My new name

A lot of the Koreans have English names (like Sally or Bill) to make it easier for the westerners to say and remember. I now have a Korean name:

강 태 웅

It is pronounced: Kang Tae Woong. Please call me this from now on. It means Big Strong Dragon.

Eastern Medicine Clinic

Yesterday I went to an Eastern Medicine clinic and did some music meditation and acupuncture. The meditation was cool, this big jolly chill guy talked to us about meditation for a bit, then played some chill music. The acupuncture was wild! I couldn't stop thinking about Harry Crumb. My needled hand felt totally magnetized.

zzzzzz

My Vice Principal is snoring hella loud right now. People sleep in the office all the time, it cracks me up.

*My sister had her wedding in Hawaii last week. It was great being able to see my family and friends again, and wild seeing them interact together. Lindsay, Nick, Lindsay B, and I all took kayaks out to the site of Captain Cooks death, I just finished reading "Blue Latitudes" (which is about Cooks expeditions) so being able to see the site was pretty cool. We snorkeled and Lindsay fake stoned me to reenact the death scene. The wedding was on the beach at sunset, everything went pretty smoothly and I think everyone had a good time. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, I miss my friends and family like a mutha...especially Daisy.

*After the wedding, Lindsay and I headed off to Tokyo for a day. I was blown away by how awesome the city is. I expected a large, crowded, somewhat dirty city full of skyscrapers. I guess I expected a larger version of Busan. This was not the case at all. Tokyo and the surrounding area are shockingly green. The city is next to dense forests, and the heart of downtown is chock full of trees and killer parks. The huge buildings are mixed in with old relics, a giant ancient castle, koi ponds (I saw a bright purple 3 footer!!!), San Francisco style parks with people reading and relaxing, and European style canals. There were cool shops and delicious restaurants all over. The city was amazingly clean too. Everything ran efficiently and the people were super friendly. I LOVE JAPAN!

*I may have found my calling in life. It turns out, Tony and I are phenomenal dodgeball players. We had a tournament last Saturday and absolutely dominated! We were undefeated all day, but I think we drank a little too much by the end so we tanked in the semi finals. I am still sore.

*I'm still having picture upload issues, but they should be up soon.

Update!

-I'm having issues with pictures so I don't have much now, I'll post them when I can.

-A few weeks ago I went to a temple up north to stay for a couple of days. I thought I was just meditating and hanging out with monks, but right before I left, one of the monks told me I needed to bring exercise clothes for the martial arts training! I had heard about fighting monks and got pretty excited. The fighting monks turned out to be mild-yoga with some kick moves monks. I think they fight so they don't get taken over like the monks in Seven Years in Tibet, but I'm not sure yoga poses are going to scare the China warriors. It was cool though, the temple has been around since 500 A.D. and was super peaceful and relaxing. There was also a large ancient Buddha carving on a hill face, built in 720 A.D. I meditated a bunch and got to ride a grizzly bear (my spirit animal) through the forest, ask him advice, and eat salmon.

-Mark, the head of the sailing club, took us out sailing on a 45 ft catamaran. It was a blast! I'd never been on a boat like that. We were flying around and I even got to skipper for a bit, my first time using an actual wheel. I felt like Captain Ron.

-Tony and I grew beards for summer vacation. We looked rugged and tough. I eventually shaved it into a Tom Selleck mustache, which was hideous, but I liked it anyway.

-I had the last 5 days off for Chuseok, which is like a mix between Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the holiday, my principal presented me with what I initially thought was a new laptop....turned out to be canned tuna, a giant box of canned tuna. It was a nice gesture though, he is the coolest boss I've ever had.

A group of us foreigners went camping on an island west of Busan for the holiday. There were a ton of problems getting there, a 4 hour trip ended up taking up over 24 hours. We island hopped, rode ferries, buses, and taxis, and ended up missing the first day. It wasn't too bad though, the area was chock full of cool-looking islands and we saw some rural Korean villages that were unlike anything else I've seen here so far. The camping was on a random beach, we drank soju and did jump kicks. Happy Chuseok!

