A whole year now

Ok so maybe it hasn't been a year. I am another year older though. I feel so old now. 23 just seems like such an adult age to be. I'm 4 years older than a 19 year old. I've managed to have my last 3 birthdays on different continents though. That's impressive I think. I wonder if I can keep that going. Well, I know I can't given the limited number of continents.

My parents have come and gone now. I think I've posted once since they've come. We didn't really do that many exciting things since I only saw them for about 2-3 hours a day most of the time. We went to Gyeonju on Sunday. It was too much walking I think. We also went to a museum only because we all felt obligated. It was alright though. It was a bit strange that the English translations were only 3 lines when the Korean was maybe 20. The Chinese was short too but given that each word is only one symbol long (as far as I know about Chinese) I don't think it was quite as concise as English. Some Koreans also askedif we had seen the bible. They gave us a pamphlet of a paradise where you can handfeed bears. Matt and Renee have Jehovah's Witnesses that pay them regular visits. I'm glad I don't have any of those.

Then I was back to work. The nice thing was that I was eating out every night. Lots of yummy western food. It was mostly a bunch of meat. Bennigan's, Outback Steakhouse, hamburgers. One night my boss took us out one night for authentic Korean food. That was a good night. I burnt my tongue on some grilled pork though. It hard to tell how hot something is when it's still on the grill and you only have chopsticks and don't have the skills to test it. I did it a few times actually.

I was pretty tired by the end of the week. I was still sick. Friday was nice because I got to sleep in a bit later than usual. I had to wake up earlier on Saturday so we could catch the train. I bought the wrong fare on the way to the station. It was only one past my usual downtown stop. I put in the coin and then the gates closed and yelled at me in Korean. Well not really yell. I wasn't that embarassed actually. A guy came out and I knew I owed him an extra 100 won (10c). It seems a bit ridiculous for a dime. Then we hopped on the train and headed for Busan. I slept most of the way. As soon as we got there, we jumped in a cab and headed for the Marriott right on the beach. It's the most popular bit of coastline in the country. It was alright but nothing stellar. I felt upscale though staying at the Marriott. Usually, the most upscale place I stay with my parents in the Holiday Inn. It was only because my parents were too afraid to show up somewhere without reservations. I've never been worried about that. It was a long weekend though and once we got there, there were no extra rooms. Or at least the kind we wanted. We had a room with 2 twins and I got to sleep on a cot. It was still a lot more comfortable than my mattress in Daegu. I think I slept over 11 hours both nights we spent there. The days weren't that exceptional though. We just walked up and down the beach on a sidewalk that was semi under construction. We saw the little mermaid though. This one is more glamourous and bigger than thee one in Copenhagen but almost much less nice. We hiked for about 10 feet up to the top of this little hill. Somehow though, instead of going back the way we came, my mother and I were climbing over railings over rocks. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. My mom just didn't want to admit we couldn't climb down that way. We walked around that part of the city for a few hours. Mostly though it was walking on the beach between meals. A nice relaxing weekend but I didn't see very much. I'll have to go to downtown Busan some other time. Haeundae beach was very touristy. There were so many white people there. By so many I mean like 50 of 2000 probably. Some of them were so loud. Definitely American. Probably military. They made me embarassed to be white. Just loud and obnoxious, you know the type. They might have been Canadian but I doubt they were and prefer to remove myself from them by another step. We kept seeing the same white people though. Funny, how they just stand out so much more. I almost felt like I was Hawaii though only because of the hills, western chain restaurants and more white people than I had seen in a while. I was actually looking forward to going back to Daegu to get away from them. Only because I feel less representative here, if that makes sense. Just a white person instead of 'one of those white people.'

I think I'll close this chapter of the story and write more later. I always say that I will and then just start writing about something completely different. Maybe this weekend or tomorrow perhaps. I should've been grading some tests tonight. I made them too hard today. They took the whole class to finish and some didn't finish at all. Mostly, because they are slow (aka stupid). Actually, it's because they kept talking to each other instead of writing their tests. I don't feel that bad for them but I think I should probably let them work on the tests a bit more so they don't completely humiliate themselves. Some only did 3 of 5 pages. I have to make tests for so many classes this week. I'm looking forward to regular classes again.