Journey Journals

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2007-12-13T08:07:00.001-08:00

Wednesday was a bit of a depressing day. I had read online that for flights out of Incheon, you have to book at least 5 days in advance. Since I was planning to leave on Monday, I figured I couldn’t put it off any longer. Since my attempts at booking by myself were proving too expensive, too confusing, and too Korean, I set off to Itaewon to try to find a travel agent.

First, though, I wanted to find somewhere for lunch. My goal for the week was to try to eat a different countries’ food every day (I figured Nepali food might be SLIGHTLY hard to find in Truro). I had heard there was a good Thai restaurant in Itaewon, so I tried to find it. I walked from one end of Itaewon to the other, several times, but with no luck. I did have the good fortune, however, to see a crazy Korean lady, wrapped in the American flag, walking up and down the streets shouting all crazy. Good times.

Anyway, eventually I found a different Thai Restaurant, and I figured I’d give it a try. I pretty quickly regretted going in, because I was the only person. In the entire restaurant. OMG awkward. I didn’t even enjoy the food, really, because I was trying to hard to get out of there. Plus they charged me tax! The only place in Korea to charge tax is stupid Buddha’s Belly. Not a fan, I guess is what I’m saying.

En route to finding a travel agent, I unwittingly walked up what I now know is “Hooker Hill.” I was just trundling along, minding my own Ps and Qs, when the door of Peach Phuzz – which I’m sure a very reputable establishment – pops open. This lady with a sequined dress and big boots comes out, “Hello sir! Come in! Come in for one beer!” I’m still unawares at this point, so I just smile, “No thanks!” and keep walking up the hill. Well, the second I pass Peach Phuzz, the next door, to a place called “ing” opens. “Hello Sir! Please come in, I want to show you something!” “Yeah. No. Definitely not.” I pick up the pace. Maybe I’m a little weirded out. I pass ing, and approach the door to “Nymph.” I maybe should’ve been expecting something, since the last two doors were the same… and the third door was called Nymph. “Hello! Would you like to come in? Please come in for a beer!”

Anyway…

I found the travel agent, Unique Travel Travel Boutique. Kimberley hooked me up with a ticket home. To drown my sorrows about leaving, I went to the Starbucks around the corner for a Christmas Latte. And a nap. Yup, I definitely fell asleep in the Starbucks… For an hour and a half. Oops.

"This is called the peace bell... It doesn't work"

2007-12-13T05:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday! Ugh. Earliest morning. I had to get up at 6:30 for my meeting at 7:10 for the DMZ Tour! I met the tourguide at the Lotte Hotel, and we headed off. They told me the night before, when I confirmed the tour, that it was still available, eve though I was the only person. Oh my. This would be awkward. Luckily, there were 7 other people on the tour. Apparently they all booked between 8pm one day and 7am the next?
The drive to the DMZ takes about an hour, and on the way the guide told us about the history of the Koreas, and the DMZ itself. After every sentence, she asked, “Do you understand?” When we got there, our first stop was some bridge. I wasn’t listening. But next, we had to go into the military area, and a soldier with a big gun got on the bus to check our passports, and our tour guide STOOD BEHIND HIM STROKING IT! I was a little bit scared he was going to freak out and shoot us.
Next we went to the infiltration tunnel, which was pretty cool. North Koreans dug these tunnels from North Korea into South Korea, and they could move 30,000 troops through them in an hour. Unfortunately, they were “Korean-sized,” as our tour guide put it, which means that they come about to my chin. I had to walk through the whole thing hunched over, while old ladies laughed at me. We got helmets, and by the time we got back to the top, my helmet was all scraped to hell from me hitting it against the rock top of the tunnel. We also watched a hilarious propaganda video about “freedom fighters” and “communists.”
Next, we went to the Dora Observatory, which gives us our only view of the actual DMZ. The De-Militarized Zone is 2 km on either side of the border between North and SouthWe could see the two villages: South Korea’s is called Freedom Village, and North Korea’s is called Propaganda Village. Guess who named them? No one actually lives in Propaganda Village, but they have a staff who turn lights on and off in the buildings, to make it seem inhabited. Also found in the DMZ is the world’s largest flagpole. South Korea built a flagpole to show their national pride, or what have you. North Korea built a BIGGER one, just because they could.
Our last stop was Dorasan station. It’s this fake train station that’s “not the last stop in South Korea, but the first stop to North Korea”… Except for no trains actually go to North Korea. Nevertheless, you can get a stamp in your passport saying you’ve been to North Korea. On the drive home, the tour guide talked to all the people on the bus. There were two people from Denmark who have already been traveling for 2 months, and they’re not going home until April! They’d already done Russia, Mongolia, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Seoul, and they were going to do Tokyo, Honolulu, and then drive around the US for 2 months. Must be nice!
When we got back from the DMZ, I tried attempt #2 of the van Gogh exhibit. I even got in this time! None of his really famous paintings were there, but it was cool to even see not famous paintings by a famous painter. Oddly enough, though, the best thing I saw in the gallery was by a Korean artist. After here, I walked through Namdaemun Market, which gets more cracked out than I even thought possible for Christmas. Every vendor, for some reason, has life sized dancing Santas. In a place where its already hard to move for all the people, adding hundreds and hundreds of Santas does NOT help the matter.

My last stop of the day was going to be “Ballerina who Loves a B-Boy,” a dance show near Hongdae. Alas, it was cancelled, so I just browsed my way through Hongdae’s awesome stores (and to the Coffee Bean), and went home.

There are 5 letters in Nepali

2007-12-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

Monday started with several failed attempts at culture. I went to the City Hall station, and trundled around until I found the Seoul Museum of Art, which is hosting a van Gogh retrospective. I found it, eventually, but it was closed. I headed back to the station, and then out the other way to the Rodin Museum. Closed.

I was getting hungry anyway, so I headed to Dongmyo, because I’d seen a sign in the subway for Himalayan food, which sounded interesting. I didn’t even know what Himalayan food would be (yak? Sherpa??), so I thought I would give it a try. I know it was at Exit 8, so I exited and started walking. I got to the next station, and I hadn’t seen it, so I went back to the station, and tried the other way. Nothing. Back to the station. Tried the third direction. Nope. Back to the station, fourth try. Still Nothing. That’s weird. So I walked back to the station one last time, dejected.

Just when I was arriving at the station, I looked up above Exit 8, and there it was, big as life, literally ON exit 8. Which explains why I didn’t see it. So, I go down into the station, as to cross the street. I trundle over and back up the 12 million (or so) stairs, and somehow come up again on the wrong side of the street! Anyway, I eventually made it to the restaurant, and it was pretty awesome. I had this spicy dried lamb dish, and vegetable fritters and bread. Plus it came with all this fancily-shaped vegetables, and milk tea. It was all pretty delicious.

Back on to the subway next, and toward Yeouiaru, for a cruise of the Han River. I found the dock well enough, and got my ticket. She told me Dock A, Gate 1, so I headed off, but I found that Gate 1 was the wrong boat. So I found some guys and asked if they knew. They said they were going on the same cruise, so I followed the around, but they had no idea where they were going. I found a lady and asked her, and she just shouted “Go! Go!” So I asked one last person, and he took my ticket and ran away. I followed him, but he told me I was going the wrong way. Anyhoo, I found it, and when I got on there were a total of 2 other people on board. Then the 2 lost guys got on, so a whopping 5 of us enjoyed the cruise.

There were some guys windsailing on the river (in December, brrr), but otherwise not much to see. The coasts of the river are fairly ugly. You can easily tell which side is which though. My side has lots of little dirty hovels, and looks pretty ghetto. BBro and Kendra’s side, meanwhile, has lots of tall skyscrapers and big, clean office buildings.

My side:

Their side:
Wherever the cruise dropped us off, I started walking. I was just going to head to the nearest subway station, but I saw signs for Samseong, so I went to COEX instead. I was going to go to the kimchi museum, I figured it would be good for a laugh, but it too was closed. Apparently the only day EVER that things in Korea are closed are the day I try to do them. I wandered around the mall instead, and then went to meet BBro and Kendra for dinner.

Headline: White Man Confused by Giant Sojus

2007-12-13T05:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning, I woke up at the crack, and headed off for Korean class. We learned how to say pervert, ghost, and gangster, and how to ask what Korean words mean in English, and vice versa. After class, our group, and the advanced group and the teachers all went off for lunch together. Note: if something is listed on the menu as “pizza” anything, it just means it has cheese on it.

After lunch, Daniel, the minister of the church from whom we’re ripping off Korean lessons came and took us to the Changgyeonggung palace, near Hyehwa. We saw all the sights, including the flagpole that is a national treasure, and the place where they buried the prince’s placenta and umbilical cord. Also of note: at one point Japan totally pwned the palace, and they turned it into a zoo, just because they hated the Koreans and they wanted to degrade them. You sure showed them...

After the palace, BBRO and I headed off to meet Kendra – finally, a week after she’s been here. She lives at Cheonho, on the purple line, and both her school and her apartment are amazing. Avalon is definitely no YBM, we’ll say that… We met some of the teachers from Kendra’s school, and all of us went to Hongdae to a concert supporting AIDS. The music was fairly horrible, but the drinks were cheap, so it didn’t much matter.

Kendra's School:

My School:

After a few hours, we went back to Kendra’s building, and there’s a noraebang IN the building! We went there for a few hours, and sang lots of jams. At one point, one of the guys left for a smoke, and came back with a middle-aged Korean man, who apparently lives in the building. He sang a song in Korean. It was utterly bizarre, and amazing. Then, Mr. Kim (I don’t know what his actual name is, but odds are--) left. About 10 minutes later, he came back, and started taking beers out of his jacket pocket. Somehow he had 7 huge beers in there. He was awesome…

---

Sunday was meant to be an extra-exciting day, and we had lots planned, but it turns out that after out night of noraebanging, that we were all a little tired, so we didn’t even get on the road until about 2:30. Since we couldn’t find the sex museum, which was our original plan, we headed to Itaewon for some shopping. The first person we saw there was one of the guys from Kendra's school, who is also (by the way) our new arch nemesis.

Afterwards, we headed back to Cheyongyangni for dinner, but both of our “places” were closed. So we got some sort of spicy soup. It was the first time for Kendra to eat sitting on the floor, her first kimchi, and her first try with chopsticks, so it was pretty entertaining.

Lastly, we went back to Hyehwa, because on our journeys through the day before, we found an Iceberry, which we can clearly never resist. On our trek back to the subway, there were these 5 guys dressed as huge bottles of soju. There was a lady from some news thing too, who was trying SO hard to get a picture of me with them.

NoraeBang

2007-11-25T08:08:00.001-08:00

Remember that part of Lost in Translation where they go to that Karaoke Bar, but its just them in a room by themselves, and it looks totally awesome and fun? BBro and I totally did it the other day! In Korea it’s called Noraebang/노래방 (norae [노래]= song, bang [방] = room), and it’s literally everywhere, but somehow I’d managed to avoid doing it so far.

Now that I have though, it’s pretty much my favorite thing. You get your own room, and microphones and video screen. The videos that it plays along with the songs seem to be, without fail, Korean War re-enactments.

The selection is particularly varied, and often rather strange. Koreans have interesting tastes when it comes to American music, as I’ve come to realize from hearing what they think are “hits.” Our awesome tracklist included:

Kelly Clarkson - Behind These Hazel Eyes
Almost Paradise from Footloose (!!)
Listen from Dreamgirls
Beyonce - Irreplaceable
Spice Girls - Stop
Boy George - Karma Chameleon (BBro solo…)
ABBA - Gimme Gimme Gimme
Summer Lovin’ from Grease
Eminem - Stan
Wig in a Box from Hedwig
Breakin’ Free from High School Musical
Fame from… Fame
Blondie - One Way or Another
Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel
Ace of Base - All That She Wants

Clearly they LOVE musicals here. And trashy 80s and 90s. Luckily, so do BBro and I, pretty hardcore, so we’ll most likely be back. Soon.

Teachers' Banquet

2007-11-21T06:21:00.001-08:00

To honor the teachers at ECCs, YBM hosted a Teacher’s Banquet at the Grand Hyatt on November 18th. The term “honor” applied rather loosely, since we still had to pay to attend. Maybe “gather” would be more appropriate. Shockingly, Bree Teacher and I managed to find it without too much trouble at all (in that Grand Hyatt means the same thing in English as in Korean, and we were practically almost to it when we got in a taxi. Nonetheless--). It was actually QUITE a nice hotel, and they had it all pimped out for us, with ECC-themed ice sculpture and all. I’m not quite sure what purpose it served, but still.

I found our table on the map (in the back row, of course; it could only be expected), Korean teachers are at #94, and foreign teachers at #95 with 4 teachers from another school. So I trundle over, and of course see the Korean teachers and Shaun sitting at #96. They beckon me over, so I sit with them, even though it’s not our table; which I tell them. But no one seems to care.

Until a girl comes over and tells us that we’re sitting at their table “but it’s ok.” Which it’s clearly not, so I move. But Shaun doesn’t, which makes me seem incredibly awkward, and like I don’t want to sit with the Korean teachers (I was beside Henna, but still--). Eventually he came and joined the foreign teachers’ table, though. Soon after, Sunny, the manager, brought us wine, which divided amongst all the teachers didn’t amount to much.

Ryan and Brendan decided that we needed more wine, so they went to the store conveniently located next door, and bought quite possibly the world’s worst wine (although I’ve yet to try the traditional Baby Mouse Wine, which adds to the fermenting process… Yeah. Baby mice). This wine was only for the foreign teachers, but it still got gone pretty fast. As did the two bottles they brought with dinner.

Luckily, the guy who sat at our table, who we called Mr. Kim (because, odds are, that actually IS his name) seemed to have some sort of connection to the waiter got us two more bottles of wine. And then what they told us was our “last bottle.” And then two more. (Meanwhile, at Bree Teacher’s table, her teachers were drinking the dregs from other schools’ bottles, and eating their leftover desserts. Classy).

The entertainment for the night included a “talent” (again, used loosely) show put on my some teachers from various ECCs, as well as singing, a magic show, and an amazing a capella group, who sang and beatboxed everything from Korean jamz to Hanson’s Mmmbop. After there, as is quickly becoming ubiquitous in Korea, there were B-Boys.

For some reason, I decided I wanted to walk part of the way home, on account of I have no idea where I was, and had never been there before. So, I took my YBM-emblazoned thermos, and headed out the door. I strolled around the city for a while, until I found a subway, and then I rode the rest of the way home

More Than Imagine

2007-11-21T06:20:00.005-08:00

November 17th brought another in a long series of unexpected weird experiences. I was invited by one of the Korean teachers, Grace, to go to her church to see her dance. I was happy to go to support her, not so much for her plan to “introduce” us to “Jesus.” It was all part of this show that her cul---sorry, church was putting on called “More than Imagine.”

I got on the bus to church (after an ordeal which had me going to school on a Saturday afternoon to get my map), and I found the stop well enough, but I was rather struggling to find the church, as the map was rather not to scale. Luckily, I happened to look up, and saw the GIANT neon orange cross glowing high above me. Just like Jesus’ one did, I’m sure.

I arrive, and find Grace Teacher, and she introduces me to her friends, who all just giggle, because I’m white, I guess, and people still find it funny. One of her friends leans in to Grace, and doesn’t even bother to whisper “Is he Christian?” Uh… Was that supposed to be in Korean or something? Because those words are English. And I’m sitting right here, and can clearly hear and understand you.

Anyway…

So “More than Imagine” itself was… Interesting, let’s say. I wouldn’t have really gotten that it was religious, if it hadn’t been in a church. The reasons were severalfold:
-The place is lit like a disco club. Even the minister guy who prayed (or whatever, I couldn’t understand it, clearly) had psychedelic lights going on behind him.
-The house band (???) actually kinda rocked out.
-But mostly… There were B-Boys (WTF!!???)

It was a fine enough night. The best part was that, whenever anyone brings a newcomer to the church, they get money to take that newcomer out to dinner. And I was that newcomer! Score!!

Happy Pepero Day

2007-11-21T06:20:00.003-08:00

November 11th is a special holiday in Korea (it was a Sunday, but it’s not the kind of holiday that we would have gotten off work, anyway). In Canada and America, we have Remembrance Day and Veteran’s Day, respectively, on November 11th. As patriotic North Americans, we remember war heroes, and those who risked and lost their lives for the betterment of ours. In Korea, they celebrate….

The Pepero.

A pepero is a (admittedly, rather delicious) long cookie stick, dipped in chocolate, similar to the Pocky of Japan, and otherwhere. It’s sort of like Korea’s version of Valentine’s day, in that you give Peperos to those you are fond of, and it has no particularly imminent need to be celebrated, and was conceived and sponsored entire by a company (Lotte, who owns the Pepero name, and just about everything else in Korea).

For the weeks leading up to Pepero Day, every store that sells them makes THE MOST intense displays of Peperos. Giant sculptures made out of boxes of Peperos in the shapes of hearts and arrows, and Xs and Os, and things of that nature. They have balloons all throughout the store, and more Peperos than you can shake a (chocolate-covered) stick at.

My favorite part of the whole deal is the reasoning behind the holiday. Apparently, it was chosen to be on November 11th, because if you sort of think about it, 11/11 looks vaguely like some sticks, and Pepero means “thin like a stick.” Man. Whoever came up with this holiday is a marketing GENIUS.

THE BEYONCE EXPERIENCE

2007-11-21T06:20:00.001-08:00

November 10, 2007.

Olympic Stadium, Seoul.

