Medal from Bike Trip

Found a little nice present in the mail a couple of days ago. The delivery guy knocked on my door while I was cooking food, at first I was confused because I didn't order anything. But after a round of body language communication and broken Korean I figured out that he was saying the post office left something at the restaurant because I wasn't home.

And here it is in all its glory. I was so excited :D

Came in this box

Sexy wooden box

And a strap for hanging it

Certificate of awesomeness

The amazing medal for my accomplishments. This thing is heavy and has my name engraved in it as well as a wooden box for display and a certificate of authentication in velvet :D

BIFF and sneaking inside

The BIFF stands for Busan International Film Festival. Growing up in Toronto we had TIFF which is the Toronto International Film Festival. I never really got whats so exciting about these things, especially the red carpet opening. But my goal this year was to see and do as many new things as I can and so I readily agreed when my friend Steve invited me to go red carpet watching at the opening ceremony.

To be honest it was actually pretty fun. Running around with my new camera and trying to catch glimpses of famous people, most of whom I didn't even know. I feel like thats the same for most people there. I had an ajumma (old korean lady), ask me who Cecilia Cheung was :D

Speaking of which the most famous people we saw at the festival were Cecilia Cheung, and this Korean director that I forgot the name of.

After all the celebrities have left Steve and I decided to explore and by luck or skill we managed to sneak past the security guard. So we had free access to the BIFF opening day. We got to the rooftop of the building and could see everything that was happening at the premiere. And the other theaters inside were doing test runs of the movies that were going to be shown during the festival and so it was all empty so we got to sit in on some of them.

We almost got caught a couple of times , but by our quick feet we managed to elude capture. Sometimes we just pretended like we belonged there and no one questioned us - LIKE A BOSS.

All in all a really fun night that I will never forget.

Update: Now that the opening is over I am trying to get tickets to see some of the movies which are dirt cheap 6000W each ticket, which is about $5 Canadian - I love you BIFF! Some of the ones that stood out are:

Cold War, Argo, The Concubine, Nairobi Half Life, Doctor, Dangerous Liasons.

But because I work during the week, and lack of tickets I probably will only be able to see one or two of these at best. :(

Last Stand up Comedy

Standup comedy videos:

First performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFdserb08xs
Best performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByN37-iY85g
Worst performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOBe0WI5Ozo
Last Performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLJMqWAGEhI&feature=youtu.be
Just finished my last standup comedy performance in Busan, South Korea. Been doing it for about 8-9 month now. Performed probably 10 or 11 times.

In Busan there is a standup comedy night at a foreigner bar where its open mic and anyone can jump on. I went to a show once and decided that I was funny. Did it the next month and didn't do so poorly so I decided to continue doing it every month. I even traveled to other cities to do standup comedy like Gumi and Daegu.

So for my last standup comedy I decided to do something different. I really loved my time in Busan here and I rewrote Jay-Z's song empire state of mind for Busan. Anyways I performed this at the end of my set and it was really cool. The local comics who usually do standup with me helped me out as there was no music so we had a impromptu beat from the crowd.

On my bucket list for when I go back to Toronto is to continue doing standup comedy at least 1 more time at Yuk Yuk's for their amateur night.

I am really glad I got into standup comedy as it helped me with my public speaking and confidence.

Peace. I love you Busan. The video cuts out at the end - Thanks Kris >:(  but it was a good end to my time here I think. I really wished the last part would have been captured where I said:

"LOVE YOU BUSAN! PEACE!"

Joy comes to Busan

My chuseok is going to consist of showing a friend of a friend Joy around Busan.

It doesn't seem like it but time passes by really quick. And as the end of my time approaches I realized I haven't done a lot of the tourist stuff here in Busan. And I think it's like that for everybody when they live in a city for an extended period of time.

Over the pass 11 month Busan has been my city and I feel like I am a native Busanite. Anyways it will be good that Joy is visiting because it gives me an excuse to try out the touristy things before I leave.

So on the agenda.
Today - beach volleyball followed by bar/club (ok not so touristy, since this is my normal Saturday schedule, but the weather is just too good to pass up beach volleyball.

