Eating moving octopus tentacles and a last-minute tour of my school...I leave Jinju tomorrow

So within this last week i've just been taking care of business - selling my xbox, donating old clothes, going to dentists, doctors, etc. Not sure if i've mentioned this on this blog but man alive, korean healthcare is the bomb. Sometimes hospital visits can be expensive but man alive it's still cheap compared to the US. And the dentist! i've gone to the dentist three times out here, had a cleaning, two fillings - cost: $25. Unreal. All I have to do is pay $50/month for insurance, my employer covers the other half of the insurance costs. I'm really glad I came out here this year. There's great healthcare, the cost of living is cheap, you get to check out the country, have a good salary, get a sweet bonus at the end (I'll get mine tomorrow), you're never in danger, and the bossman pays for all of your airfare. If you're a poor college grad without a job back home, I sincerely recommend you come out here and land a sweet teaching job. Just do your homework. More on that later... 

Now, here's a vid of our dinner last Friday night at a sushi place. This was hands down the weirdest thing I ate in Korea - chopped up octopus - and it's moving!

This kind of eatery can actually be dangerous bc the tentacles can still stick if you don't chew them enough, and they'll lock right onto the inside of your throat and then you die.

Aaaand another vid: I meant to take this at the very beginning of the year but put it off til my second to last day at work. So here's a tour of my school - it's a really sweet facility and I will miss it. Sorry for the mismatched audio/video.

So here's the plan for the next couple months:
Tomorrow I'll put in my last day, get paid that cash money, go to my apartment, grab my bag, and then i'll be off to Seoul, where my sister just moved to! She started teaching at a kindergarten today - so excited to see her. I'll hang at her place until Wednesday, March 12 and then I'm taking a super late flight to Sketch City, Phil Phil AKA Manila. I've got a number of place I want to check out there and after the Philippines I'll fly over to Thailand and check out all thems SE Asian countries. In total I'll be gone for 5 weeks and I plan on flying back into PDX around April 15th.
I'll spend about two weeks back home,seeing friends and cruising around with my lil bro bro, Joey, who's now 15 years old and has a drivers permit. we're gonna do a whole lot of driving together. hopefully we'll hit up Crater Lake, Oregon and maybe catch a Mariners game, who knows.All I know is that I won't have as much time back home as I'd like.
THEN around May 1 I'll be flying up to Anchorage, Alaska to return to my roots as a driver-guide. I'm going to work there for 5 months (May-Sept) and then do whatever the butts I feel like doing after that - maybe teaching English somewhere, probably returning to Korea to visit my sis and the Jinju crew.

New blog post soon to come! But take note, once March 12th arrives, it'll be a while til I keep up on the blog. I'm actually going to continue this thing. 

FIRST VLOG

Soooo it's been about a year since my last blog post. i'm really good at this. overall, this year was pretty good. at times korea was lacking, getting me insanely sick, etc. but overall it was a great year here in ktown and for the first time ever i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am about to leave, especially after hanging with some really fun friends.
for this blog post i'm posting my first public vloggg. this only covers the last three months. later i'll post my other vids from the year.
I only have two more weeks left here in ktown, then it's off to vacationland. here, watch my vid.

Hope you enjoy the derp face.

TL;DR : korea's been good. i'm leaving.

The end of the ol' korean road - first video diary!

Soooo it's been about a year since my last blog post. i'm really good at this. overall, this year was pretty good. at times korea was lacking, getting me insanely sick, etc. but overall it was a great year here in ktown and for the first time ever i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am about to leave, especially after hanging with some really fun friends.
for this blog post i'm posting my first public vloggg. this only covers the last three months. later i'll post my other vids from the year.
I only have two more weeks left here in ktown, then it's off to vacationland. here, watch my vid.
welp, video isn't uploading. butts. TBU
TL;DR : korea's been good. i'm leaving.

