Seoul

When not closed for Lunar New Year, Seoul is actually a pretty great place to visit (but maybe not to live in from what I hear). Here are some must-do's and some good places to go for fellow waygooks that I have learned from my visits to Seoul so far.

~Foreign Restaurant (Itaewon): This is a pretty good place, especially if your a fellow waygook stuck in a small town or city without much western food. For 16,000 you can eat all you can at the buffet complete with Naan, lentil crackers, lamb curry, and french fries. The sodas are a bit expensive at 4,700 but otherwise it's really good if you just want to stuff yourself because you missed that kind of food.

Directions: If your back is to the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon (easily located via Taxi and the Itaewon subway stop), cross the street and turn left. Walk a few blocks until the next intersection and take a right. Walk up the hill and it will be on your left. If you've hit the Foreign food store or What The Book, you have one too far.

~Namaste: This is a really good Indian/Napali resteraunt, and it's right next to a subway exit. Everything is really good here. The only thing I haven't cared for too much is the Mango Lahssi. The best deal by far here is the 15,000 set. It gives you little bit of everything and is really tasty.

Directions: Take the subway line 6 to Dongmyo station. Leave via exit #5, with the stairs to your back, turn left and look up. It's on the second floor of the building right next to the subway exit.

~What The Book: A great little bookstore for anyone searching for English books in this country. Sometimes other bookstores will have some books in English, but the selection is quite small, and there will never be any magazines in English. What The Book has everything from literature, to language learning books, cook books, travel books, to English Magazines. They will also take your used books and give you store credit so you can get more to read.

Directions: See directions for the Foreign Restaurant.

~DMZ: This is a must-do in Seoul. There are many tours available, and sometimes, depending on the time of year and circumstances, there are tours into North Korea as well. Check into it well ahead of time and be warned, there are many rules you must follow (although the camera rules are sometimes allowed to be ignored).

Directions: Check out the internet for a goo-priced tour. Also, many tourist booths and hotels will have brochures for you, but it is best to plan ahead and schedule tours ahead of time, especially if you will only be there a day or two.

~Clothes for big-sized Waygooks: Itaewon is the best place to look for larger sized clothes if you are like most westerners and have curves or are larger than the average Korean.

Directions: If your are facing the Hamilton Hotel, turn left and walk straight. Keep an eye out for the "big-size" signs. Most of these are men's shops, however I do know of one on the side you would be walking on. It's a few blocks down from the Hamilton, and on the second story above a shoe shop. Just keep an eye out and you may get lucky. The shoe shop also has larger sized shoes, but it's a bit expensive as they claim everything in there was made in Italy.

~Palace: Another must-see for Seoul. Sostly just empty restored buildings, this provides many photo ops and is a good place to get really nice pictures of your surroundings. Don't be surprised to see many of the tourists carrying around their $1,000 cameras and tripods for all of the photo opportunities available.

Directions: In Insadong, walk to the end of the art street to where there is a statue of one of the giant brushes they use for paining. There are two roads to the left, one that angles back, and one less so, take the one that doesn't angle back the way you came do much. Walk down the street until you hit an intersection with an old-style building on an island in the road to your right. Take a right and head down that road, cross the street as soon as you can and you can see the entrance to the palace. You can't miss the tourists and food vendors milling around.

~Dr. Fish: If you've heard about the little fish from Turkey who will give you a natural pedicure, this one of the places to go in Seoul. For 2,000 won plus the cost of a drink (starting at 7,000 total), you gain the opportunity to sit with your feet in the fish tub for 22 minutes, and then relax, refreshed, with your drink and some fresh toast that you can make yourself. The fish are gentle and it feels like many tiny little pinches, but it doesn't hurt at all. You might have trouble if your very ticklish though. Also, the pool is only big enough for two, maybe three people at one time.

Directions: Go to Insadong via the Jongno 3 (san)-ga subway stop and leave at Exit 1. Walk straight down the sidewalk you are facing when you leave the stairs. Walk down to the 2nd intersection (If you look left you will see a big 24-hour Burger King, this is also the same street, if you go right here, you will be on Insadong art street). Cross toward the Burger King, and then cross again immediately on the right. There is a big brown banner outside the building that says Book Cafe and also Dr Fish. Head up to the 2nd floor of the building, but your drink and specify "Dr Fish" They will take you up one more floor, you wash your feet, and then head to the small tub with the fish. Afterward they will bring your drinks and you can toast some bread.

