Champion Ping-Pong Club's two greatest members

Since Ian is leaving on Saturday and my lessons are done, we wanted to leave something for our ping pong coach to remember us by.  We got this picture taken at a studio.  It was a funny ordeal getting our pictures taken, but I think it turned out okay.  We put one in a frame and gave it to our coach.  He cleared a whole shelf on his desk and to put the picture there.  I’m glad we’ll be remembered.

I'm in the market for anything.

Everyone's finishing up their contracts and leaving Korea. It's pretty sad and all that, but I'm currently looking at craigslist right now and things are priced to fucking go. Everyone's just trying to get rid of their shit. Really, I'm looking and there's things I'm thinking about buying that I don't even need.

Really though, I'm considering picking up an Xbox 360 or one of those motorized bicycle contraptions.  It's sad because a bike's actually going to help me get places while a video game system won't.

The North Korean Soccer Team was publicly shamed after their performance in the World Cup.

This article from the Chosun Ilbo reports that the team had to stand on stage while the 400 officials and athletes in the audience criticized their mistakes.  After that was done, each player took a turn to criticize the coach.  The most ridiculous part of this whole story is that the event lasted six hours.  At least it's better than being executed.

Identity theft scare

I received three text messages from my bank saying that I used my debit card somewhere.  Here's a list of what was spent:

• 27,800 at a chicken gabli place
• 32,000 at an E-Mart in Chuncheon
• 22,950 at the same E-Mart

Of course, I wasn't in Chuncheon yesterday and I didn't eat chicken galbi.  I no nowhere near enough Korean and I've had trouble with my bank's English help line, so I didn't do anything about it until this morning.  I had my co-teacher call the bank and it turns out that my phone number was accidentally put in for another person's card, so I've just been receiving messages for their transactions.  So, Theresa Kim, if you read this, I hope you enjoyed your chicken galbi.

My birthday is coming up.

So it's my birthday this Friday and I'm having a little birthday party in Sinchon with Carmine. It's at 9:00 at JJ's bar. Since I'm really skillful with MS Paint, here's a map I drew.

I know a lot of people are out of town on vacation, but please drop by if you're free.  Bring anyone you want, since new friends are always welcome.

California? Maybe.

I'm still looking for a job right now and I actually am trying.  I sent in two applications yesterday.  However, if I don't find a job by the end of August, then I'm going to book a flight back home.  It won't be for long though.  I'm pretty sure that I want to stay a bit longer in Korea.  I'll  probably be home for a month while gathering my documents again, resting up, and looking for another job in Korea.  I'll be back here in October at the latest.  Although, finding a job before my contract ends would still probably be the most ideal situation for me.

Why I hate bowling in Korea

1. They don't serve alcohol.  That's right.  This is number one.  I know that bowling is a recreational activity that doesn't actually require the consumption of an alcoholic beverage to be fun, but beer just makes it better.  Bowling and beer just go hand in hand.
2. The lanes are inconsistent.  If you don't bowl often, you might not realize just how important the oil on the lane actually is.  It really makes a lot difference.  Sure, there are a lot of bowling alleys back home that aren't maintained really well and I understand that it's just what you're going to deal with sometimes, but Korea takes it to a whole new level.  I've even seen a woman using a spray bottle and a mop to apply oil onto a lane [it's usually done by a machine in case you didn't know].
3. House balls suck.  They really do.  For one thing, it's hard to find a ball that I can fit my fat fingers.  Another thing is that a lot of the balls aren't drilled with the standard grip.  This wouldn't have been a problem if I brought my own bowling ball, but it was hard to justify packing a 15-lb object when I was left for Korea.
4. The lady at the bowling alley judges me.  I understand that a foreigner wanting to bowl by himself at 10:00PM might not be the most normal thing, but she doesn't have to look at me with her ultra-critical stare.
5. They're too damn hot.  This is only a problem that I've recently started encountering, since it's summer and all.  Usually, there's only one air conditioner and it's behind the employees' counter and then there are big ass fans everywhere else.  It's seriously inefficient.  I can bowl three games by myself and I'll come out of the damn place looking like I sprinted 2 miles in a desert.

