a racist on the mountain

I'm three days into unemployed life, and already I need to call a mulligan on yesterday. It's been a while since unemployment for me, and I guess I forgot how to do it. The only time I left the house yesterday was to buy some groceries (mostly booze).

Today I woke up early and went on a short hike on Cheongryung Mountain. An older man gave me a nasty look and muttered something in a mean tone when he saw me walking off the pedestrian trail. I was startled at first because it took me a moment to realize that he was talking to me. And by the time I realized this, he had already passed by.

I was annoyed at him, and I couldn't help but feel there must be some racism behind his anger toward me. I don't really have any evidence, except that I can't imagine why else he would be upset at someone walking outside of the path. It's not like he owns the mountain, or is liable for me hurting myself, or that I was walking on someone's garden or something.

I will admit that he may have had his reasons to associate negative stereotypes with foreigners. I'm embarrassed sometimes by stories about things that foreigners do in Korea. Maybe he saw me as just another out of control "waygook" who doesn't give a shit about the rules, even one as simple as staying on the walking path.

But renegade foreigners or no, there's no excuse for having a sucky attitude towards people you don't know.

Looking around at the other Koreans on the mountain, smiling, many with their families, I took comfort that the man before was a rare example.

I decided that I need a purpose for my next two or three months. So I decided I'm going to learn as much about Korea as I can. I've already got a start on the language, and I certainly know more about the people than I did a year ago, but now I'm going to make learning more about those things a priority.

I acquired two new classes yesterday, putting my total up to three. I'll be working about 9 hours a week, and making about 2/3 of my old salary. Not a bad way to end this chapter.

The job market here is absolutely ridiculous. Since quitting, I've gotten about one new job offer a day. Granted I did a little bit of job hunting, but nothing major. From what I hear from people who have been in Korea longer than I, this is a bad market for jobs. If this is bad, I really can't imagine what the "good days" were like.

Unemployment

Today is my first day of unemployment in Korea.

Kyle commented that I'm on an unemployment cycle. I work for about a year, then unemployed for some amount of time, and then work again. I guess it's been true so far, but it hasn't really been long enough to tell. You could also call it an employment cycle.

I woke up around 9:30 today. A couple years ago, when I had just quit my job at Mellon, I remember waking up the next day, feeling euphoric. Today I felt pretty good, not as good as when I quit Mellon, but still pretty good. I'm excited about the coming months.

Now that everything is actually over, I hope to write down some things that happened, and what they might mean. For the last year and four months, I have had an incredibly weird job.

The reason I'm unemployed now is because the school that I worked at, Break Away English Academy, has closed due to having no more money. I'll get more into that later.

Today I walked around my neighborhood. It was the first sunny day in at least a week, so I tried to soak up as much sunlight as I could. If there are such a thing as past lives, I was probably a plant in one of them. I'm pretty happy about just sitting in the sun and doing nothing, which is also what plants like to do.

I'm at a coffee shop now. I drink a lot of coffee these days. I was worried that I was drinking too much coffee, so I read about what coffee does to you. I think it's okay to drink a lot of coffee. There are some good side-effects too, and they say that people who drink coffee as a whole are less likely to kill themselves than those who don't.

My boss let me take some things from the school home with me. I took the coffee maker. I was really excited about getting it. In fact, I think I was more concerned about taking that coffee maker on the final day than I was about getting my salary. I could buy a lot of coffee makers with my salary, but for some reason getting a free coffee maker from work was really important to me. I think it's a silly way to think about things.

Next week I will start teaching a student from my school at her house. Her family is moving to New Zealand in January, so they want to cram before they go. I'm looking forward to it a lot, because they're a really nice family.

I think I'm going to miss a lot of my students. It just seems like another day today, but it will probably hit me later. Some of them I've taught since I arrived here last August. I gave my phone number out to some of the ones I really like. Not really for lesson purposes, but just to send me a message sometime. I wonder if that sort of thing would get me in trouble in the US? I think it probably would.

Notable Events of the last 4 or 5 Months

-Went to the border, stepped into North Korea for a few minutes. Saw a North Korean guard. He had binoculars.

-Ran a half marathon near the border. They lost my application so I ran under some Korean guy's name - Lee Gwan something or other. Didn't win. On the way home, I peed in a water bottle.

