김범준

This morning I woke up to two big surprises!  I'm having a pretty awesome day.  I found out earlier in the week that classes were cancelled because my school is having a talent show today.  So  I get to chill out catch up on some reading, listen to more podcasts, and chat with my favorite students without class getting in the way.  Well if that wasn't enough goodness to begin the day with,  I opened my inbox to find out gmail had finally rolled out some new themes.  And my inbox finally got a makeover.  But no no . . . it doesn't stop there.  It gets waaaaaaaay better.

김범준(Kim Bam-Joon)  One of my favorite and best students  sent me an e-mail.  We've been hanging out a lot in between classes the past couple of weeks.  He'll come in and chat with me, fix my Korean for me, which is in need of a lot more attention that I am giving it.  But anyways,  it's always a pure delight to see him.  No matter how bad my day is going or how bad I'm feeling chatting with him, and exchanging langauge  skills with him always always brightens my day.  I momentarily forget all my responsibilties.  I wish everyone could meet my two favorite students and experience the proud feelings I get when I teach them new things.  Anyways,  I'll stop rambling.  Here's the wonderful e-mail he sent me this morning that made me twirl with joy.

from  김범준 <************@naver.com> reply-to   김범준 <***********@naver.com> to  ********@gmail.com date   Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 10:05 PM subject   trishna mailed-by    naver.com

10:05 PM (10 hours ago)

Hi, trishna

It seems like I have a lot to say but I can't really put it in to words
I always thanked you for helping me with my English
In fact, whenever I talk to you I really get nervous and worry about what to say
It is that much I care for it.
How good will it be if I could speak fluent English to express myself?
I should work on my English

I HAVE SOME 

MONEY

AND MY MAIL 

IS SECRET

 OK?

BYE!!! 

HAHAHA!!!

I really have no idea what the deal with the last part is. He's always asking me for money saying,  "You are rich."  And I always assure him that I am not

Junam Wetlands

This weekend Nolan and I decided to check out the Junam Resevoir site in Changwon. After attending the KBS Ramsar concert that highlighted the importance of preserving natural wetlands, I thought our mini excursion was quite fitting. The Junam resevoir is the largest bird migration site in South Korea.
Do you see the little black specs in the picture, right above the mountains? Yupp, those are all birds. It was hard to capture in photos. But the flock of birds were all flying in all sorts of directions and making crazy formations. It's really something else to watch in person.

We ended up going during some bird watching festival. I wish I was more of a bird enthusiast. I don't think I appreciated the whole magnitude of it all, because I didn't know which birds were which and which ones were extremely rare. The awe-ness of it all lied with the natural scenery and the amount of birds that were present at the site.
Here's nice view of the area as the sun's reflection hits the water.
More of the wetlands.
They had stations set up along the long pathway where kids and their parents could do crafty activities. I was also in the process of finding a present that I could send back home. I spotted this fan station where the ladies were painting names onto the paper fans.

A little down the road they had this other tent where people were pounding away at rice cake. Nolan got a chance to take a swing at the rice cakes. Here's a short clip of him using all his might as he takes his best shots.
After all the pounding was done with they put the wad of rice cake onto a pan and sprinkled the brown powdery stuff onto it. After sifting it for a bit they cut it all up and handed us a cup with a few pieces of the freshly made rice cakes. I took a bite of it. It was like biting into sweet dry sand with glutinous chewy rice cake inside.
We stepped into a gift shop for a few moments. It had a large map of the area along with a few pictures of the park. This picture features a handful of Korean bird watchers, along with one lone tall foreigner looking inredibly creepy right smack dab in the middle!

We also got to see a selection of crittery creatures.
That's a really big yellow snake, in case you couldn't tell.
This guy was fun to watch.
This picture really has nothing to do with the Junam resevoir. But as we were headed in that direction we noticed how colorful the mountain has become. Fall really shows itself in Korea and all the leaves have begun to show their true colors.

A long overdue post on the KBS Concert

So about a week an a half ago I had my first Korean pop concert experience. Complete with 5 member boy bands, flashy ensembles, and of course thousands of screaming teeny bopper girls going crazy for their favorites.

My friend Lindsay scored us prime seats at this outdoor event. There is a big circle in the center in Changwon, which is where the concert was held. The concert was being held as a part of the Ramsar Convention that Changwon was hosting this year. I didn't know about Ramsar until I started seeing signs for it all over the city the week the convention was being held. It's a treaty to help sustain and conserve our natural wetlands. Gooooo Environment!

To help raise awareness for keeping our wetlands safe, a lot of the Korean artists made their appearance and did their part so the young screaming middle school/high school aged girls would realize how important it is to protect our ecosystem.

Among the many big names present at the concert were TVXQ! I later found out this isn't even the real Korean band name they go by. Instead it's really Dong Bang Shin Ki (동방신기) which translates into Rising gods of the East. That's a pretty intense name! And let me tell you their attitude and the poses they struck right before singing were just as intense.

They even brought out the police brigade in case the girls stormed the stage. Fortunately no such event took place, but the thought of such commotion taking place excited me greatly.

This is ShinEE. Not as cool as a name that translates into rising gods of something, but they were pretty upbeat. The girls went insane for them as well. Believe it or not, I've been listening to their song Amigo on youtube, and I gotta say it's pretty catchy. I even know some of the words!

Here's a quick Korean lesson for you -- in their music video AMIGO

they keep repeat Ought to kay? Ought to Kay? which translates into What do I do? What do I do? It's become a favroite Korean phrase of mine. The song isn't musical genius but it's definitely a fun way for me learn new stuff.

Okay so now for some real up close and personal footage from the actual concert.

They started the concert of with a few mellow crowd pleasers. This guy was neat, he does Poppera. Awesome voice. This little bit of video doesn't do his voice justice.

The best and most memorable performance was by an artist named Son Ho Young. His song "I know" is definitely my favorite Korean pop song for the time being.

Here he is in action.

Here's another cool group beating their hearts away.

This next group call themselves the B-Boys. They were truly something else. They did mind blowing acrobatic stuff. It was insane. Just take a look.

This is just another clip of them doing crazy cool things with their bodies.

I had no idea what to expect when I decided to go to this thing, but I'm glad I ended up in the second row from the stage, in the middle of the circle in Changwon on a cold Sunday night watching pyros shoot off from behind my favorite Korean pop artist Son Ho Young.