Daegu

December 12, 2010

Gosh, a lot of time has passed since my last entry! Let’s see... since the art show, I went on a bus tour of Pyeongtaek, went out drinking with my Korean co-workers, hit up a Noraybang, went to Insadong (the shopping district in Seoul), and, as of this post, went to Daegu to visit Ashley!

On the Friday evening before I left, it was Kate’s going away party (she’s going to work at the Songtan Avalon). We went to a little sushi place where we sat on the floor and ate huge platters of sashimi, mussels, noodles, omelets... absolutely delicious. I also tried my hand at soju, which goes down quite smoothly after you’ve had a few shots. After that, we all went to Noraybang, where I proceeded to display my less-than-stellar singing skills by singing Walking After Midnight and that Alanis Morisette song where she’s pissed off with her ex.

The next morning I had intended to be up and out of the house by 9 to catch a train to Daegu, but it was more like 11:30 when I left, to my chagrin. I got to the train station around noon, and then discovered that the next available train left at 2 pm! I ended up sitting in the Dunkin Donuts at the station for two hours, sipping on my green tea latte and working on my latest novel attempt, which I have whimsically named The Winged Woman and the Violinist. Never mind that the “violinist” loses his violin about six chapters in. Ah well.

On an interesting side note, apparently the way to order a green tea is not to say “one green tea, please”, because if you do that, you get a green tea latte. I’ll have to figure out how to say both latte and tea (actually, I think tea is “cha”), and from there I should be able to get my tea without too much hassle.

I couldn’t get a seat on the train, so I chilled in the snack car with all the other poor saps who booked their tickets too late. I started off standing beside an airplane game, hanging on to the back of the seat so that I didn’t fall over, but about an hour in the crowds thinned considerably, and I was able to score a spot on the narrow ledge under the window. I know, luxury, right?

While stuffed in the snack car for three hours, I decided that I will write a screenplay about a guy who comes to South Korea with dreams of becoming a professional Starcraft player, and ends up falling in love with the snack car girl. Except that she is engaged to a guy in the military, and when he comes home there will be an epic contest for her love. True to South K style, there will be lots of soju, which should make the film artsy enough to win several important film festival awards.

Upon arriving in Daegu, Ashley took me on a taxi tour of the city, by which I mean we went back to her apartment. Seriously, though, Daegu is HUGE compared to Pyeongtaek. They’re even in the process of building a monorail for the 2011 Games they are having next summer. These aren’t Olympics, just some sort of sports games that happen yearly. Possibly Asian. I’m not really sure on the details. Ashley lives in an apartment complex that reminds me of Cherryhill, and her apartment is about three times as big as mine, lol. I guess that’s what you get when you live in a big city!

That night was the going-away party of one of her co-workers, so we went to an Indian restaurant where I met the dozen or so foreign teachers Ashley works with. They were all very nice, but I was blown away by how huge the Avalon – one of three – in Pyeongtaek was. And I thought four foreign teachers was a lot! Shows what I know. We went to a bar after the meal with James and Nell, two of Ashley’s closer friends, who were lots of fun. Ashley and I reminisced about home, and it was really a great night.

We went to bed early, so we could be up early the next morning for our sightseeing. This didn’t work so well for me, as I had been going to bed at stupid hours like 3 and 4 in the morning, so it took me a while to get to sleep. But it was worth it when we were up and raring to go the next morning! First stop was the Daegu museum – probably not its official name – where a nice old Korean lady showed us around the galleries on a personal tour. Apparently the museum curators here in Korea always give you a personal tour if they can, which I think would be an awesome practice to adopt in Canada.

After that we headed to the outskirts of Daegu to go see Ghatbawi. Allow me to explain. Daegu is in a valley, surrounded by mountains – kind of like Rome and its seven hills. Except the hills are inside Rome, whereas the mountains are actually in a ring around Deagu. The mountains are dotted with temples and shrines and statues, and we decided to see Ghatbawi, which is a big stone statue of Buddha with a flat rock balanced on his head.

Since we were promised a cable car by Ashley’s friend, we didn’t exactly dress to go hiking. Then we got to the base of the mountain and discovered that all the Koreans were dressed in hiking gear. A lot of them had backpacks full of granola bars and water bottles. “It’s alright,” Ashley assured me. “There’s a cable car.” Spoiler alert: there wasn’t. Lol.

It was one hell of a trek – 2 km uphill, half of that literally just walking up endless flights of stairs. But it was a really nice day, the scenery was gorgeous, and once the pain in my legs turned to numbness, it didn’t even hurt! We took about 10 rest breaks from bottom to top, but it was all worth it when we reached the top and found about fifty people praying to this huge statue of Buddha, chanting, ringing gongs, etc. Apparently Buddhist monks have to do 108 bows every morning before breakfast, which seems a bit excessive to me... but then, I have always found religion a bit baffling.

Interestingly enough, the trek back down the hell was about five times worse than going up, possibly because my legs had gotten so used to the whole upward-angled thing that when I abruptly switched it up, they got confused and revolted. The stairs weren’t bad – well, they were fairly treacherous, being uneven stone – but once I got to the ramp, it was... suffice it to say that I am no longer a fan of ramps. Give me stairs any day. At least they’re level, and I don’t feel like a waddling penguin. After surviving the hike we warmed up in a traditional Korean restaurant at the bottom of the mountain, where I tried a squid and spinach pancake, which was surprisingly delicious.

We had had big plans to go to Dr. Fish, a spa-type place where you stick your feet in a huge vat of water and let little fishes nibble at your toes, but it was closed by the time we got there. Possibly it’s closed on Sundays. Anyway, we wandered around downtown Daegu for a few hours, seeing the sights. Ashley took me to the Cat Cafe, where cats wander around and sit on your lap and are absolutely adorable. It’s a complete health hazard, of course, but I miss Sirius and Giles, so it was a welcome risk!

Also went to a second-hand book store, where I found FAITH OF THE FALLEN! I’m so excited to read that. Also bought some reindeer fluffy gray earmuffs, which I love to death and make me look ridiculous. Said goodbye to Ashley, then took the train back to Pyeongtaek. Unfortunately this train had no snack car, so I had to stand sketchily between the cars in the cold. On the plus side, I found the world’s coolest Korean – he had plaid yellow and purple converse shoes, a black wool coat, a trendy black hoody, and swoopy emo hair. I wanted to marry him, but tragically I did not have a ring handy to propose.

It was an excellent weekend, and I had a total blast. Next weekend is my birthday! I shall miss all my Canada friends terribly, of course, but we are possibly going out for sushi, so I’m still pretty psyched :D

Seoul Arts Center

November 20^th, 2010

Today didn’t go quite as expected, although it turned out well enough! The plan was to go with Sean and Sacha to Insadong, which is the arts/crafts/souvenir district of Seoul, and then go see a photography exhibition at the Seoul Arts Center. After getting dressed, I ended up Skyping with Emily for over an hour, which was totally awesome, except I definitely wasn’t ready to go when Sacha came knocking on my door, lol.

After a bit of a mixup regarding which bus station to go to, we ended up at Express Bus Terminal, which took us into Seoul. From there we started to head for Insadong on the subway, realized that the Arts Center was closer, changed directions, and went there instead.

The Arts Center is huge, and kind of looks like the Western SSC, in that it is concrete and somewhat hideous. Once you get inside, go up the elevator, and see the veranda, however, the Arts Center becomes much nicer. It’s a huge complex of galleries, and there’s even an opera house! We bought tickets for the National Geographic Photography exhibit, and had to wait... I’m going to say 3 hours to get in? Possibly a little less, but it was around the 3 hour mark.

