Changes are afoot

Changes in both my life and my website are forthcoming. First, life:

I decided to take advantage of a long weekend to travel to Tibet. Whilst there, I protested the Chinese crackdown on protesters, which in effect made me a protester. I was placed in a burlap sack and beaten, and I now write this from the slimy muck at the bottom of a jail cell in Sichuan province. My captors have agreed to update my blog for me, and have even given me pen and paper. All I had to do was promise to quit singing Kenny Loggins at the top of my lungs at all hours. Chinese prison guards HATE Kenny Loggins. Yup, my constant threat of singing KL has made me big man on campus around here. All the other inmates are forced to relinquish their gruel'n'guts eggrolls to me at mealtimes, and my guards give me a footrub on the hour, every hour. I'm thinking about staying here and starting a traveling band of inmate musicians. We will cover Abba, and only Abba, for every tiny podunk Chinese village for a thousand miles. If that all sounds pretty ridiculous to you, I suggest you take a look at the date on this blog entry. April second for me is April first for you USA types...

And now for something completely different... (reality or something like it)

I'm contracted to teach through the end of May here in Korea, at which point I will go ahead on to Thailand. I am midly considering extending for another month or two in order to obtain a faster laptop for my continued travels. In any case, at some point in the summer I'm going to Thailand, where I will remain for at least the rest of the year. How long I stay after that depends on how things work out. I will be training in Muay Thai full time, so I guess we'll see how I jive with that lifestyle.

Coming past the one year mark in Korea is a good time to look back. I've had a pretty excellent time here with few complaints of any sort. Or regrets for that matter, save one - I wish I'd spent the time to learn Korean and get truly immersed in Korean culture. This whole ex-pat scene has been a huge wake-up call for me. You come here and there is a friend group of english speakers pretty much ready to go. That plus high speed internet in your apartment can really kill your momentum on learning the local language and making local friends. It's taken me a long time to see how the habits and patterns form here, but I'm glad that I've learned how this works, because this will definitely not be the last foreign country that I live in for an extended period of time. In the meantime, it's never too late to learn - I intend to spend the rest of my time here hanging out with Koreans as often as possible and making a stab at speaking as much of the language as I can.

Martial arts wise, I continue to grow in capability and mental strength. Physically, flexibility remains my number one issue. But practice and exercise have become part of my mental and spiritual landscape to the point where I cannot imagine a life without training 4-5 times a week. There's a feel to it, a constant energy that is with you all the time. I've been getting more sleep lately too and that's always beneficial.

As far as the website goes, I'm basically reworking the entire thing. I've been using a Mac-based program to build and maintain the site, which has had pros and cons. The program is incredibly easy to use and enables me to do slick things (like those pop up menus on the photos page) without actually knowing what I'm doing. The downside is that it ties me to the Mac platform. I've been a Mac user for years, but lately speed and power have become most important to me as far as computers are concerned. Speed and power carry a hefty premium in the world of Mac, unfortunately. Also, I'd like to migrate my website activities to something that's more platform independent. As in, learn how to write html myself so I can build/maintain the site no matter what kind of computer I'm on. That's the end goal. This also ties in with my photography - I've stopped using iPhoto (which ships with all Macs) due to the fact that it cannot handle massive picture libraries like mine, on old/slow machines like mine. I've transferred all my photos to an old-fashioned regular old files and folders set up, once again with platform independence in mind. Ideally, I get a new laptop, run Linux on it, and do things the geekier/harder/ultimately more rewarding way.

To that end, the site is going to look really, really basic in the coming months. Also, I'm going with a new approach with the photos. Rather than having hundreds and hundreds of photos on the site, I'm going to pare it down to the shots I'm really, really proud of. I'll still try to keep things in chronological/geographical order, but I'm going to be a lot pickier about what I put up. Or maybe I'll just say screw it and put up a bunch of picasa web albums and call it a day. Only time will tell!

Real quick to my theatre friends: I miss you guys like crazy. Not living around a bunch of weirdo artists and doing theatre all the time is what's going to get me back to the states. For anyone who's wondering, yes I'm definitely coming back, and yes I'm going to work in theatre.

For those of you who have followed my Asian adventures and kept up with me via the website, email, chat, and what have you, thanks. As I look back on this past year I've realized the importance of community, and it's nice to feel that there is one/several that I can jump back into when I'm stateside again. I hope you're all doing fantastically well.

