apologies, apologies...i am enjoying myself far too much

Korea is taking my breath away.  Inflating me slowly and then sending me squealing, whirling, careening with a mad intense joy across this country while I exhale the giant breath that was the week.  I can't keep up.  The blogging has been lacking.  I look back at the last time I've written and realize how far behind I've become.  There is no way I will be able to record all of these memories.  No way I will be able to share them.  No way I will be able to forget them.

I try to write of the daily life, things I'd like to share.  From my mission to build the self-worth of hundreds of over-worked Korean high schoolers, to pinching at kimchi and conversation in the lunchroom.  English my only weapon (and a few, very few broken shards of Hangul).  Walks around the lake after lunch.  Moving to the table for coffee to laugh and stab shared fruit with toothpicks.  All the while, Geumo San winks at us through the window.  The quick syllables of Hangul have become my soundtrack, fluid, fast.  Highly emotive.  I love it.  A phrase a day--I am trying.

I walk to and from school with Woody each day.  Annyonghasayos and bows to all the adults of my alley.  They respond with smiles and a drawn out Ne.  They like me.  This oddity of a resident.  I like them.

Night classes Monday and Wednesday teaching writing to ridiculously gifted 1st and 2nd graders who fill my subversive fix with a the raw honesty of their experience, unabashed when free from the eyes and ears of the administration.  The positivity revolution I hope to spread has begun.

Explore the city Tuesday and Thursday nights with the other Waegooks.  I try for a different spot each time.  So far we've found too many pasta places, some fabulous hofs, and the most delicious flavored makoli.  Twiggum and Kimbop and Hoddok.  Yum.  I fear in a year I won't even see all of Gumi, there are so many spots to sample.  And Gumi is only for during the week.

But that is not even a typical week anymore.  I can't remember the last 5 day work week I've had.  Weekends and weeks spill into each other and it all becomes one long, gulp of life.  Experience, one-after-another, is the theme of this.  Vacation?  Hell no.  THIS is LIFE.  Live it up.

Every weekend--and every weekday, free-from-teaching holiday--I find myself somewhere new.  I return to some cities, but always to discover new sites, new dives, new secrets.  Weekends are for Westerners, for Waegooks, for indulgence to the Nth degree.  We could be crazy, abrasive, ignorant tourists, but instead, we inhabit the lacuna of South Korea--not quite Korean, not quite Western tourist.  The way of the Waegook (I must blog about this more in the future).  There is always a healthy cocktail of culture and partying and nature and bonding.

Friends come fast and are scattered across the railways, offering beds and guides and company and an insider's hookups in each city we visit.  To make this experience all the more thrilling, there is no difficulty in rallying the troops for a bit of fun.  All that is required is a good attitude, being down for anything, and having no expectations.  I've caught last-minute boat tours across Busan, watched the bulls fight in Cheongdo, striped Daegu Waldo-style, rolled through Gyeongju on ATVs and bicycles and swan boats, soaked in a green tea bath overlooking the coast of Boseong, drank makoli on a tower overlooking suncheon, paraded through Pohang in Pajamas, rode a motorcycle across the coast, hiked mountains, walked through cherry blossoms...etc...etc...I have been dancing my way across South Korea.

Tomorrow is sports day at school and then I leave to Max it out on Bukjido, camping for Buddha's Birthday.  Nothing like spending three days on an uninhabited island with friends from around the world.  Makin each moment matter, each moment a memory, the sun adds to the freckles and the story continues to write itself into me.