Jeonju Weather and Rock Lottery

The weather here in Jeonju is beyond perfect! Fall is settling in and the highs are around the low 80's with a great breeze and no clouds in the sky and a low falling to the low 60's. When I was told that Korea experiences all four seasons with drastic changes, they weren't kidding! The air conditioner hasn't been turned on in over a week now. As the night begins to settle in, a definitive cooler breeze starts to churn through the apartment. At times it's actually a little chilling but nothing a nice comforter can't help. This is definitely the best weather that I have had the pleasure of experiencing. I can definitely see how winter is going to be a bit bone chilling but it's a time that I'm anxiously awaiting. The first opportunity to make a snow man, a legitimate snow angel, and actually have a full on snow ball fight are events that can't come soon enough. Although I'm very excited to experience all of the above, I'm certainly enjoying the current weather conditions. For all of you Floridians reading this, I can feel your hatred for me growing as seconds pass :) It's extremely enjoyable to be able to venture around outside without sweating 4 gallons of perspiration due to the humidity and heat that the great state of Florida offers its residents.

Also, I'm not sure if any of you are up to date on my musical endeavors but I am currently part of a 5 man band playing rock and roll covers from past and present genres. The Rock Lottery is an event that Jeonju has been holding for the past 5 years. Local musicians who want to be involved in the competition put their names into a hat and the instrument in which they want to play. Random names are drawn, 5 at a time, and then teamed together; no matter what instrument they play. Luckily my team consisted of 2 guitar players, a bass, player, a lead singer, and myself on drums. We've been practicing now for the past 2 months and Saturday the 19th will be the big competition. We are fairly certain that we're going to win. I'll have pictures and an update to come shortly!!!

Great Surprise!

Today I received a package from my mom in which I was informed of ahead of time but I was kept in the dark about what the exact contents of said box would be. Needless to say, any time a gift from back home is on it's way, minutes then start to feel like hours and days start to feel like months just awaiting the thing. About 5 days after my mom mentioned that the package was on it's way, the door bell rand and there it was! Whatever I was doing at the time, watching TV, updating my fantasy football team, downloading some music, was no longer of any importance. Full and 100% attention was focused on nothing about the contents of this box! Ripping through the layers of tape on every seam of the box and throwing the bubble wrap half way across the room the excitement took over and the only thing I was capable of doing was dumping every last content in this box out of my bed. Like a kid on Christmas day I start digging through everything that was in front of me. After speaking with my mom I was informed that she and one of the nicest ladies I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, Mrs. Piesch (a woman who I have known at my church in Orlando since I was born) were the ones who sent me the AMERICAN Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and abundance of taco seasoning (yes, 2nd taco party will now commence), graham crackers for TRUE smores, some candy and more seasoning. I can assure you that EVERYTHING will be utilized to the fullest extent and this box and it's contents were MUCH appreciated!!! :)

Jisan Rock Festival!!

Again, sorry for the long delay in updating but I think you will enjoy this one. The last few weeks have been very busy for me, including some very fun weekends. About a month ago I along with around 20 of my friends went to a music festival near Seoul. The festival was from Friday through Sunday and the bands I was very interested in seeing were playing on Friday. Those bands were Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, and Weezer. This festival was not only for English bands but also for many bands from Korea and Japan as well. I decided to head to Jisan by myself on Friday because none of my friends could get off of work or they just didn't want to go on Friday. I woke up at 7am to catch the 8am bus to Seoul where I would then get a charter bus to the festival grounds. The whole trip took around 4 hours and around noon I was there with tent in hand, ready to camp and rock out for 3 days! The area is absolutely beautiful! It's a ski lodge in the winter time and the stages were set up at the bottom of the slopes to leave nothing but mountains and sky to surround everything. The camping areas were first come first serve so "prime" spots were being taken very quickly. I didn't want to be a mile away from the stages and all the action so I decided to throw my tent up in a little area where many other tents were. After clearing away rocks and sticks and setting the tent up, I decided to get in and see how things were on the inside. Unfortunately the "slight slope" that was there from the outside was on much more of an incline on the inside of the tent. I didn't want to move my tent and wanted to get down to start watching some of the Asain bands so I just decided to leave it...which would come to haunt me later in the night. Friday was great. Fall Out Boy (FOB) was by far the best band of the entire festival and I was lucky enough to be right up close to the stage to see them for now the 5th time.