While we waited, we checked out all the free exhibits, including some rather delightful modern art, and then went into this Design show where various artists were selling their wares. I picked up a sort of emo-looking passport holder that I love, and Sacha got a hoodie and passport holders and buttons and various other paraphenalia.

The photography show was fantastic – some of those pictures, really, you have to see to believe. A lot of the landscapes, you have to do a double take, like you’re asking, “Wait, this is real?” And the animals shots were cool too – I swear there was one of a beheaded narwhale (or whatever those unicorn whales are called), but Sean thinks it was just poking its head up through the ice. My favorite was this image of a bear standing at the edge of a waterfall, mouth open, while a fish flies out of the water and straight towards his jaws. The fish has that classic, “Oh, s**t” look about him. Brilliant photography.

After that, we judged there wasn’t enough time to go to Insadong, so we went to a Vietnamese place, where Sacha and I had our first experience with Pho soup. It was really good – they give you broth and noodles and meat, basically, and then you add beansprouts and lemon and such. And it was also really healthy, which is a good change for me. Of course, we also had lots of deep friend spring rolls and such, so perhaps not so healthy after all.

Once I got home – took the bus back, which is about an hour ride – I ended up Skyping with Jesse for... I’m going to say an hour and a half? We started out on normal enough topics, but when I mentioned that I’m thinking about foraying back into WoW, Jesse went off on a tangent and started looking up characters specs and builds and stuff that left me flummoxed and amused.

So I didn’t actually end up going to Insadong, which means I don’t have Christmas presents yet, but I figure that I’ll just send all the gifts home with my mom when she comes up in February. I wasn’t sure about this at first, until I realized that any package I send will get there mid-January anyway, and that’s practically February, so why not send it home for free? Ahahahahahahaha.

Sudok-sa Monastery and Apple Festival!

Adventure Korea is a tour group in Korea that caters to foreigners. They do day trips and weekend trips – to the DMZ, to various seasonal festivals, to Jeju (the official Korean honeymoon island), etc. On Saturday, Sean, Sacha, Jenna, Jade, Nick, and I all headed up to Seoul to participate in the Apple Festival tour, which involved going to a Buddhist temple, and then hitting up an apple farm for an apple festival.

Because the trip started at 8 am in Seoul, I attempted to condition myself during the week to waking up earlier. Before this, I had been staying up until 3 am, following the theory which my fellow teachers prescribe to, which is that if you wake up at noon and go straight to work, you aren’t nearly as exhausted by the end of the day. It’s a sound enough theory, but man, setting my alarm earlier and earlier while my body protested wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.

I actually wasn’t doing very well with my plan – I think by Wednesday, the earliest I’d managed to get up was 11 – until CK called my internet company and supposedly connected my internet. The internet, naturally, did not work, so CK told me he’d be coming over at 11 the next day. Since I didn’t want my apartment to look like a sty in front of my boss, I got up around 9 and cleaned the whole place. He didn’t show – which was a bit on the frustrating side, I’ll admit – but at least I got up earlier than 11!

On Friday he actually did come over, although it was more around 1:30 than the 11 he had intimated the day before. That was another 9 am day – it’s amazing how dirty one’s single-room apartment can get in the course of 24 hours – and CK fiddled around with my internet for a bit before proclaiming that it didn’t work. The reason, he thinks, is that I actually have a different internet modem thingy than the company he called – possibly. Anyway, he said that I should wait until Monday and try again, at which point the internet will hypothetically work.

Long story short, I’m over a month in to Korea and I still don’t have internet, a cell phone, or a bank account. The upside, of course, is that they paid me my salary in the form of a humungous stack of W10,000 bills in a white envelope, which made me feel like some sort of gangster or hitman!

Moving right along to the Apple Festival. So I get up at 5:30 on Saturday morning, so I’ll have time to take a shower and wake up before the 6:20 departure time. I catch a cab with Jenna, Sean, and Sacha to AK, where we hope an express bus up to Seoul. Allow me to explain. Seoul is north of Pyeongtaek, but the apple festival is south, which means we were essentially backtracking about an hour both ways. Frustrating? Yes. But there wasn’t really a way around it.

We all attempted to catch some sleep on the stupidly early bus to Seoul, and I didn’t quite manage, although Jenna gave it her best effort. She hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before, which I’ve encountered before – you know how sometimes, when you really, really want to fall asleep because you have to wake up early, the last thing you can do is sleep, even though you’re exhausted? That’s what happened to Jenna. Luckily we had a three hour bus ride ahead of us for her to get some shut eye.

Arriving a bit early for our tour, we went in to the nearby *possibly* train station and got some Dunkin Donuts. Then we got on the bus, which was pretty cool – purple faux-leather seats, a weird, purple, tassle, fringey thing that went around the top of the windows, etc. The ride started off with our official Adventure Korea tour guide making us introduce ourselves, and there were the usual jokes – “I’m so-and-so, and I like poetry and taking long walks on the beach”, for example. I stuck with, “Hi, I’m Michelle from Canada,” which worked well enough. If I give away my secret identity, after all, they might find me.

After an obscenely long bus ride – we hit traffic coming out of Seoul, so it was closer to 3.5 than the 2 hours it was supposed to be – we finally reached the Sudok-sa Monastery. On the way, however, when I had almost fallen asleep, they started blaring Avatar! Very frustrating, although eventually I gave in and watched bits and pieces.

The temple was absolutely beautiful – a series of really elaborate, carved, and painted gateways leading up this gorgeous, tree-lined path to the temple proper, which had all these serene pools and statutes and stuff. I’m making it sound a lot lamer than it was, because it really was quite extraordinary, especially since the day was really warm, really bright, and basically the perfect fall day to visit a temple.

I think my favorite part had to be in one of the gatehouses. There were these four statues of huge, fanged men – not sure if they were kings or gods – and one of them was stepping on a statue of a woman, who was flailing under his shoe. It was totally bizarre and we all thought it was hilarious, mostly because I was under the impression that Buddhist temples were supposed to be more, you know, peaceful.

From there, it was on to the Apple Festival! It took place at a little apple farm/winery about 20 minutes from the temple. We walked up this long driveway, past long rows of apple trees, which were practically falling over from the weight of the apples, and over to the festival. It was on two levels, and the stage at the far end featured people singing... wait for it... Italian opera. I’d never associated Korean apple festivals with Italian opera, but there you go.

We went on a little tour of the apple winery, which was interesting, and then grabbed plates of pork roast for lunch. Unfortunately the pork was really fatty – and by really, I mean more than half of each piece was fat, and we had to try and eat them with toothpicks. Anyway, it was an alright meal, and following that we went down to the tent where we could make our own apple pies.

This turned out to be quite the adventure, as it seemed that every bee in a thirty mile radius had decided to pop by and terrorize we apple-pie makers. I managed to get through the whole thing without screaming, although there was a minor freak-out incident wherein Jenna had to shoo a bee that had landed on my arm away. Making the pies was really fun though, because you got to roll the dough, decorate the pie, etc. And eating it later was really tasty, although I almost forgot to capture my finished pie on camera because I was so excited to eat it! And it wasn’t half bad, either.

Following the pie adventure, I accompanied Sacha over to the wine-making area, where she got to throw apples in a huge grinding machine, mix up the mush with sugar and yeast, and try to understand the wine man as he explained how to let the apple mush ferment for a month until it turned into wine. Luckily there was an English speaking Korean there, who was of great help, and when the grinding machine broke down we had a lovely chat with a couple from the Osan air base, who had brought their kids along for a day of apple fun.

