What and where is Korea?

Driving School of Korea. Similar to the Driving School of Ballard, Seattle.

Driving instructor: Okay please start the car and just let it run for a while for no patricular reason while we go get some soju in the grocery store.
Now that we are back do not put your seatbelt on all the way; just rap it around the arm rest so it looks like you are wearing it. Perfect.
As you merge into traffic drive really slow and do not look either way. Listen for someone to honk.
When you begin to take this right do not use your turn single and make sure to take the turn at the last second.
Okay now as we merge onto this highway do not look for oncoming traffic and do it as slowly as possible.
Those people honking at you for causing traffic to come to a complete stop and almost create a huge accident- FORGET ABOUT IT! Just think that all the people behind you are younger than you giving the Confusist given right to get in peoples' way.
Now that we passed the camera speed traps go 50 km/h over the speed limit.
Whoops! we missed the turn, please do a U-turn without looking in either direction. Just listen for the honks.
Now that we have arrived in a residental area go ahead and ignore all pedestrians. They have to look out for us and in fact, speed up.
What the fuck! that person didn't see us coming and they hit our car. Okay no.. do not ask if they are hurt. Tell them "What were you doing! get the fuck out of here you scratched my car!"
Here we are, back at the car driving training center. Go ahead and drive on the side walk for about 15 feet before making the turn in the driving center.


(although this story was fictional it is based off real events)

I think Shell-Shock or Post-Traumatic-Stress-Syndrom are too difficult for grade school ESL students.

No comment on this one either. Just sorta freaks me out.
Taken from.. um. Some god awful text book.


That is not a tooth ache.

i like all the animals the same because they are all in same cages.

This is the good version of the Cheongju Zoo where all the animals live in concrete jails.
Picture also taken from "Hop"

I'm not even going to say anything about this other than I got it from a children's english text book called "Hop"

Why is alex so cool?

His trash to recycling ratio of course!



Ya.. i haven't taken the trash out for a few weeks except for compost

another weekend in seoul. Another weekend making it hard to save cash. another weekend of drinking in public. another weekend of being a little bit bored.

I think I'm going to spend less time in Seoul and more time in the woods from now on.


Whatever friend of mine that can tell me what shirt I am wearing will receive the best christmas gift of everyone.

What a great name for a club. seriously.

This is not some metaphysical shit yo! This is the real deal!

Yo fat ugly white guy who still thinks liquid dancing is cool.

STOP TEACHING IT TO THE INNOCENT KOREAN COLLEGE KIDS.

look at all the people! every club is like this! completely packed!@#!@$!

There is a style of dancing in korea that was created from so many poeple pushing into each other from there being no room.

and here is how you do it: Act like you are underwater being pushed by the wave and with many hands pushing against you.

You know those girls who lack attention in their life and so they go to clubs and stand on the stage and dance in front of everyone all night long so that everyone can see them and so the girl interrepts the situation as everyone is there to see them?
Yes this Italian girl is doing that in Korea.


What is also great about this picture is I was taking photos all over the place in this club which is against the rules. A security guard came and stood next to me because they weren't sure who was doing it but knew it was coming from that area.
I still took a picture with the security guard there.
Yo security guard, you may know a million martial arts and could kick my ass but I am the stealth grande of the photo-taking.
I am like Japanese tourist

Song Wha has a major crush on me to the point where he literally is in love with me. NO JOKE.

I told him he can have me for $500. He didn't want to pay so I gave him a hug so that he will want to pay but he still doesn't. what a cheap ass!

And Song Wha gets really jealous when I am talking to Rico, the girl on the right, to the point where he yells "I HATE YOU ALEX I HATE YOU!" and I say to Rico, "Hey when do you want to hang out" and since Song Wha is her boss he said "YOU WILL NEVER HAVE A DAY OFF RICHO, OH GOD! I LOVE YOU ALEX BE WITH ME!" in his whinny gay voice.

And in Hongdae we always end up back in this small top40 club called Ska. They play bad music but the vibe is awesome. All the people who work there treats you like family and everyone who comes there isn't all about hype and snobish attitude.

Get this. The DJ is behind the bar hidden by currency from around the world. I asked why the DJ was hidden and they said "because he is shy" ahhhhh

I went to a restaurant called California and I ate California style sushi in....Asia. hmmmmm? Something is wrong with this?

I told them in Korean that I wanted a cup of espresso and they didn't know what espresso was. I called my friend who is Korean and he told them and they still didn't understand.