I had met a Korean guy there who spoke very good English and he and I hung out for the day. I had mentioned to him that I had played the drums for quite a few years and FOB was one of my favorite bands. After FOB was finished playing the drummer came to the front of the stage and threw sticks into the crowd. The last stick he had he threw right towards me and I jumped up......the stick hit the palm of my hand.....and then bounced right out and hit the floor only to have a mob of people jumping and falling all over it :( Low and behold, the person on the bottom of that pile was Kim, the guy who I was hanging out with and he came up scratching and clawing and with a huge pull, he yanked the stick from everyone else and the stick was his! I gave him a huge high 5 and started to express to him how lucky he is. He then looked at the stick and looked at me and said "here, this is yours. This will mean a lot more to you than it will to me." I was shocked and yet again was surprised by the generosity that the Korean people have for anyone.

Weezer ended the day as the headliner for Friday. I wanted to get to bed early Friday because I knew Saturday and Sunday were going to be sleepless nights once my friends got there so I decided to turn in around midnight. Again, this is where the "slope" of the tent comes into play. If you've ever tried to sleep on a 30 degree slope with your feet going towards the bottom then you know what I'm talking about. I could not get comfortable for the life of me and I changed positions more times than I could count. With the level of "comfort" and the addition of extremely loud rap music being played sleep was a rarity Friday night. Around 3am the skies decided to upon up on us and let loose an amazingly large amount of water. It poured for about 3 hours but my little tent stood strong with only minor leaks.

Saturday came and I crawled out of my tent after a nice refreshing baby wipe bath and made some friends with the Koreans next to me who had already commensed drinking. They offered me a drink and I respectfully declined but they begged me just to have one cup with them so I decided why not. One cup turned into a great conversation and a few more cups to follow.....with Soju in attendance. My friends showed up around 11:30 in the morning and they had to literally camp a mile away. We all met up eventually and had a great time. Saturday was not a very good day as far as bands go but it was still fun.

Sunday was a great day but again, with the lack of sleep on Saturday and 2 days under my belt, I was getting exhausted. Luckily with more great bands on both the Asain and English side, I had enough energy to make it through. Jet and Oasis were the big bands for Sunday with Oasis headlining and I was very glad that I had the chance to see Oasis at least once. They put on a great show and we all really enjoyed dancing and singing to "Wonderwall." All in all it was an amazing weekend and we all had a blast. I'm looking forward to going again next year for sure!!


This video is during the Jet performance of "Do You Wanna Be My Girl." Most of my friends here are from Europe, England to be exact. Guy in red is Steve, yello is Matt, White is Ian, and a few others. Excuse Ian's white butt and Steve's use of the single digit finger :)

MuD fEsTiVaL!!!!

This past weekend was yet another weekend to remember here in Korea. It seems like every couple of weeks some city in Korea is having a huge festival and this time it was Boyeoung's turn!!! At first I was not planning on heading to the festival but after looking at the website from last years event I quickly changed my mind. It took us about an hour to get to Boyeoung and because all of the buses out of Jeonju were booked, we decided to jump in a taxi and head out. It cost us about 20,000 won each (about $15). Upon arrival I started to see what I was in store for for the next day slash night slash next morning. We walked around looking for a hotel or motel or box; really anything we could put our stuff in and sleep in. We wound up finding a hotel room with no bed (which by the way is a normal here in Korea). We chose to stay there because we could cram more people in the room with no bed....as you can see below.