Miss Korea 2010 has been crowned.

Here she is, Jung So-ra.  She's 19 and she won the competition last night.  She will also represent Korea at the Miss Universe Pageant in 2011.  Apparently, she goes to school at UC Riverside and wants to be a diplomat.  It seems like we could be friends.  You can learn more about the competition and her from this article, where I copped the picture from.

It must be something I ate.

 

Jajangmyun at work

The cafeteria is closed over the summer break so I’m left to fend for myself during lunch.  Luckily, I can ask my co-teacher to order food.  This is what I had last week.

I'm back from my trip.

I just got back to Incheon to my trip and guess where I'm at?  That's right, the fucking PC bang because I'm a really cool guy.  It's not the first place where I went after getting here.  That honor goes to Burger King.  Anyway, I'll tell you more about my trip a little later because right now, Diablo II is calling.

I'm off on a day trip.

It's a little after 5AM and I'm off to catch the first subway.  I forgot where I'm going for the day, but it's for a friend's birthday.  I hope it doesn't rain too bad.

Hang in there, MangaToshokan.

It looks like manga publishers are finally addressing the issue of scanslations.  For some reason, I just noticed this message today on mangatoshokan even though I've been frequenting the site, but here it is from one of the admins:

We hoped it wouldn't come to this, but due to mounting legal pressure, we have been advised to remove all series serialized by the publishers in the coalition. This was a very difficult decision to make, and one we did not take lightly. Unfortunately this means we have had to remove the majority of our library, however we have been able to retain some manga, as well as most of our manhua and manhwa. We will be shifting the focus of the site more to manhwa and manhua (Korean and Chinese manga).

It's a little disheartening, but I can't really be surprised about it.  I'm excited to see how much attention they're going to be giving to manhwa.  I do take a casual interest in it and all.

Dear hot girl that lives in my apartment,

I've been living the building for 11 months now and I'm surprised that I haven't seen you before.  I know that saying hello to you this morning while we were both taking out our trash might have been a little awkward or you might have been surprised that I was speaking English, but I would like to take this time to properly say hello.  Hopefully I'll run into you again.

Sincerely,

Joseph Gutierrez

 

P.S.  Please don't judge me by the stack of pizza boxes I was throwing out.

I had my last ping pong lesson yesterday.

I paid for a month of lessons and yesterday was the last one.  Even though I'm still in Incheon at least until August 16th, I'm going on vacation and when I get back I probably won't have the time.  It's pretty sad actually.  It'll be the first chapter of the autobiography I'll write when I become a professional ping pong player.  I'm sure I'll see him before I leave Incheon though.  I think I'll buy him an English book to study from.  The one he uses is older than I am.

Learning the alphabet

I've been giving worksheets like these to my third graders to learn the alphabet.  At the end of the camp they'll have a nice little booklet that I'll wrap up for them.  Anyway, check out how stoned this octopus looks.

I've been thinking about making some business cards.

I don't feel like I need business cards or anything.  I'm nowhere near that point.  They'll be really neat to have.  I've even already thought of what they're going to look like.

Man it's going to be great.

I probably should have done this earlier.

Yesterday, I bought a GRE prep book while I was in Itaewon.  I didn't buy it on a whim either.  I've been saying that I had to start studying for the GRE since before I even left for Korea.  Now that it's been more than a year since I finished college, I figured that I probably shouldn't push it back any further.  I'm not entirely sure when I'll be taking the test, since I don't actually know when I'll start studying, but it will before August 2011.  That's when my book says the test is supposed to change.

It must be something I ate.

 

A burrito from On the Border at the Times Square Mall in Seoul

I know the photo doesn’t do it justice, but the burrito was fucking huge.  It was called something special too, but I forgot the exact name.  The thing was as big as my forearm.  The place is really expensive though.  I’m talking 20,000+ won expensive.

Free time!?

