NATHAN'S COMING HOME/Christmas/New Years/Snow...

Ok, so I have to give an official "I'm sorry" to all of my "fans" out there :o). I have avoided updating this blog just as I've avoided eating dog since being here (yes, I said dog). So it's official, I'll be coming home on February 15 to see everyone. Believe me, I've missed you all more than you can imagine. I know I may not have told you or expressed it as much as I should have, but I truly do miss my loving friends and family and I can't wait to see each and every one of you. I'm coming home earlier than expected due to a great opportunity that was offered to me. My current school has been thoroughly impressed with my work habits and my dedication to the kids that they have offered me the position as a head teacher. My duties are pretty much the same as they've been for the past year, except for the fact that I'm now in charge of 4 other foreign teachers and have a few added responsibilities. I was happy to accept the position for a number of different reasons. 1) It's a raise in pay that I would not have received going to any other positions, inside or outside of Jeonju; 2) I won't have to move!; 3) I've made some amazing friends here in Jeonju and want to stay where they are; and 4) Jeonju is the perfect sized city for me; it's not HUGE and it's not a small city but just big enough for this fish to swim around in. I'll be returning to Korea on March 4 and right back to work the following Monday but I'm very excited to see what the next year has to offer!

Now, Christmas in Korea was a very fun time. Although it was difficult being away from my family for the first time on a major holiday; I made the best of things. We decided to have a Christmas party at my friends house and there were about 20 people who attended in total. We didn't have any type of gift exchange but everyone brought a dish of their choice, some wine, and their favorite Christmas song in mind! I did enjoy speaking with my family on Skype while they were all over at my aunt's home so it KIND of felt like we were all together. Either way, I did get to spend Christmas with a different kind of family!!

New Years was another pretty eventful night for me. It was unfortunate that all of my friends had the previous 3 days off of work due to their school's holiday season but of course, Avalon was ALL business and leaving early for New Years Eve is unheard of! Either way, I was able to arrive in downtown Jeonju around 11:15pm to meet up with a group of my Korean friends (all of my English friends were already in the bar and I knew they wouldn't make it out to the celebration). I had also purchased about $80 worth of fireworks earlier in the day and in Korea, that's A LOT of fireworks. I had my backpack loaded, arms full of roman candles, and I was ready to celebrate. What I didn't expect was how unbelievably cold it was!! I was wearing heavy socks and gloves and yet I couldn't feel my toes or fingers! As you can see in the video, there was a celebration in front of the downtown historical building and with the lighting and instruments played, it made for quite the amazing scene! Also, there's a tradition celebrated here that I really like. You see many balloons going into the air, and on those balloons are their wishes and goals attached for the new year so God can read them and help them. Midnight hit and although not as extravagant as American New Years celebrations, the fireworks were great and everyone was in great spirit!!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!!! Not just some little flurry, but an immense out pour of the white stuff from the sky!!! This was in fact my first time to truly experience what a snow angel, a snowball fight, and soaking wet clothing were all about. I was honestly surprised though. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. We've had some much colder days with no snow and during these few days of the "blizzard" the cold was not a bone shattering freeze! Although it was an amazing time in the snow, I now know what everyone means when they say "it's fun the first time but the few days that follow are horrible." The roads were impossible to drive on, which ultimately led to everyone taking taxis, which then lead to me having to wait 30 minutes just to find a taxi to take me around. We won't even talk about the "ease" of walking on sidewalks covered in packed snow. If you want to experience it, just go to your local ice skating rink and try to walk on the ice in your shoes....up or down a hill.....on marble steps.....yeah, not so easy!!!

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU ALL!!!! LOVE YOU!!!!

Happy Turkey Day!!!

I wasn't quite sure how my Thanksgiving was going to go here in Korea. I pretty much just assumed that it would be a celebration spent figuratively and not literally. To my surprise, which should not come to much of a shock anymore, the Jeonju community came together with an outstanding celebration of thanks! One of my friends had a great idea to have a pot-luck dinner for Thanksgiving but the idea was to bring something that was specific to your family or your area of celebration. I decided to TRY and make my "famous" cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. I didn't have any bacon bits to work into the recipe and the minced garlic that I use at home was also unavailable but the Chef-Boyar-Dee came out in the end!! I had to chop and mince the garlic cloves myself and as small as I tried to mince the cloves, some bigger pieces snuck through. Instead of the bacon bits I decided to take some thinly sliced ham and chop them into smaller pieces in which I then fried crispy. Now cheese in Korea is a whole different topic!! The ONLY cheese available here in Korea is either yellow American cheese for sandwiches or shredded fake mozzarella cheese. So instead of the amazingly delicious extra sharp cheddar cheese that I use in my dish, I had to settle for the fake shredded cheese. Also, as you can see in the pictures, I didn't have a big enough pot for the all of the potatoes to boil in so I improvised with my deeper frying pan and boiled the rest in there. All in all it worked out pretty well and everyone liked them but I wasn't completely happy with the way they turned out. The entire table was filled with delicoius food ranging from home made potatoe soup, home made stuffing, mashed potatoes, salads, corn, and of course, Kimchi!!! But when in Korea, right???