BEYONCE LIVE IN CONERT!!!!

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg

THE Beyonce graced Seoul with her presence for the first time ever (same weekend as Paris Hilton, nonetheless!), and I was there to experience it. And shout myself hoarse. In the weeks leading up to the night in question, I mocked the Yonce slightly “Yeah, I’m going to Beyonce, should be good for a laugh.” That kind of thing. Little did I know that it would pretty much be the best things I’ve ever seen in my life.

BBro and I arrived at the stadium good and early. Got our tickets. Got our glowsticks (they’re actually SuperJunior [a Korean boyband] glowsticks, but in our ecstacy, we didn’t notice, or care). Got in line. We saw the security guards searching people’s bags, and confiscating cameras, so I told BBro to hide hers in her pocket. Even though there were signs that said NO PICTURES, and angry security guards shining flashlights at people, we clearly weren’t going to NOT take pictures.

But before B even got on stage, there were photo opportunities galore! There were literally thousands of people out of their seats and surrounding this person. We thought they were looking at someone different than they actually were, and we were SO SURE that it was Paris Hilton. But alas, no.

But then finally—

BEYONCE!

Can I just say… I’m not her biggest fan by any means. But that lady can SING. She came on stage all slowly, dramatically, smokily, and then all this fire exploded behind her, and she started singing [Crazy In Love, probably my favorite jam of hers] and I started smiling, and neither of us stopped until 2 hours later.

And who knew, that I knew pretty much all of her songs, and especially the Destiny’s Child ones. Mind you, I don’t really know and of the words to her songs, as evidenced of the videos BBro has of Beyonce, with me shouting along in the background

TO THE LEFT!! TO THE LEFT!! DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA!! BAAAAAAAAAAAABYYYYYY!!!

As evidenced hither, in my duet with Beyonce:

To contrast the fabulosity of Beyonce, we sat quite near a lady who, I’m still convinced, was Dame Judy Dench. I thought she seemed a little out of place, but you better believe that when Beyonce told all her Independent Women (part 1) to throw their hands up in the air, you better believe Dame Judy was waving them like she just didn’t care!

Beyonce’s band is all women, and they’re called Suga Mama, and they’re pretty much the best band I’ve ever heard. They totally pwned the stage. Ditto for her dancers. Ditto for everything about the show, really. Apparently I’m a big Beyonce fan, after all.

November 9/10

2007-11-21T06:19:00.001-08:00

On the morning of November 10th, we had a training session at the Hyundae Department Store (of all places). As opposed to the other training session that I went to which was given by YBM, this one is, supposedly, sponsored by the city of Seoul. Therefore, allegedly, every foreign English teacher in the city is supposed to go. Now, clearly, there is no department store in the city big enough to hold all the foreign teachers, so there seemed to be some sort of selection process, whereby the directors who don’t think highly of their staffs send them. Naturally, my school had to go. We were even told, “You don’t have to stay, but you have to be there to register.”

Normally, I’d think this is a great idea, only it starts early in the morning, and it’s about an hour and a half subway ride away. All the teachers who live in my building (plus Naomi’s friend Cindy, who stayed the weekend with her) arranged beforehand to take a taxi there, so we could have those precious extra minutes of sleep.

That was the plan, anyway. Sleep didn’t really happen, though, because as a precursor to the excitement that the training was sure to bring, we had a night out. Now, I haven’t really been feeling the club scene in Korea, mostly because the clubs I’ve been to had been…well… rather terrifying. Some names? Club Drug. Skunk Hell. ‘Nuff said. But I finally allowed myself to be persuaded to try again, so we went to TinPan (#2. Which apparently better than the original, across the street).

So, it was because of this night out that Naomi and Cindy and I didn’t sleep. We went home, though, to get the other teachers and to find our cab. At this point, apparently, Cindy is still feeling the effects of her virgin daiquiris, because she goes up to Brendan’s apartment, and strolls right in (even though she’s never met him before). He’s still in bed, so he’s none too pleased.

The rest of the day was fairly dry, as might be expected. The lowest point is, perhaps, the Korean band that covers Green Day songs. So loudly. So badly. So Koreanly. After this, and a debacle which revealed our “free lunch ticket” as a scam by the event co-ordinators, we headed home in a taxi (which took the longest 90 minutes of my life). I changed my clothes, and went out in ANOTHER taxi for a job interview. Then went home and changed again for-----------------------

[I realize that the upside-down nature of the blog puts the next post above, and not below, and will ruin this dramatic tension, but it IS the next event chronologically…]

M/W/F Classes

2007-11-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

This class is the Orange Kindy class. They’re 7, and it’s their 3rd year at ECC, so they’re the oldest, and the smartest Kindy class. It’s pretty fun to teach them, because even though they’re younger than the “normal” class kids, they’re way ahead of a lot of them, so they can talk to me pretty easily. Well… Some of them. We’ve got Amy, Andy, Eric, Paul, John, and Donny (who wears a Tshirt that says I <3 JESUS. With tights).

Another Playground 3 class. Ehh, these ones aren’t particularly interesting. Becky, [a little bit of Dennis’ arm and head], Annie, Justin, Adam J (for some reason he gets a last name. Or at least initial), Jack, Harry, Jenny, Kate, and John.

This is my biggest class Playground 2. It has 12 kids. And they like to change their names a lot in this one, so it sometimes makes it hard to keep track of them: Esther, Ginny, Sen, Wendy, Ryan, Julia, Eva, Sarah, Kyle, Danny, Tom.

This Playground 3 class… Sometimes I love them to death, sometimes I just want them to be dead. The two smartest girls moved up a level, and 2 more girls dropped out, so now it’s just 1 boy and 6 boys (2 of whom tend to come about 40 minutes late for a 50 minute class). It’s a rare event to get them all in class on the same day, so here we’ve got Kristine, Kristi, Jenny, Julie, Bruno, Brian, Sean, and Danny (who, the other day started singing Britney Spears’ “Lucky,” out of the blue, but has also been known to sing Mozart’s “Magic Flute” … He’s an interesting chap.

This Carnival 6 class is one of my favorites, even though the majority of the kids are sort of jackasses. The ones that I like seem to make up for them though. They’re favorite pastime is turning their eyelids inside out, which is super gross. And two of them are twins, which is difficult. Anyhoo, they’re Sean, Tommy (the ghost mask fellow), Jimmy, James (aka Highlights), Mike (aka Thing 1), Mark (aka Thing 2), Jenny, Lucy.

I also teach 3 Academy classes on M/W/F, but they're angsty teenage types who weren't so willing to have their pictures taken...

T/T Classes

2007-11-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

This is the Brown Kindergarten class. They’re six in Korean years (which is English years is…. ??????? Why do they have different years anyway? Oh. Probably because they ate all the dogs, so they needed to put dog years somewhere). They are (L->R) Cindy, Kevin, Jade, Paul (who likes to hug me, but whose head falls exactly at bum/nads level, and who one day but his hands on his hips and announced “Whew! I’m fat!”), Alex, Lusia (who neither Naomi or I have heard talk – and between the two of us, we teach them 17 classes a week, I think), Lisa (who lives with her grandmother and has the most cracked out wardrobe ever – Barbie princess costume one day, bizarre grandma autumn dress the next… But only ever one shoelace), and Judy.

This is probably my least favorite class of them all. There was only one person I liked, but a girl from another one of my classes switched into this one, so now there are two. We’ve got (L->R) Jane, Big Sally (the one that I like), Amy, Annie, Kelly, Tom, Small Sally (and yes, Big Sally and Small Sally are they’re “official” English names, that’s what they’re registered as).

Wake Up 6B. This class I had so much trouble with that one time Henna made the bad kid bring ice cream to the good kids and me. Of whom there were 2. Now there are 3 good kids, though. We’ve got Emily (the only one who is actually smart), Paul, David, Jeremy, Jake, and Chris.

Playground 2. This is one of the smartest classes I have, and for some reason they move through the books at a snail’s pace. Playground 2, which is supposed to take 1 month, has taken them 3. Which is not pleasant for me. (L->R) John, Tim, Jane, Angela, Jay, Sally, Sue, Chris (who was registered one session as Christ, which has since provided me with quite a lot of glee… and made her hate me).

This class is Wake Up 3B. Yeah, they’re cute (whatev.), but they’re incredibly hard to deal with. We’ve got (L->R) Carl (the one with that mask on… he’s new), Andy, Jeth (who wears Uggs every day), Judy, Sally B, Sally A, Kevin (who, when we got another Kevin, told me he changed his name to Madonna Jackson), Laura (Kevin’s sister), and Helen.

And then there is probably the least interesting 40 minutes of my week. A 1:1 class with John. Who came half an hour late, even though all the other teachers are gone before this 1:1 starts (at it's regular time)... At least his mom brought me a sandwich...

Halloween at ECC

2007-10-31T08:09:00.007-07:00

Ahh, ECC. It rarely gets a mention round these pages, and it barely deserves this one. But the peculiarities that emerge as we approach Halloween deserve at least a few words.

The decorations that the Korean kindy teachers put up around the school are INTENSE. There are about 12000 paper bats in the hallways, and sundry pumpkins, ghosts, vampires, and what-have-yous. There is also a giant poster of some red fellow (who I tell the kids looks “just like my Dad”), which stretches across one hallway, forcing me (and only me, of course) to duck under it every time I want to go down the hallway. Approximately 40 times a day.

These are my beloved foreign co-teachers. Their costumes are much more intense than mine was, because they all have kindy homerooms, whereas I only have one kindy class per day (and I teach Academy classes instead). They are
THE NINJA: Naomi
THE SOVIET: Danny
THE (HOOKER?): Amber
THE VAMPIRE: Brendan
THE SKELETON: Shaun
There’s also Ryan Teacher, but he’s not in this picture for some reason…

This is one of the classrooms’ Halloween decorations. I don’t have much to say about it, but its just too creepy not to include.

Halloween/Shopping

2007-10-31T08:09:00.001-07:00

I don’t particularly like Halloween.

For the most part, I think it’s a holiday that people should have grown out of by the age of twelve or so. Sure, I like candy as much as the next person (clearly), especially free candy, but dressing in ridiculous costumes and making an ass of myself is another matter. Dressing in costume can be fun if you’re going to a party, or something, where the general public won’t see you. Walking around the street of Seoul, however, getting in my way, and being generally annoying… Well, that makes me hate you.

What makes matters worse, is that the Korean people don’t, as a whole, celebrate Halloween. Some kids do, and the occasional other person does, but on the Saturday before Halloween, the only dumbasses I see in costumes are foreigners, who strut around in their wigs, and give the rest of us foreigners bad names. We get started at enough, as it is, people. Leave it alone.

So, on this aforementioned Saturday-before-Halloween, rather than wearing a stupid costume and hanging out with other ridiculously-attired people, I went shopping (!!holla). My haggling, as yet, had been fairly weak, so I wanted to brush up my skillz. I walked up and down the main street in Itaewon a good half dozen times, scoping out what I wanted to by, but mostly because I was terrified about trying to buy from someone.

My first attempt: a scarf. He tells me they’re 30000W, and I tell him I can get the same thing in Insa Dong for 10000 (which is almost the truth). His friend rushes over and tells me he meant 8000 (haha, BUSTED). I offer 5000. I think in the end I got it for 7000. Not a bad start. Next stop, Dolce & Gabanna hoodie (yes please). The only slipup here is that while I was pretending to browse, even though I knew exactly what I wanted, she tells me “Ladies. Ladies” … “Goddamn, just give me the sweater.”

Now, the thing about Koreans, as I may have mentioned several dozen times, is that they’re about 1/8th my size. So whenever I look somewhere that sells clothes, belts, etc., the angry ladies who sell them say “Very big! Extra large!” I, meanwhile, grumble “I hate you” I’m glad they don’t understand. Even so, I managed to get a belt, a hat, a scarf, and a sweater. To celebrate my successful evening, and to drown my sorrows about being bigger than the Koreans, I had a praline ice blended from the Bean.

…With whipped cream.

HAPPY WADDING

2007-10-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 20 I was (for some reason) invited to the wedding of one of my Korean co-teachers, Ally. Her wedding was in Incheon, which is about two hours away from Seoul by subway. I had planned to meet Naomi Teacher at the subway station and travel to Incheon with her, but she decided not to come and not tell me. Luckily, three of the other teachers from school came through the station while I was waiting there (which was good luck, since I had no idea where to go).

Our ride to Incheon was interesting. It’s the last stop on the longest line, so we were on for quite a while, but we weren’t without entertainment. We met a very very drunk fellow, who we called Mr. Kim (because odds are that actually IS his name). Keep in mind that this is about noon, and that we could smell his boozy breath over everything else in the crowded subway. He kept talking to us, about what I can’t even remember now. At every stop, he would say “This is your stop! Follow me!” We weren’t very smart, we told him where we were going.

After about five attempts by Mr. Kim to get us off the train, we actually did get to where we had to transfer, and you better believe we RAN off that train. We went downstairs and outside to get on our transfer train. When it got there, the doors open and we got on to find, smiling up at us… MR. KIM! Somehow. Eventually, he got off, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

When we got to Incheon, we took a taxi to the wedding hall. It cost about 10 bucks or something. We told this to Grace Teacher, one of the Korean Teachers, and she was so shocked! “The subway is right next door!” We got a little bit lost, I guess. Or they like to rip off white people—

The wedding hall started amazing me even before I went inside. Hanging outside are enormous banners, emblazoned with HAPPY WADDING. Yes, wadding. English clearly isn’t their forte.

The wedding proper was quite an interesting event. It all starts with some flight attendants (???) who lead in the parents of the bride and groom, by ushering them with giant swords they hold in the air. Then the flight attendants walk back down the red carpet, and usher in the groom, and then the bride. Oh, and all of this took place on the top floor of the building, and it has a retractable roof. They couldn’t decide if they wanted an indoor wedding or an outdoor wedding, so they moved the roof back and forth every few minutes.

The guy who was performing the ceremony was a good friend with the groom (whose name is Seoul, by the way, like the city), but he wasn’t very close with Ally. So, he spent some time talking about Seoul (part of which, Grace Teacher translated, was about how his hair is "like cabbage"), and then moved right on to the vows. Without mentioning the bride at all. Then Seoul sang to Ally. Only he’s not a very good singer. And also, it was a duet with another man. Luckily, not a lot of people heard it, because unlike a North American wedding, you sit at a table with other people, and you can just talk to them, and no pay attention to the wedding at all (some people went downstairs to eat during this, because it “gets busy after the wedding”).

Ah, yes. The food. We go downstairs after the ceremony, and into the dining area. You don’t have to wait for the bride and groom, you just go in, eat, and leave. The food was actually pretty amazing. There was rice, soup, salmon, something meaty, something chickeny, something fishy, don’t know, don’t know, some vegetables, don’t know, don’t know, etc. Plus you can just keep eating it, and they’ll keep bringing more. We didn’t though (boo--) since the Korean teachers were waiting to take us to the subway, so that we didn’t get ripped off again – or maybe in case we met Mr. Kim again.

The Mike and the Mia is in the Jew

2007-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Volume 3: Children's Grand Park

Our latest and greatest took us to the Children’s Grand Park near Konkuk (yes, we realize that we’re not children. Or grand. Whatever. We heard there was a dog petting zoo). We met at the park, after I spent about 3 hours on the subway (3 transfers! Ugh!). Directly out of the subway there’s a woman who sells rabbits, chickens, hamsters, mice, etc, etc. She just sits on the ground with cardboard boxes full of animals and sells them to hapless passerbys. Humane? Not really. Legal? Probably not even that.

We directed our attention, however, to the nearby vendors of street meat. We were both on the hungry side, so we tried our luck with one of the ladies. I’ve managed to avoid street meat, except for that one wretched temple corndog, so I was pretty surprised that it was actually sort of good. For something on a stick that you buy from a lady whose neighbor sells boxes of animals.

So we set off exploring the park, and first came to an elephant show (something completely different than the Donkey Show somewhere in Hongdae that I still want to go to--). We paid and went in, and the elephants are RIGHT THERE! You can touch them and everything. Their outfits are pretty lame, but it’s cool that you get so close. The show proper was pretty amazing. The elephants can do all sorts of tricks: some of them kick balls, some throw darts, and two of them even paint!!

Probably the funniest part was when the elephants were twirling a giant jumprope, and this guy from the audience was trying to jump it. It kept smashing him, and he kept falling, and yet he just kept getting up and trying it over and over. He’s either really dedicated, or the elephants whacking him gave him some sort of brain damage.

All was well and good, until… One of the elephant’s tricks is to PRETEND TO DIE. Which is NOT a funny thing to do in a park full of children. It was running across the thing kicking a ball, and it “fell” over and lay in the dirt, not moving. The… uh… cowgirl, who was the hostess, ran off and the music stopped, and literally no one moved or breathed the whole time. Then one of the other elephants came in wearing a giant nurse costume and poked the dead one with a giant syringe. Bree Teacher and I were FREAKING OUT.

After the elephant show, we found the reason we came to the park: the dog zoo. [Sidebar: the real zoo was actually pretty fun, too. They had “kanbgaroos,” “domestic ass,” and a horrible translator]. The dog zoo is basically a pen you pay to go in and see the dogs. Since dogs bigger than toy poodles are generally eaten in Korea, this is one of the few places to see them. Since their entire day consists of getting petted by annoying, sticky children, by the time we got to see the doggies, they were all pretty tired, and didn’t really move much. They did have some killer tattoos, though.