Well, I just downloaded a SNES emulator at work.  Now it's game over.  I'm currently playing Mega Man X, but that's only because I already have Super Mario RPG on my laptop.

Summer camp

My first summer camp class just ended.  For the next two weeks, I'll be having a morning class from 10:00AM - 12:00PM and then an afternoon class from 2:00PM - 4:00 PM.  It'll be enjoyable since the classes are small and the activities I planned are pretty fun.  It also helps that in two weeks time I'll be on vacation in Taiwan.  When I get back, I have to work at another school for a week to do another camp.  I sort of regret taking it on, but it's more money in my pocket, which I'll probably need when I move.

DO I HEAR CHALLENGE?

I'm about to leave my apartment to go play ping pong with my boss.  Well, she's sort of my boss.  She's the 6th grade bojangnim, which means she's sort of the captain for all the 6th grade teachers, which includes me.  I like her a lot because she's a nice 50-something lady and she makes an effort to speak to me in English.  She said she's been playing for a few years, so she'll probably destroy me, but it'll be fun.

Just finished my last class.

It's a little sad really.  There's still summer camp for the next two weeks, but that's just not the same.  I'm going to miss these kids.  I really am.

The upside to the rain.

I'm not a huge fan of rain, which I've said numerous times before.  However, the one good thing about is that since it forces everyone inside, it becomes a good time to spend the entire night at a PC bang.  Diablo II, here I come.

Lee Soo Yeon is one of my heroes.

So, she's a professional table tennis player born in Korea.  She has a pretty long list of accomplishments and she's currently coaching in the United States.  I like the way she plays and her matches are fairly exciting, but the best part about her is that she's also a fashion model.  Here's a video where she's playing ping pong in a mini-skirt and heels.  She's definitely one badass bitch.

Sooyeon from SPiN New York on Vimeo.

Lee Hyori just became the ambassador for Korean beef

Check out the article on allkpop.com

The title speaks for itself.

Check this out.

Read this article by my buddy Andrew Leonard for the California Beat.  It's on the Yongsan Electronics Market here in Seoul.  Most importantly, check out the last paragraph.

That's me!

I was looking through all the old shit I have on the Internet and I found this old baby picture of myself that I posted a while ago.

Different strokes

I finally feel like my ping pong game is really coming together.  The first week of lessons was really great,  I felt like I was learning things and I was hitting the ball really hard.  Then after we got past that, we moved onto some of the more complex stuff, like the more complex strokes and putting spin on the ball.  To be honest, it was really frustrating.  I couldn't hit a forehand loop drive if my life depended on it.  Don't even get me started on the backhand cut.    Now I've finished learning all the strokes and I feel a lot better.  Sure, I'm probably not getting as much rotation on my forehand as I could be, but I can tell that the topspin is there.  So the foundation is set.  If I compared myself to a diamond, which I do regularly, I'm still raw and uncut.  It's going to take quite a bit of practice for me to really shine.  Luckily, there's still plenty of time until 2016.

I have leveled up.

So I'm here sitting at my desk, and since I'm done with all my summer camp materials, I'm officially working on the last powerpoint that I'll ever have to make at Yeonhak Elementary School.  It's a little sad, actually.  I'm not going to get into that right now though.  What I am going to talk about is how my powerpoint skills are a lot better than they were when I got here.  Now I'm making shit disappear, reappear, inserting videos, making puzzles, and doing all sorts of crazy shit.  It might not sound like much, but I didn't really do any powerpoints before this.  Also, I'm working on a Korean computer.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find the "Animation" tab when I first got here.

formspring.me

Do you find it easy to be yourself around strangers?

• I guess that I do.  Sorry it took me so long to respond to your question.  I haven't been checking my formspring on the regular.

you watching the live stream of the evo ssfiv tournament? because you should be nigga. www.g4tv.com. finals are tomorrowwwww

• I'm sorry, I haven't been, but I know I fucking should be.  I've been all up in Starcraft II and Diablo II, trying to take over Blizzard and shit.  Also, Street Fighter isn't really popular in Korea.  It's all about Tekken over here.

