Sanitizer Not Enough?

So what happens if you don't have time to wash your hands and you don't think sanitizer will kill all of those germs? Maybe UV lighting will do the trick! I'm serious about this by the way!

Mud Festival

The Mud Festival is one of the main summer events in Korea during the week of July 16th-24th. Some of us signed up through Adventure Korea, a travel company that has great personnel. They were one of the few companies that were allowed some access to the mud flats. Many parts of the mud flats are reserved solely for the use in the festival. They want to keep the mud as pure as possible. The site of the festival is actually about 25 kilometers from the mudflats. The mud is brought from the mud flats to the festival. I didn't realize how many foreigners lived in Korea until I arrived at this festival. I almost forgot that I was even in Korea during this time. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my new camera because of the mud, but I did collect some pictures from friends! Maybe I should get a disposable camera if I get to attend the festival next year.

 The first event at the mud flats was chicken fighting. You fall to the ground, it's game over.

 Playing soccer in the mud was pretty fun. I did a wicked slide tackle to block a shot attempt that extended about 5 feet over. Too bad no one else captured a picture.

 Here's a quick group picture before we continued with the next events.

Mud wresting was pretty entertaining to watch. This was right after one of the guys was thrown into the inner tube pile driver style and bounced right out of the ring.

 I think it's easy to figure out which one of us did not participate in mud wrestling...

 The entrance into the festival. Notice that it even says "mud" in English - now that's what I call being foreign friendly!

 I have to give props to the people who used the mud as part of their costumes, since they were dressed like this for the whole day!

 This picture gives somewhat of an idea of how crowded it was at the festival. Since the beach is just right there, we could easily wash all of the mud off in the ocean!

Look at all of this mud!

Food for Thought

For one of our lunches, our school decided to go to a Japanese buffet place. There were 15 different kinds of sushi, and all but one was pretty good. The Udon noodle bar was great as well. After picking my ingredients and broth, I just give it to the chef and he lights the entire pot on fire.

For one of my dinners, I had went with one of the teachers for Galbitang and Chadolbegi, which is beef brisket soup and marinated beef. At first the soup looked simple, but the broth was amazing. I recommend eating this soup especially during the colder months. The marinated beef placed on a piece of lettuce. I have a choice of adding raw garlic or onion (or both) and top it off with mild or spicy bean paste. Then I wrap up the contents and enjoy!

Worst combination ever

I was eating an apple pie and a bartender who worked at the bar asked for my plate. He wanted to put something that is "traditional" on my dessert. I was thinking it was going to be ice cream, but I was VERY wrong. This was what he gave me instead.... I didn't want to be rude, so I ate some of it.... only to bring this downstairs when he wasn't looking and threw it away. My friends were laughing hysterically at this incident!

Happy 4th of July from Korea!

This was the only US flag I saw anywhere in Korea on the 4th of July, so I figured it would be appropriate to post this here.

Comedy Sho' by Mr. Cho

We had a chance to watch Danny Cho perform in Korea. He's a Korean comedian who was born in the U.S. He has performed stand up and has also appeared in shows such as Mad TV and Parks and Recreation. One of the girls I went with knew him in college and invited me to watch his performance. 

Here's a short video of one of his performances from his website.

 His jokes were hilarious and I was laughing so hard at times that I could barely breathe. I was definitely glad that I came up to watch him.

Nice group photo of us with Danny. I will let everyone else add other captions for this photo;)

Hanging Out With Sea Life

Last weekend, I went out with some friends on a scuba diving trip in Busan. At first I was nervous since we were at the mercy of fish large enough that they could eat us. Our certified scuba diver assured us that nothing would happen as long as we didn't provoke them. We had about a 1.5 hour crash course on the basic scuba techniques before beginning our dive. We got to only about 20 feet deep at the lowest point of the aquariam, but that's still enough to cause pressure change to our ears. Its the same effect as flying on an airplane. After about 45 minutes underwater, we slowly ascended back to the shallow end. It was one of the most exciting experiences that I've had in a long time. The view of all the sea life underwater was amazing and I will never look at an aquarium the same way. Our scuba trainer did a great job of training us and everyone came out having a great time.

