After coming back from Japan I only had a couple weeks in Hadong before my trip to Thailand (watch out for posts about that to come out tonight, or tomorrow), but here is a brief synopsis of the haps from the past month over here.
Work wise, I just had one week of work. The system is a little odd over here. The students have exams a week before Christmas, then the last week of school before break is basically goof-off time. From Christmas to mid Feb is a break, although many students attend 'winter camp'. Then there is one isolated final week of the school year in the middle of Feb. The students don't want to be in school, and it shows. Although the classes that I have a better rapport with are only more energetic and willing to converse. Aside from the classes it is a time to celebrate, so I got treated to some banquets from both schools; good food, good times, maybe too much soju...
Outside of school I met a new group of friends. On a whim I started talking to the girl at the counter of a local sandwich shop (it turns out she is the owner as well). Her and her friends end up being an especially cool group. Especially I give them props for being the first group that actively engages me in Korean language at an appropriate level for me. Is this a good reason to choose one's friends: absolutely! finding people here with the human concern, patience, and intelligence required to empathize with and adjust to language learners plight is a rare treat, but I think I would like these guys if I found the same personalities in a bunch of Americans anyway.
Well, looking forward to the long stretch of school. No more vacations for the next 4 months .. I hope I can keep coming up with ideas for the next class
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ultimate in Bangkok
The main reason from the timing of this trip, as well as choice of Bangkok as destination was the Bangkok Hat ultimate frisbee tournament (for the non-frisbee players out there, a hat tournament is one where players sign up as individuals and the tournament directors select balanced teams. So you are playing with mostly new teammates, get to make a lot of new friends, and have a tournament with a lot of parity.)
It is one of the premiere tournaments in Asia, drawing some of the best ex-pat, as well as native players from all over. I met people living in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, and some extra-continental travelers including Australia, USA, and the winner of the longest distance traveled award - someone who came from his station in Antarctica. Proving again that it's a small world, I also happened to meet Moose from the UCLA ultimate community; it was quite nice to unexpectedly run into a good friend from my previous life.
The tourney itself was a lot of fun. Saturday morning I had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn't thrown a disc in four months so I had a lot of rust to shake off in addition to adjusting to the climate. It was a sunny 35C = 95F and humid the whole week I was there. Over the course of the weekend I probably threw away a pass per game due to sweat slippage, and I don't think I ever played 3 points in a row. But damn, sometimes I can forget how much I love this game in between the now rare chances I get to play it. And the level was high, on the average team of 16 there was maybe one or two inexperienced players with better disc skills and knowledge of the game, albeit less athleticism compared to the bulk of my experience at the college level.
My own team fared decently. We ended up losing by a point in the semi-finals to the eventual champs. I got the ego boost of being told by that teams captain, and top player, that I put the toughest defense on him of anyone he faced in the tournament .. I believe the word "glove" was uttered.
So it was a couple good days running around in the sun, and a couple fun nights partying with the SEAsian ultimate community. I grabbed a couple pictures from the events and will put them up on the flickr sometime soon.
It is one of the premiere tournaments in Asia, drawing some of the best ex-pat, as well as native players from all over. I met people living in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, and some extra-continental travelers including Australia, USA, and the winner of the longest distance traveled award - someone who came from his station in Antarctica. Proving again that it's a small world, I also happened to meet Moose from the UCLA ultimate community; it was quite nice to unexpectedly run into a good friend from my previous life.
The tourney itself was a lot of fun. Saturday morning I had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn't thrown a disc in four months so I had a lot of rust to shake off in addition to adjusting to the climate. It was a sunny 35C = 95F and humid the whole week I was there. Over the course of the weekend I probably threw away a pass per game due to sweat slippage, and I don't think I ever played 3 points in a row. But damn, sometimes I can forget how much I love this game in between the now rare chances I get to play it. And the level was high, on the average team of 16 there was maybe one or two inexperienced players with better disc skills and knowledge of the game, albeit less athleticism compared to the bulk of my experience at the college level.
My own team fared decently. We ended up losing by a point in the semi-finals to the eventual champs. I got the ego boost of being told by that teams captain, and top player, that I put the toughest defense on him of anyone he faced in the tournament .. I believe the word "glove" was uttered.
So it was a couple good days running around in the sun, and a couple fun nights partying with the SEAsian ultimate community. I grabbed a couple pictures from the events and will put them up on the flickr sometime soon.
