Muju Firefly Festival

I'm not sure if you remember last year I posted when I went to Busan for Chuseok that I went through a little town named Muju that was really cool. Well, each year they have a firefly festival and I after going I have no idea why they have the festival as I didn't see one single firefly, but anyway, I guess anything to have a festival. I went early in the day, did some minor hiking and sightseeing. It was a really nice day, overcast but still really nice. It was cool, on the way to see a waterfall and a temple I saw some some people out planting rice, so stopped and got a few pics. I've seen plenty of rice fields, but never actually seen anyone out planting. It doesn't look very fun...there was a guy who ran a big machine to plant, and then across the street there were some older women planting by hand! I think they were just planting along the edges where the machine wouldn't reach. Anyway, after a nice day out, went down to Muju that evening for the festival. Not too much was going on, some food and other vendors, pretty much just a bunch of booths and what not. That night Korea was opening the World Cup playing against Greece, so the little Muju stadium was packed with people watching the game...Korea won 2-0 (the fireworks are after their first goal!) and so everyone was happy! It was a fun way to spend the day.

Welcome to my neighborhood

OK, I finally got some pictures of the lanterns as promised. I have had a few friends say they were curious what some of the things around the neighborhood looked like, so I decided to go out and take a few pics of that too...nothing special, I just snapped these on the way to school the other day, but I thought you might like to see where I am everyday. There are of course some pics of the lanterns, they look really cool...hard to capture that in a picture but I really like seeing those everyday, they're very colorful. My apartment building is really tall, so I couldn't get it all in the picture, I should have taken a picture a few weeks ago, there were some really pretty flowers on some of the bushes out front, but they've all gone away. The big building is the library on Nazareth University campus looking back toward my apartment. I believe Nazareth is a branch of the university of the same name in the States. They are building several new buildings on campus right now. It's a nice campus and I walk through there each day on my way to catch either the bus or the subway. The next picture is looking down from Nazareth to the Ssangyong subway station. The last picture is of course the basketball courts at Nazareth, I've met quite a few cool guys over there playing. They just re-surfaced the courts and they are really nice to play on. There are usually quite a few guys out there playing, so it's always a good time. I might try and get some pics next week out in Asan near my school so you can get an idea what that area is like. They are building several HUGE apartment complexes out there by the school...if I'm still here teaching in a few years we could probably get quite a few kids from there.

I had to post this...

OK, sorry...still no Buddhist lamp pics, the camera is getting a little dusty, I need to recharge the batteries and get out and get some pics. So, tomorrow NO SCHOOL for Buddha's Birthday...

So today, I was walking to the subway station as always...it was a beautiful day, I looked and a girl was walking my way wearing the Gold and Black! That's right, a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt, now...I'm about 99% sure she has NO CLUE who the Steelers even are, but still cool. Then (and this was the BIG shocker of the day) I'm sitting on the subway, and I look and the old guy next to me is wearing a Colorado School of the Mines ball cap! I kid you not! I am 100% (I hate when people say 110% so I'll max out at 100%) sure that the guy had no clue about what the hat said or where that even is. It baffled me to see that, I had never even seen one of those hats in the US. It's common to see Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, etc. and some major college stuff, but Colorado School of Mines?!
Unreal!

A blog with no pics...

