To Samcheok!

I recently went on a field trip to Samcheok with my students and their teachers, and was smart enough to take a few pictures this time around. Samcheok is in the county just north of my home in what is called Gangwon province.

First up on our trip was Gangwon Comprehensive Museum; a demanding modern structure built like one of the Korean castles of yore.

Catching a glimpse of this awesome building as we rounded a misty mountain in our school bus was an awe-inspiring incident! Seeing such an incredible building jump out of the fog caught both me and my students by surprise. The building is truly awesome, and its surroundings only add to its beauty. Here are a few pictures of the building; I unfortunately couldn’t get far enough from it to capture it in all its glory.









Here are a few of my fellow 5th grade teachers. A great bunch of folks who have made my transition to Korea a positive one.



I was quickly reprimanded for taking pictures within the museum. A museum guide explained to me that taking photographs would hurt the artifacts, so I put my camera away(그림 아니오!). This was the only one I could take, but there were plenty of prehistoric and man-made creations on display. For a small city, I have to say that Samcheok had a pretty impressive museum.



Next on the agenda was Hwangseongul cave. Considered one of the best caves in all of Korea, it is visited by over 1 million people a year and is nearly 6.2 km into the earth. As far as I could gather, guests are only allowed 1 km or so into the cave, and that in and of itself was pretty impressive. To think that there was another few kms to explore only added to the immense size of this hole. I have personally never been in a cave so large and deep, and here are a few pictures from our journey to and into it.

The start of our upward climb as well as the ticket counter.




I wanted to take a truly epic photograph once I reached the summit and the entrance of the cave, but it was unfortunately rather cloudy that day. This is all I was able to muster.





And here we are in the cave, with a few of my fellow teachers and students.





There are three distinct bridges in the cave. The first is the “Lovers Bridge”, followed by the “Bridge of Hell”, and last being “Bridge of Confessions”.

We watched Japanese anime in Korean on the way home, but most of my students were too tired to stay awake and pay attention. The sound of sleeping children; every teachers heaven!

Ann Coulter…Still Talking…

Why is anyone surprised by anything Ann Coulter says at this point? Better yet, why is anyone surprised that Ann Coulter says stupid things right when she is about to put out a new book?

Ann has been lambasted for saying America “would be better off if it were all-Christian” and that Jews were needed “to be perfected.” All I hear is bla bla bla when this woman opens her mouth, so I didn’t take any offense to her comments. I grew tired of her antics years ago, but apparently she still gets a number of people’s pants in a twist.

Ann: your 15 minutes should prepare to take its final bow. Cue curtains.

In Rainbows

Like countless other music geeks, I am enjoying Radiohead’s new record In Rainbows at the moment. It was released, free of charge (or rather, you could pay what you wanted for the record through the band’s website) today. I assume dorm rooms across the western world are intoxicated with these tunes at this very moment.

I have only listened to it once, but I admit that I like it. After Radiohead’s last record (Hail to the Thief), I felt they feel into a comfortably groove after making 3 records that really broke the mold as to what a mainstream act could accomplish in this day and age. They seem comfortable to make records that sound like Radiohead at this point in time. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Ah, and this appears to be my 400th post! Cheers!

They have the internet on computers now?

This is a pretty grueling workweek for me, and on top of that I am coming down with a cold. Hopefully the storm will have passed by tomorrow.