My New Home: Hanseo University

I write this now as my latest period of unemployment is coming to an end. I will soon be starting a new position as "English Professor" at Hanseo Univeristy. I use quotes because it doesn't seen really appropriate to call me a professor.

But, it is a really nice job to have. I signed my contract recently for 30 million a year. Thats right, 30 million, no need to ask what currency that is in. That salary is for two semesters of teaching 8 or 9 90 minute lectures plus four office hours per week. Plus, I get one day off per week for "research," and months of vacation per year.

One thing I love about this job is the location of the university. Hanseo University can be translated as "Korea West" University, and it is nestled nicely in the middle of some mountains in the Western part of Korea. It's not really located in a city, but a nearby town called Haemi is about 5km away; and Seosan (my previous city) is about a 20 minute drive from the campus. It seems to be a great location if you really love hiking, though not such a great location if you like partying.

I'll get to some pictures, anyway:

the gate to Hanseo campus

A nice mountain next to the campus area

this is the view from the top of the mountain in the previous picture

the architecture building, where my office will be located

a pagoda housing a bell located at the top of the campus

a sculpture garden

a nice woman playing cello, in the woods

a horse

The campus is really littered with sculptures. I heard that all of the sculptures located on campus are by former students, thought I haven't confirmed it. There are a few really nice ones, but there are a LOT there that range from mediocre to eyesore territory. Oh well.

I hoped you like the tour of campus, I'll take more pictures as spring comes and keep everyone updated!

The Great Korean Road Trip of 2012: Part 3

And now the grand conclusion of my Chinese New Year road trip around Korea. Well, it's not really that grand because we just kind of screwed around and drove around in some mountains for the rest of the time. Here it is, anyway...

After leaving the crazy crab vilage, we continued North. We wanted to make it to a Northern city, and found one called Samcheok right around the time we got sick of driving. We spent the rest of that night looking for a chicken barbecue place, but didn't find one. Instead, we had some pork barbecue and some whisky. We also got the bright idea to ask people "how does a cat speak" in Korean. The joke for the rest of the night was to ask this, and it actually worked. The best moment was when we were in a bar. The three of us had a rock scissor paper contest to find out which one of us would have to approach a table of 7 Korean girls and ask them the question. I eventually lost, but it worked out well. All 7 girls laughed and meowed. Some of them made a little cat scratch motion with their hands.

After getting some rest, we were on the road again. We were driving out of town, and near the edge we found a nice place to stop near bridge. This allowed for some planking:

And there was this great little bay. We ventured down and had to cross trough this bamboo forest to get to the rock ledges in the picture below:

The bamboo forest:

After setting out again, we found ourselves in some pretty serious mountain country. We found this city called Taebaek, which was a small Korean city, but spread through some mountains. It was actually a really great drive, and for me it was a highlight of the trip.

We made a stop at a little convenience store at the top of a mountain. Here is the view of the mountain road:

The place had these nice little outdoor rooms, which I assume were for drinking in the Summer time:

Driving out on the mountain roads, I developed my skill for taking photos through the windshield while driving. Here's one picture:

At one stop, these little dogs came and started barking at us. I got a good look at this one little dog who had a face that looked like a horror movie monster. Does anyone know what kind of dog this is?

Another driving shot of this rock tunnel we drove through:

We made one last stop before heading to Seoul, near this altitude sign:

I don't have any pictures from our night out near Seoul. We had a nice time hanging out near Nick Slater's school in Yongin. That was our last night before the other guys would have to work, so we left Nick in Yongin and headed back to the Seosan area. Here we are driving into the sunset:

All in all, it was a great trip and we covered a lot of Korea. Tracing it back full circle, the trip looked like this:

We didn't make it as far North as I would have liked, but we definitely had a great time. I guess a Northern trip can be saved for a later blog post...