English Festival Festivities

The last month has been incredibly rewarding, absolutely infuriating, and just outright exhausting. 

My kindergarten has been preparing for the English Festival event that we're doing this coming Tuesday.  First off, the two 7 year old classes were supposed to do a musical. The school wanted to do Hansel and Gretel. They had a DVD with a professional showing of kids doing it. Excellent, choreography, costumes, and scenery ideas done. The only problem was that the musical was done in Korean. So the Korean ESL teachers and I set to work translating. We had it done in a few days and we made scripts for the kids. We picked the parts based on who we thought would be best, of course. I handed the cast list to the Korean teacher and she told me it wouldn't work. The kids whose families have been with the school the longest get the best/biggest parts. It didn't matter that those particular kids probably couldn't do it very well. The casting was going to be based on...seniority...not skill. From that moment I washed my hands of the whole play. I had put a lot of thought into how to put on a really good show. And the school didn't care. All they wanted was to please their biggest money makers. 

The parents weren't satisfied though. They called and called. "Why is my kid a munchkin? Why doesn't he have a bigger part?" The school decided to divide up the lead roles among a few kids.  Just switch them out. We had 2 Hansels and 3 Gretels. For a 15 minute play. We even drew names out of a hat. 

It wasn't enough to placate the parents. The school had to cancel the musical. 

Besides the musical, each of the ESL teachers was given a class and we were told two prepare two pieces for the performance. We had a month. It should have been no problem. 

A week later, we were told we had to prepare something for the special English classes too. Okay...but the performance for the special class kids was a week before the Little Campus (the English kindergarten). So now the time to prepare was cut in half. (This actually didn't apply for me. Turned out that my special class performs on the same day as Little Campus). Still doable. And the performance, earlier this week, went okay. 

Yesterday, with 3 practice days left, we were told that the entire show wasn't long enough (they had to fill all the time from the cancelled musical). We were to combine the two 7 year classes and combine the three 6 and 5 year classes and come up with four more songs (with choreography) for each to perform. That's pushing it with only three days to go. Thankfully, I have the 7 year olds who are a bit quicker than the younger kids. Plus, two of the four songs we decided on already had a bit of choreography that the kids knew. I came up with the choreography for the other two on the spot as we were teaching them and we finished learning it today. Phew. Okay I can breathe now. 

JUST KIDDING. Recall that my special class is the only one performing on Tuesday. This morning, my supervisor told me that since I'm the only class, I need to make the performance longer. Add another song.  And give them more lines to memorize for their personal introductions. This class doesn't speak English and I've had a hard enough time trying to teach them the two original songs in broken Korean with two hell-raising 5 year olds in the mix. I expressed the imprudence of her idea given we only had two days left to teach the kids and make it performance-ready. No luck. I have an hour today and an hour on Monday to whip these kids into shape. 

To say that I'm nervous for Tuesday is an understatement. The quality of my kids' performance directly reflects on how well I've taught them.  My kids and I have invested a lot of time, patience (lack of?), and hard work into this show and I want my kids to do well. But given how unorganized and last minute much of this has been, I'm pretty worried. 

That's not to say that this has been a completely negative experience. Since I've been spending an increased amount of time with the same kids, I've gotten to know them better and I feel like I've established relationships with them. When I ask my kids to sit down while we're watching others rehearse and they all dog-pile me in the attempt to sit next to me or curl up in my lap or hold my hand, it makes me feel like this whole fiasco was worth it.  When Mary and Suzy sprint away from the bus to come hug me goodbye, I don't feel like the figure who stands in the front and speaks in tongues anymore.  When the girls come seek me out because they want to be in my class it makes me feel good. They aren't just those kids anymore. They're my kids now. 

Overall it's been an exhausting month and I'm so ready for my vacation. We'll be spending Christmas in Hawaii with Alan's family and I can't wait to have a week free from children, language barriers, and work. After Tuesday, it'll be time to let loose and relax. 

