Fall is here!!!
Like most things in Korea, the change in seasons here appears to be all or nothing. Koreans are strong believers in "go big or go home" on just about everything, from education to drinking soju, to sports. If they do something they are going to go all out, which probobly explains why I teach children until 10 pm after they have already spent all day at school. Maybe seeing Korean men go all out on shots of soju and then seeing them passed out in the street is simply them as a product of their surroundings. It seems as though it was summer and then BOOM, out of nowhere it became fall, just as intense as the poeple who live here. The leaves have gone from green to yellow, red and falling off in less than a week. I went out hiking last weekend and was able to enjoy fall to it's fullest. I got up early on Saturday morning and spent the day in the mountains. Going back to the all out thing, most Koreans work on Saturdays so it was relatively mellow. It was an amazing day of hiking, the colors were brilliant and at times I felt as though I was in NM on a fall day, except for the sounds of Buddhist chanting coming from the temples in the mountains. Sitting on a big rock looking at the mountains and listening to the chants was one of those "holy shit, I am in Asia" moments. Life here as become kind of normal, but whenever I have one of those moments in freaks me out a little.

The following day I witnessed somthing I have never seen before... and probably never will again, the filming of a Korean movie. This picture is of a very famous Korean actor, and this is an actaul scene from the movie. Our friends were sitting outside a restaurant drinking a few beers when the movie took over the street. We ended up having prime seating to witness a movie we didn't understand and close up views of famous people we have never heard of. We did watch the actor shake hands with a teenage girl who proceeded to scream and run away, with all her friends shrieking and following. When the boys first called us to tell us to come over I was a little upset because we were just about to "bake" cookies (or cook them on a grittle on the stove since there are no ovens in Korea) and watch The Office... but just as they told me "I would have been sorry if I had missed it".