Busan-Seoul-Busan. All for a bicycle.

I actually did something else this past weekend than go get drunk at a baseball game, though I had the opportunity and was planning on it. I took a whirlwind trip up to the little village of Seoul to pick up my beloved bicycle. It took 16 hours and included the following forms of transportation.
Subway-KTX fast train to Seoul-Seoul subway, with three line changes-taxi(dude doesn't know what "dong" to take me too. A dong is a neighborhood.-Car.( I call the people I'm picking my bike up from and they come pick me up. -Bike. I assemle my bike and ride it to 6 miles back to the subway.-Subway-Bus. 5 hour ride back to Busan. This ride has much more comfortable than the fast, expensive train. And there's no problem putting the bike in the storage bay below deck.-Subway. A 1 hour ride back to my "dong." So in 8 easy steps you too can have a bicycle in a city where it seems like everyone is trying to run you over!


The folks I picked my bike up from, Ashley and Chad, bless their hearts, lived near a US army base in Seoul. Chad is actually in the Army, he fixes helicopters. When my taxi driver couldn't find their neighborhood he just took me to the base where Chad and Ashley met me. Since they're in the military they have access to all sorts of tasty treats, like root beer, paper towels, Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, and chewing tobacco. They also got hooked with a sweet apartment. 4 bedrooms, hardwood floors, oven. It's awesome. Once again thanks again to Ashley and Chad for letting my bike tag along on their shipment of boxes from the states. And good luck to them as they enter parenthood in the next couple weeks.



I thought I would pose for a photo with my bike. what a cute couple. I had the chance to put a few miles on it as I needed to get back to subway. It was a smooth ride, as long as you avoid the sidewalks, not exactly bike friendly in the Seoul suburbs. I also got to break in the middle finger when a kid tried to spit on me from their passing passenger window.

Back in Busan, I spotted a bike club for bikes with 2o inch wheels. They take their appearance very seriously here. As well as their posing. All these bikes were really cool. and small. My bike with it's 700cc/29 inch feels and looks massive. Like an F150 amongst a bunch of Prius'

Though this isn't one, I've seen a few fixed gears about town. My friend Janice picked one up to cruise around town on. And when I say cruise, I mean avoiding bikes and taxis and people and spit and pot holes. it's pretty hectic in the city. But you can put your bike on the subway, take it to the end of the line and hop on a rural bike path to explore.


This guy had a triangle bike. it didn't even have a chain, just a belt lie you'd see underneath the hood of a car. It also had a leather brooks saddle and disc brakes.

Only 43 weeks to go...not that I'm counting.

It was another glorious weekend here in Busan. for the past 3 weekends the weather has been perfect, blue skies, sunny and not too hot. I've spent a bunch of time at the beach, playing Frisbee and volleyball. I've been quite the weekend warrior. To make it even better, on monday the weather turns back to rain....except for today where it's sunny, but humid, real sticky out today. To celebrate the sun, the spring and life I went to the ball game with 20 of my closest foreign acquaintances. It was great fun. Wine, beer, soju, and beer mixed with soju were all drank in copious amounts. Ans as usual the Lotte Giants lived up to their stellar reputation as the Korean baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, or should I say 2010 Seattle Mariners...ouch.

As you can see in the photo above, they lost 15-7, and gave up 20 hits. They've been playing for about a month now, and this is the 2nd time I've seen them allow these type of numbers. They got off to a real rocky start on Saturday. I had to deliver some tickets to some friends who showed up late. By the time we reached our seats in the top of the first, the score was 6-0. They started off the game walk-walk-infield hit-Grand Slam. But that would never dampen the spirit of the sellout crowd. There was full support all game though, with chants and songs through out the game.
Just in case part of the stadium broke or collapsed this fella could weld in back together. atleast that's what I'm assuming from his welding mask/sun visor.

I though I would share this photo with anyone who reads this thing. i just saw a cute girl and I took a photo. I thought it turned out really well. All the girls dress the same over here. It's like casual fancy. High heels, black tights with short shorts over them. Or tight skinny jeans. and the cell phone is an accessory. If it's a flip phone, it's carried in the hand, open, with the fake Louis Vuitton bag hung over the elbow.


I put this photo on here to represent what a silly job I have. I taught 6 40 minute classes last week. 5 of those classes were with Korean co-teacher who pretty much runs the show. I have my own classroom, which is the English library. I'm not bothered by other teachers, I can do what ever I want in the afternoon's after I'm done "teaching" like read, edit photos, work on my blog, day dream about quitting and doing something productive, make plans for the weekend, map out new runs on google maps that avoid the massive amounts of crappy roads and industrial sights around my area. Or check my email 50 times a day to see if my bike has arrived...Ugh.

The kids are awesome. I don't know this girls name, I call her red jacket, as she seems to wear a different red jacket everyday. It's really hard to remember Korean names. They have name tags my I can't even pronounce their names right half the time.