Bacteria, Barbecue, and Beauty

This week has been a pretty full one.  Last Friday night, Alan and I met at Seongnamdong for dinner. There's a burger place a few doors down from ANell Salsa called the Toolbox.

It's a nice little restaurant and the food is delicious.  The burgers have egg and bacon on them in addition to the meat patty and have some sort of Korean sauce.  The meal is served with fries but they also have chili fries you can get for extra.  I would definitely recommend them.  

Saturday morning, Alan and I woke up early and headed to my school.  The kindergarten was putting on an art exhibition for the parents and I thought it'd be fun to go see it.  I had originally told my supervisor that I wasn't going.  In fact, all of the English teachers said they weren't going.  So she was pleased that we showed up.  The weather was gorgeous that day and the exhibition was outside, so it was really pleasant.  And I got to show Alan the zoo that is my school.  He met the ostrich.

That evening, we went back to Seongnamdong for salsa dancing...only to find that there was no salsa party at ANell that evening.  We were already out, so we decided we may as well try out the foreigner's bar in the area.  JJ's.  It's also on the same street as ANell (everything seems to be on that street) and down a little alley.  They have a dart board and a pool table, so we got a drink and shot some pool for a bit.  Alan pretty much destroyed me.  I'll have to work on my pool skills.  But it turns out that JJ's has a swing/line dance night every Tuesday.  I'm not much of a swing dancer, but maybe we'll have to check it out sometime.




This work week went by pretty quickly for me.  Thursday evening was my school director's birthday. So she took the entire Little Campus staff out for dinner.  She even let me bring Alan.  Dinner was at a really swanky place called 삼산 드마리스 (Samsan Dumarisu) near the Lotte Department Store.  It was the biggest buffet I've ever laid eyes on.  They had different sections for foods for different countries.  Korean, Japanese, Chinese.  They had pasta, salad, bakery items, steak.  Desserts galore.  A large section for fresh fruit.  It was all delicious.  I'm pretty sure that both Alan and I felt amazing after that meal.



Yesterday, Friday evening, Alan's lab group was going out for Korean BBQ and invited me to join too.  The place is within walking distance of home, so it was pretty easy to get to.  Just along the river.  Korean BBQ is always an interesting experience.  Meals in Korea are very communal, so you don't really get your own set of food.  They have side dishes on the table and you have your designated cooker who puts the meat strips on to cook.  You just use your chopsticks to grab meat right off the wire and eat it.  Another interesting (disgusting?) thing about Korean BBQ is that there always seems to be someone who likes to eat the meat raw.  Not sure I could stomach that.  But it was a pleasant meal and it was fun to meet Alan's professor and his lab group mates.





Now, this entire week, I've been battling an ear infection.  The first one I've ever had.  But in my attempt to clean it out myself with cotton swabs (which doesn't help at all), my ear canal became nicely inflamed and full of fluid.  I was nearly deaf in my left ear for the last three days.  It was as though I had an ear plug in at all times.  Unfortunately, the hospital is only open during the hours that I happen to work.  Thankfully, they are open for a few hours on Saturday morning.  Alan and I got up early this morning and went to 도강 병워 (Dongkang Medical Center).  They had an English website, so we were under the assumption that this would be an English speaking hospital.  It wasn't.  But, my Korean was efficient enough to communicate to the receptionist what it was I needed and I got myself in.  The nurse didn't speak English either, but the doctor spoke some broken English.  He looked at my ear and told me there was a lot of discharge.  So he grabbed a tool not unlike the suction tube you'd find at the dentist and sucked everything out of my ear.  It wasn't exactly pleasant.  But I felt pretty good afterwards.  I could hear again.  He prescribed some ear drops for me and with my broken Korean, his broken English, and some entertaining miming he was able to tell me what to do with them and how long I needed them for.  The nurse directed us to the pharmacy just across the street and I got my ear drops.  The entire ordeal was extremely cheap.  The doctor visit itself was about $20 and the medicine was about $25.  Not bad.