Trip to Gangwan-do

I like Busan, but Busan is a crowded concrete jungle. Lindsay and I needed a break. Last week, we took off to the North East region of South Korea, Gangwando, in hopes of finding something more rural. We weren't really sure what to expect or even where exactly we were going.



On Monday afternoon we packed out bags, grabbed a guide book, and hopped on a bus headed North. After about an hour or two, Korea started to change. The high rise apartments turned into small old time Asian style homes, the air started smelling less like piss and more like actual air, and the ocean turned into an almost tropical clear teal. It was both relieving and exciting; Lindsay slept through the whole thing.



We hopped off the bus in Donghae, a city near the Muryeong valley, an area we had heard had caves and a river.



Day 1-

The scary death angel statue overlooking the bed and enormous concrete pillows did not allow much sleep the first night. Caffeine and breakfast were all I could think about in the morning, but after wandering the city for an hour or so all I could find was kimchi. I gave up the hunt, grabbed Lindsay, and headed to a nearby cave. At the cave we found canned coffee, fried to the bone chicken, and of course, kimchi. Sometimes you take what you can get. Cheongok cave is a limestone cave formed several million years ago, but was found only recently by developers in the heart of downtown Donghae. The cave is about 6km deep; we were allowed to walk through about 1.5 of it. We were outfitted with hard hats, which seemed like over-cautious protection at first, but that helmet saved my head several times. That cave was built for Asians, not Dave Nunn. I was clunking against stalagmites, cave roof, and Lindsay's helmet all throughout the journey. And not all of it was on purpose. Although the cave was an impressive site, it was hard to really appreciate it with dense crowds and the overdone lighting (think ground effects on a Honda) throughout. Lindsay and I even found fake cave walls put in to try and make the cave seem more "cavey". I enjoyed the cave, and the rest of the trip was amazing, but Cheongok cave is a perfect example of what I think are two major problems with Korea... over crowded and overly/unnecessarily aestheticized to the point where things seem fake.






After the cave we took a taxi to the valley we had heard about. The cab took us to a hotel in a small town located next to a river. Muryeong Valley is surrounded by dense jungle/forest mountains with a river flowing through the base. There are also two temples, an ancient fortress, and numerous waterfalls located in the mountains. This is what we came for. We dropped off our bags at the hotel, ate some strange potato squid pancake thing, and set off to explore the valley. The river is full of pools and small waterfalls, it is also drastically cleaner than anything you would find in Busan. Our first stop was a temple near base camp. I have been to a few other temples since moving here, but none like this. This is a working temple with barracks for monks and even a Buddhist school. In the heart of the temple is a Siddhartha statue from 600 A.D. It is in near perfect condition, the only restoration done was on it's right hand. The statue sits in a decorated room where people can pray or meditate. There were also some other Buddha statues and relics that were incredible to see. Lindsay and I went into a room with highly detailed ancient Buddhist paintings, hundreds of gold Buddha figures, and the typical 3 Buddhist statues found in room for prayer or meditation. We tried to meditate but the caffeine and excitement prevented us from any relaxation.

We left the temple and hiked up the river a little further. Near the town, the river was full of kids and families playing in the pools and sliding down the wet rock faces. But once we hiked up a bit, the river became much less crowded. We stopped at the base of a small cliff with a waterfall streaming down. We were alone for a while and this was the first time I really felt away from civilization since I've been here. We even saw a frog!! Wildlife sightings are rare Korea. Later on we saw chipmunks, black squirrels, and signs for deer. We then hiked up the river for a while and found a secluded pool fed by a short, but wide waterfall. After all the hiking in the humid valley, we had no choice but to jump in. After playing in the water for a while, we turned back and headed back to the hotel. I slept well that night.