Week 1

This post is about my my first week in korea.
As previously posted, Friday was the best evening so far. I was feeling a little dehydrated the next day, grabbed some grub, and hung out at my apartment for a while. I was exhausted. but at the same time i was very determined to get to busan. i met another teacher in this area - goes by the name kevin. kevin and i ate some food and then headed to busan. dude knows his way around the city. we took a bus to the main bus station here in jinju. it was good to be on that bus as i got to see the main downtown area of my city. as of them, i had only seen my apartment/work's area, along with a small university area where we visited dem bars.
from there, we got on a bus to busan. i slept the whole way, missing all the traffic that we hit. from there we met some friends of kevin's, got some korean goodies, including bimbop - rice, seaweed, meat, veggie rolls. seeew good.
fun fact about busan: it smells like shit all over the place. goooo does it smell bad - some mishap with the sewage system - so that's definitely a plus about living here in jinju. but overall, busan seems nice. i can't say much about it since i was only there for about 20 hours, but it was fun. the food was good, the subway system is extensive, and of course, there are plenty of places to partay. i believe we went to four different bars. good times. there were a lot of foreigners all over the place. we did a lot of dancing, danced with a dj at one of the places - dude knew all the words to thrift shop haha.
then we went back to our friend's place, took a walk on the beach in busan - so nice. i believe i fell asleep around 5am. korea does it right.
the next day we got some grub and were back on the bus system. i was exhausted when i got back sunday night. then it was to teaching six hours of classtime on monday. woof. so i've slept like a rock the last couple nights and i am very ready for the weekend to start. our new native teaching is arriving tomorrow from australia.
my director said that he said that he is looking for someone to drink with. haha. i think i can do that.

other news in work:
the staff here is great. we haven't bonded a whole lot but we still get along very well. everybody's  pretty laid back despite how busy things can get and the same goes for our director. turns out that my director is not the guy who picked me up from the airport. it's really his son, scott, a 33-year old guy who might be the nicest boss i've ever had. he has a great attitude, takes care of whatever we need, and does his best to keep us teachers happy. we have breaks, tea time, and dinner is provided every night by his mom, who makes legiiiit korean food - bimbop, kimchi, soups, beef, chicken. best meals of the week.
so what happens at school is that we get a bunch of students every week - i probably see around 10 students in each class, five or six classes a day, five days a week - so at least 200 students every week. i try to learn names but there are so many. and sorry, kiddo, but if you don't have an english name it's gonna be that much harder for me to remember your name.
the material is very easy. i have an entire curriculum laid out for me, including textbooks, powerpoints, comprehension questions - it's legit. and it's great when the material is more advanced - the kids know what i'm saying and can follow along very easily.


also, i've been officially approved by the korean government to work here. on monday i took a pee test, had blood drawn, had my teeth checked, had my blood pressure checked, took xrays - all that good stuff. now i'm here to stay. yaaaaa.
that's the news in korea for now.

