March 12th-March 22nd

I have skipped a few days since my last post but only because there was not much going on during the week. All of our weeks are very similar in the sense that I wake up, eat breakfast and go to work. I usually leave my apartment around 8:45 and get home around 8-8:30 at night. They are long days but not too bad. The reason I get home so late is because Daniel, Jillian and myself all got gym memberships and we go to workout after work. The gym is awesome and it is very cheap. We purchased three months for 90,000 Korean Won which is about $70.00. It actually costs 60,000 for the three months but you can pay an extra 10,000 a month for a locker and clean workout clothes everyday. It is a great deal and will save us from doing laundry more often.

This week on March 12th was my birthday and it turned out to be a really good birthday. At work, one of the teachers that teaches ahead of me did art projects and had all the kids make me birthday cards and they were awesome. This class sometimes gives me grief and it made my day to walk in the class to see all of them hiding under their desks and pop out to say "happy birthday, we love you teacher Kevin." At first when they were under the desks, I thought to myself, "Here we go again, going to have to be mean." ha-ha but that was not the case and it was really cool. After work, Daniel and I went to the gym and then headed out to a restaurant/bar for dinner and some drinks with our co-worker Dave and our recruiters Joanne and Troy. The five of us had a blast and the restaurant gave some free drinks and some free food. Dave bought me dinner and some drinks while Joanne and Troy bought me a beer as well. We had a blast but it being a work night, we had to keep it low key and wait for the weekend. That wasn't tough seeing that the next day was Friday. On Friday, Daniel and I went up to a city near by named Yeongton and met up with three foreign teachers from another school at a bar called "Now Bar" and had a good night. Then on Saturday, Daniel, Jillian, Tate and I went up to Seoul for the day. Tate's parents and Grandma were in town as well and we all went out to dinner and just enjoyed the big city and walking around.

Before coming to Korea, I did some research on our city and it said there was a par 3 golf course but I had never seen where it was. Well on Sunday we found this "par 3 golf course" and it was in the Central Park we always go to but it is not real golf. It is called Park Golf or maybe it's Park Ball, I am not sure. But anyways, it was Tate, Jillian, Tate's dad, Daniel and I who played and it turned out to be pretty fun. There is only one club, a ball (which is about the size of a lacrosse ball) and the cup for the holes is about 4 times the size of regular golf cups. Hopefully you will be able to see what I am talking about in the pictures I post. The weekend has now ended and it’s back to the weekly routine or working and working out.

Since we are about 13-16 hours ahead of everyone in the states, the NCAA basketball tournament started on Friday for us and no joke, probably every thirty minutes I was checking out the scores or trying to watch the games online. I am not happy about missing this time of year but thank god all of the games are on the internet. I started a bracket challenge for us foreign co-workers and it cost 10,000 Korean Won and every single one of us chose a different national champion. So pretty much, it is going to come down to who wins the whole thing who wins our bracket. I chose North Carolina. On Friday night, Daniel and I took the bus to Seoul and met up with some other foreign teachers again for a night on the town. The partying here is very tough. It is an all night thing where you are out until 5 or 6 in the morning. I am out of commission all of Saturday because of these Fridays. But I am not complaining because it is always a good time! We found a foreigner’s bar called "Woodstock" and met other people, played some darts and enjoyed ourselves. Saturday night, after I regained my energy, Daniel and I met up with our recruiters Joanne and Troy for drinks at a local bar in Dongtan. We love hanging out with Joanne and Troy. They are always up for a good time and they are really good people. We try to get with them once a week at least for dinner or drinks. Then on Sunday, it was another relaxing day where Daniel and I went to play some Park Golf (I shot 2 under par) and went to the store that is near by called E-Mart because they always have free samples like Costco and they are so good. We needed a little snack after golf. They had duck as one of the samples and it was amazing. I think I had five samples. Then for dinner, Jillian made pasta and they used Tate's Grandma's homemade spaghetti sauce (she is full Italian and can cook!!) with salami in it. It was incredible. This is pretty much all that has been going on the past couple weeks. I sure hope my blog is not getting boring for anyone. Miss you all so much and hopefully there will be some exciting things going on in the next week or two to share with everyone.