiced our poomsai's for about an hour or so. I was doing pretty good, feeling fairly confident, not making as many mistakes as usual. Then the Master came and we all hopped in the van and headed out for the test.

The stadium where the test was being held

I was really surprised when we pulled up to the stadium because I didn't think it would be in such a big venue. Then again, considering that there were probably people from all over JeonBuk (our province) I guess it made sense.

Chumbai (ready!!)

We were the last of the Iksan group to go so we had around an hour or so for more practice. Now for the black belt test you must complete poomsai number 8 and then one is chosen at random between poomsai four and poomsi seven.

Yuk jan (Poomsai #6)

Fortuneately the master told us what 'random' poomsai we would be doing, kinda taking away the randomness of it considering we got roughly an hour to practice it. The Master and instructor told us what we were doing wrong, I felt that things were going pretty good.

Pal jan (Poomsai #8)

When we got in there it was pretty funny, we were the only white people...big surprise... so we already stood out, to top that we had to stand directly in front of the judges while doing our poomsai's. THe whole thing was too fast to be able to remember now. If I made a mistake they would've made me do it again so I guess I did alright.

Let the sparing begin

Initially, our Master told us that Julie and I would be fighting eachother, so we worked out what we would do so that both of us would look good. Unfortuneately this was not the case when we got in front of the judges, at the last second they switched us. At first I was worried about Julie, but when I saw the guy I'd be goin up against I was more worried for myself.

Trevor on Defense

I went for the first kick against the guy, and purposely tried to miss him, as instructed by our Quang jang-nim (Master). I don't think the other guy got the memo, because after my kick I got another one right back just above my junk. "Simple mistake. Maybe the guy is a little jumpy, probably didn't mean it." I think to myself and then throw another fake kick and again I recieve another real kick in return. Kick me once, shame on you, kick me twice shame on me. After that I started throwin real ones.

I wish I looked that cool!

I know it probably looks like I'm about to get worked, but I was just about to give this sucka a jumping dwi-chagee right to the gut. After I hit'm with that kick they blew the whistle, at first I thought it was because I blatantly tried to kick him, but it turned that time was up. I went pretty quick only about thirty seconds, I thought it would be longer. The master and the instructor both seemed pleased giving us the thumbs up and sayin "Good, very good", so I think we did alright but we won't know for another week or so.

Kindy Field Trip #2 The Jeonju Zoo

Some of the kids (clockwise from top left: Elliot, Lucy,Rachel, Turtle, Richard and Ricky)

Our second field trip was to the Jeonju zoo and it was pretty fun. I love goin to the zoo, and I love getting paid for it even more. I was worse than most of the kids, runnin around and taking pictures of all the animals.

It was really sad seeing the way the bears were kept, their cages were pretty small and with a small pond of gross brown water.
The girls (teachers, not kids) kept pointing out all the animal genitalia, we saw all sorts of wierd animal wangs. The hippo's was one of the weirdest....Can you tell I don't have that much to talk about for this blog?

By the time we got to the giraffes the kids were half dead. It got to the point where they stopped looking at the animals.

Just before the camel here, they had some sort of Lama type animal. I was kinda worried because all the kids were really close to the cage and the animal looked like it was ready to spit. It was funny because all the teachers started to take a couple steps backs, and no one said anything to the kids. Luckily, he spit in a different directions and not at the kids.Probably the best shot of the dayThe mighty elephant

The national animal of KoreaOnly in Korea...Sheep at the zoo.

The Kiwi's found this particularly hilarious. Understandable when you come from a country where sheep outnumber people. So that was the zoo trip it was pretty good, felt bad for some of the animals because kids were throwing junk food at them and stuff, and their teachers were doing the same (not the teachers and kids from our school). I guess we just hold animals in higher regard..I dunno.

Extreme Weekend!!!
Inje May 12th-13th

Hi guys, here is the next installment of my attempt to catch everyone up on my wacky adventures in Korea, this might be the wackiest. A friend of ours who is now living in Jeonju set up a rafting trip so Julie and I thought it would be a fun time so we tagged along. We were 2 of the 3 people from Iksan who went, the other 40 were from Jeonju. Thankfully everyone was really nice so we didn't feel like small town outcasts.

We left Iksan at 6:30am, yes I can get up that early, and headed to Inje, which is an area in Gangwon-do the most northernly province of Korea. I believe we were actually only about 25km from the border with the North. It was a 7-8 hour bus ride, after lunch we started bus boozin, so that led to more frequent stops. I'd like to thank Marsh at this time for having the 90's pop culture edition in University, I kicked ass on the bus ride there at it.