Then it was up to the top level to watch a bunch of Korean kids perform. I wasn’t terribly excited at the start, at least until they started yodelling, at which point I was completely enthralled. Again, not quite what you’d expect at an apple festival, but wonderful nonetheless. Nick got up on stage at one point to help the kids play their little cow-bell looking instruments, and he got a box of apples for his efforts.

After that things wound down, and we went back to the bus for our trip back. There was free wine and beer, and although I didn’t partake overly, some of the people on the tour did, and we stopped about half an hour later for the entire bus to go empty their bladders. Then it was allllll the way back to Seoul, and then back to Pyeongtaek.

When I got home, I watched Bring It On – not the original, but one of the sequels. It was delightfully awful, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I made myself stay up till 3 am, so I could get back on my usual sleeping schedule, and I managed to wake up at 11 the next morning, so I was pretty successful. All in all a wonderful day, despite the excessive bus time and waking up stupidly early!

Seoul Lantern Festival

The past week was... annoying. This is mainly because on Monday I developed a sore throat, which continued to plague me all week, and on about Thursday my ears decided to join the party, and now they hurt more than my throat does. Sacha tells me that if my ears start to itch, I’ll need to pop by a pharmacy, because it means I have an infection. Nooo! Every time I swallow now my ears hurt, and going to bed is a pain, because I can’t stop coughing. But enough about my medical woes!

Today was very fun, because we went up to Seoul for the annual lantern festival. First we went to AK to catch the train, which didn’t go all that well. There was a mix-up with the trains, and Sean and Jade ended up getting on the wrong train, while Sacha, Jenna and I took the correct one. We only had “standing room” tickets, which means we didn’t have seats. Luckily the wrong train ended up going to the right place, so it all worked out.

At the Seoul metro station, I had my first close encounter with a crazed Korean camera enthusiast. Allow me to explain. I was standing outside Paris Baguette with Sacha when a Korean guy wandered over, gave his camera to Sacha, and mimed her taking a picture of me and him. Apparently this is an actual thing, that some Koreans like to take pictures with foreigners – possibly because there are so few of us in Korea? Anyway, the guy sidles right up to me and wraps his arms around my waist, then slides them a little higher... at which point Sacha shoves the phone back into his hands and shooes him away. Our best guess is he wanted the picture to look like he had a foreigner girlfriend! Very bizarre.

From Seoul Station we took the subway one stop over to City Hall, which isn’t actually next to City Hall. It is next to a huge intersection, as well as a big, open plaza that is possibly one of the sights of the upcoming Seoul G20 Summit. I was confused by this, since I was sure that we had just had a G20 this summer in Toronto, but apparently I just don’t understand what’s going on. Anyway, after figuring out where the lantern festival was, we stopped for dinner at an Italian place. It was over-priced, but the pizza was really good, the carbonara pasta was good, and the salad was... strange. Supposedly it was caesar, but it just didn’t taste like Caesar to me. It was still delicious, though.

We met up with Nick and Jodie, who were exhausted from football earlier that day – I think they play every Saturday, apparently against a bunch of huge Russian guys. After trekking down a very large, very loud, very brightly-lit street, we found the lantern festival! Basically, they took a narrow-ish river and built little podiums, onto which they put hundreds of lantern sculptures. The lanterns were amazing – they had everything from the Statue of Liberty to Chinese dragons. Nothing overtly Canadian, which was unfortunate, but there were a few Canadian flags scattered around, which both confused and amused me.

The downside was the “crushing crowds of death”, as Sacha termed it. It seemed like the entire population of Korea decided to pop up to Seoul that evening. To get at the lanterns, you had to go down this long ramp that turned into a walkway beside the river. However, not only were there a gazillion people, there were no railings by the river! I saw at least one guy step into the river. It all seemed horribly unsafe to me, but I guess the festival coordinators weren’t concerned about people taking a dunking!

One very funny part was that, just as we reached the stairs to get back up, we saw a ladder on the far side of the bank, with people climbing up, kind of like an escape route. That brought to mind the question of – what happens if someone actually gets trampled byt eh crowd, which was entirely plausible, and needed medical attention? We were about twenty feet down from the main road, and there was only access via the ramp, stairs, and ladder.

I had been hoping to make a lantern myself, but the line was far too long, according to Jade and Jenna. I did get a picture with a demon-looking character, which may or may not be posted on Facebook, since it wasn’t my camera. Considering that I don’t have a camera, this makes sense. I also got a picture with the mascot of Seoul – Hae-something, I can’t remember the name – which is a cute cartoon character that is possibly yellow.

Following the festival, which wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be, but was still very entertaining, we trekked back to the train station, where we found an anti G20 rally! They all had signs, and were wearing running shoes, which we think meant that they were planning on doing some sort of marathon protest. Deciding that it would probably be a little safer inside the train station, in case the rally people got into an altercation with the 50+ cops hanging around, we proceeded into the McDonalds.

After a burger or two, we had a beer at a sketchy little place across the street with twinkly lights, Christmas bulbs, a huge picture of a semi-naked woman straddling a cowboy, and an odor rather akin to eggs mixed with a sewer. Nevertheless, great fun was had by all, especially when Nick lost W50,000, only to discover later that Jenna had found it on the floor, at which point the money was promptly returned.

Following a long train ride back to Pyeongtaek, Sacha, Jenna, Sean and I participated in what I have decided to term the “foggy cab ride from hell”. As soon as we turned onto the main road that skirts the city, there was so much fog that we literally couldn’t see more than a foot in front of the cab. This didn’t stop the taxi driver from pumping the gas, shooting down the road without a care in the world. Alright, possibly an exaggeration there – he did slow down, but it was still a terrifying experience!

Having survived this latest encounter, we proceeded to our rooms. I had intended to go straight to bed, but having downloaded the movie Tekken, I started to watch it while I edited my Flip video of the day’s adventures. Since it was actually a really interesting movie, I ended up watching the whole thing. Over the summer I watched the Street Fighter movie, and it continues to amaze me how filmmakers can turn these fighting-tournament video games into not-half-bad movies.

Going to Seoul and Korean Halloween

On Saturday, I had major plans to go and meet up with Sacha and Sean in Seoul – more specifically in Itaewon, which is a foreigner-friendly part of the city that purportedly has a wide variety of cheap knockoffs. Since I needed a winter jacket, Sacha suggested that this was an excellent place to get one.

Actually getting to Itaewon turned out to be quite the adventure, however. Because Sean and Sacha had gone to Seoul the night before to attend a friend’s birthday party, I would have to meet up with them in Seoul. The problem with this is that I don’t have a cell phone, so I had to first get to AK Plaza, find a phone, call them, figure out where they were, and then arrange a way to meet up with them.

The first part of the plan went smoothly enough – I got to AK Plaza without a hitch. Well, I ended up sharing a taxi ride with an ajima (old lady) who got dropped off at a hospital – possibly pharmacy – on Jungang-ro, which is a major road that leads to AK. Anyway, once I got to AK I wandered around looking for a phone, but came up empty-handed.

Then the heavens parted, and out of the golden mist came a sweet lady named Soon who offered to let me use her phone. It turns out she’s a Jehovah’s Witness missionary, and I listened to her spiel on “Where is God Now?”. Sacha and Sean turned out to be in Itaewon when I called, and Sacha warned me that by the time I got there they probably have already left. That was fine with me, since I’m more than capable of shopping alone, so I told her that I would call her again if I had any questions on how to get there.

I got a ticket to Seoul and got on the train. However, when we hit Yongsan, the loudspeaker claimed that this was the “terminal” stop, meaning the last stop. Everyone got off the train, so I shrugged and followed along.