Going to Seoul for Chinese New Year

So to anyone who may read this blog and may do it in the future (or to remind myself to never do it again). Do not try to spend Chinese New Year in Seoul. To be honest, it sucks. You would think that the largest city in South Korea, with by far the largest ammount of foreigners, would have everything open on a day when government workers are going on holiday. Nope, it turns out next to nothing is open.

Cody, Fallon, and I came down to Soeul to plan on shopping for a few more Korea Soveniers and just do some things, like visiting a Dr. Fish Cafe for a pedicure done by tiny fish. We couldn't find the fish and most of the shops we were interested in were closed.

We started in Insadong, and since there was nothing there, we made out way to Itaewon, the foreigner district, hoping for more since all the foreigners would be off work looking for something to do... nope, next to nothing. We spent most of the day walking among the few shops open, just walking looking for stuff to do, eating indian food when we found the couple of open resteraunts (Foreign Resteraunt and Namaste), and riding the subway a lot. Although, we did visit What The Book and I picked up a Martha Stewart wedding magazine so that I could get some ideas.

Fallon's leaving for Thailand tomorrow morning, but Cody and I will be here a little bit longer tomorrow, and we are really hoping more stuff is open...at least in Insadong because then we can get something out of our trip. If not, I guess we'll just have to go home early and not really have done anything, but have gotten out of Mokpo for a couple of days.

I realize I complain lot in these blogs, so I will say... I guess we should have expected it because the first day or so of Chinese New Year is all about staying home with the family and cleaning for a new start to the year, so i guess we should have expected that the majority of the Population would be at home doing that.

I think I need to start some actual reviews of the places we've been though...that would keep me from complaining too much...

Tickets to China

January 7, 2009

We bought our tickets to China today and it was so awesome! We had set aside 700,000 won for the tickets and visa, as per the original pricing the travel agent told us about. She had told us though to wait until after the New Year because taxes were expected to go down on flights (along with fuel fees). We went in today to inquire about tickets and visas, and it took the agent a little while to understand who we were, because she spoke little English, but she understood that Jason and Abby, good customers who had already paid, sent us. After a little bit of back and forth over what we wanted and such, and a lot of paperwork, she had our priced for us. Instead of almost 700,000 each, it turned out that it was only going to be 370,000 including visas and taxes. Cody and I are so excited, because we were very broke and on a budget, and now we’re feeling a little less strain. I’m very happy and really looking forward to our trip, even thought I know absolutely no Chinese.

Being Sick in Korea

January 5, 2009

Being sick in Korea both sucks and is the most awesome thing ever. It’s pretty awesome because it’s really cheap to go to the doctor here, It sucks because if you have a cold they just give you a bunch of vitamins and Tylenol. No cough syrup, nothing, just vitamins. I went to the doctors the other day because I had been really sick for a couple of days. I have every symptom from not being able to breathe through my nose much, to coughing all the time, to being able to taste absolutely nothing. So, I go to the doctor because I was afraid I was really sick. The doctor asks for all my symptoms and he goes on to tell me that I am seriously sick and I would not have gotten better without medicine. He then tells me I have nasopharyngitis, which at the time made me freak out and go, oh, I must be REALLY sick! I went home to take my medicines and see what kind of illness I had. I was almost shocked to see that all I had was a severe common cold. It really shouldn’t surprise me though, even Koreans who are really good at speaking English tend to use the wrong words or use the more complicated words a lot.

New Years Eve

January 1, 2009

New Years Eve was pretty great this year. It was so exciting to know that I was spending the change over in years in a foreign country. We decided to take a bus out to Gwangju and stay the night in The Windmill (as usual) and spend the night partying with some friends. It was pretty fun. We ate some Burger King, which was cool because we don’t have a Burger King anywhere in Mokpo. We then spent a couple hours partying with some Soju and Orange Juice in one of the Hotel Suites we were staying in for the night. About an hour before midnight, we decided to head out to some clubs to experience Gwangju at midnight. Some of us headed out to the Germany Bar, but after one pitcher, and about 20 minutes before midnight, we decided to join a large group of our friends at Vanilla Club, just a little bit down the street.

I had a moment of annoyance because the club was charging a 15,000 cover charge, but I soon got over it when I learned they were providing everyone with unlimited free beer (which was the really cheap kind, cut still, it was free). The countdown to midnight was really anti-climatic because the bar didn’t do one and a lot of our friends didn’t notice the time, but Cody and I had our own private countdown and kissed at midnight. We stayed another two hours, but left around 2 am because we had been drinking awhile and decided we wanted to make our way back to the hotel. I would like to say we made our way back easily and went to bed and woke up hangover free, but unfortunately I would be lying.