Is like no blog at all...BUT...I know it's been forever and I haven't posted and I've thought about this several times, quite a few actually.
So I don't have any pics but wanted to just say HI and let everyone know I think of all of you often. The weather here the last few weeks has been amazing, really nice sunny and relatively warm...still a little chilly in the evenings. I love spring time, all the trees are green again and with Buddha's birthday coming up on the 21st there are lanterns all down the street near my house. Each day I think I need to grab my camera and snap some shots, and I aim to do that...so, maybe I can remember. It looks pretty cool, they are really colorful and I like seeing them when I'm on my way to school each day.
I saw something funny/sad the other night, depending on who you are in the scenario. I was riding the bus back the other night from school like I do each night. Well there was an older guy maybe 65-70 and he was really loud (which isn't common in Korea on a bus) he seemed like he was yelling and stuff, but not to anyone specific. Well, I had my MP3 on and was basically just ignoring him since he wasn't close to me anyway. Well, about 3 or 4 minutes went by and he was still yelling and then I noticed that the bus driver was now telling him to be quiet (I do know that in Korean! HA!) Well, that just escalated the whole thing, and the older guy was yelling at the bus driver now. Well, the bus driver had had enough and pulled the bus over at a gas station. He was older too, maybe around 60, and he went back and got in the old dude's face. Well the old guy started kicking at him, and then got up...then went the rounds for a bit and NO ONE, not one person on the bus even blinked an eye, just stared straight ahead. Well, finally the driver pushed the old guy back into his seat and was walking back to start driving again. Just as he was about back to his seat the old guy jumped up and ran up from behind and kicked the bus driver right between the legs from behind...a spot NO MAN on earth wants to be kicked. The bus driver dropped like a rock and just laid there groaning on the floor of the bus. The old guy was over him laughing and pointing and calling him a "bad guy." Well, still no one said or did anything, and there were guys like my age on the bus. Finally the driver got over and turned off the bus...the funny part is NOW people started grumbling because I guess they were going to be late getting home. About 2 or 3 minutes later some other buses came by and pulled over. They didn't say anything to the old guy (who at this point was just sitting back in his seat like nothing even happened! HA) Well, everyone started jumping off our bus and onto the other buses. I was going to just chill since I wasn't in a big hurry...but then I noticed that it was just me, the crazy old guy, and the bus driver still sitting on the floor on the bus. At that point I bailed out too and jumped on the other bus. I have no idea if the old guy got in trouble or if the bus driver will ever be the same again, but I have NEVER seen anything like that here before. Koreans are usually pretty chill and not very aggressive. I don't know if the older guy was crazy or drunk, or what. Poor bus driver! HA!
So, that's my interesting story of the week. I hope everyone is having a great week...
I watched a movie the other night and at the start was an interesting quote (I love quotes, I usually write them down when I see one I like) from Confucius. It goes:

By three methods we may learn wisdom
First, by reflection, which is noblest
Second, by imitation, which is easiest
And Third, by experience, which is the bitterest

Duke Duke Duke!

I meant to post this the other day right after the game, but I've been really busy so it took a few days longer. Well, as most of you know Duke beat Butler 61-59 for their 4th National Championship! I love technology, as I said before I was able to watch the whole ACC tournament on Jarvis' Slingbox and CBS broadcast every NCAA tournament game on their website, which was really cool for me. I tried to watch as much of the tourney as possible, as anyone who knows me knows how much I love basketball. I got up and went to bed all kinds of crazy hours, and made sure I watched 100% of every Duke game. The fun thing was that I was able to "watch them" with my friend Jarvis and we chatted during the games, it took me back to 2001 when we watched all of the games together at his house in North Carolina, just now all the conversations were typed and we were seperated by about 8,000 miles! HA! This is one of the best tourneys I have EVER seen; there were upsets, close games and crazy stories all intertwined into it. From the get go a lot of people said Duke shouldn't have even been a #1 seed, then of course everyone said they didn't have to play anyone hard, then of course there's the whole "Duke gets all the calls" (even in the West Virginia game when they were called for 4 more fouls and shot 10 less FT all the message boards said that) and then finally against Butler where 99% of the country was pulling for the hometown team portrayed as "tiny little David" playing big bad Duke, funny thing is Butler is around 4,000 students and Duke is around 6,000...even through all that Duke prevailed and played great the whole time. I loved the team this year, one of the funnest Duke teams I've ever seen play. They played well together and I just had a good feeling going into this years tourney that this would be the year! I must say, Korea has been very kind to me, last year the Steelers won the Super Bowl, and now Duke won the championship as well.
Wow...what a season, and hopefully they'll be back on top next year too, they still will have a very solid team and some great new recruits!
GO DUKE!
1991, 1992, 2001, 2010

St. Patty's Day snow...and Slingbox!