The paintball gear

Our first stop was paintball, initially we were told that we would have cover-alls on but that was not the case. This was especially problematic because as we were waiting and being told how to work the equipment it started to rain. Overall paintball was pretty fun, we only got to play two games which kida sucked but I had never done it outside before. I got shot both games, once in the back and once in the face, thankfully we had facesheilds, but I got 3 people so it I did ok. Julie got hurt when she got hit on the hand in between the knuckles. She didn't really want to do it, and that's why.

Paintball orientation

The Pension. I don't know why it's called that, but that's what everyone was sayin!?!A shot of the patio

The place we stayed at was ok, there were 43 people on the trip and only 5 small rooms, I think there were 10 in our room maybe? Anywho we had a nice meal of Samgyeopsal (Big bacon chunks) and then played guitar and drank as the night went on. We were one of the elderly couples we hit the sack at 12:00am, while other people barely slept. When we got up at 7:30 we had a nice breakfast of ham and eggs and toast. Afterwards we headed down the road to the rafting place.

Raft 4

Here's a nice shot while crusin down the riverRaft 4 in action

The rafting was pretty fun, it was around 23 degrees, but the water was around 5-6 degrees. The guys had to actually walk the boat in getting waist deep in the freezing cold water. Our instructor was really nice and even though he spoke little english he taught us enough to not kill ourselves or tip the raft. Luckily we already understood a lot of his commands from Tae Kwon Do, stuff that gets screamed at us all the time, forward, back, hurry, etc. There weren't any real big rapids, but it was still pretty fun gettin tossed around goin over the little dips. I think we were out rafting for 2 hours or so, most of it was spent cruising on the parts in between rapids and rocks, or having paddle fights with other rafts. Afterwards we headed back to the pension for our lunch...bacon again, this time in a spicy sauce with vegetables and rice.

The Bungee Tower

Our next stop before heading home was the x-game center where they had bungee jumping and the skyflyer type bungee swing. When first asked early in the day I wasn't sure if I was going to jump, but after the rafting I figure why not. I think about 16 of us went and we were all put into weight groups being numbered ranging 4 (heaviest) to 1 (lightest)...we all know where I ended up. Now you could either bungee going head first with the cord strapped around your ankles, or you could go Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible stlyes and jump with a body harness. Since it was fairly windy the Instructor recommended the harness style.

Julie's Jump

Julie didn't want to go when we first got there, but after seeing everyone do and still be in one piece she'd give it a go. I felt really bad because she left me incharge of taking the video of her jump, but as she was going...(and also because she took so long to jump off the platform) her memory card filled up. THe picture you see her is pretty much where the video cuts out :(

The big jump

It was reallly weird doin the jump because I wasn't really scared or anything, largely I think it has to do with the fact that I followed the advice posted on a little sheet before going up. Specifically 'Don't look down.' The only time I looked down was to put my feet on the little orange footprint outlines they had on the platform, and to look at everyone, who had already gone...btw...I was the last one to go and I really had to pee and I had to wait over an hour to jump, so I'm really thankful I didn't piss myself. Yeah, so when I jumped it was pretty scary I couldn't really yell or scream or anything, but it was all over in under two minutes. Definately worth it though, I think I might even go again when we get to Thailand.

Save me JesusA beautiful shot of the photographer responsible for the great Bungee pictures.

Thank you comb-over, thank you.

Busan/Beomosa/Haeundae Beach

May 18th-20th

The hike to Beomosa (L to R Sara, Nick, Julie)

On the 15th of May Korean's celebrate Teacher's Day and, in an attempt to make up for months of terrible behaviour, offer tokens of gratitude to the people they torment. Obviously I'm generalizing the kids are good for the most part. I kinda got short-changed on the day I only received 4 gifts to Julie's 11, that's the way it goes I guess when you've got boobs. Anywho, because all the schools get the day off. In Iksan to even things up we were givin the friday off, so you know what that means....long weekend.

