Japan

I needed to a take a mini vacation in Japan for a few days. Some of my adventures included yet are not limited to:

Sleeping through boarding

Easy navigation

Empty beaches

Sidewalkless streets

Getting lost many times

Japanese Mario brothers

Not-so-Wedding crashing

Bowing competitions

Fun with signs

Genkiness

Second encounters

More bowing

Fun sightseeing

Interesting conversations

Good food

Good sounds

Good smells

Good sights

No worries



Now I'm back in Korea. I'm really interested in seeing more of Japan. It was nice to be there even though it was such a short period of time.

New Year, New School, New Beginning

I'm off to Korea, Here is a glimpse of where I'm going:

Herald School Sanbon

Looking Forward to School

Check out this improved system for organizing phone calls to a school: Answering Machine

On and On

Erik searches for sanity in job hunting

The Search Continues

Here was my action plan for today:

A) Write an email to somebody in Seoul
B) Listen to a video from ParryGripp to maintain (or not so maintain) my job-searching sanity.

Wear Your Seat Belt

Just another reason why I seem to be finding more and more seat belts on buses.

Korean Numbers

Native Korean Numbers

1. 하나 /Hana/
2. 둘 /Dul/
3. 셋 /Set/
4. 넷 /Net/
5. 다섯 /Daseot/
6. 여섯 /Yeoseot/
7. 일곱 /ilgop/
8. 여덟 /Yeodeol/
9. 아홉 /Ahop/
10. 열 /Yeol/

Sino-Korean Numbers

1. 일 /il/
2. 이 /i/
3. 삼 /sam/
4. 사 /sa/
5. 오 /o/
6. 육 /yuk/
7. 칠 /chil/
8. 팔 /pal/
9. 구 /gu/
10. 십 /sip/

Busy Atom Teachers Numbers

Challenge the Impossible

I liked the title of this video. "Challenging the Impossible" is one of the ways, we, as a civilization, can make progress.

What's Going on Here?

¡Contamos en Coreano!

Espanol y que es saber

I wrote this a while ago but I thought that I'd share it now, it has many errors but I'll leave it as is in its unedited version:

Aglunas veces me gustaria escribir todas las cosa que estan en mi mente. Pero a veces you no se exectamente como yo puedo exprimir todas que you queria decir. Para aprendre un segundo idima, necesitas una paciencia muy grande. Porque la efueza que es necesario para el exito en una otra lengua es enorme.

A veces, quisas pienses que tu no puedas tener exito porque el trabajo est demasiado. Pero no te preocupes, si el idioma es importante para ti de aprendre tu vas a aprenderlo. Si la costa esta grande, las ganas estan grande tambien.

Quando estaba al Univesidad estudiaba el espanol en un classes de otras edutientes, mas viejo como yo pero me encantaba esta situacion porque estaba un reto grande para mi. Realmente estaba al colegio pero tenia la opotunidad de aprender al Univesida mi ultima ano de escuela. Al tiempo, pensia que estaba en pisto rapido a ona carera fuerte en mis estudias. Pero tenia mas lessiones de realisar en la vida antes podria termina mes estudios.

Actualmente, ya estoy estudiando. Al pasado, pensia que los estudios ya peude terminar despues el Universidad. Pero ahora, yo conozco que, para mi propia vida, estudiar es mi vida. Me gustaria aprender mas y mas del mundo y pare hacerlo debo estudiar mas y mas. Los experiencias estan los mas importantes en la vida porque para realmente saber, debes experienzar. Si no tu no sabes el verdad de las informacion que tu quieres saber.

Different Birthday Party Expereince

Last night we celebrated the birthday of one of my roommates. I think there was a cake but I was asleep by the time it arrived. I'm still trying to figure out the customs of Peruvian parties and I'm not sure if I ever will. I thought that the party was starting at 8pm, which was the time that my roommate originally told me so I was ready by then. I soon realized that the party would start a little later but I had no idea what that really meant at this point. I knew that we were going to have dinner at some point so I only had a few snacks to try to hold me over to a traditional 10pm dinner in Spain. Well eventually 9pm comes and goes and there is still nobody at the party. I do what I've learned to do and wait in my room because the previous parties were like this as well. Yet the difference with this one is that people actually showed up really early for the party even though it didn't technically start until later.

