Vacation!

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!

Training Day

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

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

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.