This past weekend my language exchange family, the Kos', invited me to go with them for a "Temple Stay" in the mountains of Ulsan.  In ended up being not so much a temple stay but a weekend seminar on meditation and other workshops associated with Buddhism.  i attended several seminars and did a lot of meditation, but since I don't understand Korean it ended up being a lot of napping which is fine with me!  Saturday rained all day and the weather was miserable.  It was a little bit colder in the mountains and the rain just made it worse.  In the morning there was a small stream trickling down the mountain but by the evening it was full blown white water rapids.   I had decided to buy myself a birthday gift ( a new camera), but I didn't get much use out of it the first day.  The second day however I got some great pics.  There really isn't anything to highlight about the temple stay other than it was nice to see a little bit more of Korea.  They drove but were staying an extra day and I had to come back Sunday for work on Monday.  I took the KTX (Korea's high speed train) from Ulsan to Daejeon and then hopped in a taxi for a short ride to Seodaejeon  and then a regular train to Iksan.  The trains were pretty cheap in my opinion.  The high speed rail was 25,800 won and the regular train was only 5,200.  Both trips were about an hour.  Daejeon is huge and it piqued my interest just a little to see a larger city.  It seemed like there was a lot going on!

So head on over to the gallery to check out my pics.  A lot of them were messing with the settings on my camera but rather than only show you a few I included them all.  Enjoy!

I started a language exchange with a family named the Ko's.  I am helping their 12 year-old son practice English and his mother is teaching me Korean.  Yesterday was the first day we worked on Korean and it was an excellent start.  I am starting with the basics and she provided a great foundation with the alphabet and numbers.  I am really fortunate to have found a great family to do this with as some language exchange tends to be one sided.  So far it is working out beneficial for both of us.  She is also fluent in Spanish so whatever she can't explain in English she is able to do in Spanish so both of us speaking that language has been helpful as well.

They invited me to a "Temple Stay" in Ulsan last weekend.  I will write a blog post and add photos to the gallery later today so stay tuned!

If you haven't caught NBC's "Awake" yet you are missing out on one of the more refreshing shows out there.  "Awake" stars the guy who plays Lucious Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies.  His name escapes me.  Something Isaacs??  He plays a detective Britten, a man who just awoke from a serious car accident to find himself living in two realities.  In one reality, his wife died in the car accident and his son survived.  In the other reality, his wife survived and his son died.  Right away it's an interesting gripping plot.  He goes to a psychiatrist in each reality, solves crimes, interacts with his wife and son, and pretty much lives a normal life.   He wears a colored band throughout the day to remind him which reality he is in.  You have to watch it if you haven't gotten a chance.  The best is at the end of every episode introduction you hear the female psychiatrist say, " I can assure you Detective Britten this is not a dream" in which he replies, "That's what the other shrink keeps telling me".

Just brilliant!!

Oh, and the other two actors I recognize are the male psychiatrist who was one of the high up feds giving orders in "Prison Break" and Fez from "That 70's Show" plays a younger detective partner in one reality to Britten (in the other he is still on patrol).

So this past Friday I played football with the kids for the first time.  I am completely out of shape and knowing that i'm a soon to be 36 year old running around with kids half my age it was going to be a challenge.  I certainly didn't hold my own but I wasn't a waste of space out there either.  A few more Friday's and I think i'll be able to join the other guys my age and play some competitive games in the future.  The kids did a great job of making me feel welcomed and didn't act like I was a teach infringing on their club time.  They seemed to willingly involve me.  We will see if that continues though.  I told them i'd be back every Friday so we'll see.  They did laugh pretty hard when the only shot I took flew over the net heading towards the street.  I did have a few assists though...

After football the teachers had a get together.  It was ANOTHER rainy Friday so it was indoors.  They had a few games set up but the main game was volleyball and I got called to action right away (think my height had something to do with it, lol).  It was so much fun.  The teachers were really good at teamwork and they were constantly setting the ball to me.  The were really organized, unselfish, and not bumbling around like most times I play volleyball with an older crowd.  I was thoroughly impressed.  Anyway, kill after kill I was beginning to get annoyed if somebody got a hand on the ball even if we won the point.  Don't get me wrong, I was stoned a few times and our team actually lost two out of three games, but I was on fire! 

In the end reality sets in that I am a scrub surrounded by 17 year olds but an Adonis in the 40-60 Korean crowd.  I did get a lot of exposure and had a lot of teachers come up and commend me on my performance.  I also had my own little group of cheerleaders that I never caught a hold of after the game to thank.  It was a great time and I enjoyed the comraderie the teachers seemed to have with each other.  I look forward to future events!

Not a long post here.  I went to a Korean Theater for the first time.  It was awesome because they had kiosks with English options.  Gotta love that!  It was a movie called Battleship.  They  had Korean subtitles of course which is only a minor distraction so no complaints.  It was a very pro American military and even Japanese military movie so it was funny to hear some Koreans clapping at the end.  I am not going to do a review, it was just a big manly action movie with a rehashed plot but it wasn't bad.  The only real difference between the Korean theater that I can note is you purchase your seat like you would at a sporting event.  When I went to buy the ticket the movie was starting in 5 minutes and there was one seat left towards the back and all the rest available were right in front of the screen.  It's pretty much the same as if you show up late and all the seats are filled.  I sat in row K seat 4 and no one sank my Battleship...