Day 2-

Excited to explore some of the valleys surrounding mountains, we packed our bags full of Cliff Bars and water, grabbed some ice cream, and headed out early. Our first destination was a temple up in the mountains. When we reached the turn off, we read a sign, "Temple 1.5 km" which didn't sound all that difficult. We quickly realized we were wrong. The trail was straight up and difficult to traverse. My thighs were jelly before reaching the half way point. After a while of "climb hiking" we started hearing Buddhist hymning. We had reached a small, but very peaceful temple. There were people meditating inside, we didn't want to disturb them so we did not go in. We did however find a nearby river covered in trees and boulders. Here we could see the temple and hear the hymns. We hung out there in silence for a while, it was once one the most peaceful moments of my life.



On the hike back down, we found another waterfall fed pool and went for a swim. Then, we made our way back to the main river and set off for another mountain with an ancient fortress. The hike was pretty intense, but well worth it. We reached the fortress, and while what we found didn't resemble a fortress in any way to me, the scenery was absolutely amazing. In every direction we could see nothing but mountains, trees, and rock formations. The only sign of civilization was the temple we had previously climbed to in the distance. What an amazing way to relax after an exhausting day!



Day 3-

We made our way up north to Seoraksan National Park, known for it's mountains and battle fields. It also has a nearby water slide park which may or may not have been my primary motivation for visiting the area. Our hotel for the night was beautifully decorated with colored tissue paper pasted to the walls and spiders with a night time craving for delicious Dave Nunn. It was cheap though, so oh well. We woke up and hunted for a western breakfast and coffee for about an hour, until finally settling for bagels at Dunkin Donuts. Then, off to the water park!!! After spending the $65 to get in, excited Dave and Lindsay walked in to see 2 small water slides and hundreds of small, shallow pools and tubs. People wore life jackets, we got our money back.

We headed up to the mountain area and found another valley full of chuffy scenery and mountains. After checking into a hotel on level 5 (which is really level four, but 4 is the number of death here so many hotels don't have a forth floor. Many of the ones that do, use an F. The elevators go 1, 2, 3, F, 5...) anyways, we checked in and headed to the park. There were a bunch of old tombstone like structures used as gifts for high level monks back in the day. There was also a HUGE statue of Siddhartha. This thing was MASSIVE!! There was even a little temple under it. We stared in awe at the ENORMOUS statue for a while, then headed to a cable car which takes you up another mountain. You could see the GARGANTUON Buddha statue from the top of this mountain. We then walked a little farther up the mountain and found the peak with a Korean flag waving at the top. This place was pretty crowded. We got near the top, but started slipping, realizing that if we slipped and fell we were guaranteed death, a painful mountain falling death, so we gave up. The thing is, elderly men and children were making the climb up!! I couldn't believe it. Koreans climb A LOT. It's pretty amazing actually. They work ridiculous hours during the week, then "climb hike" mountains on the weekends, and most of them do this almost every weekend. It helps them keep in pretty decent mental and physical shape even in old age. I can't see many people my age, let alone their grandparents, climbing like this back home. I was thoroughly impressed.

We then went to another face of the mountain with no crowd and had another relaxing chill out with breath taking mountain scenery. We went back for dinner and Lindsay watched me eat river salmon.











Day 4- my favorite day of the trip.

We saw a sign indicating a cave on top of one of the mountains. We decided head up. After probably the most intense, exhausting climb/hikes of my life we reached the cave. The sweaty mess that was Dave Nunn plopped down in the mouth of the cave and just shut down for a minute. After recouping, I took a minute to look around. I was in a small cave on top of a mountain, looking out the mouth I saw probably the coolest view of my life. Inside the cave was a small temple with a monk hymning. I think she lives in the cave. I don't really know how to describe the feeling, but it blew me away. Then I drank some cave water, that felt cool.

Day 5-

We left the park and met up with people from Busan to go on the rafting trip I talked about in my previous post. This was one of the most awesome weeks of my life and I'm still pretty stoked on it.

I have more pictures up on the picture site: http://picasaweb.google.com/nunn.dave

Update time!!!!!

I'm going to try and write in this thing more often from now on. Here is what has been going on lately:

-I'm on summer vacation and just got back from a pretty incredible week wandering around Northern South Korea. I'll post pictures and write more about it tomorrow.