It had been snowing that night, and while walking down the steps of Vanilla Club, I slipped down the last four steps because unfortunately Koreans make their steps out of granite, and the steps were covered in a film of water. As soon as I fell, a very well-intentioned, but drunk guy behind me, decided to try yanking on my arm that I had just fallen on, to help me up of course. Luckily Cody convinced him to let go, because he was really making my arm hurt worse. Cody then helped guide me home because I had been drinking, and now I was crying because I was hurt and now dreadfully afraid of falling down on the very packed snow.

I made it another few blocks, almost back to the hotel, but unfortunately I slipped again, this time on the down slope of a sidewalk, and this time bringing Cody down with me. Of course I also fell on the side I had just bashed on the stairs. By this point I was very sore, but luckily for me, we made it back to the hotel without any further events happening to me, and I slept very well and woke up hangover-free, but very sore.

It was a very fun night, but also a very bad one for my poor body.

Christmas

December 26, 2008

Since we had no plans for Christmas other than hang out at home, Abby and Jason invited us to their house for presents and Christmas dinner. We headed over at around 1:00 to assist with the dinner prep, but we didn’t get underway (except for the turkey) until 3:00 because we decided to watch South Park Christmas episodes, plus some miscellaneous other Christmas things. When we finally got under way at 3, we put together a group effort to get dinner ready, because Abby was suffering from some pretty major morning sickness pains. We paused around halfway through, around 6:00, for some presents. Abby got us a really nice Christmas/engagement present consisting of candy, candles, massage oil, champagne flutes, and champagne. We spent the rest of the night hanging out, finishing up dinner, and eating until we burst. None of us stuck around long after dinner because Abby was really feeling sick, but all in all, it was a pretty good Christmas for not being at home.

Christmas Eve with Fallon

December 25, 2008

After we finished with the gift giving at the orphanage last night, we went over to Fallon and Wim’s place to have a nice quiet laid back Christmas Eve. We watched the old animated How the Grinch stole Christmas, we also listened to Wim recite “The Littlest Angel.” For some non-traditional Christmas Eve fun, we played some drinking Jenga. This involved writing some rules on various blocks, and if you drew a block with a rule, you had to do what it said.

Orphan Christmas

December 25, 2008

For the past couple of months I have been volunteering at the local orphanages in and near Mokpo. For awhile I went to teach the teenagers at the Elo Orphanage, about 20 minutes outside of Mokpo. The girls were very sweet, but I came to realize that I was really not a best fit teacher for them at all, as I am a bit more comfortable with young children. I then started teaching the Kindergarteners at the more local Mokpo Orphanages. They are very sweet children, although some of them do have some emotional and behavioral problems, for understandable reasons of course.

Some of us spent Halloween and since trying to create a great Christmas for the Orphans, from raising money, to buying presents, to wrapping and presenting them. Abby put in a lot of the administrative work, but it took a lot of money and many of the volunteers to make everything work out as planned.

With all of the contributions to our effort, we were able to provide all of the orphans with some sort of Christmas present and everyone had a wonderful time. It was definitely a good experience as a volunteer as well, and if we stay for a second year, I would definitely look forward to doing it again.

Shinsook Leaving

December 24, 2008

So, I was told today, with no warning, that I will most likely never see Shinsook again because she might be getting married this spring, and if she does, she’ll be moving away. Unfortunately Koreans tend to do this a lot. They think because they get married or have children, they must always quit their jobs for a year or so, or they move to serve their husbands or children. Koreans also tend to think that they don’t have to tell the native teachers anything until the last minute. The strange thing is, Shinsook was usually good about telling me things a head of time, and this time she didn’t. I will miss working with her, because she was legitimately a good teacher.

Fake Guns in School

December 24, 2008

I as I walked into the school yard today, one of my students pointed what I thought was a gun at me, I almost has a heart attack. It turned out that he was just playing with an empty Airsoft gun. Lucky for me. Unfortunately, Airsoft guns in this country don’t have the orange plastic on them that proclaim them fake. All I could do was push the gun forcibly away and try to admonish the student never to point guns at people, ever. I’m sure he didn’t understand me, and there were no co-teachers around to complain too, but back home, the kid would have been expelled for less!