Sunday - check out busan aquarium dalmaji hill. So this is a late update. And we did these two things plus am impromptu dance and music performance with a random street musician in Haeundae. Then we went to Gwanan to watch more live music by local favorite "shade of a tree".

Monday - we checked out Yongdusa temple which is by the sea and really beautiful. At the risk of sounding cliche. It was breathtaking. Now we are on the bus heading back to our bike. We are going to check out the Busan art museum and finally Spaland to end off the day.

Peace

I'm on the radio ma!

This past Thursday I was invited to do an interview on the English radio station here in Busan (Busan efm 93.5) to talk about the chuseok holiday aka. Korean thanksgiving.

I heard about this from the organizer of the Socrates cafe. Socrates cafe is a Sunday discussion group of foriener a and Koreans who come together every Sunday to talk about various philosophical topics. I haven't been going in the past couple of weeks because the weather has been so nice and I went to the beach instead. But the organizer couldn't make it to the interview and so asked me instead to go in his place.

This was a really cool experience and I got to meet the morning show host of morning wave in Busan Catherine. The other interviewees were mainly from toastmasters. We talked about topics such as: "is it fair that women have to do all the work during chuseok holiday?" and "how important is it to observer tradition during chuseok?".

All in all a really cool experience and at the end of the show there was a segment called : letter through the radio. We got to send messages to our loved ones via the radio. I said somethings to my parents back home.

Anyways. Listen to the interview and you can hear me :) it will be aired on Monday October 1st at 7am.
Here is the link: http://www.befm.or.kr/program/morning/ProgramAction.do?cmd=PlayListMgr&prgmId=morning&tab=PRGM_SCRIPT

So with this I completed two of my general bucket list items: 1. Being on the radio and 2. Being on TV.

The tv one was from last years busan Kpop festival at gwanan beach in which I was shot on camera dancing before sistar came on. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCy-5lRKqyY

Peace

Chuseok Holiday

Here in Korea, one of the biggest holidays is Chuseok. Basically its a 5 day vacation from the weekend and lasting all the way till Wednesday.

This week has been pretty good to me so far. I have only 2 days of classes to teach, since my kids are taking exams on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And next week its pretty much the same deal only 2 days of teaching on account of Chuseok.

So today is the first day of the exams, and I thought I'd write a blog update.

As for my plans for Chuseok, I have a friend coming over from near Daegu so I am going to show her around town maybe check out the stuff I haven't had time yet to see in my time in Busan. Most excited about is definitely the Busan Aquarium.

Then next week Tuesday I need to take the KTX (fast train) into Seoul to get my Thai visa sorted out. T-minus 3 weeks and 1/2 before Thailand :D

Leaving Korea planning

It's been raining pretty hard here in Busan. The city I have called my home for the last 10 month. Time seems to pass by so fast. Now as I am about to finish my contract here in Busan I am beginning to feel more and more apprehensive abut my new adventure in Thailand. I will be learning Muay Thai there for 3 month!

Who would have thought it would be so much planning and organizing. Thank god it was raining today, otherwise I would have gone to the beach and played beach volleyball like every other weekend and put off the massive list of things I needed to do before I leave for Korea.

So before I forget here is a list of things that needs to be done before I leave Korea. A sort of Korea bucket list in no particular order:

1. Visit the DMZ (bungee jump near there, if I don't chicken out)
2. Do the temple stay program
3. Take pictures of my students and teachers
4. Set up my going away party.

And a list of things which are just administrative stuff for my next adventure, and damn is it long and tedious.

1. Post things for sale
2. Ask my teacher for a reference letter so I can apply for positions in other countries after my thailand trip.
3. go to the post office and ask about sending my bike and suitcases home
4. go to the korean bank to set up a travellers visa
5. get my medal from my bike trip
6. get a visa for thailand (have to go to Seoul for this one)
7. Transfer my cellphone and internet contract

Thailand T-minus 7 and 1/2 weeks. Excited and scared at the same time.

P.S. Just thought of a cool project idea. Save the money from the countries I visit and frame them in my room. 

Jack