Short Update before......*365*

Its been only ....7 weeks since my last entry! Maybe Im getting slightly less lazy? haha

Ive been living at Seoul I Guesthouse for almost 2 months now and I wished I would have moved in sooner. I liken my feelings to that of living alone in a cave to that of moving and living at the Playboy Mansion.  The social atmosphere of the guesthouse is a sharp contrast to the isolated feeling of living at my old apartment.

The experience of living at a guesthouse is greatly influenced by the quality of its guests and luckily the guests staying here have been really awesome and I couldn't ask for better people. There have been the interesting guests like the 45 yr old super snoring former Japanese record company owner applying for refugee status in Australia due the tsunami in Japan to the annoying guests like the Korean-American hippie Adjumma with her never ending line of random questions. There have been Cartoon Artists, K-pop fanatics, English teachers, Image consultants, computer programmers, Thais, Frenchies, Canadians, Americans, Hong Kongians(?) Singaporeans, Norwegians and Nigerians. The long term guests like food stealing Yeji, Cute cartoon artist Momo, Tattoo artist Yuran (I'll be her first tattoo-e), fellow English teacher Sung, K-drama junkie Sungshin and the really cool and nice guesthouse owner Dongyoon. The sad part is most of these guests come and go.... but hopefully I made some long-term friends. I really have to thank them for putting that smile back on my face.

Thats it! just a short update this time but.......

 *Next Week I'll be posting my 1 year anniversary blog!!! I'll be reminiscing about my most memorable experiences from the past year. Cya next week!

A few of my housemates

One of many some kinda of food and some sorta alcohol nights

Yeji.... Always eating other people's food

Monthly BBQ at the Guesthouse

Spring Update Blog

Its been almost 4 months since my last blog on New Years Day. Somethings have changed since the last update.The weather is warming up, I moved into a new place, a sweet new laptop, some new friends....I guess the biggest change is that I'm no longer some unemployed slug, Im a working slug.

Hard at work or Hardly Working

My Desk

English Friends

It was really difficult finding a teaching job in Korea despite what everyone back home was telling me. Everyone would say something along the lines of "Oh Finding a teaching job in Korea is easy! If you can speak English they will hire you!" They forgot to mention the blatant discrimination, intense competition (at least in Seoul), useless recruiters and the many shady Hogwon owners you will encounter during the process. The scale of difficulty in obtaining a teaching job in Korea would look something like this, young slim caucasion blonde on one side, fat bald older Korean gyopo male on the other. Unfortunatly for me, I fall into the latter half of the scale.....

Luckily I found a decent job. The owners are pretty chilled out and the hours are really good. I pretty much have free reign to do what I what! I came into this job wanting to be the easy going cool teacher but quickly found out that wasn't going to work. First couple of weeks my students were running around class, swearing, eating, fighting and not doing any work whatsoever. They would also regularly make fun of me in Korean. I had the get these kids to "RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAH!' I really let loose one day and I had a couple kids on the verge of tears but it felt good! Its gotten better since and I dont mind the job so much now.

Beautiful Cherry Blossoms, Ugly Crowds

I moved into a new place today. Its a hostel located in Hongdae called Seoul I Guesthouse. Not my first choice of Hostel but my preferred one is currently under renovation. This one seems nice so far. There are a couple of other long term guests like me but I havent gotten a chance to know them yet. I think its gonna be a really awesome experience living in a Hostel for the next while. This hostel is located near the clubbing area of Seoul so my weekends should be a little more interesting.

Guess that about does it for now. Hopefully it wont be another 4 months before the next update

New Years Day

Happy Birthday!...err I mean Happy New Years. In Korea, everyone turns a year older at midnight which makes it one massive birthday party as well. Like Christmas, I had no solid plans for New Years and for a bit , it looked like I would be spending New Years at home alone, eating a new years cake while watching season 2 of Mad Men. I decided to once again spend it at Banana Backpackers Hostel.

There were a few people at the hostel when I got there and it looked like most of them were preparing to head out. The group consisited of some japanese and some annoying american guy. Apparently he didnt like asia or asians but yet he is teaching english in korea and was going out with some japanese. Some other people were planning to go to the Boshingak bell ringing in Jogno which is the big New Years Eve event in Seoul. If this is like any other event in Seoul, expect a sea of people where the most you will probably see is the back of the person's head standing in front of you while at the same time being pushed from behind by determined adjummas and ajoshis trying to get a better view. So not wanting to be annoyed I stayed at the hostel to watch to bell ringing on the big screen. There were some really nice girls from Hong Kong who shared a birthday/new years cake and Banana girl SeungMin supplied the soju to ring in the New Year.
The bell ringing was expectedly dull but I guess it a big tradition in Korea.

With the excitement of the bell ringing over it was time to go drinking! My drinking partner for the night was Seung-Min who claims to be a professinal when it comes to boozing and told me tales of her accomplishments. My drinking powers have also increased since coming to Korea. In Canada Id nurse beers leaving them half empty but in Korea Im a borderline alcoholic. We hopped around bars for the night eating and drinking, beer, kiwi soju,more beer and some kinda sangria. SeungMin boasted she was getting stronger as the night wore on. I assume we coulda kept drinking for a more rounds but it hit 7am and the last bars were closing up. It was a fun night, a big thanks goes out to bananagirl who I will have to challenge another night.

"All of my dreams,

Always find me.

Far beyond these fake fluorescent skies
I know there must be something more,

If I could only find the door
...then I could free myself and see the world outside"

I really dont have any New Years Resolution for this year. My plan is just to continue to do the things that make me happy and to continue to seek out new experiences and friendships.

Wishing everyone luck and happiness for 2011!

The Canadian Beer Choice

Sweet Dunkel Beer, 2nd most popular beer at WaBar

Round 4? Still going strong at 6am in the Morning, Some Kiwi Soju and Seafood Pajeon