Our next portion of weirdness came courtesy of Anistory (which is quite possible the filthiest unintentionally filthy name I’ve ever heard). It’s an animal show like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere. Or even heard of. Or imagined could exist. The plot, as far as I could tell, went something like this. The giant, strobe-lit evil witch gave a poison apple to someone who looks as close to Snow White as it could get without infringing copyright. Only... You know... Asianer. Also, Snow White trains birds. The only people who could possible save her? Rival seal trainers, of course. They have their seals do tricks to prove who is more manly. One of them rides a tiny horse, and the other got beat up by a monkey in a chicken costume (to the strains of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme), so neither of them, really—

A few elements that I couldn’t fit in anywhere: there were several monkeys wearing costumes. Were they playing monkeys wearing costumes? Or were they playing other animals. Then there were about 100 guinea pigs that ran through a tunnel and were never seen again. And some real pigs ran across the stage, too. Oh, and at the end, to celebrate Snow Beige’s resurrection, one seal played xylophone, and one played bass drum. There’s probably more, but it’s too much to try to explain.

Next (and last) we found a park-within-the-park. With rides! We tried the roller coaster, since it looked remarkably awesome. AND IT WAS. Mostly worth the price of admission just to hear Bree Teacher screaming anytime anything happens. Or just in anticipation of something happening. Totally worth it.

Volume 2

2007-10-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Volume 2: I'll take this 800 pound bag of Kimchi, please.

This weekend’s adventure started with a trip (solo!) to Itaewon, to pick up the suit that I had hand-tailored. Yeah, that’s how I roll. Since I had two Korean weddings to attend in the near future, I wanted to look good, and not show up in the dress clothes that I have worn to work every day for the last four months. And since the tailor wants me to “be his mouth” I feel I should tell everyone:

***If you’re ever in Korea and need a suit tailored, go to Mercury Tailors in Itaewon***

And the suit looks shockingly good, too. Even better than I had hope, and I had pretty high expectations, since it cost several… hundred… thousand… won. Ah, well, you only live once. And I wanted to fit in with al the Korean men in their shiny suits (note: my suit is not silver or shiny. Nor will I ever EVER fit in amongst Koreans).

Anyhoo, the real Bree Teach and J-Bar adventure started a few hours later… With more shopping. We went to all our favorite places to shop: Jonggak for DVDs (where we’re becoming regulars – EVEN THOUGH he doesn’t carry Flicka). Next we went to Dongdaemun Market, because I still don’t have a bag to carry all my junk around, and I was quite sure that there was one I liked when I came my first month (sans money). Alas, when we got to the market, there was no such bag. Much to Bree’s chagrin, since I keep complaining about it. I did, however, find a belt. I was so worried about being able to find one that was big enough (damn these Koreans and their tiny waists), that when I found one that looked big enough I bought it right away. I discovered later what I never would have thought, it’s about 8 inches too big!

The next day, we continued our shopping (with special guest Naomi Teacher) at the COSTCO! Ah, a taste of home. After we botched about 18 applications, mostly by trying to write things in Korean, we got our official Korean Costco membership cards, and started shopping. Costco in Korea is shockingly similar to Costco at home (they even have Kirkland brand!), only, as would be expected, several shades weirder. As is to beckon us to the strange sights, or perhaps to say "This way to bargains!" we saw this fellow on the way. He moved. He's some sort of hand-less traffic robot.

A few more Costco delights:

-Soju in convenient drinkin’ boxes, which we agreed could be interesting, if we took them to the kids at school

-Fish sold, um… By the yard? I don’t know what’s going on here.

-Take special note of the price tags here. Costco Korea is one classy operation.

-And this little number.

Whilst we were checking out, this old Korean man FLIPPED OUT on the Costco staff, screaming and swearing at them. It was really frightening. Then we tried to pay with card, but they only take cash, but since it was the three of us and we each got a lot of stuff, we stood there for like 45 minutes counting out 10000 won bills, since they inexplicably get no larger—

After shopping, Bree Teacher and I went for a dinner that illustrates exactly how awesome I am at Korea. We went for “duck on a leaf” (I don’t even know the name for this one--) near her house. We went through two different waiters trying to order, but eventually got what we wanted (maybe). Whilst we were eating, I had one of the choking attacks I’ve been prone to since the weather’s been changing. This one was so intense that I coughed my contact lens right out. When I went to put it back in, I left (unbeknownst to me) my (metal!!) chopsticks sitting in the fire that was cooking our duck. I came back and lifted the sticks of fire toward my mouth. AND BURNED MY FACE. My lips, top and bottom, both had the hugest blisters I’ve ever seen. It hurt to eat for the rest of the week.

Not that I let it stop me--

OMG! RUN! IT'S THE GWOEMUL!

2007-10-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

Enough time has come and gone since our triumphant return to Korea, that I feel I need to write something about them. Since nothing really happens during the week, and there are no more days off until Christmas Day (boo!), I present the Weekend Adventures of Joshiebar and Bree Teacher… (This happened a good 3 weeks ago, so some details might be a little fuzzy, and it’s probably not-quite-chronologically arranged).

Volume 1: 63 Building

We decided to meet on Yeouido Island, which is in the middle of the Han River, and is the home of the 63 Building, which used to be the tallest building in Asia, but now ranks 3rd in South Korea and 102nd in the world(!!). We assumed that it wouldn’t be too hard to fine, since it’s (allegedly) enormous, and we were on a tiny island in the middle of the river. Boy, were we wrong— We wandered around for a while, first trying to find the shuttle that was supposed to take us to the building, then once we figured we were close enough, the building itself. Somehow, we didn’t see it in the distance, until we were pretty much right under it, and it was right above us. 63 stories above us.

Well… They call it the 63 building, and it does have 63 stories, but 3 of them are underground. Even so, for some reason they call the ground level the first floor, and the top the 63rd. Some went missing on the way up to the top I guess? The dealy that we read advertised 100 stores, or some such. But when we got there, it had (I think) 15? We counted, but I forget now. Needless to say, I was very disappointed on the shopping front. It does, however, have an IMAX, and an aquarium, and several corridors that have light shows for no particular reason.

Our first stop (as it tends to be when Bree Teacher and I rendezvous) was for food. We saw a restaurant called Buffet Pavilion (oh my God yes please), which sounds like pretty much the best place ever, but we decided to save it for another day. We settled instead for the lady who only wanted to sell Bree garlic bread, and sold me some vile sort of risotto(???) concoction. We should’ve gone to buffet pavilion…

Next, though, we went up to the 63rd floor! The elevator to the top is on the outside of the building, and it’s all glass, so you can see outside. The view probably would have been awesome, too, except that it was so foggy that we could see about 3 feet from the elevator. Once we got to the top, the view got slightly better. We could see the south side of the city (Bree Teacher’s side) fairly well. We could also see…

THE GWOEMUL!!!

Well, sort of. But perhaps I should explain. Gwoemul is the English-ed version of the Korean title of this awesome horror/monster movie (it’s called The Host in English, which is a bit lamer). It is set in Seoul, and the bridge that the big monster (the Gwoemul) lives under is called the Wonhyo Bridge, and you can see it from the top of the 63 Building. It’s labeled, in fact. Gwoemul used to be the highest grossing movie in Korea, but then D-War grossed more. Anyway, Gwoemul is scary and amazing. Rent it.

[I totally took this picture of it...]

???

2007-09-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Domo Arigato [day 4/5]

2007-09-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

We started our morning in Kyoto by changing our clothes and “freshening up” (as best you can in a grody stall) in the subway. Since it was still early, before anything was open, we just walked around the streets a bit. We had some sort of cheese toast for breakfast at some sort of Elton John-themed café (apparently?), and then found a bookstore, where I bought a Japanese fashion magazine (little knowing that they would become my new obsession). We went to the hotel where we were meeting our tour group, and tried to find them. It was a bit of an ordeal, they were NOT well organized like Gray Line (who, other than getting names completely wrong do really well). This fact became abundantly clear when everyone was piling onto the bus, and it comes to us (last in line, natch), and they tell us “Sorry. No room.”

EXCUSE ME? We paid like 6 trillion yen for this tour. There better be some damn room. Once they shuffled around the baby in the stroller, the old man in the wheelchair, and the fat lady in the wheelchair, they found us some seats. We get on and start heading toward the back of the buSMASH. Whacked my head SO hard on this weird outcropping of bus ceiling. Some old ladies laugh at me. I swear at them under my breath. We head off to our first stop, with our new tour guide Cookie leading the way. She tells us about Kyoto, which used to be the capital of Japan, and is one of the worlds leading producers of Sake. I guess producing a bunch of drunks is something to be proud about. We get to Nijo Castle, and disembarSMASH. Oh yeah. I forgot to duck. Again. Old ladies laugh. I continue to not enjoy Kyoto.

We’re not allowed to take pictures at the castle, because it’s mostly made of paper. The best part of the castle is that it is NINJA PROOF!!!! I swear. I can’t think of a cooler thing to have done to someone’s living place. The floors have a special thing called nightingale flooring, and you can’t walk on it without it squeaking. In each of the rooms where the Shogun (who lived there) or the Emperor (who visited) might have been, there were secret panels and hidden rooms, where the good guys could hide, and bust out and kill the bad guys, if need be.

Out next stop, the Golden Pavilion, got me to thinking (it hurt ^^). What is must be like to be a monk. You vow to a life of poverty, and then BUILD A BUILDING MADE OF GOLD. Not only that, but then they charge people an admission fee to see it. And once there in, there are these pots where people just throw money. You don’t make a wish. You don’t get a prize. You just biff your money in. If I can’t be a shogun and live in a ninja-proof palace, living in anything made of gold would be ok.

Our next stop, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, was the home of the Emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo in 1867. The security here is pretty intense. We had to line up and they counted us on the way in and out. The palace is so big, and has so many separate buildings, that there is no point in a year when one of the buildings is not being renovated. It is actually pretty amazing, it has some huge, beautiful gates, and everything everywhere has 16-petaled-Chrysanthemums all over, the Imperial symbol.

After here, we go to the handicraft center for lunch (ALL YOU CAN EAT holla). It was sort of disappointing, since all-you-can-eat is a favorite phrase of both Bree Teacher, and me but we were too rushed to really work the buffet. Plus it was just sort of lame. So we hightailed it out ahead of our tour and went to shop the handicrafts downstairs from the restaurant. I was thisclose to buying an amazing Samurai sword, only you can’t take them on a plane (clearly), and we weren’t checking anything. Bree teacher bought TWO kimonos. AND won a prize from doing same.

We went to the lobby to meet the afternoon tour, which is some of the morning people, and some new people. The new people including. NOOOOOOOOO. My nemeses, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum (newly christened). WHY GOD WHY, did they follow us 8 hours to Kyoto. Probably to fiddle with my gingerale. As long as our bus seats aren’t near theiSMASH. Crap. The afternoon is not starting well. Our drive to Nara was an hour or so away, and while I was genuinely interested in what Cookie was telling us, I fell asleep for the last bit of the drive, until we arrived at—

Todaiji Temple and Deer Park is perhaps one of the strangest collections of weirdness I’ve ever encountered. Let me break it down:

World’s largest wooden building

World’s largest Buddha

1100 “tame” deer (I say time because some of them, hilariously, attack Japanese school children)

Buddha’s guardians. For some of them, they ran out of money, so there are just some heads and arms lying around.

This guy...

The Buddha, they say, can hold 20 people in the palm of his hand. They also say that if you can pass through Buddha’s nostril that your wish will come true, and have a tree carved with a tunnel the size of Buddha’s nostril. So who would want to try, who else in the world, but my nemesis’ sidekick. So he gets down on the ground and crawls through Buddha’s nostril. Thanks. Way to give a good name to us Westerners. The Japanese all think you’re a freak.

[Now that I think about it, though, I did almost steal from a monk. It wasn’t my fault though. Bree Teach told me that the 5yen pieces were 50 yen pieces, so I used them as she told me. How was I to know the difference?]

The Kasuga Shrine, our last stop, is the most famous Shrine in Nara. It has 3000 antique stone and bronze lanterns, and it makes for quite a sight, even though they weren’t lit up. Shinto seems like a pretty awesome religion too. There’s no founder, no text, and it has 8 million Gods. Can’t find one you like? Just make a new one. Where there are 8 million, what’s one more!?

On our drive home, Cookie told us all about Nara, Kyoto, Geishas, and anything else that interested her. Man, this lady could TALK. We wanted to see the Geishas, but we were too far away, so we asked her about shopping instead. She told us a few places, and we checked them out as we waited for our bus to take us back to Tokyo. We found a few weird mall-type structures that were pretty cool, but before long, the bus came, and we were back in the cramp, for our (somehow 2 hours longer) return trip.

Our last day was fairly uneventful.

We got off our 9 hour bus ride in Tokyo, and pretty much got right on the 75 minute subway ride to the airport. Here we had lunch (the world’s most expensive sushi, I think), and then got on our 2.5 hour flight. When we got back in Korea, we had a 90 minute bus ride back to Seoul. Needless to say, I was glad to be standing up when I got off that bus. On the whole, though, Japan is definitely a winner.

Tokyo Rose [day 3]

2007-09-29T20:11:00.002-07:00

Day 3 we were set to leave Tokyo (already!) and drive to see Mount Fuji. We left the ryokan, for keeps this time, and went back to the hotel where we met the tour the previous day (on the way, we saw a rat in the subway!!). When the tourguides once again found “Brown? Mr. John Brown?” we boarded the bus, and found (to our delight!) Ricky! Our favorite tour guide! He told us lots of interesting stories on our (very long~~) drive to Mount Fuji:

*On the subway in Japan, there are “pushers,” who I guess are employed by the city, whose job it is to push people onto overcrowded trains. There is one station in Tokyo that over 3 million people go through each work day. On Ricky’s first day of university, the subway was so crowded that his tie got stuck in the doors, and he couldn’t get out for a few stops!

*We drove by some tea farms, and Ricky told us about his family who were tea farmers. He told us about the health benefits of green tea, including how it supposedly cures cancer. His uncle (or grandfather) was a tea farmer his whole life, but he died of cancer. The reason? He drank 10 times more sake than green tea.

*He was in America at a restaurant and tried to eat rice with chopsticks, but it was American rice (ie: not sticky), so he couldn’t pick it up with chopsticks and everyone made fun of him.

Anyhoo, we drove allllll the way up Mount Fuji to the 5th Station, which is as high as cars are allowed to drive up. This is also the timberline, so above the 5th station building, there are no trees. It’s so high up (the station is at 8000 feet), that the view is of absolutely nothing. You’re basically in the clouds, so you can see about 2 feet in front of your face, and everything is completely shrouded in fog. We drove back down the mountain (and THIS is where we had an amazing view).

At the bottom of the mountain, we went to a hotelesque place for lunch prepared “in the Western style.” This, to the Japanese, apparently means “with the head attached.” I know that’s how I prepare most of my meals anyway. It was a strange piece of chicken, with an even stranger prawn on top, head, legs, and all. Bree Teach and I sat with an old couple from Toronto, ironically enough.

Afterwards our bus driver (who, Ricky tells us, is the best bus driver in Tokyo – apparently the guy who was the best bus driver in Tokyo the day before died or something. Bus crash?) drove us to Hakone, a town known for its handicrafts and hot springs. We took a cable car up the mountain (Ricky: “For those afraid of heights, there have not been any deaths on the cable car… Yet”), and wow. The view. From one side you can see beautiful Hakone Mountains, and Mount Fuji off in the distance. From the other side, you see the Owakudani Boiling Valley, which is, as our tour itinerary tells us, and “ancient crater where sulfurous fume reeks and clouds of stream rise from crevasses.” Delicious.

The smell, as soon as we step off the cable car, is pretty divine. It smells quite similar to rotten eggs, only much worse than you could possibly imagine. Conveniently enough, they sell hardboiled eggs here that they boiled in the gross sulfur hot springs. They’re black from the gunk in the water. And people LOVE them. We saw them being sold, literally hundreds every minute. They also sell black-egg everything (I got a black egg piggy bank).

Our bus was waiting for us at the top of the mountain (Hmm, this guy is pretty good--), and he drives us back down the gill to Lake Ashi, where we are to board our Pirate Ship. Oh yes. It comes complete with pirates and all. Ricky, nice guy that he is, even got us tickets in First Class! Unfortunately, a few minutes into our cruise, I had to pee, and since there were no washrooms in First Class, I ventured out. Even more unfortunately, once you leave First Class, you can’t get back in. Even though I screamed across the boat for Bree Teacher to let me back in, she ignored me (she was busy playing out her Titanic fantasy), so I spent the rest of the cruise alone. With the peasants.

After the cruise, we drove back to Tokyo (and somehow the drive back home was several hours longer than the drive there). After a few hours on THIS bus, and a few more hours wandering the streets of Tokyo looking for a place to eat (after quite an exhaustive search, we found a beef bowl place), we got on ANOTHER bus. Also, we saw this amazing sundae. For about 8 hours, overnight. Let’s keep in mind that this bus is built for Japanese-sized people, whose legs are approximately 3 feet shorter than mine. Uncomfortable would be an understatement.

