I need a personal assistant

I've been struggling to keep up with my blogging recently, and it's been both an internal and external struggle. I've had a lot on my plate the last few months, and trying to find the time and energy to sit down and invest a few hours in 1) finishing my winter trip blog, 2) upload and organize my pictures from all the other things I've been doing so I could blog about them later, and 3) not run out of disk space in the process, has been rather difficult. But. I finally finished my winter trip. I only have about three other events I need to post and then I'll be all caught up. What is all this other stuff I've been doing, you might ask? Well,

I've started another photo project which you may have heard of, called the 365 project. You're basically supposed to take one photo per day and then upload it to this site, which organizes it rather nicely for you. I take photos all the time anyways, and I thought this would be a nice way to not only organize my photos, but improve my photography and force me to try and look around me for what I saw when I first came to Korea that I now take for granted.

My three closest friends all left at the end of February/beginning of March. Which meant I was spending as much time with them as I could before they left, and doing leaving parties and events with them.

Saint Patrick's Day passed with little fanfare, barring a green shirt worn to work and a can of Guinness consumed that evening while preparing for the upcoming weekend, which consisted of a trip down to the south of the country to see a Bull Fighting Festival (separate post on all these events to come soon).

I've started a weekly tradition with Amy during which we meet at a truck that parks near my school at night. We order a freshly made pizza from the truck, and then go back to mine to watch a movie.

This weekend was a booze cruise, where for a small fee I got to board a boat on the Han River and drink all the decent draft beer (Alley Kat brew, not Hite or Cass) I wanted and help a friend celebrate her birthday.

This weekend I'm going to attend International Pillow Fight Day at City Hall, so I've been trying to convince my friends from everywhere to join me.

Every Saturday morning I have Korean language classes, and starting this Friday I'll have an extra three classes during the week. I've also gotten a bike from my friend who's left, so now I have an excuse/reason to exercise and get out a bit more, especially now that the weather's changing for the better.

And between all this, I've been looking for flights to Europe in August, planning a trip to Kyoto in May, and trying to figure out if I want to stay with my current job or look for another one, and making plans for both eventualities (looking for other open positions if I go, and negotiating days off/other perks if I stay). Not to mention, of course, the day-to-day niceties of teaching small children.

Shipwrecked

A friend of mine decided to start her birthday celebration by encouraging everyone to get tickets to Shipwrecked. This is a once-a-month-or-so event, where 40,000won (~$40) gets you all you can drink draft beer on a boat that floats down the Han River at night for three hours.

Since I'd never been on the Booze Cruise (as it's otherwise known as), I'd never been on the water of the Han, and it was Fiona's birthday, I decided to sign up. The tickets sold out more than a week before the event, even though the boat had a 500 person capacity.

Amy and I got to the boat just after 6, and were on board around 6:30. We took off right around 7, and spent the rest of the evening enjoying the company of friends and the 'free' beer on the boat.

A view of the 63 building at night.

One of the many bridges we went under

The captain of the boat was watching tv while driving.

Running, or rather pushing, of the Bulls

A friend of mine, Jess, suggested that a bunch of us go down south for this little festival called the Bull Fighting Festival. Jess is great at organizing trips, and she had been to the festival several years before, so I enthusiastically gave her my $38 for a round-trip train ticket to Daegu for the weekend. On St. Patrick's Day, a few of us went over to Jess' house and attempted to make paper-mache horns in preparation for the upcoming weekend. It was much more difficult than we anticipated, and rather took the spirit out of St. Patty's day as we struggled with wire, paper, and flourwater.



We took the train down to Daegu after work on Friday without incident. We arrived near midnight, and walked around for almost an hour looking for a place to stay that would hold 8 people. This was partially because the FIRST place we looked told us that the rooms would be ready in 10 minutes, and this was incorrectly told to the rest of us as the room wasn't available. So instead of waiting for 10 minutes, we wandered the streets of Daegu.



When we finally got back to the original hotel, the rooms were now taken (though by whom, we have no idea - what other group of 8 people had all of a sudden wandered in??). So we found a place right next door. Everyone except for myself and Laura decided to go out into town for "one drink". I knew this would mean they weren't going to get back until 5am, so the two of us went to sleep, and sure enough, they all straggled in sometime around/after dawn.



The hotel we stayed at was at the end of a suspicious-at-night, but character-filled-during-the-day alley. Because I got a good-night's sleep, I woke up early the next morning (7ish or so) and went off in search of coffee, which was only yo be found at that hour back by the train station. I got back to the hotel, and we all headed back to the station to get to the town of Cheong-do, which is where the festival actually was. On the way we took a different route than I had taken, and passed by this lovely sight:


A cramped and sweaty 20-minute bus ride after the pleasant 20 minute train ride got us to the festival area. We saw the standard festival fare, including bondegi, which I have yet to try (I'm sorry, does boiled silk worm larvae sound appetizing to you??). Rob decided to get some, though. Props to him.



The entrance fee was about $5, and even though the website said you didn't have to pay if you were born in the year of the ox, this sign dispelled that myth.

After wandering around the stadium area for a while we headed into the area to see what was what. Several people commented on our horns, and wanted to know where we bought them. I think if it hadn't taken the better part of 5 hours to make them, we'd have considered making extras to bring with us next year.

The actual bull-fighting was pretty self-explanatory. Two bulls were brought out into the ring and pulled head-to-head by their 'owners'. Then they just pushed at each other's heads until one tuned his head and ran away. This could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes, depending on the bulls.

We made it more interesting by betting on which bull we thought would win (I won 1,000 won on the only bet I made), standing up and talking to the massive amount of foreigners in our area of the stadium, and drinking incessantly.

After watching the fighting for a few hours, we headed back to Daegu. Amy decided to borrow my horns for a while.

Since we ended up with about 20 people who all knew each other, we decided to split up for dinner. I went with my friends from Gueryong to a place called Gorilla Burger, which was supposed to be amazing. I thought it was decent. We had a bit of a time finding it because Chris was in the bathroom when the train stopped at our stop so he had to wait until the next stop 20 minutes away, and then buy another ticket and wait for the train to come back down to Daegu.

We stayed out for most of the evening in Daegu, with different people going to different bars and switching back and forth. I stayed out till about 2 or so, and then headed back to the hotel with Hannah, since she didn't know how to get back. I was surprised that I made a straight shot back to the hotel, seeing as how it was the first time I'd ever been to Daegu. But once I got my bearings on the main streets it was relatively easy to navigate.

The next day we got tickets back to Seoul around 1, so we headed back into town for breakfast of bi-bim-mandu, which I'd never had. Amy, Hannah and I went to a coffee shop called Amoeba, and then we all took the train back to Seoul.