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.

Day 2

Due to extremely poor planning, and a lack of willpower to keep my eyes open, I went to bed at 7:30 pm last night, which of course meant that I woke up at 2:30 am on Sunday. This not being an ideal time to wake up, I attempted to go back to bed, but the bane of my existence – a bug – tormented me by buzzing in my ear so that I had no choice but to wake up properly. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Sasha and Sean, I am still connected to the internet, albeit barely. I can access text, and Google chat, but not much else – my dreams of watching the latest Supernatural episode are finished.

To my delight, my mother was online, as it would be only 1:30 pm her time, back in dear old Canada. I am missing Canada quite a lot, but I keep telling myself that I will get over it, because really this is just culture shock. The fact that everything is written in Korean, and people only speak Korean, doesn’t help much. I hope I get my foreigner registration card soon, because I’d like to have a cellphone and bank account. Also, the knowledge that I can go to the hospital without paying exorbitant fees is a comforting one, not that I plan on breaking my leg anytime soon.

With my shoddy internet connection, I whiled away the hours surfing the web and writing my various fanfictions and novels. I wish that I had brought my booklet of DVDs with me in the initial move, because I was hard pressed for something with which to occupy my time. Reading and writing are both fun, but sometimes it’s good to just turn on a movie or television show and while away the hours. Ah well – mother has promised me regular care packages, so hopefully my DVDs will arrive soon!

Around 7 am I decided to go back to sleep – I have my first day of classes tomorrow, so it’s probably a good plan to not wake up at 2 am again. My attempts were successful, and I re-awoke at 10 am to the sound of banging on a door. Not mine, as it turns out, but I got up feeling refreshed and ready for a new day! After twiddling around until noon, Sasha came a calling, and we were off to the airbase!

Today was Air Power day at the Oson American air base, which means that they opened up the base to non-military personnel, as well as brought out a dozen of their planes and helicopters for people to see up close. We took a taxi to AK mall, then hopped the subway three stops over to the town that the base is located in. One of Sasha’s students had told her about a back way into the base, so we grabbed another cab and went in the back way, which was still pretty busy, so probably wasn’t as top secret as we’d hoped.

The air base was very cool – they lined the runway with various types of planes and jets and assorted bombing machines. At the far end was a “missile battery”, and you could sit in a machine gun turret and make the rotating gun barrel thing fire. There were also aerial demonstrations – the planes went by so frequently overhead that we had to yell most of the time to be heard. Planes are loud. The earth literally shakes when a jet flies overhead, even if it’s so high up that you can barely see it.

There was also the food tents area, with everything from bratwurst to Korean short ribs. Apparently “Western” food is very difficult to come by in Korea, because Sasha was beside herself when she saw that they were selling bratwurst. Things that are difficult to find in Korea include hamburger and hotdog buns, celery, dill pickles, and sausages. I’m sure I’ll learn about more soon enough. Sean assured me that in about four months, I’ll be craving Western food as much as they do.

After the air base, we trekked back to “Main Gate”, which is the area around the main gate of the air base. This area is very westernized, because it is where the soldiers go when they’re off duty. There is English on every sign, international cuisine, bootleg DVD stalls, etc. We went into a bar that had a “juicy”, which is a woman employed by the bar who hangs out with a guy, in return for which he buys her expensive drinks. Juicies are not prostitutes, however – they are companions, although I suspect that the line can often get blurred.

At the bar I met Jenna, Jade, and Lynn. Jenna is the fourth and final foreign teacher at our school, and Jade and Lynn work at the Avalon school by the base. I’m a bit fuzzy on how Jade and Lynn know everyone – possibly they were trained with Sasha? – but all the foreigner teachers seem to know each other in some way or another. They complimented me on my sunburn, which I had not realized that I had, until I went to the bathroom. Incidentally, Koreans have a habit of keeping toilet paper outside the bathroom, so you have to guestimate how much you need, and bring it in with you. I will be carrying a wad of tissues around as emergency backup toilet paper from now on, as per Sasha’s suggestion.

We wandered around the Main Gate shopping district for a while, and then went into a Thai place for dinner. It was delicious, but much spicier than I’m used to. I got the lowest level of spice, and my mouth still burned. Then a little bit more shopping – bought all three High School Musicals, bootlegged, for 5000 won – which is like $5. I was assured that they’re good quality, although I haven’t yet had a chance to test them out.

Took the subway back home, and arrived back in the apartment around 9 pm. Sasha advised that I stay up until midnight, or else I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow. I’ll try to make 11 pm, but I doubt I’ll be able to do much later. I would have if my computer was working, but my background image disappeared when I turned the laptop on, and now I can’t connect to the internet.

After about half an hour the internet worked out, although I still can’t have a background image for some reason. Computers continue to baffle and elude me. Bah. I attempted to watch my bootlegged High School Musical DVD, which went well enough, but I fell asleep around 10 pm... so I didn’t quite make the 11 pm deadline!

First Meetings

South Korea. Land of the rising calm. It is certainly calm, at least at 5:00 AM in the morning. My plane ride was long and arduous, although not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. The plane took off from Pierson at 1:30 AM – a blessing in disguise, since I was properly exhausted by the time I got onto the plane. Falling asleep was not so easy, though – like all my airplane adventures, it was less a solid, 8 hour chunk of uninterrupted sleep, and more 5 hours of tossing and turning while the kindly gentlemen to either side of me made annoyed noises and huddled away from my constantly shifting limbs.

