women of the world...

here's some videos i spliced together. there are some random subway shots, a little bit of bongeunsa temple, a little bit of dongdaemun, etc. this is the second time i've done anything with imovie. i liked playing with it, but it certainly made me long for my imac...

a smattering of korea from Josh Nelson on Vimeo.

boys becoming men, men becoming wolves

let's see...on friday, i went to a trampoline park with the kids. they told me to get on the trampolines. it was fun...oh, except for almost breaking my tail bone. turns out that the trampolines were only about 2 ft. off the floor, so when i jumped up really high and landed on my bum to bounce the kids, i almost blacked out in pain. wtf is up with me sustaining physical injuries in korea? i landed squarely on the ol' ass bone and crawled away...i thought about seeing a dr., but they can't give you an ass cast...they can only charge you money to say "take advil." so it's still hurting, but is a bit better.

i went to the casino in seoul today. i didn't lose any money! i actually made 33,000w...which is not a lot. i went with 100,000w and at my high point had 200,000. i should have quit there...it was texas hold'em and it was fun. casinos are bizarre and wonderful places. you're telling me that there's a place where they will give you free booze, you can smoke free cigarettes inside, you can play a game you like, and make money? i'm there. when i cashed out they gave me two of the new 50,000w notes that were just introduced a week or two ago. i feel rich having them. it's like walking around with 50$ bills...no one will accept these, i don't want to spend them.

i am also happy to say that i will get to see harry potter a good day before everyone else. i'm going to see it at the imax 3d at some point too. it's harry potter week! i've also watched almost two seasons of 30 rock in the past week. oh, tina fey...

random pictures

photo 1: this is actually a tag i found in hongdae. i liked it.
photo 2: claustrophobia. myeong dong was packed. i felt like i couldn't move most of the time. i found myself making for less crowded pockets, you know, like in diffusion.
photo 3: a bunch of disgusting looking ginseng roots. in the jars, they look like animals or organs or something else that is dead.
photo 4: two of my co-workers, kai and nara, keeping me "out on the booze" on a school night.

"i'm the guy who sucks, plus i got depression" -roast beef

photo 1: a park in hongdae where the fringe elements of seoul gather
photo 2: that same park in hongdae around 5am
photo 3: a bird on a lamp post as the sun was coming up.
photo 4: some graffiti in hongdae. i particularly like "art is over." i can only assume that because of the font and arrangement that it is a homage to "war is over."
photo 5: a young man after a long night of dancing and fornicating. this photo reminds me of the minor threat album cover. i think this photo somehow encapsulates the youth culture in seoul.
photo 6: a young lady standing in the window of the apple store in myeong-dong showing off some ipods. (this is actually a photo taken by my friend jon, i was too embarrassed to snap a decent one myself).

i'll try to post another entry about my journeys in seoul. i went to namdaemun market around 3pm to look for trinkets from home...but found nothing. i purchased the following items: a sketch book, 3 microns, a cannister of oatmeal for briana, a tripod for my cameras, and one of those apple world travel kits so i can plug my computer into a normal outlet over here. i thought there was an apple store in seoul, but it turns out it's just a reseller. it was odd because the layout of the store and everything were exactly the same, but it's called "frisbee." since i guess they were all refurbs, all the computers and the products in general were significantly cheaper than back home.

the big plan of the evening was to pull an all nighter in hongdae. hongdae is a university area and the people who go there are generally of an alternative ilk. it was fun, but exhausting. it was me, rachel, briana, colleen, and two new teachers that just joined their school. they had intended to go "clubbing" but as it is, they wore open toed shoes and so they were not granted permission to enter. so we went to a bar and sat for a while and then went to a nore bang where i performed a rendition of "bohemian rhapsody" which i'm sure rivals the original. there is video, but i might have lied a bit about how well i sang...i did that one, "goodbye yellow brick road" by elton john, and a duet of "under pressure" with rachel. we then went back to the park and waited for the subways to open up again. i didn't get home until after 7am. i was exhausted. if i come again for another year though, i'll be sure to be in seoul. i can't stand having to travel for 30 minutes by bus just to get to the subway. oh well. it was fun.

today i slept till about 1 and then met up with a girl from craigslist to buy some books. i got some haruhi suzimiya books from japan, that i'll be sending home to the boys, and some korean language study material (you can never have enough). i drank some tea, read a bunch of brothers karamazov, studied korean, and rode around on the scooter. it was a pretty lazy day and now it's over and school is happening again tomorrow. i can't wait for my vacation. i'm going to jeju, an island off the southern tip of the peninsula. it really looks amazing. i don't know what i'm going to do there, probably a lot of sleeping/reading. until then...

korean exercise

fig.1- parallel bars in the park.
fig.2-rope climbing/pole dancing in the park.
fig.3-chest-high wheels in the park. i have not yet established what these are supposed to do.
fig.4-leg press with no resistance in the park.
fig.5- ergonomic walking machines in the park, similar to what that buff enthusiastic guy with the ponytail used to sell on television.

i've decided to chronicle the mystery that is korean public exercise machines. these machines are in every park. there is even a nearby mountain that has them at the top of the trail, just in case you wanted to work on your lats after your hike. it should be noted, if not obvious, that these machines are relatively useless in terms of providing any real benefit. there is no resistance except that of your own body. so some of these machines can be as strenuous as "standing up" or "walking normally." the only people i've seen use them are: 1)little kids for fun 2)old people and 3)young people on dates, which can be cute.

