Great day...

...it's been really cold and overcast lately and I've basically been hibernating in my apartment lately. Today however, was a bit warmer and sunny with not a cloud in the sky so I had to take advantage. My friend Nikita and I went to a place I've been wanting to check out for awhile, the Anyang Art Park.

Wow! Very cool place. I thought it was going to be a lot of statues and whatnot, but most of the art there was of the type you can climb all over and play on. There were also some statues, very cool ones.

I didn't get a picture, but there was also, well, basically a large hamster wheel for the kids to play on, which of course I had to try. Quite easy, until you want to stop that is.

The highlight was the K-grolyphics. The pictures are the only way they can be described.

I can't wait to come back in the summer for a picnic!

The coolest thing that happened this week.....so far...

In the subway station in Seoul, South American live music group with matching red ponchos, playing their homemade flutes and drums.

Old Korean man comes up and gives me a high five. We talk. He's a nuclear physicist or some such thing, they start playing La Bamba.

It's been awhile...

...since I last posted. So here goes...

I went to Cambodia for 11 days over winter break. WOW! An amazing country, do visit should you ever get the chance. I got the feeling that right now, Cambodia is where Thailand was maybe 15-20 years ago, before hordes of backpackers descended and scams ruled the land. The people are just so warm and friendly and genuinely interested in you.

I could go on and on for pages telling tales from my trip, so instead I'll just do a stream of conciousness kind of recap: Angkor Wat sunrise and sunset, monkeys!, watch yer head sir, naps in hammocks, bamboo train, dancing to Bob Marley in the streets on Christmas day, Yaris the Slovenian beekeeper Snake Eyes and Peter Rabbit, adopted by monks, rural volleyball, joyful poverty, the probably corrupt gentleman and $250,000 in counterfeit bills, you want boom boom?, New Years Eve on a tropical island with the full-moon and far too many Europeans which was a good thing and swimming under said full moon, speaking Korean with Khmers, Oh my god!, Mike's stomachache, way too many bus rides, amazing food, same same but different now you buy!, beautiful people, I remember you!, and a tuk tuk ride to the airport fit for a king.

Cambodia really affected me. Just seeing the poverty and corruption really makes me want to use my life to do something good for other people. I feel so lucky to be able to teach in Korea and save up all this money. It will allow me to go and volunteer for a year or so at some point in order to get the experience I need to go and work with an NGO or some organization that makes a difference in the lives of others. At the same time, God gave me this life to enjoy, and I aim to do just that.

After my first year here, I'll be debt free with a good chunk of change in the bank. I'll head home for a couple of months of family time and then back here to Korea, this time working in a Hagwon. With overtime and some privates, and of course being as cheap as I am, I'll be able to put away about 25k. I'll put away 15k of it, and take the other 10k and move to some ski town, probably in Montana or Wyoming, and just be a ski bum for a season. Then maybe down to New Zealand for some WWOOFing, then back to Korea. Another 25k in the bank, then travel for a solid 8 months to a year. I'll keep alternating teaching in Korea with travel and selfish adventure until I'm about 35, then hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I want to do when I grow up.

If not, I figure the worse case scenario is just keep teaching and putting money away, and then retire to some cheap developing nation and live out my days volunteering and napping in hammocks while drinking rum drinks out of coconuts. Unless of course, something completely different comes up, which, knowing me, almost certainly will...

I don't want one 'career' for the rest of my life. In the end, I want my resume to read like the notes of a crackhead guidance counselor: cook, businessman, teacher, farmer, cowboy, photographer, author, gentleman of leisure, humanitarian, philanthropist, fisherman, ski instructor, and so on and so forth...