Life is Good, but My Apartment ISN'T

Life is good.  Enjoying my daily bike rides to work, made a awesome minestrone soup the other day that I didn't on making "soooo" much but ended up being about 12 liters worth.  Oh well.  If it had been nasty I would've been bummed about it, but it turned out delicious so no harm no fowl.

Runs are going good.  I'm signed up for two runs in November that are close and on Sundays.  Both good things.  Classes are going good too with the kids.

The new apartment that we've been waiting to move into is almost done.  Unfortunately almost doesn't get me into it.  I haven't seen anybody working on it in the past couple of days :-(

My apartment however is falling apart.  The entire complex hasn't had internet since Sunday morning and then to top it all off I as of this morning don't have hot water again.  In July not having hot water stinks but isn't a huge deal.  In the end of October in Korea, not having hot water is not fun at all.  Hopefully it can get fixed while I'm at work tonight.

Until later everyone.  :-)

Perfect Birthday Care Package

So what do you get for the guy living abroad from Texas?  Well you can't ship him a gun, Shiner wouldn't last in the mail, so the next best thing would be a box full, literally full, of chili spices.  Definitely a good day when you look through your care package and it turns the breakroom into a chili smelling bonanza during work.  I don't know who was more excited, me for the present, or the other staffers who know what it means.  Chili days when it gets a little cooler.

Also got a replacement Android tablet while I get some warranty repairs done on my older one and I'm in love so far.  The small size is perfect for fitting in the back of a pair of Wranglers (I specify Wranglers because I doubt they'd fit into a pair of men's hip huggin' jeans like you find over here in Korea.)  The nice thing is that once it is turned on it is almost an exact copy of my larger one that made getting used to it almost instantaneous  .

Got a new TV box at home.  Got a few more TV channels (like 200 more) and so there were a few more English speaking channels mixed in there.  I don't know where anything is anymore though on it.  Oh well.  I wished they had just upgraded our internet instead of our TV though.

Got a farting Bulldog card in the mail today at work.  Totally made my day.

Felt really self accomplished as I registered for my next 10K pretty much by myself (got a little help from a student).  When I went to transfer the fee for it at the bank the teller was cute when I handed her the account number and she goes "Bank?"  and I responded "Post Office".  Evidently that's a banking institution as well over here because she only smiled a little because I looked so perplexed, but got it taken care of.  One of my older students was asking where my next race was and I told her Iksan and she was like that's where my grandparents live and I instantly go "very cool, can I sleep there?"  Her face was priceless as it was a definitive weirded out face.  If Charlie had been in my class he would've offered up Grandma Shannon's or Dee's house in heartbeat for me to stay at.

Gotta go, class starting soon.  Today's topic is Ancient Greece Democracy so for me it's a fun topic.  Oh god, UD what have you done to me.  The ignorance that Georgetown High bred I probably would've thought Oedipus and Odysseus were contagious infections.

On a side note when I looked at the reason one of my younger kids was missing class for two weeks and I translated it and it came back as conjunctivitis I instantly knew what that was thanks to the years working at ESE.

Ok Bye for now.

PTaek Race and Oktoberfest

An interesting start to a race weekend. I had pretty much written off that I was going to get to do the Pyeongtaek race, as I hadn't realized it was a Saturday when I signed up for it. Well the stars aligned, and I managed to get my Saturday class covered for me and so I was cleared for the race. Another issue that arose was how was I going to get to the race. There weren't any trains that went to Pyeongtaek after my class got out at 10 Friday night. So I decided that I would go as far as Daejeon. Got into Daejeon at 2 and checked into a motel. Got some shut-eye, then awoke to catch a 6:30 train to get into Pyeongtaek at 7:30. 8:30 race time I thought I'd be good, as I had printed off a map to show the taxi driver and it looked as if it was a straight shot on a highway to get there.