Swearing in school

December, 23, 2008

Today Shinsook and I were letting our students watch all Mr. Bean episodes because it is their last week and we wanted to take it easy on them. When watching a particularly funny episode, I had a student right next to me exclaim, almost naturally “Oh shit!” when Mr. Bean did something strange. It took me half a second to say anything, because for a second I was happy that he used it in the proper way, but then I had to reprimand him because he swore in school. I’m usually not a person who really cares either way if someone swears or does a dirty gesture, as long as it’s not directed at me. The only other time when I care is in school, a church, or in front of grandparents. So, although I was proud of him for speaking a proper sentence, and naturally, in English, I had to yell at him, but he was immediately sorry, which told me he really did say it naturally.

How we Met

December 20, 2008

Warning: Very Long, and potentially boring and sappy

For those of you who don't know the story, here is the long story about how we met and our first date three years later:
Cody and I first met in the ninth grade when we were attending Westview High School in Portland, Oregon in 1998. We didn't really start getting to know each other until we were scheduled to take a math class together Sophomore year with Mr. Keene. We may have never acknowledged each other if it wasn't for the fact that Mr. Keene was too nice and so the class tended to take advantage of him and ignore much of the lesson. Those of us who actually cared about our grades and were trying to be polite to the teacher ended up migrating to the same area of the classroom. This included my friend Christian and Cody.

Soon, we all ended up talking and becoming friends during class. I was very quick to develop a crush on Cody, but I had a hard time asking boys out, as I was very shy, and had a tendency to just go out with whoever asked me out first. Due to me not feeling up to asking him out and him not asking me, we never got together, but we were friends.

Finally, in my senior year of high school, I finally got up the nerve to tell him I liked him. It only took me three years and a 5-hour phone conversation, but I thought that he liked me too and finally got fed up with waiting. To my surprise he said he liked me too and we scheduled a double date for December 1st with our friend Scott and his new girlfriend Lori.

I anxiously waited for the 1st to roll around, and when it did, I was ecstatic. My dad dropped me off at the movie theater, as I was meeting the other three to watch Spy Games, and then we would go back to Scott's house. We saw the movie, and then we all squeezed in to Scott's tiny 2-door Dodge Neon and drove to Scott's house to hang out. Not long after we got there, Scott and Lori disappeared, presumably to make out, and Cody and I were finally alone. We sat together and talked for a few hours and then it was time to go home. Scott dropped us off at my house and drove around the block to give Cody and I another minute alone. After saying goodnight and having our first kiss, Cody left.

Now, eight years and 5 days (or 4 days if you count USA time) we are finally engaged to be married. Who would have known that I would be getting ready to marry my crush from Math class so long ago.

Engagement

December 20, 2008

I think I had the best anniversary this year. Not because I got some cool new toy or got taken out to a fancy dinner, but because Cody proposed to me.

Our anniversary is the first of every year, and that is when we celebrate when we first started dating. We had decided to wait to celebrate our anniversary for a week because of various circumstances. We ended up staying at our friend Abby and Jason’s house with our friend Randi because the girls had had a chocolate-laded birthday party the night before, complete with the game “I never” and plenty of wine. The weather had been getting progressively bad all day and night, and when Cody and Jason came back over after playing poker with the guys, we decided it would be fun, and safer, to have a group slumber party. We woke up early, to a very pretty sunrise and about 5 inched of snow and ice everywhere. It was very pretty.

After hanging out and talking with each other for a few hours, and sending the boys on a trek to McDonalds for some sausage McMuffins, we all remember we had things to do and so we went our separate ways. Cody went his own way to finish up some errands (unbeknownst to me, trying to get the ring), and I went home to shower and start the process of beautifying myself for our anniversary dinner. After probably four hours, I start to get restless because I’m ready and I have no clue where Cody has gotten too. Of course, at this point I don’t know that he is having major ring drama, which led to money drama. I am also starting to get r hungry, as I have not eaten since McDonalds at 10 am and it is nearing 6 o’clock.

Finally, at around 7:10, I hear a key in the door and I go to help him, being antsy to go, he opens the door slightly and tells me to go sit on the couch and close my eyes because he has my present for me. I do so and I hear rustling, then he tells me to open my eyes. I do and see him kneeling before me, holding out two KTX tickets to Seoul, and he proposes. Of course, I am feeling quite a bit startled, so I look at him and say “What?” He looked me dead in the eyes, expression never changing, and repeated the question “Will you marry me?” I am still quite a bit startled and just starting to think, he’s asking me now, if feels so sudden, and yet so waited for… so I say “really?” At this point, he is starting to look a touch exasperated, but all he says is “yes, really.” I, of course, forget to say yes, and just start hugging and kissing him just like in some Hallmark movie, and then, as if on cue, he reminds me that I still have to say yes, which I promptly do.