Bangkok summary
One of the items that fell well above 'opportunity to teach English to Korean teenagers' on the list of reasons I decided to take this job was the chance to more easily travel around and see what it is like in a few places in Asia. So I was happy to take my second vacation in as many months to the fabled city of Bangkok.
The place definitely has a unique flavor from anywhere else I've been: I can understand the allure that has made Bangkok a spider's web for so many backpackers, as well as the reasons others say they would never want to go back. Of course, in less than a week I did not explore every facet of the city .. my impression is that I probably don't want to live there, but I would also like to return sometime and perhaps spend more time in the country side.
My specific impressions are still jumbled and discordant, so I will arrange them into separate blog entries to make my composition easier.
The place definitely has a unique flavor from anywhere else I've been: I can understand the allure that has made Bangkok a spider's web for so many backpackers, as well as the reasons others say they would never want to go back. Of course, in less than a week I did not explore every facet of the city .. my impression is that I probably don't want to live there, but I would also like to return sometime and perhaps spend more time in the country side.
My specific impressions are still jumbled and discordant, so I will arrange them into separate blog entries to make my composition easier.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
January update
I realize it's been over a month between my quarterly report and the long post about my Japan trip, and you may be wondering what I did for most of January.
My work load was really light - just two weeks of winter camp at the girls school. This included an hour a day of tutoring a pair of teachers children (11 year old boys). We read a bunch of Aesop's fables. The main goal was practicing pronunciation and building vocabulary; I think it went OK.
The main class was 1 or 2 hours a day with the 4 of the top 10 students who decided to stick around school for the vacation. Because the students were fairly advanced I decided to make it a discussion oriented Psychology class. These are students who have a good enough vocabulary that I can explain to them in English the meaning of almost any word, but they really need practice forming complete sentences and having conversation.
During my first couple months teaching normal classes the feedback I got from my students in terms of body language was usually limited to one of the following: polite attention that made me think they understood what I was saying and it wasn't super boring , vacant yet somewhat attentive incomprehension, total daydreaming, disruptive inattention, self conscious embarrassed blush / smile, a quick smile or chuckle at some corny joke or small bit of clowning from me, or a completely inscrutable oriental facade. So I was pleased to elicit a new reaction during this course - one of shocked interest; for example when discussing the dramatic changes in personality that happened during the famous Stanford prison experiment (a "prison simulation" where the guards quickly became abusively authoritarian, and the prisons submissive and dehumanized) the girls were listening with wide eyes and wringing their hands. So it was a fun class to teach and also nice to not have to repeat lessons multiple times.
Outside of class I didn't have too many new adventures. A couple of times I went "screen" golfing with some other teachers. This is one of those electronic things where you hit a golf ball through some sensors into a net and the computer simulates your shots as you proceed through a virtual course. It is fairly realistic, and I like being able to see all the stats (ball speed, rpms of both back and side spin, launch angle and deviation from straight angle), but it is much much easier than real golf. For one thing you are always hitting off a clean lie, so sand and rough are not much of a penalty. Also, and more importantly, it doesn't calculate slice or hook accurately. Your ball will curve off path a little, but not as much as it would with a poor shot in reality. Anyway its fun and good to get your golf fix on a cold day.
Also there was a big badminton event in Gurye, a city about 40min away. The big club there decided to throw a friendly match / party to celebrate their new president. It really was quite a production. About 8 local teams attended. There was a long and boring opening ceremony which included some kids banging on traditional drums, and many speeches that I didn't understand. Then there was a lunch, and finally some games. I'm not sure what the format was, and neither did some other people in my club. They told me "just enjoy your games." I played two doubles matches against other clubs teamed with two different partnets from my club. After losing the second one I guess we were out, but there was food and drink available all day. After a few rounds of soju my 'older brother' wanted me to play with him in a game for big money (80grand!). We lost a close one; I'll go ahead and blame the margin of our defeat on the drunkness of my teammate. So I had full confidence that he would sober up enough to pull through the double or nothing rematch. And so it was. So that was pretty exciting.
After all the games were over there was a big raffle. Everyone there was entered for free, and probably almost one in five won something. Prizes ranged from a top quality racquet to a bag of cucumbers. I ended up winning a pair of shorts. I had to ask if they were meant for women, but was told they were for men. Seriously these things are shorter than 70's basketball shorts. Near the end of the drawing they organizers decided it would be a good idea to get the only foreigner present to come up and pick out the next name. I was glad at this time that I had at least learned to read the Korean alphabet.