Even so, we arrive safe and sound, and ready for another day of adventure---

Turning Japanese [day 2]

2007-09-29T20:11:00.001-07:00

We woke up on Sunday morning after a quite light sleep, since we had neither an alarm clock nor a wake up call to let us know when the time was right. We got ready and headed out, and took the Chiyoda (hehe) line to the hotel where we were meeting the tour group. We were good and early, so we looked around for a place to get breakfast, but there was NOTHING. Weird, in Seoul there are 40 places to eat on each corner. A guy walks over to us saying “gray line, gray line” (the name of our tour company), and then asks me “Brown? Mr. John Brown?” “That’s her… I guess.” For some reason people are always thinking Bree Teacher is a man, but this is the first time someone has called her John. He takes us to a waiting taxi, and this takes us to another hotel where the bus is waiting for us, and we meet our tour guide, and the bus driver: “The best bus driver in Tokyo,” whose name, the guide tells us, is “Mr. Best Driver.”

Our tour guide takes us to our first stop: Tokyo Tower. This tower, she explains, is the exact same style, shape, and size as the Eiffel Tower. Whoever came up with the idea of Tokyo Tower liked the Eiffel Tower so much (and they were so lazy) that they just copied it exactly. However, in some strange attempt to prove that their tower was better, they put an antenna on top of Tokyo Tower, so it’s just thismuch taller. Plus, they painted it neon orange. It was a pretty cool view, and their mascots are two brothers, and they’re some sort of squid-tower hybrid, so they’re fairly enjoyable.

Next, we went to the Meiji Shrine to check out “the finest example of Japanese shrine architecture, nestled in a peaceful, picturesque area.” We passed through a gate that was made from trees that are 1500 years old. This is supposed to purify the body, as is the water that our tour guide MADE us clean ourselves with: you pour it over your hands, and rinse your mouth with it – Bree Teacher drank it (although we both totally drank the holy water at a temple in Busan – oops).

The best thing we saw at the Shrine, for sure, was the traditional Japanese wedding that was happening. Everyone in the whole party was decked out in fancy robes and kimonos. The bride, though, had a bright white, huge kimono, and on her head she wore a big white hood. The tour guide explained it to us: she said that as soon as a woman gets married, she starts to get jealous of her husband, so she wears a hood to cover her “horns of jealousy” that grow out of her head.

Our next several sights were just “drive-bys”: we saw the national Diet building, which is basically a Parliament, but with a fancy name (it was quite a-bustle, since we saw it on the day of the national election); we saw the Akasaka Guest House, which foreign heads of state used to stay when they visited Tokyo (also of note, its exterior is “based on” – ripped off from – Buckingham Palace… I’m sensing a theme here); we saw the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, which had the most intense armed guards on all side of it – Japan and Russia are having a land dispute over some islands north of Japan, and they had been having a lot of protestors and other riffraff in the area; we saw the Ginza shopping district, which is apparently world famous.

Our tour guide led us around here, as she did at every stop, by having us follow a flag she hoisted up that was covered in cartoon cats. As if a group of “American” tourists did make enough of a spectacle in Japan, she drew more attention to us. In Ginza we stopped for lunch at a traditional Japanese-style restaurant. We had lots of little samples of different Japanese dishes, to give us a taste for the food. It was pretty delish all in all. After lunch we headed back to the bus, and met our new tour guide (for some reason there was a different one for the afternoon). His name is Ricky, and he was hilarious, he told us lots of funny stories, and he had lots of really interesting information about each of the places we visited.

But let me introduce you to my nemesis... I had bought a bottle of gingerale at the temple, and I had it in the cupholder in front of me on the bus. The guy sitting in the seat in from of me had his hands over the back of the seat, and putting them all up in my grill. Then he starts fiddling with my bottle! I have to drink from there, buddy, I don’t know where you hands have been! The whole trip, he’s just flinging his hands around over the back of his seat. And to make matters worse, at our next stop, the Tasake Pearl Gallery (where we learned how to cultivate pearls), HE WON A FREAKING PEARL! Of all the people that could have won. Also, his friend pretended that he won a pearl too. He was going to steal a pearl from an old Japanese man, but the guy caught him “Sir, that’s a nine, not a six…”

Next we drove to the Sumida River and we went on a riverboat cruise. Bree Teach and I were, perhaps, a little trepidatious, after our last cruising disaster, but this one was super fun, and at no point did we approach a drowning state. Just like in Seoul, every bridge that crosses the river is different from every other one. At the ending port of the cruise, we saw a man playing a harmonica and… pans. Simultaneously.

Then Riicky led us through a Shopping Street called Nakamise, which led to a Temple at the far end. We didn’t have much time to browse, because we were trying to hard to follow his teddy -bear -on -a -stick that kept us together, and because Ricky can really move. He was practically running through there. The temple was cool, and interesting and all, but we’ve done temples so many times, so you better believe Bree Teach and I cruised through there and ran back to the shopping street before we left for our next stop—

The Temple was our last real stop on the tour, but we had some more “drive-bys” on our way back to people’s hotels. We saw three more shopping districts: the first is called Kappabashi, and it’s probably the strangest shopping district I’ve ever heard of. In Japan, and in Korea, restaurants have displays of their food outside their restaurant to show people what their food looks like. These foods, though, are made of plastic. Kappabashi is where they make and sell these. Ricky said they’re ridiculously expensive. The next shopping district was Ueno, and it had a black market where you could buy shoes and bags and things. The third is called Akihabara, and it has hundreds and hundreds of electronics stores.

…So we got of the bus here, instead of being driven back to our hotel. We shopped around Akahabara for a while (and later Ueno). We also went for dinner in what is, quite possibly, the best kind of restaurant I’ve ever seen. Anywhere. It’s a sushi restaurant, but you don’t have to order anything, the sushi just goes around and around on a conveyer belt, and the chefs just keep putting more on, and then at the end count how many plates there are, and each plate has a different price.

I could have died from deliciousness… Except the most embarrassing moment of my life happened here… I like to pretend I’m a pro at sushi, so I got a little dish and poured some soy sauce in. In between the soy sauce and the ginger there’s a little dish of green powder. Wasabi, I assume, because it’s a sushi restaurant, what else would it be? I’m a big fan of wasabi, so I take a scoop and mix it in with my soy sauce. I dip in my sushi… It’s not very spicy, so I put in some more “wasabi.” Eventually, just before we’re about to leave, the waitress comes over to Bree Teach, points to the green powder, and says “Tea!,” and mixes her a cup of green tea. The whole time, I had been mixing green tea powder with soy sauce. I want to die.

So, we promptly left the restaurant, and went back to the shopping districts. We got the strangest dessert on the street. It’s something called Moffle, and I still haven’t figured out quite what it is. It tastes sort of like chipped ice. Sort of approaching an ice cream-like taste. But it has the look and texture approximately like insulation. After dessert, we decided to try to walk back to our Ryokan. Bad idea, since we had no idea where it was. Luckily, Tokyo has maps everywhere, So, after an interesting trek through some water plants, and a park with about 1000 wild cats, we made it back safe and sound---

Konichiwa Bitches [day 1]

2007-09-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

I awoke bright and early (noonish) Saturday morning – Japan, here I come! I finished, aka started, packing, and set off towards the station to meet Bree Teacher. We had lunch at our favorite place, and went to get our bus tickets for the bus to the airport. They call it a limousine, but it is really not nice at all. The bus ride takes about 90 minutes. The airport is that far away, but it drives around the city for a while first, and we got on at the departure point, so we get the whole ride. Strange stuff doesn’t even wait for us to arrive in Japan, it’s waiting for us at the airport. There were all these people with HUGE guns (which may be normal, I don’t know). What definitely weren’t normal were all the people in giant costumes wandering the halls of the airport. They kept us entertained as we waited, though, as did the pumpkin candy, which wasn’t nearly as gross as it sounds.

A few hours later…

We’re there!! Konichiwa! We have no problems getting through customs, mostly because Bree Teacher flirted heavily with the customs fella (he was in booth lucky number 8). We had brought all our bags with us, so we didn’t need to wait for the luggage, we just went right away to get tickets for the train to Tokyo! We got our tickets and got right on the train (everything was going well—weird), and we sat down across from this old man… Whose newspaper had naked people in it. We didn’t notice at first, because it looked like a normal newspaper, but it definitely had pictures of people doing it.

The train arrived at our stop (the last stop, which is how we knew) about 75 minutes later, and we searched for our exit. After one false attempt trying to go through the gates with the wrong ticket, we finally found the way we were supposed to be heading – hot travel tip: in Japan, North apparently is not in the opposite direction of South, this is why we had so much trouble finding the exit. We started following a map to our hotel, stopping in a few convenience stores along the way, to find some things that Bree Teach forgot/couldn’t bring (although they totally let me through security with toothpaste AND deodorant – suckers). In these stores, all of their magazines have naked people on them too, only they’re all out in the open, since most of them are cartoons. I’m sensing a theme here in Japan… We get to our Ryokan (inn) after a not-too-difficult search. The old lady who worked in it was so nice and she spoke English really well. She took us up to our room in the world’s smallest elevator, and showed us how to work everything. We slept on the floor, and it was actually fairly comfortable, even though the bedding was slightly confusing:

After we unpacked in our room, we headed out to find something to eat. We found a place that serve beef bowls (which, we would later discover is what EVERY restaurant serves). It’s basically a bowl of rice and, yeah, beef. It’s pretty delicious. The only problem was, we didn’t know how to work the restaurant. The door was challenging itself, but when we got in we just went and sat down and tried to order food, because we didn’t know that we were supposed to order and pay at this machine, until we saw EVERY other person who came in doing just that. The waiter guy played along, though, and brought us our food. After our meal, we looked around the area a bit (we weren’t in the heart of the city, so there wasn’t a lot to see), and back to our hotel. Tokyo is much cleaner than Seoul, we decided, but one of the biggest differences was the traffic. Cars stop at red lights! They stay on the road! We didn’t almost die at every crosswalk! … I like it.

Bizarro World

2007-09-21T10:42:00.001-07:00

It’s been like Bizarro World here lately…..

-First of all, my school installed no less than EIGHTEEN new security cameras. The reason for them, apparently is that a girl was “molested” by another student during the summer camp. Henna wouldn’t tell us who this student was, but she suggested that it “might” be the brother of a kindy student. So everyone clearly knew right away – it was John. Even the teachers who don’t teach John know who he is. But guess who DOES teach him? Oh yes, he’s my one on one. His Mom wanted him to have a one on one because she enrolled him in Carnival 2, even though he didn’t do Carnival 1. Henna says we have to do what she wants because she’s “crazy” (by which she means rich). John’s brother Eric is pretty infamous at school too. He likes to put his hands in his pants, and then smell them. One day, though, while he had his pants in there, he announces “poo poo!” As if he thought I cared.

-Also worthy of note. All the teachers at my school got gift packs for 추석 (Chuseok). At first we thought it was a nice gesture, but then we saw what was in them. 2 toothbrushes, 2 body washes, 2 shampoos, 2 conditioners (ok so far…), 8 bars of soap, and TEN TUBES OF TOOTHPASTE! (WTF!!??) And their tubes of toothpaste are huge! And citrus flavored! Why would they ever think we’d need that much toothpaste? Some of the other teachers at school got wine and other presents from the kids for 추석…I got nothing.

-The other night I was walking home from HomePlus with Naomi teacher when this (drunk) Korean guy staggers over to us, points at me, and mumbles in Korean. Terrifyingly. I run away, and when I’m at a safe distance, I ask Naomi Teacher what he said. “Give me your shirt, it was made by my people.”How right he was, though, my shirt was from the GAP. I wonder how he knew ----

[Speaking of HomePlus, it’s become my home(plus) away from home. I’ve gone there 3 nights this week. But what’s not to love? They sell nunchucks, whole octopuses, electronic toilet seats, and they have a whole aisle of nothing but hotdogs.]

[Added later...Somehow I forgot this]
At school, for the kindergarten kids, we had a "garage sale," and it was the strangest experience of my life. I was working in the "clothing and shoe store" with Nate teacher. Our merchandise consisted of old clothes and shoes that the kids parents gave to the school or whatever (although we fared better than the "grocery store," which sold carrots, eggplants, cucumbers and onions). Anyway, the kids came into the "store" one class at a time, and bought this horrible junk from us -- for a photocopied American dollar (which, by the way, is counterfeiting, and is totally illegal).

After this clusterfuck, we had a sort of cooking class. We were supposed to make Songpyeon, a traditional thing that Koreans eat for Chuseok, the holiday that was coming up. Henna enlisted me to work with the Brown class (which I've never taught), and show them how to make Songpyeon (which I've clearly never made). Luckily Henna did a demo, but she didn't have anything prepared, and she didn't know the recipe -- she just told us to add "some" boiling water to "some" rice flour, add "some" beans, and ... then do something with some pineneedles (???), and then pretended she had done so by rolling a ball of playdough.

As if that wasn't weird enough, she told us about a legend that said that women who make pretty Songpyeon will find a good husband. She asks the kidds if "Henna teacher will find a nice man," and they all shout out "NOOOOOOO." Ha. These kids are awesome. When the time came to actually make the Songpyeon, it went fairly well, except some of the kids were more interested in eating the dough than making them, even though it's just water and rice flour, which I would imagine is... not the best taste.

...Also, I saw two people sharing an electric wheelchair, and a dog wearing shoes. Only in this country...

이태원동

2007-09-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 16

Naomi Teacher had invited me the night before to see an art gallery that was showing Monet, so clearly I wanted to go! The next morning, though, our plans changed a little bit. We went to Itaewon first, to meet one of Naomi Teacher’s friends for brunch. We were going to go to some Korean-y place, but it was super busy, so we went instead to Outback Steakhouse (which is, for some reason, the very favorite restaurant of Korean children). Cindy works at a private school teaching English where they can wear whatever they want, and the students are the children of celebrities. But she was also accused of shaking children and drawing red lines across their necks, so maybe it isn’t all roses. After lunch (and after Coffee Bean…) we went into a really cool “mall,” which is just a big room of vendors all selling Korean souvenirs, jewelry, textiles and stuff. I got my name painted, traditional style, on a scroll, by a man who looks just like guy on the Korean money.

Poetic Justice

2007-09-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday, I went to the dreaded refresher course at the Main Office in Jongno-3-ga. It's ironic that it's a "refresher" course, and I'm the freshest person at my school, and yet, I'm the only person who had to go from my school (on account of my boss hates me), but oh well. So I left good and early, on the off chance that I got lost or something, but I can get to Jongno pretty well now, since it's just a straight line (no transfers), and it's not particularly far away. I arrived with time to spare, so I went for the breakfast of champions: Vanilla Frappucino from Starbucks.

I arrive at the main office, and head in -- I was promised sandwiches. But there were NO SANDWICHES, so already I'm disappointed. I see Sam, who I met at training, who is very helpful and informative, and Casey who is... not so much. She's nice though. So of course it's Casey who is leading this session, which means group work. Same as at training. I'm put into quite possibly the worst group in the world. Two large sweaty guys, a Korean girl and a Kiwi girl, and me. Then they subdivide the groups for some reason? Instead of just making smaller groups at the start? So I'm with this bald, red guy, and the Korean girl who won't say anything.

Luckily the red fellow talked enough for all of us. Our assignment was to look at one page of "A Valentine for Miss Vanilla," so it's not like it's rocket science, or anything. The guy just droned on and on. But at least he sounded smart, not like the other guy (the one from the supergroup, but not the subgroup). Here are some of his classic moments:

[The page says that Ms. Vanilla is like such and such. A rainy day, or something]
HIM: So, this is like, this here, when you compare two things. What's that called? A euphemism?
ME: Uh... That's a simile
or
HIM: So when you're speeding, you go ZOOOOOM, and when you're hungry you say YUMMMMM, [and etc.], that's like poetic justice.
ME [thinking]: But what it's even MORE like is onomatopoeia.
or
HIM: We used to think that the Earth went around the sun, but now... We're in space.

Like... I get that I had four extra years of practice as an English major... But did you NOT PASS JUNIOR HIGH!?

I think that the theme of the class, and really the whole Korea/teaching situation in general, was summed up the best by Casey, in an attempt to explain the goals of ECC. "We want to get them to the fluent level. Or at least to emergent." Like... Do your best, and make sure they learn as much as possible, or, conversely, do a little bit less than your best, and if they don't learn as much, it's pretty ok too.

After the course I headed home to wait for BBro for our traditional Saturday dinner and night on the town. Alas, it seemed she made other plans to go to Olympic Park, so I set about making my own, better plans. I had heard from Anna teacher at work that there was a film festival going on in Seoul. I got the schedule, and there were only two days left, so I figured I had better check it out ASAP! There were a few directors whose names I recognized, but the only title that I had heard of is called Day Night Day Night. So, I headed toward the subway. I had only the vaguest of directions (Exit 5 at Konkuk University), so I figured the venue would be pretty easy to find.

…I was wrong. I got to Konkuk fine, and even found exit 5, but the theatre was nowhere to be seen. I wandered around for a while, and I found Rodeo Drive. I was pretty excited about this, actually, since being on the real Rodeo Drive was pretty much the best moment of my life, and I thought this would be similar. Whereas the real thing was amazing and classy and chic, the Korean version is, in equal parts horrible, tacky and neon.

Let’s compare their street signs, shall we? Real Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills is classy, understated. Korean Rodeo Drive (oh, wait, they called it Rodeo “Street” so that people don’t think it’s a rip-off) is enormous, first of all, and lit up. But only most of it.

Anyhoo, I browsed here for a while, then went back to the station and tried another direction. All of the people seemed to be moving in the direction of a giant mall I saw looming ahead, so I followed them. Conveniently, I saw a big poster outside for the film festival, so in I went. Next challenge: finding the actual theatre inside this behemoth. I walked around until I stumbled upon it. Then a bunch more embarrassing things happened, as they always do when I try to communicate with people, but they’re not important. Then on the way out, I walked for what seemed like forever to the end of the mall, and it was locked, or something, so I had to walk all the way back… Also, they have a store that sells nothing but Crocs, which is pretty much the worst idea ever…

죠스

2007-09-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

When I'm out on the street, or on the Subway, or doing anything at all really, people (especially younger people) tend to look --no... STARE at me. I don't even do anything particularly intersting, just walk to school, walk to the station, occasionally sing to myself, but I seem to attract attention nonetheless.

