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 is only a 5 minute walk away from my apartment, if that.

The day started off with some flashes of lightning and rumbling of thunder with a nice little dose of rain. That didn't detract me from putting on my suit and bow tie to dress for success. I started with my fifth grade music class, then a little time to prepare for the afternoon with 4th grade, a new music appreciation class, orchestra, and an assembly. Walking back home, I collapsed straightaway into my bed for a nap to revive, though I'm afraid that might leave me awake longer tonight than I'd want.

Tomorrow starts day two and I'm still shaking off a little bit of the dread seeing that most of my students are very well-mannered and know a good amount of music. That makes my life a bit easier, but at the same time has to give me more things to find for them to learn.

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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 in Chico, CA. This is not to say that China didn't have beer at all; there was. In fact, one of my favorite spots was in Zhujiang New Town in Guangzhou. If you ever find yourself in the area, check out The Strand Beer Cafe off the Wuyangcun metro stop. The owner, David Strand brewed all the beers "in-house" (actually somewhere a bit away from his bar) and that was the closest I've ever gotten to tasting craft beer since living back in the US. Before his bar, was a South African bar, Moutia, whose owner Martin was a South African wine and South African beer merchant. Those were quite delightful as well.

Fast forward one year later and I'm here in South Korea, unaware and ignorant to the beer scene. In a store not too far from me are beers you can definitely find in your local grocery store such as Lost Coast Brewery from Eureka, CA, Hoegaarden Brewery from Hoegaarden, Belgium, and Samuel Adams from Boston, MA. After growing fond of the beer scene in my hometown of San Diego, CA, mind you it's an acquired taste to build up those IPA muscles, I just can't drink lagers since they lack that "hoppy" kick to the tastebuds. Stumbling into a popular expat Canadian-owned bar in Gwangju, The First Alleyway, there is a small but high quality selection of beers including those brewed locally in Seoul.

Let's get to it, shall we?

First up, we have Craftworks' Jirisan Brewery Moon Bear IPA from Seoul, Korea. It had that hoppy kick I was looking for as well as a sweet, citrus kind of flavor that pleasantly took me by surprise. Overall, it will definitely do its job in keeping me satisfied for my IPA fix.

Next up, also from Craftworks is Buk Han San Pale Ale. This was a lovely little beer, reminiscent of a California beer from Firestone Brewery. There was a nice full flavor without being too full of its self. If Amber Ale is one end of the ale spectrum with IPA on the other, this Pale Ale leans closer to that of IPA.

I know they may not be brews that I'll find back home, but it's nice to know that I won't have to digest another sip of Tsing Tao or worse yet, Pearl River. It's even nicer that if I want, I CAN get a legitimate taste of home, granted it costs a few dollars more, but it's nice to have that peace of mind.

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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 from Guangzhou to, what I've recently discovered is its sister city Gwangju in South Korea.

From this Facebook screenshot of the Places sections, you can see the numerous places I've either lived or visited. In the order of places lived it's San Diego, California to Adak, Alaska to Agana, Guam to Bremerton, Washington, to Yokosuka, Japan to Fresno, California to Guangzhou, China and finally to where I am in Gwangju, South Korea. Sprinkle in visits to Hong Kong, Kunming, New Orleans, Boise, Vancouver, Hiroshima, Manila, Seattle and it's not too shabby of a travel resume. Though, I have yet to visit anywhere outside the Pacific Rim. That will soon change now that I've met some amazing colleagues that have lived in Colombia, Turkey, South Africa, Toronto, and various parts of England.

Interests include food, both cooking and devouring, sports, gaming in any sense of the medium, music (seeing as I am a teacher in the field), cinema, television, and crossword puzzle solving and puzzle construction (I ran a puzzle blog for a time as well). So, you may see some of these more mundane items among the exotic things you probably came here for... I mean, it's called BulgogiSpot for crying out loud!

With that first post finally out of the way, let's get this blog hitting on all cylinders! 

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