I am allowed a long hug and kiss, and am immediately asked for permission to take a shower, because due to his long day out and ordeals, which I will learn on the KTX, he has not showered. I proceeded to call some friends, and was just about to post it on Facebook, but was promptly ordered not to, as we have family of Facebook who had not been told yet.

We took the train to Seoul that night about hour later, laden with a few snacks to tide us over. We arrived in Seoul at about 1am, and the first thing I did was grab a spicy sausage from a food vendor, because I was starving. We stayed in a nice hotel that we hadn’t stayed at before; it had a Kingsized bed and a really nice shower and huge flat screen TV. The next day we had Quiznos for lunch and we saw some of our other friends who were visiting Seoul, including Fallon and Wim. We purchased some new clothes for me, and some fabric wall scrolls for us and one as a thank-you present for Abby and Jason (because they helped Cody out a lot with the ring fiasco). After that we took the subway down to an area of Seoul that has at least two jewelry stores per block and we went ring shopping. I loved the first ring that she saw, but was convinced that we had to shop around, just in case, so it didn’t end up me just picking the first pretty one because I was excited. We went looking in three more stores (each store has at least 15 separate jeweler stands) and seeing if there was anything I liked better. Cody kept having to ask me "I know you like it, but do you like it more than the first one"? I never did, they were only cute, or fairly similar to the first one, and the first one had the advantage of being sold by an English seller. About three hours later we went back to the first seller to buy the first ring I looked saw. I got to pick my diamond, which was pretty cool because the Jeweler too out a fat book full of diamonds and stowed me a few, and allowed me to kind of carefully touch them a little bit. We went with a Korean diamond because it was a really good one. There was an American one of a slightly better cut, but it was over twice the price, so there was no way, and I was more than happy with a Korean Diamond because it is just as pretty, and now I can commemorate my time in Korea in my engagement, which is fitting since the engagement happened here! Well, we purchased the ring with the promise it would be made (yes, made, not re-sized, whoo hoo!) and shipped to Mokpo by Christmas Eve.

We ended the day by shopping a little bit longer, and then we had some fabulous Indian food (which we would NEVER be able to buy in Mokpo), some Tandori Chicken, Curries, Naan, and Mango Lassi. Finally, we made our way via subway to the train station, and just like the first time we went to Seoul, we went to Seoul Station rather than Yeong-san (arg), and had to find our way to the correct station. We decided when we got there, that we wanted to sit and sleep in semi luxury, so we decided to go for business class on the KTX, which only cost us an extra 17,000 a piece. While I wouldn’t recommend doing that for a trip in the daytime, when you are awake, but when your tall and want to sleep, it’s fabulous as there is a lot more room.

We finally made it home that night, after walking a few blocks away from the train station to catch a cab, since there was a 2-block long line of people waiting for a cab at the train station. Yes, we were technically cheating!
About a week later, and a week earlier than promised, my ring was delivered to Cody’s school all shiny and ready to wear.

We are very excited, and barring things we can’t do while we are in Korea, we have started to think of things we want for the wedding. The main thing right now is we are pretty sure we will have the colors white and crimson and Cody really wants Calla Lilies everywhere. Oh, and not a church wedding, it will probably be in a hall with an official or justice of the peace. More blogs will come (probably late like always) when more details are hashed out.

Katrina’s Birthday Party and More Snow in Mokpo

December 7, 2008

Katrina’s Birthday party was a pretty fun party for me. We had chocolate everywhere, chocolate bars, brownies, homemade chocolate candy, and even a huge pot of melted chocolate that we dipped pears and such in. It was wonderful and decadent. We also had wine flowing everywhere and the chocolate and wine both contributed to a lot of fun. We also had a really fun game of “I never” where we all learned some really interesting things about each other. The night ended when everyone decided to go downtown to Hadang and P-Club and New York Bar to drink. Abby, Randi, and I all decided not to go because the weather was getting worse and we did not want to risk the roads. Instead, we said good-bye to the girls and decided to have a group slumber party.

The other great thing about the night was the snowstorm we were having that day. It usually never snows in Mokpo, and this time it seemed to make up for it in one night. We went out and played in the snow for awhile after the party and then we talked for quite awhile, but we finally made it to bed. We woke up pretty early the next morning to a beautiful sunrise, and we were very happy to find that it had snowed about 5 inches over the evening. It was very pretty and exciting. If I only knew by a few hours later that I would be proposed to.