Last week, walking home from school with Amber Teacher, a particularly rowdy group of teenaged (~14?) girls came a-running over to us. "Hello!Hello!" Usually, I just say hello, and they giggle to each other and run away, but this particular crew wanted to chat. They asked us the usual questions: American? (Amber is, but I, am always am not). Why are we in Seoul? Are we lovers? (I'm used to lying to people and telling them Bree Teacher is, when they see me with her. I wonder if Bree Teacher would consider it cheating if I tell these ones that Amber is my fake lover?). The way they ask though is "Lub? Lub?" It's weird, they're obsessed with the subject--

Then they ask my name...
Since I've settled in, and know a few things about the language, this is a question I'm sometimes reluctant to answer. So I just don't. Amber, though, takes the lead: "His name is Josh," and they immediately burst into hysterical laughter. See, my name is approximately the same word as a kind of Korean ice cream 죠스. This has provided my students, and now random girls on the street, with endless entertainment. A lot of kids from my school called my Joshieba, and I thought it was because they were dumb, and couldn't pronounce my name, until one of them called me "ice cream teacher."

The 죠스 bar, (which is actually pronounced more like jyo-seu than Josh or Joshua -- but to them it's close enough, apparently) is shaped like a shark, and it's blue on the outside, and has red goo on the inside. It's only 500 won, and it's actually pretty good. At least they named me after something good--

... Like an egg on 비빔밥 [part 2]

2007-09-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

[/cliffhanger]

Yes we did. But this next bit is so special that it needs a post of its own. So we’re walking through the station at Sindang, I believe, and this old man comes up alongside us. I’m playing with my awesome new ball, and he sidles up alongside:
GUY: Can I see?
ME: No.
GUY: What is it? A ball?
ME: …
HIM: [takes my ball]
ME: Um…
GUY: Ooh! [gives it back]
ME: Yeah…
GUY: American?
US: Canadian.
GUY: Vancouver or Toronto?
BREE: Nova Scotia.
GUY: I went to Vancouver. I have a PhD, I was a professor.
US: [feigned excitement]
GUY: Are you married?
ME: Of course. / BREE: God no.
ME: We’re lovers.
BREE: We are not!
GUY.: Naughty boy! You’re a liar!
ME: K…
GUY.: Naughty. How old are you?
ME: I’m 22.
GUY: No. You’re 37. My son is your age. I don’t have a son, but if I was married, and had a son, he’d be your age. I was in the LAPD.
US: Oh?
GUY: Then I became a monk, so now I’m a panhandler, I stand on the street and ask people for money. I’m 57.
ME: I’m 22…
GUY: I take care of myself you know. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink alcoholic. I don’t have intercourse with ladies—

I’m sure there was more, but at this point I was trying SO hard not to laugh at him that I couldn’t really pay attention. WTF is the deal with old men on the subway here?! Seriously! Anyway, after this amazing interlude, we just laughed our way to Cheyongyangni (I still don’t know how to spell it, but I’m fairly sure that’s not right) to have what Bree Teacher calls meat-on-a-leaf, but what a smart person might call 삼겹살. It was amazing, and we ordered it ourselves and everything. We figure we’re pretty much Korean now. ^^

Sunday afternoon, Bree Teacher and I met in Insa-Dong for another movie. I found a really interesting Art House theatre online called Cinematheque that was showing a French film called Va Savoir (Who Knows?) in their series “Autumn Tale”. I got very excited by finding this theatre, they have really different and good selections: their September series is “Fritz Lang in America” and October is “Contes d’amour d’apres Eric Rohmer” (both of which would thrill no one but me). And I was so sure that I saw on the Cinematheque website that all the movies had English subtitles, so we were prepared to finally understand a French movie. But, of course, when we got our tickets, she told us “No English.” Oh well, they had an awesome snack bar, so we stocked up, only to find on the way into the theatre a big sign that said “NO FOOD.” Let me ask, Cinematheque: if you’re a movie theatre, what’s the point in having a snack bar if you CAN’T TAKE IT IN THE THEATRE!?

Whatev. We got even BETTER food somewhere else to make up for it. So take THAT, Cinematheque. PS – I love you, don’t ever change. We went to the world’s smallest restaurant, which had seating for 8, and had 돈까스 and sushi. Then we finished our meal at our favorite establishment… The Coffee Bean, and we went to Kyobo books to shop the night away…

[Personal note to Bree Teacher Brown: I just want you to know that my blog is better than you’re because I’ve been writing for about 45 years, so a little bit longer than you, and I invented English, so I’m pretty good at it, and I have a lot of things to write about because I go to a lot of parties, so I’ve had a lot of hors d’oeuvres and I’ve lived in Korea for like 3 years, too, and they flew me out first class, so my blog is just a little bit better than yours, so…]

All over Seoul.... [part 1]

2007-09-16T07:47:00.001-07:00

We started our weekend activities right away this weekend: on Friday night we planned to go to Seoul Cinema in Jongno-3-ga to see Death Proof. I finished work at 8:05, and I took the bus home to “save time,” although by the time one comes it’s taken about as long as if I had walked home. Anyway, so I changed and trundled down to the subway, Jongno-3-ga is only a few stops away, so I didn’t plan on it taking long, which was good, because I was cutting it close. I knew from the theatre’s website which exit I had to take, but from there the directions got a little muddled. It said to walk for 5 minutes in the direction of Jongno. The problem with these instructions is that I was already in Jongno (Jongno-3), and there are Jongno’s in both directions (Jongno-2, and Jongno-4). So I picked a direction and walked it. It said to walk for 5 minutes; I did for about 15, because I wanted to be sure I went far enough. And I sort of jogged, too. So I definitely would have gone too far, only it was the wrong direction. So I went back to the station, looked at the map (which didn’t help at all), and went out another exit. And the theatre was RIGHT there. Not 5 minutes away. So we were still on time, in the end, and the movie was amazing.

On Saturday, Bree Teacher (alias BBro) and I went to Hoehyeon to find the Namdaemun Market, one of approximately 10000 markets in the city, but this one is big, and famous or something. We browsed around for a while (we found nunchucks!), and soon we had lunch. We found a random place in the market and ordered 비빔밥 (bibimbap: rice, vegetables, with an egg on top) and 만두 (mandu: Chinese dumplings). The guy brought it over and then he tried to tell us “Eat with chopsticks!!”
As if we didn’t know how to use them. But then later he saw my awesome ‘stick technique, and he told me “Number one Korean chopstick” or some such. At one point he also spit on Bree Teacher, as the older Korean men are wont to do. He kept talking to us, asking us where we’re from and the like. I can understand Korean accents pretty well, when they speak in English, but for some reason Bree Teacher can’t as well. Conversely, I’m pretty much terrified to talk to a Korean person, even in English. So instead of answering his questions, I’d translate for Bree Teacher and she’d answer.

Then back to shopping! I was looking for a wallet, since the one I’ve had since about junior high wasn’t in the best state. I found one I liked in one of the million little shops in the market, and asked the price:
HIM: [whispering, for some reason] 45.
ME: Hmm. I’ll give you 10.
[…Yeah. I’m awesome at bargaining]
HIM: 35.
ME: 11.
HIM: 35.
ME: 10?
HIM: 35.
Me: Seeya!
So then we went to another place about 10 seconds down the road, and they had the same wallet for 23000 (which I bargained down to 20000). I’m SO good at finding bargains! So, whatever, that other guy. BBro bought a parasol, on account of she wants people to think she’s Korean, and they all carry them. I told her I didn’t think that would trick anyone, but she disagrees.

We somehow left the market while we were looking for something, and we saw one of the huge gates that surrounded the outside of the old/original city of Seoul (we think?) so we went over for a photo op. When we got over to it, though, there was some cool changing of the guard ceremony going on. All the guards had these big flamboyant outfits on, and they were either holding big dramatic flags, or playing drums. And looking tough. After it was over, they all went back through the gate and disappeared. We went back towards the street. When we got to the crosswalk, there were all the guards! Chilling, waiting to cross the street, all in their big get-ups. We walked across with them, and it felt like we were in some bizarre Korean parade.

We went back into Namdaemun Market and Naomi Teacher came to join us and we went for second lunch. Then we walked a bit, down to Myeong-dong, where they have... THE GAP!! The only one in the city! This is very exciting for me. Downside: the GAP in Korea goes up to a size 8. That’s the biggest size they make. And that’s a large here. Their size chart looked something like this:
XXS – Size 0
XS – Size 1-2
S – Size 3-4
M – Size 5-6
L – Size 7-8
All 3 of us (Me, Bree Teacher, and Naomi) are bigger than a size 8, so we didn’t buy anything. But still, it’s exciting that they have the GAP now. It just opened. Other delights in Myeong-dong: It’s home to the world’s biggest Starbucks! I think we saw it, but that we went to the one just down the road from it. They also have a store called Tommy Atkins. Does their logo look particularly familiar? Hmm…

Just as we were about to go underground into some sort of shopping thing, we saw this lady across the street ROCKING OUT to Korean hymns. Just standing on the street, singing her little heart out, and praising God (or whoever). They’re really religious in this part of the city. Agressively religious. We also saw a man with a sandwich board screaming into a megaphone about God. And a group of people with microphones singing and talking about God (a Korean Divine Nine, if you will). So we quickly got out of there, and Bree Teacher and I went towards Seoul Tower. We saw two students from my school (who later told me that Bree Teacher has “Yellow hair. Very big”). Then we went up about 100,000 stairs to the place that has the cable car (!!) up to the tower. For some reason, they built this tower in the middle of nowhere on a hill, and the only way up to it are by cable car, or a long hike up the side of the mountain. So clearly there was no debating our means of ascension.

So we wait, and wait and wait, and then we finally get to the cable car. There are 12 sets of foorprints where the people line up, which makes me think that the cable car safely holds 12 people.So we stand on those (we’re about fourth in line), and then they line up about 30 more people behind us. The cable car comes down the hill from the tower, and they let the people out, and then we all pile in. And yeah, it’s a pretty tight fit (at 400% capacity, you might expect it to be). The ride up the mountain was so cool. It had an amazing view of the city, and was just a really fun ride.

When we got to the top of the hill, we still had to go up a lot of stairs to get to the tower proper (couldn’t they have made the cable car go just a little further?). When we got inside, finally, we got tickets and then we had to wait for our number to come up to take an elevator to the top. While we waited, we admired some “junk art” from afar – we decided not to pay to go in, since we could pretty much see the whole exhibit from outside – and we got the world’s weirdest ice cream. It tastes like normal ice cream, and it’s cold. Only it’s stretchy. It’s incredibly bizarre, it has a texture like gum, or marshmallows, or something.

Our number finally came up, and we took the elevator up to the observation deck. Oh my, what a view. It was night at this point, but we could see ALL of Seoul. It’s quite a large city, we decided. The tower is 777 feet tall (1,574 feet above sea level!) so you can see the whole city. The lights at night are pretty intense. Especially the light that comes from the glow in the dark neon crosses that they have on top of churches (it would have helped to know that there approximately 40 million of these crosses: back in the day, before I knew this, my reference point for Motel Casting was a neon cross on top of an orange spire). We walked around the observation gallery (the third, I think – you need a reservation to get into the fourth). We went down to the second, which has some shops and things, and I bought a 3D Puzzle of the tower (!!) and we got our picture drawn by a machine. BBro has so much hair that it kept messing up on it, and it would have to go back and erase it.

We took the elevator back down (we rode that bitch all the way to the bottom, to quote my favorite ever convo between Brittany and Richie Cunningham), to browse the goings on that happen around the base of the tower. We were in a cool Tower-related stationery store, where some music caught our attention. We went outside to see a bunch of Native Americans, all done up with headdresses and all, playing some traditional music and dancing around (nothing says Korea to me more than Native Americans…). We stood and listened for a while, because, for some reason, one of their songs sounded like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” so I sang along (“Ohh baby, baby, oh, my hips don’t lie and I’m starting to la la la” is about how far my grasp of the lyrics goes).

After this wonderful bizarrity, we went to a photo studio to have our picture taken “in front of the tower” (ie: Photoshopped into a photo of the tower). We did so, and I bought an awesome ball from the shop. We went outside again, and browsed a cart of toys that were for sale. When we started walking away, a woman RUNS over to me, “Did you pay? Did you pay!” Apparently, they sell exactly the same balls on her cart, and she thought I stole it. I felt bad. But the ball is awesome enough to make up for it. Then we went back down the stairs, waited in line, back down the cable car, and outside. We followed some Koreans, because we figured they knew the way out, but they led us into a creepy alley. It was completely terrifying. But we managed to escaped unscathed.

OR DID WE [cliffhanger]

Annyong, Hello, or Hola

2007-09-07T20:10:00.001-07:00

So, on August 19, I turned the big 2-2. To celebrate, BBro let (aka MADE) me make all the choices about what we would do for the day. Our first stop was going to be the Museum of Modern Art at Olympic Park that we had seen the last time they were there. They were having a Pop Art exhibit, which made me super excited, and I was looking forward to some culture. So I made the hour-plus trek past Jamsil to Olympic Park, only to find out when we arrived… that the museum was closed. Typical. Things in Korea, apparently, only close one day a month. It can be any day they want, they don’t have to close on Sundays, they can just pick a day at random, and that’s the one day a month that they’re closed. So it would be fairly typical that this would be the day. Luckily there was a Coffee Bean, one of my favorite places in the world, so all was not lost.

Determined to find something cultural to do, we trundled on to Gwangnam, to the CineCube, the arthouse theatre where we saw INLAND EMPIRE. First we went down to the basement, which is the theatre level
(Oh yeah, this building is a theatre in the basement, some galleries and stuff, one floor of restaurants, and then floors 2 through 30 or so are the British and Japanese Embassies in Korea, and outside there is a giant metal hammering man. It’s quite a place). Alas, in keeping with how the day was going, the only movie playing was Sommersturm, in German with Korean subtitles. That’s ok, there’s a lot more to do in this building. Next we tried to find ArtCube, which we assumed would be some sort of gallery, or something. We finally deciphered some signs that pointed out the direction of ArtCube, and followed said directions… Directly into a wall. I don’t know, maybe they renovated or something. Whatever, up another floor, we’ll try something else. There’s an art archive. Give me something, anything. But guess what? Closed. Dammit Korea, you’re closed one frigging day a month, why does it have to be my birthday!? We satisfied ourselves of the archive by peering into the windows. So, OK, we clearly wouldn’t be getting into anything in the building so we just looked at the sculptures around the main floor. Like these ones. Sheep or something. And the main plaza has a pretty cool floor too, so… There was that.

Anyway, food always cheers us up, so we found a restaurant in the same building, called Taco Factory. Now, Taco Factory wasn’t bad, by any means, but it certainly was... Interesting. As only Korean food can be. This was probably the first meal I’ve had here that didn’t come with kimchi, but they did serve their tacos with pickles. Anyway, it’s different than Mexican tacos, is what I’m saying. Also, we got this gem from BBro: “I don’t know whether to say annyong, hello, or hola!” (The waitress was clearly Korean, and in no way remotely Mexican, by the way).

Perhaps the best part of our evening came next, and it was a completely accidental find. We were wandering around Jongno, looking for something, ANYTHING to do, and we found an amazing (underground) bookstore called Kyobo. We browsed around there for a long time, it has an amazing DVD section, and lots of foreign English books too. The DVDs are really cheap, but we can’t play them on DVD players at home. Books meanwhile are ridiculously expensive. The best part of the store though was when we left – they took the creepiness of HomePlus and multiplied it by four. When we were walking toward the door, no less than FOUR women bowed to us and wished us well. We were just shopping for books! We’re not freaking royalty. But ok, you can bow to us.

At this point, it was getting late, so we trundled ourselves home.
We saw this on the way, though. It’s some sort of memorial for a King, or someone. It’s really interesting, I think, to see things like this in the middle of the city. It’s so old-looking, and traditional, and colorful, and all around it, like you can see in the picture, everything is so modern and gray and dirty. That dichotomy really sums up Seoul for me.

