Off to Thailand (teh-gook)!

I am getting ready to leave for Thailand tomorrow morning!  I'm so excited, and can't wait to experience (and share) all of the wonderful things in store for me :D

I will be getting picked up by my friends Connie and Erin in a taxi at about 7:10 am tomorrow morning.  Then we will take a limo bus for 7,800 won to Busan, which is about an hour away and a half by bus.  We will depart from Busan International Airport at 12:45 pm and arrive in Beijing at 2:05 pm.  We will have to entertain ourselves until 7:45 when our next plane departs for Bankok, where we will arrive at 11:45 pm. 

Our friend Howard joined our trip late, so he will be arriving Sunday morning at 2am.  We have all kinds of things planned and booked from a Thai cooking class to a jungle tour on an elephant!  It is going to be amazing!

Here is my vacation fund in Korean won!  I will be exchanging it into Thai bhat once I get the airport.  I'd like to go ahead and thank my parents Mike Manary, Theresa Manary, my Aunt Colleen Berg and My Grandma Jean Manary for their early Christmas present to me, which was a generous contribution to this fund from each!!  I was going to have to do this trip on the cheap, but now 'money aint' a thang!' 

 This is my brand new traveling pack!  I just ordered it a few days ago and it arrived just in time.  It is a 'premium' 60 liter travel pack.  Spared no expense! ;)

It is big and comfy!  Hoping it joins me on many adventures to come!

Christmas Carols!!

I have continued doing songs with my students, and this time included the 3rd and 4th graders!  We had Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells competitions over the last couple weeks and I have some great videos from those!

Here are the 3rd graders on their BEST behavior, lol.  This is also their first year studying English, so they do a wonderful job here!

Here is my favorite class, the 4th graders.  They are just amazing, even when I catch myself being boring haha

Here is the 5th graders doing Jingle Bells.  My favorite singers in the school!

Here are my 6th graders, and as usual half of them are over enthused and half are under.  Either way they are entertaining!

Now for a couple notes about the videos.  It is sometimes hard to see how the winners, ARE the winners by these videos because I am judging their whole performance, not just the clips used.  Also these songs were not rehearsed as much as I would have liked due to the upcoming break, so many classes could not sing ALL of the verses (mainly for Jingle Bells, I mean.. how many English speakers even know the whole song?).  The ones that you see singing the 2nd and 3rd verse did so well because they knew them at all.  The runners up actually sound better to me on THESE videos, but the winners sounded just as good or better.  

Finally, I must say, that I am still overwhelmed by the Let It Be performances previously posted.  That was such a high bar in my opinion that the rest of the songs will have to be masterfully done to compete!  Hopefully I provide some amazing competition next year, hope you enjoyed!

My Apartment (Finally)

Well just after 4 months of being here in Korea I guess I'll finally share some footage of my apartment and surrounding area!  The video is self explanatory, the photos are basically what I see when I walk to work.

Most of these I took walking home from school one day.  This is actually the entrance/driveway to my school on the right, and part of the playground on the left.

A look down the road I walk every day.

Some of these houses are SO cool looking, I want one just like it when I buy a house back home (someday).

Another cool looking house.

I mentioned in the video that many of the houses have stairs to the roof.  This is partially because there is not a ton of flat ground here and it's so mountainous.  The other reason is with no clothes drying machines, they hang their clothes on a line on the roof.  Also good for barbecues and shooting fireworks (as I have found recently on a friend's roof).

Here is another cool house, and the Jesus statue again.

My fire escape that I shot part of the video from.  

The Jesus and the church at night.  It seems all of the churches decorate with lots of Christmas lights.

Me with my new leather jacket in my elevator of mirrors :)

PINK Belt Test

Last week I took and passed my 3rd belt test, and this particular belt is pink!  Now I don't mind wearing pink sometimes, I actually have a pink dress shirt, but when it comes to Taekwondo.. I guess I would have picked a different color, haha.  The one high school student who is in my Taekwondo group is going to love this.  He (and almost all of the students in the group) is a black belt, so even when I had an orange belt he would walk up to me, point at it and say "cute."  Haha he is funny but I'm making it a little too easy for him this time.

This is the progression of belts.  I started out with white, and had to take a test for yellow, orange, and now pink.  I only have 5 more to go before I start preparing for the black belt test, which is a big deal, and it's only offered 2 times a year I think.  I will go to a big gymnasium somewhere else in the city for that test, and I will get a big plaque and certificate if I complete it.