Busy Bee

Lots going on this month. Finally updated the site - I added a few hundred pictures from my trip to China. Also I changed the look a little bit, feedback is appreciated. I've got my black belt test in Hapkido coming up on the 22nd, which will go fine if I can remember all the moves and also stop injuring myself once a week. On the 23rd I leave for a 10 day vacation in Japan. I will be in Tokyo for most of it, with perhaps a couple days in Kyoto. In any case I'll be in Tokyo for new year's, which ought to be pretty wild. In other news I met a lovely girl, but it's unclear yet if she's realized that she's met a really great guy. Harhar. In all seriousness, and despite setbacks, I'm going to go ahead and hold on to my unwavering optimism/confidence/ faith in the mysterious. Life is short. Carpe diem! I'll conclude with a quote from my main man Kahlil Gibran, from his masterpiece, The Prophet.

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Coming up for air

Welcome back! It's been a minute since my last update (read: much longer than a minute) but I've been busy finding my way in the world. Here are some of the things I've done since July:

I had a week of vacation back in August, which I spent in China, as planned. That was about the only thing that went according to plan, especially given my loose notion of making a "plan." Let's just say that several boats, planes, and minor crises later, I am most certainly wiser. I did wind up in Beijing and spent the week there, which was fantastic. I met up with an old friend from the states and also met some great people at the hostel where I was staying. Beijing is an incredible place. I've never seen a place with so much history crashing headlong into the future. There is something a bit oppressive about the city, but at the same time, the strength and tradition of the place are plainly obvious to see, and there's also a lot of beautiful stuff to see. Highlights included Beijing Opera, the Forbidden City, the Hou Hai lake/bar district, and of course a 10k hike along the Great Wall. As you will see very soon, I took a lot of photos and will be filling up the currently empty China page with a few choice photos. It was my first serious outing with the Nikon D40, and I got a couple really nice shots. One more thing I'll say about China is that as cheap and awesome as it is to travel there, the attitude of the general populace certainly made me appreciate Korea a lot more. The atmosphere is definitely wilder and woolier than the more calm, if still crazy at times, feel of Korea. At least at night and at the markets.

Since then things have been pretty uneventful. People have come and gone at work, as contracts expire and begin all around. Silly office nonsense happens all the time and we all deal with it in our own individual ways. I have yet to make a dent in learning Korean. I finally stopped being addicted to novels and video games long enough to start updating my site and getting my photography in order, language is next on the list. I've certainly still got time to learn quite a bit, which leads me to my next bit of information.

Ryan and I have decided that we will almost certainly extend our contracts here in Korea. Our year is up at the end of February, but it looks like we'll be staying until the summer to make some money and for other various timing reasons. I plan on being in Thailand at the end of next summer, and I'll stay for as long as I can, probably just teaching some English on the side and training full time in Thai boxing. I've gotten a lot of "when are you coming back to the states?" type questions, which I love, because it's nice to know that people are thinking of me just as I'm thinking of them. But the answer is, I don't really know. As far as a permanent return, I'm loosely planning on early to mid 2009. As far as visiting, I'm going to shoot for a week in the states at the end of February, when I renegotiate my contract. I've got a week of vacation in December, but with plane tickets to DC running close to two grand, I've decided to fulfill another long standing dream of visiting Japan. It being literally at my backdoor, it's a great opportunity and also, it'll be cheaper. I have to remind myself that I need to be saving money here!

In other news, I hurt my knee in Hapkido. After taking a month off of training to let it heal, I'm back in the dojang (school) training 5 nights a week. The knee is hugely improved, but I'll probably be seeing a doctor soon to get some MRIs or other tests done. Might as well with my free health insurance! The master wants me to test for black belt in December, from what I understand, so I've got to be ready and stay healthy.

We just did Halloween at the English school and I was in charge of building the haunted house, along with Ryan and our head teacher, Aldrin. We definitely put in the hours and came up with a great setup, and after a full workday of screaming myself hoarse, wearing creepy masks and hiding in dark corners, I can safely say we scared the bajeesus out of those kids. My job is really great sometimes. (Really getting my mileage out of that theatre degree! Sigh.)

To all you folks back in the states, and you know who you are, I miss you. My life here remains interesting, instructive, and productive, but especially with the holidays coming on, thoughts of home are on my mind more often these days. I hope you're all doing well!

New pictures soon!

5 months in and I'm already skipping town

That's right, I'm leaving Korea.

