Beer School

J had a successful week at her volleyball tournament. Despite having the minimum number of players (meaning she had no subs) her team placed 5 among 12 teams. On top of that she didn't have her star player and many of her starters. The girls really stepped up to the plate and did a great job. Many of the other coaches commented on how tough her team was. Each girl had to play every second of every game. Sometimes three games in a single day. Most games were comprised of 5 individual sets, each to 25 points. The team won the best sportsmanship award. Nicely done!!

This Saturday I met up with a couple friends to seek out the beer school to see what lessons it could teach us. We hopped on the subway and a couple of interchanges later we got off. We decided to check out a huge vegetable market in route since we were passing so close. It was huge, awesome and cheap! It is a wholesale market where restaurants by there veggies that is also open to the public. My buddy Ron who was with us said he had come a couple day earlier by subway. He had to take a cab home because the 20 dollars he spent bought him so many vegetables he couldn't carry them all.

After that we consulted the rudimentary map I had cobbled together and headed off with visions of airlocks, brewers yeast and carboys in our minds. After a couple trips around the block we stumbled upon the Beer School only to realize that it was in fact closed. Of course there where no hours posted or day of operation. We decided to grab a bite and then head back.

We found what appeared to be a suitable place for lunch. It turned out to be an incredibly tasty endeavor. After lunch we returned to Beer School only to find that school was still not in session. Not to be deterred we decided that we at least could do a little research on the subject so we flagged a cab, squeezed 5 in and headed to an area that has a huge market. It was the first what I call "Asian"style market that I have been to since coming to Korea. A huge open air market where you can get anything under the sun. I say motorcycle jackets, used shoes, silk worm pupae, new and used clothing, sunglasses, snow boarding helmets, trinkets as well as anything and everything else you could imagine. After wandering around for a while we went in search of a place to find a libation. We came upon an establishment called the USA bar. We thought that we'd check it out and found it to be a little on the expensive side. We decided that we should do a tequila shot in honor of North America (only Canadians and Americans present) and move on. After we ceremoniously saluted our homeland we moved on. We all five hopped in a cab and headed to an area called Sinchon. Therein lie the famous request bars. These are the bars that are stacked with actual records that you could make requests from. We hung out for abit before some of the party headed for home.

Those of us who were left went in search of sushi. We found what appeared to be a suitable restaurant and proceed to stuff our face with fish. After we felt good and fat we headed out for more request bars. I won't go into details to protect the guilty. I'll just say that there was plenty of loud singing and rough and tumble behavior; some of which resulted in random bruising and socks exiting via the cab window.

Sunday I went on a bike ride with a buddy. It was nice to get out and exercise. I felt much better afterward.

Next week we have autumn break. YEAH! Nothing planned yet but there is still time.

I'll leave you with some Quimages. One is him in his weightlifter pants and the other is him in a jacket he just had to put on. He is holding a cool truck Molly sent him in one of the photos. He loves the truck because it makes noise and is a wind up. You can probably tell he was he was a bit cranky in the jacket photo. I still think it is a hilarious photo nonetheless.





Adios