After throwing our stuff in the room and heading out to the festival we decided to grab a few brewskies (only a few as manageable drinking is responsible drinking). That was my disclosure for everyone! We walked down to the beach and found it completely packed with at least 10,000 people as far as you could see. We moved our way over to the "Mud Massage Yourself" area. It's an area where you can voluntarily or involuntarily, whichever way you choose, to paint yourself in mud. We noticed there was a large crowd gathering near so we ventured over to see what was happening and noticed it was a mud wrestling competition. Needless to say, I got involved. Some Korean guy pointed at me and asked me if I wanted to wrestle and I figured WHY NOT!? In a matter of 30 seconds I slammed him into the ground twice to win the match. He thanked me for playing along and bought me a beer! Throughout the day we ventured around and played some more mud games and repainted ourselves numerous times. Around 10 at night the skies opened and while the rain came pouring down there was an amazing fire works display taking place. I was exhausted and decided to just head home. In the morning we wanted to get an early start on the day but the weather was just as bad as the night before. We attempted to go out and get something to eat but after getting poured on and wind whipping around, I decided to head back home. All in all it was an amazing weekend with great friends and here are some pictures to prove it all happened :)

4th of July

I know I'm lacking in the updates but I'm certainly settling in here and don't have the time as I did before to update this all the time BUT I'll do what I can. This past weekend was the celebration of 4th of July, which in Korea, basically means it's just the 4th day of July BUT to us Americans it's a time to celebrate! For about a month prior to the 4th many of my British friends came up with the idea of having an "AmericanOff". AmericanOff you ask? Well, it consists of 5 events, that throughout the four weeks have been changed about 20 times ,to see who is in fact the most "American" out of us whom are here. They finally decided upon the events of arm wrestling, naming the 50 states in a round robin name off, 10 question US trivia, free throw competition, and hamburger eating contest. Sounds pretty American right? I thought so.

So the day began with me showing up to the hosts apartment to find him already well deep into the beer and Soju (a Korean liquor that is pretty strong). He is one of the guys in the AmericanOff and this will come into play soon. Everyone started arriving soon after I had arrived and the festivities were under way. About an hour of eating and swimming (in a kiddie pool) it was time to start the contest. The first event was arm wrestling, which I felt pretty confident in winning until I saw we would be playing on a little kiddie table that I could barely fit under. I wound up taking 2nd place in this event with 4 to go. The next event was the 50 state name off. We sat in a line and one by one we had to name a state and if you named a state that was already mentioned then you were out. I wound up winning that event because the drunk guy basically fell asleep during the name off and the other guy named Connecticut after it had already been won. I sealed the deal with a solid New Mexico reference. The 3rd even was one that I felt pretty confident in. It was the 10 US history questions. Some of the questions consisted of "What president is on the $50?", "How many stripes are on the flag?", "Who are the 4 people on Mount Rushmore?", "Who is the current VP?", "How many original colonies were there?", "When was the Civil War fought?" and so on. I could not believe the outcome of this one. I took 2nd place to the wasted guy who could barely stay awake to write his answers down!!! The 4th event was SUPPOSED to be free throw competition but because no one wanted to walk down to the court we had to shoot a ball in a little hoop one of the girls had in her apartment. I lost this event and was very upset with myself. Weatherholt's don't lose sporting competitions....Anyways, the 5th event was again SUPPOSED to be a hamburger eating contest but no one wanted to walk down to the LotteRia (like a McDonald's) to get the burgers so there was no 5th event. When everything was said and done, I came in 2nd place for the AmericanOff but it's still under dispute with the judges and the NAOF (National AmericanOff Foundation).

After the events we really wanted to give it a solid ending with fireworks so one of the guys walked down to the nearest store where yes, any time during the year, you can buy fireworks at a convenient store. I thought of having a fire in the grill we were using to cook and everyone was on board for that idea. Myself and one of my friends walked down to scrounge up some wood and a great idea popped into my head.....SMORES!!! There are no gram crackers here but we were able to substitute some really good cookies. With my experience in the bush, I was able to cut down some branches, trim them up, and we were ready to cook!

All in all it was a great 4th of July and a great weekend.

Aside from that, I'm really settling in here and meeting some really nice people. It's crazy being able to gradually learn the language. I'm nowhere near able to hold a conversation with anyone but I can give basic directions or what I'm looking for. There are MANY places and events that I plan on visiting here in Korea so many more updates to come.

On a different note, I'm not sure if anyone heard but Michael Jackson has passed away. I know, it's a crazy time. But seriously, I was shocked to hear it and as I'm sure it wasn't broadcasted here as it was in America, we still had a lot of information flowing in through media resources about his death.