For the record, Yongsan is technically in Seoul, it’s just not the main station where I had intended to end up. Since I was to all intents and purposes stranded in a random train station, I wandered around for a bit and looked for a phone. No missionaries came to my rescue, so I decided to just hang around Yongsan for a while, and hop a train back when I was bored. There was a subway I could have taken into the city, but I figured that it probably wasn’t a good idea to get lost on the subway when I didn’t even have a phone to call for help.

There was a really cool ski and snowboard exhibit right outside the station, which I watched for a while. It consisted of people skiing/snowboarding down an artificial hill, doing tricks off a series of ramps/bars, and getting cheered on by the crowd. They weren't very good, but it was still fun to watch, and I got a video shot for my vlog.

Back into the station, and I discovered Ipark mall, which has no affiliation with Apple. It’s a massive mall that had about five floors devoted to electronics. I found a book on learning Korean from the book store, as well as James Patterson’s “Wizard and Witch”, which I have not read but thought sounded interesting. I also found a really plush silver jacket that I splurged on and bought, since winter in Korea this year is rumoured to be freezing.

Back to Pyeongtaek – no difficulties this time! – and the day was complete. I stopped by Sean and Sacha’s to let them know I survived, then kicked back and read Purity. That would be an Inuyasha fanfiction I read... gosh, it has to be at least 6 years ago now. Anyway, I rediscovered it, and it has kept me quite entertained so far.

Sunday was more successful – success here being defined as me doing what I intended to do. Since it was Halloween, Sean and Sacha planned out a scary movie night at the AK cinema, since they don’t really celebrate Halloween in Korea. Well, there was apparently some kind of party in Seoul, but I didn’t go to that, so it’s irrelevant. Anyway, I went early with Sean and Sacha to get tickets – you get to pick your seats in Korea – and we bought ice cream from Baskin Robbins and chilled at the AK “Skygarden”, which is basically a really nice garden on the roof of the building with a view of the city.

Then it was time for dinner, and what an experience it was! We decided to have Pizza Hut, which is a much bigger deal than it seems, because in Korea, Pizza Hut is considered fine dining. A large pizza is about $25 – no joke – and the inside of the restaurant is very fancy. It was all very civilized, although I have to say that the pizza itself was nothing to write home about. Which is ironic, considering I am currently writing home about it. Meh.

The movie was... interesting. We met up with Jade and Nick, then took our seats. Paranormal Activity 2 started out kind of slowly, but once the devil-worship, poltergeist stuff got under way, it was scary enough. Sudden movements, loud bangs, etc. I quite enjoyed myself, and spent the rest of the evening jumping at small noises.

Drinking with Koreans

October 27, 2010

Today was my first experience “going out with my co-workers”, which was a very, very interesting encounter indeed. The day – Wednesday – was good. I had afternoon classes (well, class starting at 4:30, technically) and then in the evening I spent all three hours doing phone tests. That involves calling up the students and talking to them for about 3 minutes while they try to remember fairly significant facts from their reading books. Such as: where do we find trees? Answer: a forest. Yeah. That was a question. And no one got it right.

After that we headed out to 5500, which is a Korean BBQ place right next to the school. Sacha warned me in advance that Koreans drink a lot, and that if I tried to keep up with them, there’s no way I’d win. So I didn’t try. I stuck to beer – I probably had only 2 glasses the whole night – which turned out to be a good plan, because holy cow can those Koreans drink.

We got there early and had some BBQ while waiting for our coworkers to show up. When the Koreans finally arrived, out came the soju almost instantly. I can’t imagine how many bottles we went through – 15, maybe? Even the tiniest of the girls did like 8 or 9 shots, and believe you me, they can hold their liquor. It was actually really impressive, and I don’t know if I could duplicate the feat.

The interesting part was the social interaction. They do this thing where they ask “Are you okay?”, which is a way of being friendly and showing concern for your fellow coworkers/friends. CK was apparently concerned that I was being too nice with the kids, and that they were walking all over me, which is really only the case in one class, so I assured him that I was perfectly fine. But one of the girls was particularly adamant – Young Sun, the TA who helped me out for the medical checkup a few weeks back – and I’m going to say she asked me if I was okay at least 20 times throughout the course of the evening.

All in all it was fun, and very intriguing to watch. Next time I’ll definitely join in the soju fun, although I’ll have to make sure I don’t get carried away, and therefore need to be carried home after. I still haven’t gotten used to the all-night-partying mentality that they have here. When I was ready to head home at 2 am, the Koreans indicated that they were heading out somewhere else to continue drinking. I couldn’t believe it!

Suwon Fortress and AK Plaza

October 23, 2010

Today Sacha, Sean and I headed out to Suwon fortress, which is in the town of Suwon. Suwon is about halfway between Pyeongtaek and Seoul, so it took about 30 minutes on the subway to get there. I have learned that I will be using only one subway line, really, the one that goes toward Seoul, because that is where all the exciting things happen.

Once we got to Suwon – interesting sidenote, the train station there is also in an AK Plaza – we took a cab over to the main gate. Turns out Suwon fortress is huge – about a fourth of the town is inside the walls, which kind of reminded me of the Great Wall of China, except a lot smaller! There was some pretty heavy traffic, it being 4:30, so we sat in the cab for a good 20 minutes. The final toll was something like W10,000 – about $10 – but we got there safe and sound, so it was all good!

We ended up at the visitor’s centre, which is where the Eastern Gate was – which looked more like a temple than a gate, due to the temple-like structure that was covered with beautiful green and red paintings. At the visitor’s centre they had an archery range set up, and we watched for a few minutes as a line of old men took turns shooting targets that had to be at least 50 yards away. Or farther? Far enough that I couldn’t see where the arrow landed, I could only hear the thunk if it hit the target. I think the men were part of an archery club of some sort, because they had different coloured scarves hanging out of their pants pockets.

After attempting to sneak into the fort without tickets – which is to say, we didn’t know we needed tickets, and a lady in a hanbok yelled at us – we got very confused in the ticket line and eventually got tickets for both the fort and the train ride. The train was a cute little trolley, with the lead car designed like a dragon’s head. To quote the back of the ticket, “Hwaesong Trolley consists of the power train and the three tourists’ trains. The front represents King Jeongjo in the form of a dragon head to symbolize powerful driving force, while the tourists’ trains represent king’s chair both to symbolize the king’s authority and facilitate viewing”.

We’re pretty sure that King Jeongjo built the fort, hence the large statue we found of him on our trolley ride. Before that, though, we checked out the Eastern Gatehouse, which was, as I’ve already said, gorgeous. The wall and various accoutrements – guard stations, crossbow towers, etc. – were astonishingly well preserved, which leads me to think that the government may have been pulling a Sir Arthur Evans, doing extensive “maintenance” so that everything looks like it did originally. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m pretty sure the vivid greens and reds of the gatehouse wouldn’t have survived that well after a few centuries.

The trolley ride was pretty neat. We picked the back seat, so we could have an uninterrupted view of the fort, but that failed when a tour guide jumped up right in front of us and hung on the whole way. Ah well. I still got lots of great footage for my “Trolley Montage”. When the trolley ride ended, though, we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. You see, the ticket we bought was one-way, but the implication was that you could get a ticket to go back when you reached the other end of the route. Not so. In fact, we caught the last train, so we were stranded.

We trekked down the hill, which had a lovely bicycle path, and caught a cab to Jang an Moon, which is a bus stop (or possibly an area of Suwon) where we met up with Zebekiah (Zeb), who is a friend of Sacha and Sean. He’s a pretty awesome guy – shaved head, bushy beard, California drawl. He took us to a Korean BBQ place that was delicious, and we had a few rounds of soju, which are guaranteed to take revenge on me tomorrow. I also partook of some Korean beer.