I have to say this about Korean Air, though. Despite the cramped seats and lack of leg room, they know how to travel in style. Moist towelettes were provided on two separate occasions, drinks served throughout the flight... and the entertainment! First of all, the waitresses themselves were absolutely fascinating to watch, because they all had their hair drawn back in completely identical, not a strand out of place, twist buns with oddly stiff ribbons. But better were the little television screens at each person’s seat – that way, I could watch anything I wanted, and even skip through the parts I found boring. My movies of choice included Toy Story 3, Karate Kid, Prince of Persia, and Iron Man 2. Unfortunately my complimentary headset arrived broken, but I cleverly brought along a spare set.

Blankets and pillows were provided, which eased travel significantly. Even slippers, although I didn’t wear them. It must be a Korean thing. I suspect that I will find out more as my year here progresses. The food on the plane was... different, even for airplane food. Perhaps that’s because it was not just airplane food, but Korean airplane food. Here’s the thing about Korean food – I assumed it would be like Japanese, or Chinese, because they’re so close geographically. But this may not be the case, from what I witnessed. A weird ravioli and beef concoction, which to be honest, did not taste very Korean. The breakfast, though, was fascinating – green-tea flavoured rice porridge with these thinly sliced orange things that may have been pickled at some point.

Having thus survived the plane flight, I disembarked and immediately ran into trouble in the form of not having filled out my school’s address on my arrivals card. No matter – one quick hold-up-everyone-else-in-line-while-I-rummage-through-my-bag-for-the-relevant-information later, and I was through! Baggage check was surprisingly easy – my bags came out almost instantly, although I looked so perplexed trying to handle two roller suitcases that a nice Korean woman suggested I get a cart. A cart! Bah! Carts are for the weak!

Luckily I found my driver immediately upon exiting the Customs area. I was a bit confused, because I had been under the impression that visiting ESL teachers to Korea were required to undergo some sort of medical check-up, which possibly involved peeing in a paper cup. So I got myself all worked up over it, only to discover that there was no such thing. Or maybe I just didn’t look very dangerous? Considering that I was wearing baggy sweatpants and my brother’s oversized sweater, I probably looked fairly harmless.

My driver was sweet – told me I was pretty, helped me carry my bags to his minivan parked nearby. As a slow walker, especially an exhausted one, I was hard-pressed to keep up with my rapidly-paced driver, but I managed well enough. The ride to Pyeongtaek city from Incheon (the airport/city) is about an hour and a half, although my driver claimed that it was two hours. At five in the morning, Korea is very serene – and continued to be, although my trip did not end up being very calming.

The driving part was wonderful – smooth roads, lovely curves and brightly lit roadways. Then we got to Pyeongtaek, and my driver had no idea where the school was. We ended up sitting at a curb for ten minutes while he talked on the phone in Korean, and then we found the school, except no one was there to meet me. Apparently “CK”, the head teacher, thought that I was arriving at 5 pm, not 5 am, which does explain the absence of a teacher, but wasn’t terribly inspiring.

Together with two other Korean teachers, CK got me to my apartment, although he was confused by which floor I was on. He had to wake up Sean, my neighbour and another teacher at the school, who showed them where I was going to be living. Apparently the guy who lived in the apartment before me – Sasha, same name as Sean’s girlfriend, another teacher – was a “psycho”, which kind of shows. There’s a pink light installed over the kitchen, apparently to mimic the “pink light” district of Pyeongtaek, which is equivalent to the red light district of Amsterdam. Not to mention the poster of scantily clad women gracing the wall.

My apartment is small – smaller than I had expected, although to be honest I’m not sure what I was expecting. It’s a single room, with a balcony-ish type area that leads over to the bathroom. I will have to keep my room clean if I want to have guests over. Which is great for me, because I love cleaning ever so much. There is a TV, but Sean and Sasha aren’t sure whether or not it works, so I’ll have to wait and see. The internet didn’t work for the longest while, but now I’m hijacking Sasha’s internet, which I will continue to do until someone sorts out my internet.

After a short nap – too short – I got up and took a shower... and then went promptly back to sleep. I also did some unpacking, so now I’m about halfway through my second bag. Sean woke me around 2 pm, and we went out for lunch at a Korean BBQ place, which was very nice. It’s cool, because there’s an actual grill in the middle of the table – outlawed in North America, because they’re worried that customers might burn themselves. Which is the same thinking that goes for those open crepe grills in France, I expect.

Sean and Sasha dished on the school, how the kids are, what lessons are like, how different Korea is from home, etc. Sean has been here for almost two years, and Sasha is – I believe – 6 months into her contract, so they’ve been around. They started dating a few months ago, and are a very cute couple – Sean calls her “babe”, and they bicker unceasingly. Reminds me of a certain couple that I know back home.

We then went to the supermarket to stock up on supplies. Actually, we were nominally there to buy food, but I only got a few foodstuffs – the majority of time was spent getting cleaning supplies, toilet paper, etc. And a bath mat! It is green and says “Full House”, which puzzles me to no end, although it does have a picture of a house on it, so I suppose it makes some sense.

Then back to the apartment to put things away! Sean and I bonded over books, while Sasha attempted to hook me up to the internet. She ended up connecting me to her wireless, but the landline in my room does not work, so I’ll have to hijack her internet until someone can set mine up for me. I asked about a bank account, phone, health plan, etc., and I can’t get any of that until I have my Resident Alien Card, which will take about a month to process.

After all this, they departed for their own room, leaving me to my own devices. I am currently lying on my bed, which I have covered with sheets of questionable cleanliness. Tomorrow I may have to invest some time into cleaning, as the apartment is in a sorry state – the last tenant, as I stated, was “psycho”, so things aren’t quite up to snuff. But Sasha and Sean assure me that I’ll get used to things soon enough. I think that this will be expedited if I learn Korean, so I’ll have to get on that! Seoul is only 45 minutes away by train, so I’ll definitely be going there every couple of weekends.