To check out some photos from the event look at http://www.cyworld.com/pims/main/pims_main.asp?tid=37274003 then, click on the bottom of three tabs of the right side of the notebook image. Also, I forgot to mention but there are a few photos from Japan on my flickr stream, but I have to apologize for taking very few.
One more quick note on the new foods front. The soup they served at lunch was dove meat. It was dark meat and a little oily, but good taste.
My work load was really light - just two weeks of winter camp at the girls school. This included an hour a day of tutoring a pair of teachers children (11 year old boys). We read a bunch of Aesop's fables. The main goal was practicing pronunciation and building vocabulary; I think it went OK.
The main class was 1 or 2 hours a day with the 4 of the top 10 students who decided to stick around school for the vacation. Because the students were fairly advanced I decided to make it a discussion oriented Psychology class. These are students who have a good enough vocabulary that I can explain to them in English the meaning of almost any word, but they really need practice forming complete sentences and having conversation.
During my first couple months teaching normal classes the feedback I got from my students in terms of body language was usually limited to one of the following: polite attention that made me think they understood what I was saying and it wasn't super boring , vacant yet somewhat attentive incomprehension, total daydreaming, disruptive inattention, self conscious embarrassed blush / smile, a quick smile or chuckle at some corny joke or small bit of clowning from me, or a completely inscrutable oriental facade. So I was pleased to elicit a new reaction during this course - one of shocked interest; for example when discussing the dramatic changes in personality that happened during the famous Stanford prison experiment (a "prison simulation" where the guards quickly became abusively authoritarian, and the prisons submissive and dehumanized) the girls were listening with wide eyes and wringing their hands. So it was a fun class to teach and also nice to not have to repeat lessons multiple times.
Outside of class I didn't have too many new adventures. A couple of times I went "screen" golfing with some other teachers. This is one of those electronic things where you hit a golf ball through some sensors into a net and the computer simulates your shots as you proceed through a virtual course. It is fairly realistic, and I like being able to see all the stats (ball speed, rpms of both back and side spin, launch angle and deviation from straight angle), but it is much much easier than real golf. For one thing you are always hitting off a clean lie, so sand and rough are not much of a penalty. Also, and more importantly, it doesn't calculate slice or hook accurately. Your ball will curve off path a little, but not as much as it would with a poor shot in reality. Anyway its fun and good to get your golf fix on a cold day.
Also there was a big badminton event in Gurye, a city about 40min away. The big club there decided to throw a friendly match / party to celebrate their new president. It really was quite a production. About 8 local teams attended. There was a long and boring opening ceremony which included some kids banging on traditional drums, and many speeches that I didn't understand. Then there was a lunch, and finally some games. I'm not sure what the format was, and neither did some other people in my club. They told me "just enjoy your games." I played two doubles matches against other clubs teamed with two different partnets from my club. After losing the second one I guess we were out, but there was food and drink available all day. After a few rounds of soju my 'older brother' wanted me to play with him in a game for big money (80grand!). We lost a close one; I'll go ahead and blame the margin of our defeat on the drunkness of my teammate. So I had full confidence that he would sober up enough to pull through the double or nothing rematch. And so it was. So that was pretty exciting.
After all the games were over there was a big raffle. Everyone there was entered for free, and probably almost one in five won something. Prizes ranged from a top quality racquet to a bag of cucumbers. I ended up winning a pair of shorts. I had to ask if they were meant for women, but was told they were for men. Seriously these things are shorter than 70's basketball shorts. Near the end of the drawing they organizers decided it would be a good idea to get the only foreigner present to come up and pick out the next name. I was glad at this time that I had at least learned to read the Korean alphabet.
To check out some photos from the event look at http://www.cyworld.com/pims/main/pims_main.asp?tid=37274003 then, click on the bottom of three tabs of the right side of the notebook image. Also, I forgot to mention but there are a few photos from Japan on my flickr stream, but I have to apologize for taking very few.
One more quick note on the new foods front. The soup they served at lunch was dove meat. It was dark meat and a little oily, but good taste.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Japan trip report
Hello readers. I just got back from my vacation which was centered around skiing in Japan. Overall I enjoyed the trip, but also the transportation elements were a bit long and wearying, so its nice to be home to relax for a few more days before work starts again. Does it sound weird for me to call my journey to Hadong, Korea "coming home"? it does to me, but that's how it felt.
