Camping, Training and My dad coming for a visit.

Last Friday I went camping with some of my friends in the woods near Yangji. It was really fun. We cooked steak over the camp fire and the weather wasn't too cold. Saturday I went for a 5 hour bike ride with Danny and my Korean bike friend Chang Jo who I ride with every week. It was a really hard course and the ride was only 11okm but felt a lot longer. There were a lot of hills and false flats but it was a really pretty route. My dad is in Korea this week for business meetings so I got to meet him on Sunday in Seoul. We went to the Korean War Memorial and had lunch before he took the KTX (like a bullet train) to Busan for a diabetes conference. It was a busy but fun weekend. This sunday I have a race thats a 70km TTT!

Wedding trip and Tieing in a bike race

I have been pretty busy the last 2 weeks with work, driving all over the place and trying to ride when I can! Last weekend one of my good friends from the Korean summer camp I worked at 3 years ago got married. Her wedding was way down in Busan which is on the south coast of korea and about a 4 hour drive from my place. I drove down with 3 other people from the camp. Korean weddings are pretty fast this one was only 30 minutes and afterwards they have a big buffet lunch instead of a party. Busan is famous for sea food and they wedding was actually in the same building as the huge fish market! The buffet was awesome! probably the best buffet I have ever eaten at in my life. It had tons of raw fish, sushi, crab and even raw beef!!! The weather was good so after the wedding we went swimming in the ocean!
This past weekend was busy too. Saturday I volunteered with my camp organization and it lasted way longer than I thought it would! Anyway it was pretty fun. I had a race on sunday so I drove down and met my team at the condo afterwards but I didnt' get there till 10pm and I went straight to bed! The race yesterday was really cool. It was an mtb road race held in a county next to the ocean. The weather was awesome like 70 sunny and light wind. The course was great too. It was about 30 percent rode 5% single track 20% dirt road and the rest was on one lane cement farm roads through rice paddies. It had one small hill that was off road with a single track descent. There were about 600 people in the race. The course was basically flat except the small hill and since there wasn't much off road I rode on slick tires. It was really fun. My teammates and I composed4 of the 7 in the lead group until 2 of my teammates crashed into each other resulting in one getting dropped! The last 2 km were super crazy narrow fast and with a lot of sharp turns. My teammates pre rode but I didn't. I ended up finishing just a head of my teammate for the win in our age group and 3rd out of everyone (but the prizes and points for the team comp were all based on categories not on overall). The race was done on net timing with chips and I started .2 seconds ahead of him and beat him by .2 seconds at the end so we had the exact same time! It was ok though since we are teammates. The prize was rice I got 180 pounds of it! Our team ended up getting 3rd in the team comp(which factors in every category and the teams that beat us had about 30 people each!) which was good for ~300 dollars. It was an awesome course though. There is one more similar race this year. It looks like I will have 4 more races this year. In 2 weeks there is a team time trial that some how also has an invidual race in it and the rest will be mtb road races like this one.
My dad is coming to Korea this week for business meetings so I get to see him on Thursday and sunday! Im excited. i need to keep up my training so I can keep on getting good results in the races too.

JAPAN trip!!!

I just got back from Japan last night! it was an awesome trip!! We flew to Osaka and spent the first 2 days at our friend Asami's( a japanese girl who we met in Korea) house. To my surprise japanese people ride bikes everywhere!! it reminded me of holland! They bike to the subway, grocery store and school etc. The city is in a huge flat valley with mountains on the side so there are basically no hills to bike up. I travelled with my friend Allan who is also an English teacher here in Yongin. Friday night we arrived and then we borrowed some bikes from Asami's house to go explore her area. We also ate the best ramen I have ever had in my life! Saturday we met Asami's friend Chikako and went hiking up a 900m mountain! Asami and Chikako were really good hikers and the whole course took about 6 hours. At the top we ate japanese lunch boxes that had fish, rice and vegetables. After that we went to this small town called Arima and which is famous for hot springs! We went to the hot springs ate dinner and rode a bus back to Asami's place. Sunday we went to Osaka with Asami and her friend Yuko to go sight seeing. We saw a lot of really impressive temples there and Asami's friend Yuko is really cool. Then at 11pm we rode a bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. We slept on the bus and arrived at Tokyo at 7am on Monday! After dropping our stuff off at the hostel we bought and all day subway ticket and went sight seeing all day. I'm not very good at sleeping on busses and I was tired the whole day! Tuesday we met Asami's friend Mi Na Ae who is living in Tokyo and trying to become an actor! We rented bikes and went around to lots of famous temples and parks around tokyo which was really fun but I don't really like bikign with so many people around its stressful! That evening we met 2 korean people that were also staying in our hostel! one of which is also from Yongin!!!! It was a funny connection and they were both really cool. Wednesday we met our friend Kazuki (a japanese guy who we met in Korea) He is working in Yoko hama which is near Tokyo. We went to an awesome hot springs where they had kimonos for you to wear! After that we went to this japanese TV station and they had a lot of displays about famous japanese TV shows including my favorite television program of all time Dragon Ball Z. When I was in Elementary and middle school I was basically obsessed with Dragaon Ball Z so it was really cool to see all the Dragon Ball stuff and displays for me! After dinner we got back on the midnight bus back to Asami's house!!! The last day we rested at Asami's house and spent the rest of our money buying presents. Now I am back in Korea at school making lesson plans and its gotten pretty cold since I left. It was an awesome trip!! Thanks to Asami and Kazuki and all of our new japanese friends for making it so fun and memorable.

the most epic bike ride i have ever done!