Temple entrance

This afternoon, after getting back from the hospital, we grabbed the 807 bus out to the middle of no where.  Mt. Gaji is one of Ulsan's Twelve Scenic sites and is the tallest mountain in Ulsan.  There's something called the "four seasons of Mt. Gaji".  The mountain looks very different (and very breathtaking) each season and so we've decided that we're going to make the hike through each of the seasons.  Today we made our fall hike.  The trail starts at 석남사 (Seoknamsa Temple).  The temple is run entirely by nuns and they charge an admission fee to see the temple.  What we didn't know was that they only take CASH.  The nun was extremely kind though and she ushered us through anyways.  The temple was a Buddhist place of worship and it was really pretty.

Scenery at the temple

Temple

Hiking trail at Mt. Gaji

Scenery

The hike itself was pretty strenuous.  We made it about halfway up the mountain, but since we didn't show up till 2pm, we weren't able to finish the entire hike.  It's dark by 6pm and on such a trail, it wouldn't be a good idea to be wandering around in the dark.  The peak we got to though, was a helicopter stop.  You know, in case you die and they need to come collect your body.  The view, even from halfway up, was still gorgeous.  It started raining before we reached our turnaround point, so the way down was a little slippery, but with gravity's help, it was still faster than the way up.

Hiking trail at Mt. Gaji

There was a lot of quartz along the trail

Ropes to help your hike

The four seasons of Mt. Gaji

The red triangle is where we made it to

Our view

Back at the bus stop after our hike

Overall, the day has been really good.  Full of ear relief and beautiful scenery with my wonderful husband.  I'm really looking forward to going back to Mt. Gaji.  

Fulbright Dinner with a Brief Detour -_-;

So I'm finally getting around to writing this post after my wife, family, and friends have bugged me for about a week to do so. On October 25 the Fulbright office/ administration hosted their annual researcher fall dinner. It was up in Seoul so that meant that it was a full day and possible nighttime journey. Getting there was simple enough: take a bus to the KTX station and get a ticket to Seoul. I had to stop by my lab at UNIST to take a sample out of the furnace, but fortunately the university is on the way to the KTX station (quite possibly one of the greatest benefits of living near the edge of Ulsan).

As for the KTX ride I used what is known as a KR Pass to purchase my ticket. You go online to the english Korail website, reserve your KR Pass (foreigners only), and print out the e-ticket after completing the checkout process. KR Passes can be purchased to last various lengths of time, from 1 day up to 10 days. The pass allows for unlimited travel on any Korail train for the time the pass is active. You'd have to take the train quite a few times to make it worth the cost, but it can be very cost effective if used properly. For example since I was going to Seoul and coming back in the same day it would normally cost about 95,000 won for the round trip. The KR Pass I bought was only 46,600 won (ya being a youth, normal passes cost 58,200). As one can see I paid about half the price of a full round trip ticket, which was awesome (although I've never tried getting round trip tickets so I don't know if you can). So after deciding on the length of time you want your pass for and buying the e-ticket (this doesn't charge your credit card btw, only when you exchange it for your actual pass at the station), you take the ticket to the clerk at the station and they'll print you out a cool card that has your KR Pass info on it. However you still must buy an actual ticket from the ticket desk if you want to have a seat (unless you don't mind standing) *spoiler this is foreshadowing*. It's just free with your pass. So when I was purchasing my ticket to Seoul the clerk mentioned that while I could get a seat TO Seoul all the return trains that night FROM Seoul were full, which didn't at the time didn't necessarily bother me too much.

The train ride there was rather uneventful, though I noticed the interesting phenomenon that the cities in Korea (at least the larger ones) are built in the valleys and plains between the mountains (valley basin?):

Imagine with a city

Everything else is just kinda crammed in the valleys where the buildings almost don't fit:

Actually about this cramped

Maybe this only holds true for Daegu and the southern cities, but as most of Korea is very mountainous I can imagine it is most likely similar everywhere. It is just interesting to see very clearly how the cities shape themselves to the geography.