This is a photo of my schools' principle. (On the right.) They say it's a Korean tradition to feed the principle while at a restaurant...or something like that, wll atleast that's what's going on, as one of the new first year teachers is putting food in his mouth. Also a few weeks ago I was asked to go drink soju with the principle. They ask you these things like 3 hours before they want you to do something. I said I couldn't make it...sorry. I had dinner plans with friends. Then next week I was asked again, but now I was feeling really sick and didn't want a stiff Wednesday drinking session, so again i passed. I was informed at this dinner by an English speaking teacher I was rude not to join the principle in said drinking session. But since I'm not trying to make a career at this school, I'm not too worried about it.

School dinner. Korean BBQ. You cook it yourself. It's usually pork, but this time we had some really delicious (mashita in Korean, one of the 7 Korean words I know.) beef. All these little bowls are the side dishes. Kimche, onion, sweet potato, salad, radish, hot sauce. What I like here about the food, is the price, it's cheap because you cook it your self. And there's no waiting around. After you order, BOOM, the food is on the table, no messing around with small talk.


School hike over looking the industrial port near my house. Lots of fish processing and a masive steel yard. Lots of Russians too. These Russians either look like they've just woken up after 18 hours of sleep, of just worked 18 hours, or just drank 18 shots of vodka, or all of the above for 18 years living on a ship sailing back and forth from Korea to Russia.

There's always ashtrays next to the urinal in bathrooms. That's all.

Bars and baseball

Weekends, live music, mostly foreigners, still very fun times.

Cute Korean Keyboardist.

Ahh, baseball, the national past time, right up there with soccer and badminton. Here in Korea there 8 teams, they are all sponsored by Korean companies like LG, Kia, or for the Busan team, they are sponsored by Lotte, which owns shopping malls, apartments, movie theatres and just about everything. The great thing about having sports teams supported by massive corporations is that they use sports as another form of advertising and to boost the moral of fans and city. They are more concerned with everyone having fun than fleecing the fan for every cent they can. Here a few examples:

You can bring in your own booze! That's right, BYOB pro sports. technically your not supposed to bring hard alcohol, just beer, but they don't check. Walking up to the stadium, you see groups of people with shopping bags full of 2 litre bottles of beer. And if you run out while at the game, you can walk down to the 7-11 that is in the stadium and pick-up a beer for the same price you'd pay anywhere. This leads to a joyous and happy stadium, full of singing and cheering. and by the 6th or 7th inning, very full bathrooms, and people who can barely walk down the stairs. But atleast you're in a city where it's easy to take public transport and you don't have to worry about a bunch of drunks on the road.

The tickets are super cheap. At the most 20 dollars, that will get you right in the actions. 8 dollars will get you "excitement zone" and 6 bucks will get you in the outfield, where you have a good chance of catching a homerun hit by the opposing team. (Busan's not very good.)

Dancers. every couple inning's on the first base side there are dances performed by scantily clad ladies. It's the standard K-pop group dance, but for their last dance, when the crowd is good and sauced up, they wear a little less clothes and dance around. It's enough for all foreigners to look at each other and say. "wow, I can't believe they just did that at a baseball game."

Orange rally bags. As you can see in my picture. When the Giants are losing, which is every game. They handout plastic bags which are to be tied on your head, as a sign of suport for the team, and to make you generally look like a fool. And for the Koreans, to make them feel silly and forget about how they work 70 hours a week. * This is not a very environmentally friendly practice, that's about 30,000 plastic bags people tie on their heads for about 45 minutes, then throw on the ground. That would never work in the states. But they do it every game here.

The daily life.

I took a field trip out to the park and beach with the school. Here are some second graders doing a sack race on concrete, instead of the beach. There was some carnage, but no tears. No crying allowed in Korea.

Near my apartment, most days after school, you'll find kids playing arcade games on the street. These games seem archaic, compared to the computer games they could be playing at a PC room.

This is my late night toasty women, which is what they call toasted sandwiches over here. She sets up shop outside a night club near my apt. Her job is to serve drunks, toasted, salty, spammy. ketchupy sandwhiches. The are pretty good, not great, but they hit the spot, and she's super nice.

The last couple weekend's have been beautiful. 65 degrees and sunny. I've net up with a group of foreigners and played beach volleyball. Last Sunday a bunch of Korean men who'd already had a few libations challenged us to a match. Us in shorts and T-shirts, them in slacks and dress shirts. We beat 'em, just barely. Then they all bought us beer which we consumed on the beach. It was great, something that would never happen in the states.

A bunch of new photos

Here are a bunch of new photo's I took this evening from the Market just up the street from me. There are some amazing things, both dead and alive at the market. All sorts of fish, octopus, seaweed, fruits, veggies, Kimchi, fish heads. etc. Usually I prefer to take photos of people with their product, bet here, the goods for sale are much more interesting, and the Ajima's, or old women who are te vendors at the markets aren;t too keen on having there picture's taken.
Also I picked up a new camera, a CanonG11. I had some bad luck with my SLR camera in Thailand, and it hasn't been the same since. So I picked up a camera that I've had my eye on for the past while.

Hopefully soon I get some other photos of my school, the fish market, Korean food, (which I love), baseball games and other tomfoolery in and about Busan.