Here is the test which like the others has 4 parts: the 'basic action,' pumsei 3, the kicking test and then board breaking.  I was pretty well prepared for this test, which is the most difficult so far (just since there is a lot to memorize) but I still had a little difficulty with it.  One of my biggest problems is I like to go too fast, so in the beginning you will see Master Lee telling me to slow down.  It's easier for me to just have it automated from muscle memory, than to go slow and think about each move.. so a little room to improve.  Also I messed up a little bit in the basic action, as you see me freeze for a second.  I had actually showed up early that day and got winded playing soccer before hand, then had quite an intense session.  I think I'm in pretty good shape right now and I was just whooped!  Then it came time for the test and it was hard to gather my concentration, but luckily I pulled it off.  There is another part of the basic action you will see me do twice, I'm not sure why Master Lee told me to do it again, I showed him the video after and pointed it out but I didn't get an answer.  Also I sometimes I forget to 'cry' out (haaiii!) when I kick, which I need to make sure I do.  The last comment I will make about the test is kicking the 3 boards at the end HURT SO BAD!  Like, wow.  You can see my reaction, almost hopping around a bit.  I made the most contact with my toe knuckles, instead of the top, middle part of my foot.  Anyways all of that was worth it, as I make my way closer to the goal of black belt!

Master Lee and I!

Taekwondo Festival

Last Sunday I participated in a Taekwondo 'Festival' which was really cool!  Unfortunately I didn't get any videos of my performance, but I have several awesome videos  and TONS pictures of the kids, and a couple pictures of my performance.  I usually do Taekwondo with the older group of students, which only includes a few of my 6th graders, some middle schoolers and one high school student.  When I showed up for this event I was greeted by TONS of my younger students who were all too excited to see me doing something other than teaching, haha!

I thought this was taking place at some gym a few kilometers away, but it ended up being in MY school's gym in front of lots of parents.  This made me a little nervous, because I try to separate school and Taekwondo.  I have a certain standard of professionalism at school, and a bit of a relaxed attitude when it comes to Taekwondo.  It wasn't a bad thing, but it made the experience a little more nerve racking and interesting!

I took this picture, the rest I got from Master Lee.  (100 photos total)

I think these are 1st or 2nd graders, so I don't teach them, but aren't they ridiculously cute?

^^^ I rest my case.

This one in the yellow and black jacket is one of my favorite kids in my school.  His English name is Mason and he is one of my fourth graders.  Sometimes he is one of my classroom cleaners and he is just so cool!  He is the one jumping around in my video earlier in this post.  Actually on Monday he and 3 other students were cleaning my classroom and they came over to talk to me about this festival; "Ryan Teacher, Taekwondo good!"

I showed them the video of him jumping around, it was priceless.

These are the older students that do Taekwondo with me.  

Peace :)

You can actually see me taking one of the videos in the back of the gym!

Yes, they are performing to Ricky Martin, SMH.

This was me for 2 minutes, while Master Lee introduced me, waiting to begin.

Shizah! (start)

I was to perform three things: Pumsei 2, pumsei 3 and a bit of board breaking/kicking.  You can see pumsei 2 in my orange belt test video, and pumsei 3 in my upcoming belt video.  The board breaking was really cool and I wish I had the video.. 4 other students went and then I broke 4 boards.

I can honestly say that I am RARELY nervous, but I was so nervous for this once I got out there.  I was the only one to do a solo performance, and I stood out there for about 2 minutes while Master Lee introduced me in Korean.  The only thing I caught was he talked about how I'm a teacher and I play guitar a lot, haha.  I did really good though and got many compliments, what a relief (and experience)!

Live Music Downtown

I spent a little over 3 hours downtown yesterday running errands, exploring Lotte Department store, and watching a couple high school students performing some songs with a pair of guitars.

I had to pick up my guitar amp downtown for the 2nd time.  I accidentally blew it a while back, got it fixed for 40,000 Won, but then it blew again.  The first time I know it was  my fault, but the second time did not make sense, it just stopped working mid playing.  The music shop offered to fix it for free this time which was awesome.  I went to pick it up Tuesday and it wasn't ready yet, even though it was supposed to be ready Monday.  That was a bummer because I had to take the over crowded bus there and back during rush hour.. at least it was a free fix.  I went and got it yesterday and it works great now.

There are two large department stores downtown, one I have already explored which is the Hyundai Department store.  Since I was in no rush and was searching for a couple odds and ends, I took my time and explored the other one, Lotte Department store.

The first tall building is Lotte Hotel, and right next to it (to the left) is the Lotte Department store.  Behind it is a court yard and the other part of the Department store, and that is where the musicians were performing.

When I was right outside of the Lotte Deptartment store I saw a couple high school kids performing!  They played a couple songs in English/Korean, and several only in Korean.  I took some videos and mixed them together.  They performed "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, then Let It Be by the Beatles (obviously).  They did one other popular American song, but I'm not sure of it's name.  He also at the end you can see that he played the Kazoo for a little bit too!  I apologize for the poor sound quality from my phone, but the main singer (on the left) was very talented!

