Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Day 5 (if you start from where I started.) Technically, its the second day of the program. Regardless: I'm LOVING Korea! This is an awesome trip! It's practically a vacation, the "classes" don't require much work - just exploring aspects of Korean culture. Yesterday we learned about Hangil the Korean written alphabet, and did two hours of practicing that. Also were invited to the awarding of an Honorary Doctorate to a national celebrity, and today we learned about Korean history and the differences between Korean culture and western culture. The first two days were unbearably hot and sunny, thought I'd sweat away my ... I dunno, there's not "DeF. phrase" for this situation. But since then its been very rainy, muggy, wet. But cooler, woohoO! Everyone else hates it, I'm loving it. Remarkable Observations: Koreans rarely wash their hands in the bathroom x_x I still have. Because of that, there are sinks but *NO* paper towels/air dryers. ANYwhere...

Andrew's log, Korea, Saturday June 27th - Day 01. I am presently in a Starbucks at Seoul Gimpo airport, enjoying an "iced orange black" (i presume tea.) Though they have free wifi, you need to be a Korean citizen (and have a draft registration number...) to access it. The trip here so far has been largely stressless, thank God. (P.S. The American song "can you believe, they put a man on the moon..." is playing. In English. How odd.) Delta Airlines was average by all measures. Korean Airlines was very hospitable, as Mrs. Marx said they would be! The touchscreen built into my seat was kind of annoying, but I was glad it existed at all for my 13 hour plane ride from Atlanta to Seoul Incheon! During those 13 hours, I slept for 2 hours, had two meals (Chicken and Beef, the chicken came with a side of sushi I tried and did not like.) Haha, I was totally offered wine but declined. During the trip I watched (in entirety) Taken, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Bride Wars, a...

End of Volume 5. [v.o.] "Previously, on The TV Show that is My Life... " [Montage of Summer adventures, culminating in clips of my arranging for the South Korea trip. Last party of the year at Kayla's, Jen's grad party, Circle K Spring Board Meeting, road trip to Rio, the haunted castle at night, the abandoned castle during the day, Cedar Point, driving aimlessly through Medina County, getting pulled over in Bedford Reservation, the abandoned school, 24 hour Walmart, Donut Depot, IHOP, Kim's picnic, The Melt, Edgewater, buying fireworks, setting them off,... ...Eventually fading to live-- Andrew, sitting at the Cleveland Hopkins international Airport. It's 7:45 AM. He has his labtop and carry on bag, and his large travel case finally packed with clothes. Passport in hand, he waits patiently to head to Atlanta, Georga. His plane leaves at 9:30 AM.]

So ends the second-to-last episode of the season. But don't worry, The TV Show that is My Life may be going on hiatus for a month - but you can still follow our made-for-TV-movie! Andrew Goes To Korea! Countdown to Korea: 20 hours. Well it's been a busy last episode or two X_X I've been shuffled office to office all over the University of Akron to get the last form filled out before I can leave. Turns out -- the History department doesn't keep any advisers on campus for summer (unlike ALL THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS) so I'm going to have to email and fax while I'm in Korea. On top of that, I got my first bloody parking ticket > It's just been a very frusterating week. The upside has definitly been I've argued Verizon into giving me my new upgrade early - so despite previous reports to the contrary, I will be able to call and txt and facebook from Korea! I have the new Blackberry Storm, its so perty n.n In other news, my bff's are arranging a dinner in...

Woo! So I'd been hoping to devote a road trip to another pseudo-major city in Ohio for abandone buildings, particularly one that had many on websites like Illicit Ohio or the No Tresspassing one - and when Sarah wanted to go on such a road trip, Youngstown seemed like a great idea! Especially since rather than one abandoned building, they had a whole abandoned military base! On top of getting a late start, it took us quite a while to find the place! We saw a bunch of apparently abandoned steel factories, and any other kind of establishment you can imagine in "The Incredible Shrinking City." One gas station tried directing us to the Ravenna Arsenal, but that turned out to not be it (and be much more heavily guarded than I would want to try to break into. It had a tank!) But after hours of searching, we found it! But had to find a good place to park, a closed car repair shop with a near-full lot was perfect cover! After the hike up a hill (I removed my sunshine yellow polo ...