So far, so easy

The current time is 5:00 Am. Not too long ago I got back from  a good ol night of hanging out with other foreign teachers. god, we have it good here in korea. we have a pretty easy job and we have benefits up the butt.
everybody loves it here.
here is my first day in korea.
well, first, my first night. i arrived to the jinju airport, the director of my school and his wife amet me there at the airport. neither of them spoke much english, but we talked as much as we could. they asked me what i did before i got there. so i told them, nd, alaska, etc. blatm. korea. thenhey brought me to the school. it's sooo nice. they started it just a year ago - it's super new. very nice. i met a couple members of the staff and then the son of the director of the school, scott, drove me to my apartment. it is the shit. all kinds of furnished, plenty of room. it's great. the floor are heated here in korea, there are no radiators. all powered by boilers. don't know what that is? steam powered? dont know what that is? alright, let's move on.
yeah, my place is great. the next day, i started teaching. how much, you ask? one hour that day. four kids total. what a breeze! then i was told that i have to start preparing for an advanced class that i will teach for next week until our other teacher, vincent, arrives from australia. good times. sooo i study that material. thats the great thing about this schothol, the curriculum is provided, so i hardly have to prepare. pretty much everything is layed out for me. what a breeze.
but before i got to school yesterday i went shopping, had to buy an iron after all my clothes were stuffed at the bottom of my backpack for days on end. so i wandered around for about two hours, asking  workers at different stores "iron?" in korean. they would point in a direction and i would walk that way. finally i found a store that sold all kinds of stuff. i bought an iron, alarm clock, etc. spent about a hundred bones.. money spent. aint no thang, i just saved a bunch of money by working in the oil fields. n. b. d.
then school. all the teachers there at the school are really nice and pretty fluent in english, which i hae heard is pretty rare. man, they speak it well. i am impressed. well done
then today:
the people here are super helpful. my computer and my camera died, so i needed a .converter/transformer so that i could use this koean outlet to charge my USA products. so i went to samsung, asked if they had it. they spoke english and literally took about ten minutes out of their day to find where i could find a product, walked me there, and found it for me. wow - i was so thankful to have them there as i was helpless there in the middle of jinju, not speaking a word of korean, only having a phrasebook to guide me. woof. nightmare. i can honestly say that so far it is the only thing that i do not like about this place - the fact that i cannot communicate in their language. mexico and ecuador are one thing - this is another.
today was good at work though, taught 20 kids abhout different lessons - insects and pyramids - kid shit. good times. i was dying to get out of there though. i had chatted on the fb with other foreigners in my city - planning to meet downtown in the university area. finally i got off work, changed, and i was on my way.
it's pretty difficult to get around here by cab. it's really inexpensive compared to the usa, but man, no cabbies speak english. but i found my way, met some new peeps, and we had ong to avoid going to bed so i don't feel like total garbage as i lay in my bed. but that was just about what happened this evening - met some fellow foreigners, along with a lot of koreans, who for the most part really love americans. one guy kept saying how much he truly hated north korea and loved the usa. we shook hands many times and he wanted to hold my hand, which is a common thing in korea. no homo, it's just the way it is here. dudes just hold hands, hug, etc. in fact, i saw it at the school to just two boys holding hands, not gay at all, they're just buds. dats how day do. but man, they do hate that north. i am their ally. we are their ally. i heard of recent UN sanctions on the NK. awesome. effective? idk, i just read about it, dont ask me, mralright?
the food here is great, not sure if i have mentioned that yet. our director's wife cooks for the teachers pretty regularly. last night i ate that food like nobody's business: beef, kimchi, broccoli, cabbage - da good shit. and then today we had korean dominoes pizza.
ay, yo usa. switch to korean pizza. holy shit, its so good. the sauce is a sweet, white sauce, they top it with potatoes sometimes, the crust is super flaky and delicious, and i think they even put turkey on it. whatever they put on it, it was super sweet and delicious.

also, i smoked a korean cigarette, my mouth tastes disgusting. i mean, it always does, but this is gross. brush. teeth.
everything's very electronic here - doors and urinals especially. locks are oldschool.
sidenote: our govt. is why this country and i are here today...
i was told that apparently you can't be too vocal on how much you dislike north korea. why? unification? idk
again, the food here is dat shit. like, in a good way.
tomorrow is filled with possibilites. most likely, i'll be going to busan. busan - many wonders. many fun times. busan - second largest city in the country. busan - on the beach. busan - crazy times. busan - i like. busan - hostels. busan - 24 hour trip. busan - i want. busan - i was thinking about living there and then i got the offer to move here to jinju - people had great things to say about jinju. here i am.

again, i wish i spoke korean. my crap factory (tummy) hurts. simpsons.

also, i saw a dead cat in the middle of the road today. greeeewwss. they keep good care of their streets though, so no worries. i bet the carcass will be gone by tomorrow. that's anot but hher thing about this city - it's very clean. they know how to clean that ish. there aren't a lot of public trash cans, but they do have rando trash bags sitting out - just put your trash in there i guess.

i guess that's about enough for now. i go sleep now.