Thanksgiving in Mokpo 2008

November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving this year was about as awesome as we could have made it in a foreign country that does not eat most of the foods you consider Thanksgiving foods. We had to hold it a few days late though because none of our schools recognized it as a valid holiday for them. We were lucky to be able to order a decent sized turkey and get some cranberry sauce from The Underground Market, so there were two things set for us to have a relatively normal Thanksgiving. I made a fairly tasty, if kind of gross-looking apple pie (the Korean shortening and flour isn’t quite the same as at home, so it didn’t turn out right), an apple crisp, and a type of candied sweet potato. Cody made two batches of stuffing that turned out pretty well. He wanted to make corn bread stuffing, but we had to resort to baguettes because we couldn’t find corn meal anywhere in this country. We also provided a ton of wine, juice, soda, and stuff for gin and tonics. We actually finished off the whole bottle of gin, they were so good.

We invited probably about 10 other people (who we magically had just enough room for) and they each brought one of two dishes. Abby made some awesome sweet potatoes, Jenns made a fabulous pumpkin pie because his sister had just brought him a huge can of pumpkin. Randi made a sweet potato casserole, and others brought rolls, salad, corn, etc.

The turkey turned out fabulous. I altered Alton Brown’s Recipe for a turkey quite a bit, but I still cooked it the same way, and it turned out fabulous.
Everything turned out pretty awesome, and we all had a wonderful meal. Wim had to leave early because he was pretty sick, but the rest of us hung around and chatted for a long time, and the last person didn’t leave until nearly 10:30 at night. Not long after everyone finally left, Cody and I agreed not to touch the dishes until at least the next day, we put away what we could save, and I went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Maria’s Baby Shower

November 23, 2008

I attended my first baby shower today. It was pretty fun. I bought some tea for Maria’s mommy care basket that we put together, and I bought some baby toys that were not made in china per Maria and Emanuel’s wishes. It turns out that the toys were even better because they were made out of a corn material rather than plastic, so they were even safer for baby.

The party was pretty fun though. The men went playing Screen golf and hung out, as a kind of man’s baby shower. Randi made little “buns in the oven,” which were little tasty cinnamon rolls that she even wrapped up and labeled. We had many delicious foods, and even a sorbet based drink. We signed cards for Maria and we played some of the usual baby shower games with her. We tried to guess the girth of her belly, which I was way over on. It’s really hard to try and guess how big a Korean is pregnant because she was so much smaller than most of us normally. We also came up with the dumbest baby names possible and then voted. The winner was Lamby Fluff, but some of the others were pretty ridiculous, like Toxic Waste Dump, and such. A couple of the names involved Kimchi and other random things.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. It was exciting watching her open all the presents and see here reaction because Koreans don’t have baby showers. They have some sort of a celebration about 6 months after the child is born to celebrate the fact that the baby survived the hardest time. This is due to the history of high mortality rates among Korean babies.

But it was fun, and I would definitely go to one again, and in some ways it made me excited to have kids sometime in the not too distant future.

Teacher’s meeting in Gwangju

November 21, 2008

We got almost a free day off the other day in order to go to a huge teacher’s meeting in Gwangju. Everyone was required to go, so all of the schools had to allow all of us to have at least part of Friday off, but most of us got the whole day off. They split the meeting into two halves, one three-hour meeting starting at 9 am for the Elementary teachers, and one three-hour meeting starting at 1 pm for the Primary, or middle and high school teachers.

Since I am Elementary, and it takes about an hour to take the bus from Mokpo to Gwangju, Cody and I decided to head out to Gwangju the night before so that we could hang out with other people who got there early, and have a better chance at a cheap room at The Windmill Motel there. The Windmill is a really nice Love motel (and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that means, like what a cheap Motel 6 is used for, but way nicer) that all the Waygooks (Foreigners) use when they stay in Gwangju because it’s kept really clean and many of the rooms have nice showers or bathtubs, and it’s also central to where we like to shop and eat there.

When we arrived, we went and had some really good marinated pork Galbi (Galbi is either grilled or pan-fried meat, either alone or with veggies, served with rice and typically wrapped in Lettuce leaves). We then had a few drinks, but called it a night relatively early due to the meeting the next day.

The meeting itself was fairly unproductive. It gave us some ideas of games for the classroom and discipline, but otherwise it was a run of the mill meeting where they served bad coffee, green tea, and a ton of mandarin oranges.

After the meeting, the organizers gave each of us “lunch” which consisted of a heavily-frosted doughnut, and one piece of “vegetarian” pizza toast. First, what they consider as pizza in this case consists of cheese, and a ton of mayonnaise and ketchup piled on top, with a piece of ham shoved in the middle. For some reason, Koreans don’t consider ham as a meat, so they threw some in the pizza toast as sevice-eu. Korean seems to like service-eu, and usually I do too, because it means you get extras thrown into your purchase all the time, but in this case it was not wanted.

