Wednesday, November 4, 2009

My korean skills are improving!

I had a great last week! I have been able to ride Monday, wednesday and friday after work and I keep finding more and more new trails! I go out on my mtb right after school gets out and hit the trails until it gets dark at 6. my korean class has been going well too! My korean is getting good enough that i can sort of have a conversation now! I went hiking with my friend Sunim from the camp I went to here 2 years ago and she barely speaks English at all! We spoke 95% korean for 6 hours! it was great. Saturday I had a great hike too. Saturday I went to Gwanaksan with a friend which is in the south part of Seoul and Sunday I went to Dobongsan in the north part of Seoul. I have been riding every Wednesday after school with my korean friend ChangJo. I show him the new trails I have found each week. This weekend we are doing a race in Ichon which is the next county east of Yongin where I live. Its a 35km mtb marathon style race and its about half road half dirt/fire roads. It has a few pretty descent climbs too. I have no idea how I am gonna do since I have never raced here but I am really looking forward to it! This friday will be really fun too. All of teachers from my school are going to Incheon for an ocean boat ride (from what I have heard teacher get togethers in Korea tend to get pretty crazy). It should be really fun and a good way to get to know the other teachers at my school. I am also planning to buy a car here in the next month. I am trying to decide between the Kia Sportage and the Musso (which is an SUV that is about the size of a ford explorer). They don't really have station wagons here so an SUV seems like a good idea since I plan to use it to ski, go to bike races and go camping more than anything else. Teaching and everything else is going pretty well too! Its getting colder now and it should be time to ski in about 1 month! I am pumped but sad that i won't really be able to ride outside during the week since it will be dark when I am not working! I definitely see how having a real job makes it hard to train!

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