Last sunday was my Suwon Alpha club's big ride for the year. It's called the 5 mountain tour its a 180km road ride. We left saturday afternoon and took a bus out to the Sokcho city on the East coast of Korea. We at raw fish for dinner(which was really good) and then I had to sing in Korean on our tour bus while we drove to our condo!! (the bus had a karaoke machine on it)!! We got up at 3am to start the ride at 4!!!! It was pitch black the whole way up the first climb and we literally didn't see any cars!! There were 35 of us from the club riding! It was also pouring rain and about 60 degrees at teh top of the mountains!! Not fun going down! I was super cold because I forgoet my rainjacket so I bought a poncho at a convenience store and felt a lot better after that. Anyway the total ride time was 9 hours!!! with 2 stops for meals in the middle (one of which was unlimited beef rib soup) The ride was really pretty. There were lots of water falls but it would have been a lot better if it was clear because we were riding in the clouds most of the time. My butt was pretty sore by the end of the ride. Also we all road mountian bikes not road bikes because most people in korea only have MTBs so we put slick mtb tires on for this ride. At the end of the ride we all went out and had korean barbeque then slept on the bus and got home at midnight on sunday night!! This week has also been fun and Im going on a trip to Japan tomorrow for 7 days!!!

Winning a bike race! ($500) and Making a new life goal

Last weekend was another good one!!! I had a bike race on Sunday east of seoul. It was a perfect course for me 5km with 6 corners and a 1 mile brick/cobble section and totally flat! I entered the mtb road category because my road bike has a broken spoke but the prizes were the same for both groups. anyway I crashed on the start line because I mishiffted and my chain fell of and got some nice road rash on my leg and arm. I got up and caught up to the pack after a few minutes of chasing and sat in until the sprint. My teammate kept the pace high the last 2km and I started my sprint with 300m to go to take the win and 500,000 won!!! (about $500). Im happy to take my second win of the season especially after not winning any races for basically 2 years before this. Im really pleased with my new team and was happy to prove my worth to them by winning this one. The team has a lot of good climbers but not a sprinter so Im happy I can fill that role.
In other news I decided that I want to get an MBA. This is something I kind of thought I would eventually do since high school and while I like teaching english I really want to get into business (I'm thinking international trade or marketing) so that I can have a more interesting and challenging job. I think I will apply next fall and start in fall of 2011. If you have any advice or suggestions let me know. I plan to teach here in Yangji until next September when my contract is up and then I hope to get a job at a company (basically doing something other than teaching english to kids) for a year so I can get some more experience before starting the MBA.
Up for this week is and MBA fair in seoul on Thursday (I hope to get some advice about what else my resume needs and get some ideas for schools I'd like to apply for) and Sunday is the Suwon alpha club(my korean club/bike shop)'s big ride of the year 40 of us will ride 180km over 5 mountain passes (each of which is about 10 miles long or more!) And we are doing it on mtbs with slick tires should be a fun ride.

2 bike races and 2 messed up bikes!!

I had 2 races last weekend. Saturday was the largest race in Korea with about 2000 participants. The DaegwolRyung Hill climb was a big race for me and my new team Cannondale Racing. Friday night I drove out with my team to the race with and got my new bike shoes and my sweet carbon race wheels ready (the team has race wheels we can borrow). The course was pretty cool but being a 20km hill climb I really didn't think I had much of a shot at the podium. I rode well but I could only manage 7th place in my group (senior road bike men age 20-30). My teammates won 3 of the race cateories!! I think we are definitely one of the strongest if not the best ameteur road team in Korea right now. After a huge ( im talking like 500grams of meat per person) korean barbeque dinner we drove back to Suwon only to get up at 6am for a mountain bike race north of Seoul!!! It was pouring down rain the whole day and my disc brakes are messed up and didn't work very well with out me using all the strength in my hands to pull them. Also my middle chain ring is apparently worn out because it chain sucked so bad that I couldn't ride it. So the race was kind of a wash for me because I couln't go hard up or down the hill I had to focus on not dying rather than going fast but thats what happens when you have an 4 year old mtb I guess!! My teammates again tore it up with 2 firsts and 1 second place finish. We got 3rd in the team comp and got 300 bucks which we used to buy a duck for lunch. Which was really good and extremly filling again. Im really happy with my new team! Every one is really nice we have good sponsor hook ups and a team office in Suwon (about a 30 minute drive from my house) where we meet up to drive to races (they also have a lot of bike stuff there like rollers tires tools etc. Unfortunately right now both my bikes are in terrible shape I need new chainrings on the mtb and a new spoke (which they dont' sell in korea) for my road wheels!! Luckily I got some wheels to ride in the time being from the team. Im also getting a lot of good korean practice from hanging out with these guys as they basically don't speak english at all. Its nice to have a group of guys who are around my age to talk about racing and stuff with again! Up for this weekend is camping, going to a pool and a criterium on Sunday (on my mtb because the big ring still works). I think that should be a littl more up my alley than a 20km hill climb

Geoje Island trip

Last weekend I went to visit my friend Jay on Geoje Island in the south part of korea. It was awesome. Jay was an exchange student at Purdue last year and Geoje Island is his home town so he knew all the good stuff to see. It was an awesome trip. It took 4.5 hours by bus to get down there though! We went to the beach, went to an island, rode on a BOAT!!, ate puffer fish soup, ate korean beef(my new favorite food), climbed around on some rocks and more. Geoje Island was home to a huge POW camp during the korean war and they turned the camp into a big memorial park/museum. It was really intersting too learn about how the prisoners of war were treated over 150,000 POWs were there during the war! On the last day my shoes fell apart and I got a new pair for $18 at the city market! I love shopping in korea. Now I am back at school but I have 2 bike races this weekend with a new team im riding for. Im looking forward to getting to know all the new guys on my team. The first day is a 20km hill climb the second race is a 40km mtb race. Im hoping I can perform well in both of them.