I celebrated my twenty-sixth birthday on this past December 3rd. Nothing special by any description. Simply a few drinks at a pub just around the corner from my place. Or that was the plan. I'd like to start describing how a wild night ensued out of nothing and maybe ended with my pants hanging on an historically significant statue come dawn. But we really did just stay at the pub. Myself, fellow English teacher Toby - from England of all places - and three Korean girls.

We just ended up being there a really long time. Got to talking about all sorts of things. Draft beer is cheap in Korea, we weren't in a hurry to leave.

The next day myself and Toby estimated we had each consumed about 14 pints of draft beer over the course of the evening. As we sat laughing in our teacher's office I think it sort of occured to us at the same time that the fact we can actually consume that much alcohol is rather obscene.

If anything though I think it's something that my parents could really be proud of. Especially considering the fact that at best they enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or a cold beer on a hot day.

I may have yet to make anything of myself, but to be able to go home for Christmas and suck down 7 litres of beer in front of my mother and father is something I can chalk up to nothing less than a life well lived.

Yet there is a little more to this story than thinly veiled sarcasm lamenting another year passed. I've had a very trying week at my current place of employment. However, bizzare events - even for Korea - look to have gifted me a lifeline. I plan to chronicle the situation in it's entirety via a 3 part blog series entitled "The Hogwan Trilogy". I expect by the time Part III is ready for worldwide release this site will finally be searched for on Google because of my ability as a writer, rather than by Europeans looking for porn. (The word 'kurva' holds a very esteemed meaning in almost every Slavic language and a few others as well.)

Get ready....