However, it was more of a rural Texas highway with stops and stuff so it wasn't as smooth sailing as it should've been. At 8:15 I'm still in the cab trying to get loose and stretched. I can only imagine what the cabbie was thinking when I started getting out of my clothes in the back seat. Luckily though I already had my race gear on under my warmups so it was a PG show instead of an adult “tips are appreciated” show. 8:27 I'm still in the cab and I look ahead and we're like ridiculously close, but there's still a ton of traffic so I pay and hop out with my bag. I notice that there are other people still walking up so I'm appreciative that I'm not doing the longest race of the day as those start first. Left my bag in some bushes did a quick warmup and some stretches and took a much needed pre-race pee and I was set. There were a TON of people doing the 10k. I also haven't done a race in Korea yet where the freebee was a t-shirt. It seems like EVERYONE was wearing their free tshirt for the race. The cool thing was that you could tell the difference between different distances as the half marathoners wore blue and the 10kers wore orange and the 5kers wore lime green. I didn't get as good of a warmup as I would've liked so I planned to use the first 2k as a warmup up type workout. Just start in the very back and use the massive amounts of people to keep my pace down and keep my heart rate low.

Well that worked really well as I really enjoy weaving and passing people, so starting slow and consistent in the back allowed me the opportunity to do that for an entire race. A fair amount of wind coming into our faces during the middle 4k. Ran a 43:16 so that was over a minute off of my previous Korean 10k time that I shaved. I think with my training becoming more consistent, my races the next two months will have similar results. I know that I'm capable right now of doing the leap to sub-40 if I adjust my training, but I also know if I rush it, that I'll have to stop at some point because of my knee or ankle. I'd rather take it slow and not have to take a break from racing.

SIDE NOTE: There was the whole spectrum at this race. Lots of Army people from the base. Lots of tall tall Koreans (I don't see many of them down in our town). Shorter Koreans, that make me feel tall (much like what I'm used to in Suncheon). There were 7 Koreans wearing cheetah print running jerseys with Tarzan like sarong shorts, very interesting. One of the half-marathons was wearing a chipmunk costume. There was a Korean marching band that played the opening ceremonies. And then after the race there was a decent band that I would describe as being Korean jazz/blues. Really good sound. I liked listening to them. The guy that played the guitar for their group was really good.

At the finish line they put a 3^rd place marker around the lady runner that I passed with about a kilometer to go. That means I got beaten by two female runners, both of which were Korean as I had seen them when we hit the turn around point. It made me think of the 4^th of July run that was down in Austin one year right before the Willie Nelson picnic. Dad and I had gone down after leaving the 405 ice cream as they were starting the run at 5 o'clock in the evening so that people could stay for the concert. During the run I remember throwing up multiple times and there were ambulances and EMTs everywhere to assist runners that were as I imagine dropping like flies that day. At the finish line I was feeling like death warmed over and Dad comes up and looks at me and says “You know you got beaten by a girl.” It made me laugh and now even still I remember that more than I remember all the miserable hell that was that retarded race.

--Went online yesterday and found out that I placed 20^th overall, 18^th if you subtract the two ladies. --

After the race I started to walk out of the port as it would've been a complete mess for Heana to come pick me up down there. Walked probably a half a mile to a mile away when I found a gas station that I could score some juice at and also sit under an umbrella and watch movies on my computer as I cooled down. Found some police officers that were standing around eating snacks and had one of them tell Heana in Korean the address of where I was at so that it'd be easier for her to come pick me up than for me to try to describe it. She got there and wanted to eat lunch at the place that was right next to where I was waiting and so I had a dosirak (I'll explain in a future post) and she had a noodle soup. Mine came with a warning to her for the white guy that it was spicy, unfortunately it wasn't really. This dosirak however was the biggest portion that I had ever seen. Her portion wasn't that bad either, and so we were thinking that since it so close to the port that these are sailor portions. Hers wasn't spicy like either one of us thought it would be, more of a sesame oil flavor. They were both tasty, just not what either one of us was expecting.

