Newsies

Here's the link to my latest, sailing experience article in Busan Haps, the English publication here in town. Busan Haps/Sailing. Read it and weep? Or something like that. :)

June in pictures

This month has been packed full of activities. Here it is in pictures:

Each Wednesday a few teachers and I leave school a few hours early (early out day) to hike from school (the trail literally starts right outside the school doors) over the mountain ending in Daechon park which is a pleasant 10 minute walk from my apartment. The hike is tough and one super fit 6th grade teacher keeps me moving at a fast clip. To give you some perspective, it takes an hour to take a bus from my home to school, forced to go around the large mountain. The hike over the mountain takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes from start to finish. Nice, eh? The views are gorgeous. I will never get sick of it.

In case you haven't caught the fever, it's World Cup season. And it's a blast here in Korea. In the States I've never paid attention to soccer but the rest of the world cares deeply about this sport and the World Cup in particular. Korea qualified for the Cup and as of yesterday made the cut to advance to the next round (16 teams)! EVERYONE flocks to restaurants, bars, the beach, stadiums, etc. in their red Korea gear to cheer. There's special cheers, songs and dances that everyone does together. It's wild! This picture was taken at Haeundae beach where thousands watched on screen TVs set up on the beach. I've never watched so much soccer in my life! I'm loving it!

To kickoff the World Cup, Busan held a sports festival in the city's World Cup (Korea hosted in 2002) stadium. The festival was amazing, reminding me of an opening ceremony to the Olympics. I have gotten into the whole soccer thing this year but that's not why Kat and I went to the sports festival. Bi Rain was performing. For free! It has been my dream to see him perform in Korea and now my dream has been fulfilled. We had fun acting like lovesick 13 year old girls for the evening.

One Sunday afternoon Kat, Matthew (my neighbor) and I tried out paragliding. The sky was a bit hazy but still the view was ridiculous. There was a lot of waiting. Waiting to jump, waiting for others to land, etc but it was worth it. I saw a few crashes (no one was hurt) so felt satisfied at the end of the day.

Once again Busan held the annual Haeundae Sand Festival. The weather was nice and sunny that day so friends and I soaked up the sun, took a brief (a bit chilly) dip in the sea, and walked around looking at all the fancy sand sculptures. My favorite one is pictured here. It's the little prince!

Don't be fooled....none of us actually know how to surf. We saw some surfers out at the beach and thought we'd give it a shot. Epic fail with the surfing but we had a great time floating around in the sea for the afternoon.

School has been busy this past month with lots of open classes where the principal, other teachers and parents are invited to watch the lessons, offering feedback/evaluations. I did very well on my evaluations so will move on to level 2 evaluations as a part of this "Best teacher in Busan" contest. It's silly but feels good to get such positive feedback from my school. My second article for Busan Haps has been released. It made the cover story! And for the special anniversary edition too. Exciting to see my name in the byline again. No new assignments for the next issue yet but I hope something will come up. I've purchased the tickets for my trip home in August and have started x-ing out the days on my calendar. It'll be here before I know it, assa!

Three cheers for democracy!

I love democracy. But I've never found democracy to be, in the least bit, entertaining or hysterical until I moved to Korea. Koreans have the limited span of about three weeks to campaign for public office. It's illegal to campaign any earlier. Only three weeks to prove you are worthy, trustworthy, and intelligent enough to represent a city or district. Only three weeks to make your name known to citizens. Only THREE WEEKS! One must draw the most attention as possible. What results from this limited campaign period is what I find so entertaining. One:

Trucks covered in a candidate's poster parked along main intersections or at frequented businesses blaring chants or songs with inserted candidate's name or number. My favorite (only because the tune was recognizable) was to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It." I can only imagine what it is actually saying. One guess from Matt, "If you want lower taxes, clap your hands (*clap clap*)!" At times you can catch the candidate having a few words into the microphone but it's a rare occurrence.

Sidenote: Each candidate also has a single digit number given to make voting more simple.

Two: With the blaring trucks comes a string of dancers. Oh yes. From sunrise to sunset (or later) these loyal (for a fee of around $70 a day) citizens will sing, chant, dance, and bow their little hearts out all around town. All will wear sashes, some Mickey Mouse ears, some giant fingers, some mascot costumes and if you're lucky, some will dress as clowns.

Three: Huge tarps with a candidate's face hung from tall office and apartment buildings.

Here's an accurate Youtube video that captures the spirit of elections to foreigners.

Yesterday was Election Day. A public holiday so everyone has an opportunity to vote. That meant no school! Did I mention I love democracy? But today the music has stopped, the dancers are now looking for new part-time jobs, the tarps have been taken down, and I have returned to teaching classes. 'Tis sad.