Christmas and New Year's.

The days and weeks just keep getting busier and busier. Christmas and New Year's both came and went, and now January 2011 is about to join them in history. Our work Christmas Party (on Christmas Day) was an extravagant one to say the least. Apparently, it was held in the most expensive reception hall in all of Daegu at the Interburgo Hotel in Manchon. The party included a terribly sub-par buffet, a talent show with pyrotechnics and lighting effects, irrelevant power-point presentations and ₩600,000,000 in bonuses. We would say that it's about $600,000, but the actual conversion is more like $540,000.

The buffet looked like it had solid potential, but it turned out to be nothing but 50 feet of table space covered by a variety of pastas and Korean dishes that had gone cold sans a flame below them. It wasn't until about 45 minutes into the meal that we noticed another table that has some cold turkey and mashed potatoes as well as a person making made-to-order stir-fry. Still, I'd rate the meal a 5. Not too great for the priciest ticket in town.

The talent show had some high points and low points. There were some acts that I could not make any sense of - for example, one that was a 10 minute skit in Korean that half the room didn't understand, followed by 5 minutes of them passing chewed gum from mouth to floor to mouth,  and finally into the boss-man's mouth. They won second place bringing in ₩4,000,000. I'm still confused. There were other notable acts, like my co-worker who sang and played an acoustic version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and a couple that did a salsa dance. I, of course, played piano as my fingers nearly shook right off my hands from nerves. I have never played in front of so many people. I was on stage, front and center, and then they felt it necessary to point a spot light right in my eyes, blinding me and leaving the piano keys in the shadows; not a good combination. I didn't place in the top 5 out of 18, but I still got a ₩500,000 prize, as all participants did. It was definitely the fastest 500 bucks I've ever made, but can't say it was completely painless. 

Following the party, which lasted from 5pm to close to 11pm, everyone fought over cabs at the hotel to get downtown as soon as possible and join our non-co-workers. It was a pretty fun night as everyone was out and looking to have a good time. I sensed that some people were a bit nostalgic and missed Christmas with their friends and families at home, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit. 

The next day, apparently known as "Boxing Day," some friends had another Christmas dinner party. This meal was delightful with a scrumptious turkey, delicious and healthful salads, pesto pasta, endless vino, and of course, the mash. We finished off the the night with apple pie and too many rounds of Apples-to-Apples. That meal trumped the Interburgo.

The following weekend was obviously New Year's. Most of Daegu went on a ski/snowboarding trip a few hours outside of Daegu. They stayed local for the countdown to midnight and were all on a bus by 1am. I heard some pretty eventful stories from their weekend in the mountains, but Daegu was a lovely weekend as well; when in good company. We celebrated with some champagne and other cocktails. All was good until I realized my wallet had been stolen before 3am. The night took a small dive as I rushed home to call 4 credit/debit card companies. Nothing was charged, but that wasn't going to bring back my $100+ that was stolen. I ended up getting my wallet back a couple days later with everything as it was, minus the cash. Oh well, 2011 - at least you redeemed yourself a bit. What else do you have for me?

 I leave you with Nathan Paagard's acoustic version of "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Sick-mas.

It's Christmas Eve in America and Christmas Day in Korea, but really the day is just another day. It's doesn't exactly feel like Christmas in this part of the world. Although I don't celebrate it, the last 6 Christmases have been nice spending it with my observing friends' and boyfriends' families, and I miss it a bit this year. However, our school is throwing us a Christmas party in the evening: food, drinks, alcohol, talent show (which I am partaking in...). More to come on that one later.

I have seen some small Christmas trees around town, and some stores have been playing American Christmas songs, which is always fun, but that's about as far as it goes. At school, our manager ordered us a big feast for lunch: sushi, some Korean fried pork things, some sort of soup, green tea pizza and some breaded chicken breasts. One of the foreign teachers dressed up as Santa and gave all the students in the school some candy - well, except for the middle schoolers, we don't like them. Other than that, just another day at school with fascinating writing (see example photo), and at least one student per class demanding, "Teacher! Give me candy!"

On a less-than-thrilling note, the winter season has brought sickness with it in full force! The students act as disease-carrying parasites that attack when least expected. They may look cute in these pictures, but don't be fooled. School is essentially a place to unavoidably contract illnesses. I thought I had trained the little rats to cover their mouths just in time for the cold and sick season, but wow, was I mistaken. Three weeks ago, I came down with tonsillitis and paid a visit to the doctor. It was pretty miserable being sick, but after a shot of who-knows-what in my behind, I was feeling a lot better. The doc also gave me a bunch of unmarked pills to take 5 pills, 3 times a day for 3 days. Perhaps needless to say, I was feeling almost 100% by the end of all that. I thought I was done with sickness for a while, but again was mistaken.

