free the lanterns!

the wondrous jinju fortress/castle/palace/wall

the lanterns! out on the river! they were all ready to go for the lantern festival. stupid swine flu!

the day before chuseok, these women came out to the fortress all dressed up and ready to perform some traditional dance or whatever. too bad their performance was supposed to be on chuseok. they were not too happy when they figured this out. haha

some thing inside the fortress

like i showed earlier, the lanterns were already made! here's bumblebee

speaking of fortresses/palaces/castles, here is the gyeongbok palace. i swear to you it's there.

for real. just look harder.

nearby the palace is this sweet neighborhood, supposedly one of the richest in seoul, that has this european feel to it. amazing amazing place. there's us, sitting at the best seat in the house.

my friends knew the workers at this restaurant so we got hooked up!

at haeundae in pusan. some korean kid (walking away on the right) decided he would try and attack eric (on the left) who was in the water at the time. this made for pretty much the funniest minute ever. it was a travesty that none of us were able to capture that moment on camera. the korean dude ran into the water, fell down, got back up, only to be picked up by eric and thrown back down.

here is crazy korean kid for the second time. if i was him i would've gone after the girls to begin with..

check out that ridiculously looking sky

jennifer kim. it's pretty crazy how so many people from throughout my life are here in korea now... that's us after copping some sweet banc t's (see the yellow baggies)

the 63 building. people kept talking about this like it was a big deal. when i was in taiwan 4 years ago, the new year's celebration took place at the 101. so i'm like, 63? is that a joke? 3 of the 63 floors are underground too... they do supposedly have the world's highest art gallery though. it was a pretty good time.

my boy, jack kim. it took 7 years. damn.

a few hilarious stories before i end:

i'm gonna be playing in a vball tournament this weekend, so i decided that i needed to practice. i hit up the pe teacher, who i'm now pretty tight with, and he says that he can help me practice during one of his classes. and he did. he put me through an intense 40 min of nonstop hitting/blocking. i was drained by the end of it. it was so great though. he made the students "play defense." what this really amounted to was 9 or so kids standing upright on the court trying to dodge the ball as i hit at them. haha. soo great. but now i'm soo sore. i figure i can go hard for a couple of days, then rest for a few, and hopefully be ready for this weekend. shoot, i need all the practice i can. i suck now. i can't even jump anymore. it's just awkward.

one of my students is an only child so another student asks him, "Why are you alone?" His response, "My father's strength is not much."

i love my kids.

lastly, i just started my superheroes unit. when coming up with lesson plans this was the one that i was the most excited about (even more so then the prom one). and i've literally been counting down the weeks before i could do it. be on the lookout, it is going to be amazing!