Fabulous Drunk Guy

2007-08-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is an approximate transcript of a "conversation" we had with a drunk, middle-aged Korean man we met by chance while waiting for the subway--- ^^

DRUNK GUY: American?
US: No, Canadian.
DRUNK GUY: Oh, Canadian.
US: Yup…
DRUNK GUY: You know pop music?
US: We’ve heard of it, yes…
DRUNK GUY: You know George Michael?
BBRO (80s Fan): Omigosh, Wake Me Up Before You GoGo!!!!!!!!!
ME: I saw where George Michael was arrested in Beverley Hills….
DRUNK GUY: (sings) Wake me uuuuup, before you Gooooo Gooooo.
BBRO: !!!
DRUNK GUY: Fabulous
ME: …
DRUNK GUY: America!
US: Canada –
DRUNK GUY: Oh! Canada! You know Celine Dion!
US: Of course…
DRUNK GUY: Fabulous Celine Dion!
ME: …
DRUNK GUY: Fabulous.
US: (awkward) Uh… huh
DRUNK GUY: How old are you?
BBRO: At home I’m 22—
ME: And I’m 21 –-
BBRO: Here we’re… What?
US: 23?
DRUNK GUY: Oh, 23! Fabulous!
[Right around this point is when he spits on BBro, so we start to get more than a little nervous]
DRUNK GUY: Fabulous.
US: ….
[The subway comes]
[He ushers us on. With both hands. On the ass. Awkward]
DRUNK GUY: Fabulous George Michael.
US: Oh… Yeah
DRUNK GUY: Celine Dion!
US: Yup
DRUNK GUY: 23! Fabulous!
[etc etc]
US: Well, this is our stop!!! [It’s not]
US: [runs---]

Korean Drivers

2007-08-25T17:45:00.001-07:00

Korean Drivers…

Are terrifying. I would say they probably number among the worst drivers in the world. They don’t appear to have any rules that they have to follow on the road, only some “suggestions,” that they don’t really follow. You know, like red lights, and SIDEWALKS. Let me explain. Picture, if you will a “normal” crosswalk. There’s a stoplight above it, for the cars, and a walk/don’t walk across from it, for the pedestrians. There’s the crosswalk itself painted on the road, and the cars stop just behind it. But not here, oh no. Here the crosswalk isn’t at the corner, or at the edge of a particular intersection. There’s the stoplight, then an area for cars, then the crosswalk, then the rest of the road. So, even if the cars have a red light, and the pedestrians have walk, cars still want to get as close to the intersection as possible, so they go through the crosswalk to this extra bit of road. They don’t really care so much about not hitting pedestrians, either. Also, there’s no buffer between the walk for pedestrians, and the go for cars. In North America, it would change to don’t walk for a few seconds, to make sure everyone gets across the street, and then the cars change to go, when there are no people left to run over. Here, however, it changes directly from WALK to go. So if you started crossing the street, and the cars change to green, there are already cars coming at you. They won’t wait.

There’s more to say about the red light, too. It doesn’t mean stop, the way it does everywhere else. It means something along the lines of “stop if you want to. Or not.” They mostly go for the or not side of it. Scooters and motorcycles don’t bother to stop at all, they just plow right through. Everything bigger than a motorcycle will (usually) at least make a rolling stop – and then just keep right on going through. It’s not even like the roads are empty, and there’s no one else on the road, so an occasional car bends the rules. No, they just plow right out into the intersection to find the tiniest break in the traffic. Taxis do it A LOT. I’ve seen BUSES go through red lights. I’m sorry, but in my opinion, when you’re holding 100 people’s lives in your hand (bus), you don’t break rules that can KILL THEM.

Scooters and motorcycles, since the red light doesn’t apply to them, other rules apparently don’t either. Oh, also, Koreans will put three or more people on a scooter. Sometimes some of them are babies, squished between two parents. Like actual babies, not just kids. And they drive them in flipflops, with headphones on. And all the delivery drivers drive scooters, and they hold what they’re delivering in one hand, and steer with the other, so their aim isn’t always the best. If they think that it’s shorter or faster to drive on the sidewalk, instead of the road, THEY’LL DO IT. They don’t particularly care who else is on the sidewalk, they’ll drive right down the middle – and you better watch out for whatever they’re carrying in their big, metal delivery boxes. Scooters pretty much drive on the sidewalk more than they do the road, but quite often cars drive on the road too. Motel parking lots are inside the motels, so for cars to get to them, they have to go across the sidewalk. Sometimes, though, there are gates along the sidewalk (if it’s to keep traffic off the sidewalk, it’s not working). In these cases, the cars would have to go to the corner, and get on the sidewalk from there, and drive along until they get to wherever they’re going. Similarly, the parking lot at the grocery store IS the sidewalk. Cars just swerve off the road onto the sidewalk, and park wherever they happen to be.

I’m angry about about, because I think I saw a lady die on the road ---. I was walking home a few days ago, and I saw a woman lying on the road, and an ambulance beside her. She really wasn’t moving at all. There was a taxi stopped on the road, so I think she got hit (other than scooters, taxis seem to make the most risks). The ambulance people put her on a stretcher and lifted her up, and she still didn’t move. While they were putting her in the ambulance, PEOPLE WERE HONKING, because the ambulance was taking up one lane. It’s not like the whole road was closed, there were still two lanes open, and people were moving through just fine, only they were mad that they were going to get somewhere SLIGHTLY SLOWER than they might have if someone hadn’t died.

Lotte World Adventure

2007-08-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

August 15
Lotte World Adventure!

Korean Independence Day fell conveniently on a Wednesday, so we had the day off from school. We had already planned to go to Lotte World Adventure theme park in Jamsil, and I guess we didn't realize until we got there that, oh yeah, everyone else in the country has today off of work too. And they ALL came to Lotte World. So we waited in line for tickets for about half an hour, and we didn't even get a foreigners discount! (LIES, Lotte World Website! Lies!). Then we went through the gates and.... Holy frig Lotte World is cool!! We started our "Adventure" in the indoor part of the park: it's not just rides and games and stuff, but every square inch of the place is decked out. Some of it looks like jungle, and there are dinosaurs and moneys and stuff. In the middle of the bottom floor is a skating rink, and its open to the top floor, so you can look down on people skating, and shopping on the other floors. Around the perimiter of the huge building these giant faux-hot-air balloons go around, giving you a view of the whole place.

Our first ride, we decided, should be the French Revolution. It's a roller coaster, and there's nothing particularly French about it. But since when have Korean names for anything make sense. We were super pumped about it, and got in the line. 10 minutes pass, 20 minutes, 30 minutes... And then we finally get to.... The sign that says there's an hour wait from this point. We kept ourselves amused with our surroundings though, laughing at the rulse for the ride (No drunken ride, Not allowed medical sensitivity, Not allowed pregnant) and the crazy Engrish t-shirts (my favorite said ETHAN HAWKE: A Lucky Strike). Eventually we get to the front of the line, and onto the French Revolution. And it was so worth the wait! It has an upside down loop, and some of it is in the dark, and some of it is in a crazy-lit-up-seizure tunnel!

After the French Revolution, we got some lunch from a "Danish" hot-dog vendor. I didn't know hotdogs came from Denmark, but sure. Mine I think had friend onions on it, but Alaina's...oh my. Her "cheese dog" was a hollow bun, into which the lady squirted bright orange "cheese" from a bottle. She filled the hole, and squirted it all over the top. Then she took the hotdog, and sliiiiid it into the hole in the bun. And then back out. And in. And out. And in and out. And in and out and in and out. And in. I've never seen anything so filthy in my life. Apparently it tasted about the same. The cheese, she said, was "tangy."

Rejuvinated (ie: disgusted) from lunch, we next wanted to try the Conquistador, which is that boat that swings back and forth, only this one is all did up like a pirate ship. And the lady who runs it is dressed like a pirate. About an hour into our wait for the Conquistador we were conveniently placed viewing the "World Carnival Parade." This is, I imagine, what a parade might look like if it were people entirely with the offspring of Miss America contests and drag queens. They all have the most elaborate costumes, covered in head to toe with feathers. One lady's headdress was so big that it was on wheels! And it had handles for her to steer it around. I didn't notice that the parade wasn't particularly "worldly" until BBro noticed the flag of Brazil coming. And the people who were supposed to be representing Brazil? Some Korean. Some white. Only they have different colored feathers to differentiate them from the other countries. The parade also had people playing drums, and flinging ribbons, and a guy on stilts, and... Everything you can imagine. Apparently this is how Koreans see people from European and North and South American countries. It was awesome. Along the same lines was the "Salsa Band" called "Rio Samba", but its entirely Korean women, in sparkly fluorescent jumpsuits. They were actually pretty good.

Anyway, after the Conquistador, we explored a little bit, the indoor "Adventure" theme park, and the outdoor "Magic Island" one. We decided, finally, to try the bumper cars. The wait here was probably the longest one yet, but at least we got to watch kids smashing in to each other. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, then us! We kept being the first people in line: they'd stop letting people on the rides just before us. Every time! Suspicious, I think. Bumper cars, of course were super fun. Josh vs. Brittany vs. Alaina vs. 9 Korean children. Guess who won?

We didn't have enough time to wait in line for any more rides, so we tried to find the Folk Museum. On the way there, though, from the top floor, we saw down into the park where a group of people who were dressed as bears or turtles or soemthing, it was hard to tell from far away. They had on big costumes, anyway, and they were dancing around and playing instruments. And what they were playing? Like a Virgin, which in my opinion, is NOT appropriate for a children's theme park; but then again I don't make the rules in Korea. The Folk Museum is actually a lot less lame than one might think. It's got some artifacts and traditional costumes, but the best part for me was the model village, which had THOUSANDS of tiny people all dressed up, and models of palaces and temples and other buildings.

Since the lines were so long, Lotte World was sort of disappointing, as a first-timer. But it was definitely awesome enough to entice me into going back on a day when it's not so crazy busy.

This is a donkey that pooped out prizes for 1000won. I won a gummy candy. Delicious.

Interesting Weekend ^^

2007-08-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

August 9

I promised Naomi I'd go to Ladies' Night in Itaewon with her (since I told her I would before, but fell asleep instead). I was just about to head home to get ready after my last class ended at 6:35, but Henna stopped me before I got out.

"Josh teacher, you didn't finish your online reports for your Academy Classes." I did. Twice. I had to figure them out by myself since no one would help me, only after I had finished them all the first time, did someone tell me that there's a different way to do the Academy Class reports, so I did them that way too.

Anyway, she says "You didn't fill out their reading progress reports."

"Actually, Henna, I only teach reading to one class, and if you look a little closer -- yup! There they are!"

"Well, then write about... their... listening!"

What? Are you serious? Their parents are paying a MILLION won a month to get reports on their children's listening skills? Anyway, I just did it, and got out of there. But in the time it took for me to get them done, a HUGE storm came, and on the walk home, the water was up to my ankles. August is monsoon season in Korea. So I arrived at home looking like a drowned rat, and got changed and ready to go. We got a taxi to Itaewon -- my favorite place so far in Seoul <3 -- and went to Subway. Because clearly we can't get that at home. It's shockingly similar to Subway in Canada, except in a combo (a "set," here) you only get one cookie instead of two. Which is not really that interesting. And apparently they don't have the coldcut sub.

Then we made our way to some bar, because ladies drink free. Naomi's friend had met us at Subway, and they were really thirsty. Drinks for men were 5000won, which is sort of a lot, but they mis them pretty strong. Anyway, not much happened at this bar, so we moved across the street. It turns out that the restaurant we went to on Canada is by day a semi-classy restaurant that serves a meal that is nothing but a plate of sausages, and by night is a really happening dance club. It's called Helios, and it is... certainly not The Axe.

We didn't have too hardcore a night, because we were saving up for.......

August 10

So how rediculous are my co-workers? Naomi planned a birthday party and invited everyone from work. She made a reservation at 8:00 at Carne Station (Meat Station... delicious), which is in Hongdae, a subway ride away. I usually work until 8:50, but my last class was cancelled, so I finised at 8:05. Either way, I was bound to be super late. I had made plans to meet Amber and we were going to go together, since I had no idea where it was. At 8:05 I left work, and got on the bus home, so I wouldn't be *as* late for the party. Anna was on the bus with me, and she said she was going to skip Naomi's thing and go out with some other people she knew. Then when we were walking up the hill to our building, we saw Amber, all dressed up, and leaving. "Sorry," she says, "I have to go meet this girl." Ok, whatev. I can find it on my own. So I trundle up to my apartment, and start to get ready. Although not very seriously, because I didn't really want to go by myself. Then Anna knocks on my door. "Ready to go?" WTF!?? Of course, I wasn't, but I brushed my teeth, and we set out. We waited for the bus. Then waited. Waited. Waited. When it finally came, and we got on, we saw Claire, one of the Korean teachers from school. Who, by the way, got fired because she's getting married, and they wouldn't give her 5 days off for a honeymoon.

So we get off the bus at Jongno -- I don't know which number. We tried, from here, to get a cab, but for the only time ever in Seoul, we're not being run down by them from all sides. We did finally see one, and the guy pulled over and stopped, then looked at us, and drove away. By this point, about 10:00, we finally accepted that we missed the dinner reservation, so we went to a 7-11 for dinner. There isn't a huge selection of huge eats at 7-11 anyway, but when it's a Korean 7-11, the pickings are even slimmer. I had a bag of Vienna Sausages -- that's how slim. Then a bunch of creepy looking guys went by, so we ran away, and (finally) got a cab. We got to Hongdae, and found Amber and her friend at KFC (which surprised no one), and we set off to the Tin Pan, where I assumed we'd be meeting the birthday girl.

The Tin Pan is a nice-ish downstairs bar, within which I discovered my new favorite drink: a Midori Sour. I don't know what's in it, but it's neon green, and it glows in the dark, and it's good as hell. About 30 seconds after we got there, this gross drunk guy started hitting on Anna, trying to talk her up. It was awkward. Eventually Naomi came to Tinpan, and it was at this exact moment that Amber and Anna (and Amber’s Russian friend Tanya) decided they were going to go to the next place. Since I still, at this point, assumed that the whole gang was going to meet later, I left with the people I arrived with. We went a few blocks away to a club called FF, it was pretty sketchy, but the 10000won cover came with a free drink. We were, at some point during the evening, expecting to see an “Irish” band that Amber knew. Before that, though, there were several Korean bands. None of which were particularly memorable. Ryan and Danny came from work, and they were super drunk, so Anna, Amber and Tanya and I went outside for a while. While we were there, we met Amber’s other friend, Sandra Pollock (who, several drinks later, I would keep reminding that her name sounded just like Sandra Bullock!)

Outside of the bar is where the real scene is. There were so many interesting people to talk to out there. None of them are actually from Seoul (obviously, because if they were, they wouldn’t speak English), so there was lots of interesting conversations. Two Irish people, and their friend from Texas who pretended to be Irish were particularly nice. At around 4:00, maybe, I feel Sandra Pollock poke me in the back, and I turn around to see her surreptitiously beckoning for me to save her from – the creepy guy from Tin Pan who hit on Anna! He was drunk about 6 hours ago, although he didn’t seem quite as desperate then as he did now. He was sweating everywhere and stumbling over. I took the hint: “Hey, Sandra, I think we have to go now!,” and I pulled her down the street away from the guy. We went around the corner to the 7-11 (all the while, I asked her if she knew who her name sounded JUST LIKE!), and we got some bottles of soju.

So we continued our party outside until about 5:00 we decided to catch a cab home, and arrived there about 5:30.

The next day, though –
August 11

Was mostly a sleep in. Late in the evening, I met BBro and we went to a restaurant near Cheyongyangni, which, it turns out is our new favorite place. After our meal (she ordered a “set,” which contained pretty much one of everything on the menu), we decided to go to HomePlus. We walked, because a week before I had tried to take the bus there with Naomi, and we got lost. Keep in mind it’s only about 3 stops from our building, and we got lost. We took the bus all the way to the last stop, just like I did on my own, because she was SO SURE that “this is the one that goes around.” So this time we were walking, that way we for sure wouldn’t miss it. It only takes about 20 minutes to get there from Cheyongyangni station, and it’s open 24 hours, so if I ever need a shopping fix in the middle of the night…

Anyhoo, we did our shopping (speakers for BBro, a blowdrier for me), and we were ready to leave and make our purchases. We were heading for the escalators, since we were a few floors up from where we came in. We were just about to step through the bars to the escalator, when this security guard/guy who bows at people when they come off the escalator stopped us. We had to pay at that floor, somewhere. Each floor is like its own separate store. WE WERE (inadvertently) STEALING FROM HOME PLUS! Horribly embarrassed, we found the place to pay, and then tried to avoid the bowing escalator guy by going to the other side of the store. So we walked past THAT escalator guy, but it was an up, instead of a down, so we decided to check it out, so we went up to the fourth floor. It was… a parking lot? Weird. So we kept going up. Fifth floor – parking lot. Sixth floor – parking lot. Seventh floor – parking lot. So then we had to go a-l-l the way back down.

BBro went home on the Subway from HomePlus, and I made the walk back home by myself. Right outside of Cheyongyangni Station, though, this woman walked right toward me, and started talking. I took my headphones out, almost as if I was planning on understanding what she was saying. She was talking away, in Korean, and I was making my go-to “I don’t know” gesture. I’m about to walk away, and she grabs me and says “sexy, sexy,” and point in the distance somewhere. WHAT?! Was I being picked up by a Korean hooker? I didn’t even consider the possibility, because the woman was pretty old, and not nice at all in the face area. So I start walking away, and she just follows me, saying “sexy, sexy!” So, right around here is where I almost broke into a run, but I think she maybe got the idea that I wasn’t interested in a gross, old, Korean prostitute…

Insa Dong

2007-08-21T05:11:00.002-07:00

Insa Dong is the place where people (foreigners) go if they want to buy something “cultural” from Korea, perhaps to give as Christmas presents, and what have you. I say “cultural” in quotation marks, because although many of the things that they sell are (stereo-)typically Korean, such as paper fans, traditional musical instruments, reproductions of ancient weapons, and of course the omnipresent cell-phone charms, many, of not most, of these items sold by the street vendors are proudly emblazoned with “MADE IN CHINA.” They don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re totally selling out their heritage. As the guy from Suwon English Village told me: “Koreans love to save money.”