It's time for summer vacation, which starts friday!
I'll be taking a 25 hour ferry from Incheon, South Korea, to Tianjin, China this friday. From Tianjin I'll be catching a train to Beijing, where I'll meet up with a friend and galavant about the Chinese capital for a few days, possibly followed by a short trip to Shanghai to see another friend. I'm beyond excited, especially now that I'm packing this little piece of kit:



That would be my new Nikon D40 dSLR. It's pretty cheap as far as digital SLR cameras go, but it has capabilities and qualities that my old digital camera can't hold a candle to. Much as I loved that Kodak and took some great shots in Europe with it, it's time to move on to bigger and better things. If you take a look in the photo section you'll see a bunch of new albums up; everything that's new has been shot with the Nikon and I think it's a huge improvement.

Besides my impending trip to China, not a whole lot is going on here. July 4th came and went with absolutely no fanfare (of course,) and that was actually a little bit sad. I'm not the most patriotic person, but you never know what you've got until you don't. That includes fireworks, crappy American beer, and bug bites.
I've been doing a lot of rock climbing, including two outdoor trips to nearby mountains with folks from my rock climbing gym. Those trips were incredible, especially the second one: a multi-pitch ascent up what I'm told is a roughly 600 foot face. It took all day, and we completed one section, we would clip into anchors drilled into the face and rest for the next portion. Definitely the most frightening experience of my life, including running with the bulls. Of course I was on a rope the whole time, with almost no chance of serious injury, but try telling that to your jangling nerves when you're 500 feet off the ground, holding onto a mountain using nothing but one tiny finger hold and the sheer friction of your climbing shoes on the rock.
In infinitely more boring and mundane news, management is being juggled around at work, with unpleasant consequences. The job is now no longer as much of a cakewalk as it was before, but remains a pretty decent living. I do have to say that my initial desire to extend my contract past the original 12 months has cooled somewhat. Right now I'm thinking I'll go straight to Thailand in February, when my contract is up, spend 6 months there, and then maybe move on to Hong Kong.

One never knows.

My next update will be packed with info and stories on my trip to CHINA. Stay tuned.

Brave New Warble

Note: I wrote this entry on June 20th, but I'm posting it July 20th. Things have gotten a bit behind on the site due to work, figuring out my new dSLR camera (!) and all that jazz. A really, actually new blog entry is coming within the next 48 hours. And so are a bunch more pictures. Stay tuned!



Hey! No big events these last six weeks. Korea continues to entertain and more importantly, educate.

One thing that happens a lot in this line of work is people coming and going. Due to the 12 month contract that everyone has, and everyone starting at different times of the year, my office has a constant turnover and arrival of people coming from all over the english speaking world. It's kind of fun and exciting to have people coming and going, but it's also kind of a bummer when cool people leave the office to go back home, or on to other adventures. This month, we are losing Justin, Irish Ryan, and Nathan, who are all great guys. It's been awesome working with you guys!

Speaking of Justin, he, Nate and I have been doing a fair bit of rock climbing these past 6 weeks. Nate (not to be confused with Nathan, who is one of the people leaving,) was a pretty avid climber back in the states, I had some experience, and Justin was just starting. We're pretty well into the groove now, thanks to the fact that we live really close to a bouldering gym. Bouldering means rock climbing without ropes, but it's generally low height, so you don't hurt yourself, and very difficult. The gym is an interconnected set of rooms with thickly padded floors, and angled walls covered in factory made holds that can be screwed into most surfaces. It's been excellent for making me stronger, dovetailing nicely with hapkido, which focuses a lot on hand strength.

Speaking of health, I've gone on a diet for the first time in my life. Don't worry, I'm not trying to LOSE weight, I'm actually trying to gain muscle. My new diet is gleaned from the book "Natural Hormonal Enhancement" by Rob Faigin. He asserts, after doing a huge mountain of research, that the best way to eat in order to gain muscle and burn fat, is to eat lots of protein and not worry about having too much fat. My meals are cycled, such that every 3rd day I have a big meal of carbohydrates, and then every 4th day as well. In between those times I eat very few carbs. The idea is that the human endocrine system is millions of years old, and is based on eating a diet that's very different from what most people eat today. Our ancestors ate a lot more protein and vegetables, and very few, if any, refined carbohydrates, like white bread, pasta, etc. Anyways, the book is well reviewed and makes sense, so I'm going to give it a try. Also, I'll be starting a weight training regimen next week, in addition to my martial arts training, so this could be the start of a whole new thing for me. I'll report back on how it turns out/is turning out.

