It was a nail biter at the finals of the World Baseball Classic; down one run in the bottom of the 9th inning with two out, two strikes and a runner on base Korea tied it up with a base hit to send the game into extra innings. I let my students listen to the radio broadcast in class yesterday and the classroom eurupted with cheers and singing as the call came in that it was tied up.

Japan; Korea's chief rival went on to win it in extra innings 5 - 3. The mood around the school was very somber. For the past few weeks a television has been set up in the teachers lounge showing all of the WBC games. It was a nice chance to bond with my fellow Korean teachers who don't speak any English as we cheered the Korean team on. It's a shame it couldn't have ended with the championship going to Korea.

From atop the Juche Tower in the center of Pyongyang I snapped the following photos. It was quite chilly above the city on this day in February. I think we might have had icicles hanging from our ears by the time we went down. The air, though cool, was exceptionally clean for a capital city; one of the perks to having very few cars on the roads I suppose.

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There are no advertisements in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea; no bill boards, no neon signs. I think it hit many of us as we were looking at the cityscapes of Pyongyang that we were indeed in a country without a Starbucks or a MacDonalds. The only signs that were present were political in nature; reinforcing the party line. The following photos were taken from Pyongyang, Kaesong and the DMZ.

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We left Pyongyang on the 16th of February and headed north to Mt Myohyang. After an evening at the unforgettable Overlook Hotel we woke up to the mountain air. We travelled a short distance to do some hiking at the mountain of a thousand water falls. The scenery was stunning; it was quite chilly further north so we found the water falls iced over. The sun was shining on this day however; we ended up shedding our jackets along the trail and continued to climb in our sweaters.

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On our second day in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea we found ourselves at the Kim Jong Il Flower Festival. It was an experience I'll never forget. There were the infamous Kimjonilia flowers everywhere. These flowers are not natural to the DPRK but were actually cultivated by a Japanese botanist as a gift to Kim Jong Il and the Juche Idea. It's even designed to bloom every year around the 16th of February, Kim Jong Il's birthday. It's actually quite an accomplishment.

Along with the vast array of Kimjongilias there were many flower exhibits dedicated to the Juche Idea, party propaganda, and the argued birth place of Kim Jong Il. It was a fascinating day.

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"The Good The Bad The Weird" is a Korean action flick my pal Kyle turned me onto. It's pretty great. I'm about half way through it so far. It was 12c when i woke up today at 630am. I'm pleased to report that I was able to enjoy that bike ride along the river that I had dreamed of for months. This is what was blasting through my headphones as I took it all in this morning...

The new semester has begun and I've been busy teaching classes; thus the lack of updates. I'm doing a few geography lessons with my classes this week; the kids absolutely love the use of maps and trying to find places like Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Federated States of Micronesia. I'm enjoying it as much as they are.

It's warming up in Daegu; the past couple of days have found their way into the 20C+ range; which has been just fantastic. I've been riding my bicycle a lot; the mornings are still a little chilly, but hopefully I'll be able to get out there before day break and watch the sun rise over the mountains as I ride along the river; fingers crossed for next week.

Here are a few more photos from the DPRK. We stayed in a really creepy hotel up in the mountains for a night about half way through the trip. We did some really great hiking and such; but the place itself was like something straight out of the "The Shining". It had so much character. They only lit certain areas of the hotel, we were practically the only guests so entire floors and most hallways were blacked out. I loved it.

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