My flight out of Seoul left in the morning so I had to leave the day before. It was my first time to Seoul, and I only had one evening and didn't know anyone in town, so I decided to visit a part of the city called Itaewon that is supposed to be popular with tourists. After spending months in a town where I could go for days without seeing a non-Korean it was almost a shock to see so many foreigners walking around. It was very international, but ultimately not really too interesting to me. I soon headed to the airport which is 90 minutes from central city, and by reputation quite friendly to travelers who arrive late at night for a morning flight.
Indeed the Incheon airport is probably the nicest I've been in. Easy layout, no lines anywhere (check-in, security, immigration services), free internet cafes next to the departure gates as you wait for your plane. For $15 I spent the night in the spa. It had showers and hot tub, sauna, cold pool. Also an "oxygen room" which made me a little light headed, and a room with very comfortable chairs that reclined to basically a twin bed, with blankets, to sleep on - or you could get a private room (basically a closet with a bed) to sleep in if you preferred.
The next day was Monday - Lunar New Year, and Australia Day, but to me mostly just another day of travel. Flight to Tokyo, then another ~6 hours from the airport to my accomodations in the mountains. Shortly after clearing customs at Narita I realized one of the big blunders of my trip. I should have changed currency in Korea. We are all used to traveling with US$, so it really shocked me how poorly the won was regarded by its next door neighbor.
I had brought cash money with me and expected to buy yen at the airport. At Incheon the commission was 5%, but I didn't change there because I thought I remembered doing it for 2.5% in the past, so I figured that at least it wouldn't be any worse in Japan. As a consequence, it was funny to watch the eyes of the customs official get wider and wider as I continued to add zeroes to the figure indicating how much currency I was bringing into the country (waiting until the end to reveal that it was not dollars, despite the origin of my passport). But the joke was on me when I found out that the exchange commission for won was an outrageous 30% on this side. I wasted little time deciding that this is not acceptable, but it did leave me in the awkward position of having to rely on just one form of payment - a mastercard that would not work in ATMs to give me a cash advance. Therefore I would have to only buy things where the plastic was accepted, or try to barter my way into some yen.
I figured this wouldn't be much of a problem in such a modern country, but when I got to the backpackers I would be staying at they told me it was a cash only establishment! Eventually I revealed this as a bluff, but I had to waste a morning investigating various failed ways to try to get some cash before I got them to cave. Then I got real nervous when they said my card was rejected! Turns out this is the result of an automatic fraud prevention thing that puts a hold on the card when big purchases are attempted internationaly. I had to call them up and sort things out.
In the end, lack of hard cash wasn't really much of a problem until it was time to get back to Tokyo. Turned out the bus company was seriously cash only so I had to scramble and take a series of rail transfers that ended up costing me an extra $60 and a bit of frustration. This is something I remember from last time in Japan - train travel is reliable and efficient, but really expensive. It cost me more for the Tokyo - Nagano (5 hrs away) leg of my trip than it did from my home to Tokyo - a trip which included a longer cross country train ride and a 3 hour flight. Actually everything in Japan is expensive, even compared to USA, but especially compared to Korea. I bet Korea resents me shelling out hard earned won to their hated neighbors.
But despite some snags I got pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this vacation. First of all some good skiing. The mountains near Nagano where I stayed where the sight of the 1998 Olympics. So I got to ski down a former olympic downhill course. Unfortunately, despite the advances in equipment in the past decade, I couldn't break the old gold medal time, mostly because they put up some moguls in parts of the course.
