some pictures from camp...

camp was good. but i'm too tired to really say anything about it, so if you're curious, you can just ask me when you see me...IN TWO DAYS!!

this just in...

i finally got with the program and changed the comment settings on my blog. now ANYONE can leave a comment, ya don't need to have a blogger account.

why oh why didn't I do this before?!?

muscle shirts and mini skirts

first things first...the link to my Mud Fest Pictures wasn't working and no one told me!!! so don't I feel like an idiot. anyway, I fixed it up good and you can all enjoy them.

Ah summertime! In Korea it means almost constant rain with insanity-inducing humidity and occasional pockets of sunshine that are so searing that you'd think you were a vampire. I'm not joking. I honestly thought Southern Ontario was a pretty humid place in the summer...even when it's not raining here there are literally tiny water droplets hanging in the air for you to walk through and still get wet. it's riDONCulous!! Anyhoo, along with the weather comes some summertime favourites of fashion, namely the muscle shirt (on guys) and the mini skirt (for the ladies...oh my, how wonderful the world would be of those two were reversed!!). Now, for those of you who may not know, the muscle shirt is basically a t-shirt with no sleeves, cut thus in order to showcase one's bulging byceps (or lackthereof). It's a sure a sure indication of a chotch. A distant cousin of the muscle shirt is, of course, the wife beater.

I don't know about the muscle shirt, but the mini skirt is definitely a new arrival in Korea, thanks to Western culture and fashion. America is improving the world!! *ahem, that was sarcasm, just in case you didn't catch it. sarcasm in print can be tricky, you know* In a country where sleeveless shirts on women are still considered slightly scandalous, there are quite a few mini and, dare I say, micro mini skirts walking around out there. I try not to judge, but I can't help it when I see a girl walking around in a cute little skirt that keeps flying up in the high winds that often accompany the rain this time of year. It's akin to the feeling I got when I saw girls trudging through the slush and snow in flimsy ugg boots at Western. What feeling, you ask? Well, a mixture of disappointment in the overall common sense of my gender and smug superiority. I'm a horrible person...

On the same topic, there is also something here that one rarely (if ever) sees in Canada..."couple style". That's right, anywhere you go you are sure to see at least one young Korean couple wearing matching shirts. I'm not talking about coordinating colours, I'm talking the exact same shirt. Quite often it's pink, too. When I first saw this phenomenon I felt certain that the male was being cajoled into to doing this by the girl, but alas I'm left to surmise that maybe, just maybe, the guy was the one who picked out the shirts...

I went to the new E-Mart in Gwangju today to do some browsing and get the heck outta my apartment and during my travels I picked up two of the greatest examples of konglish fashion. (Konglish is the interesting combo of Korean and English.) My foreign friends and I love seeing the absurd things that are written on signs and shirts. Often it's funny because it's just grammatically incorrect and makes no sense, but there are other times, GEMS if you will, where the English is correct, but the message is so hilarious and or out of place that it instantly becomes awesome. I came across two such cases today. The first shirt, the discovery of which I can't take credit for, has the following message on it:

There's no doubt! I will always be your only friend (and you'd better stand by me for this particular reason)

(What?!?! It's so awesome! who doesn't want a shirt that says this)
The second shirt says, and I quote:

GETTIN' LUCKY in my box

no jokes! (if you don't understand why it's funny, click HERE)that's what it says. and there was a whole stack of these shirts available for poor unsuspecting Korean girls to pick up and wear. Naturally I bought both shirts and plan to wear them with pride during my trip to Canada.

I can't leave out the rare case where someone will be wearing the most kick-ass English shirt in the most unlikely of places. I was on the bus (aren't I always) driving through a tiny town (isn't it always tiny?) and I saw a Korean wearing a bright yellow shirt with a red maple leaf. Naturally the maple leaf caught my eye and upon closer look, I noticed that his shirt said "Fucking Freezing" on it. Too bad the bus was moving, otherwise I would've gotten off to shake the guys hand and/or steal his shirt.
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While I was shopping I decided to try on a pair of shorts, just for shits and giggles. The sales lady comes and asks my waist size (ahahahaha! I almost typed "waste size"! wouldn't that be hilariously gross?!?). While I don't know dimensions, I do know that in Korea I am consistently "largee" size. She pulls off a pair with an 88 on it and states "very largee size". I look at it and chuckle because I just tried that pair on and it didn't fit me. "Very largee" indeed.
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Speaking of fat, I went out for dinner with my school teachers again and it was really good. Until the prinicpal called me over for our obligatory awkward silence/conversation and he decided to call me fat again. This was all in Korean, but I do believe he was comparing his paunch to mine. awesome. i feel pretty. (mom, don't email shane about it...it's not that big a deal :D)
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I don't know if these have infiltrated the toddler market in Canada yet, but some genius decided it was a good idea to create a toddler shoe with a squeaky toy in it. I guess it's kinda like the bell on your cat. If the annoying squeaking stops, you should be worried as your toddler probably just fell down the stairs. wow, i really AM a horrible person! I shouldn't write these at night before bed...
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and my last commentary for the evening will be about the new words i learned during my mudfest weekend.
1. "egg". Someone who is white but acts asian (white in the outside, yellow on the inside)
2. "Banana" Someone who is asian but acts white (yellow on the outside, white on the inside)
and just for the record, it was an asian girl who told me this!
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I'm off to do an elementary school camp this week, but more importantly AFTER this camp I'm coming to Canada...woohooo. This girl needs some quality time with the following:
her parents
her sister
her Sari
her puppy
grass (the kind on my front lawn)
the car
a shopping mall (i can't believe i just said that, but it's true)

see you soon!