After the meeting, we spent the next two night partying with friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, going to a friend’s surprise party, and shopping. I was able to pick up some Christmas presents and have an all around great time.

Iro English Festival

November 20, 2008

So, about a week after the school festival ended, my co-teachers informed me that they were starting their planning and preparing for the school English Festival. This interested me a little bit as I saw how much effort they out into the school festival. They even asked me to put together some simple true and false questions that they could ask the kids and the kids could earn prizes. That was all they asked me to do, and my co-teachers would take care of the rest.

Well, the day of the festival pulled around, and classes were canceled for the festival. I was called down to one of three installments of it (since the auditorium is not big enough for the whole school). About 10 minutes into the 1-2nd grade presentations, Eun-su came and told me that they didn’t need me for the game questions I prepared, and I could leave, which I did, because the 1st and 2nd graders were only doing ABC and number songs.

After being at my desk for another hour or so, I was again informed, last minute that I was not needed at the 3rd and 4th grade performances. I decided not to go because I had already heard these kids sing their “Bingo” and “Mr. Sun” Songs.

Later, I wasn’t informed until last minute that the 5th and 6th graders were performing. I was rushed over, and had to sit and watch some very interesting interpretations of some American dancing and some classes attempting to sing songs like “Because of You” by Kelli Clarkson. I was forced to hide in a side room during the last two songs, and then I was whisked out as a surprise for the game. I then had to read the questions I had prepared, some which had been changed or added by my co-teachers, because they thought mine weren’t as good.

Finally the whole, annoying, let-down of a festival was over. It turned out to be a slightly offensive, thrown together, boring event, which was supposedly for me, but they didn’t care if I was there or not.

Ah well. That’s Korea for you.

First Snow In Mokpo!

November 18, 2008

We saw the first snow in Mokpo today! It was pretty cool, but it wasn’t very heavy and it really didn’t last very long, but it was still pretty. It was also a surprise since it’s so early and no one freaked out here at all, not like they would have back home.

Being filmed for TV

November 10, 2008
Yesterday Cody and I were filmed for a Korean TV show called Mat Jang. Well, first of all, Cody and I technically lost. We only officially won one challenge, and that was reciting a Korean poem correctly. We were originally supposed to memorize it, which we pretty much had down, but Abby and I convinced them that if pronunciation was the most important, then they should let us read from our notes.

Here's pretty much the breakdown:We left MBC at 7:30 ish and drove about an hour or so into the country to a small town where a famous Korean Poet lived and his house still is as a historical tour estate. It was very pretty with thatched roofs and a giant bamboo forest behind it. Here, we find out we are supposed to memorize a famous poem and recite it later. We have a teacher recite it 4x for us (at normal speed, not slow at all).

After that we has to walk to the bus terminal and find people along the way and in the terminal who weren't afraid of the weird waygooks to help us with our pronunciation. This was really hard as sometimes two people wouldn't agree on the word to use or pronunciation.

By 10:20 we hopped on a bus which took us out to a traditional Korean Tomb site where Anny and I had to sit out and watch Cody and Jason take part in the Men-only ceremony with wine and "dried" (Read: rotten/moldy) persimmons and rancid pig meat (they luckily avoided the meat). While they were doing this Abby and I practiced our parts of the poems, gaining the assistance of the Adjimas there in their traditional dresses. At this point is when we prevailed upon the director to let us read our notes, so that at least half of the poem might be said right.

After about 45 minutes of sitting there (and being asked if it was unfair that we couldn't participate and if we had any ceremonies for the dead back home), we joined the men and recited the poems. After some confused voting it was decided that Cody and I won that challenge (not that we could tell why). We then joined the men for food and soju (although the Soju wasn't really offered to Abby or I). We started to get the feeling that this show's theme was supposed to be waygook women feeling left out In Korean culture.

Post lunch we headed down to our next challenge, which was clam-digging. Let me tell you, it was the worst thing ever. First, they gave us special Adjima pants to dig in, which did not work AT ALL because they were too small for all of us except for Abby. I could barely kneel down or bend over, and when I did, the pants exposed A LOT of my back area (very lady-like I'm sure). Also, both couples were supposed to dig together, but because they didn't have big enough shoes for all of our feet, it ended up being only Abby and I digging because I had to take Jason's boots, and Cody couldn't wear them at all. Cody was filmed ranting at them for it, which I am proud of him for defending us.