-Coworkers and friends went back to whatever place they came from, replaced by a new crop of bright-eyed, bushy eyebrowed people.

-Got drunk on the rooftop of my apartment building with some Mongolians. They were drinking Genghis Khan vodka. Is that irony or the exact opposite of irony?

-To commemorate my friend leaving, we dropped a bouncy ball from the twelfth floor into an alleyway. Amazingly, it did not kill anyone.

-A new bar opened up called "Liquor Burger." It's owned by a guy named Aaron and his Korean wife whose name I can't remember. They serve mini burgers. They have a foosball table. It's across the street from my apartment.

-Went to Korean Disneyland. It's called Everland. It has a bunch of Disney-like characters that just aren't quite right. It has a really awesome wooden roller coaster. Also, they sell beer and you can drink it anywhere.

-Went to a waterpark named Caribbean Bay. They also sell beer there.

-Ate some pig intestines. When they went on the grill, they squirmed and puffed up and something dripped out from inside them. Probably poop. They didn't taste great. Very chewy.

-My school is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and has been for some time now. I will get into this in greater detail when I am more removed from the situation. It's probably not all my fault.

-Saw a live Starcraft tournament. It's a computer game from the 90s that Koreans play extremely well. Korean teenagers dream of becoming pro players. Some of them make it and play in front of hundreds of cheering fans. It was one of the more bizarre and awesome things I've seen here.

Hwacheon Peace Marathon

Hwacheon is a beautiful forest area, somewhere near the North Korean border.

The course was mostly on the main road of the town. They didn't close the roads off completely, so sometimes cars would be allowed through and would drive past us.

The first leg of the marathon slowly climbs up the base of a mountain. There is probably about 8-10 km where we were gradually climbing. At the half-way point of the marathon, we turned around and ran back to the start, using a slightly different path.


The first half was fine. The second half was like I was in my own hell.

It was really terrible. If this were my first marathon, I'd probably be inclined to not do it again.

Here were some things that contributed to making me so miserable:


1. It was really hot, and there was no shade.
2. The hill.
3. I was recovering from a cold.

Number 3 was probably the largest factor in my misery.

Looking back at it now, with several days past, it doesn't seem as bad. I know I've forgotten it just how awful it was, and my mind is drawn to some of the more fond memories of that day, such as meeting some cool people in the expatriate running club I joined.

For the first 12 kilometers I ran alongside a guy named Chris. He's one of the few foreigners here that's neither in the military or an English teacher. He's a reporter, who focuses specifically on North Korean issues.

He's had lots of prior marathoning experience, so I decided it would be wise to run with him.

He told me from the beginning that he'd just go at my pace. He wore a watch, and every kilometer sign we passed, he would announce our time. I imagined that he was judging me a little bit, so I tried to speed up a little bit.

We finished 5k in about 26 minutes, five minutes faster than my first 5k in my last marathon. So I accidently ran faster to try to impress my new friend. I'm sure that it affected me later on.

He peeled off for a pee break at about 12k, and told me he'd catch up later. And catch up he did, but not until the final 5k.

I on the other hand did not pee. I had the urge to pee at the beginning of the race, but I didn't do it. After a while, I didn't have to pee anymore. When the race was over, and I drank a bunch of water and gatorade, I still didn't have to pee. It wasn't until the 5 hour bus-ride was over that I finally peed.

I sweated like a Korean taking an English exam. My entire body was covered in a layer of my own salt.

In the last 8k stretch, we ironically ran next to a river. For some reason this is the stretch that was most stingy with the water/wet sponge stations, or maybe that's just how I perceived it.

It was also the stretch that had the least shade (being none at all). It was between 12 and 1 PM when I was running this part. I think it was nearly 90 degrees. It shouldn't have been exceptionally hot for a Tucson bred man such as myself, but yet it was. It was probably because I'd been running for 3 hours already.

My pace slowed down considerably here. This is where Chris caught up to me at a water station. He started walking, and so I did too. "One on, one off," he said. Meaning we'd walk for a kilometer and then run for one. "It's about as effective as running really really slowly anyway, and it keeps your body temperature down."

I guess my body was about to overheat or something, because I felt much better when I started walking.

Chris checked his watch. "You can still PB (personal best) if you put your ass in gear."