Anyway, so another hour goes by and know I know that this is going to be something special. At around 11 pm finally some people show up and we start off the night with some drinks. keep in mind that I still haven't eaten a meal since 1 pm so this drinks hit me pretty hard. Finally more people arrive at around midnight and it looks more like a party. After playing a few rounds of "pasame la botella" I'm really hoping to have dinner soon. Finally, I'm not sure what time it is but after 2am in the morning we have dinner. I'm surprised at how large the appetizer is yet at this point I'm grateful that I am finally eating. It was a lettuce and potato dish topped off with a spicy sauce. I finish the appetizer as quickly as possible and start questioning what will the next round be. I think about it for awhile an come to the conclusion that based on what I saw going on in the kitchen the appetizer was the meal. At this point I realize that I have had way to much alcohol that I was hoping that the dinner would absorb some, but everything was a surprise this evening so I was out of luck. I tried dancing it off for a while but eventually I just needed to lie down. I went to my room and fell fast asleep at around 4am. Like I said, I'm not sure if there was ever a cake but I was too tired at that point to try to stay awake.

Anyway, that's the story of my night. I think I need to go back to sleep and I'm not even sure in anything that I typed really made any sense. I'll ask everyone when they wake up what happened after I feel asleep.

The Only Movie You Must Watch This Year

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=homeproject&view=videos&sort=v

Quick Update

My parents came to visit me in Madrid for a few days and it was really nice to see them. They were here only for the weekend and it seemed as time went by all to quickly.

I am currently still looking for teaching in Korea and I hope to find something soon. I am working on a concept for a new blog because I find that this one just doesn't provide the kind of value that I would like to have if a produce a blog. I will still update this one and it might go through some transitional phases as I develop my new blog. I'm not even sure if anyone reads this one anymore because I really dropped out of using it as it was originally intended.

If you are interested in some photos scope out my flickr page.

Bonne courage Many blessings!

Hasta Luego!
Erik

Language MP3 Goldmine

Free Foreign Language Lessons

Learning Korean is Silly and Fun!

Gong Yoo Style Korean Language Tutorial Part 1 of 2

Most Spoken Languages of The World

Check out this visual representation:

Many Eyes on Language

Genki Korean, It's Genki Good

I can't get enough! Here is the majority of what you need to know about the Korean alphabet:

Korean Alphabet Rap

I Love This Song

Ligabue 'Le donne lo sanno'

Le donne lo sanno
c'è poco da fare
c'è solo da mettersi in pari col cuore
lo sanno da sempre
lo sanno comunque per prime

le donne lo sanno
che cosa ci vuole

le donne che sanno
da dove si viene
e sanno pe qualche motivo
che basta vedere

e quelle che sanno
spiegarti l'amore
o provano almeno
a strappartelo fuori
e quelle che mancano
sanno mancare
e fare più male

possono ballare un po' di più
possono sentir girar la testa
possono sentire un po' di più
un po' di più

le donne lo sanno
chi paga davvero
lo sanno da prima
quand'è primavera
o forse rimangono pronte
è il tempo che gira

le donne lo sanno
com'è che son donne

e sanno sia dove
sia come sia quando
lo sanno da sempre
di cosa stavamo parlando

e quelle che sanno
spiegarti l'amore
o provano almeno

a strappartelo fuori
e quelle che mancano
sanno mancare
e fare più male

vogliono ballare un po' di più
vogliono sentir girar la testa

vogliono sentire un po' di più
un po' di più

possono ballare un po' di più
possono sentir girar la testa
possono sentire un po' di più
un po' di più

al limite del piacere
al limite dell'orrore
conoscono posti in cui non vai
non vai

le donne lo sanno
che niente è perduto
che il cielo è leggero
però non è vuoto
le donne lo sanno

le donne l'han sempre saputo

vogliono ballare un po' di più
vogliono sentir girar la testa
vogliono sentire un po' di più
un po' di più

al limite del dolore
al limire dell'amore
conoscono voci che non sai
non sai
non sai