About five minutes after leaving the restaurant I got the hiccups. By the time we’d finished sipping beer outside a convenience store and proceeded to meet up with Corrine, who is Zeb’s girlfriend. She lives right next to the Suwon AK Plaza, which is insanely convenient. Then we proceeded to the Noraybang – no idea how to spell that – which is the Korean version of Karaoke. It was very loud, but there were awesome laser lights, and a fairly large English song selection. I think my favourite moment was when Zeb and Sean rocked out to Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time”. They turned it from bubble-gum pop to bordering-on-death-metal. The line of Sean’s that I managed to capture on my flip was “My loneliness is killing YOUUUUU!” Cue deep, unnecessarily menacing laughter. Very fun, and definitely something I’d love to do again.

By that point I was hicupping up a storm – I may have to lay off carbonated beverages like beer – so we said goodnight and headed back to Pyeongtaek. Unfortunately we missed the last subway train by about 7 minutes, so we had to take a W50,000 cab ride. Yes, that is expensive. But there’s no other way to get to Pyeongtaek, so we didn’t have much of a choice. It was kind of neat, because the cab driver was technically off-duty, so, because we offered a flat rate, he drove as fast as humanly possible, which involved a lot of running red lights and veering around parked cars. All in all, a wonderful day!

October 24^th, 2010

Woke up with a splitting headache, likely due to my copious consumption of alcohol the night previously. I think I’ll be laying off the beer for a while, because it’s doing my digestive system no favors. Or it might have been the Soju? I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough, lol.

After recovering for a few hours, I did some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and swept the floor. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but for me, it’s a big deal. I also had ambitious plans to clean the bathroom, but it turned out that I needed gloves for the chemicals I planned on using, so that plan was shot to heck. I settled for grabbing my video camera and heading for AK Plaza.

AK Plaza was fairly easy to locate – just go left out the apartment for a few blocks, then follow the main road straight until you hit AK. It’s literally right in front, so it’s impossible to miss. AK was... not what I was expecting. I’d been inside before, of course – that’s also where the train station is – but I hadn’t gone into the mall proper. Turns out that the mall is actually 8 stories, and about half of each story is occupied by this massive department store. I have no idea what it’s called, or how you actually buy stuff there – I didn’t see any cashiers. Another mystery to solve!

The theatre is at the top, although again, no idea how to actually buy tickets or get in. I got a nice green tea ice cream scoop from Baskin Robbins, which actually wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. It seems blasphemous to say that Canadian green tea ice cream – or, at least the stuff they serve in sushi restaurants – is better than the Korean version, but so far that seems to be the case. I also hit up the book store on the 6^th floor, which had about four shelves of English books. I picked up Catch 22, which was W20,000 – not bad. I was hoping to find some more fantasy books, and they did have Harry Potter, but no Sword of Truth or Xanth, unfortunately.

I also grabbed a soap dish and alarm clock from the massive dollar store at AK. Then I walked home, hitting up the Lotte Super on the way back to grab some rubber gloves and a little kids’ book on learning how to write in Korean. I promptly composed a song about the first dozen or so words I learned, which I shall now share with you. The song is to the tune of Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and I have entitled it “Crazy Little Thing Called Frog”:

This thing called kawi, my scissors can’t handle it.

This thing, koyangi, I must pet that fluffy cat.

Kaekuri! Crazy little thing called frog.

This thing called napi, it flies with buttered wings,

It swings, it jives, bubbles up like a naempi pot.

Kaekuri! Crazy little thing called frog.

There goes nokuri. That racoon likes to rock and roll.

It drives me crazy. Then the talp’aengi snails through,

And leaves me with its swirly shell.

I’ve gotta be cool, relax, find a toma table and sit right back.

Maybe chill with some twaeji.

Those crazy pigs know how to set you free!

Kaekuri! Crazy little thing called frog.

The concept here is of course that after the Korean word is introduced, the next word/line tells you what the word means. So kawi is scissors, talp’aengi is snail, toma is table, etc. I think it’s pretty brilliant, myself, although time will tell if it actually helps me remember the words.

After that, discovered that while I can’t stream videos with my illegally purloined internet, I can access fanfiction, which is a slippery slope. Fanfiction once ruled my life, many years past, so I’ll have to make sure I resist its complusion. I have faith in myself! Rahhhh!

Lotte Mart!

I woke up late this morning – 11:30, if you can believe it! My plan was to get up, clean the apartment, and check out the Lotte Mart, which is the Korean version of Walmart, except I got caught up... well, not doing that. No, seriously, I was only a few chapters from the end of Wizard’s First Rule, so I finished it up. Which was very sad for me, because I want to read the sequel, but I didn’t bring it with me! Mom thinks I should buy it here, but I have no idea where to get it! I’ll have to facebook Lynn and ask her about English book stores in Pyeongtaek/Seoul. It would be a pain to go all the way up to Seoul just to get a book, though.

After wasting away my life until almost 3 pm, I finally got my act together and out the door. Lotte Mart, or “Big Lotte”, as Sacha and Sean call it, since it’s basically a huge version of the Lotte Super by our house, is a few blocks away – a bit further than the Lotte Super, but not by much, I think. I can actually take a bus to get there, but I’m hesitant about using a bus until I go with someone else first. There’s something about swiping a card when you get on and off... very bizarre.

Anyway, Lotte Mart was awesome! It’s a multi-level shopping extravaganza! And the escalators aren’t stairs, but ramps! OMG! I know, craziness. I found bedsheets on the second floor at the very back, and after some failed attempts at communication I managed to get my hands on bedsheets. However, when I got back to the apartment, I discovered that I had accidentally bought 2 fitted sheets, instead of 1 fitted, 1 not. Not to worry! Using my mad skillz, I chopped off the elastic band on one of them and created a non-fitted bedsheet. Anyone who feels like sending me a sewing kit would be greatly appreciated, lol.

Because I only bought bedsheets – oh, and a pillow! It’s one of those memory foam pillows, except I think it gave me a neck ache, but more on that later – I had to go over to Little Lotte for actual groceries. That went well, although I had to buy a big water bottle, so combine that with the groceries and my arms nearly fell off.

Sacha came by around 6 and invited me to dinner with her and Sean, which was incredibly sweet of her. I had been planning ramen dinner, so Indian food and good company was infinitely better! Apparently they tried to go to the ice bar last night, but it was closed down! Which sucked, although I understand that they found other, alcohol-related activities to keep them suitably occupied until approximately 4 am. Again, I’ll have to work myself up to such feats of stamina.

We went to an Indian restaurant, called Yaks... and something else. There was definitely a yak in the title. It took forever to get the food, but when it did come, it was soooooo good! Naan bread, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, spicy yet delicious fried rice... yum. If people come visit me, I’ll definitley bring them there... although I guess you don’t really visit Korea for a week to eat Indian food, lol. I hope they bring me along next time as well, because the food was phenomenal.

Back home, and I borrowed Slumdog Millionaire and Constantine from Sacha, who’s a huge movie buff. I think she could probably give Rhia a run for her money! Not the Proulx family, though, although that’s because we kind of cheat by getting free DVDs 24/7. Slumdog was as heartbreaking and wonderful as I remembered, and Constantine was... not quite what I was expecting, but enjoyable nonetheless. I’d got it into my head that Constantine was an angel, which is not at all the case. Hmm.

So I did go to Lotte Mart, but the cleaning part of my grand plan was a bust. Ah well. Best laid plans and all that. Back to school tomorrow, so I’d better get some sleep!

Han River Cruise

Seoul today! Since I still don’t have a phone, I stuck around the apartment until approximately 1 pm when Sacha knocked on the door and explained what the plan was. Basically, we went to AK plaza, the mall and train station, and met up with Jade and Lynn, and then headed on to Seoul. But before all this, I just hung around the house and watched Monsters Inc. Brilliant movie, but the last ten minutes didn’t download! I’ll have to re-stream it on Monday, or I’ll never find out what happens to Boo!

At the station I also met Hector, who is a soldier at Camp Humphreys, the American base outside of Pyeongtaek. He’s from San Diego, super friendly, and very charming. Apparently he used to be a marine, but now he’s at Camp Humphreys as an air traffic controller, which is the job with THE highest suicide rate. He promised that he wasn’t planning on offing himself anytime soon, though.

Took the train up to Seoul – the tickets sell out really quickly, so we had to get “standing room” tickets, which means basically that you stand wherever there’s space. It wasn’t so bad – eventually we were able to snag seats – but the train was really hot. Apparently Koreans are always cold, hence they crank up the temperature inside, which I find weird, since they don’t really have deoderant here. I guess Koreans just don’t sweat as much as we westerners – or “wey-gooks” (not actual spelling) – do.

From there, we checked all the people who were staying overnight in Seoul into a motel. It’s only a three minute walk from Seoul Central, and is run by this sweet old lady named Ann who lived in New York for 11 years. Nick apparently found the place – it’s super cheap, only 40,000 won a night – and then Jenna bonded with Ann over their mutual New York-ness.

Lynn and I elected to take the train back rather than staying overnight. It was a tough call for me, because I was very excited about going to the ice bar, but realistically it was a bad plan. My partying skills are a little rusty to be staying out till 4 in the morning – by which I mean I would have collapsed by about 1 am – and I have big plans to go to the Lotte Mart (Korea’s version of Walmart) tomorrow and clean my apartment so it’s habitable. Hopefully I’ll be able to work myself up until 4 am partying, but until then I’ll just have to miss out on all the drinking shenanigans.

From there we took the subway over to the Han river, which is one of two rivers that cross Seoul – the other is the aptly named Seoul river. We got some fried chicken and pizza – both of which aren’t things you’d think to find in Korea, and yet they are crazy popular – and they were delicious. The pizza’s crust was sort of purple, which was very strange, but Sacha thinks that it’s because of some spice/herb they put in the dough.

The cruise itself was fantastic. We were supposed to meet up with Nick and his teaching friend, who I can’t remember the name of for the life of me... wait! Jodie! Who is a guy from South Africa, and certainly not a girl as I had previously suspected. Anyway, the boat was all set to pull out and Nick and Jodie hadn’t arrived yet, so we boarded and met up with them later. The boat was your basic river cruise boat – open sides, chairs, two levels, the usual. We sat on the upper deck and took in the sights of Seoul at night along the Han river and drank beer. Well, I drank beer – everyone else drank wine, which is apparently the thing to do when you’re on a boat. And yes, we broke out into the song “I’m on a Boat” at least three or four times over the course of the trip.

After that, we met up with Nick and headed back to their hotel for recuperation. A couple of people were tired, so they had a lie down while the others (read: the girls) got ready for their ice bar night out. Then around 10 pm, Lynn and I bid the others fare well – the last train is at 10:55, but it was sold out so we had to get tickets for the 10:20. We grabbed burgers from McDonalds, which was at the train station, and I had a “bulgogi burger”, which is basically a pork pattie with marinade. It was very strange, but not at all bad.

Because the train was almost sold out, Lynn and I had to get first class seats. This is not as bank-breaking as it sounds, because economy tickets are $4, and first class are $10. As Lynn said, very expensive for Korea, but very cheap for America/Canada. Well, when in Korea...

We took the train back, and then I managed to get a taxi to take me to “stadium”, which is a big, free stadium built a block away from the apartment that apparently has a track and a swimming pool, open to the general public. I may go check it out tomorrow during my adventure to the Lotte Mart, which Lynn thinks may have stuff like sheets and pillowcases for my bed. I also need to go shopping again, because apparently living off ramen is bad for you. Who knew?

Day Two of Teaching

Day two of teaching! I’m waking up much later now, which is quite a relief. I shudder to think back to my days of 2 am wake up calls. Bleh. Didn’t do much again this morning... actually, there was an unexpected tragedy in that I streamed some videos at school yesterday, but they randomly disappeared when I flipped open my computer this morning. The ways of technology are a mystery to me.

Friday is a special day at Avalon, because there are two classes instead of three in the morning... except instead of being 50 minutes, they are 80 minutes, so they’re much longer. I watched Sean teach a class on Blackbeard the pirate, which I found hugely entertaining, but his class were utterly bored. He says that they’re his worst class, and I can see why – they don’t pay attention, and they don’t care about the subject! Sean was showing them videos and telling them stories and they didn’t absorb a word.

I had the first class off, though, so I played Tetris battle, which is a game on facebook. It is very fun, and very hectic – I got exhaused playing it, but it was totally worth it! I also picked up some peanut butter from Paris Baguette so I could make a PB+J sandwich... 6400 Won, which is about $6 for a jar of peanut butter! Crazy expensive!!! Ahhhh!

In the afternoon, my classes were really great. Two of them we finished work early, so I had them teach me some Korean. My abysmal memory means I don’t remember any of it, but I did write it down so I can review it later. The last class was fantastic – they are the highest level class, PA, and the four kids are just hilarious. There’s Peter, Bob, Harley, and Eminem. Bob wrote Sacha an essay a few weeks ago, not for school, just for fun, entitled “Why Bob is Handsome”. True story.

After school we went bowling! We hopped a cab to “K2 Sports”, which is a bowling alley and driving range. It wasn’t quite as flashy as say, Palasade, but it was really fun to watch the Koreans bowl. They are very hardcore about it, with wristguards and everything. Nick came out (the British guy who works at the public school), as well as Jade, Lynn, and a name guy, JD. He’s a Korean teacher from Jade and Lynn’s school, and is really nice. Oh, and of course Sacha, Sean, and Jenna came as well. They snuck wine in via water bottles, which I feel was very sneaky.

All in all, an excellent day, and I can’t wait for tomorrow! Booze cruise on the Han river! I’ll probably be doing more sightseeing than boozing, to be honest, but it’s still exciting!!!

First Day of Teaching

Today was my first day of teaching all by myself! I didn’t do much in the morning – mostly watched my downloaded TV shows from yesterday. Oh, but I did go to the store and get a bunch of ramen! I tried one kind in the morning, which was very spicy, and one kind after work, which was... strange. Kind of tasted like seaweed, which is not quite what I expected from ramen, to be honest.

I walked to school on my own today – Sean and Sasha went in early because Sean, as head teacher, had to interview a candidate for another Avalon school. Remember Jade and Lynn, from the air base day? Lynn doesn’t like Korea, so she’s heading home at the end of the semester – therefore, they need someone to replace her. I guess Sean did so well interviewing me that he gets to do all the interviews now! Ha ha.

My first class was LOUD. They bounced balls off the walls and wouldn’t stop shouting. Sasha poked her head in at one point and told them to shut up. I tried my best to keep them quiet, but shouting didn’t really do the trick. I tried turning the lights off, threatening gamgee (lines), and they completely ignored me. Well, at least they got the lesson done. I’ll have to actually follow through on my gamgee threats next time, I guess. Or maybe I should try moving them in their seats. That’s what Sasha did, and it worked wonders.

The next class was a writing class – as was the third, actually – and there were only 3 kids in the class. We were learning about how to edit essays – add details, take out unnecessary sentences, punctuation and capital letters – and they had no idea what I was talking about. I think they understood by the end, but this class is a couple of lessons behind the other writing class I’m now teaching, so I’ll have to try and catch them up. Which is difficult, since they don’t even know what a capital letter is. They do now, though!

