Getting a little Goshen with our Seoul

A few weeks ago we went to a fabulous area of town called Samchongdong with two friends of ours from Goshen College, Preeti Kela Halder and Deep Halder, who just moved here a few weeks ago. 

To make it a really proper reunion, we hit up Cafe Goshen:

Preeti and Deep:

Here's what we got at the cafe:

What we all wish Goshen College had offered when we were students: 

Couldn't resist....

Neither could Deep!

I really liked this guy: 

At lovely Gyeongbokgung:

Changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung

This is the official changing of the guard at the main national palace, Gyeongbokgung. I'm not the the world's best cameraman (actually, I stink at it), so please excuse the Blair-Witch effect.

Play Ball!

While the NBA Playoffs don't start for another week in the States, the Korean Basketball League playoffs are in full swing here in Korea.  

One of my students, Violet, is a huge KBL fan, and when she heard that I also was into basketball, she invited Victoria and me to join her and another student, Serena, for Game 3 of the Semifinal series between the Seoul Samsung Thunders and the Ulsan Mobis Phoebus. 

We had great seats, in the 3rd row behind the visiting Mobis team bench, where we could get pictures of all of Violet's favorite players.   (Can you spot the American player?)

According to KBL rules, each team can only have two non-Korean international players on their team.  (However, this number is being reduced to only one next year, in an effort to maintain national identity and protect the positions of native Korean players.) 

Violet (left) and Serena even had the courage to go down and ask for a snapshot with Dong-gun Yang.  

He's not in uniform because he's serving his mandatory military service right now and is therefore ineligible to play.  The moment was captured by a photographer for JumpBall and posted on their website.

  

We were lucky enough to catch one of the promotional basketballs thrown into the audience.  

I'd like to say that my height and long arms were responsible for reeling it in, but actually it was the 5'1" Serena who grabbed the ball and graciously offered it to me as a memento of the game.

Although Mobis (Violet's fave) jumped out to an early first-half lead, the Samsung Thunders (with the help of some generous refereeing) were able to pull away to claim the victory.  The Thunders (who apparently are not familiar with non-count noun rules) will go on to face the Junju KCC Egis in the KBL Finals.

I'm HUGE in Korea (Part VIII)

Funniest thing, 14th century palaces (well, technically, reconstructions of them) weren't built for someone my size:

This one wasn't even close!

Yeah! A new table.

Now that it's been almost a full month since we moved into the new apartment, yesterday we finally received the new kitchen table that we requested.

Spring reaches SKKU

After a slightly cooler-than-average early spring (or so I'm told), warm weather has finally reached us, with temps reaching into the 70s today.  

The sun and warmth have also brought out the flowers on SKKU's campus:

Our neighborhood

Sungshin Women's University and surrounding neighborhood:

Open Mic Debut

Since coming to Seoul, I haven't really had many opportunities to do much with music.  Sure, I did some music with Victoria's students a few months back, and I've taken my guitar to Methodology class to explain how to use music in an EFL classroom, but I haven't really done much performing.

Well, from a friend, I'd recently heard that there was a dirty little expat bar called Woodstock in Itaewon that hosted open mic nights every other Sunday evening for musicians, poets, & stand up comedians. So, a little over two weeks ago, I headed down there and checked it out with my buddy Mike, and (after deeming the standard of perforance fairly comparable to my own) decided to make my debut on the Seoul scene two weeks later.   

So, Sunday night rolls around, and I'm all excited to perform.  And I decide to bring a group of friends with me to be sure I at least get a little applause.  

Disaster.  When we arrive, we discover that the open mic is technically offered the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month.  Well, of course, last Sunday was the 29th: the 5th Sunday in March.  I was seriously bummed, especially since I'd dragged a bunch of my friends out to a sketchy smoke-filled bar on a Sunday night.

Thankfully, Mr. Woo, the owner and manager of Woodstock, is a laid back and generous guy.  He said he'd turn on the mic's and speakers if we'd take care of running the amps and mixer ourselves.  So we did.

Here are our pals Tom and LeeAnne who came out to cheer me on:

As it turned out, I was able to perform a lot more songs than I had prepared to play.  (And, as it turned out, more than I could remember all of the lyrics for!)  

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I hope to be back to play for a larger audience next week.  

Two weddings in two days!

So Victoria already blogged about the first wedding we attended last weekend, but I actually attended a second one on Sunday.  

Although the bride's Korean name is Yeong Ae, she goes by "Tigger" in my Evening B Methodology class.

I was really hoping to spot Pooh, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin in the crowd, but apparently they couldn't manage the commute from the Hundred Acre Wood to Seoul.

[Click ↑ to turn captions on or off. Or click on any photo to see a larger version in the Picassa account.]

The Ups and Downs of Korean Sports

In the past few weeks, Korean sports teams and stars have been in the international spotlight a little more than usual.  

It all started off with the 2009 World Baseball Challenge, with a cocky Korean team planting the Korean flag on the mound after an early-round victory against their historical rivals, Japan.  

Unfortunately, once again Korea had to face their rivals from across the East Sea (It's not the "Sea of Japan" dammit!) in the championship game.  Ichiro Suzuki's 10th-inning game-winning hit gave Japan the title and took some of the wind out of Korea's sails for a few days.

Luckily, young figure skating starlet Kim Yu-na soon resurrected Korea's national pride and "fighting" spirit.

In her performance at the World Figure Skating Championship in Los Angeles last Sunday, "Queen Yu-na" became the first woman ever to break the 200-point mark and did so with gusto and grace.  

This World Championship victory puts a big target on her back, as she will most certainly be the favorite going into the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.