Sky Jump Into 2008

We celebrated the final days of 2007 by jumping off of WooBang Tower. Guess who's idea this was? Every year Lauren tries to find new and exciting ways for me to lose my lunch. This year we walked out of a tower onto a steel platform and jumped 123 meters down to the ground.

We felt like stunt men when we changed into our flashy jump suits. Then we felt like celebrities because a small audience gathered to watch us make the plunge and children were cheering for us as we reached the bottom. It was a lot of fun and at the same time scary. The best part was watching Lauren dangle from a steel rope in mid air while saying "I'm scared".

Happy Belated Birthday Dana!!!

Dana's birthday was December 6th and here's how we celebrated the beginning of the end...well, the end of his twenties! For his birthday, I took him out to Outback (a major treat in Korea!). We had a nice meal and then I sneaked off to ask the waiter to bring out a slice of cake for his birthday! It took an awfully long while and I had to convince Dana that I wasn't feeling well...so we could stick around the restaurant. Eventually, the cake came, but not just one slice! The waiter actually ran down to a bakery down the street, bought an entire cake with candles and served it to us! It was so sweet!!! The staff then proceeded to sing Happy Birthday!!! They even took a picture of us and printed it out in a card -- the total royal treatment at ole Outback! After that, Dana got a mini party at work...with another cake!!! On Friday, we met Barry, Cass, and Barry's girlfriend up for some mexican food (another major treat in Korea!). Plus, he got another cake!!! So, 3 cakes and 2 homestyle meals!!! Not so shabby for partying in Daegu!

Muju Mountain

The only benefit of living in a cold country surrounded by mountains is, of course, the ability to ski in the winter. Around the first of December, the thought of skiing down a snow covered mountain fills us with excitement, which makes up for shivering every time we walk out the front door. However, during this same time period our brains start going into a hibernation and our ability to reason suffers. For some reason, we don't think it is going to be cold while we imagine ourselves racing down champagne powdered slopes. Doesn't it stand to reason that if we are cold in the city, then we will be much colder a couple thousand feet higher on top of windy mountain? Of course, you idiot, but that didn't stop us from going to Muju Mountain again this year.

We decided to take a day trip up to our local ski resort this past Saturday. It was a rough day that started with a 5am rivalee and it was followed by a 2.5 hour bus ride up to the mountain. We slept most of the ride up. After getting geared up, we took our first run down the baby slope to get warmed up and to get comfortable on skis again. We soon found out that the baby runs were as advanced as we were going to get for the day. There wasn't enough snow on the ground for them to open the lifts on top of the mountain. Depression soon set in upon this discovery, followed by numbness in Lauren's fingers and toes. To make things worse, it started snowing! There is only so much Lauren can take before she is warming up next to a fire in a lounge complaining about how much she misses Florida.

The Importance of Winning in Korea

The following is an email I received from a member of the Moon Kkang Reinforcement Staff:

Hi Everyone! Our Reinforcement Team has a new member again, his name is 'HYUK'.
He was a professional soccer player, so he didn`t study English very much.
However, he is currently studying English and will try his best.
If you have a chance to meet him, please give him a warm welcome.
Soon you will meet him on December 8th.
Anyways, take care of your health.
Enjoy your week Hyun ^^

The Reinforcements Staff's role is to help foreign teachers with housing and daily issues related with living in Daegu. It is obvious by the email that winning in the Daegu soccer tournament is extremely important to our employer. I feel he has hired a professional soccer player, solely, for the purpose of playing soccer. This winning attitude plays a huge part in Korean culture. GO MOON KKANG - FIGHTING!!!