The mountains were pretty good. There are a bunch of resorts in the neighborhood. The biggest and best was about 10-15 min walk from my place (in ski boots) or I could wait around for a free shuttle. The mountain really was tall and broad. It would take a series of 4 lifts to get to the peak (actually the peak was another 10 min hike from the top of the last lift), and would take a good half hour if you wanted to ski all the way back down to one of four base stations. Overall I would say the mountain was only slightly less impressive than, for example, Breckenridge, where I skied with my sister last year. Unfortunately I wasn't super lucky with the weather last week. The first morning it was snowing big fat flakes so I had really high hopes, but not much powder settled. The first half of the week was bright and clear with some amazing visibility and views of range around and the town below. Then a warm front came through and it was actually raining up to about mid mountain for a day. The next day it was still warm, so the snow was thick and slushy. Then, for my last day it got cold again and started snowing. We thought there was gonna be some great thick powder but first the slush iced over then the wind came and blew away most of the new fall so that all the remained was a thick hard crust. Well, I know weather is a gamble, and I don't mind challenging conditions, except that I decided to try snowboarding for my last day. I did learn a little - one thing I learned is that I am "goofy" footed. That is, I am among the minority who prefer to put my right foot forward. But I didn't find this out until after I had rented and tried to ride regular footed gear. It is hard to learn how to carve on ice, and a lot more painful when you are falling regularly so I had to switch back to skis at midday. The place I rented from has good service in allowing me to change gear whenever I want.
Overall I spent a lot of time on the slopes, and I was really quite tired by the end of the week, and sore on my tailbone and shoulder from my failed snowboard attempt. The weekdays the mountain was so wide and empty I felt like I had the whole place to myself. On the weekend the slopes got a bit of traffic, but even then I rarely had to wait in a lift line that was more than 2 or 3 chairfulls long.
I was a little anxious about the prospect of going on vacation by myself, which is why I booked at a backpackers in hopes to meet some people to ride with and hang out with apres ski. In this I was not disappointed. My first surprise when I arrived at the resort was the number of Australians in the area. Turns out is a very popular destination for Aussies to escape their summer heat. The place I was staying was owned and run by Aussies and 3/4 of the 30 people staying there were Aussies. I got there in the evening of Austrailia day so I was immediately invited out to celebrate despite being a Yank. If you've been following my blog you know that basically my only complaint about my lifestyle over here is not having enough chances to converse in English freely using slang and subtle nuance. Satisfying this need was one of the great successes of the vacation.
I met some interesting people up on the mountains including:
a pair of friends who also teach English in Korea (just north of Seoul). One guy was a Canadian who snored louder than anyone I have ever heard. The other was from Pittsburgh, and I thought he looked a little bit familiar. Turns out I recognized him because he used to work at the Dirty O's hotdog shop at Carnegie Mellon when I went to school there. Small world.
An English woman whos been traveling around the world for over 5 years, somehow supporting herself as a free-lance photographer. Her favorite place so far: Islamabad
There was a large group of Austrailians who were planning on staying most of February. They were a wild, fun loving crew. Maybe a bit too much so as they were evicted by the management the day before I left. It was a bit of drama; they called in some local muscle in case the boys put up any resistance. Well, I was sorry for them, especially since they were told in the late afternoon - finding last minute lodging in a resort town can be difficult and expensive. Their boisterousness was to me a benefit of the place although I understand that it is unacceptable to the owners for the place to turn into a frat house, especially since the staff apparently gave a "either they go or we do" ultimatum.
Besides that there was your standard collection of random Europeans (a Finn, a couple Germans, another Brit), no Japanese locals, but there was a Korean staying there. He's a cool fellow, and lives in Gwangju which is a pretty big city just a couple hours from me. So we exchanged phone numbers and maybe I'll visit him and see some more of this country sometime.
One more random encounter: at the airport grabbing a quick bite at McDs while I waited for the plane I overheard the conversation of some folk with Canadian accents sitting next to me. It seemed they were talking about some kind of sport becuase they were using words like teams, tournament, and coach; and they used technical terms like "soft inturn release." So I took a guess and asked if they were professional curlers.Yes indeed, and they had just won an international tournament on the path to Olympic qualification. But they seemed more impressed with me for knowing what curling was than I was with them for being sports champs. Oh well, interesting things happen at the airport.
As I was traveling back to Tokyo up to arriving back in Korea I was surprised by how much I was looking forward to getting back. I went so far as to comtemplate that on average Korean people compared to Japanese are friendlier and more fun-loving, and even better looking. Have I been brainwashed? When people were asking me questions about life in Korea I had only positive things to say about the culture. Is this a case of cognitive dissonance, or am I genuinely enjoying my new life here?
My only regret about the trip was that I should have left one day earlier. My Monday travel day was your Superbowl Sunday. I can't remember the last time I missed the big game; if I was in Seoul I'm sure I could have found a foreigner sports bar open at 8:00 am. Heard it was a good game, go Steelers! Also missed another epic 5-set grand slam final between Nadal and Federer. I feel a little bad for Fed, Nadal just has his number. oh well, I'm looking forwad to them meeting again in Paris and Wimbledon.