In other news, I miss theatre and the arts desperately. I've got to find out about the english language theatre and other things like that in the Seoul area. I know it's out there, I've seen links and ads here and there. Time to do some research.

I've been pretty prolific as far as music goes. Pretty soon I'm going to start adding a few songs of mine to the website so everyone can listen.

My roommate Ryan Ellis is getting married, for those of you who don't know. He met a lovely british girl here named Helen Kenny. They don't have a date set yet, but I guess I'll post it when I know and when the time is right. For all those of you who love Ryan Ellis and want nothing but the best for him, let me assure you that Helen is a fantastic person and I'm 100% behind them getting married. They've moved pretty quick, but hey, when you know, you know.

What else? Teaching is a continuing process of self-discovery. Just when I think I have a pattern down and there's not much else to figure out, some new challenge or unrealized part of myself leaps to the fore to make things interesting. I feel that there are many days when I learn more than the kids by a good margin. Specifically, teaching these kids is really teaching me a lot about the meaning of patience. I thought I was a reasonably patient person before I came here, but I think now I'm starting to learn what real patience is. Real patience is teaching the same thing 4 times in one week to the same kid, who just isn't getting it, and persisting with it, until he DOES get it. There's usually a reward for patience in this job, but it's sad to say that sometimes there are brick walls that it's hard to break through. However, you never know when a breakthrough will happen, so it's best to just keep a clear head and take deep breaths. Patience is really the key here! It's incredible, though, because patience is really a way of creating stillness within yourself. And when you can do that, you notice things that have been there all along, patiently waiting for you to discover them. Or at least, that's the way it's starting to become for me.

Oh and one more cool thing that happened. A couple weeks ago, the birthday of Buddha was celebrated here in Korea with a massive parade in downtown Seoul. People came from alllllll over Asia to join in the festivities, and there were a bunch of performances of both traditional and modern musicians and artists during the day. There was everything from traditional Korean drumming to yoga demonstrations, as well as traditional Indian dance - Katakali, believe. The parade started at night. Why at night? Because the whole thing is called the Paper Lantern Festival, and there are thousands of paper lanterns everywhere! The buddhist temple near the parade area was decked out with a gazillion of them, and at night, every single lantern was turned on. With that, and the parade, the effect was really beautiful. I managed to snag some lanterns and take them home for decoration purposes. Check out the pics section if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Thanks for checking in. Remember to check out the new pictures!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