They straight up didn't know what espresso was.

the guy on the top is talking to the guy on the right and the guy on the bottom is talking to the guy in the middle and the guy on the left isn't talking to anyone because he has no one to talk to :(

This is what I teach my students

Notice that this snickers rapper is empty. Yes, I admit it. I am eating a snickers probably every other day. They are so tasty and a selfish side of me is loving it. I haven't had a snickers in like 6 years.

Yes, the vegan you all love to hate is eating unhealthy dairy almost everyday. You know John Steward said on the Daily Show, "Vegans are annoying." Well you know what John, you can suck my balls. But not right now because I am enjoying the milk chocolate, skim milk, milk fat, egg whtie, and glucose syrup surrounding 23% of peanuts.

I gotta say, a small part of me is going to miss eating snickers when I return to Seattle.

Maybe I'll stay in Korea for a second year since the money is so delicious....

sums up the weekend. totally relaxing and beautiful.

$3.50 gets you unlimited food. It is amazing- blissful. One of the best things in Korea. blows the coop out of the water.

In Korea mosquitos somehow continue to live even in late November.

They are very smart.

You don't see them during the day but as you fall alseep you hear them near your ear and you run and turn on the lights to kill them and they have disappeared. Then you go back bed only to wake up with bites all over your arms and shoulders.

So when you see a mosquito during the day it is a privilege to murder these little fucks.

Once you finish the job you feel like celebrating.

I noticed polar opposite neighborhoods as far as crime goes still have similar looks to them.

In Yul-Ylang-Dong where there is little crime they have play grounds littered and have many floorboards broken off just waiting for a kid to break a leg or head.
Also in Korea they live in these huge ass apartments with little to no uniquiness.


Now in Brownsville, Brooklyn they also have huge ass apartments but in USA we call them "projects" and they also have broken-down playgrounds.
But in Brownsville little girls are raped in elevators and I feared for my life just walking down the street.


I am calling for athropology majors to look into this.

I found that no matter where you are in the world you still crave your passions. The passions developed primary, I think, from where you were brought up. Many aspects of where I grew up will never leave me and that probably is true for many others.

Many of my passions are whispering in my ears telling me to pursue it and obtain. Like listening to dub music sets and drinking french press coffee. What a satisfying combination.

Other passions are more like yelling, no, screaming in my ear. I say, "SHUT UP! LEAVE ME ALONE" and it continues without skipping a beat.

Traveling also amazes me how I can waste so much time no matter where I am. Like installing a developmental unstable window manager in linux (as shown in the picture) while I should have been playing trumpet.

I continue to be amazing by the Seoul subway system. The seats are padded and looking fresh and clean! I dare you to show me a subway system in the world of higher quality than the Seoul subway system. PROPS TO YOU KOREAN PEOPLE OF SEOUL!

(by the way, every seat in the car was padded.. not just for the people described in the drawings on the seats in the picture. That is just where I was sitting even though this handicap pregnant old woman wanted a seat.)


see you stupid angry americans (including myself). If you are good then good things will come to you. But no. You genetically predetermined mother fuckers! (I will support that statement in a future posting once I get the perfect pictures to describe this) You have to fuck everything up by releasing your anger in dumb ways and then we can't have padded subway seats.

Someone tells me to come to a jazz show. they said "no cover!" Which I preceded to ask them if there was no cover 4 or 5 times. Went in and ordered in FIRST MOTHER FUCKING GOOD BEER since in korea and it was very tasty and I didn't care it was $6.50.


And the jazz was great! I haven't been to a jazz show since Triple Door in Seattle like... June?



Everyone left except Paul until we had to go catch the subway. But when we got the bill the waitress thought Paul got one of the beers so I had to pay for one of the girl's beers and there was a cover of $5 each so I paid much more cash than I expected and when i called the girls they said they would pay me back but that they didn't have to pay the cover cause the manager said it was okay cause it isn't written in English. WHY DID THE WAITRESS THEN MAKE PAUL AND I PAY. I am sick of getting motherfucking ripped off in this country. I was so mad I wanted to break a park bench with a karate kick like that one time.. remember matt?

Yo so fashion in Korea... a lot of it I don't like.. for instance this guy:

Hey man, a purple sweater with a plaid botton down vest on top is just not cool in any culture.




But then you see guys who think before they act. The glasses, hat, pink sweater AND the tie! it is a perfect combo even hipsters in Williamsburg, NYC couldn't pull off.



Okay, what about this guy? You'd think the pants and the untouched pumas alone would do the outfit but he topped it off with a bombshell of an accessory. He is carring around a rose to bring ultimate uniquness.
okay i'm lying a little bit. those shoes.. almost every Korean has thoughs but no one has them AS clean as this stud.

I saw a lot of awesome fashion this weekend in Hongdae. I guess there is a subculture of well-dressed young individuals residing in Seoul. I have begun to document this phenomenon because they are not using marijuana and acid as inspiration so I must determine how this good fashion is transcending into these kids.

This is a picture series from a while ago when Dan and I went to Seoul.

Here we are at the Seoul Drum Festival. Dan smuggled a gun into Korea even though I told him to bring drugs. Anyway in this photo I need to take a dump (as you can tell) and Dan is about to have a shoot off with that Texas cowboy in the background.

We split and met up with these girls in Hongdae. They were Swedish and Korean but from Sweden I should note that Dan was the one that actually met them because he is this guy that seems all quiet and but then in the party area of anywhere... BOOM he transforms into a mega social super star meeting everyone in his path! It is great for me cause I get to meet all these people. I remember going to parties with him in Seattle and leaving with like 6 phone numbers w00t!

I should also note that these girls were fucking awesome to party with and got down with even the worst tracks in the world cause they just didn't give a fuck. We'd all be dancing and they would say to me, "this song is boring." Man.. that's awesome.

Now I have to be honest here of what happened that night. As you can see in this picture I felt really fucked up about Dan killing that cowboy. It was hard for me to relax. These girls were so cool though, they didn't even care that we had a gun and had been shooting people that night. They just wanted to party!

But by the end Dan and I had gotten pretty drunk and I began to act like I could dance as best I could even with my being-white handcap and just be zen ya know? I tried to focus my energy on how cool my Japanese shirt was that I bought in Osaka.

And for Dan, he got so drunk he thought he was drinking alcohol from bottles that were empty. Sorry Dan, we were not amused.

This is a picture of my mother. She is very old and poor and sick. The new advertisements on my blog benefit my dear mother. Everytime you click on the sponsored links my mom will receive a small check. Enough for her to buy bread and oranges at the store that she loves very much.

Thank you for your donation.

We were suprised to find baby animals in the woods under a rock because all the animals, except a few wild pigs and birds, were eaten during the oppression so no animals.

but then we realized they are dogs. we were still confused.

This is a picture of Dave and this bitch who is completely ripping us off. She is charged us $29 for three beers and one bottle of soju. We were so pissed and she was all acting like she didn't understand our Korean.

Oh.. my.. god I do not like to get ripped off for things. I was livid. So angry.

We continued to discuss it well into the night subtracting the situation into existentialism. Basically I learned a lesson not to be ripped off again for the rest of my life and that she was so dumb. She lost so many customers for that: JP, his girl friend, Dave, Paul, and I. JP and his girl friend used to go there a lot but never again. HEY I HOPE THAT EXTRA $15 WAS WORTH IT AND BY THE WAY I HATE YOU.

i opened a budweiser and took a sip and I thought, "This is a good beer." A cold sweat covered my body as I realized I thought something irrevocable. I will always know I thought budweiser was a good beer. I need to get out of Korea and away from their shitty beers and back into Boundary Bay Brewery.

We stayed at this guy JP's apartment. He is a lawyer for the USA military and stays in this $4,000 a month plush pad. I think I'm going to sell out to all that bullshit I said in college and I'm signing up to the military!

By the way, remember that USA tax dollars are paying for this apartment and that what JP mainly does is fight court martial cases. This means when military personel does something stupid like rape or beat someone up then they go to trial and jail.

We hitched hiked on this climbing tour bus! They even gave Paul ice cream.

Millions of Korean climbers walk by this boulder field every year and no one gives it a second thought. We felt like we had died and gone to heaven except when we stepped in a bunch of human poop that was at the base of this one rock. The shit got all over my crashpad and we unsuccessfully attempted to clean it off with water and leaves.

Look, you Koreans, if you don't like to boulder fine alright? No hard feelings on us but to poo next to and on the boulders makes us think you hate them. They are only rocks.

By the way, I started a bouldering blog for my climbing buddies - pulldown.blogspot.com

And I thought USA has a problem with christian fundamentalists shoving their backwards ways down our throats. We should feel lucky! We don't have people driving around blasting christian brainwashing

The subway continues to suprise me with contradictory aspects of the subways in USA. As I previous showed there are fish tanks all over the place. Plus there is a birds in a cage?!? Plus a small library!!!

If this was USA those birds would have been released and the books would be either been destroyed or stolen.

Remember at soccer camp when you were in elementary school and at lunch break the really immature boys would pee in the sinks in the bathroom and while their dick was spraying all over the place they were giggling while looking around in either direction searching for others who also found it funny but no one was laughing because it was really gross?

I think that is the same thing going on here but in Korea and with poo in a bucket and on the floor