Perhaps there are a few different strings of viruses going around, and my immunity to the others has not yet built itself up. After feeling healthy for a solid two weeks, the ever-so-lovely children continued with their coughing down my throat. Last Friday night, I contracted some sort of cough which would soon become bronchitis. I spent the entire weekend in bed, had to take a sick day on Monday, and finally made it back to the doc for Wednesday after our work meeting. Bronchitis - another shot in the bum, a bunch of unmarked pills for 3 days and some "frog" syrup that's supposed to help with coughing and sore throat. Now, it's been a solid week of this illness and it's still not exactly close to gone. The rounds of medication didn't seem to work the magic this time.

Earlier today, I had my last piano practice session before the talent show tomorrow. The piano teacher made me some sort of hot beverage full of honey - it wasn't too bad. She then tried to explain a home remedy, something about pears, ginger and honey. She wrote me a note in Korean of what to do - my Korean coworker told me to that it said to mix those ingredients in a bowl of water and put that bowl inside another bowl of boiling water and do something. I don't know. But it sounded complicated.

I'll be going back to the doc in the morning for a follow-up, and I'm crossing my fingers that she can do something magical. I really hope my immune system is as tough as Stone Cold Steve Austin after all this. I will continue to take vitamins and eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away, and all that other healthy stuff. Please do your job, immune system. At below zero-degree Fahrenheit temperatures and sick, coughing kids that won't stay home from school, I will need all the strength I can get!

Merry Christmas, world!

                                     Bibio - Lover's Carvings (vocals kick in around 2:00)

On the Border at the DMZ

The last several weeks have been insanely busy and have flown by. December is already well on its way, not sure how that even happened.

Towards the end of November, I was able to make a trip to the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. Good thing we went when we did, because a few days later, the tension shot up between NK and SK and things are still not exactly stable.

I probably should have posted about the DMZ closer to when it happened because I can't remember many of the facts anymore. It was a very interesting trip, worth one trek, but not a second. After teaching on Friday night, we took the KTX fast train to Seoul and finally settled into a seedy love motel around 2:30am - wake up call 7:00am. After Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a bagel, we headed for our tour bus with a bunch of other foreigners.

The DMZ goes 2km into North Korea and 2km into South Korea and is supposedly the most heavily militarized border in the world. Our first stop was Imjingak and the Bridge of Freedom at the edge of the DMZ, 2km from the actual North Korean border. Close to 13,000 prisoners crossed the bridge to "freedom" in 1953. They also had part of an old train with more than 1,000 bullets that was derailed in the war. There were some good touristy photo opps there and a small amusement park that I thought was abandoned until I saw the "Super Viking" swinging across the sky.

Next, we went to the Third Tunnel - North Korea had dug many tunnels with the plan of secretly attacking Seoul at some point. We weren't allowed to take photos in the tunnel area, but we did have some great hard-hats that we were required to wear. We looked unfathomably awesome. Some parts of the tunnel got pretty low, and the foreigners tend to be taller than 5 feet tall. I could hardly contain my laughter when every 3 seconds, on beat like a metronome, hard-hats would clink on the tunnel ceiling followed by a slight groan. I enjoyed it.

This full day tour was a long one! Next, we went to an observation point of North Korea that we weren't allowed to take photos at once you stepped foot over this line. It made no sense whatsoever, but I did, however, break the rules.  I accidentally took a picture on the wrong side of the line of someone getting busted for taking a picture on the wrong side of the line. We also stopped at Dorasan station, which is the last train stop in South Korea. They built it hoping that it would open up some railways into North Korea, but that didn't work out.

Finally, we made it to the actual border of North and South Korea - Panmunjom, or sometimes known as JSA (Joint Security Area). At that point, the tour was led by the US Army. We were able to cross the actual border within a building that was being guarded by ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers. They just stood there with Ray-Ban-like aviator sunglasses on and did not move an inch, much like the guards outside Buckingham Palace.

It was a good trip, a long day and glad I did it once, but wouldn't sign up for it again. To keep things in the theme of "borders," we went to On The Border for dinner in Sincheon, near Hongdae - a good place to go out for a night in Seoul. Some of my other friends from Daegu had been in the area for The Flaming Lips show and we met up later on. The band turned up at the bar we were at, and I had a few words and a hand shake with the lead singer, Wayne Coyne. The rest of the night turned out to be one to remember forever. Thank you, Seoul. See you soon.

