Seoul Vaccination

Not too long ago, I took my first trip into Seoul. I had no expectations other than it's one of the biggest little cities in the world. I'd say that's about right, it's about the size of Los Angeles proper with the population of New York. The few things I did know from some former colleagues is that they'd rather visit Busan (see Chuseok 2k14) and I think I would have to agree with them after a two night-two day stay. I arrived on Friday afternoon, having booked a place via airbnb.com (check that site out if you're ever wanting to stay at whatever...

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Alleycon 2k14

Ah, comic book conventions. As long as the comic book was invented, so has the comic book convention... Okay, not really, but conventions do have pretty deeply sown tradition through the annals of time.  There are comic conventions in Seoul and Busan, known as Comic World, since 1999 which are up to their 128th and 89th events respectively. They are up that high because Seoul holds their events every month whereas Busan is held bimonthly....

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Chuseok 2k14

Hello again everybody, it's me Ryne! Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a long holiday weekend which lead to a two day school week and back into the weekend. I (and other colleagues) used that to our advantage and went off east into Busan, to a neighboring island Geoje the next morning and ferried to a botanical garden island called Oedo and back into Busan before taking off back for home. That's Chuseok lite digest... and a video Here's...

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TV Abroad

Sports: where would I be without it? When living abroad, it's nice to have a taste of home with television. Most people I know use a VPN and Netflix or Hulu or any other streaming service site to get their tv fix when living overseas. Sometimes, though you just need that fix to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives or Conan O'Brien or The Weather Channel for whatever reason. Getting live TV is nearly impossible or incredibly difficult unless you're...

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First Mensiversary!

I've been busy this last week, but today marks my one month of living in Gwangju already! Wow, how the time flies! Just this day last month, I was getting settled into my apartment and getting shown around the school, my classroom, and getting to meet a few of the students doing summer school. Since then, I had a teacher prep week, taught my first two weeks, and have been doing a lot (A LOT) of planning lessons. It's a bit challenging to teach a combined class of kindergarten with 3rd graders, but it's also kind of fun to stretch my imagination...

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Blame it on the Boogie

The first week of the new school year came and went, and boy did it feel like three weeks went by! Anyway, to celebrate, some colleagues and I were just going to go do some dinner. Dinner happened, which was delicious. I sure love that I get to eat more greens out here in Asia than I ever did back home in the US. Afterwards, we decided to do 노래방 (Norae bang) aka Singing Rooms aka KTV aka Karaoke. The culture in Asia versus the West is to...

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First Day of School: Done!

I was a little nervous last night coming into this morning. I made sure to get enough rest by sleeping early. This inevitably lead to waking up in the middle of the night to scratch lingering mosquito bites or some new ones, I can't tell from my irrational neuroticism of mosquitoes, but that's for a different blog entry. Anyway, even with a good amount of rest, I still managed to hit the snooze button twice. I'm always paranoid about the snooze button and what happens if it were to never go off again, leaving me late for work. Thankfully, work...

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Gwangju? More like Gwang-brew!

Having lived in southern China for the last year, beer selection was extremely limited with barely passable beers in Tsing Tao, Harbin, and Pearl River. The end of my stay, however, saw some familiar bottles I've had before making it into restaurants such as Rogue Brewery from Portland, OR, Rochefort Brewery from Rochefort, Belgium (listed in a 2012 issue of Men's Journal as one of the world's top 25 beers. Read here.), and Sierra Nevada Brewing...

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One Down, Something-Something to go.

Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Ryne. I'm no stranger to the blogging world, though I've taken quite the hiatus from documenting my thoughts, photos, and general ramblings to the internet thanks to *certain* social media conglomerates. I meant to start this a year ago when I was living near the gigantic Chinese city of Guangzhou (population 14 million). Perhaps I'll throw in some of my travels from there onto here in due time. Anyway, I've gone...

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