it was muddy and it was festival-y

ahoy maties! (or métis)

i saw Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man's Chest last Friday and OH MERCY was is good. I'm telling ya, everything Jerry Bruckheimer touches turns to gold...except for Horatio Cain. He was a bad idea all around. Anyway, as surprising as this may sound, Orlando Bloom was not actually annoying in this movie!! wooohooo with the excpetion of LOTR, where his elvishness was lovely, all other subsequent roles have left me to wonder whether or not he had castrated himself to play an elf more effectively. I'm happy to say that in this movie he has grown an pair. massel tov, Orlando.

among other things, the sound track was lively, entertaining, exciting and ever so Hans Zimmer. I enjoyed it so much that it inspired me to go on my very first iTunes online shopping spree. Not only did I acquire the soundtrack to the movie, but I also found myself buying some Sigur Ros, Muse, and the sound track to Fight Club. Apple people are geniuses because it's RIDICULOUSLY easy for me to buy music and not realise the monetary damage EVER. With shopping online and banking online, it's like I'm spending money that i never really saw anyway. It awesome and awful...AWFULSOME!!!
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The MAIN EVENT - Mud Fest 2006

Last weekend was the Mud Festival in Boryeong, which is a place that's about 3 hours north of here by car. I went with my friends EJ and Stu. EJ is a Korean who teaches English and is one cool cat. Stu is an Aussie who came here in April and who is simply delightful. We were quite the eclectic car-full.

Anyway, we arrived late afternoon on Saturday, got settled and immediately jumped in a pool of mud and muddy people...is was, in a word, mud-tacular.

The mud was greyish and a bit runny. When it dries on you it turns grey and is kinda difficult to get off. For some reason the mud in Boryeong is different from elsewhere and they use it for all manner of beauty products like masks, scrubs, cleansers, soaps, etc, etc.

The Festival began in 1998 I think and is probably the most popular Korean festival among foreigners. In fact, I havent' seen that many foreigners in the same place since being in Canada. To be perfectly honest, I don't care to see that many in the same place in Korea ever again. For some reason, people thinks is OK to act like complete idiots and represent themselves and their countries poorly. For those of you who went to UWO, or know something about it, picture the idiocy that happens once a year on St Patty's Day when everyone drinks their faces off starting at 8am. Now transplant them to Korea and cover them with mud and that's kinda what it was like. I had a Korean girl say to me "I don't understand...I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite?" my response: "When you take people in their early to mid- twenties and add alcohol, Canadians turn into Americans." Yeah, I fully admitted to being "one of those guys" when I have a few in me...but mostly in the company of good friends. Anyway, that's my little rant on foreigners in Korea. If nothing else, they were super entertaining to watch and mock.

Sunday and Monday South Korea was pummelled by heavy rains, so that kinda put a damper (pardon the pun) on the festivities. Thankfully, in the rain mud just gets muddier. EJ, Stu and I spent the day alternately eating, chilling inside, sitting on the beach, getting muddy, playing cards, drinking, eating and hanging out with some other people from Seoul etc etc. It was quite a relaxed, low-key affair, which I'm not at all disappointed about.

you wanna see some pictures?!?!

Here you go! (all photos courtesy of Stu. the one with just the head and the sky...that's Stu)
MudFest Pics
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In other news:
I GOT MY AIRTICKET HOME YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!
let me see...only 11 more sleeps. w00t.

happy coincidences and lots of rain

the god of rain has put me in my place. all night, and continuing this morning there has been a typhoon/monsoon. It's my first real one here and let me tell ya, i'm impressed. seriously. the sheer volume of rain is ridiculous as is the wind. i don't like shutting my windows in the summertime, but when i risk flooding my entire apartment, it's kinda necessary.

anyway, i woke up this morning after a fitful sleep (due to the noise of the wind and rain) and began my morning ritual. i looked outside and saw, literally, sheets of rain being blowing diagonally. i thought to myself, "self, walking to school is going to be fun. an umbrella will be useless, so you will just have to trust your purple rain coat."

oh mercy. for the record, my purple raincoat did a fantastic job - it was the rest of me that got pummeled with water. within twenty seconds of me being outside my pants were sopping. i turned around and went back into my apartment. thankfully mrs che came to my resue and drove me to school on her way to work. i arrived in the middle of the staff meeting looking like a drowned rat because, even though i got door to door driving service, the few seconds i was outside were enough for the rain god to be revengeanceful towards my arrogance. lesson learned.
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in other news, i have the strange luck to always randomly run into English speaking Koreans in the most unlikely places. Mr Son and I went for a motorbike ride yesterday and after getting pleasantly lost in country back roads we stopped in a tiny town to give our butts a rest and to have a drink. It turns out that in b-f nowhere Korea, the owner of the little corner store where we purchased our beverages has a daughter who just spent 5 months in the states and wants to be an English teacher. I met her (her name is Yu-kyoung) and we spent the afternoon together. It was really great. She was not shy, like most Koreans are went they first meet me, her English is great and she is my age! That's a very rare combo around these parts.
I don't really subscribe to fate or things that are "meant to be" but the random transpiring of events that has led me to meet cool and interesting people (on several different occaisons) is starting to feel less and less like coincidence.

Happy Canader Day

hey y'all! I'll make this short and sweet!

Joo wanna see some photos, mang? well, click here

They're red, white, and a whole lotta sloppy. w00t!

ps - happy quarter century to my dear seester!