Crazy trees on the way to the temple

In the spirit of this rare occasion I though it would be fitting to take a long weekend adventure, even though after our extreme weekend we'd told ourselves we would starting saving more money. So we decided to go to Changwon to visit Nick and his g/f Sara, sorry if that's the incorrect spelling, who we hadn't seen since the Bullfighting festival in March. We took the cheap train to Changwon for & 25,000 won and it took a total of 6 hours. More lanterns inside Beomosa

Changwon was a really nice city, there were trees and bushes everywhere and the city was surrounded by mountains, which was a nice change of scenery from Iksan. Since we ended up spending the night there and had a nice dinner of Burger's and homemade fresh cut fries, it was amazing, with a beer it came to 8,000 won, a price that can't be beat. After that we stopped at

a 7/11 for some more drinks and took a breif walk around the area before deciding to head to a DVD bang. For those who don't know it's basically a place where you pay 5 bucks or so to watch a movie in a home theatre room with a nice couch/attomen's and all that. We watched 'Whalerider' in an attempt to get to learn more about NZ/Maori culture, also because our new NZ teacher's recommended it to us. It was pretty good. A pimped out stone pagoda

The next day we left for Busan, Korea's second largest city, and head to Beomosa Temple in the North of the city. It was a really nice complex that had over ten different Buddhist temples within it, and since it was surrounded by mountains the scenery was really nice. So here are some pics of that. It was a healthy 4km uphill hike, that seemed to go on forever, but once we got there it was well worth it. All the way to the temple the sides of the streets were lined with paper lanterns, this is in preparation of Buddha's Birthday which happens to be today, May 24th.

Some sorta ceremony taking place. The wires are for more paper lanterns

That night we headed out for some Kalbi, mikchu and soju and then to a local ex-pat bar called Crossroads that had some decent live music, and fairly priced beer. After that we head to another small bar for mokali, a type of rice wine made that is served ice cold. I wasn't a fan...stuff messed me up...Julie, Nick and Sara seemed to really enjoy it. The stuff was dirt cheap and we were only able to finish one of the two large brass tea pots( I shouldn't really count myself in the we, I did very little of the work). After that it was straight to McD's for a drunk meal before headin back to our swanky Arabian looking love motel. Mokali

The next day we went to Haeundae Beach in Busan, at first it was lookin like it was going to be a shiat day, real over cast, not a good beach day. By the time we hit the subway and then went for lunch at an extemely small (7x12 feet) Mexican restaurant, the weather had turned reall nice. The Mexican food was alright but I still think the place in Itaewon was better. The Beach was nice not too crowded yet, lots of people out sunning themselves, I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs a chess so ended up looking pretty ridiculous later that evening, my skin was purple I was so burnt.

Am I flexing or is the water cold? You decide.
Haeundae Beach

We took a walk up the boardwalk just off the beach and got a bunch of nice pictures, and we got some nice snacks, these old Korean women snatched Julie's camera and took our picture in a nice ploy to get us to bu some duk and some roasted chestnuts. By this time it was startin to get late (well not really, we just wanted to be home before 8pm) so we headed for the train station.
We figured that since there were tons of trains heading to Dajeon that it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortuneatly that day it there was an Exodus from Busan, as all trains were full, with the exception of a 7:00 train. So we ended up having to pay the extra $$$ for 1st class seats, and waiting around the train station for three hours but we made it home safe and sound.

The end of the boardwalk at Haeundae Beach

St. Patty's Day in IksanPaul: The Manager Introduces the Band

St. Patty's Day was also the day that the local Foreigner bar "Red Rock" was celebrating it's
10th year in business. Since we jam there every thursday, the owner asked us to play for everyone that night.

The Three Guitarists (Clint, Me, Geoff)

A week before playing Clint, the in the Flames-style jersey, got married and one of the foreigners there was talking about the band, asking what instruments everyone played. When I told him that it was just three guitars and a singer he asked if that could be legitamitly be considered a band. I replied that we were just barely a band. The opening night band name was "Barely Just".

Ben The Bands Frontman

The evening was pretty good, the sound wasn't perfect, but then again we didn't really expect it to be. Everyone brought a side dish and the owner order a giant BBQ pig, so it was pretty good. The pig was stuffed with hotdogs which was pretty strange, even for Korea. I mean you wouldn't stuff a chicken with chicken fingers.....c'mon now.

