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