I'm extremely thankful for my family. You have always stood behind me, supported me, and pushed me to the best person I can be. It's because of YOU that I have the comfort and confidence to move to an entirely different country to teach. Each and every one of you have given me a different aspect of my life in which I can give to others. I thank you and love every one of you more than you can imagine!!

To my friends, both in America and in Korea, you're amazing. I have laughed, loved, cried about, and appreciated so many different adventures in my life and without you in my life boredom would settle in faster than can be imagined. I look forward to seeing everyone again. I can't believe it but it's only 3 months away until I'm back in America!!!!

My Berfday and HalloSCREAM!!

I had no idea how Halloween was going to pan out here in Korea, knowing it's not a widely celebrated holiday but it certainly turned out to be a huge event! A local bar here in Jeonju has an annual Halloween party that is pretty popular amongst the foreign people here. Little did I know it was also very popular amongst the Koreans as well! I didn't really know what I was going to dress up as. Luckily there is a party/costume store up the street from me and I decided to take a gander to see what they had available. As soon as I spotted the fake ears and the "nerd glasses" I knew what I wanted to be! Not only was going as a nerd financially friendly but it was a huge hit! Little did I know that I'm a pretty damn good nerd....(please keep all comments to yourself). My good friend Shay had told me ahead of time that he was going as Mr. Bean but I had no idea how funny his costume would be. Shay had the mannerisms down to a T and the mask, well as you can see is absolutely hilarious! Jay, the guy, well woman in the other picture is another friend of mine and when I saw him walking up in his costume I honestly had to ask myself, "who's this girl" and Jay is not a really attractive gentleman. He pulled that costume off amazingly well. Steve decided to go as Wolverine from X-Men and he nailed that one too. He cut his beard and made some fake claws out of chop-sticks and silver tape and it came together really well. We all had a blast and it was a great week!!!

My birthday was a great time had by all. Unfortunately it was on a Sunday this year but that didn't stop the festivities from taking place. I honestly wasn't planning on doing a whole lot for my birthday. Just hanging out with some friends, having some drinks, and relaxing would have been fine with me. I'm not the type of person who openly announces that my birthday is coming up. I find that to be a bit corny but the morning of my birthday I got a phone call from one of my Korean friends named Takyung. She's the same woman who organized the Korean cultural day, took a bunch of us to a Buddhist temple, and just an all around very nice woman. She called and said, "so what's going on for your birthday?" I had mentioned to her that I really wasn't planning anything and just wanted to have a nice relaxing Sunday. She quickly followed that up with "that's ridiculous and not going to happen. Where's a restaurant that you've wanted to go to and haven't been to yet?" I knew there was a TGI Friday's here and that's the first thing that came to mind. The next thing I knew she was on the phone and texting all of our friends letting them know to be at TGIF's at 8pm for my birthday. I was extremely flattered and it really turned out to be a great time. Everyone slowly showed up but we all had a great chat around the table. The Korean "birthday song" is legendary! As you will see in the video below, they really go all out for their celebrations! We liked them so much that we insisted they play an encore! The cakes here in Korea are unbelievable!! As you can see in the picture, not only does it look delicious but it tastes even better. I don't know how they do it, and I'm not normally a fan of cake, but I LOVE the cakes here in Korea. I also want to thank Mrs. Doris Wells, a wonderful woman from my church back home in Orlando, for donating flowers to the church in honor of my birthday. My mom sent me the bulletin for that Sunday and printed in there was this information. I was very flattered and I really appreciate the thought to donate a great gift. Thank you Mrs. Wells!!

WAYYYYYY TOO LONG!!!!