i wish i could tell you that i've seen a lot of new things or something, and i probably have, but now it's commonplace and this is just the place i live now and you don't take pictures of the place you live too much. i bought a scooter in order to move about the town a little more. it's only 50cc but it can really fly. it maxes at 40mph, but it can go a little faster than that, though even approaching 30mph makes me feel like i'm endangering my life. i've told a few people i think, but south korea has the highest auto-fatatalies per capita in the world. this is because everyone drives like the devil is chasing them. i've started noting references about "korean brakes" which is what foreigners call the horn. i've heard many a horror story about people driving scooters, since they are on the bottom of the food chain. so i bought a helmet. good for me then.

i brought a two volume edition of the brothers karamazov with me. i finished the first volume today and am about 40 pages into the second. needless to say, i didn't accomplish much other than reading today...there are some pretty profound and intense things said by father zossima in his final moments. it's a wonderful book so far, but i can never establish how i feel about the characters. one moment i love alyosha and then next i lose faith in him. i hate characters one moment and then realize that i must hate myself also. it's an exhausting book but it's very edifying as well and if i'm not a better person by the end of the book, it's my fault and not dostoevsky's.

i was going to come home for a week in august, but sadly the tickets went up by about 400$ in the past few days. so 1,500$ isn't really worth a 7 day trip to atlanta i'm afraid. i've thought of coming home christmas, but that will still be very expensive considering that i'll be home in 2 or 3 months anyway. i might just hold onto that money in order to travel for a while before coming home. i want to see thailand, japan, the philippines, and china. this vacation though i'm just going to try going to jeju island since it's relatively cheap and it also happens to look like heaven on earth. google some pictures, you'll see. ok, bed time.

why teaching koreans profanity is a mistake

me, padraig, and briana met up w/some koreans we met last week. we had dinner and as the conversation rolled on they asked us if we knew korean slang. we didn't know what he meant, but he meant profanity. so he taught us some choice phrases, one of which was "you are so f***ing beatufiul". this phrase is supposedly one of the more offensive things you can say to someone who is not a very close friend...like offensive to the point of tears. i don't quite understand, because at the very worst in the states it would still be taken as a compliment, if not a coarse compliment. they seemed to already know our curse words and so in order to teach them something new and interesting, we taught them (forgive me) "cum dumpster."

once they understood what it meant and that it was maybe one of the most offensive things you could say to a woman, they started using it a lot.

we went to a bar later on. some korean girls were hanging out with us and we were teaching them how to play pool and darts. one girl was a bit of a handful, but the other was perfectly sweet and agreeable. both girls were being flirty and stuff. it's not as though they spoke any english...but it was just nice to hang around girls again and i know that i am impervious to flirtation at this point in my life and to feel sort of...special? (maybe not the right word). we hung out with them for 5 or 6 hours and around the time the sun was coming up, we were finishing up a game of darts with them. we were playing teams and someone scored a bull's eye and so someone jokingly referred to someone else as a "cum dumpster" and it was exchanged back and forth a few times in jest (but only between the males). our korean friend decided it was a good idea to share the meaning of this phrase to the perfectly sweet and agreeable girl. she stormed off and sat in the booth. she cried and then tried to feign sleep. it was obvious that she thought that we had called her a cum dumpster. she had been flirtatious all night and then a word is explained to her that signifies a loose woman. i told him to tell her that it was not the case. he said that she knew or something along those lines...and still she had obviously been deeply offended. so i've not felt this bad in a very long time...and i didn't do anything as far as a know. the worst part of it is, she had told him (i'm guessing before the incident) that this was the best night of her life. so this evening makes me feel dirty and sick of myself. i can only hope that i see her again w/a different korean who can explain what happened and that i thought she was really nice and that i'm sorry...but now it's 6am and i should go to bed.

in silver piles of smiles

so, i have put up pictures! this is a picture of some of the kids hanging out on a giant wooden frog. it had rusty nails sticking out of it. that's korea for you! the picture below is a crazy upside down house. it was an incredibly disorienting experience and i felt like i was going to fall up the whole time.



then below we have a picture of padraig and briana w/some korean dudes we met in the park on friday night. we were having some beers in the park and b. and p. had to get more from the convenience store. so there were some 40 westerners at the park and these 4 koreans off to the side. so while they were gone i went and started talking to them. they were really nice. they had a guitar and played some songs, accompanied by their soulful/drunken croons. it was pretty smooth. one of the guys wants to make music. he told me he was making a "digital single" and that "it's going to be all about sex and will be r&b." i got their numbers at the end of the night when one of them said that it didn't matter if we could communicate or not, we just need to get together and have fun and drink. that seems to be the mindset.
the picture below is of the door to the restrooms in our school. "happy toilet! have a nice time with our special love." i have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but i do know that i didn't notice it for a few months.


and lastly, here is a photo of me looking real classy with a mustache. for the record, everyone here liked it more. koreans hate my facial hair, that combined w/everything else about me is the reason why i will never have a girlfriend here. but i shaved the mustache and had nothing but stubble for a day or two...but in two days or so, i'll have a beard again regardless of what any korean girl says.