After arriving in Seoul my first order of business was to find a KT Global store and finally switch over my prepaid SIM card to my ARC instead of my passport. After finding said store, however, it quickly became clear that they had no clue what I was talking about. Fortunately I figured out the nifty fact that the ktexpatblog website comes in English as well as Korean with exactly the same layout for once (instead of dumbed down English site with 2 of the 100 options of the Korean one). So I showed them the relevant section that says that plans activated with a passport (like Jess and my prepaid plans) expire in 90 days while ones activated with an ARC last for as long as the ARC. This was news to them so the customer rep called and then informed me that for prepaid plans it didn't matter. So much for all the scheming and time to try and get our plans on our ARCs (>_>).

Afterward I headed to the Fulbright building. Along the way to and from the cell phone store I believe I saw more Caucasians than I have the entire time I've been in Ulsan. It was actually rather amazing how many there were, if one can count like 10 being a large number. Tells you how many we see wandering around Ulsan. I was going to be remarkably early for the meeting so I killed some time in one of the local coffee shops called Tom n' Tom's Coffee. They had a bright electric blue lemonade that I tried that was very good:

It was delicious

The office itself was only a 5 minute walk away and I ended up being the first one there. As all of the Fulbright researchers, both junior and senior, starting showing up we all gathered in the conference room. The Fulbright offices aren't actually very big so this was really the only place that would fit all of us. We all started chatting with each other about our experiences thus far and what we are doing, etc. Interestingly there were grantees that hadn't actually started their grants yet, or had only been here for a week or two. It seems really late in the year to just be starting your grant but there wasn't anything that said you couldn't in the contract. Too bad it's already starting to get cold.

Pretty much everyone was based somewhere in Seoul, and those who didn't know the layout of Korea or Seoul itself very well thought that Ulsan was just an area of Seoul. If only. There were also some Ph.D. students that were researchers, though they were in the minority. They would be much older than the rest of us, which would be a different perspective on the whole thing. I don't think any of them were married, but I don't quite remember. The senior researchers were professors who were teaching or doing research at one of the local universities for either a semester or a year.

After chatting for awhile waiting for everyone to show up we started on our journey to the restaurant. The place was actually quite some distance from the Fulbright building. The Fulbright had two vans that could fit like 14 people between them, while the rest of us had to travel by subway. All of the senior researchers rode in the vans, as well as almost all of the girls except one. I noticed as she was the only one left, but she was deep in conversation and I didn't feel like interrupting her. Not sure she could have fit in the van anyway. The subway ride was very simple: hop on and go until you can't go no more. That meant about a 50 minute subway ride. All of us continued to chat along the way there, mostly about things related to what we were researching or for most of the people various things they've experienced in Seoul. I have to say it was nice having a subway system again (also the subways are incredibly smooth, so much so that when they aren't people tend to go flying a few steps cause they are so unprepared). Otherwise the ride wasn't very eventful and we got off at the end of the line.

The vans had to pick us up and drive us the rest of the way from the subway station to the restaurant, as the restaurant was really out of the way. The vans had already dropped off their first load of passengers and had come back to get us. Now when we first arrived at the place one is immediately struck with how fancy it is:

Front Gate

Part of the building (we weren't in that part)

Up the stairs to the front door

The front door

The lawn across from the front door

This was apparently going to be quite the dinner. When you walk inside you are greeted by hostesses in transitional hanboks (navy blue and white). We were lead into a rather large room that spanned all of one side of the building:

I sat against the wall at empty table closest to the people

Half of the room was full by the time we arrived, so we sat down at the nearest available spots. It turns out a lot of the guys have trouble sitting in a cross legged position, as their knees and/or hips (I think) aren't flexible enough to allow their legs to lie near the floor. This makes it difficult to fit your legs under the low tables, so all of those guys had to stretch their legs out fully to fit. The tragedies of inflexibility.

Dinner was a multi-course traditional Korean affair that lasted for quite some time. The hostesses just kept bringing out food. People were getting rather full near the end of the dinner, but the food just kept coming. It was all very good, though of course I had a few particular favorites, including a chicken salady type thing and mini burger patties which you may be able to see in the picture. After dinner we had a bit of history of the Fulbright Korea program and then everyone introduced themselves and what they were doing:

The director giving a history lesson

As far as I could tell I was the only one outside of Seoul to attend. After the introductions we all went in the backyard around a bonfire and had tea or coffee. The fire was built with a ridiculously big log that needed to be cut into about 4 normal sized ones, and sadly contributed to the fire dying down sooner than I would have liked. Nevertheless we left around 8:30ish from the place, which in a way was a better thing than the predicted 9:30.

The ride back on the subway was better as we got to sit instead of stand the whole time (being the first on the subway has its benefits). We all very quickly parted ways and I kinda rushed to the KTX station as fast as possible. The trains leave every hour late at night, and as it was 9:55 by the time I got to the ticket counter I was cutting it a little tight. Now starts the tragedy that was the rest of my evening. I was told there was only standing room left on the train. Standing. For the 2.5 hour train ride to Ulsan. However, I didn't have any choice if I wanted to get back that night. I found a space to stand in between cars 16 and 17 and was there for quite a long time until we were a long distance from Seoul. Sadly I discovered the train was quite full on Friday nights. I guess everyone wants to visit their family every weekend <_<.

It was late at night that my self inflicted tragedy began. I was in the baby changing room sleeping when my alarm went off for about when we should be there. I saw on my phone that we had passed Daegu and though the cursor wasn't quite at Ulsan I figured my phone just wasn't getting enough signal. Therefore I prepared to get off at the next stop, because I didn't remember making a stop between Ulsan and Daegu. Turns out I was mistaken. I got off and headed down the escalator only to realize that the terminal I came out at wasn't Ulsan. The realization struck me like a lightning bolt and I rushed back up the stairs to get back on the train...to find the train pulling out. "Well" I said to myself, "I'll just sit here for an hour and catch the next train. It sucks but oh well."

Turns out that wasn't possible. The station was too small and I'm guessing only certain trains stopped at it. The station was actually closing for the night. It was a bit of an effort to explain that I was going to Ulsan but had accidentally gotten off the train. The guard told me that I was free to stay until the morning, but that he was shutting everything off. So I was quickly looking up on my phone if there was an intercity bus that went to Ulsan, as I remembered that there was such a thing from Busan to Ulsan and that it ran late at night. Fortunately Naver got me the directions and I managed to convey to the taxi driver where I wanted to go. He kept telling me there weren't any buses or taxis going to Ulsan but I kept telling him it was fine. He got me to the bus terminal around 12:20. Sadly the last bus left at 11:20 and the earliest bus wasn't until 6:30. That left me with quite a bit of time to kill.

This is the bus station in the morning.

Fortunately there was a GS25 across from the bus station. They are open 24-hours a day and as they sell meals to eat (ramen mostly) there were a few tables to sit at. So I sat there and read and slept for a few hours. It wasn't as awkward as it sounds since there was actual a fair number of people coming in and out throughout the night. But it was still sad.

Across from the bus station

My hangout for a few hours

At the appropriate time around 6 I went over to the bus station and bought a ticket to Ulsan. At 6:30 I hopped on the bus and don't really remember much till I got to Ulsan.

Me outside the bus station

The bay for the Ulsan bus

Inside of the bus station

Inside the intercity bus. It was cozy and uncrowded.