It's been an interesting time since my last update. I've hit extreme highs and extreme lows with the job, but it seems to come with the territory. I've gotten into hiking a lot on the weekends, and I've started going to a rock climbing gym pretty close to where I live. I've reached yellow belt in Hapkido, though I'm still looking for a place to practice Taekwondo.
I've put up a bunch of new picture albums to document all the most noteworthy adventures I've had recently. To start with is a nice little selection of photos from St. Patrick's Day here in Seoul. Yeah, I know it was a while ago, but some of the pictures were just too good not to put up. Plus, it was pretty surreal to see so many Koreans celebrating an Irish holiday with such gusto. They really love Guinness here, I can tell you that much.
I've also got an album up from a hike on one of the local mountains, Gwanaksan. It was a fun time and got me addicted to hiking around here. Of course, Korea is mostly mountains, so hiking is huge here. It's hard to describe the feeling of sweating up a thousand meter peak, only to watch people two or three times my age gleefully smoke me up the trail, flashing big smiles as they hustle their fully-outfitted-for-mountain-climbing selves right up the mountains. Koreans are strong people.
Then there is an album I've put up from a recent field trip we took the pre-schoolers on. In the morning I teach wee little ones (7 years old in Korean counting, which generally means 6 in American counting,) and this month's field trip was to the zoo.
Also, last weekend I took a trip to Wonju, about an hour and a half outside of Seoul, with Justin and Nate, two friends from work. We climbed a 1288 meter peak in Chiaksan national park, but that's only part of the story.
For starters, we weren't supposed to be in Wonju at all. Justin screwed up when we were getting our tickets, having read our guide book wrong. We were apparently supposed to go to an entirely different place called Muju. Go figure. We figured this out about 30 seconds before the bus for Wonju headed out of Seoul, with us on it. Luckily Chiaksan is right outside of Wonju(sorta) so we just rolled with it, and everything ended up working out.
We left on a friday night, and got a room at a place that would probably be described here in Korea as a "love motel." The room is basically designed for people to have sex, with lots of mood lighting, porn on the TV, etc etc. There was even a vending machine in the hallway that sold dildos, fake vaginas, and various other tools/toys. We stayed there two nights, actually, since the enormous bed was big enough for two, and there was a couch as well. The funny part was, the second night they supplied us guys with 3 condoms instead of the standard one... thanks, I guess?
Saturday morning we rolled out of the motel/hotel/whateveritis only to realize that our guidebook was incredibly vague on how to get from Wonju to the national park. After poking around for an hour, and getting lots of crappy directions, we finally stumbled across a police station. Being completely lost, we went in to ask for directions. The amusement we were able to provide for those local yokel Korean cops was something to see. They whipped out every phrase in English they knew, and after a few minutes of language practice, one of them finally said, "follow me." Figuring he was going to tell us how to get to the bus terminal we were looking for, we went along. Imagine our surprise when the officer loaded us into one of the cop cars and drove us directly to the stop where we could catch a bus up to the mountain. Koreans really are that nice.
The mountain was incredible, and was the longest hike I've done to date, at 1288 meters. In the foothills there is also a very old Buddhist temple, where we were accosted by a very old man who seemed pretty drunk for eleven in the morning. He proceeded to tell us a long, rambling, nonsensical, entirely charming (seriously) story about a big rock that looks like the moon with some clouds around it. I'm not making this up. He even gave us a business card with a picture of said rock on it.
The last part of the hike was so steep that there were wooden stairways built into the sides of the mountain. Imagine our surprise when, as we three struggled to the summit, it was already crowded with middle aged folks and middle school field trip groups. Definitely an educational experience, and very humbling.
After coming down the mountain and catching the bus back to Wonju proper, we decided on a galbi restaurant for dinner. In Korea, galbi is basically BBQ cooked right at your table, on a cooker built into the table top. It's delicious, and in true Korean fashion, the table is covered with little dishes containing all manner of little sides, garnishes, and various kinds of kimchi. In the bathroom I noticed a pretty old guy sneezing his head off approximately every 5 seconds. I can't say I was too excited when he rolled up to our table and invited himself to join us. "Great," I thought, in a typically American reaction, "this weird old homeless guy wants to make friends and eat our food." Not so! The gentleman made as much chit chat as he could with the English he had, bought us a round of beers, and wished us a good night, as he hustled his grandkids on home. According to Justin, he sees that kind of incredible hospitality and friendliness at least once on every hiking trip outside of Seoul.
Well of course we ended up making a bit of a night of it, and got up very late the next day, precluding any more hiking that weekend. Still, it was time very well spent.
Lastly, I threw up a smattering of pictures I took just before I came to Korea. There were a couple good ones I just couldn't keep to myself, like the shots from the anti-escalation/war march that I went to in DC, and the picture I got someone to take of myself meeting Ralph Nader. And of course, shots of me and and my brand spankin' new (at the time) black belt, posing with my TKD masters.
You'll notice in many of the pictures I've put up, by the way, that I'm sporting quite a gross little mustache. Myself and a bunch of guys at the office were having a sort of a competition, although Ryan and his 1/4 pure Italian blood whipped all of us, with an incredible Super Mario-esque 'stache.
It's getting warm here. Stay tuned for reports of island hopping and beach parties. Also, I'm in training for a Taekwondo championship that Master Yang (my TKD master from back in the states) has asked me to compete in. So there's a lot going on. I'll do my best to keep the site as updated as possible. If you want to leave a comment, please do - just click the link at the bottom of the post that says "comments." I hope that anyone who's reading this is having a wonderful day, and ate something delicious recently.

It took a while to sink in.

I live in Korea now, but my heart is back in Virginia. It wanders the Blue Ridge and stumbles along the country roads. It shivers in the shadow of something that seems so incredibly out of place, something that is out of range of even the darkest expectations. I read the news almost every day. I am constantly reading about death, starvation, the woes of the world, its lightest places and darkest deeds. I think of myself as informed. That did not prepare me for what happened at Virginia Tech. And if I am unprepared, and shocked, and saddened, I can only imagine what the feelings must be for everyone back in the states - especially those in Virginia, and especially those at Virginia Tech. I just wanted to throw my two cents of support in. I am practically a world away, but my thoughts and wishes are back in those roaming hills and mountains now, and on those beautiful campuses, and riding on the shoulders of the students, faculty, and staff who must bravely continue on. All those who have been touched by this week's events: look to hope and gather your courage. We're all with you.