Sorry for the long delay!!!!

Ok, so it's been almost a month now since I have updated the blog and I certainly appologize to all. A lot has taken place in the past month and I'll update you with two good weekends I've had. About 3 weeks ago I was asked to join a group of teachers at an English camp for the weekend. I was told it would consist of camping, playing games with kids, and just relaxing in the mountains. I would be paid 120,000 won for the weekend and it's all paid for.....WHY WOULDN'T I!!! The area we went to was absolutely gorgeous. It was situated deep in a mountain right next to a mountain stream/river. It was a pretty rainy weekend that weekend so the river was really flowing. The kids were so much fun and really enjoyed having me as their "teacher." I put that in quotes because we didn't really teach anything at all. We just played a lot of games and had different activities for the kids to practice their English. All in all it was a great weekend spent in an amazing place with a lot of really fun kids.

This past weekend I decided to join about 20 of my friends here in Jeonju to a trip to Busan. Busan is the 2nd biggest city in South Korea and it lies on the East coast of South Korea. We went to the beach area of Busan and had a blast. Since being overe here there has been a certain part of home that's been missing and it's been the beach and the night life that surrounds the beach. Busan is gorgeous and so much fun! I actually went to a restaurant that was primarily focused on Mexican food! I couldn't believe it and ate my heart out. The craziest thing about the beaches here are the Korean people do not wear bathing suits! They wear full clothing on the beach. Meaning, they'll go swimming in jeans and a t-shirt! IF they wear a bathing suit they will have pants on over top of it for some reason and you'll barely EVER find a woman in a bikini. They really hate getting sun and want to stay as covered as possible. I'll try to get some pictures of it next time I'm out there. If I do decide to do another year here in Korea it will 100%, without a doubt, be in Busan!!! I'll be going there for my mini vacation from work at the end of July so hopefully I'll have more pictures for you all then!

More to come and I promise to keep this updated more frequently than every 4 weeks! Hope all is well with everyone and I miss you all :)

Another AWESOME weekend!!!

We (the teachers of Avalon) were informed on Wednesday that we would be having a "Teacher's Survival Day" on Saturday. We weren't given much information besides the date and time and what to wear which were Saturday, from 9am-9pm, and to wear athletic gear. Saturday rolled around and all of the teachers met at Avalon and boarded a bus on our way to Muju Mountain. We were spoiled with as much food and drink (non alcoholic at this point) as we'd like. On the bus we drew numbers to see who would be on team A and who would be on team B. I was on team A. We arrived at the mountain around 11am and within 15 minutes of getting off the bus we were directed over to a massive pile of camouflage clothing with a red stripe on some jackets and a blue stripe on the others. After everyone was fully clothed in their camo gear we then realized what we were going to do......PAINTBALL!!! We played 3 games of red team versus blue team and had a blast! After paint ball was finished we took a short break to eat some lunch and were then told that we would be riding 4 wheelers through the mountain! This was the part that I loved! We split into 2 different groups; those who wanted to just ride along and take in the scenery and then those of US who wanted to fly as fast as we could down hills, through water, and around the tracks. I had so much fun that I had to do it again with a second group. After all of this we settled down and everyone was given a huge feast consisting of a whole slow roasted pig, kimchi (of course), side items, beer, and Soju. During dinner we had a karaoke competition amongst the teachers and I luckily won 20,000 Won for my "talent".

Sunday was an unbelievable day as well. Myself and 2 of my friends decided to wake up early around 10am (considering we were exhausted from the day before 10am is early) and head to Seoul for the 2009 Hi Seoul Friendship Festival. I wasn't entirely sure what it was all about but when we arrived we saw it was pretty much like a food and wine festival from countries all around the world. I immediately headed from booth to booth eating whatever I saw. One of my favorite things was a fried potato and pea pie with a spicy sauce from Chile. Of course there was a Mexican booth and I had some awesome tacos. There were different presentations of dances and musicals from all of the countries throughout the day as well. I certainly didn't have the opportunity to take in all of Seoul but the festival was amazing and you can see a lot of what happened in the videos.

I hope you enjoy!!! The 2nd and 3rd video's are a little long but they're worth it :)