Get that Asia

Heyyyy guys. So I'll be on a plane in about 30 hours. That plane will take me to South Korea. Say whaaaat? Yeah, I haven't written anything on this blog for a while, but I got a job offer in Korea in the city of Jinju. 
Here's a map of South Korea - that's Jinju on the south side - about a half hour from the beach. Niiiice. So that's where I'll be for the next year.
And man oh man, it doesn't even seem like I'll be gone for that long. None of this has really sunk in yet. Buut it's gonna happen pretty soon. All I have to do is pack and then it's time to go. Woof. But I am pretty excited about going - new places, new faces, new jarb - all good things.
Since my last post I found the job after looking for about three weeks, then I signed a contract and just recently finally got my visa stamped in my passport. It looks real legit. But ever since signing my contract I've been running all over the place, saying my seeyalaters to friends from Vancouver to Seattle to Bellingham to Vegas. And it's all been awesome.
A lot of people ask about the job and Korea and stuff so Here are some of the details of the job:
I'll be working at a private, after school institution for the next year. Parents pay for their kids to go there throughout the year, where their kids can take extra classes in math, science, English, taekwondo(sp), etc.  All of these schools (including the public schools) prefer that their English teachers are native speakers such as myself. They hire us by the truck loads. So many over there. Literally all you have to do is have a four year degree and be from an English speaking country.
It took me a solid three months to get all my documents and whatnot together for this job - FBI background report, notarized degree. But now it's time and I'm ready to dust off that passport and get some staaamps out East.
Other deets: I'll be teaching kids from age 8-16. My hours are 1:30 - 10:00PM. A little on the long side, but still a decent deal. I think I'll teach six classes a day. We get weekends off, ten vacation days per year, and we get national holidays off too.
No Korean in the class! Dat's right - no sprekenzi that Korean in this class bc I, your teacher, do not speak any of it.
Everybody asks me, "do you speak Korean?" No. No, I do not. "How does that work?" Well, a lot of people speak English over there and schools are fine with the fact that you don't speak it - gets the kids immersed in the English.
Others ask, "why do you want to do that? Why would you want to teach in Korea?"
Why the ef would I not want to teach in Korea?
But really, Korea provides more money and benefits for foreign teachers than any other country in the world. Look it up. No one comes close. I got thems college loans to pay off and Korea allows me to pay those off AND travel the world at the same time.
Benefits: I get my round trip airfare paid for by the school, free apartment, 50% paid insurance, pension (Korean 401k), severance pay of one month at the end of the contract, and a decent salary of 2.1 million Korean won / month. I'm a millionaire. That comes out to about $1900 per month. Not much, but it's crazy cheap to live like a king out there.
And I get to live and work in Korea for a year, which is pretty cool. 

The city I'm going to live in seems pretty cool. Population: 300,000. Weather: just like the PNW, minus the incessant amount of rain. Spring is on the way and I'm pretty excited about that. Soon they'll have their annual lantern festival, which looks unreal. google that ish. There is a good amount of other foreign teachers there, so I'm expecting to meet a lot of English speakers/new amigos as soon as I get over there. I've read that the city is really clean too, so it's the opposite of my last apartment's location - Las Vegas. Sick nasty. Other than that, I have no idea of what I should expect of my new city.
 Crazy that this is happening. And I mean, I've been planning on doing this for a while and I've been waiting for months now, but all that time has really been flying by. Usually when I spend an extended amount of time back here in Vancouver I  am pretty ready to gtfo, but this time around it's been awesome, seeing friends pretty often, traveling up to Seattle, spending time with the fam - again, all good.

Side note: I'm excited to finally use my degree. Every single job I've had since graduating in 2011 has required just about zero education. Now things are changing, lookin up!

That's about all I have for now. I'll write again soon...from Koreeeea
And if I didn't get to say see you later, then, well, I'll see you later, I'll probably miss you, and don't worry, I'll be back in a year, which isn't that long. They go by pretty fast.

