daegu, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it

daegu ya'll! after a 3.5 hour drive through an unbelievable mountain path we arrived - daegu, city of hot weather, hot food and hot women (and i'm serious, that is what they are known for in korea). after a bunch of waiting around we were finally introduced to our co-teachers, our surrogate parents for the next year. mine, a small woman named yun i-sook (miss yun), who looks like she could be blown away by a strong gust of wind. her english is so-so, but as a fellow human being she's an all-star. koreans, i will say, are generally some of the nicest people i have ever met (like this story: i was walking around looking for something to eat. i ended up going into a random restaurant and after struggling with the menu, the old lady who worked there helped me order, and after a little while gave me some free rice cakes and soup. she even helped me with my korean). and at the front of the line is miss yun. it's only been a week but she's already gone out of her way to help me settle into my new korean life. she's taken me shopping, invited me out to dinner, took me to a traditional korean market with her family, took me to the international body painting festival with another teacher from our school...and so on. oh, speaking of the school - i've been placed at kwanchon elementary school in the chilgok area of daegu. its sort of north of the main city, a kind of self-sufficient island with everything you could possible need (except the costco which is downtown). the other teachers at the school are just as great. it's surprising how many of them have at least a little knowledge of the english language. sure, there are gaps in communication, but for the most part they try to involve me in their conversations. it also helps that i am a consummate drinker. on both monday and tuesday nights i was out with my fellow teachers, slamming down soju and maekchu (beer), chowing down on all sorts of barbecued meats (like chicken stomach, for example), and having a great time. i genuinely want all these people to be my friends. i want to take them with me to the states and be as welcoming and hospitable to them as they are to me. anyways here are some pictures (none of school yet, i'll try and get those next week).

my apartment. its tiny. essentially a cube with two smaller cubes attached at the top that house a bathroom and a tiny kitchen/laundry room combo. it's really only limiting when i try and cook. also no dryer. i wash my clothes but by the time they dry on the drying rack they're all brittle and wrinkled. small complaints for an overall agreeable living space.

the international body painting festival was held in daegu this year. it threatened to rain all day - i'm not sure how that would work (i guess it would just be the body festival) - but luckily it held off, at least while i was there. unfortunately we arrived too early to see the finished works, but i did get to see the work in progress. later some of my fellow daegu epik teachers showed me pictures they took of the finished work. you'll have to take my word for it that it was pretty cool.

living statue with miss yun on the left there in the nautical stripes (abi i think you'll be pleased to hear it's all the rage over here in korea - like everywhere, its crazy).

some teenagers rocking it out while people waited to see the painted bodies. they were actually kind of good. the girl had some pipes on her.

daegu!

i met another epik teacher at the festival and afterwards we toured downtown daegu with her co-teacher's son playing guide. he was a computer engineering major and had pretty decent english for only studying for 6 months. still he got flustered a lot and had to resort to looking up translations on his phone. its a common practice with korean/english conversations. he took off after dinner so we met a group of other epik teachers at a canadian owned bar in downtown daegu called the holy grill. it was like a mini-reunion of orientation. after 10pm they started an all you can drink for 15,000 won deal. that's not even $15. it was crazy. josh, the dude with the glasses in the pictures below, was a sweaty mess by the end of the night. i don't even know how he got home.

left to right: gemma, chelsea, max (engaged to chelsea), josh.

after we left the holy grill, we went down to the basement to a bar called go go vinyl. it was basically a dance club. there was dancing. some of it was awkward. some a little too suggestive (for instance, what's with the girl in the yellow?). most of it was fun. at this point josh was like a crazy drunken tornado, tearing up the dancefloor, making challenges to dancers way out of his league. there was little we could do to stop him. the next picture tries to illustrate the seizure inducing lights that invaded the dance floor.

and this picture is mainly for abi. it's impossible to tell but above the monkey's left hand (picture's right side) it says "woo kiki." hopefully i'll be back to get a better picture.