-I've been going salsa dancing. It's pretty fun but I get too impatient doing the steps and usually confuse my partner with premature wild spins.

-Watching the Olympics over here is kinda cool. You get to see a bunch of quirky sports you don't usually see back home. There is some sort of karate/wrestling mix where they spend more time adjusting their clothes than actually fighting, Handball, which is a mix of soccer and basketball (it looks fun to play and Sergio would dominate), and Women's Field Hockey (which is chock full of gorgeous babes, there is a bad hair dyed, heavy eyeliner wearing Aussie player who I'm absolutely in love with.) Korea is actually doing pretty well too, 2nd most amount of golds so far.

-I had a painful canker sore last week. I went to the pharmacy and showed it to the pharmacist. He gave me some potion in a bottle. It was scary. I put it on the canker sore. It felt like I had battery acid on my lip, in my canker sore. I squealed, whined, and groaned. Then, the pain went away, and a day later so did the canker sore. This potion in magic. It might be my favorite thing about Korea.

-Tony, Lindsay, and I went to the Busan International Rockfest concert here a couple of weeks ago. Shadows Fall, a metal band from Boston played. The show was packed with Koreans of all ages, and they all seemed really into Shadows Fall. Old men were pumping fists, people were dancing, and some of the kids actually knew all the words in English.

-On Saturday we all went met up at a river up North to go rafting. It was very different from the rafting trips we do back home. We started out with a little ATV trek next to the river. I had never ridden 4-wheelers before, so it was pretty fun for me, but it was guided and we went really slow. I was dying to open it up and have some ATV chaos. Everyone was bitching about it, and with good reason, I think being a first timer I was the only one that really had fun. After a while we finally started getting suited up to raft (helmets included) and Tony and I started chugging Soju. We went through an over-involved paddle training session and finally got in the water. The trip was short (about an hour), the rapids were mild, and people were whining, I was starting to think I wasted my money.... but then arose 2 highlights which made the trip totally worth while. 1) I still don't understand how, but at some point our boat capsized in a mild rapid. My foot was stuck in a harness, so I got that out, went under water for a second, and popped up in a calm pool. I looked back and saw the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. There were oars, shoes, and people everywhere. Everyone seemed confused and panicked. I saw Lindsay, she was bobbing around without a helmet looking frantic, but totally out of it. I grabbed her and put her on another boat (she was okay). After she was off, I turned my attention to my Hello Kitty inflatable ball that I had found on the side of the road on the way. I spotted it off in the distance, it clearly needed a rescue. There were a bunch of oars I probably should have saved, but my soju buzz would only let me focus on the inflatable ball. I swam to it, grabbed it, and embraced it with love and reassurance. Then I realized I was near another set of upcoming mild rapids, and not near and human life or boat. I couldn't swim very strong with the ball, and the mild rapids were staring to tug me away, I was forced to leave the ball and head to the calmer water. I lost him. I feel horrible. Anyway, I went back and found our boat, it was piloted by only the guide who had somehow never fallen off or lost control. It was a pretty fun ordeal. 2)On the way back, it started pouring rain. Heavy rain. It was warm out, so the rain seemed almost tropical. We were rafting down this beautiful canyon in pouring rain in Korea. Incredible feeling!

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

-Lindsay writes in her blog more often and has more details on the above stories. Check it out:
http://www.hellionparade.blogspot.com/

-So, overall I'm still having a great time here and will most likely sign on for another year. I'll try to update this blog more often. I'll have pics and stories from the trip up later today or tomorrow.

JK Livin'
Dave

Photos

I added some new pictures to my photo page. Check them out.

SURF!!!!

I went out, it was pretty calm, but the waves were about waist high and breaking pretty nice. After about 15 min out there, I was hit with a typhoon. It started pouring rain, the wind was going nuts, and the waves picked up to about head high!! I had some pretty fun drops, but the board (a 9 ft Bic board, actually made by Bic the pen company out of the same material) was not waxed and I was barefoot so any time I tried to turn the board at all I slipped off. I must have looked ridiculous. As cool as "surfing a typhoon" sounds, it wasn't that crazy. An average day in Oregon is much more intense. It was fun though and nice finally getting out there.