Getting to Insa Dong proved to be a bit of an ordeal. I took the Subway from Cheyongyangni, to Jongno-(sam)-ga. It’s easy enough to get to the station, but at this particular station, there are three lines that run though, and the exit to Insa Dong is at the far end of the last one. So, I have to walk from the farthest end of the first station, all the way through the second, to the farthest end of the third. It seems to me that it rather defeats the purpose of taking the subway, if you still have to walk about 25 minutes to get where you want to go.
Even though it’s secretly trashy, Insa Dong is still a pretty cool place to look around. My favorite parts of the area, though, were the ones that weren’t trying to be “cultural.” There is a really cool shopping mall, which is really just a giant spiral ramp, with the stores on the outside edge, and open on the inside, so that you can look down into the courtyard below. There were some really interesting stores, leather crafts, jewelry, accessories, and the like. There were also, tucked along beside staircases, and in corners, some really interesting pieces of installation art.

While Insa Dong is probably most known for its street vendors, we saw some other really cool (and scary!) things while we were there. The streets are closed on the weekends to vehicular traffic, because there are so many people. While we were pressing our way through the crowds, we saw a group of people protesting. There were two people with hoods on, and their wrists and ankles tied together, and then to each other. They were being led down the street by a man in an army uniform holding a machine gun! The gunman represented the Chinese army, and the hooded people North Korean refugees, although they clearly were not (even though we couldn’t see their faces, they spoke English, as did the girl who explained to us what was happening, and most of the protesters were white). The scenario: as many as 300,000 people defected from North Korea in the last several years, and fled to China to hide. Since China won the bid for the Olympic Games, they have been under pressure to uphold International Law, and so they have been repatriating these defectors; or, they have them arrested or killed (if they are deported back to North Korea, they’ll essentially be killed anyway). The goal of the protests is "No Olympics in Beijing Without Human Rights for North Koreans.” The protest started 444 days before the Olympics are set to start, and it happens every weekend.

We followed the protesters for a while, and they eventually led us to a sort of street stage, where there was a performance of drumming and traditional Korean instruments. It seemed to be a school group, maybe, since they were pretty young. There were some people dancing, too, and at one point this guy was wearing a hat with a really long ribbon on it, and he’d wave his head around, and the ribbon would make big loops in the air. It looked really wacky.

After that, we went to my new favorite place, which is called Ice Berry. For a little taste of how amazing and bizarre it is, go to http://www.iceberry.com/ and click on the pink button. It’s really something special. I’ll wait –

Ice Berry is sort of ice cream, except it is actually ice, and cream. It’s a big bowl of chipped ice, and then ice cream on top, and you get it with different toppings (fruit, chocolate, cereal???); I had strawberries on mine. It’s a variation of a really popular Korean dessert called Bingsu, except that Bingsu usually has red beans on it, so it’s a little off-putting, but probably delicious.

Olympic Park

2007-08-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

Seoul hosted the Olympic Games in 1988, and the Olympic Park near Jamsil is where some of the events took place, although it is more a memorial of having the games than it is the exact spot where they took place. Along the road on the way to Olympic Park, known as Olympic Row, there are a lot of huge bronze sculptures depicting various events of the Olympics: wrestling, gymnastics, and the like. It’s really close to BBro’s house, about a 10-minute walk, so we figured we should check it out. To get there, by the way, don’t go to the Subway stop called Olympic Park (no, that would be too easy), go to Mongchontoseong, on the pink line. The main “park” is a huge, open, concrete space, where people roller blade and bike. The Olympic flame is in the middle of this area, under a covering. I wonder if this is the same flame that’s been burning since 1988? On the sides of the park are trees, under which old people sleep (Hopefully they were asleep, I didn’t get to close…)

Penetrating the park further, there are the most AMAZING sculpture gardens, crazy beautiful sculptures like I’ve never seen before. There is a Museum of Modern Art in the park as well, which is hosting a Pop Art exhibit, so a lot of these sculptures were probably commissioned by the museum, or they are by artists who were shown in the museum.
Right across from the museum, we saw a train ride, which looked like the most fun thing is Seoul. We were about to get on, because we thought it was free, but we saw people with tickets, so we set off to find those – always such an ordeal, everything we do. We found a kiosk, and got tickets, and went back to the train, and got on board. Clearly the train was built for Koreans. More precisely: Korean children. Very short ones. When I went to sit down, my legs were longer than the hole between the two seats! Someone was supposed to sit across from me, and my legs didn’t even fit! Holy uncomfortable! Luckily, the people who got on with us had a baby, so I got to sit across from nothing, and BBro got to sit across from baby carriage.
It was the bumpiest train ride ever (and it’s not even actually a train, just a bunch of boxes on wheels made up to look like a train), as the inner part of Olympic Park is paved in cobblestones, but it gave us an opportunity to see the park, and more of the sculptures that are in it. More importantly, there’s a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf! For if you’re feeling drained from the train ride, which we were, of course.

Vacation!

2007-08-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

July 27-31
We have a vacation from July 27-31 (which includes Saturday and Sunday, which I never work, but nonetheless count among my already paltry number of vacation days for the year). So BBro and I made plans (aka she made all the plans, and I did nothing) to go to Busan for the weekend.
Busan (also, for some reason, spelled Pusan) is toward the south-east of Korea, and is the second biggest city in the country. We wanted to have as much time as we could in the city, so we woke up bright and early (5:30 for me) and met at Seoul Station, where the KTX trains leave from. BBro was about half an hour late, as one of us ALWAYS is, but we still had lots of time to transfer from the subway to the normal train, and find our gate and have breakfast (oreos and canned ice coffee – breakfast of champions). So then we get on the train for our long, long, long journey. We got some crackers from the cart on the train, which had something creamy on them (cream? Maybe? Butter?), which is pretty gross, and yet completely typical for Korea. The ride itself is pretty uneventful, but the train goes about 800 km/h, which is pretty cool.

So our first shop was some place that was supposed to have amazing shopping. Alas, it only had women’s clothing stores, which sort of blew for me. But it did have a store called BEYONCE which is amazing. But overall, not good. I also tripped on a table at lunch. Then we went to the Museum of Modern Art, on account of I love modern art <3<3<3<3 Fiona Valverde <3<3<3 But it was closed, until the next day when a new exhibit opened. OMG I hate vacation, everything that happens is just like in stupid Seoul. So, back on the subway again, and – oh, the first time we tried to get on, we thought we could use out T-money cards from Seoul, so we swiped them, and….walked right in to the turnstiles. Awkward! So this time we knew better and we got our tickets from the machine. I wanted to see if anyone would notice if we got child tickets (half price), so I pressed the button, and this random woman FREAKED OUT and tried to “help us,” by buying us adult tickets. While BBro was choking to death.

Anyway, when we got off our (full price) subway ride, this crazy old man started talking to us – instead of just giggling and pointing, as is usually the case. But he was about 110 years old, so he was clearly senile. He told us about how he was in the Korean military, and he was the English interpreter when they were in the US. His English was actually pretty good, up until the point when he asked “Can you understand my English,” and we stared at him all agape; for some reason we had understood everything previous, but not this. So we ruined an old man’s self-esteem. Anyhoo, he still decided he wanted to take us wherever we were going, which was the Millak fish village. It took us FOREVER to find it; he decided he had to go home, and gave us some horrible directions, but we had a map anyway. So we go in this grody looking building, that’s just tank after tank after tank of fish, and shellfish, and SHARKS, and some weird tubules. We got two different kinds of fish from a nice lady. Now, I love sushi, but seeing the fish have their heads cut off and skin cut off, and then put in front of me to eat… I wasn’t that hungry. I recovered though, and it was actually really good. Clearly the freshest fish possible ever in the world.

After that we went to this amusement park called Me World, that we saw perched atop a hill. It had a roller coaster and a ferris wheel, and a flume ride (as well as these crazy animals that you can drive around the park), and its incredibly amazing. Then we got a cab and tried to take us to the hotel the website itinerary suggested, which it turns out IS NOT EVEN A HOTEL AT ALL. It’s some sort of spa.
Plus, I got in trouble there because I didn’t put my shoes in the “encampment for shoes.” So, we have to find another place to stay, even though this one took about an hour to find (the cab driver didn’t know where it was, then we tried to find it on our own, then an old man [so nice in Busan! But crazy] told us where it was). The second place we found was… Who knows – no English name. A love motel. But we didn’t stay there long, we walked down the street to where the restaurants are, and this man ATTACKED US, trying to get us to eat at his restaurant. So we did (But a woman using the same “advertising” approach, for the same restaurant, made a kid cry). We got some clams, which the guy cooked at our table, and they were AMAZING. So winner.

Day two started much the same way that day one ended: with a huge seafood meal. Apparently its all they have in Busan, since it’s right on the coast. We got this octopus and onion omlette. Which sounds bizarre, but is actually pretty delicious. Except for it comes with a bowl of tiny dried fish. Not so hot.
Then we went to the Yonggungsa Temple, which is a pretty nice place once you get down A HUNDRED AND EIGHT FRIGGING STAIRS. Which might be fine on a normal day, but when the temperature is the highest its been so far this year, and the humidity is about 10000%, its not THAT fun. But it was really interesting to see the temple, and the monks, and the weird underground crypt that people pray in, and all the Buddha statues (I rubbed a belly for good luck!) that people make offerings to (generally milk, it seems, which might not be the best idea on this hot day), and the…. Gift shop? I thought monks took a vow of poverty. And this shit is expensive too. BBro got a lovely “authentic” (ie: it has a “made in China” sticker) Buddha paperweight snowglobe. The gold coins offered to Buddha in it? American pennies. You stay classy, Yonggungsa Temple…

Also, there are Swastikas everywhere at Temples. Interesting…

Next we went to the most amazing aquarium. It had everything I’d ever heard of, and then some. And penguins! And also this live show, which had a mermaid, which was awesome, and then a pirate, who was horrible and disgusting, so we left at that part. We saw the hugest turtles and sharks and jellyfish, and the whole thing was underground. Then we went on the hilariously cheesy “simulation ride” which is like a roller coaster, only it doesn’t roll (or coast, for that matter), it just sort of jostles around in front of a screen of an under-the-sea scene. Awesome, nonetheless. Oh, and we had Bennigans for dinner too, which had good bread, but was otherwise fairly disgusting. It’s because they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to have Korean food or American food, so they tried to come up with some horrible, soggy hybrid. One way or the other, folks.

After all that – it’s the longest, narrowest restaurant I’ve ever seen, it takes like 45 minutes to walk from one end to the other – we went to the Mipo Harbour for a cruise! While we were waiting in line, it started to sprinkle a little bit. No worries, the boat was going to be IN water anyway, so we figured it wouldn’t be affected much. When we got on the boat, it was pouring pretty hard, but we were still pumped, we weren’t going to let it get us down.
By the time we set off, though, it was the CRAZIEST, most hardcore storm I had ever seen. The boat was rocking so hard, and rain was coming in EVERYWHERE. We were sitting in the front row, and the canopy didn’t quite make it all the way, so we might have gotten a little extra, even. At one point the driver announced something, but we ignored him… until a few minutes later I looked back and every! single! person! was gone! Apparently there’s a downstairs to the boat, and he told them to go down. Only we couldn’t hear or see what was going on. Hi! We’re tourists! The boat ride was so intense, and the islands we went to see were barely visible because the rain was so hard and the waves were so high. But since it’s Korean weather, the ride back was perfectly smooth and fine.

After that terrifying few hours, we tried to find a mall that the website itinerary had recommended, and the amazing-sounded Horrorwood, which is to be found within said mall. First problem: the mall’s name is completely wrong in the itinerary. Problem the second: Horrorwood isn’t in the mall. At all! Ugh. Never trust that stupid itinerary. That’s twice now. Dejected, we took the train to Gyeongju (2 hours), and then a cab to the Sarangchae Guest House (ok, itinerary, you get one more chance). Since BBro’s director had cancelled our reservation, instead of confirming it, it was, of course, full. Luckily we found the All-in Motel fairly close by, which had this cracked-out Sauna Shower, which I used to about 45 minutes – which is a bad BAD idea. I was so steamy at the end, I could barely breathe. And it had the HUGEST bed, which led to a good sleep…….

Day three! We left the All-in (and its huge rack of porn), and found a restaurant for breakfast. We add cold noodles and sat on the floor (we’re practically Korean!), and then walked to a park called Daereungwon. This whole area of Gyeongju is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which makes it pretty cool. The first sight was a group of tombs of former rulers, who are buried, and then on top are HUGE mounds, like man-made grassy mountains. They bury husbands and wives next to each other, and it totally makes their graves look like boobs… Anyway, they excavated one of them, and you can walk into it. The guy in this grave is living in style! Er… Dying in style? Well, already dead in style, I suppose. Anyway, his tomb is pimped out – air conditioned. Some of the artifacts they found are in cases around the tomb, they’re pretty interesting. The kings must have always had sore backs, they had to wear so much bling. This was also the site of my favorite moment in Korea
Brittany: Hi! You…Take…Picture? Us? Here?
Guy: Sure, ok, where do you want to stand?
[We pose]
Brittany: Gamsahamnida
Guy: …I’m Chinese…

Bahaha. It still makes me laugh, to think about it. “Asians all look the same,” she tries to reason. Anyway, when we had walked out the end of the park and were where we started our morning, we asked a tour guide where to find out next stop, the Cheomseongdae Observatory, “Sure, just go back to the other entrance, and ….” Of course.

A long walk later, we found it, and it was…Frankly, a lot less cool than I thought it would be. It’s pretty much just a stone tower. And not even a really big one. It’s pretty old, but still, I was expecting more. Then we saw a famous forest… an ice storage room… where a palace used to be… And then Anapji Pond, a huge pond with a bunch of buildings around it, which was actually quite stunning. The king who had it built wanted to use it as a place to breed rare and exotic animals. Now people go there to have picnics.

Next we took the bus to Bulguksi Temple, which is the most famous temple in the country, and houses many of South Korea’s national treasures (Dongdaemun is national treasure number one, haha suckers). The walk to this temple didn’t have as many tacky gifts, but it had about 50 people selling corndogs. Everything leading up to the Temple is horrible and tacky, but then once you get there, its huge and breathtaking.
It’s just gigantic, open rooms one after another, and then the ones that are closed in have row upon row of paper lanters, and interesting artifacts. But, alas, they have a “photo prohibition,” according to their signs. We skipped our last stop, a Grotto, and instead went back toward the station. We stopped at a huge bakery that had about 40 bakers working, and they all make little breads filled with red bean. The first bite I thought it tasted ok, but turns out that no, it’s horrible and disgusting. Good thing we bought 20 of them. To get that taste out of our mouths, we went to So-and-sos Yogurt Ice Cream (that’s not its real name, I just have a bad memory). We asked for yogurt ice cream, and they said no!? So we pointed at the menu, emblazoned with Yogurt Ice Cream, and pretty much nothing else (since it’s a Yogurt Ice Cream store). Still no. Point to the giant picture of ice cream? No. Point to the ice cream machine that’s clearly right there? Another no. Man, they really did not want to sell us ice cream.

So, we just went to the station, and had a heck of a time trying to buy tickets. But eventually we got them, and even did our transfer (fairly) successfully (Oh my gosh! Is this it? I can’t tell if this is it! Should we get off? What if this isn’t it? I’ll go look! I can’t tell if this is it! There’s no sign!). We arrived back in Seoul quite late. All in all, quite the successful trip!

July Recap

2007-08-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

Some stuff I missed…

-School is ridiculous: I teach 8 classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and 4 classes on Tuesday and Thursday. This includes 4 classes of Wake Up! 6B (2 twice a week and 2 thrice a week), 2 classes of Wake Up! 5B (1 twice a week and 1 thrice a week), 1 class of Wake Up! 2A (twice a week), and1 class each of Carnival 5, Odyssey 3B and 4B and CNN (each three times a week), and one class of Vocabulary (twice a week), and one class of art (once a week). Confusing? You have no idea. And this was only before summer camp started (July 23rd, and it’s still going…), which meant another 2 classes (one reading and one writing) every day. That’s 10 classes on M-W-F, which basically means a 12 hour day. But somehow this still equals less classes then I’m supposed to teach, somehow, so I don’t make any overtime pay… I don’t remember this from the contract.

-The kids are ridiculous: They’re… Not that smart. Also, a lot of them think I’m Tom, the teacher who taught them before me, As in they never noticed he left. Keep in mind that I look nothing like Tom. He’s in his later 20s, and he’s British. Many of my classes have 12 kids, when the majority of the other classes have about 6. The only thing I really like about them is sometimes they say stupid things, and I laugh at them. Examples: There’s this poster of farm animals on the wall of one classroom, but instead of chicken it says cock, so there are endless variations: “I eat cock all the time,” “I don’t like the taste of cock” … Luckily I still find this funny. Another day I was teaching action words, jump, talk, etc. We got to CLAP, and I said it and clapped my hands, and asked them to repeat. Asians often have trouble differentiating between L and R sounds (they have the same symbol in Korean), so I got a room full of kids clapping and shouting “CRAP CRAP.” Finally, there’s this one sort of fat kid, and his Koean name is Chun Ki Bum.

-The weather… is ridiculous: It is SO HOT all the time, but the real killer is the humidity. It never goes down. Even when it rains, which is a lot, since summer is monsoon season, it still feels like it’s about 10 000 degrees.

-Movie theatres… Guess what? Ridiculous. We tried to see Lady Chatterley. Lordy, what an ordeal. We didn’t want to try to explain to a person what we wanted, so we attempted to work a machine to get tickets. First we had to figure out which one was Lady Chatterley in Korean letters. Then I couldn’t figure out the time in 24-hour military time. Then we got through that and though we were getting tickets, but it asked us… Something. Still don’t know. So then we got in the line to talk to a person. But it turns out you need to have a number to wait in that line. So we went to the line for the numbers and waited. Got a number. And then waited in the other line. And got our tickets without too much trouble. Except: its reserved seating at theatres in Korea, and the seats we wanted we reserved on the machine, even though we didn’t get tickets. Thankfully the 2.5 hour French drama isn’t that popular.