Pictures and Videos

Pictures and Videos are up! After my disastrous previous attempt trying to put pictures online (crashing my computer completely) I have successfully put some more pictures up. You have find them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eatw/

I always have some videos of Semana Santa in Madrid, which can be found here:

youtube.com/user/eatwvids

By the way I'm looking into going to Korea. If anyone has any info about there it would be great to hear from you.

Hasta Luego!
Erik

From The Book: "We Think"

"Inventing a method that people can use is far more powerful than inventing a product."

한국

안녕하십니까. 내가 한국에가는 경우를보고 싶은데요 가능성이있다. 아마도 당신은 나와 한국어를 배워서하고 싶다 :

http://www.youtube.com/user/BusyAtomdotcom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_UO9oIWwDw&feature=channel_page

Hi, Everyone

I will write some more a bit latter but in the meantime this should keep you busy if you are lokking for something to do:

Free Rice

Cheers,
Erik

Living In Madrid

I have moved on from Lebrija to find work in Madrid. The first few days a stayed with a friend while looking for a place to stay. I found a Peruvian family to live with and they have been really nice. I have my own room which is the best part. The house is a 3 bedroom and 1 bathroom apartment with 5 adults and 2 children. So far I have not had any issues with the bathroom.

To be honest this is the closest I have been to being broke in my life and it isn't a pleasant feeling. It can be hard yet I didn't want to try to settle for a commitment to a lesser job while trying to find a better one. I hope it was worth the wait. I was just recently accepted to a company to teach Business English. I hope that it goes well and I think it will be an excellent learning experience.

I have been spending most of my time here with and American girl named Brook. this weekend we are going to celebrate her birthday. I have had a really great time with her and it will be sad to see her go in a few weeks.

So that is a brief summary of my life over the past several weeks. We'll see how it goes.

I have added some more pictures to flickr. Check the out here:


http://flickr.com/photos/eatw/

Hasta Luego!

Mulhacen

The first week in January I took a trip to Mulhacen, the highest peak in the Iberian Peninsula. The trip was an absolutely amazing experience. Since then I have been trying, and failing for the most part to upload a series of videos that covered the trip. The vids that made it are here:

Catch the Bus

Capileira Hostal

Capileira

Hike to Mulhacen

Climbing Mulhacen

Mulhacen Summit (unable to upload)

Descending Mulhacen

Incline of Mulhacen

Reflections of Mulhacen (unable to upload)


Photos can be found here:

Mulhacen

Bijan has written some masterful insights about the trip. They can be found on his blog:

Day One

Day Two

There are two videos that I am unable to upload and coincidentally they are the best ones to sum up the experience of the trip. If I ever possibly get them uploaded I will post them but they have caused both my old and new computer to crash in my attempts so if they make it it will be a near miracle.

Other then the trip, or expedition might be a good term, I have been looking around for a job with not that much, rather no luck. I'm at a decision now on what I'm doing next. Whatever it is, I hope it works...

New Year's Eve

This New Year's Eve this year I was in Lebrija. We wound up going to a friend’s house for celebrating the New Year. TO celebrate the New Year everyone gathered around the table and waited for the year to come. Each strike of the clock everyone ate a grape. So with 12 strikes that's 12 grapes. This tradition is supposed to bring good luck for the New Year so hopefully I now have plenty of luck.

Afterwards we went downtown and there was a huge party in the center. Everyone was dressed up and celebrating and dancing. It was amazing to see so many people dressed up. Everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves. I'm glad that I was able to see a lot more people than last year. In France the streets were dead but at least there was party here that lasted for an hour or so.

I wish everyone the best of luck for this New Year and many blessings for everyone.

***

With the power of the grapes I realized that I was truly so lucky lucky, so we celebrated in the street: