What and where is Korea?

BEST THINGS ABOUT KOREA (updated) in order from 1. being best to 7 being least:


1. San Chay Bibimbap (mountain vegetables mixed with rice)
I found this place down the street from my house that serves a large portion of food that gives me a mouth orgasm.

2. Jimjibongs (Hot tub and sauna house)
I recently found the best one I have ever been to just down the street to my house and it has 4-5 tubs of various temperature and probably 10 or so different temperature saunas. Most of, if not all, have crystals and air cleaning burned wood on the ceiling. One room has little pink rocks on the ground you can play with. It costs $4 for the hot tub and hot hot saunas (90 degrees celsius) and an extra $2 for the communal mens and womens area with the cold room and the traditional jimjibongs.

3. Bus system
Go anywhere, almost anytime, comfortably, and for a low price.

4. Sansachun (pink Korean wine)
It is tasty and alcoholic. Enough said. I could go on about how it says it will cure backaches and upset stomachs and promote clear skin but that's a bunch of bullshit.
I like it so much I changed my blog to the color pink.

5. No crime
I love never having to worry about my stuff getting stolen or getting shot. And since there is no crime you can go to the ATM and take out $800 in one go. Plus I can put my bag down outside a crowded store and go outside and my bag is still there. In the climbing gym I can put my cell down anywhere and it is all good.

6. Mountain Spring Water
It is great not having to think about carrying water up into the mountains and it is nice to drink clean crisp water once you were there too. Unlike that time in Bellingham with Brenden when we were stupid and didn't take water with us to the top of this mountain and almost died from dehydration.

7. All the mountains
This place is all but mountains. Everywhere you go there are mountains. Probably why their word for mountains is so short and easy to say - pronounced "sawnn."

Delicious chocolate, strawberry, and also banana soy milk????


I've found god.

A high school or middle school student at my school text messages me sometimes, well more like everyday a few times a day. But it doesn't seem very often because he only says "yo" or "what's up" (both terms he has learned from me).
You can see this is true from his message saying "Duplicated" on it. What do you expect, he doesn't actually know English because the Korean foreign language schools and classes in public school don't actually teach these Korean kids English.

I got bored replying to his messages with the truth when he will never understand what I'm saying. I decided to have fun like replying with ...

My Western friends and I agree. Almost everytime we leave our house we see something the Korean people are doing and think, "I don't understand what they are doing."

Take this picture. It seems this family is giving thanks to something.. They got a table with food on it and a cushion out for some kneeling action. Now I have seen similar events for business openings but it is usually inside the business and not in some alley way in the freezing icy cold.

I concluded they just bought this new SUV and are giving thanks Korean style for their new purchase?

This woman reminds me that guy who sits in front of Rite Aid in West Lake Center, Seattle selling only one kind of candy. To both the woman in Korea and the guy in Seattle I suggest diversing your product selection and not sitting in front of large corporations that blow the competition out of the water. For this woman she is sitting in front of Lotte Super, a big grocery store.

Also to both the man in Seattle and this woman in Korea: I suspect you are fronting drugs or you couldn't support yourself. In case this is true, what drugs are you selling and for how much?

NO MOM I do not have a drug problem nor am I addicted to alcohol. I don't actually think the old serf Korean woman has drugs.. it is a joke!! jeeeezz

Never seen Carlo Rossi presented in such an elegant fashion considering the last time I saw Carlo Rosse. Last time I saw a jug of Carlo Rossi was at some wack hippy party in some run down rental house in Bellingham with a girl totally drunk holding Rossi chugging it as immature god knows how they got into college young adults hooting and shouting in full support in this poor girl having the worst headache in the world the day after.

Two corrections:

1. Peter Kruder is probably cool. It is Thievery Corporation that are all into strippers.
2. You can be over 33 and teach and be awesome. My friend Paul's parents are teaching in Asia because they were teachers but retired and still wanted to teach so they came to Asia. Now that's respectful.

NEVER TO DO UNLESS YOU ARE TOTALLY CRAZY.
Sorry to do this to the person who did this. But man... You shouldn't have done that because you really could have killed a lot of people.

Someone I know burned a couch on the roof of their building in Korea and then threw it off the roof onto the ground below.

1. You could have burned the building killing everyone inside
2. The couch could have landed on someone on the ground and killed them.

NOTE: I did NOT take that photo.

Yesterday I had my students do a phonics exercise. The assignment had a hidden message at the bottom which read, "Teddy Bear." Then I had my students draw teddy bears.

Oddly enough the youngest students seem to be obsessed with penises.

But when the kids get a little older and their penises actually appear a little... AHEM... umm ya they become obsessed with poop.

A new poster for my school features me all over it. There are 3 pictures of me on it.

The top picture is me with my younger students at my branch school. They are a fun class except when the girl on the right physically attacks other students. As you can see girls in Korea really like pink.

The two middle pictures illustrate Korean children studying hard at 10:30pm at night.

The bottom photo is me posing at the reception desk even though the only time I ever sit there is to check my email.

Finally, if you look at the bottom right hand corner you see the Cambridge Crest. They asked me to photoshop the Cambridge University crest from the Cambridge webpage and now their school is called Cambridge. Korea is weird like that.

I got an ad on my door for a new family restaurant called "Love House" and I remembered seeing a place called the "Love House" but it looked so skanky that I wouldn't step in to take a picture. In fact if I went in to take a picture some businessman screwing a hooker probably would kill me. Anyway I wonder if this family restaurant is the same place.

If a family restaurant in USA opened called "Love House" it would fail. But if a family restaurant opened in USA called "Love House" but written in Korean then people would go because they wouldn't be able to read the business name.

In the next few posts I took a number of pictures of people in about a 5 minute time frame in this one bar and I make fun of people each picture for different reasons.

But I was just sitting there with my fist on my chin bored and annoyed with the music. If only I had a picture of me so I could make of myself for being such a downer!

There are a lot of really geeky guys teaching English in Asia. Why? Because they know if they come to Asia they can have some hot girl friend. That's the only reason they come. It's so bad in Japan it is an epidemic.

I also give them props because learning how to hit on a girl in Asia is like starting all over again. I took me 22 years to figure out how to hit on western girls... the chances of me figuring out a new set of breed in 1 year is NOT happening.

Dude. I thought I told you last time I saw you.

No liquid dancing for you.

Especially in your freece unzipped vest and baseball cap

Peter Kruder of Kruder & Dorfmeister thanks for DJing by this random venue that I found when walking down the streets of Hongdae, Seoul at 2am. And perfect! In seattle where your set would have to end because of alcohol serving laws in Korea your set is just beginning.


MAN I LOVED THIS DJ SET. I still think about how great it was. It was one of the best DJ sets I've ever seen.

This is what Korea thinks is coffee. But they pronounce coffee "copy" since the Korean language does not have the ffff sound.

While I am stirring this 15% crystalized coffee and 85% dry milk and sugar into my 6 tablespoons of water (that's the ratio of water to one package of "copy") at school my young students are jumping up and down because little kids are naturally hyperactive saying ALEX COPY ALEX COPY?????!!! and I say in a depressed tone, "no. this is not cofffffee."

Calvin Klein has been hurting financially so they have begun doing construction work.

You frequently see wires just hanging down from electricy poles. Once again I illustrate Korea's thirst for danger.

And yes it is snowing. It snows here like it rains in Seattle. Not very hard and all the time.

Biggest culture shock yet in Korea.
On Friday I went to a traditional Korean music club.
First of all it is huge.
Secondly the DJs danced. Sang. Rapped. and wore insane outfits.
Thirdly and most shocking of all they have a system called "booking" where they physically grab woman from their seats and the woman make faces like "wtf" and they force them to sit down at another table with some men and if it is two men on one side of the seat then the woman has to sit in between the too men (look at the picture).
Fourth We probably each had 4 beers and the bill was probably around $200 but i didn't pay a god damn thing cause i'm young and my boss took me.
Fifth they had the largest intelligent lighting system I've ever seen and all this crazy shit like if you look at the picture of the stage you see this diamond shaped object. That is the CD decks that are lowered from the ceiling! and Also the roof comes down too and changes shape!