Third class, also writing, was back with the loud group again. We did get through the essay-writing portion, but when we had games time at the end, loud loud loud. They also tried to trick me into thinking that they were allowed their cell phones in the last ten minutes of class, which they aren’t, so Sean stuck his head in and glared at them until they stopped. Sigh. One day I shall be feared. Until then, I must simply muddle through the best that I can.

Wolfed down a jam sandwich – yes, jam, because the only place I’ve found that sells peanut butter so far is the Paris Baguette shop near school, and I haven’t bought any yet – and then it was back to class 20 minutes later! I’m starting to see what the teachers were talking about when they said that they needed more breaks. 4:20-7 and 7:20-10 doesn’t sound like that much work – maybe 5.5 hours altogether, but when you’re trying to either stop loud kids from screaming, or make quiet kids talk, plus teach the lesson and be entertaining, it’s exhausting!

The after-dinner classes were better. Well, they are necessarily older, since they’re in middle school, so they were for the most part more respectful of my authority. I’m trying to remember what classes there were... first was a really quiet class, who I made talk to me by pointing at them and saying, “What do you think?” and then they had to talk. Muahahahaha. Second class was writing – I was trying to explain adverb clauses, but I wasn’t quite sure how, so I just gave them a bunch of examples. They did the exercise alright, so I guess that they got it. The last class was way ahead, so we just talked and played games. That went well enough until they started getting loud, but I don’t think we disturbed the other classes overly much.

Then time to trudge back home and recuperate! Teaching wasn’t as bad as I’d first suspected. As long as I prep the lessons, they’re fairly easy to teach. It seems that the hardest part is going to be to either a) get kids to shut up, and b) get kids to speak up. One of the kids in my middle morning class told me about a video from the UK where a person puts a hamster in a blender, and then mixes it up and drinks it. Crafty little kid. When he saw my face, he started laughing, and explained that the second part, the mixing and drinking, wasn’t true. I really like that class. Hopefully I get to keep them!

Tomorrow I’m team teaching with Sean, because the classes are longer for some reason. I don’t know why. It’s all still pretty confusing. I heard talk of possible bowling after work – not sure if I’ll go, considering how miserable I am at bowling. If I’m still coherent after a day of work, I’ll probably go with them! If not, rest and recuperate for the Saturday “booze cruise” and ice bar extravaganza!

Photo Store

Well, my attempts to get more sleep via forcing myself to sleep in proved ultimately unsuccessful. I woke up at 7 am again, which was extremely frustrating, but I got over it by watching various television shows that I streamed at school the previous day. I can’t wait till I get internet so I can start doing that sort of thing on my own time.

Around 1 pm I went on an adventure to the photo store, which is on the same street as Avalon English (the school I work at!). Yung Sun, the secretary who helped me out with the medical exam, gave me a sticky note that said what I needed, so I gave it to the photo shop guy, and he sat me down for the picture. Then he went to his computer and clicked around for a good five minutes. It turns out that they always photoshop pictures in Korea! It’s just the thing to do. So I got my pictures – 8 instead of 2, no idea why – hit up the Lotte Super, and headed back home.

School was both terrifying and fun, because I had to teach all three elementary school lessons. Well, by teach, I mean I started to teach, and then Sasha, Sean, and Jenna would jump in at various intervals to help me out. I think that when it’s just me teaching I’ll do better, because I won’t have someone watching and critiquing everything I do. That way I’ll be able to make mistakes without fearing embarassment/disappointment. I figure I’ll be more by-the-book, like Jenna, for the first couple of months until I get my bearings.

For dinner we went out, because while we usually only get 20 minutes each day at 7 pm, on Wednesdays there’s some sort of deal where the Korean teachers teach all the first classes for middle school, so the foreign teachers get an extra hour. We went to a Korean BBQ place right across the street, where I met Nick. Nick is a foreign teacher working at a public school about 20 minutes away. He’s British, and I quite liked him. He reminded me of Jono, probably because they’re both British! Oh, and the restaurant had free ice cream, which was just plain awesome.

I met some of the highest level kids in the school – Peter, Eminem... I can’t remember the rest. But their spoken English is very good, and they think they’re absolutely hilarious. And for the most part they are. Peter apparently told Sasha that he was born on the moon, which I think is a perfectly legitimate birthplace. They like to joke around, and from what I understand, so long as the joking is in English, and the work gets done, teachers and students can have as much fun as they want.

There are apparently plans on the weekend for Jade’s pre-birthday bash. It will involve a “booze cruise”, which is basically a cruise down the Han river in Seoul, followed by going to an “ice bar”. I think the idea there is that everything is ice themed, although I’ll have to wait and see, obviously!

High School Musical

7 am wake up today, which is better than 5 am! Still, I could do with a longer sleep in, because after standing on your feet for six hours, you get pretty tired. I was very lazy today, unfortunatley. Bad Michelle! I basically spent the morning watching High School Musical 2 & 3. I also brought along the first book in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth Series, “Wizard’s First Rule”, which is just an excellent piece of literature. I’m about a sixth of the way through, and it’s delightful reading. But I digress.

I was supposed to go to the Lotte Super (remember, that’s the grocery store), but like I said, I was lazy, so I just stayed in and watched movies all morning. The pork I bought on Saturday was expired – only by one day, though – so I cooked it up in my brand new frying pan! Except I didn’t have anything to eat it with, so I slathered margarine on bread and made a quasi-sandwich. Healthy? No. Delicious? Heck yes.

This brings us to 2 pm, work time – time really flies when you aren’t doin much! Sasha helped me buy “bulgogi” on the way to work, which is basically thin slivers of beef in sauce. It’s kind of like the beef you get at the Teriyaki place on campus, and it’s really good. There was also kimchi – the first kimchi I’ve ever tried! It’s... interesting. I’m not a fan of spicy or cabbage, but together they’re not terrible. Apparently I will start off hating kimchi, but by the end of the year I will be in love with it. I really doubt that, but we’ll see what happens.

Classes only start at 4:30, so we have about two hours to plan lessons, or just fritter our time away if there’s nothing else to do. Sasha and Sean usually start off the day with lunch, so that’s what we did. I think the idea is that, so long as we’re in the building and teach the classes properly, we can basically do what we want. Similarly, our end time is technically 10:30 pm, but classes end at 10 pm so we just peace out after that.

Today I was told that I was going to teach Sean’s first class, which is a “JA” class. This means elementary school, kind of middle of the road English ability. The lesson was “Victimless Crimes” – yes, actually – and one of the topics was “Assisted Suicide”. Considering that these are 10 year olds learning this topic, it seems a bit serious for a lesson. But that’s what the unit was, so that’s what I taught.

It went alright. Sean had to step in a lot to help me out, but I think that’s reasonable, considering I’ve never taught anything before, like, ever. He explained that I have to “explain the shit out of everything”, because if I don’t, A) they won’t understand, and B) the lesson will go by way too fast. Asking the kids questions is also really good. So if the topic is, say, foreign food, you would ask them, “Do you have McDonald’s in Korea? What’s the Korean equivalent? Do you like hamburgers?”, etc. Sean also says that jokes are good, but I was never really the class clown, so hopefully they’ll survive without being constantly in stitches over my hilarious wit.

I watched two more lessons, and then we breaked for dinner. That’s at 7 pm, and it’s 20 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it isn’t all that bad. If you think about it, you’re not really working that hard until 4:30, so it’s only 2 and a half hours until break. And then another 2 and a half hours after dinner. Although I’ve been assured that once I actually start teaching, I’m going to be absolutely exhausted by 7. Sigh. And the structure is basically elementary before 7, and middle school after 7.