So it's been yet another long gap in time since I've posted anything so now is no better time to update everyone with some happenings that have taken place recently. About 6 weeks ago Korea celebrated Chuseok which is the Korean holiday for Thanksgiving. We had Friday off of work and a bunch of friends and I decided to go to the the mountain for some camping. The weather was just beginning to turn to the chilly side which made the days absolutely perfect with the nights just touching the "a bit too chilly" temperature. We were pretty much the only ones in the entire camp site and we picked a wonderful spot to camp. Within a minutes walk was a beautiful, natural, mountainous spring that we swam in a few times throughout the entire trip. We spent the day time hanging out, drinking some beer, and just taking in the amazing sights that Jirisan had to offer us. We were camping right next to a Asiatic Black Bear rehabilitation sight and the director came to our campsite and asked up if we would like a tour of the facilities. We took him up on his offer and it was really cool to get to experience that side of the Korean wilderness. They have a huge area where the black bears can roam around and we had the opportunity to see a few bears up and close in person.

There is also a very popular Buddhist temple within 15 minutes walking distance to our sight and we wanted to take that in as well. This was the 2nd temple I've had the pleasure of visiting and it was amazing! This temple was very big and one of the top 10 temples in all of Korea. As we were walking around and admiring all that the temple had to offer we were able to see the monks taking part in a Korean game called "Cho-kook". It's a mix between soccer and volleyball with the same rules of volleyball but you can only use your feet or your head. My friends and I play this game quite often and it's a lot of fun. There isn't a lot to say about the temple so the pictures have to do the talking for me :)

1st, My friend Ian was trying to "acquire" some firewood from the "restricted building" on Saturday night and when the man came out flashing his flashlight Ian took off running and tried to jump a fence. Here's his explanation of what happened :)

2nd we have one of the black bears getting a little scratch after his morning breakfast.

3rd is as you can hear, The House of 1,000 Buddha's. You can kindly hear Ian say "you're blog's boring" in the background haha.

4th we have a rundown from the group to see what their favorite part of the trip was!

RoCk lOtTeRy Results!!!

*** The first set of pictures where I'm in black are from a birthday party we performed at and the pictures where I'm in white are from the Rock Lottery.

The Rock Lottery was a HUGE hit for the band. We had been practicing for about 3 weeks up the that point with some weeks consisting of three practices. By the time the night came around for us to actually get up and perform in front of people, we knew we were ready! There were more bands there then we had originally expected; which was fine by me as it's always good to see more of the competition when you get the chance. Our band decided on the name of "She and Namja". Namja is Korean for "man" and since we have one woman in our band, she would be "she" and the rest of us would be namja. It has a certain ring to it and it's grown on us as a whole. Well we were picked to go last in the competition because the person who was running it had heard us previously and knew we were one of the best bands there and wanted us to finish up the night. There were 2 Korea bands that played and one of them covered quite a few Metallica songs and did a fairly decent job in doing so. I was very surprised by their abilities. The room we played in was packed as you can see in the picture. I definitely have to admit that when I got on stage and saw the number of people that were actually there, I did get a bit anxious and nervous but overly more excited than anything! We played 6 songs in total as we were only given 30 minutes to perform our set. The songs we performed were "When I Come Around" by Greenday, "Shimer" by Fuel, "Creep" by Radiohead, "You Really Got me Going" by The Kinks, "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer, and "7 Nation Army" by The White Stripes. The place was going crazy for us and I have to admit, it was a rush and I can definitely see why bands continue to tour until they nearly dead in the ground. We were only playing in front of 100 or so people, not thousands at any given time.

Ok so I need to explain as to what exactly happened on the birthday in which we performed. The Rock Lottery took place on the 19th and we wound up playing again this past Friday, the 25th. I had just finished work and went home to change to head out with some friends as we normally do on a Friday night when I received a text from one of the band members that said "be at 2B1 in an hour, we're playing!". I was certainly a bit confused but grabbed my drum sticks and headed out! We showed up to the bar and there were maybe 15 people there and it was certain let down from the previous weekends crowd. Within a matter of 5 minutes the entire place was filled with people! Those nerves decided to visit again but a cold beer was all I needed to fight them off. We performed the same set as we did the weekend before with the same crowd reaction. 2B1 is known for being a place with "open mic" many nights of the week. There were some other musicians there and one of the groups asked me to come up and play the bongos for them, hence the pictures of me and bongos. We had a really fun time night.

I was contacted yesterday on Facebook by a person who writes for an English magazine from Seoul and she wanted to know the name of the band, the members, and if we'd be interested in performing in a Battle of the Bands competition soon. I couldn't believe that she was contacting me from a magazine about our little ole band but we'll see where this takes us! More to come on the band as we're planning a HUGE Halloween party/show and this Battle will be interesting as well!!!

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!!! :)