I had no idea where I was (it was downtown somewhere) and my phone was dead. All I knew is that I needed to find a street that ran east-west as that would probably have a bus that would run to my house. Ya for using the sun to find a cardinal directions. It helped that I recognized the Lotte department store, though I was viewing it from the other side. The bus came rather quickly, but it didn't really matter as the sun had come up and so it wasn't freezing anymore. I got back home around 8ish and promptly passed out after saying good morning to Jess.

So overall I enjoyed the night out that I had. I met new people, had good food, and visited a new place while exercising my "find my way" skills. Though next time I might prefer finding out about different places in a more planned fashion. I only spent 6000 more won than I would have if I had gotten off the train properly (which is almost a miracle). Everything turned out just fine. Pictures of the valleys and the blue lemonade were taken from Google in case someone cares.

Settling In

We've been here for about two months now.  Korea is starting to feel a little more familiar.  At least Ulsan is.  I recognize where I am.  I hear names of places and have a general idea of where they are.  I see the same people on the bus every morning and afternoon.  I'm starting to get a sense of the weekly and monthly routines at work.  This overall sense of routine calms me.

The fact that we actually found a salsa club in Ulsan also makes it feel a bit more homey.  Alan and I had decided to Seongnamdong last Friday night for a date.  There was a Thai restaurant there that Alan found online.  So, as we were walking down the street, about three doors down from the restaurant, we found this.

Shock was my first emotion.  We hadn't seen anything anywhere for salsa dancing in Ulsan.  We stopped inside after dinner and the owner said there was a salsa party every Saturday night.  So of course we were going back the next night.

Dinner was at a place called The Sarojin.  It was absolutely delicious.  And the restaurant had a lovely setting.  There was a courtyard outside that we were seated in.  Besides the occasional crack from the bug zappers they had, it was a very beautiful restaurant.  I'm having a hard time deciding whether I liked this or Arun Thai better.


On the way back through Seongnamdong that evening, we came across a performance going on.  It seemed to be professional juggling bartenders.  They were juggling bottles of alcohol, setting things on fire, and making flaming cocktails that they gave to people to drink.  They also brought out a mime/magician halfway through.  He was pretty hilarious.  He brought up some kids on stage and just set out to make everyone laugh.  Both parts were really good performances.



The next night, that Saturday, Alan and I headed back to Seongnamdong for the salsa party.  Guess who we met there.  The same performers that we saw in both Busan and at the Ulsan World Music Festival were the dancers that frequented this club.  So we spent the evening dancing with them.  They seem like a fun, goofy group of people and I had a really good time dancing.  Alan danced with the ladies of the group and had a good time as well.  We're going back either tonight or next week most likely.  So we'll have to see if they habitually go to this club or if it was just a huge coincidence that we saw them there that night.

The club itself was very nice.  It was open to the street...as in no front wall.  The club just extended into a fenced patio out into the street.  So people walking by tended to just stop and watch the dancers for a bit.  It was not crowded and the floor was really nice.  But at times it felt more like I was performing for the people in the street than just social dancing since there were so few people on the floor.

A group of older business-looking people came in soon before Alan and I left and just sat there watching and drinking.  They came over and gave (forced?) shots of tequila to us and asked where we were from and such.  They were pleasant people and I was somewhat afraid that they would keep offering us shots (salsa dancing and alcohol don't necessarily mix well).  But we left soon after that.

It felt really good to be able to go home after salsa dancing and not have to go to a hotel.  Back in the states, Alan and I used to go out for Thai food and then go salsa dancing all the time.  So I'm sensing the beginnings of a similar routine here.  :D





In other news, we've started making some new acquaintances.  We started going to the Simin International Church a few weeks ago and the people there have been great.  It's at the Book Cafe at the Samho Bridge about a 15 minute bus ride from home. It's a mixture of UNIST students and ESL teachers (and a few others) and it's been really comforting to meet people that are in life situations like ours.  It makes Korea a little less lonely when you have people you can vent to and get advice from who've been where you are and are doing what you're doing.   It's also just nice to be able to go hang out with people again.   The community is not at all uniform either.  There are people from all over the world from all sorts of backgrounds and so you hear a lot of interesting stories.  Overall, it's just been a great experience with these people.