And for your ears: Lemon Jelly - "Spacewalk"


LEMON JELLY Spacewalk from Mario Cavalli on Vimeo.

Halloween 2010.

Halloween in Daegu was exactly what I had anticipated. The substantial number of foreigners made themselves seen and heard in "fancy dresses" (apparently the British term for 'costume') and some typical borderline behaviors.


Virtually all of the foreigners I've met were out downtown, unless they vacationed out of the city. Everyone was in some form of costume from a simple witch hat to full-effort attire. You could find the usual Green Man of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,' Alan and Baby Carlos from 'The Hangover,' Where's Waldo, etc. Then there were some others that took a bit of actual planning like The Harlem Globetrotters and LEGO Man. The current event costume for the season turned out to be the Chilean Miner.  There were also some nice tributes to pop culture like the news report made famous on YouTube regarding  "The Bed Intruder" - check out 0:30. I, however, am not so savvy when it comes to clever costume ideas, so I keep it simple and stress-free.


The foreigners definitely took over Downtown on Saturday night and managed to get some curious looks from Korean passer-bys. Other Koreans are one of us and joined in the celebrations. There was also a pub crawl organized by the infamous foreign pub-crawl planners, so that mob must have been even more overwhelming to the natives. See the collection of various foreigners' photos on the left. 


All in all, Halloween weekend was a great time, but a tiny drop of me longed for Halloween in the good ol' USA. We finished off the weekend at our local pub with a Sunday night football game of Sunderland vs. Newcastle. Needless to say, my friend from Sunderland was less than thrilled by the 5-1 loss. Better luck next time!

Favorite tune this week: Sun Airway - Waiting on You

Last of Frisbee. I Promise.

Fall '10 Frisbee season is over. No more frisbee talk - until the Spring '11 season! And... I'm keeping it brief in this post.

The playoffs and finals commenced this past weekend in Daegu. The Busan Heat and Daejon Pandemic made their last trek to Daegu for the season, and I think it's safe to say that everyone enjoyed themselves all weekend. Team Busan was the number 1 seed, and therefore was granted a bye in the first round. After winning our first-round game, we were up against Busan next. We started the game with a 4-1 lead, but somehow, that quickly became something like a 5-12 loss. Defending champs, Busan, went on to lose in the championship game to Daejon by one point in the last few minutes. Everyone was happy to see a different team win. There's hope for a Daegu Team win next season - maybe.

The celebrations continued with drinks and specials starting off at URBAN bar - a big sponsor of DUFL. Daejon made sure to have their golden calf trophy seen at every possible moment - we weren't jealous. Really. It was a super fun night and a nice continuation of partying in Daejon with these people last weekend. Was that just a week ago? Also, for the first time, I stayed out late enough to take the subway home from downtown - maybe never again. And no, McDonald's didn't even give me a free cup of coffee for this ad.

Tune of the week:

James Blake - Limit to Your Love (Feist Cover)

Watch the video below the pics.

DUFL in Daejon

Daegu is lucky enough to have some really cool people that started DUFL - Daegu Ultimate Frisbee League. When I joined this superior league, I had no idea what I was in for. A real, competitive, 150-person league, official jerseys, recorded stats... DUFL is the real deal. It's been a very fun season, and I'm sad to see it come to an end.

This past weekend, we had our final games of the regular season in Daejon. Although DUFL has Daegu in the name, there are 2 teams from other cities - 1 team from Busan and 1 team from Daejon, the other 5 are from Daegu. The games in Busan were actually played on the beach and were a blast! Playing on the sand was so liberating, and everyone was making dives and ambitious attempts.

When we arrived in Daejon, the field was not as glamorous as we had anticipated. Drew, sprawled out on a bench in his Snuggie showing his disappointment. Shortly after the games began, a group of older Korean men posted up a few feet from one of our end zones and started a warm-up routine. Some of the DUFL members joined in looking awesomely ridiculous. The weekend turned out to be full of competitive games and a fun night out with a group that doesn't typically party together.

There also happened to be a free "rock festival" happening on Saturday night, but by the time I got there, there was no sign of live music. It was only around midnight, and apparently the fest had been shut down for hours - some responsible party had not gotten noise permits, and everything had been shut down around 11:00. Still, it became a night of adventures.

After our game against Daejon (the team tied for first place with Busan), they instigated an interesting game. I have no idea what they call this game, but I refer to it as Sword Game. I didn't have a chance to grab my camera earlier, which is sad because this was way funnier when there were about 20 people playing. Still a taste, nonetheless!

Lastly, music choice of the week!

Small Black - Photojournalist