That night after a nap, we hit up Oktoberfest on the base. It was kind of a bummer when we got there that they were out of steins, but we had a few cups of a Honey Weiss that was very tasty and had a good flavor too it. Had a pulled pork sandwich with a barbecue sauce on it that could strip paint (quite tasty but could've used a scoop of cole slaw to complete the sandwich flavor). Then had some nachos, and a chili dog. Completing the spectrum of stadium foods missed, haha :-P.

After leaving the fest we hit up the indian casino (not owned by actual indians, but had the same feel as the one right by OSU that James, Erin and I went to that one time) on base for some penny slot fun. We all made a little, lost more, and had fun.

Then we went for tacos and beers at various bars around the strip.

During the course of the night when Scott would introduce me as his younger brother, his buddies would look at us and be like “really?!” And then they'd ask to see id and then they'd still be skeptical. They were like “So, if my last name was Smith I could find another Smith and claim to be brothers too. Davis is a pretty common name.” 6^th most common last name in the US to be exact, so he does have a point. Nevertheless it was a fun night.

Made me miss similar nights with James. Now his friends either know we're brothers, or some of his friends just don't ask for id like Scott's friends.:-)

Rode the train home Monday morning, there was another nun on the train with me [what is the deal here?] This time I wasn't watching 2 and a Half Men so it wasn't any big thing, haha.

Birthdays

Let me begin by thanking everyone for the love extended my way on my birthday.  I certainly felt it coming from all directions.

I also found it interesting to read through all the texts and Facebook comments that I received.  It was almost like a timeline of all the assorted nicknames I have had past and present.  The only two that didn't make an appearance were stickboy and #3 which are both two of my favorites.  Both of my new Korean ones popped up and a couple just easy ones from family and friends were there too.

Birthday in Korea started with me giving myself a pass on a day of running.  Then it was a 4-egg omelet, an episode of Criminal Minds, then off to work.  At work 2 students showed up for what I was thinking was going to be the most boring day ever in the classroom.  The topic was the Marmaray Tunnel.  My first thought was WTH?!?!  Then as I listened to the lectures I realized that they were perfect lectures for taking notes and working on note-taking skills.

We had a blast during class.  Then, afterwards ensued a night of bowling, darts, drinking and karaoke.  I bowled terrible, played a little better at darts, and sang some of mine and my fams favorites at karaoke.  Let a little red-headed stranger out into Korea with "Always on my Mind" for all four grandparents.  A little "I'm a Believer" for Mom and her sisters and then threw some Beatles and some man in black in there for everyone else.  Ended the night with a duo of AC/DC and Bon Jovi to bring in the morning light.  :-)

Here's to another 365 of good health, happiness and fortune, or at least 2 out of 3. :-)

Korean Clothing

So before I start this isn't a post praising or trashing Korean clothing, just two observations.
First, this last Sunday was the Korean holiday of 추석 or Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving).  This is where you go visit your relatives in their hometown.  So a lot of people leave Seoul to travel to little cities around Korea like ours.  Most of my students are lucky because they don't have to sit in traffic as their grandparents either live in town, or are just a town over.  On my run on Friday I was running past the preschool that I've previously posted pictures of (the one with the awesome window slide) and I enjoy running past this school because they seem to have their kids out of the school a lot taking advantage of the walking trail and just going out and enjoying the fresh air.  On Friday, they were all dressed in their hanboks, traditional Korean clothing, and it was so cute.  There were four classes out walking I guess to a picnic area or something and it was awesome.  It made me think of kids in the us that are that age all dressed up for picture day as it isn't what they typically wear day-to-day.  Wish I ran with a camera.

Second thing was yesterday on my cooldown after my run I was jogging around our neighborhood and I saw a lady walking towards me and I noticed her shirt and it made me chuckle inside my head.  She was wearing a polo shirt with one of those embroidered recoil pads sewn in for skeet shooting.  This made me laugh as this lady probably has no idea why the shirt even looks that way, but I smiled even furthermore because "who in Korea thinks to sell skeet shooting polos?"  

:-)