New Years '08 'Korean Style'

Wow!!! What a New Year's celebration. Who would have ever seen this coming. If someone would have told me I'd be ringing in the '08 new year in Seoul, South Korea, a year and a half ago I would have thought they were crazy. But it's hard to think that I could have had a better 2007.

As far as 2007 goes, memorable moments were at a premium:

-Quiting my first job after college. A job that allowed me to work for a year in New York City, and in the entertainment industry; two things I had wanted to do since I was a little kid.

-Almost 2 job free months in NYC where I tutored people from Korea, Brazil, Mexico, and Columbia and met some truly wonderful people.

-Moving to the other side of the world.-Becoming a High School English teacher (who would have seen that coming?).

-Traveling to Thailand and Cambodia where I saw some of the most beautiful beaches on the planet and one of the seven wonders of the world, Angkor Wat.

-Going to France for a week with my family, seeing world famous sights, meeting some of my brothers wonderful friends, and seeing my brother getting married in one of the best and weddings I could ever imagine.

-Mud Fest! Need I say more?

-Making really close friends far from home.

-And last but not least, getting a big greasy Italian to come around the world and experience life "Korean Style" for a week. Thanks Karl.

Outside of that, I was also able to save a substantial amount of money and gather a whole slew of life experiences. I always love new years time because I'm totally sentimental and I can't get enough of all the "year in review" shows. For the world 2007 had some ups and downs, but for me, 2007 was a blast.

Now it all begins again. Can I make 2008 even better? It's not going to be an easy task but I'm up for the challenge.

Enjoy the slide show of New Year's Eve 2008 live from Seoul. There was supposed to be a larger group of us, but we had a lot of people back out at the last second due to the extreme cold and/or large crowd. Everyone we told that we were going to Jongak (like Time Square) said it would NOT be fun. "Too many people", "No room", "No move", "Fall and die, maybe", "Too cold", were all warnings that we heard from everyone, but today I can tell you, they didn't know what they were talking about.

It was cold but not too cold. It was crowded but not too crowded, and it was a ton of fun! It is something I'm so glad I did, and would suggest all others living in Seoul to give it a try at least once. Take a look for yourself.

Mud Fest '07

While some people might "take it easy" or relax a little after returning from a trip like mine to France, I did not. My first weekend back in Korea I had plans to attend the 9th annual Boryeong Mud Festival, and I was not going to miss it. So while my body was still confused as to whether it was on Korean time or French time I totally threw it off by staying up all night partying on the beach.
What is a Mud Festival? Well, I guess it kind of explains itself, huh? People get together and play in the mud, what more do you need to know. However, this isn't just any mud festival, it's a Korean mud festival and now that I've been here in Korea for over 4 months I can tell you a little bit more about the history of the event.

It was made for foreigners, by foreigners, to make money off of foreigners, and to spite foreigners all at the same time. In case you didn't know, when I go outside my house here for shopping, school, or just to visit the mall, I am the only white person. Check that, I'm the only non-Asian person. I don't see any whites, blacks, or Latinos, coloreds or albinos, it's just thousands of Asians and me; the tall, bald headed white guy. However, at Mud Fest, I was just another muddy body in the crowd, and it was great.

I think every foreigner in the country might have been there, which means roughly around thirty of us, for one day, became best friends. That is of course besides the US Military personnel that also invaded the beach that day, I'm leaving them out because they're not really foreigners. They spend most of their time on US land in Korea, and from the ones I met, I wish they would have stayed there.

No offense to the military, but the ground force of 12 that took the beach by train that day, were not so ummmm, stealth? They sat only a few seats from us on the 3 hour train ride there. They initially gave up their location with loud cheers, usually having to do with some sort of alcohol. Upon further inspection the 'no neck' look, that is so hot in the military right now, gave away a few others in the surrounding brush areas. Not like they were blending in with their surroundings anyway (12 large, loud, drunk, round-eyed, whites amongst a train of Koreans), but they were in uniform too. Not a uniform I'd ever seen before, but black shirts with an odd hand signal pictured on them with the word "Shocker" in bold letters below. Undoubtedly, this must have been some sort of search and destroy souvenir battle t-shirt they all got after boot camp, but they all wore it proudly, like an American beacon of light. Yet, as if all those things weren't enough, the kicker was the game they played on that fateful day our paths crossed. The game was called "celebrities", yup "CELEBRITIES", where the ummm (cough, cough) challenge of the game was to name a celebrity. The only thing more sad than the fact that people actually got kicked out of this game for not being able to think of a celebrity was that when the name "Barack Obama" came up, these fine military personnel couldn't get 2 people out of the group of 12 to corroborate who he was, what he did, and thus his status as a celebrity was denied. I thought about stepping in at this moment, but the rules were clearly stated only minutes earlier during an argument about "ODB" (aka Dirt McGirt) and well I'm not one for breaking the rules, or showing off, so I decided to stay out of it.
The weekend was great though. We met a new friend, Alex from Iowa, and also met up with our old friends from Gumi. We played in the mud, ate, drank, and shot off fireworks. And even though I now have a burnt hole in the back of one of my favorite shirts, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Now after all that, maybe now...it's time to relax.
More Mud Fest Pics Here

Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival

In Seoul, much like in New York City, there are things going on all the time. This past weekend Rachel and I were lucky enough to attend one of those things that actually turned out to be cool, a "Lotus Lantern Festival".

Sunday morning we met a teacher of ours downtown so she could show us around, and tell us what the festival was all about. We got there and saw a very famous temple with the largest Buddhist statues I have ever seen. Lanterns were hanging everywhere. Parishioners of the temple pay to hang lanterns in their name, and families names, as to appease Buddha. They also hang white lanterns for the souls of family members that have passed on. Mrs. Lee explained it to me as "It's a good business move too." I really liked walking around at the festival because there was such an eclectic group of people there. First off, there were plenty of white people there, which was nice for a change, but there were also Russians, Europeans, Hindu's, Monks, and I'm sure many others. I saw two monks video taping the festival. Who thought there were "tourist monks"? Everything I know about monks, which isn't much, tells me that they don't have video camera's or go on vacations, but I guess I was wrong. After enjoying the different atmosphere we had other other things scheduled which we had to get to.

Mrs. Lee was also nice enough to make reservations for Rachel and I to join in the lotus lantern making competition. At first we just thought it was fun, but then when we heard there were going to be prizes, both of our competitive sides came out. They took almost 2 hours to complete, although Rachel did hers in much less time because she was anti-social during her creation process, but I was trying to meet people, so I took a little longer. But in the end we were both pretty happy with how ours turned out. But then something pretty crazy happened, a news crew came up, and out of all the people there, they interviewed Rachel. She thinks it was because her lantern was so good, I think it was because she was white, and finished while everyone else was still working. But whatever the reason that they chose her, it was pretty funny. Tons of people came over to take pictures, and a few days later she was on the 5 o'clock news...her and her lantern. My lantern was definitely not the best thing I've ever made, but after a rough start, I think it turned out pretty well. Neither of us won any awards, but making the 5 o'clock news has to be the best consolation prize possible.

A few days later Rachel recorded the news at my place. Here it is, enjoy her 5 seconds of fame, and do take notice that I am in the background of the first shot of her. Plus, get a look at the cool festivities from the festival: