The Daegu Summer

Today we had zero classes to teach. We came to work and did about an hour worth of answering some questions out of an English study book to make an answer guide. I had already done most of the questions she gave me at an earlier time. I told her and she didn't really believe me so I went into my old document copy and pasted the answers into a new document with a few new answers and submitted it. Probably took 30 minutes in all. Summer in Daegu. Summer is here and it's going to get hot. Sitting around in a humid classroom for 7 hours gets to be brutal. Not so hot that you are sweating but just a little damp and uncomfortable. The air conditioner comes on in July I believe. Teachers of course have to wear long pants and shoes and collared shirts, while students can come in with shorts and no socks and bad foot odor. In the police station, have to put the cop uniform on over your shirt and put the hat on. The shirt is a vinyl oven.

How do you cool down? Drink lots of water at work. Naeng-myeon is an iced noodle soup. Seemed really weird to me at first but tastes great and really cools you off. It's just some noodles and veg in a shaved ice broth. Add the spicy mustard to make it spicy (redundant). Ice cream is well-loved here, but more traditional is Pat-bing-su. Shaved ice in a cup with some soy milk - coconut milk, sugars, sweet red beans, corn flakes, candies and a little fresh fruit on top. Strange and delicious. Huge visors are out on old men and womens foreheads. They look bulletproof so they probably do a good job of keeping sun off the face. Go to the PC room to cool off with all the kids and young men. This place knows no seasons and you can cool off there for about 50 cents an hour. Play some games at the same time if you are so inclined. Next stop is stamina foods. Vital to keep you going during the long hot summer days. Dog meat soup is the notorious dish here known for vitality. If you can get over the fact you are eating man's best friend. The buddhist say eating it will bring bad luck. Seems like your luck would be worse for eating pig intestines (a favorite korean dish). If you object to eating pets
He shoots!
He scores!
He'll eat your labradors!
Park Ji-Sung!
maybe you can try eating the goat meat or snake or racoon. There is no stamina in vegetarian foods unfortunately. Maybe because they are all good for stamina according to ancient Greek olympians. Would be great to dip in a nice cold un-chlorinated body of water, but the lakes and rivers nearby drain agricultural areas. Up in the mountains, streams only run during the storm. Springs are captured by temples and city facilities for drinking water. There's always the beach, only an hour or two away. Though, when everyone wants to go it could take you 4 hours to get there by car. In Busan, you have to arrive by 10 in the morning if you want to have a spot to sit. Haven't seen real beach weather yet, though. This weekend is the overnight hiking trip in Jirisan Nat'l Park. Reid, Thomas, Sung Min (Swat), Graham (NCC) and I are headed into the mountains for some nature loving. We made the plans for last weekend and then ended up having to play in the soccer game Saturday night to avoid forfeiture. We're planning to get up there early Saturday and stay in a mountain shelter that night. We'll rent a dirty blanket for $1 and try to get some sleep in what should be a hot and loud shelter. We'll make an assault on the largest peak on the Korean peninsula Sunday morning for sunrise and then it'll be down into the valley and waterfalls and taking the bus home to Daegu. A short trip but it should be a blast with all the boys out there. So much camraderie.

May was an eventful month for the Daegu English teachers. After returning from China, I had my cousin, Jessica, come to stay for a few days the following week. We went to a Gaelic Football party and took a day trip out to the Haeinsa (temple) where the largest Buddhist scripture sits on a massive series of seawater treated wood. Thousands of years old and thousands of carved wood planks and not a single mistake. It is the defining piece of Buddhist literature surviving today as far as I am concerned. The next week was the visit of Aaron, Peter and Jay from Seattle. High school bros and Thomas's cousin. Oh yeah and my sister was here too but she went home to drive the Prius and play Wii. After infusing them in Korean culture for the week in Daegu and watching a disappointing champions league final, we left for Seoul and visited the DMZ looking into North Korea and upon the city of Kaesong. No special precautions were going on despite the continued missile and nuke testing by Conquistador Kim. The most fascinating part may have been the infiltration tunnels dug by North Korea to invade the South, worked on for decades. The third one discovered is about 30 minutes outside Seoul and was discovered some time ago by digging a huge interesection tunnel with a massive German-made tunnel digger. That was quite a tunnel - very steep. There are supposedly hundreds of tunnels on the loose that they don't know about. I believe they have discovered 3 or 4 major ones. We also discovered that there is a South Korean owned factory in Kaesong where a few hundred South Koreans go to work everyday. It's kind of a strange phenomenon and they are trying to build more factories (as part of the sunshine policy) and increase economic cooperation to bring the poor Northerners out of the terrible malnutrition and poverty. I guess the Northerners that get to work there are loaded compared to the common man. (I should really stay far away from North Korea after finishing this post.)

We also welcomed Robert, a new teacher to our school and saw Adina leave. She will be marrying Brad, another teacher at our school in October back in the states. They didn't know each other before Korea so it is an IBC Town marriage. The first.

As for me, I am considering a few short term marriage proposals but will most likely be traveling solo to the Arctic Circle for a few years of studying - arriving August 7. Definitely a few things to look forward to before then, though. There will be Mudfest, more travels and more heat. Now those are some things we can all look forward to...