Me and my Spandy(namebrand of my guitar)

Playing was fun, lots of people liked it because the sets were really diverse. We only had eight songs down cold, and two of them we learned fully the night before. Here's the songs played:

1. Folsom Prison Blues (J.Cash)
2. Yer So Bad (Tom Petty)
3. Wicked Game (C.Isaac)
4. Before You' Cuse Me (E.Clapton)
BREAK
5. New Orleans is Sinkin (Hip)
6. The Wall (Pink Floyd)
7. Karma Police (Radiohead)
8. Faith (G.Micheal Styles)

Not sure when were playing next, once I figure out how to put video on this site I try and post a little bit of the show for ya's all to listen to.

Hockey in Iksan

"I'm not runnin back for it."

Ready to punce on a loose puck

Carrying it up the wing

Sexy Hockey Player

In further efforts to ditch my old couch potato ways I felt that Tae Kwon Do wasn't enough, also because I like hanging out with people who speak english, I joined up with a bunch of other foreign teachers every sunday and play road hockey for 2-2 1/2 hours. Reliving the old university days playing in a bar sponsered ball hockey league I guess. But one fear I had was because of my several years as a smoker that I wouldn't be able to cut it playing out of the net...(I played goal in Uni becuz of this fear of running). I'm not sure if it's the TKD or the air or what, but I've found it's not that hard running/jogging for close to two hours, mind you there is some good standing around time.

As of late we've been having good turn-outs with full five on five teams, so we've had to change the venue once or twice since starting up. I consider myself a playmaker, because I'm a good passer, and can only score off garbage rebounds when I'm parked in front of the net. I'm something like 0-15 on breakaways, I get those chances cuz I never fully want to run back and play D, and get a lot of hailmary passes. I've got no moves whatso ever, I'm happy if I can keep the ball on the stick. I've also had a couple of injuries since joining up, as those have seen the gross toe posting, I've also taken the orange ball off the face a couple times, and caught a butt-end or two. But isn't that really what hockey's all about? Good Times!!!

Trivia Night/Foosball TournamentYou can see the Intensity

Last Friday (Feb, 9th) was the monthly trivia night, and unfortuneatly Team Ramrod did not win. We ended up tied for second place, I think we only lost by a point or two. This continued to be the trend for the evening , because we also placed second in the foosball tournament. But I think we did amazing, considering we were the only mixed gender team. We finished the round robin tourney with a 3-1 record, scores for each game I think were 6-3, 7-2 and 4-5. Only losing by one goal to the champions was impressive in itself, they were crazy good. As defense/goalie I was under heavy pressure the whole game, and made it close by scoring some Skip style bank shots from the back end. Our prize was a hefty 5000W pay day. almost enough for two beers. Hafta give Jules tons of credit she was whoppin ass in the first two games and if goals counted from the middle, we would have won the game 6-3. After a few weeks of intensive training I feel we'll be ready for the next tournament, hopefully with better results...though you can't get much better when your this good.

Vietnam Part I
Hanoi

The View of Hanoi from our Hotel Room

Our sweet ride looked something like this

Julie and I top-side on the Hoang Phoung

"It's okay I'm on Vacation"

These first couple pics are from the first day in Vietnam, we headed a couple hours out of town to visit Halong Bay. The area is famous for it's large caves and large Limestone mountains and cliffs that tower out of the water. The first of our many boat trips in Vietnam was one of the best, I know for sure it was definately the best lunch I had the entire trip, but I'll talk about that later. The caves were pretty cool with lots of stalagtites and stalagmites poppin out from every direction, but it was kinda cheesy cuz they had all these weird lights inside to emphasize them. Beautiful scenery though, very relaxing and not just because of the beer and wine consumed on the boat.

A sexy man in Halong BayA Look at our lunch while it was still alive

So here was a small sample of the what we were eating that day. We had a huge seafood lunch with a couple different types of crab, shrimp, and fish along with some cuttlefish. We also got to have some fries and rice and the fries I think were the best fries we had the entire trip. Boat fries who woulda figured.

Me almost falling out of the Boat on our grotto tour

As they were preparing some of our lunch we got to take another boat ride aroung the grotto's going through different caves before the tide got high. It was really neat, even though I almost fell out of the boat within the first 10 minutes.

The Floating Village of Halong Bay

Funny and true story, one of the house in the floating village had a pool table. I guess it was the local saloon, or 'watering hole'.A typical house on the Floating Village

The floating village was pretty cool, it was a fishing village where the houses were all anchored down a floating, here is where we got our seafood for our lunch. What was also crazy was the fact the the majority of the houses in the village had dogs. When you only have such a small space to live it seems like a bad idea. It was funny when I tried to pet one of the dogs a man asked me if I wanted to buy it, unfortuneately I declined.