So I reluctantly started running. As soon as I thought that I was out of Chris's sight, I walked again for a little while, and then ran/walk to the end, where our group cheered my on for the victory lap around the stadium.

I didn't PB: I missed my previous time by about 2 minutes. Not bad, considering the conditions.

A pregnant lady fetched my complimentary finisher's medal and snacks for me, as she was clearly in better condition to do so than I was.

Since Chris and I were the only ones stupid enough to run the full course today, once he finished we got on the bus and had a 5-hour bus ride back into Seoul.

Something to note about this bus that we privately chartered: it's a nore-bang bus (karaoke bus), complete with TV and microphone. We sang songs on the way back. Or rather, I listened and tried to pretend I was asleep or in too much misery whenever they elected a new singer. Usually I'm all over karaoke, but at this time, I actually was too miserable to sing.

Another interesting thing is that is not even the first nore-bang bus that I've been on. I think it's standard for buses in Korea to be equipped with karaoke equipment.

Bad Teacher

Now I don't do this very often, but sometimes my students are so unintentionally cute with their incorrect English that I don't correct them. Sometimes I will even encourage their mistakes, because they are just too adorable.

Does it make me a bad English teacher to ignore and/or encourage my students' incorrect English? Before you answer that question, let me show and tell you some examples.

Two 3-year old girls both thought that "zero" was "zebra," so whenever I would count down from five, they would join in... "five, four, three, two, one, zebra!!!"

They still don't say "zero," but they've gotten a little bit closer with "zebro," which is great too. It makes me think of a fraternity loving zebra.

Here's the notebook of a girl named Bella. I don't know what her 8-year old life is like outside of English hagwon, but I like to imagine it's full of champagne, expensive cars, and gold jewelry.

Sometimes they are unintentionally obscene and racist as well. I do correct them when that happens, but first I make sure to document it:

Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins

With the weather getting nicer, there are plenty of things to look forward to in South Korea. I've been warned about a few of them:

- Radioactive rain, blown in from Japan

- "Yellow Dust" blown in from China (also radioactive)

-Fan Death (self-inflicted)

Radioactive rain because of Japan will probably not happen.

Yellow Dust is a phenomenon that happens every year from right about now until the end of summer. Poisonous clouds chock full of silicon, sulphur, and carbon - mawhatsit are whipped around and settle over Korea, China, and Japan.

This year, they found out that some of the dust has radioactive particles they believe came from Chinese power plants.

Fan death is a hilarious superstition which dictates that you never leave your fan on and have the windows shut when you go to sleep, or you will die.

marathon day and the day before it

Minjeong and I went to Seoul around three o'clock on Saturday.

I wanted to sleep near where the race would start, because downtown Seoul is a long ways from my home in Incheon.

With me were all the things I thought I needed for one night in Seoul and one marathon on the next day.

Included:

-bag of fun size snickers (I decided regular size was too big to be eaten on the run and sit in my pocket, and mini size was just too small. Hindsight confirms this kind of snickers was an excellent choice).

-ziplock bag of oatmeal and chia seed mix

-ziplock bag of granola

-ziplock bag of toothpaste and toothbrush

-ziplock bag of a small box of soymilk (this was precaution in case the box broke - reference my "Spilled Milk" post for further information of my philosophy towards milk-spill containment).

-can of Starbucks brand Americano coffee-like drink.

-Dong-a Marathon information booklet

-racing bib, racing shirt, safety pins, and tracking chip (the tracking chip was this little dinky plastic thing that I had no idea what it was. I really only examined it for the first time when I was getting dressed 2 hours before the race. By some miracle, I determined I should keep it.

Probably my decision had to do with the illustration that came with it of someone tying it into his shoelaces. It looked like it wasn't just decoration, so I put it on my shoes. This was a challenge since I was running in my five-finger shoes, which are laceless.

I finally discovered I could slip it in between the back outer strap and the shoe. It seemed reasonable secure there, and I figured it was probably useless anyway, so no big deal if it fell out).

-"The Girl Who Played With Fire" book for my bus ride home.

-shirt

-pair of Sprint five-finger shoes

-bowl

-spoon

All of these were stuffed into a bag that I had received in the mail the week before. This bag had my racing number on it, and if the pictures in the marathon booklet were true, it looked as though I could put this bag on a truck, and they would take it to the end of the race for me.

So Minjeong and I walked around looking for a motel for me to stay at for the night. I could have asked about price myself, but she could do it better.

More importantly, she could ask about microwaves (surprising, to me anyway, the word "microwave" isn't the same in English and Korean, while words like "television" and "radio" are. I had to explain to her what a microwave was, and then she told me what the word for it is in Korean, which I repeated a few times to myself and then forgot twenty minutes later).

In the end, the only place with a microwave was really expensive. Then Minjeong had a great idea - I could just microwave stuff in any convenience store.

You can probably do that in the US too, but it's something that never occurred to me, having a microwave at home.

So I got a cheap room, convenience store and coffee shop adjacent.

We celebrated at an awesome burrito shop, similar to Chipotle but ridiculously more expensive.

I realized then that a hypothetical, evil burrito shop could name any price, if they were the only game in town, and I would eat there eventually if I had the money.

Then Minjeong helped me once again by informing me that tomorrow would probably rain from 6 AM to noon.

I kind of refused to believe it at first. My first marathon wasn't supposed to be rainy. How is that fair?

But there it was, clear as day on her iPhone. Rain.

I realized that if it was going to rain, I was going to be in trouble. It was also going to be fairly cold (4 degrees Celsius low and 8 high). I had a hoodie, which was by no means rain-resistant. In fact, it would just soak up rain like a milk in a napkin.

It was a classic catch-22. Wear the hoodie and be warm at first and then eventually freeze when it soaks through and becomes really heavy, or go in only the sleeveless marathon shirt and be really cold and wet from the start?

In the end I was saved by buying a rain-proof windbreaker - definitely the most useful thing I've bought this year.

Minjeong, who was tired after a long day of making sure I didn't perish within my own poorly laid plans, went home to Incheon. And I went to bed.

That night was one of the longest nights I remember, even though I had less the seven hours. It felt like three nights. I woke up at least once every single hour.

I finally got out of bed just before 6 AM. I picked up my bag and walked outside.

This was the lowest point of the day. It was still dark out, I was tired, and it was raining. Not hard, but a depressing kind of drizzle that slowly drains your soul.

The urge to turn back inside, ask for my key back, and go to sleep, was large. I could get a good sleep, and then eventually crawl to nearby coffee shop, read, and watch the fools run past in the rain.

No one was with me. I could just tell them all I ran the marathon. No one would know any better.

I took a step out from under the awning, and my shoes (five-fingers) were instantly soaked through with stupid, cold water.

Still not convinced of my plan to run the marathon, I made my way to convenience store. I bought a large water, and then went to the back, set my bag down, and started my breakfast operation (below).

And an operation it was. I was there for about twenty minutes, just hanging out while my oatmeal cooked and then cooled and then I ate it (you can see it cooking in the picture. Next to the microwave is my bag with all that stuff I already told you about).

Meanwhile the shopkeeper would give me dirty or suspicious looks. I didn't really care. I wasn't happy for what was about to happen.

While I was eating, a Korean man came in. Instantly I knew he was a runner in the marathon. He was skinny and fit looking, and had a backpack. He asked where Sejung Road was (where the marathon started), and then he left.

Somehow his being there gave me a little encouragement. At least I would go to the start and check things out.

After that a lady came in and looked at my oatmeal. She asked me something in Korean. I understood enough that she was asking about the smell. I said it smells good. She asked me some other things which I didn't understand, so I just said "oatmeal, oatmeal" until she went away, but not before I offered her a bite of it. She declined.

On my way out I bought a vitamin C drink, mostly as a way to smooth things out with the shopkeeper. He said, "Marathon?" and said yes. "Good luck," he said. I thanked him.

Maybe he wasn't angry with me.

The next stop was Ediya, the adjacent coffee shop. In the week before the marathon I abstained from coffee and alcohol. Coffee was definitely the harder of the two to resist, and I was awaiting this cup with great anticipation.

What would I get? Espresso, latte, americano? Espresso seemed the most practical - it would give me the caffeine with the minimal amount of liquid. Latte, while being the most delicious of the three, had the slight added risk of disagreeing with my stomach (because of the milk).

In the end, I settled on an americano. It had more liquid than espresso, but I hadn't had coffee in nearly a week and I wanted to savor it a little more than a quick shot would allow.

The coffee shop was closed, despite their promise the night before! I decided to go on towards the starting line. I still had my Starbucks canned coffee as back-up if I needed it. Fortunately, McDonalds was open and serving coffee, and I got my americano there.

So now I was walking in the rain in the dark with a stuffed bag on one arm, and my americano and water bottle tenuously gripped in my other. As I walked, scalding coffee splashed around and ran down my arm.

I wasn't upset so much as I was in disbelief of myself and the choices I had made that led me to this moment.

I didn't have to much time to reflect on that though, because suddenly I needed to poop really badly.

There was a subway stop nearby with a bathroom. Down below I had discovered the hidden cave of the marathon runners. The area was packed with people in shorts, running up and down, and stretching.

It was one of those rare times when the men's line is much longer than the women's.

Afterwards my journey to the starting line continued (it seemed like a real journey at this point). I realized I now only had 15 minutes left to get to the truck to drop my bag off, otherwise I would be stuck with it.

That left me with little time to take pictures, but I did get a pretty nice one of the starting area, near the awesome soldier statue in downtown Seoul (below).

As you can see, the ground is covered in stupid, cold water.

Here's the ground again, still covered in water.

As I stashed my bag, I resolved to finish the race. I needed to get my bag back (my keys and wallet were in there, and now my camera too), and the best way to do that was to finish the race. Also, I was feeling a little more charged up surrounded with all these runners and supporters.

Just then a Korean transvestite run past in full make-up and wig.

I made my way over to an outdoor heater, and hung out there for a while, and then I jogged up some stairs and stretched.

The race was beginning, and I looked for my group which was D. We got started after A, B, and C. While we were waiting, some people behind me were commenting on my shoes in English, so I talked to them.

I felt some added encouragement and pressure to finish the race - I needed to represent my bizarre shoes and well as myself.

One red-haired guy was also an English teacher. When the race started, we ran next to each other for the first 10 kilometers or so. He said there were about 40,000 people running, of which only about 1000 were foreigners like him and me.

Probably most of those foreigners were also resident English teachers or military. Some were invited (some Kenyans who made up 8 of 10 of the top seeds, some Japanese, and a smattering of other countries).

Within the first 15 minutes, we passed a hedge where about 10 guys were lined up and peeing on the side of the road. In the beginning half of the race, there were lots of people peeling off to pee in hedges or alleyways. When I finally lost my red-haired friend (whose name I never discovered) it was because I had to pee too.

The beginning of the race was awesome. 16 kilometers flew past, and I scarcely noticed. I discovered that running in a pack of people is incredibly fun. There's something more than hippy superstition to communal energy.

For a long time I ran next to a "pacemaker." He's a guy with a balloon tied to his hat that says a finish time (this guy was 4:30). If you run next to this guy for the whole race, you'll end with a time near 4 hours and 30 minutes. They have pacemakers for every 10 minute intervals up to 5 hours. I don't know where the low end begins.

I was feeling good at the 21 kilometer mark - halfway! They were giving out bananas and water there. The clock read something like 2:2o or 2:30 I think (but I get to subtract some time because I started with group D).

At one point the race took us under a bridge. Under the bridge, everyone would shout and it would echo and sounded really cool.

I started dipping into my pocket for snickers and eating them without stopping. It was a little hard to breathe, but I managed.

By 30 kilometers, I had run farther than I had ever run before by at least a few miles. My left leg started acting funny - it wasn't quite moving the way I told it to. Almost, but not quite. It felt like it was locking up every now and then and I almost stumbled a few times. But I didn't.

By 33 kilometers I was getting anxious to finish the race. While the kilometers had flown past in the beginning, I was now counting every one, and they seemed farther apart than they should be.

Around this time the sun came out and the rain stopped. Then the sun disappeared again, but at least the rain was over with.

At 34 kilometers, we crossed the Han River on Jamsil bridge. There were drummers and people holding their hands out, and shouting "whiting!" which means "fighting!" (some Koreans have trouble with "f"). Fighting is an expression that I think only exists in Korea, and it basically means "don't give up!"

It was energizing, and I high-fived some people on the roadside and shouted "fighting!" back.

At 36 kilometers, I started counting to 100 in my head very slowly, and then starting again from zero. This was a pretty good distraction from my aching legs and feet.

At 40 kilometers I could see Jamsil Stadium, inside of which was the finish line. I was still counting - out loud now. I picked up my pace a little bit, and almost fell down when my leg wobbled under me.

Inside the stadium was a race track. The runners did one loop and then crossed the finish line. I was ready to be done. I picked up the pace, and for the last 100 meters or so I sprinted and crossed the line.

My legs weren't being very cooperative afterwards, and I shuffled around like I was very old, and was generally being very melodramatic. I traded in my tracking chip for snacks and my medal.

I spotted my red-haired friend again, who had apparently finished about ten minutes before I did. He asked if I had ink on my shirt. I looked down. My right nipple had bleed through my shirt, and I hadn't noticed until just now.

I sat on the grass near a tent, and some Koreans brought me a free lunch of kimchi, tofu, soup, and makali (rice wine).

Spilled Milk

We've got these new cups at school that seem like they were intentionally designed to spill. Some of the design flaws include:

1. They are very wide.
2. They have convex bottoms.
3. They have some poor excuse for a handle that was obviously never meant for a human being to use.

Every morning we serve the preschoolers milk in these cups, and every morning they spill them.

It's not their fault, really. As I said before, these cups are really sucky. And not only are the cups terrible, but we need to fit about eight of them on a plate, so we stack a few of them.

So in the end, we have a castle of cups, brimming with delicious milk, presented in the middle of a table of thirsty preschoolers who haven't yet come into full control of their finer motor skills.

There is really only one possible outcome.

So today they spilled the milk again. One cup spilled all over the plate.

Good, I thought to myself. The milk spilled, which was unavoidable anyway, and the disaster area is contained within the plate. It will be an easy task to take the plate to the kitchen, and.... oh my God, what are they doing???

While I was wrapped in my own thoughts about the milk, the children had launched their own milk clean-up campaign. I had no time to react and stop it.

They ran to get toilet paper from a roll we keep in the classroom. They each took a couple squares and vigourosly dabbed them into the milk pond.

The squares would quickly absorb the maximum amount of milk.

"No, just leave it there, Johnny," I said. But Johnny looked up at me with his big, vacant eyes. He could understand that his name had been said, and that I was trying to communicate something to him.

But he didn't figure it out. So he took the milk soaked square, and carried it back across the room to the trashcan, leaving a long, dripping trail of milk.

Of course the other kids followed Johnny's shining example, and before long, my small, contained spill had become a full blown, all-encompassing milkastrophe.

The Six Million Man

There's a river nearby my house where I like to run.

I should clarify that by "river," I mean "stream", and by "house," I mean "apartment",

And by "stream" I of course mean "sewage runoff."

Anyway, that's where I was running the other day.

A lot of people were out that day because it was a holiday here in Korea - "Sam Il" aka March 1st, is the day some Korean college students wrote a declaration of independence of their country from Japan, and mailed it to the local Japanese government along with turning themselves over to the police.

So anyway, I was running on the day of the anniversary of that.

A man was running ahead of me, so I followed him. I decided that I would just go wherever he went.

We got to the end of the trail about a mile later, and he turned around and started running the other way. This is when he first saw me, and I gave him a nod.

After that, he would keep looking over his shoulder every 5 minutes or so to see where I was. One time I almost caught up to him, but I think he heard me, and he picked up his pace.

He was pretty fast. I probably could have caught up to him, but I didn't want to exhaust myself, and besides, I didn't know how far we were going.

Whenever I got close he would speed up. I had to pick up my pace just to keep from losing him.

We went to the very end of the trail in the other direction (maybe 6 more miles), and he turned around. This time he gave me a hearty "Hey!" or "Hoy!" or something like that, and I gave him a smile and an out-of-breath muttering that was supposed to be "Hi."

This time he waited, and we ran together for some way. We had some conversation, but he didn't speak English, and least not in sentences, so it was mostly in Korean, of which I understood a bit.

I managed to tell him that I was preparing for a marathon. He suggested that we run again later, so he gave me his card.

We met up again Saturday morning. He wanted to meet at 6 AM, which I eventually negotiated to 8 AM, and he somehow renegotiated to 7:30.

