I never thought it would happen, but some people don't like Canadians..

The past week took FOREVER to come to a close it seemed. I had payday on Friday as well as only 2 days of work the following week to look forward to. Finally it is all over and done with. I had a very quiet week until Friday since I was trying to stretch my last dollars, so there was no eating out or entertainment expenses.

After work Friday, I went out for Sushi with the Korean teachers at school. I was the only foreigner among them. This was my first serious sushi experience. I can't remember the names of a lot of the sushi, but I can describe what it was like. I sampled some octopus. The tenticles were the prized part of it, but I was surprised as I reached with my chop sticks to pick up a tenticle. Suddenly it squirmed out of the way trying to avoid my chopsticks as if it knew its fate if they were able to grab hold. That's right, this stuff was so fresh, it was still moving. That wasn't the only food that was like that either. Needless to say, I tried everything at least once and I think I impressed the Koreans with my handling of the sushi. Some of them even said, "Even I wouldn't eat that!"

Without doing much drinking Friday, I was able to wake up early Saturday. I had to do so for a purpose: to buy my motorcycle! A foreigner friend was leaving Saturday and he was looking to get rid of his bike so I was able to pick it up for a decent price. For only 275,000 won I purchased a Daelim Magma VS125. Quite a nice machine if I don't mind saying. I have been having fun touring the countryside and through the mountains. Although I hadn't ridden a motorcycle before, it came to me relatively easily. I attribute it to being able to drive a manual car. I was shown the dangers of having a bike today while I was driving around. I came to an intersection and although the light was green there was traffic. I soon discovered it was because something was blocking a lane, a bike and its rider who was face down in the pavement. It had just happened as I approached because people were still on their cell phones and there was no ambulance. I am no doctor, but it didn't look good. By the time I turned around to find out more, the ambulance had arrived and quickly thrown him in the back and was on the way to the hospital. I would not be surprised if I found out later that he had died.

My plan for Saturday afternoon was to head to Osan where a US air force base is situated. It is a favorite place of my co-worker Betsy as it gives a little taste of home without going too far. It was about 2 hours by car. Speaking of which, I drove in Korea! My friend Lindsay was driving when she wanted a break so I drove the rest of the way. It is a little different than back home, but still manageable as long as you know how Koreans drive. At first, Osan seemed to be a very cool place. Many foreigners and talking in English. Our hotel was very nice. In each room a big screen TV, and bathrooms with jacuzzi tubs and of course it was very clean. Much cleaner than my hotel room in Seoul. Things quickly turned negative in Osan however. First, the place was crawling with US air force personnel. I have met some very good people in the armed forces, but generally speaking I think it is fair to say that there is something different about them. For one, they are much more loud, billigerant, rude and swear too much. I don't disagree that there are exceptions, but this was the case in Osan by and large. Next stop in negative town, was when trying to enter a bar in the town. I showed the doorman my alien registration card (which proves that I am allowed to live in Korea and includes my nationality). When it was discovered I was Canadian, I was quickly swept aside with the door man only saying, "No Canadians." After a lengthy argument, the owner of the bar was called to the door. He told me, "No Canadians are allowed inside this bar." I responded by asking, "Why?" He told me "Canadians are bad." After this, the military police came by and encouraged me to move on to another bar. So that was the end of that fight unless I wanted to get involved with US military police, which I didn't. I plan on contacting the Canadian, Korean and American governments to tell them of this practice. I should mention that the owner was a Korean, not American. Although we found another bar, I was deeply disturbed by the discrimination I encountered earlier and my night was not too enjoyable.

There was a good side to Osan that I discovered the next morning, the shopping! I found some very good pirated DVDs (I bought Click and the Gridiron Gang). I also found a Buffalo Bills jersey sporting the name of Mr. Willis McGahee, which i bought for 20,000 won. I was happily surprised to find it, because Buffalo is not one of the big market teams and their jerseys often do not make it all the way to Korea.

As I write this now, it is Thursday and the beginning of Korean thanksgiving. I received some presents from some students yesterday for Chusok (Korean thanksgiving). My gifts include a movie gift certificate, a Korean hankerchief (with Korean writing on it), and ginseng scented socks (not the best scent for socks in my opinion). I have today and tomorrow off as well as the weekend. Although I do not have any big plans, I look forward to the time away from school and being able to recharge a little bit. We also had Tuesday off for some reason (but not Wednesday), so I spent the day touring the mountains with my biker friend Chris. It was good to give the new bike a test in the mountains, it did pretty good! I hadn't studied Korean for a while, so I headed to a coffee shop with my Korean book and tried to study a little bit. I got frustrated after about 30 minutes and decided to give it up. Hopefully I will get back to it again soon. That's all folks.