Cyclo ride through the streets of Hanoi

After dinner we headed downtown for a traditional Water Puppet show. The show was a pretty cool lots of fireworks and pyro along with really cool traditional music. But before hand we had close to an hour to fill, so we ended up gettin pedaled around the local shop districts. I felt extremely touristy doing it, but we had an hour to knock off so, I was either that or walk around for an hour. We got to cover more ground gettin pedaled around, and we got to see many of the different shop districts. Fun night all around I'd say.

Entering Hoa Lu

The area is known by some as dry Halong Bay, because it has similar Limestone mountains jetting out of the countryside. As you can see from this picture.

Julie and the Lily podThe first Temple

Shrine of Dinh Bo LinhKing for 5 minutes

On the second day we travelled to Hoa Lu, an ancient capital of Vietnam from 968AD-1010AD the Dinh Dynasty. Dinh Bo Linh was raised in Hoa Lu after his father's death and lived a normal life, going to village schools, riding water buffalo and playing with his friends. He would grow up to be known as the King of Ten Thousand Victories, because he would battle and defeat all of the 11 other lords of Vietnam. The later history of this dynasty pretty much ends like a Shakespearean play, with his first son being skipped over, and his infant son being placed as successor. Later the two would be killed leaving the infant as King, fearing that having an infant as a king would make the country vulnerable Dinh's wife married her husbands top general, and anew dynasty would start. If your wondering about the pic with me on the water buffalo, we were asked by my tour guide if we wanted to know what it was like to be king (like Dinh) for 5 minutes, that's why I have the hat and the cotton branch. A poor impersonation of King Dinh.

The start of the boat ride in Thung Nang

Working hard on the river

Julie and I on the river

These three pics are from a small traditional village about an hour or two away from Hanoi, called Thung Nang. It was pretty peaceful riding along the river at the end we got to go through this small cave, have to duck to avoid stalagtites. At the end of the line there was a small Buddist Shirne, we stopped and checked it out and then turned around. The way back was not as peaceful, the driver and her daughter were trying to push all these different shirts, purses, and other hand made goods on us. We bought a shirt and a small bag to appease them, but that still wasn't enough. So we also tipped then $5 each, they still seemed disappointed.

Entrance to the 1st University in Vietnam1st University in Vietnam

These two shots were from the first university in Vietnam, only few people attended and in the final exam you would be questioned by the king. Those who answered to his liking and passed the test got to serve as one of his advisors.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum

This guy is the man in Vietnam, a revolutionary turned statesman who led The Veitnamese against independence from the French. He would later become a Prime Minster and President of the country. He is refered to as 'Uncle Ho', and appears on all the currency as far as I remember. The mausoleum is designed after Lenin's tomb, and once every year they take his embalmed body out and put it on display for everyone to come and see. What makes this funny is that it goes against his dying wishes to be cremated and place in urns and placed on hill tops in North South and Central Vietnam.

Awesome Communists lights

These were all over the place in Hanoi, they looked pretty cool when lit up, so you don't forget about 'the working men and women who build a strong Vietnam' when the sun goes down.

Headquarters of the Communist Party

Right across the park from Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum was the HQ for Vietnam's Communist party, didn't get to check it out our anything, but thought it looked neat.

Poster Celebrating the uprising against French Imperialists

Like any good communist country, you gotta promote it. There are classic posters like this one all over, we saw lots of posters of Ho Chi Minh, and many posters warning people about HIV/Aids, promoting Condom use(not communist, but it ties in with the poster talk). This particular one is about the day the Vietnamese faught off French empirialists, also the first time the new flag was brought out. The flag is the yellow star on a red background, the five points represent workers, peasants, soldiers, merchants and intellectuals and I guess how they all come together to form the country.

Pho o (Pronounced Fuh-uh)

Before takinf off to Ho Chi Min City we were told that we had to stop off and have some Pho o,
a traditional Vietnamese dish. Generally it's a broth with green onions nodles and thin beef slices, since Julie was having the beef I decided to be and try it with chicken. Now it wasn't super authentic Pho o because we got it at a chain restaurant, a Vietnamese McD's but instead of Burgers and Fries it's this stuff. Apparently it's much better from the street vendors. After this we headed to the airport and flew two hours to Ho Chi Minh City, I personlly liked Ho Chi Minh better but we got to do more there then in Hanoi. I'm sure had we done more stuff in town it might be another story.