-Itaewon: not that ridiculous, it’s actually pretty cool. We went to Itaewon for Canada Day, because there’s a Canadian tavern, where we didn’t go, in the end. It’s called “the most exotic place in Seoul,” because it’s… not exotic at all. To us. It’s where a lot of foreign people live, and it’s a pretty cool part of the city. We saw a guy wearing a Canadian flag, and (I assume) nothing else. Good to know he’s here giving Korean people a horrible, horrible impression of Canadians.

-Food: sometimes ridiculous, sometimes pretty good. Other than the obvious (noodles that move) there is some weird food stuff. Pizza, for example, has potato on it, and corn. And it’s served with pickles. And at Pizza School, a regular sized pizza is 5000 won, but at Pizza Hut, a personal pizza is like 23000 won! WTF!! On the good side, though, there’s a really strange abundance of fried chicken. EVERYWHERE sells it. It’s so popular here, yet everyone is so thin. It’s no fair. There are also a lot of restaurants where you grill meat right on your table top, it’s quite delicious. And super cheap. And there’s a really delicious bean paste that is much more delicious than it sounds. And SO much garlic. South Korea is the #1 consumer of garlic in the whole world! Smelly!

-Shopping: yeah… pretty ridiculous. The “department stores” here are, on average, 12 stories tall. Stores like Lotte have a grocery store on one (or more) floors, department stores on several floors, restauramts on some floors, etc. Doota, on the other hand is 12 floors of pretty much all clothes (and one weird dollar store section – 1000won, as the case may be), and its pretty amazing. Then there’s the Technomart. The first few stores is sporting good, clothes, LUSH (!), and some other stuff. Then the next 9 or so are ALL electronics. There’s an entire floor of nothing but cell phones, and it’s huge and amazing and terrifying. There’s a floor of cameras, a floor of vacuums and fans, etc, etc. It’s pretty overwhelming.

Wow… It has been quite a month!

The trouble with soju

2007-08-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

July 3

My first (real, Korean) meal out takes places, with Anna and Amber from work. Previously, I had been eating only the pre-prepared meat and sushi-type foods from the grocery store. Especially convenient, because after 9:00 these delicious treats are 50% off – and I get off work at 8:50, just enough time to make it to the store for the bargains. Anyway, on the way home from work, the girls decided they wanted to try to restaurant across the street from the block out building is home. I wanted to go home to change my clothes first, because, since I’m still not quite accustomed to the heat and humidity, I had probably sweated through my shirt. Plus, if I was going to make new friends, I wanted to make a good impression, not go around in my grody work clothes. So I go home and change, and then find the way to the restaurant (all by myself!), only to find that Anna and Amber had sat at a table with two other guys… OK… So I went over and said hi, and immediately knew how awkward I was going to be for all parties. Oh well, they invited me first. Anyway, one guy was Korean and one was Russian, Anna is Polish, Amber is American, and I’m Canadian, so we were working the multi-culti at that table. The girls were just eating the food that the guys already had, since you just cook the meat on your table top; they invited me to do the same (this meant that they were going to pay for it too – BONUS!).

Then they got out the soju…

I had heard of soju. Brittany and Alaina had some a few nights before, and they told me that it tasted like watered-down vodka. So, I figured that it was actually similar to vodka, only…you know… watered down. Only later did I find out that soju can be up to 45% (!!) alcohol. But I drank it is if it was, in fact, watered down, since no one told me differently. After several shots at the restaurant, we went to a bar down the street somewhere. This part I seem to have forgotten, except that Amber stopped to have her picture taken with some chicken. Then at the bar I had some more soju, and there was some sort of food dish made with hotdogs – which apparently became quite popular in Korea after the war, when all that the refugees could find in the military bases were hotdogs, and for some reason people still eat them all the time, as if they’re actual food. So after a few more shots, I declared that I thought it was about time I went home, and left. By myself (which means, I guess, that they paid for my drinks too – suckers). Now, I had only been in my apartment for a few days, and still had trouble finding it stone sober, in the daylight. And somehow I managed to get home, in the middle of the night and more than a little tipsy. I did manage, however to fall on the sidewalk, and rip the new pants I had worn “to make a good impression.”

Oops.

The Lost Boy

2007-08-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

June 28th

Here's an email I wrote to BBro about the experience I had coming back from her house:

Sooooo....

You know how I left your place at like 8:30 the other day... Guess what time I got home? 2:00.

I hate Korea.

I took the Subway first, and I thought everything was fine. Then I got off at the stop I was supposed to transfer at. And for some reason their colors are different. So I was following the blue signs, because I wanted the blue line. So naturally that was the purple line. So I went back the other wayand got on the green line... Which is the blue line. Then I got off at Cheyongyangni (whatever), which for some reason is on the map twice.

So I get on the 420 which supposedly stops at my school. Of course it doesn't. Maybe it takes a different route in the opposite direction? I just assumed I missed it, so I stay on, because I also assume the bus does a circle. It doesn't. So I'm at the other end of the city and the bus comes to
the end of its route. I'm the ONLY person on it. The driver tells me to get off, and points to another bus.

So, back the other way. I'm clearly not on a bus that goes to Dongdaemun, just back across the river. So the guy tries to tell me how to get to Dongdaemun? I think? Eventually a kid who speaks English gets on and we have this exchange:

KID: Get off at (whatever) stop, ok?
ME: ...ok
KID: Do you know where (blah) is?
ME: no
KID: then how were you going to get off there
ME: ...
KID: do you have any Korean friends?
ME: Not yet, I just got here
KID: You're going to have a lot of problems.

Jerk.

So then we get to (so and so) stop and the bus driver gets out of his bus and CHASES DOWN ANOTHER BUS. As if they don't come every 30 seconds! So I get on THAT bus... Finally this guy goes Dongdaemun, Dongdaemun, and like pushes me toward the door. So I start walking.

Half an hour later, guess where I am. Same place I started! Somehow. So I walk some more. And then I'm in like whatever-dong or -gu, or whatever.

Eventually I try to get a cab. I was reluctant because of our horror last time. Plus I was pretty sure I knew where I was going. Samsung. Turn. etc. So, I stick my arm out, and a cab that was already passed me, and going like 100 m/h, SLAMS on his brakes. I say Tapshimni Sagury... He deliberates for literally minutes. With the counter thing going. Then drives. Then stops and
deliberates some more. Then yells at the police (!!!) then drives. Clearly doesn't know where he's going. Eventually he drives past my motel. Finally.
Thank God.

Worst day ever.
Good chicken though.

Training Day

2007-08-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

June 25-27

My first day of training at the school began rather auspiciously… as all my days in Korea have so far. I woke up extra early and got prepared, since I didn’t actually know where the school was, and I was expecting a lengthy search (that’s how I roll here in Korea). But Damon came to my door bright and early, only when I went to answer it, I COULDN’T GET IT OPEN. Even the doors in Korea are hard to use. After literally minutes of fumbling, I finally got it open (the trick: push, unlock, then turn and pull). So we go out on the street, and Henna is there. I guess she didn’t want to come in and say hi – or maybe she did and got impatient and left while I tried to open the door. Either way, there she was, so the three of us set off to school. I watch some classes in the morning, and none of them are the ones I’m actually going to be teaching, which I find pointless, and entirely as I expected it to be. Eventually the fellow I’m replacing, Tom, arrives, and Henna takes us out to lunch at a place across from the school.

So we have to take our shoes off at the restaurant (and I even knew, this time), and sit on the floor to eat. Keeping in mind that I’m fairly enormously tall, its not the most comfortable position, since the table is about six inches off the floor. Also, what we’re eating, Henna tells me is pigs feet, and then she says “Oh, wait, no, it’s not pigs feet.” Which leads me to think that its pigs feet. It tastes ok, but still. Pigs feet. Then back to school to watch more classes. Uneventful, all in all.

Day 2 of training though, wasn’t at school but at the main YBM Sisa building in Jongno-(3)-ga. [Sidebar: I think it’s weird and wonderful that this part of a city has a number in its name. WTF???] The scary part is, I have to get there on my own. I find the bus (after I asked everyone at the school about 100 times), and made it to the station, which I probably would have missed except for every bus in the city is there. I went down into the subway, and (by sheer luck, I’m sure) chose the right direction, and even got off at the right stop. And I even found the right building! But then I went in the door, and ended up in a bank or something. But then I found the right door, and wandered around the place until someone stopped me and asked if I was there for training. This fellow, it turns out, is Sam, who does the training. As far as I can tell, he is Chinese, and he studied English and Chinese in America, and now he lives in Seoul and speaks perfect Korean.

The other people at training are from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, England, somewhere Eastern European (he was to creepy to get close enough to ask where), and then two of us from Truro. Ha. What are the odds? I actually learn here, as opposed to watching classes at school, and everything is going well, until…. The lunch break OF DEATH. New Zealand, South Africa, America, and Truro x2 found this restaurant called Pent House, and I ordered something called Dancing Fry Noodle, on account of noodles and fried anything are basically the best foods available. The catch, though, is the dancing. This ENORMOUS platter of noodles comes, and it is COVERED with these huge fish flakes, which MOVE. So THAT’s where the name comes from? That is gross as hell. I try to scrape all the fish to the side, but it’s permeated the noodles. So for the rest of the afternoon, I had crazy stomach grumbles (was it still moving in there?), and I felt like I had fish scales all in me.

The rest of training at the main office, and the third day at school all passed terrifyingly, and I took the most enormous stack of books back to the motel to start planning lessons for my first day…

Some local flavor

2007-08-16T03:33:00.000-07:00

June 24th

When I finally wake up from an entire day of sleeping, I try to find the motel lady, to find out the address of the motel, so I can get my bags delivered. After trying to explain to her my needs, she just calls her son, who speaks English. After a few minutes he manages to tell me 99-1, and then tries to spell the name of the place. He gets as far as T-O-P-S-H-I-T-L-I-R (before he gives up, and says he’ll just come over. And this whole conversation took about 10 minutes, to get those 10 letters out of him). So he brings me the address, which, it turns out, is Dapsimni. That’s sort of close. Anyhoo, once the lady helps me figure out the phone, I call the Korean Air people, and they tell me that they’ll bring my bags the next day. That was relatively painless! Finally something that went right!

Next I called Alaina, with the number I had gotten from my [approximately] 30 second chat with Mom and Dad. My first try, I ran out of coins, but upon attempt number two, she tells me to meet her and BBro at Dondaemun Stadium Station – take a taxi there, and then I can get a card for the Subway. I head out onto the street to try and find a taxi. They all seem to be on one side of the street, so I go to the corner, and go across to that side. The sidewalk seem to be gated along here, for some reason, so its hard to get a taxi somewhere other than the intersection. By the time I get across the street, the light had changed or something, because all the taxis are gone from here, and are at a different corner. Several attempts later, I stop fooling around and just step into the middle of the street to get a cab. “Dongdaemun Stadium Station,” I say. “Dongdaemun Station?,” he replies. Awesome! He understands English! …Or so I thought. He drops me at Dongdaemun Station, which, of course, is not Dongdaemun Stadium Station. I didn’t realize this, though, until I went down the stairs and back up every exit at the station. And there are a lot. Then I saw some roadsigns that said Dongdaemun Stadium, and followed them, assuming the Station would be at least close. It’s not, particularly. It took a good half hour of walking around the stadium to find it. But I did!

It turns out that Dongdaemun Stadium Station is rather…epic. But somehow BBro and Alaina manage to find me. So we go to McDonalds for lunch. You know… For some of the local flavor. I did actually have a Bulgogi Burger, whatever that is. It was pretty alright. Getting home, though, was an ordeal. BBro and I tried to walk home from… Wherever we ended up, because I thought that with my VAST experience of the city, I’d be able to find a tiny motel in a city of 12 million people. Needless to say, we didn’t. We walked for several hours, stopping in stores every few blocks to ask for directions, and even getting help from randoms on the street. Eventually we called BBro’s director, and she told us to get a cab to Dapsimni Sageory (the junction closest to the motel). And what do you know, about half a block away, there it is!

Arrival and Survival

2007-08-16T03:28:00.000-07:00

June 21, 2007

Everything leading up to departure went pretty smoothly (other than losing my winter coat at the airport), until I get up to the gate to wait, and they announce that takeoff is going to be delayed. For an hour. This concerns me, because I only have 2 hours to change flights in Toronto, and one of them is gone. When the plane finally lands in Toronto, the pilot says there’s no gate for us to pull up to, because we were so late arriving. So we sit on the runway, in the dark, waiting for one to open up. A few times, we start to move, but a few feet later the plane stops again, and we just wait. The pilot announces the flights that people have missed, and where they’ll be staying, and when the next flight will leave to take them wherever they’re going. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that mine wasn’t one of the flights he listed, because trying to explain to a Korean person that I missed my flight would not be an easy task. Thirty minutes pass, and we finally pull up to a gate, and everyone starts to disembark, but of course I am in the very last row of the plane, so it takes quite a while for me to get out. I find an Air Canada woman and ask about if I have to stay the night. She said my flight hadn’t left yet, but that if it did leave without me to come back to her to get a hotel room. The next challenge was to get to my next flight. Which was leaving from Terminal 3 in about 20 minutes, and I was in Terminal 1. So I took off, walking as fast as I could while carrying 2 heavy backpacks. So I walk, take a train, and then walk some more to arrive at Terminal 3, and Korean Air is at the far end, so I walk some more. I finally get to the Ticket Agent and get my boarding pass, and some official looking Korean guy comes over and tells me “Your bags probably aren’t coming.” Well, that was… vague. Not coming ever? What?

But since I have about 1 minute to get to my flight, I don’t bother to ask. I am literally THE LAST person to get on the plane, and I find my seat on the huge plane, which has an upstairs and a downstairs, and (I think 13 seats across each row), but get to where I’m supposed to sit, there’s someone else in my seat. Of course. I ask a flight attendant, and she just tells me to wait, on this fold-out seat by the door. Eventually, she leads me to a seat which I’m pretty sure is in first class! There are only 7 seats across each row, and they look pretty big, and comfortable. Score!

Fast forward about 12 hours….
We land at Incheon Airport in the middle of the night (or very early morning, depending), and head down to the baggage claim area. It’s June 23, I completely missed the 22nd. Since my bags were only “probably” not coming, I decided to wait it out and see if they’d turn up. They didn’t. So I ask the customs guy what I’m supposed to do, and he directs me over to the lost and found. They attempt to ask me several question is very broken English, and finally he gives me a phone number to call the next day. But first I try to called Henna and Damon, as per her instructions, but neither of them answer their phones. Which confuses and frightens me a little. Did they forget I was coming? So I leave that area and try to find the bus that I’m supposed to catch. A guy manages to show me where it is, even though neither of us can understand the other. But as I’m waiting, I realize I don’t have a ticket. So I trundle back inside in search of some sort of ticket kiosk or something. I find an info desk and ask “Ticket? Bus? Tick-et?” and she replies, in perfectly competent English “You just pay the fare when you get on.” Ok, so back outside. There’s still a while to wait, because the flight landed at 2:30 and the bus isn’t until 5:30. Great planning on this trip… So at 5:30 the bus comes, and I hold out the money I exchanged in the airport: the fare is 8000 Won. An hour and a half later, we’re at the final stop, Cheongyangni Station, and I’m the only person left on the bus. So I’m looking for Damon, who I expect to be a woman, since Henna repeatedly called Damon “she.” So I’m understandably surprised when a Korean man comes up to me “Joshua?” I figure this is Damon, because who else would know my name? But he’s definitely not a woman. It is him, obviously, and we get a taxi to the motel I’ll be staying in. Motel Casting. Which is QUITE an interesting place. We go into the room, and I take one step into it, and he practically screams at me to take my shoes off. I didn’t think about it because in the pre-arrival information Henna sent me, it said “You will be forgiven for anything except taking your shoes off in people’s houses, “ which I assumed meant, you know, that I would be forgiven for anything except taking my shoes off, but which actually meant I would be forgiven for anything except NOT taking my shoes off. And apparently it even applies in motels. Well shit. This is a bad start. When Damon and the motel woman leave I basically just sleep for the whole next day, since it had been 2 days since I’d slept.

When I woke up, and checked out the motel – oh my. Right inside the front door is a big rack ‘o’ porn, and in my room is a shower with no curtain, and big half-used bottles of shampoo and the like, 2 sets of slippers and someone else’s hairbrush. It turns out that it’s a “love motel,” which are quite popular in Korea with young couples, because girls live with their parents until they’re married, so they often need places to go to... do things. Anyway, this is one of them.

I leave the motel and try to find a phone so I can call home. The walk down the street was interesting, to say the least. Since I’m about a foot taller than the next tallest person here, EVERYONE stares at me. And it’s sort of dirty here too. I find a payphone, and after several attempts, figure out how to call home. I had just gotten a phone card at the airport, so I figure I have lots of time to tell my parents what things are like. We’re about two minutes into our conversation when the phone card ran out of minutes (worst phone card ever!). Unfortunately, though, the last words I left my parents with were “Oh my god, there’s a gun in this phone booth!” (there really was). And since there was no convenient machine like at the airport, I couldn’t get another phone card.

So I went back to the motel to sleep more. So far, Korea = not a fan.