I watched Jenna’s lesson for a bit, then went with Yung Sun, the secretary/teacher who helped me out on Monday with my medical test thing, to get some pictures taken for my ARC (Alien Residency Card). Unfortunately the photo place wasn’t open, but I had a lovely chat with Yung Sun, who is in second year university, just started working at Avalon, and is really nice. She wrote me a sticky note that I will bring in to the photo place today, which will tell them what to do. That way I won’t have to try and mime “2 photos, 35 mm by 45 mm, please”. How do you even mime that? Insanity.

Then back to school for the last two lessons. The latter one was with Sasha, who was teaching MO, the highest level you can get. These kids are crazy smart. They have to learn 160 new vocab words each WEEK. 160. I couldn’t do that if I tried. And I speak the language! Sheesh. And they basically spend their class listening to recordings of lectures that are spoken abnormally quickly, and then answer really difficult questions about the passages. They’re kind of the AP class, although the interesting part was that although their understanding of English is obviously really good, they don’t speak it all that well. Or maybe they just lack confidence? Either way, it was a fun class. The two lectures were on glass making and sci fi movies vs. books, the latter of which was really interesting. Big surprise: movies are less detailed than books.

Walked home with Sasha and Sean, and then watched Cinderella Story before going to bed. The school has really good internet, so I streamed a bunch of shows as well as the movie, which I will watch tomorrow. My reasoning was that if I stayed up late, I would wake up later, and therefore be more well rested for work. Hopefully it turns out! Oh, and I bought a cherry coke, which was not that good, and made me kind of sick, so that’s going on my ixnay list.

Lotte Super and the First Day of School! (aka my Medical Adventure)

Woke up at 5 am, which while certainly better than yesterday’s 2 am debacle, guaranteed a sleepy day ahead. Following a fruitless attempt to go back to sleep, I finished High School Musical 1 and then frittered around with my Korean Language for Dummies book until I realized that it’s just an awful piece of literature. The organizational structure is non-existant – or maybe I just don’t learn the same way most people do. Assuming that most people learn by being inundated with new vocabulary and verb structures in no conceivable order.

Then I was off for my first solo mission in the scary outside world of Pyeongtaek! My goal: buy a kitchen garbage can and frying pan from the Lotte Super Mart – that would be the grocery store. I’m pretty sure it’s a chain store, although the “Super” part is possibly only in Pyeongtaek. I think that “Super” is Pyeongtaek’s motto, or catchphrase, or something. The walk was uneventful, which in fact makes it quite eventful, because it means that I didn’t get lost or get run over at all. Which is a major plus.

Came back to the apartment and tidied up – shocking! I still have to get down to the actual nitty gritty cleaning, but I’ve got all my stuff put away, and more or less organized, as well as acquired most of the basics required for living. Still need proper bedsheets and a pillowcase, but I’ll take my victories where I can get them.

On Sasha’s reccomendation, I purchased some frozen dumplings from the Lotte Mart, which I proceeded to fry in my new pan. My attempts at using the bunsen burner stove were successful, although I didn’t quite manage to cook the dumplings all the way through, so a trip to the microwave was required before they were edible. They were surprisingly good, especially considering that I’m not a huge dumpling fan – if I can figure out how to microwave them without that tedious frying step, I may have found my new go-to food. Although I definitely need to buy me some ramen noodles, which are apparently huge here.

When 2 pm rolled around, I met up with Sasha and Sean and departed for Avalon English Academy! They showed me a couple of the fast food joints in the surrounding area, including a bento-box type place that has Korean food instead of sushi. I have been instructed to try the “bulgogi”, which is apparently some sort of fried beef and is reputedly delicious.

After getting the tour of the school – it’s on the fourth floor of a high rise, and looks very modern, lots of straight lines and lime green – I was told that I would be getting my medical test done today for the “Alien Registration Card” I will need to live and work in Korea. This involved getting into a car with a secretary who spoke zero English, and her brand new assistant who was insanely sweet, but perhaps not as well versed as she could have been in medical terminology.

We drove about half an hour to the Anseong hospital – and by hospital, I mean a weird mix of hospital and clinic, because you can just walk in with a problem and see a doctor almost immediately, but they also have stuff like mammography machines. After some communication fails, we managed to get my form filled out. Thus followed the strangest medical experience to which I have ever been subjected.

First, they took me into a big, kind of shoddy-looking room, and started rambling away in Korean. When they said “Hepatitis?”, I had no idea whether they were asking if I’d had hepatitis, or if I was vaccinated against it, or if anyone in my family had it, or if... etc. Then they went onto the computer for a few minutes, and came up with “Tuberculosis?”, which prompted another round of, “Do you mean, did I have my TB shot? Or have I ever had TB?”

Sasha believes that they were asking if I was vaccinated. My answer was “I don’t know”, and they didn’t seem particularly troubled by it, so I guess whatever answer they wrote down for me was the right one. Then followed a hearing test – which headphone is the obnoxious beeping coming out of – followed by a scale, height measurement, and... get ready... bust measurement. Why would they possibly need to know my bust size? Strange, strange practice.

Then it was off to the “chest xray”, which involved putting on a blue shirt thing that didn’t close, flattening myself against a big plastic sheet, and holding my breath. Nothing too traumatic there. The urine test was worse, because Koreans are fans of the hole-in-the-ground type toilet. Not to mention the bathroom was ridiculously unhygienic. I don’t understand this country sometimes. Most things are completely civilized, and then they have “squatter” toilets. I guess most Koreans prefer squatting to sitting? Hmm...

My quasi-translator was actually really kind, and said the nicest thing to me – “This is my first time doing this, and you made it into a wonderful experience for me”. Well, something like that, but I guess she was just happy I didn’t start yelling when my attempts at communication with the hostpial staff failed miserably. With all the obsession with learning English in Korea, you’d think that doctors would know at least a smattering of English vocab. Apparently not.

Enough about the medical test! Well, the worst part was probably that they made me do it on my very first day of work – although that may have something to do with them wanting to get my “ARC” card as soon as possible. Then I can get a phone and a bank acocunt, so they can pay me! Woo! Back at the school, I got to watch my fellow teachers do their thing – first Sasha for 2 hours, then a 20 minute break for dinner, then Jenna for 2 hours, and then Sean for the last hour.

At first I was kind of freaked out – the ease with which the teachers interact with their students is bewildering. But they have all been teaching for years, so I am going on the assumption that I will develop this repartee with my students as I grow more comfortable with teaching. To quote Sean’s student, a teacher should “smile and be nice”, which sounds like pretty good advice to me. The great part is that we have booklets to work out of, so I don’t have to plan entire lessons from scratch. I guess the teaching part comes from how you get the information across – and how well you can keep your ballistic kids under control, because some of those kids were bouncing off the walls. More the little kids, which will be the ones I’m teaching, so I’d better learn to deal with the insanity sooner than later.

By the time 10:00 rolled around, I was absolutely exhausted. School technically runs to 10:30, but the teachers peace out when the bell rings at 10 pm. What a day! Not at all what I was expecting. At least the medical exam didn’t involve some sort of cavity search – now THAT would have been disturbing. And actually getting to see ESL classes in action was really interesting, because I’ve never actually seen one before, so it was nice that I got to find out what sort of teaching style I’ll be expected to do. It involves a lot of idle chatter and calls of, “English! In English, please!”.

My official start date for actual teaching is Thursday, so I have two more days to soak up all the teaching tips I can manage from Sasha, Jenna, and Sean. Even if I end up being a mediocre teacher, they’re thrilled to have me, because they’ve been working a man down for the last month, which means larger classes and no breaks. Hopefully we’ll never be a man down while I’m around, because I generally enjoy having a break every now and then.