The End of ND

I am officially done with the rigs. I put in my time, I made my money, and now in three hours I'll be on a train bound for Vancouver, WA.
I've really been done with the rigs for a couple weeks now. My last day was on New Years. These last couple weeks I've been seeing a lot of family and besides that pretty much all I did was manage to sell my piece of garbage car for a whopping $250. She was old, lots of body damage, lots of leaks - not worth fixing and not really worth anything in general.
So now I'm packed up. I came here with two bags, now I'm leaving with four. Simplicity.
The next steps include finishing all my paperwork for Korea, seeing friends in the PNW, and find some temporary work.
I guess that's a really brief summary of what's been happening lately. As for the last three months...
I worked on a really great crew for my last few months in the Bakken oilfields. For the most part we all got along really well, nobody got hurt, etc. But after a while I kept hearing stories of guys who would get hurt or even die on other rigs and thought that if anything like that ever happened to me then I'd live with a whole lot of regret, knowing that I came out here for nothing but some coin and ended up disabled or what have you. Aaaand I just was not up for that. So now I'm leaving with all limbs, fingers, etc. and some money in my pocket too, which is great.
But I don't regret coming out here for a second. I paid off a lot of debt, as intended - about 15% of my college education. Not bad. Also I got to do something that a lot of people never will - I got to work in a very unique work setting, unlike any other setting I've ever worked in or ever will. The rigs really are something else. Working there is different not only because of the danger, the weird hours, the muddiness, the heavy machinery, but also because it's a place where, for the most part, you can really be yourself. You can say almost anything you want and there are no consequences for it (again, almost anything). You can goof around, joke a lot with the guys you work with, swear all the time, talk about the gnarstiest topics of covo, and pee almost ANYWHERE and not get charged for public indecency. Phenomenal.
And I can say that I've worked with a very diverse crowd too. For a lot of them, they're working here for a reason - nowhere else they're going to find a job that pays this much. A lot of them have a whole ton of kids to support ( I me three guys who were paying $2000/mo in child support. woof.) and really wouldn't be able to do so elsewhere - the money's so geewd out here. And that was all great, but like I mentioned before, at what price? I'm glad I got out of it when I did. Now maybe I can actually use my degree after having it for almost two years now.
And yes, I could have stuck it out here longer and saved more money, paid off more debt but I figured, well, I really have about zero responsibilites so it really won't kill me financially to leave this place. I'll find something better elsewhere. Time to do something I liiiike.
But things did end well with the company. I was told that if I ever wanted to come back then I'd be welcome. Always a good thing. But here's hoping I'll be rolling in the cash elsewhere.
Back to my thoughts on working out here - I now have a lot more knowledge on tools...and drilling (which I might not use in the future)... but the biggest thing is knowing that I can work a lot. and under shitty conditions (thirty below zero temps with wind chill, getting covered in mud, standing on swollen angles for a whole week). So after all this I know that I can endure a whole lot of work and pain and exhaustion and come out of it just fine. So bring on more work. If I can stick it out on the oil rigs in ND then I can stick it out just about anywhere. Amiriiiight?
Man, I'm glad I didn't end up doing this forever. Before I left my dad would say, "you never know what you'll end up doing. Like your mom, she wasn't that excited to start her first job out here and she ended up doing it for years!" (paraphrasing), saying that I might end up doing this for a very long time. Like I said, it's good to be out. There's quite a culture out here that is not too desirable - you might not want to surround yourself with and maybe end up like a lot of these roughnecks - divorced multiple times, supporting endless amounts of kids, smoking til they cough up a lung (on the daily), chewing tobacco (I tried it a couple times, puked, and I was done), hating their jobs - stuff. like. that. And really, the job just wasn't for me. I showed up on time every day, I did what I was told, had a good attitude, but wasn't the best at it. And that's something that I am looking forward to - not only finding a job that I enjoy, but also something that I'm good at. The whole thing was a good experience, but not for a lifetime.
I think that sums up most of my thoughts on the six months out there. If I see you in person, I'll most definitely have more stories. I'd share them online, but I'd rather be there with you and laugh while I told them.
Here's to the next couple months of uncertainty.