Kindergarten

I just went to the kindergarten with Seo Min and sat in on the class. It was hilarious. They are 2 feet tall.

Update

I haven't written in this thing in a while. Here is what has been going on:

-I got hit by a car today. I was walking down a small street and a SUV full of soccer moms bashed into the right side of my torso. The driving here is horrendous. I don't think I've ever gotten a ride from somebody here who didn't either get lost or narrowly avoid a major accident. I was riding shotgun one day as my driver came to a complete stop in the middle of the freeway! He needed to answer his phone. It was scary. Today was my first experience actually getting hit, I doubt it will be the last.

-I have decided to name my apartment "Martin Short". Martin Short is small and kind of annoying at first, but once you see a few movies (especially Captain Ron and 3 Amigos), you start to kind of like him.

-I had last week off so Lindsay came to visit. We had a great time, I was thoroughly bummed to when she left. We climbed sea cliffs, hung out at the beach, started writing a book, played football, partied, went to an amusement park (ferris wheels stilll terrify me), explored some mountains, and at one point we had machine guns pulled on us. She should be back in June to start teaching over here.

-Tony and I went climbing around a mountain at the beach yesterday. We found a bunch of old army bunkers and an ancient statue of some dude looking over the ocean.

-I posted some new pictures in the Lindsay's visit folder and the Korea folder.

Weird food

Last night Tony and I ate at a tuna restaurant near his house. We got a huge feast full of soup, weird egg thing, a variety of raw tuna, shrimp, cooked tuna (which was delicious), salad, and the following:
-raw tuna nose (basically just cartilage)
-raw sea squirts
-raw sea cucumber (not too bad, but looks absolutely disgusting)
-conch shell snail thing
-raw tuna eye socket and possible actual eye

It was weird, some of the stuff I didn't want to try, but the cook pretty much put it in my mouth and didnt tell me what it was until after I ate it. Despite the horrific sound and look of all these items, none of it was actually bad. I could have done without the nose and eye socket, but everything else tasted pretty decent.

Swimming

I had a strange experience at the pool yesterday. I found a lap pool next to my apartment, so yesterday I decided to go swim laps. It was hilarious. I walked in and everyone stopped swimming and started staring. I was a white dude in short shorts by the way. So, I get in the water, and they grab me a swim cap. I hate swim caps, but whatever. I put it on and started swimming. They all just stood in the water and watched me swim. I did a few laps and then stopped to take a break. When I came up everyone got all excited and started going off how I'm such a "good swimma" (which I am not). Then they requested all these crazy strokes like butterfly and something Id never heard of, but I only know like freestyle, breast, and doggie paddling so I said no. Then they started quizzing me on my Olympic swimming knowledge, which I knew absolutely nothing about. It was fun, but getting old, so I tried to end the confusing uproar and swim, but the Koreans wanted to introduce me to the instructors, so I got introduced to both the swim instructors that work there Mr. Kim and Mr. Kim. Both are Mr. Kim. Then, finally I got to swim.

Busan Lotte Giants

I went to the season opener of the baseball team here (Busan Lotte Giants). It was absolutely crazy, the crowd goes nuts like it's an Irish soccer game. They sell way too many tickets, so people are just packed in there, everyone was ecstatic, and they cheer and chant like mad. "IT'S A BALL!! HE THREW A BALL!! AHHHH!! OH MY GOD!!" (but in Korean). It was seriously crazy, but a lot of fun. They had the team motto in English on a big banner at the entrance gates:

Busan is Giants
Baseball is Giants
Best is Giants

Background

I am teaching English at an elementary school and a middle school in Busan, South Korea. I had a pretty awesome life in Portland, OR, but needed a change and some adventure. My friend and roommate, Tony, was in a similar situation, so here we are. So far I am having a good time, but after a while I plan on heading to Thailand or somewhere in South America. I will keep track of my stories and random thoughts on this blog. I will post a few pictures on this blog, the rest can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nunn.dave

-Dave