Busan Pusan Beach

Busan Beach Weekend Baby!
I think it was meant for me to be born at the beach.

Carribean Bay

Carribean Bay was supposed to be a rainout but the Lord had other plans I suppose.

Cowpies at the Supermarket

Birthdays are always my favorite. While my birthday fell on Monday this year, nobody can celebrate on a weekday- ESPECIALLY IN SOKO. ON Friday, the kiddos at school found out my birthday was coming up and there were rumors that they were going to bring me something. Nice sentiment but we cannot recieve gifts at school. This could end up being a good or bad thing.
TO make matters more interesting, our school was hosting and English Camp Sleepover at our school. All of the English teachers [with the exception of Tia, KT, and I] had to spend the night at our school with the children. The only reason I was off the hook was that Sue, our SUPERvisor, said I could make breakfast. Since me coming to Korea, I have begun to break free in the kitchen arena. Mind you, most of the time I have no eartly idea what I'm doing, but Im starting to experiment. My favorite thing to cook is breakfast [thanks to Big Al]. On Saturday, I told the teachers I was going to serve them pancakes [cafe blueberry/ balsamic choco banana], fruit, french press, and juice. When I got home, I started my normal routine of just relaxing and settling in before I started the massive cookoff.

Its so nice to have a long ethernet cord. I skyped with Tonita while I cooked pancakes. Nice to have someone "in the trenches" with you while you cook. I must have cooked between 30-40 pancakes that evening. No worries. Brianna gave them her seal of approval.

Christian and Kris came over that night from Daejeon to spend the night and spend the next waking moments with me. Little did I know that we would have so much fun together and stay up til about 4 in the morning. We had a blast playing card games and watching modern family. Just good to be around family friends once again.
THe next morning, Saturday, I had to hot foot it to school [with 3 hours sleep under my belt] and leave Christian and Kris asleep in the bed.

I was surprised to see all of the teachers who stayed overnight at the school to be fairly chipper. The pancake breakfast went over well and I was pleased to see them indulge and not leave a crumb behind. There is nothing worse then bringing home leftovers >.<
We all cleaned our share of the office and rushed up to our stations in the "American Village." Different parts of the Korean Kindie were divided into numerous stations that are in America: telephone, supermarket, airport, hospital, etc. I was teamed up with Brianna to conquer all that is the supermarket. For some reason, my body decided it was best that I lose my voice fairly early in the day and that for the remainder of the presentations at the supermarket- I would sound like a 85 year old smoker. Bliss.

Once the camp ended and we pushed the kids back to their parents, it was off to venture at CARRIBEAN BAY [the largest water park in Korea].

Exclusive

Last night:
It was a night in the making. For some odd reason the korean teachers and us foreign teachers do not really hang out as we should. When we have lunch, we sit at different tables. WHen we have get togethers- we only invite one group of people. Thankfully Amy [foreign teacher] had the guts to just say, "we're all getting together on Wednesday and going out for dinner. We need to do this."

It worked. Her skills of persuasion are top notch.

We all met at Shabu Shabu buffet. For my Americans or curious Korean friendly friends, it is almost like a stirfry grill. You sit at a big table with your friends with a smoldering pot of liquid in the middle. You go to the bar and select different raw foods you want to cook in the "soup." You can change the styles of the soups by adding different seasonings and [or] pastes. Its simply remarkable how addicting it is. We all commented how weird yet refreshing it was to see each other in a different light out of school. We all seemed "Happy." Imagine that.

Afterwards we went to Norebang [private style karaoke]. You rent a room for you and your friends. This one we went to was high class :D
We sang and danced for 1.5 hours. Its incredible to hear my director sing. She's got some lungs on her.

30 C

The temperature is measured in Celcius over here. I really dont understand this scale. I do know that somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees gets to be unbearable at times. Friends over here in Korea usually go to school between the hours of 1-10 pm. I am fortunate in this case that I go to school earliuer in the day: its LESS HOT.
Being raised in Georgia where it is sweltering hot and sticky- one would think that I am used to weather like this. HOW CAN ANYONE GET USED TO IT?

Today is another hot day. We sit with the windows open and the AC blasting.
I am crossing my fingers that there isnt an outdoor field trip anytime soon.

On the brighter side of the equation, I booked my ticket to Japan. I leave on the 24th of July and come back to SoKo on the 31st. A full week in Japan. YES!!

Random Thought

While I was at church on Sunday I had someone come up to me and just start up conversation. It [the convo] began to take a turn and soon she started to ask me about spiritual gifts of mine. I've always been one who categorizes himself under "mercy" because I tend to sympathize with people and have a heart for the average Joe Blo.

She took a stab in the dark. What if you have a knack for bringing people together.
A harmonizer.

Really?

Always Late

I've noticed something. When It comes to work- I am always on time/early. When it comes to friends and anything personal- I always run on ish time. To some, that means I run about 15 minutes to 45 minutes behind schedule. THere will be a day where I can just make it all across the board.

I have finally gotten over Rhonda's birthday party. For the past several weeks leading up to her birthday, I was trying to scrape things together. Working with logistics of where, when, and how- who to invite- invitations- etc.
The day of the aprty was a def relief. We started out the day in Gangnam at a co-teacher's new place. For those who are not aware, Gangnam is in the Metro Seoul area; its less hectic than Seoul but still provides you with a broad selection or stores, people, and experiences. Her apartment was a tad nicer than ours but she does teach for a more "hoity toity" school. We departed from her house rather early and met up with Sarah and Amy to go Bungee Jumping in Bundang. Never in a million years would I imagine doing something that stupid. Driving to the site I could jsut hear my Dad's voice in the back of my head saying: "Why on earth would you think something like that is fun Josh?" On the other hand, Brandi [my sister and co-thrill seeker] would give me a high five.

The park was worth the trip alone. In the center of the park you can see this tall spire jutting out from the lake. Walking closer and closer to the platform- my stomach got lower and lower until I was just in complete shock. Wouldnt you know that when we got there- there was no wait-time. The first ones to arrive. Great...:/
At the top floor, we practiced jumping from a bench onto a matress. People got a kick out of me overreating. IT took 2 countdowns for me to jump onto a matress. Wow.
In the line-up, I was the 4th to jump. The others were doing it without hesitation. When it was finally my turn, he measured me and adjusted to rope according to my height and weight. He started to count me off but I told him to just wait while I psyched myself up for it. I gave him a hug and told him "I need this right now." In my last moments I would like to at least know that I had a little bit of love going off that platform. Finally

5- What do I think about...
4- The Twin towers are burning and Ive gotta get out
3- Wait, why am I on the top floor
2- Crap Crap Crap Crap
1- breath breath breath
JUMP!

It was completely amazing. Once you jump, you truly try to reach out and grab hold of something that does not exist. Weird Feeling.