Daring Souls

Yesterday I went to Danyang (a small town about 2.5 hours out of Seoul) with Imee, Erwin, Lee, Jennifer, Tracy, and Meredith...because we're crazy. We each flew in an ultralight aircraft. It was an incredibly long day. The weather was iffy so we did a lot of waiting once we got there. It was really chilly. Our pilot was great. He had a ritual of drinking a cup of coffee and smoking two cigarettes between all of our flights. He spoke no English. He used one of our dictionaries to say to Tracy, "You are very well-built." Ha! Thankfully, Erwin has been studying Korean for quite some time so he was our translator. I'm getting used to the language barrier but it's a bit more disconcerting when there's a barrier between yourself and the person who is flying you over mountains in a tiny aircraft. Everything went smoothly except when an ambulance made an appearance. A man hurt himself when he was hanggliding (he was training so he was just gliding off of a small hill). He's ok. Apparently he broke his collarbone.

Here is the aircraft we flew in:



Here's Erwin all decked-out in his flight suit. Once you step foot on to Korean soil you're required to pose with the peace sign in every picture you're in. :)



Erwin was a little nervous so we decided to be his cheerleaders. Here we are trying to contort our bodies to spell E-R-W-I-N. Meredith, who is supposed to be the N, completely cracks me up.



Imee was the first one to go flying.



I decided against bringing my camera up with me since I don't have a strap on it. I had Meredith take some pics with my camera instead.







Here are some amaaaazing photos Lee posted on Facebook.






(From left to right: Tracy, Erwin, Imee, Pilot, Meredith, Jennifer, Lee, and myself)

It was awesome. I'm not afraid of heights at all so I wasn't very nervous. It was a spectacular view of the mountains and autumn leaves. It was great just getting out of Seoul for the day and actually breathing fresh air. :)

Safe and sound,
Carly

"Yes, it's too late to turn back now."

I'm so glad Halloween is over.

Here is a picture of me with Meredith Teacher. I wore my Taekwondo uniform as my costume. Most of the kids loved it. Some of the kids were like, "Teacher! My belt, it is black!" Of course it is, kids. Of course.



Here is Jasmine Teacher. She's really too cute for words. She's a Starbucks fiend, so this picture is perfect.



We have a birthday party at the end of every month. Here are the students with October birthdays. As you can see, they were all docile except for Spiderman in back (Brian).



Here is Harry who is in one of my afternoon classes.



Sometimes what gets me through the day is walking into the classroom and seeing something like this written on the board.



Going out with my fellow teachers on Halloween night sucked and it was painfully obvious that I no longer drink. So I went home incredibly early.

Anyway, I started Taekwondo two weeks ago. It's so hardcore. On Monday night I pulled my groin during warm-up (go figure) and was out of commission the rest of the night. I took Tuesday night off. I went back on Wednesday and my groin didn't hurt because my knee pain took my mind off of it. My ankles are swollen and I have busted veins in my left foot. I really like the discipline of it and I hope my former flexibility will come back to me soon. My instructor, Master Kang, teaches mostly in English. Most of the people who attend are foreigners who are here for various reasons: teaching, acting, marketing, etc.

I am going to the DMZ with Meredith T. and Meredith D. in two weeks. I'm kind of excited about it but it seems more like something I NEED to visit while I'm here.

Oh yeah, I said I would talk about the traffic here. I decided I need to have my grandparents make me a shirt that says, "Dear diary, I almost got hit by a car again today." Drivers have no regard for pedestrians here and it infuriates me (and Meredith). You should see us walking somewhere together. We yell, "Fuck!" and "Peace!" in unison quite often because that's what happens when we almost get nailed by a motorcycle that is speeding down the SIDEWALK. I don't drive so I've never understood the concept of road rage, but now I do. Once my heart stops pounding wildly and my life stops flashing before my eyes, sometimes I want to kick the car or motorcycle really hard...which would be easy because it's usually inches away from ramming my knee. When I'm in the United States I'm pretty good about not jay-walking, but that doesn't even matter here. When I'm at a crosswalk and the light changes, I still wait for the two or three cars that are bound to run the light. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a video game where drivers score points if they hit a pedestrian. It's terrifying.

Election Day is coming up and I feel very detached from it even though I sent in my absentee ballot last week. Let's hope for the best.

xo,
Carly