We drove to Incheon Grand Park. We ran around the park twice, and then up a hill in the middle of the park twice - it took about two and a half hours.

Afterwards he asked if I wanted to drink makali.

Maybe I mentioned makali before. It's one of Korea's own alcoholic drinks. It's a kind of wine made out of rice. I don't know how they make it, all I know is that it's delicious.

So of course I agreed, and off we went, drinking at 11 AM, or as I like to call it, "business as usual."

(Just kidding, Mom, about usually getting drunk in the morning).

Afterwards, he took me to Incheon City Hall, where he works. We showered, and I thought that was the end of it, but it turns out he wasn't ready to quit.

"Health, 10 minutes."

He meant that he wanted to work out at the gym for ten minutes. I said sure, and so we went to his office gym and worked out for like 40 minutes.

Whenever I was resting or stretching or otherwise slacking off, he'd hustle me away to another machine.

Also, this man is 55 years old.

Earlier, when we were running up the hill, he called me the "six million man."

I got the reference, but I tried to tell him that I had never seen that movie, which I don't think he understood, and then he said something else which I didn't understand, and then we both just laughed.

Another idea floating out into the ether, and no one understands it.

Marathon

I signed up for a marathon last week. It's going to happen in Seoul on the 20th of March, which gives me 20 days from today to prepare.

So far, I have never run more than 15 miles. I was going to run 17 miles yesterday, but it was rainy. I still went running anyway, and I had mixed feelings about it. It was nice that no one else was outside, but that was for a good reason - it was really cold, wet, and muddy.

In the end, I decided that if I was going to try to run the full 17 miles that day, I would probably get sick, so I went home after about 8 miles.

I hope that on the day of the marathon I will:

-complete it in less than 5 hours (they allot you 1 hour/fifth of the race, and if you take more than that, they'll sweep you up in one of their sweep vehicles).

-not poop on myself.

Two modest goals, I think.

bling bling

bling bling (above).

Last week Saturday was one of the first warm days this year, and I took advantage. For hours, I wandered around the streets with my fellow English teachers and allies, Logan and Bettina.

We had high aspirations for the day - visiting a palace and getting a quote a full back tattoo (don't worry, it's not for me, but for discretions' sake, I won't say whether it's for Logan or Bettina).

In the end, there was no time for the palace, and we just barely found the tattoo parlor.

The reason it took us so long to find the tattoo parlor was mostly thanks to a truly diabolical map, which lists as major landmarks a coffee shop that has since gone out of business and a movie theatre that probably never existed. Three roads were on the map, none of which resembled their real life counterparts.

In the end, we called the tattoo parlor and had someone meet us and take us there.

But before we did that, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Bettina ordered guacamole.

"Sorry, we don't have that."

"But... you're a Mexican restaurant."

"Sorry."

Then she got her quesadilla (above), which made her even sadder. It was less than a full tortilla, cut into two slices. Also, did I say there was no guacamole?

She asked if she could have some toppings from my burrito, but I refused.

I (above), on the other hand, was very content. In this picture I am drinking a corona and a horchata at the same time. It was a really good horchata.

My burrito, unlike Bettina's quesadilla, was quite good. And for some reason, it had avocado (the quintessential ingredient of guacamole).

And finally, this is a missile (it's not relevant to the story).

The Snow on Chungryung San and 2 other photos

I go to this mountain near my house pretty often. It's called Chungryung. I want to show you some pictures of what it looks like covered in snow.

Here's a picture of Songdo from the top of the mountain. It's where all the rich folks live.

This is supposed to be a picture of the Incheon bridge, which is like seven miles long. But it's too cloudy, so you can't see it, can you? Anyway, you would have really liked it.

There are trails like this one all over the mountain.
This is my new friend, Minjung. She just built a lego robot that can walk, so she's pretty pleased with herself right now.
This is a Buddhist temple at the base of the mountain. You can't go very far without tripping over a Buddhist temple on this mountain.
Some stairs.
This is probably just a radio tower.
Burial mounds.


This is why I come up here.
Who are these people?
This was from a trip to an island I took back in September. We hiked along the coastline, scrambling over rocks and stuff. This is when we stopped to pose for a commercial about young, hip people.

I hope you enjoyed my photos.