Well, so much for spring arriving anytime soon. I had read that it was supposed to snow yesterday but I was anticipating a few flakes, well...I was wrong. I was at school and at about 2:00 one of my kids said "teacher, it's snowing!" Well, 9 hours later it was still snowing, and last night coming home from school really did feel more like December than mid March. It has snowed so much here this winter compared to last year. This morning when I woke up though the sun is out and the snow looks really pretty. Here are a few pictures from my apartment. Also, as promised a few months ago here is a picture of one of our school backpacks. I think they are pretty cute, and they look sharp when I see the kids wearing them, much better than our old generic bags that were just powder blue with some cartoon character named Goorumi (yeah, I have no idea! HA). The bag said "if you're ever sad, just remember Goorumi loves you!" Wow, what a comforting thought there! But hey, the old bags were only 2,000 Won so you get what you pay for. I really like the new bags and Dana and I were pretty excited when we got them.
Ok, if you've never heard of Slingbox, you might be missing out on one of the greatest inventions ever. Basically it's a way to watch TV from a remote site (I don't care much about TV other then sports). So, my friend Jarvis hooked one up to his TV box in Florida, then I can access it through a website and I can watch his TV, just like I'm sitting in a La-Z-Boy at his house. I can even see the remote on my laptop, just as if I held it in my hand. So, he and I watched the whole ACC tournament (which, by the way Duke won!!) and were able to chat during the games using Yahoo Messenger. So, in effect he and I can watch games together now...it's amazing. I hadn't seen a Duke game in almost 2 years, so it was really exciting for me. The only problem was I had to watch the games at 2 AM here, since of course US and Korea times are so different, but...he can record things and I can watch them at my leisure if I want, but any of you that know me know that I would rather watch it live at 2 AM then recorded at 9 AM. Anyway...sorry for the ramble there, but I'm very excited to have access to this thing especially now that it's NCAA tourney time! Thanks Jarvis!

Party time!

First I want to start by wishing my big brother a Happy Birthday! I hope you have a great day man! :)
Well, just a few weeks ago I was certain that spring was just about here, but I was really wrong. Two weeks ago the weather was up around 60 and feeling great, well...it dipped back down and yesterday after school I was leaving and to my surprise when I walked out of the school the wind was howling and the snow was coming down, hard! I catch a bus each day, and there are a lot of buses so usually the wait is only about five minutes, well...of course yesterday on the coldest, snowiest day it's been in a while (and the day I only had my fleece hoodie on) it took about twenty minutes for a bus to come around. Ugh! It was awful, the wind was blowing so hard! So, spring is NOT here and I think dressing like it is won't make it actually come any faster.
Just an update on the school...things are going well, the new semester started here on March 2nd, we added ten new students last week, so there are kids running around everywhere in the school now. We had a slot that opened up and the first day (last Wednesday) we had four kids and by Friday there were seven new kids in that class. So, it's been awesome how well the school has done so far...I hope we can continue to grow.
Well, about a month ago we had a Lunar New Year (Seollal or 설날) party at our school for the kids, it was a lot of fun. The kids dressed up in traditional clothes called Hanbok and we had a party at the school. We made kites, which is a traditional thing for the men and boys to do on Seollal. Dana also made some little paper purses for the kids...they were really cool, but really detailed, so I just stayed out of the way, I can't fold paper straight, much less make a purse. Kids here on Lunar New Year bow to their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. and they give them money on Lunar New Year, so the kids could attach that little paper purse to their hanbok and their family could put money in the little bag. Some of the kids made out like bandits, one of my kids that's like seven years old got over 200,000 Won, or around $170! Not bad for a days work of bowing, eh?! HA! After making kites and bags we played a traditional game called Yutnori, it was a lot of fun. I will just put a link to the game here and you can read about it if you like, rather than me trying to explain it. Here's the Wiki link
We had a great time at the party...I forgot my camera, but fortunately Dana brought hers and she got some cool pics.