hello, adulthood

it's official, i'm an adult now.  time to get a real job, find a nice girl, settle down, raise some kids, get a mortgage, etc.  why?  what happened to finally force me to grow up?  yep, my last baby tooth is finally out.

i found out from my dentist a while back (when i was about 26) that i still had a baby tooth.  these are supposed to all be gone by the time we're 10-13 years old (more interesting stuff about teeth), but my last one hung on till this past Thursday.  it had a cavity in it, and could've been filled, but it would've been pointless because the tooth had no roots.  it had worn away from underneath.  so, the dentist gave me some novacaine (not sure i would've gotten any in China - they don't use it when you get fillings at least), and next thing i know i've got the last vestiges of childhood in a little plastic sleeve in my pocket, and a baby tooth-sized hole that i can't stop poking my tongue into.

as if that wasn't sign enough that i'm growing up (getting old), i've got a lot of gray hair now.  it used to be just a patch in the front, but now it's spread all around.  i plucked a bunch of the ones from the front (no, that won't make twice as many grow back), but it's inevitable - i'm going to be one very gray-headed old man soon.

glad i'm a guy.

anyway, korea!  we've started the 2nd week of camp here, and i'm tired but still enjoying it.  the kids are less shy, and so acting up more, but i still like a lot more of them than i don't like.  the classes are small (7-13 kids), and divided into 4 levels.  i teach 7 classes a day - 2 reading classes, 2 conversation classes, a listening class, and.. 2 sports classes.  first time i've taught that.  so far we've played ping pong, badminton, catch (baseball and football), soccer, duck duck goose, double dutch, dodgeball, and gone outside once for snowball fights (picture me vs. fifteen 12-15 yr olds).  good times, but at the end of the day (5 hours teaching, 2 hours sports) i'm exhausted.

oh, i had a couple days off this past Thu and Fri, and used them to head into Seoul.  went with my friend Eun-Seong and some of her friends to a couple of gallery openings in Insadong (a cool traditional/artsy district), then had dinner and went to a hiphop lounge that night.  the next day i went and saw a palace (Deoksugong) and warmed up afterward in the Seoul Museum of Art, which had a cool Rene Magritte (remember "The Thomas Crown Affair" apple face painting?) exhibit.  finally, that evening i went down the street to the ice skating rink outside of City Hall, before heading to the bus station to get a bus back here to the mountains.  fun fun fun.

photos!

Susan's happy to be at camp! | JEM Camp's thataway ->       

              pancake night! | Korean photo cuteness 

pieces from one of the galleries we went to

Deoksugong guard changing | Magritte & his work             

 Robert Combas | Seoulites On Ice

대한민국!!

back in Korea!  a couple weeks ago i heard about a winter English camp from a friend in Shenzhen (Susan, who's also here).  i applied, they accepted, Peg mailed all my diplomas & transcripts over, got a working visa and a plane ticket, and now here i am!  don't remember the name of the place i'm in, but it's about an hour by car east of seoul, in the mountains.  snowboarding!!  we drove past some ski runs on the way here!  it's in the middle of nowhere, but it's nice, and hopefully i'll use the evening free time to learn some korean.  (beyond the food names, swear words, and movie lines that i already know)  the kids are coming tomorrow..

alright, i'm beat.  off to bed.  photos soon!

until then, here are some old photos, from my 1st trip over here (Jan 2005):

sunset, Pusan                                         gettin' my swerve on with a Korean soaps character, Yong Pyang

city gate, Suwon                                      mmm...  dakgalbi... , Seoul

cute cop, DMZ                          looking things over, Suwon         bunny's not hopping.. , Seoul

more Sichuan pics online..

put some more pics from the summer trip to Tibetan Sichuan and Qinghai online.  nearly finished with those pics, then I'll put up the pics from trip earlier this week to Henan. (funny story behind that trip as well)

oh, almost forgot.  Merry Christmas!  Xmas dinner at Mike and my place this evening, so pics of that on the way as well..

some samples from the pics most recently uploaded:

spinning the prayer wheels at Tagong Temple                                                             cute couple

catching a runaway horse                                                                                            Tibetan cowboy

monks walking                                                                                                           "what the f*** are you looking at?"

soaring eagle                                                                                                              worth the climb

new apartment, hooker parade

so, mike and i got a new place.  been in it since last sunday, and had the official housewarming friday night.  really enjoying (finally) having a place to live and being able to fully unnpack.  also really enjoying the place itself. (roomy, well laid out, great location, ..)    it is a one-yr commitment, but hey, there's nowhere else i wanna be right now anyway.  and maybe this'll finally be the kick in the ass i needed to find a real job.

some photos, of the place and the housewarming:

view of the pool from our living room.  me, caressing the Peace Plaza (our building). 

Mike under the club lights. Mike again, longing for you to join him for a shower.

feel the warming.

and now, without further ado, straight from Shenzhen to the pages of the Washington Post, hookers on parade.

who's a world famous photographer?

oh yeah, i am.

two of my photos from flickr were used for articles on yahoo.com's The Spark.  the articles (and photos) in question:

Nov 25 article - International House of Sumo

Nov 27 article - The Greatest Martial Artist of All Time

might as well put the oringal photos below as well.  the first photo isn't anything special - i took at least half a dozen better looking sumo pics they could've chosen.  but the 2nd photo i've always liked, and it's pretty cool that it's getting all kinds of attention. (17,000 hits in 2 days??)  woohoo!