Long awaited!!

This is long overdue, and a lot has happened between now and my last real update, so I'm going to do my best to make this short and to the point. Hey, at least I've been keeping myself (very/too/disgustingly) busy! We got a lot of ground to cover, gang, so hang on.

Well, let's see. Since I last posted, the very first thing I did was head over to a small river resort town about an hour and a half east of here to check out their coi flag festival. Boy's (Now Children's) Day was coming up, and traditionally, families hang massive flags out to represent their family, especially the children. This town we went to prides itself on these flags and hangs them over the river. Ever wonder what 3,500 8 ft. long fish flags look like? Completely awesome and well worth the trip.

Shortly after that, I made a trip to Korea over Golden Week! What's Golden Week?? Well I'm GLAD YOU ASKED! In early May, 3 holidays fall in a row which means 5 day weekend! This is one of the longest breaks for most people so just about everyone travels for the long weekend. Korea sounded good because I've got a friend, Amy, living over in Seoul teaching English. Thanks to an awesome travel agent (who knocked 1,000$ off of my plane ticket THANK YOU VERY MUCH!) I was able to fly in on Friday night after school. It was quite the weekend! But again, keepin' it short. Here are some of the highlights. (Those on facebook can see a lot of the pictures I took. Others can wait until I dump the next chunk of photos into photobucket)

The first day in, we decided to check out Seodaemun Prison. This is a prison built by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century to hold Korean independence fighters. Aside from the terrible living conditions such as hunger and disease, inmates were in constant fear of brutal torture and swift executions. Of course, to capitalize on this, the prison has since been turned into a tourist attraction where you can pay to go and see recreations of the torture devices, the prison cells, and even a small wax/animatronic gallery depicting several of the more gruesome tortures in full, bloody detail. (Bring the kids!) It was very interesting to see, in all seriousness. I guess I'm stupid, but I didn't know much of the history behind any of it, so it was all new to me (as read through heavily biased display descriptions. :D).

We saw the same palace 3 times... or so I like to say. On 3 days, we went to 3 palaces. Each of the main portions of the palaces all look pretty much the same. By the third time, Amy and I were sure to make plenty of deja vu jokes. The distinguishing features of each one lie around the main palace in the grounds. One of them had a beautiful lake, another had many smaller buildings, including an island pagoda, and the third, more centrally located one, has a changing of the guard ceremony everyday. THAT was cool. In full "medieval" Korean clothing, the sword-wielding guards put on a great display, accompanied by traditional Korean musicians, all marching and moving with great precision. I was enthralled by the music (being a massive music nerd) and so I spent the bulk of my time watching them play the unique instruments. Also, the "drum major" completely rocked. :D

Amy made me go to church. *sigh* Ok, so I went to an English singles ward in Korea. Actually, it was kinda fun to hang out and talk with more people who have such a strong drive to go experience other cultures. On Saturday night, they had an event called Bob's House of Blues... basically, everyone gathers at this guy's apartment, eats dinner, and holds an Open Mic night sort of thing. People sing, tell stories, read poetry, or perform pacific island dances. It was just a lot of fun to hang out, and it was a nice apartment, too! (They convinced me to play... it was terrible. I haven't touched a guitar in almost 10 months, and I wasn't even that good to begin with.)

Based on a recommendation from my Japanese teacher here, we went to go see JUMP! on Tuesday. JUMP! is a... well... "Martial Arts Comedy Extravaganza" for lack of a better description (as if there could BE a better description!). It was a mostly pantomimed show about a strange family who are all martial arts masters. Stuff happens... stuff which enables them to jump really high, flip, break boards, run off of walls, throw each other around, swing bo staffs, and make the audience laugh the entire time. It was a GREAT show! Completely glad we went to do that (and glad it was MY recommendation! Ha!)

Anyway, that's about it for Korea. Of course we went to Seoul Tower and a few more places, but I'll spare the descriptions. I might be throwing a video together soon, anyway.

Believe it or not, after a few days in Korea, I actually got homesick... for Japan. Weirdest feeling... haha. Anyway, I headed back home to a few days of school, a 3 day weekend, and then a solid 7 days in a row of school. Tuesday through Sunday. Why oh why would they put us through such torture? The answer, of course, is Sports Day. For about a month before that Sunday, we had been practicing almost everyday for Sports Day. The students practiced marching, they practiced team cheers, they practiced their individual events...basically, a TON of hard work. All of it came to one massive event. Pretty cool, says I... and I've got tons of pictures and video. I've got ideas of a video I want to make, so maybe expect something soon.

Otherwise, things continue to be busy. I'm still performing with that band I sang clapton songs with, the other band I'm playing bass in (New name pending), and still taking a bit of kendo. Kendo... is hard. In fact, today, I was having a hard time with one "routine," and so the teacher brought over this elementary school girl to show me how to do it... talk about emasculating...

That's it for now! Until later!