My flight out of Seoul left in the morning so I had to leave the day before. It was my first time to Seoul, and I only had one evening and didn't know anyone in town, so I decided to visit a part of the city called Itaewon that is supposed to be popular with tourists. After spending months in a town where I could go for days without seeing a non-Korean it was almost a shock to see so many foreigners walking around. It was very international, but ultimately not really too interesting to me. I soon headed to the airport which is 90 minutes from central city, and by reputation quite friendly to travelers who arrive late at night for a morning flight.
Indeed the Incheon airport is probably the nicest I've been in. Easy layout, no lines anywhere (check-in, security, immigration services), free internet cafes next to the departure gates as you wait for your plane. For $15 I spent the night in the spa. It had showers and hot tub, sauna, cold pool. Also an "oxygen room" which made me a little light headed, and a room with very comfortable chairs that reclined to basically a twin bed, with blankets, to sleep on - or you could get a private room (basically a closet with a bed) to sleep in if you preferred.
The next day was Monday - Lunar New Year, and Australia Day, but to me mostly just another day of travel. Flight to Tokyo, then another ~6 hours from the airport to my accomodations in the mountains. Shortly after clearing customs at Narita I realized one of the big blunders of my trip. I should have changed currency in Korea. We are all used to traveling with US$, so it really shocked me how poorly the won was regarded by its next door neighbor.
I had brought cash money with me and expected to buy yen at the airport. At Incheon the commission was 5%, but I didn't change there because I thought I remembered doing it for 2.5% in the past, so I figured that at least it wouldn't be any worse in Japan. As a consequence, it was funny to watch the eyes of the customs official get wider and wider as I continued to add zeroes to the figure indicating how much currency I was bringing into the country (waiting until the end to reveal that it was not dollars, despite the origin of my passport). But the joke was on me when I found out that the exchange commission for won was an outrageous 30% on this side. I wasted little time deciding that this is not acceptable, but it did leave me in the awkward position of having to rely on just one form of payment - a mastercard that would not work in ATMs to give me a cash advance. Therefore I would have to only buy things where the plastic was accepted, or try to barter my way into some yen.
I figured this wouldn't be much of a problem in such a modern country, but when I got to the backpackers I would be staying at they told me it was a cash only establishment! Eventually I revealed this as a bluff, but I had to waste a morning investigating various failed ways to try to get some cash before I got them to cave. Then I got real nervous when they said my card was rejected! Turns out this is the result of an automatic fraud prevention thing that puts a hold on the card when big purchases are attempted internationaly. I had to call them up and sort things out.
In the end, lack of hard cash wasn't really much of a problem until it was time to get back to Tokyo. Turned out the bus company was seriously cash only so I had to scramble and take a series of rail transfers that ended up costing me an extra $60 and a bit of frustration. This is something I remember from last time in Japan - train travel is reliable and efficient, but really expensive. It cost me more for the Tokyo - Nagano (5 hrs away) leg of my trip than it did from my home to Tokyo - a trip which included a longer cross country train ride and a 3 hour flight. Actually everything in Japan is expensive, even compared to USA, but especially compared to Korea. I bet Korea resents me shelling out hard earned won to their hated neighbors.
But despite some snags I got pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this vacation. First of all some good skiing. The mountains near Nagano where I stayed where the sight of the 1998 Olympics. So I got to ski down a former olympic downhill course. Unfortunately, despite the advances in equipment in the past decade, I couldn't break the old gold medal time, mostly because they put up some moguls in parts of the course.
The mountains were pretty good. There are a bunch of resorts in the neighborhood. The biggest and best was about 10-15 min walk from my place (in ski boots) or I could wait around for a free shuttle. The mountain really was tall and broad. It would take a series of 4 lifts to get to the peak (actually the peak was another 10 min hike from the top of the last lift), and would take a good half hour if you wanted to ski all the way back down to one of four base stations. Overall I would say the mountain was only slightly less impressive than, for example, Breckenridge, where I skied with my sister last year. Unfortunately I wasn't super lucky with the weather last week. The first morning it was snowing big fat flakes so I had really high hopes, but not much powder settled. The first half of the week was bright and clear with some amazing visibility and views of range around and the town below. Then a warm front came through and it was actually raining up to about mid mountain for a day. The next day it was still warm, so the snow was thick and slushy. Then, for my last day it got cold again and started snowing. We thought there was gonna be some great thick powder but first the slush iced over then the wind came and blew away most of the new fall so that all the remained was a thick hard crust. Well, I know weather is a gamble, and I don't mind challenging conditions, except that I decided to try snowboarding for my last day. I did learn a little - one thing I learned is that I am "goofy" footed. That is, I am among the minority who prefer to put my right foot forward. But I didn't find this out until after I had rented and tried to ride regular footed gear. It is hard to learn how to carve on ice, and a lot more painful when you are falling regularly so I had to switch back to skis at midday. The place I rented from has good service in allowing me to change gear whenever I want.
