Fun in Pohang, Gyeongju, Daegu!

Ok, so I left off in Jeju.
Unfortunately, I had to return from my beautiful resort vacation and get back to "real" life.
When I returned I stayed with my old co-workers Liz and Ryan for a week. I started my new job the day I returned, and I must say it is a great gig! I now work at English World which is in DongCheon-Dong (동천동), Gyeongju. My new hours are 2-8 with 12, 25-minute classes. The day goes by so quickly! The kids are good, it was easy to get the hang of the new system and new classes while I was shadowing the teacher I would be replacing. Though I must admit, discipline is a bit lax and the kids English levels are not as good as the kids at Wonderland. Overall though, it's a good position, my boss Cate is really nice and I will like being here over the next year. I will also be working with one other foreign teacher, my friend Harry!

After a week of shadowing Matt's classes and living with Liz and Ryan, my apartment was finally ready! Definitely a downgrade from my 2-bedroom western style apartment with a stove and bathtub, but it's still a nice place. Now, I have a studio apartment with a Korean style kitchen and bathroom. Korean kitchens don't have ovens, simply 2 gas burners to cook with. Also, the bathrooms don't have tubs. There is a shower head in the wall above the sink, luckily mine is not directly above the sink, but a bit to the right so I have an actual shower area, but no tub or curtain or anything. Korean bathrooms have a drain under sink for the water from the shower, and they keep a pair of bathroom slippers by the door so you don't have to get your feet wet when entering the bathroom after someone has showered. I must say, I think I like having a studio apartment better. After all, it is just me here so it's nice to have everything in the same room!

Enough about the new place and onto my adventures. First was Pohang. A few weekends ago I got invited by one of my friends to go to Pohang. I took the train up there in the early afternoon and met up with this guy, Matt (cool story actually, we met on the plane ride from Tokyo to Busan when I was returning to Korea from my trip home) and one of his friends. We had originally planned on going to the beach in Busan, but weren't able to get a train there until 3:30 so we decided to go to Bukbu beach in Pohang instead. While it was a nice looking beach and we were able to find a nice spot in the sand under an umbrella, the water was not nice. Like I've said before, I'm not a big fan of swimming in the ocean, but I decided to go out there with Matt anyway. After walking through about 2 feet of seaweed we got to an area of water and soon realized that there were jellyfish just about everywhere. We turned around and got out of the water, just reaffirming my desire to NOT swim in the ocean. After walking around for a bit we found a place to sit under an umbrella and were immediately entertained by an argument between a Korean guy and some workers. These workers were digging up a life guard stand right where this Korean guy was sitting. Apparently they made him move and he didn't want to, so he just threw a fit. At one point he even ran into the hole they had dug up and the police had to go and get him out of there. Oh, the amusing things you see in Korea.

It was hot, so eventually we left, walked around and went to watch Inception in the nice air conditioned movie theater. ^_^ Not much else happened, we got dinner and eventually ended up finding a place to stay. Got breakfast in the morning then I went back to Gyeongju.

After an uneventful workweek in Gyeongju, I spent the typical friday night at Grazie. It was fun, as always. Matt decided to spend his free weekend visiting me instead of staying in Pohang. So he came here Saturday afternoon, we walked around town, I introduced him to bingsu. Bingsu is a popular snack in Korea during the summer, it is crushed ice with sweetened azuki beans, fruit, and chocolate. That night we met up with all my friends for Dak Galbi and drinks at London Hof. We probably had the best game of "13" I have ever played!.
Sunday we wandered around Hwangseong park. In Hwangseong park there is a hill with a statue of General Kim Yushin who led the unification of Korea in the 7th Century during the Silla dynasty. From the top of the hill where the statue is there is also a gorgeous view of the city. After Hwangseong park we moved onto Tumuli park which is a park of Royal Tombs from, of course, the Silla Dynasty. It was my 4th time there, but it's a beautiful park and I always enjoy it. I also introduced Matt to the DVD bang, then we got dinner and called it a night. He left monday morning, but it was such a great weekend! I really enjoyed having him around. Now, he is back in the states. Also, like an idiot, I didn't take any pictures that weekend. I regret that...

 On a more controversial note, on Thursday night I met up with a group of my friends to eat 개고기...dog meat! Koreans breed a certain type of dog for consumption called the Nureongi.This type of dog has long been bread as livestock as is unique to Korea. From what I have heard, dog has usually been consumed during war and times of hardship when meat is too expensive...but oddly enough, to go to a dog restaurant it cost us 30,000 won (about 30 bucks) for a plate of meat.

They serve the meat with a few side dishes, similar to samgyeopsal. We also ordered a soup. Honestly, I must say I didn't really think either was that good. The meat was really tender, but too fatty and chewy for me to really enjoy, and I didn't like the spices in the soup. So, one for the books, I have eaten dog meat, but definitely a one time thing!

This past weekend of course started out with Friday night at Grazie. We have recently gained a lot of new EPIK teachers so it was great fun to hang out with new people! We eventually moved the party to Metro, which is a really cool new bar in the area. After that there was a plan to go to Boss night club, but on the way to get a taxi...well I'm not really sure what was going on. We were walking down the street and there were tons of people standing around, 2 guys were fighting, and there were broken soju bottles on the ground. One guy walked away with his girlfriend, his face was all cut up and bloody and the girls shirt was covered in blood. They seemed ok. We quickly walked past and decided not to go to Boss. As I was saying bye to the friend I was walking with and getting my taxi, a guy ran past being chased by 3 police officers. Way too much going on for a friday night!

Saturday was also eventful, but in a much better way! I met up with Joanne, Kayley, and Amsbry to go to Daegu. We had Indian food for lunch, did some shopping, met up with other people, then went to the Holy Grill (a Canadian-owned western restaurant) for Dan's "surprise" birthday dinner! The food, cake, and company was good. After that, we grabbed some drinks in a bag and moved onto the themed Funk Party at a bar called JEEEP. The party was awesome! People dressed up in '70s style clothing and danced all night to Funk music. It was an amazing time and I met tons of awesome new people!

Well that was certainly a very eventful few weeks! Coming up we have a concert with some of Korea's biggest pop singers! Hope you all are doing well, I miss everybody at home so much! I have a feeling that this year being away will be much harder than the last...

On a side note, I've updated my pictures on Picasa. 
http://picasaweb.google.com/aeihrig