It's funny.  I'm seeing posts from friends and family back home on Facebook about the temperatures dropping and the snow starting. But it really hasn't been very cold here at all yet.  Sometimes, I still don't even need a coat.  And the mountains in Korea are full of coniferous trees.  Everything is green.  So it's easy to forget that it's fall here too. But today, walking through Guyeong-ri where we live, I realized that it actually is autumn in Korea as well.

I'll just leave off with a note that Alan is supposed to write a blog post about his recent adventures in Seoul/Gwangju.  Don't let him off the hook people! XD

Worldly Things

This week has gone very well.  Wednesday our entire kindergarten (all three floors) went to Busan for a picnic lunch.  I asked my co-workers what else we were going to do there.  Nothing.  Just eat, take some pictures, and come back.  And that's all we did.  We drove 2-2.5 hours both ways for an hour long lunch.  Not that I'm complaining at all.  It was a really easy day of work.  I sat with a couple of my students on the bus ride there where I was roped into playing "rock, scissors, paper" as it's called here.  I've tried to explain to the kids that it's actually "rock, PAPER, scissors" and they seem to think I'm kidding.  It's definitely "rock, scissors, paper".  They are incredulous whenever I say it wrong.

Our picnic was located at a horse racing arena.  It seemed odd to take children to a place of gambling but it seemed to be decently kid-friendly.

Fall seems to be the holiday season in Korea.  So Thursday we had a day off.  It was very hard to go back to work on Friday when you felt like it was already the weekend.  There's another holiday coming up on Wednesday but then there are no more holidays till Christmas.  

So, with the holiday next week, I have a really easy work week.  My supervisor told me that I have to go with her to Seoul next Thursday-Saturday for a teaching conference.  It's basically a training seminar for the particular ESL program our school uses.  Although I have to be at the conference during the normal work day, I get evenings free.  So I basically have a free trip to Seoul!  I'm pretty excited about it.  And it also works out well because it turns out that Alan has a business trip those days as well!  Thursday and Friday, his lab group is going to a polymers conference.  So we're both going to go travel a bit and have a good time.  I'm going to attempt to find some dancing.  :D 

Friday, I was a little irritated with my school.  You know that medical exam I had to do for my ARC? They made me re-do it.  Why?  Because the Department of Education wants the paperwork and they can't find the papers I gave them.  So I had to pay $50 for a medical exam that I had already taken and passed.  I'm not overly thrilled about it.  

The rest of the weekend has gone well.  Since we got married, I got Alan started on playing League of Legends.  So, Saturday afternoon (Korea time) the League of Legends World Championship event took place.  We haven't kept up with the season matches, but we weren't doing anything else and thought it'd be fun to watch.  The live stream was available online.  Korea's SKT vs China's Royal Club.  Royal pretty much got raped.  SKT destroyed them.  The Koreans are the LoL world champs!

We spent that evening at the Ulsan World Music Festival.  They had various food booths representing different countries and had bands from all over the world.  We saw an electro/flamenco fusion band that was pretty cool.  Although I didn't necessarily prefer the singer's style, they had a flamenco dancer that did an absolutely beautiful job on stage.  

Stage for the Electro/Flamenco fusion concert.  

We also saw a Hungarian folk group that ended up being my favorite. (Alan didn't favor one over the other at all). It was a group of mostly elderly men and a couple elderly women that were good-humored and entertaining. They had some Hungarian folk dancers with them that danced for us and even had all of us dance too.

Hungarian Folk dancers

The dancers wanted everyone to dance.

They had a couple salsa performances that evening as well.  They ended up being the same dancers that we saw perform at Bar Latino in Busan.

Here's to another short work week!