Some stingrays and a few fish going around us.

Check out the size of this grouper/groper in comparison to the people watching our dive.  These big dudes can open their mouths even wider than a shark!

Sharks are not as aggressive as they are portrayed in the media. As long as we do not provoke them, they will not attack. This one started looking at us as we were taking photos, which caught me by surprise. After a while he just went on like nothing happened.

 As you can see, these gropers are a bit ugly, but still cool regardless.

 Our friends tried to take a picture of us from the outside, but we were blocked by a groper!

I had to do the peace pose since I couldn't smile or make crazy gestures under water;)

 One of the sharks lurking at the shallow end of the aquarium.

My friends also captured some video, which I will try to post in the future.

Go Go Gadget Sports

All right, my thoughts about my school's Sports Day is long overdue and will be my most epic post yet. Our school had this event roughly 3 weeks ago. When I heard about our Sports Day, I was intrigued of what would take place. The teachers were supposed to participate with our own team, but we ended up not participating (to my disappointment). This was a great time to see my students show their cheerful side since they study almost non-stop. Many of them have school plus academy from 8:30 am to 10 pm every day, so this day was definitely well-deserved! We started out by playing the familiar sports, basketball and soccer. Basketball was stopped after 10 minutes when students started chucking shots from NBA 3 point range and half court. The soccer mini-tournament went much better and students showed some nice skills. Everything else revolved around the track and field. Some of the events were somewhat bizarre at first, but it was very entertaining to watch! It was a great time overall and the students showed great competitive spirit. I'd like to thank all of the teachers for providing me with these images. For next semester, I'm hoping I get to participate in the 2nd Sports Day!

 Students warming up before all the events

 Look at how intense the students look in this race!

 For this relay, all of the students bend down for the lightest student to walk on their backs. This event is called the "bridge relay". The students in the back will then run towards the front to advance the bridge.

This event gets pretty crazy once the students are fully in motion. It reminded me of one of those kung fu movies where the main character prances over the people's shoulders to run away from the enemy. This inspired me to watch a martial arts movie afterward...

I was amazed by how the coordination of the students. None of them wiped out, and it looked liked they all had fun.

 I was tempted to grab a pair of scuba flippers and start running on the track.

 Some students doing the 110 meter hoop roll with their wands.

 This was the first of a four part obstacle relay. The students had to run to this spot, then pop the balloon before they could continue running. It was kind of funny seeing the students get frustrated when they couldn't pop their balloons on their first attempt. 

 For the second obstacle, the students had to break through this net. The student wearing orange did a dead sprint into the net. He successfully went through with little resistance, but suffered a few rope burns...

The third obstacle is similar to the potato sack race.

For the last obstacle, the students were jumping over "hurdles". The mats behind the hurdles used to reduce injury are not very soft, but I guess that's better than plunging face first into the sand!

A competition is not the same without the classic tug-of-war.

Our principal being a bit camera shy. Here I was talking to one of my co-teachers and him about activities that are done in American middle schools.

  One of the pictures my co-teachers took of me with the 7th grade students.

The final event was the 400 meter relay.

The 8th grade "Bee Team" celebrating their victory! All of the other 8th graders looked so disappointed...

The winning teams coming up to claim their prizes.

Crouching Eel, Hidden Chicken....

Preparing eel for the grill. The crazy part was seeing our server literally take out the swimming eel from the tank, wrapping it up in foil, and simmer them alive. Despite seeing part of my dinner roasting to death, the eel was pretty good after it was grilled.

Can anyone guess why my friends look ready to reach out and grab someone with their "claws"? That's because this entree happens to be chicken feet! While the taste itself was not bad, I'm not sure if this is something I'd be drooling over for dinner....

Pre-Summer Hiking

Since the hot & humid summer is about to arrive in full force, I decided to go on one more hike. Daegu becomes especially humid since the city is surrounded by mountains, trapping the warm air. Mount Apsan wraps around half of the city, so we were treated to some great overhead views.

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The starting point of our hike. We were deciding which trails to take to the summit.

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