Overall I spent a lot of time on the slopes, and I was really quite tired by the end of the week, and sore on my tailbone and shoulder from my failed snowboard attempt. The weekdays the mountain was so wide and empty I felt like I had the whole place to myself. On the weekend the slopes got a bit of traffic, but even then I rarely had to wait in a lift line that was more than 2 or 3 chairfulls long.
I was a little anxious about the prospect of going on vacation by myself, which is why I booked at a backpackers in hopes to meet some people to ride with and hang out with apres ski. In this I was not disappointed. My first surprise when I arrived at the resort was the number of Australians in the area. Turns out is a very popular destination for Aussies to escape their summer heat. The place I was staying was owned and run by Aussies and 3/4 of the 30 people staying there were Aussies. I got there in the evening of Austrailia day so I was immediately invited out to celebrate despite being a Yank. If you've been following my blog you know that basically my only complaint about my lifestyle over here is not having enough chances to converse in English freely using slang and subtle nuance. Satisfying this need was one of the great successes of the vacation.
I met some interesting people up on the mountains including:
a pair of friends who also teach English in Korea (just north of Seoul). One guy was a Canadian who snored louder than anyone I have ever heard. The other was from Pittsburgh, and I thought he looked a little bit familiar. Turns out I recognized him because he used to work at the Dirty O's hotdog shop at Carnegie Mellon when I went to school there. Small world.
An English woman whos been traveling around the world for over 5 years, somehow supporting herself as a free-lance photographer. Her favorite place so far: Islamabad
There was a large group of Austrailians who were planning on staying most of February. They were a wild, fun loving crew. Maybe a bit too much so as they were evicted by the management the day before I left. It was a bit of drama; they called in some local muscle in case the boys put up any resistance. Well, I was sorry for them, especially since they were told in the late afternoon - finding last minute lodging in a resort town can be difficult and expensive. Their boisterousness was to me a benefit of the place although I understand that it is unacceptable to the owners for the place to turn into a frat house, especially since the staff apparently gave a "either they go or we do" ultimatum.
Besides that there was your standard collection of random Europeans (a Finn, a couple Germans, another Brit), no Japanese locals, but there was a Korean staying there. He's a cool fellow, and lives in Gwangju which is a pretty big city just a couple hours from me. So we exchanged phone numbers and maybe I'll visit him and see some more of this country sometime.
One more random encounter: at the airport grabbing a quick bite at McDs while I waited for the plane I overheard the conversation of some folk with Canadian accents sitting next to me. It seemed they were talking about some kind of sport becuase they were using words like teams, tournament, and coach; and they used technical terms like "soft inturn release." So I took a guess and asked if they were professional curlers.Yes indeed, and they had just won an international tournament on the path to Olympic qualification. But they seemed more impressed with me for knowing what curling was than I was with them for being sports champs. Oh well, interesting things happen at the airport.
As I was traveling back to Tokyo up to arriving back in Korea I was surprised by how much I was looking forward to getting back. I went so far as to comtemplate that on average Korean people compared to Japanese are friendlier and more fun-loving, and even better looking. Have I been brainwashed? When people were asking me questions about life in Korea I had only positive things to say about the culture. Is this a case of cognitive dissonance, or am I genuinely enjoying my new life here?
My only regret about the trip was that I should have left one day earlier. My Monday travel day was your Superbowl Sunday. I can't remember the last time I missed the big game; if I was in Seoul I'm sure I could have found a foreigner sports bar open at 8:00 am. Heard it was a good game, go Steelers! Also missed another epic 5-set grand slam final between Nadal and Federer. I feel a little bad for Fed, Nadal just has his number. oh well, I'm looking forwad to them meeting again in Paris and Wimbledon.
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