 

Ask away.

Bikini Night at M2.

I'm always surprised at the themed nights the clubs in Korea do.  I saw this poster while walking around the streets of Hongdae this weekend.

Taco Bell in Seoul

I have a long history with Taco Bell, having grown up down the street from one.  It's like one of my oldest and most cherished friends.  So Taco Bell coming to Korea might be the most important event in Korea's history since the founding of the Joseon Dynasty.  It's located in Itaewon, right next to the subway station, which is alright by me.  The only problem that I have with it being in Itaewon is that I live so far. 

It's actually one of the biggest Taco Bells that I've seen.  It's three stories.  The first is for ordering food and the other two are seating areas.

The menu isn't as big as it is at most Taco Bells back home.  It's more like a Taco Bell Express, but a little better.  The Mexican pizza and the gorditas are missing from the menu.  It's heartbreaking because I love the Mexican pizza.  There are also a few things that I haven't seen before, but most of them are things that were added to the menu since I left America, like Limeade.  However, there are french fries and that's entirely new.

There's a serve-yourself soda fountain.  This is the first one I've seen in Korea.

I like how the packets of sauce are a little bigger and still have shit written on them, just in Korean.

I'm well aware that Taco Bell is a bastardized version of actual Mexican food, but I can't help but liking it.  Just look at that shit.

It must be something I ate.

2 tacos and a nachos bell grande at the Taco Bell in Itaewon

Sweet Jesus, it's finally here.

LeBron James vs Dan Gilbert

So LeBron James has moved to Miami and Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavs, has made it clear that he doesn't like it one bit.  Check out his open letter to Cavs fans if you haven't seen it already.  He calls LeBron's move a "cowardly betrayal" and that the fans don't deserve it.  It's pretty scathing, but it's written in fucking Comic Sans.  I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed this.  Apparently Gilbert has used the font for years, so I guess you can't really blame him.  It's not like I should expect the owner of an NBA team to keep up with slight subtleties of the Internet.

Anyway, Gilbert doesn't stop burning LeBron with the letter, which I read in this article.  Apparently Gilbert is also the owner of Fathead, a sports merchandise company.  They sell those big wall posters and things if you've ever seen their commercials.  Gilbert actually discounted the price of LeBron posters from $100 down to $17.41.  The significance is that 1741 was the year that Benedict Arnold was born.

Psycho by Gwak Hyun Hwa

To be honest, I was expecting a little more from the video after all the hype with the promo images:

The video isn't as racy as one would think, it's not horrible but it isn't good.  It doesn't look they spent too much money on it.  The song's not too bad though.

My future as a professional table tennis player.

I've thought long and hard about my future and this is the only way I see it happening:

• Early September 2010 - I move to Seoul for a new job, but I have to quit going to the Champion Ping-Pong Club.  I thank my coach, Park Young Gil, for teaching me the basics of table tennis.
• Late September 2010 - After finally settling into my new job and apartment, I sign up for ping pong lessons.  At first, I'm a little hesitant about my new coach's training program, but I finally settle in and start learning more advanced techniques.
• Mid 2011 - I go back to Los Angeles, taking the ping-pong techniques I learned in Korea with me.  I sign up for lessons at the Westside Table Tennis Center, taking lessons from former U.S. Olympian Wei Wang.  Of course, I purchase my own table to practice at home.
• 2012 - I enter into a few basic tournaments.  Being unable to shake the nervousness of competitive play, I lose horribly in the first round of the tournament.
• Early 2013 - I start finding my groove in competitive play and decide to enter more competitive tournaments, so I enter the California Open of Table Tennis.  I lose miserably.
• Early 2014 - After my loss at the California Open, I decide to switch to a new ping-pong club to get training from a different coach and new practice partners.  Once again, I enter the California Open.  This time I manage to get third.
• Late 2014 - I enter the nation table tennis tournament.  I know I still don't have a shot of winning, but I go for the experience.  After the tournament, I go to a doctor because of recurring shoulder pain.  They tell me that I lose my arm if I continue to play competitive table tennis.
• 2015 - This is the year of change.  After hours and hours of pondering, I decide that I can't give up table tennis.  Instead, I decide to start training myself.  What I come up with is a new defensive style of play that's less strenuous on the shoulder.  I re-enter the national tournament and take first place with my new style.
• 2016 - With winning the national tournament, I'm the American favorite in the 2016 Olympics.  My new style of play manages to win me through the early rounds, but is still not enough to beat the Chinese powerhouse.  I end up finishing just short of a medal in fourth place.
• 2017 and beyond - I open my own table tennis center.  Players from around the world come to be coached in my defensive style.