Haha, so anyone who knows me knows I like referencing "The TV Show that is My Life." Because my life is a TV show, with repeats, guest stars, and cliff hangers. Well it seems like lately the show went on location in this forest near a huge-round onramp. And I've encountered this exact image (in different places) like four, five times this week (twice supposed to be the same place.) But I've been joking with Panda and Sarah that we just filmed on location for one day, and my character just changed clothes three times. Long story short, me and Amanda returned to the scene of the crime so to speak and found a castle in the woods we'd been looking for earlier but couldn't find. Remember my blog is like the bonus features and in depth story of my Facebook albums, so these pictures are all different (and usually more intersting) than the ones on Facebook - but should be read in conjunction with. The story of Faymore's castle is that a pharmacist got rich off ...

Woo, so for some reason I was up till like 6:30 -- but my insomnia finally got me to clean my room significantly. So the other day I did some preliminary explorations around various places - abandoned paint store in Garfield, abandoned school and house in Garfield, etc. So I haven't actually gone in any of these, but am considering in the future. Here we have the abandoned school by Dan's house on the outskirts of Garfield Heights, in the ghetto-est part of the city. Lol, I actually didn't compute that this school existed where it did. My mom actually worked here very briefly in the 1990's as an office clerk. All I really remember is that she taught a bunch of hoodlums to make paper airplanes and she felt accomplished. Another thing that never computed: a former school in Garfield was named after one of my two favorite Presidents! OMG! *u* Likely Franklin D., as it was built in 1960. Still, reminds me of a scene from Star Trek where they time travel back in time and fi...

Oh. Desperate for a clever title, I settled for that. So last night me, moon, nata, panda and dan (sort of nicknames and aliases I guess) went out to a supposedly-"haunted" castle in Willoughby Hills in the middle of the night. First off, yay for getting to hang with Renata! I never get to cause she's busy. Because it was night, (night, knight, it's a castle-- get it) the pictures did not come out very good at all unfortunately. In this one you can see a camera glare in the fireplace and by the window. If the "haunted" stories are true, I guess some ghost hunters believe these to be the ghosts/spirits? I dunno, I think its the flash reflecting off the water particulars in the air, it was a very misty night. The story apparently goes, that (Oh-- this place is called "Squires Castle" btw, and its in a Cleveland Metropark) turn-of-the-century Cleveland Oil Tycoon Squire built the castle to serve as the groundsmens house for *his* huge-uber castle mans...

Well this exploration was a little bit ago, but we've been going to this abandoned school for years! For some reason I've never brought a camera with me :( but this summer I was determined to change that in case Village Council decided to vote to demolish/sell it to the Cleveland Clinic. Danielle is actually interested in buying it - lol, and research indicates it would cost about 2 million, and 5 million to renovate. That seems a bit extreme, I could do it for 1 million I bet! Credit where credit is due: this abandoned building was discovered not by me, but by my and Amanda's friend Amy - who's awesome! I need to see her before I leave and get some starbux. The school is actually two (or three) buildings. This is the classrooms buildings, primarily destroyed by fire in the early 2000s. " Built By Roediger Construction, Inc. 1953 " Staircase, fire damage. Classroom, fire and water damage. On the left you can see where the chalkboard used to be. The rig...

So to those not in the know, mom/grandpa/I (in a strange ownership circle) are now the temporary/long story proud owners of a 2009 White Toyota Yaris. Bought it with 70 miles on it, this morning I put my 1,700th (I've had it a little over a week or two.) But until I leave for Korea, the car's mine :D so the other day I did some traveling across Ohio, and found two abandoned buildings. Thought I'd put some explorations on here. Well, I'm reminded of one instance last year camping with Brit and Sarah, when I wanted to explore an abandoned house on the side of the road in the middle of no where but it wasn't a good idea. So I was driving past these two buildings - across the street from each other - then decided to turn around and check them out. Here we have a barn thing. Falling apart, apparently abandoned, it was in the middle of no-where Southern Ohio, down the road from a cement/sand plant kinda place. The inside was pretty basic what I expect out of an old abando...

Happy summer all! As it's been a while, I felt the urge for some urban exploration! And find abandoned buildings I did. On the outside, this abandoned-car-parts factory looks potentially still in use, its a little boarded up, but not so much as many buildings. On the East side of Cleveland, alot of the houses around it were more boarded up than this place. After a long walk along the side, we found we didn't even need to vandalize/break anything to break in. The back of this place is used for storage of a bunch of crazy things, from old car-odometers, tail lights, and bumpers -- to the largest collection of abandoned boats I've ever come across. Inside, creepy generic abandoned room. I didn't get too indoors cause I didn't want to stay long in case the police came - and knew I'd want to come back. As many abandoned buildings have, creepy abandoned dirty bathroom! Still not as impressive as the one with the haunted water fountain. For next time: The Upstairs. I d...