Anyway, so because of wardrobe problems, it ended up being Abby and I going out into the rock and shell-thick mud to dig for clams with the Adjimas. It should have been fun, but at least for me it wasn't because I could not bend over for really any length of time because my ankles and knees protested due to the usual problems and the ankles of the too-short pants and the too-small top of the boots cutting off the circulation around my mid-calf area, plus the pants trying to show off b\my butt and threatening to tear in one place or another. They had to finally give me a blanket to wrap around myself because my pants kept trying to make me moon the camera.

Well, basically they were supposed to give us an hour to dig, but they didn't apparently. Cody said they only gave us 40 minutes or so total, and the last 15 they had Abby and I dig in this small area together. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing/looking for because my Adjimas didn't really show me and clamming here is WAY different from clamming I have dome back home. Well, Abby and I soon ditched the tools in favor of trying to scrape away all the empty shells, rocks, and mud with our hands, which worked for awhile, but I soon realized that the clam shells had sliced through the cloves I had and has sliced up my fingers, which were now bleeding and covered in mud.

Well, I worked through all my issues and I don't think I did too badly, but whether is was luck, problems, Adjimas that don't follow rules, or Abby being better than me, we publicly lost that challenge. We decided to make it a tie because non-publicly though because the Adjimas couldn't control their helping us too much. Oh well. My legs and fingers hurt really bad today because of THAT whole fiasco.

The next challenge was for the men only, which was shucking the clams. Before yesterday I would have never thought about being able to shuck a clam, but it can be done. After a short practice Cody and Jason got approximately 30 minutes to shuck as many clams as they could, and they pretty much stayed neck and neck the whole time. Jason beat Cody this time by only 4.5 grams of clam, and they were both freezing and smelling of clam by the end.

Finally, we had the cooking competition. They showed us how to make a clam-sushi type salad and a clam-pancake thing and we all took detailed notes. Again, we pretty much stayed neck and neck for the whole thing, but Cody and I did finish the sushi salad a bit quicker so we had more time to decorate our plates. We both had a harder time with the pancakes because the director said they would measure out the exact flour the chef used for the pancakes, that way we only had to worry about water amount.
Well, they did not do what they said. They gave us both way too much four, so we had to guess at how much water and figure out the batter consistency by eye. it was also hard to fry the pancakes to the right color.

Pretty much it came down to the wire on this one. There were 5 judges, one which was like the mayor of the town we were in. All the judges had two votes, but the mayor was given three. they were instructed to vote on whoever had made the best dishes. Unfortunately this made it a little
uneven because they all put in two votes, at that point we were exactly tied.

The mayor had the tie breaking vote, and of course he would be predisposed to putting all the votes on one team, so whoever he preferred would most likely get three votes instead of the possible two.

So, Abby and Jason kicked our butts for Korean television.I have to say this was a fun experience, it just at times seemed unfair and uneven because the planners of the show did not plan the show well enough at all.

I don't mind that Koreans are going to see me and say "Oh she lost" because we were able to have fun together and were often trying to help each other more than we were supposed too. In fact, they kept asking us, "why do you help each other, this is a competition."All four of us left a little frustrated, tired, and I know I was glad for it to be over and done with.

We all won something and it was something we could laugh at and be annoyed about together. I am so happy I was able to do this with Cody, Abby and Jason, and would not have traded to go against anyone else even if I had the choice. I would suggest for anyone else competing to go in with an open mind, patience, and be ready to either defend yourself or the "competition" because they really don't understand foreigners or their needs at all.

In terms of making a korean Tv show, i have learned: Try not to be too competitive, try to help make entertaining TV for them without allowing them to degrade yourself, and do not back down if you have a problem with what they are making you do or say because it goes against what you believe.

I know I whined an complained a bit in this blog, and I know it was a bit long, so I'm sorry, but I hope it entertained you or gave you a good idea of what to expect on the show.

Student car Accident

November 10th, 2008

6th graders are out of school for the week attending English town and my Co-teacher just oh-so-casually told me that one girl was banned today because she pushed another student too hard into the street, thus causing an accident where the student was injured, but not killed.

My co-teacher could not tell me how injured the student was or which teacher is teaching the kids this week, but I am curious for multiple reasons:

~What happened

~How the Student was/is

~How my 6th graders are acting

Of course leave it up to my co-teacher to tell me someone was hurt, while laughing about the situation (ugh!) without any details!

I find this really disgusting and it really upsets me when I witness the types of thing they take seriously and the types of things they don’t in this county!