Yep, that's how it's all going to work out.  It's seriously the last shot I have at getting into the Olympics, unless they decide to finally make bowling an Olympic sport.

Taiwan, I guess.

It looks like I won't be heading to China this summer like I mentioned last week.  I'll get around to it at some point, maybe early 2011.  Anyway, I'll be headed to Taiwan instead.  I should probably book my tickets soon.  I should also figure out what I want to do in Taiwan besides seeing the world's tallest building.

Man dies in New Zealand while watching Twilight: Eclipse

Apparently he was a drifter.  An employee found him after the show but just thought the man fell asleep.  You can check the whole story here.

People are eating snakes.

This article in the Korea Times reports that the poaching of snakes has been on the rise because.  It seems that claims by athletes and celebrities about snake meat boosting stamina are partly the reason for the interest in snake meat.  I’m not saying that there is absolutely no chance that eating snakes might increase stamina, but it is an example of the weird health notions that exist in Korea, because this definitely sounds like something out of an RPG.

The short and tragic history of the Nicholas Cage Experience

Let me tell you a story that happened a long, long time ago (middle of June), when five men came together and decided to form the greatest dance team that Korea has ever seen.  They called themselves the Nicholas Cage Experience.  I can proudly say that I was one of these men.  The five of us decided to take on one of the most popular k-pop dances around, Hyuna's song Change.

This would have been the most ridiculous dance for five guys to perform, but alas, the challenge was too great.  We were able to gather together for one practice and get down the first 30 seconds of the dance, but the Nicholas Cage Experience was plagued with scheduling issues and overall laziness, so we had to abandon our quest.  However, whenever this song plays, the Nicholas Cage Experience will be there.  Whenever there is a man wishing to perform a feminine dance, the Nicholas Cage Experience will be there.  Whenever there is a foreigner willing to do something embarrassing for the sake of a laugh, the Nicholas Cage Experience will be there.  And whenever you're in your most desperate time of need, you better believe that the Nicholas Cage Experience will fucking be there.

Partying hard.

The problem with staying out and drinking on Saturdays now, is that I barely wake up in time for my 3:00PM ping-pong lessons.

I spent a lot of time at the PC bang this week.

About 12 hours in the last 6 days.  I'm not at a PC bang right now, but I'm considering going.  The only reason that I've been going right now is because I started playing Diablo 2.  That's right, the mother fucking Lord of Destruction.  It's taking me back to freshman year of high school.  I'm playing in the Asia servers with Evan.  I'm Torvin, a level 53 barbarian while Evan is a sorceress.  It's a little tough playing in the Asia servers because we don't know anyone playing and it's hard to get good equipment.  It's not like we can trade anything either.  Most of the players are Korean, but it's not like I know enough to say, "Hey, I'll trade you 40 perfect gems for the +1 barbarian skills grand charm you have."  It's still fun though.  We're currently in nightmare mode just running cows.  I understand that if you've never played, then I sound pretty fucking ridiculous.

The Photojojo Daily Pic Pick

I haven't really touched my camera in a while.  I'm going to blame the weather on this, because I'm usually hesitant to bring my camera out when there's a chance of rain.  Anyway, you can check out the contest here.  For the entire month of July, there will be a different theme every day and there's a winner picked at the end of each day.  I'm not thinking I'm going to be winning anything, but it's practice at least.