Let It Be (6th Grade Edition)

I did the Let It Be competition with both the 5th grade class, and the 6th grade class.  I think overall the 5th graders took it more seriously and did a better job, but some of the 6th graders did really good as well.  6-1 were the winners, and 6-3 still got a bit of a prize for their outstanding enthusiasm!  Enjoy!

Now I am doing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the 3rd and 4th graders, and Jingle Bells with the 5th and 6th graders, so I may have more videos like this coming!

Teacher Trip!

This past Thursday I joined the rest of the teaching staff in an overnight hotel meeting/ end of the year celebration.  It was really fun and a great bonding experience with the other teachers.  Being a foreigner in the school makes it hard to get further than 'hello' and 'nice to see you' with the other teachers.  With the exception of my co-teachers, and when we play volleyball, I just go about my business.  That is fine, but whenever we go out to dinner and the other teachers get a couple drinks in them, they open up incredibly!  They have plenty of English vocab to communicate, but I think we are all just timid at other times, like at lunch time in the cafeteria.

We left the school at 3 pm and traveled about 20 minutes to another part of Ulsan.  We brought all of our things up to the rooms of the hotel, then went down for a soccer version of volleyball.  I'd seen videos of this, but had never played before.  It was really fun and I was actually pretty good!

 

For this game, the women were allowed to use their hands like in volleyball, but the guys had to use our heads, feet and knees like in soccer.  Each team could get up to three hits per turn, and you can play it on a bounce.  The last kick landed out of bounds.

 

Next we had a meeting about the school year and the coming school year.  For about an hour I read news articles on my phone, since I understood no part of the meeting.  My co-teacher Jack did point out which days we will have off for holiday next year though near the end of the meeting, so at least I gained some knowledge during this meeting :)

Next we had dinner, which consisted of raw fish, lots of mekju (beer) and soju (watered down vodka).  It was really fun, and one of the best times to bond with the other teachers, because like I said before, they really make the effort to talk to me after a drink or two, haha.  Had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the food.

The raw fish, and several side dishes.

My co-teacher Mr. Cheung and another teacher at the school.

After dinner five other teachers and I went to a norebang (personal karaoke room) nearby.  These are actually all teachers that I play volleyball with, so it was really fun!

After the norebang we went back to the hotel, had some snacks, and played some cards.  It was a wonderful time all around :D

And here is breakfast: scrambled egg soup, kimchi, anchovies, and a couple other random side dishes.

Cultural Fusion (through music)

So my friends out at UNIST (Ulsan National Instituted of Science and Technology) invited me back out to their campus, but this time to give a speech on American Culture!  My friend Rao was doing a project for a class about different cultures, and sharing those cultures through music.  He asked me to participate and play a song or two, and of course I gladly agreed!

The event was held in a lecture hall on campus, and there were only about 22 people in attendance, but it was still very cool to be a part of.. and actually featured!  At first I thought I was just playing for a couple people and a video camera, and it turns out I was featured on the poster of this event!  However I was even more excited about the event because of this, and prepared 2 songs and a short speech on American culture.

My friend Rao sang a song and did a presentation about Pakistan, and wore a traditional Pakistani dress shirt.

A really cool guy from Mongolia did a presentation and sang as well.
My friend Tong did a short presentation about Vietnam and played lead guitar for the song "Afterlife" by Avenged Sevenfold.  He has some amazing guitar skills.

I performed last since I was "featured," which was an HONOR.  I was really happy to do it, and wasn't nervous, however when I asked how many people could understand English, and less than half raised their hands.. it really broke my concentration.  It shouldn't have, but I was trying find a balance between how I communicate to my English students, and the audience that I anticipated.  So I edited the videos up a bit due to little stumbles and fumbles, but I still feel that I did pretty good, and they all thought so (all that matters :)

 

When I played open mics over the summer I did this song with an electric guitar, and it would sound even better with drums.. and bass.. and a whole band!  But regardless I love playing it and decided to do an acoustic cover.   Tong's electric was in drop D and had a tuning lock on it, so I stuck with the acoustic.

I did mention a couple of things about music and art, but I cut that since I stumbled a bit.  We also talked about how many people think all Americans eat McDonald's every day.   Of course I couldn't talk in the depth that I would have liked to about American culture due to time restraints, and I found myself changing my speech midway through due to the language barrier.  I am my worst critic, and I wish I would have done a better job, but it still was an awesome experience and my friends at UNIST were very happy with it.

This is one of my favorite songs to play, but it is a bit controversial, and as I noted in the video I slipped up on it a bit so I cut it short.  However I think the message that I stated before hand was the point I wanted to make, that we all have problems, and we all should be empathetic.  The audience also had a chance to experience this style of music, which is one of the main objectives of this event.

All in all I had a great time participating in this event, and I'm glad I did it.  Afterwards the fellas cooked dinner and I played a few more songs for them.  A good time was had by all :D