Katy And Korea

Japan

2010-01-16T23:48:00.000-08:00

It was so quiet of the trolley that I could hear the person standing next to me swallow. Of all the descriptions I've heard concerning Japan, "quiet" was never one of them. However, I found the Japanese people to be quiet to the point of discomfort whenever I had something to say to Amanda. I was whispering on a public bus because you could hear a pin drop!

Silence is referred to as "golden" for a reason though. What a serene and revitalizing country. Amanda and I's trip began with a frantic dash to the train station to travel to Busan, the famous port city of South Korea. We had to ride a taxi to Busan International Port where we boarded the "Camilia," a large white ship that ferries passengers between Fukouka (and other cities) in Japan and Busan in Korea. I swear Amanda and I were the ONLY 2 foreigners on the entire ship. Tweens were begging for the opportunity to take their picture with us and it was difficult to go anywhere on the ship without being gawked at. Since we bought economy seats (still almost $200 bucks) our sleeping quarters (16 hour overnight trip to Fukouka,Japan) were in the "public" rooms. I can only describe these so well, so here are some last minute photos I snapped before pulling out my floor mat and trying to sleep among 15 other male and female strangers.

The smell of soju and BO was overwhelming!!
Amanda and I stakes out a table and chairs to watch movie on her computer to pass the time.
It was more entertaining to watch Korean families plop down into chairs to drink, drink, drink soju, eat tangerines, persimmons and dried squid and just have a uproariously good time getting drunk together on a boat. And as a side note- Koreans drink first thing in the morning, so these folks were plastered.
7 in the morning at Hakata Port in Fukouka, Japan. It was a good 10 degrees warmer than Korea so Amanda and I were frolicking on the deck; celebrating.

Unfortunately, Fukouka port did not have a card-reading machine to exchange money, so I had to bum money form amanda until we could make it to a 711, the only store with a global ATM. I withdrew 30,000 yen (330 bucks!) and turned to pay and was slapped in the face with this magazine display:
In Japan, pornographic magazines aren't kept behind the front counter... and it's quite the popular section in the store. It took me 10 minutes to get a photo without a man in it ;)
To save money since the exchange rate is so atrocious, Amanda and I made a reservation at a hostel before we left. The Khaaosan house was wonderful, very homey because it was just a house owned by a Japanese couple. We got to lounge in the kitchen, use their computers and take looong showers after our long day of touring (which you haven't even begun to read about yet).

I'm always jealous of other country's public transit and bicycle systems. This was a row of coin-operated public locks for bikes.
I decided to thug it out with my won AND my yen.
Amanda and I took the Kamome (a.k.a.-old and decrepit) train to Nagasaki. We were the only people in the train car for the majority of the 2 1/2 hour ride, so that gave us lots of time to fall asleep, take pictures and fall asleep again.
I was trying to take pictures of the countryside and got myself instead.
The train ride was a treat since the tracks run alongside the coast.
Once at Nagasaki train station, we needed to transfer to a trolley to navigate our way around town. We were packed like sardines each time we rode, but the trolley was quiet as a graveyard. When it came time to get off, I felt rude for having to whisper to Amanda to make sure we had the right stop! Japanese people take silence very seriously, and they also seem mortified when it comes to making eye contact. I would try to smile and nod a hello to someone on the train and often I was left feeling awkward because the Japanese person would move to get away from me and my over familiar way of behaving around people. it was nice to have the personal space I am accustomed to from back in the US but I found myself missing the "Korean squish" as I call it. Koreans can be loud, boisterous and are often laughing loudly, patting each other on the back and just having a swell time. The Japanese seem serious as a heart attack, but austerity was the word of the day when it came to Nagasaki.

As you know, Nagasaki is 1 of the 2 cities that was bombed by the US, and that factoid was largely why I wanted to visit Nagasaki instead of any other portion of Japan. Before taking the "Peace Tour" (how the brochure referred to foreigners visiting the Atomic Bomb memorials), Amanda and I headed straight for China town to sample "Champon," which is noodle soup with lots of seafood. Nagasaki is a port town with an identity crisis. Founded by the Portuguese, heavily influenced by the Dutch and home to Japanese, it's surprising that there is even room for a China Town in all of that cultural clutter. But the China Town district of Nagasaki is alive and flourishing. Rising up like a gold and red dragon figurine and paper-lantern-stuffed explosion, Nagasaki's china town was so much fun to wander around in.

I love plastic food display cases- it always makes ordering so much easier.
Champon (seafood noodle soup)
Gua Bao (pork belly) sandwiches. Sold in every nook and cranny in Nagasaki. This is a very common Chinese street food, which is why it was prevalent all up and down China Town.
Japanese Venice
Fried sweet rice ball with black bean filling and crunchy sesame seeds on the outside!

Far and away the most popular food item in Nagasaki, "Castilla" is a type of pound cake originally brought over by Portuguese traders. They make it in regular, lemon, chocolate, green tea and cheese flavors. I ate enough free samples to equal a while loaf.
Beautiful old homes with gardens right up against the ocean.

Castilla is so popular, that they make castilla keychains, glass figurines (above), cellphone cases, pillows, etc.
From any street in Nagasaki, you could catch slivers of ocean in the distance.
The biggest persimmon I have ever seen
I've already had my fill when it comes to buying a county's traditional footwear. Can't find room from my clogs form Holland let alone these.
Oura Church- oldest church in Nagasaki
Awkward statue

Castilla bread pillows!
An overwhelming cigarette vending machine
We took this photo about 5 times. Every Japanese person on the ferry strategically looked elsewhere. It was so crowded and people still found a way to lean away from me.

With only around 2 hours of daylight left, Amanda and I made the long trip across the city to the atomic bomb memorials. The "peace tour" consists of visiting the Nagasaki museum and memorial for peace dedicated to victims of the atomic bombings and peace park, which has the exact point of impact and statues dedicated from countries all over the world in the name of peace.

I am notorious for taking illegal pictures. I snapped photos of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling and snapped a few of the statue of David and Westminster Abbey despite almost losing my camera to the gaurds! But when it came to the atomic bomb victim's memorial...I couldn't do it. Underground, there are 12 massive glass pillars that contain books with the names, photos and information on every bombing victim. There was a library dedicated to displaying video, photos and written accounts from survivors...all of it horrifying and gut-wrenching. The whole complex is so still, so quiet my own breathing offended me. There are pools of water everywhere and when I read one of the English plaques... I realized why. Immeadiately after impact, the people hit by the bomb's blast who weren't completely destroyed had all of their skin and hair burned off. The testimonials all say the same thing- that people were dying begging for water.
I signed my name on the remembrance book.
Each card is the name of a peace museum in Nagasaki. JUST Nagasaki.

More water..
Paper cranes left at all the memorials
Exact point of impact

Statue erected on the 50th Anniversary of the bombing.
So much more beautiful than flowers.
We chose the most perfect moment to walk to the top of Peace Park. With the sun setting, the peace statue was glowing and it was a very emotional experience to see so many elderly Japanese coming to visit the memorial.

After walking all day, we decided to go and russel up the one and only food I absolutely had to eat while in japan... SUSHI!!!!!!!!
Salmon and nori rolls
Chef's specialty. I ate the egg one by accident before I remembered to take a picture :/

After dinner, Amanda and I had to hop back on the train for another 2 1/2 hour ride to Fukouka where we crashed at our hostel. Sunday we opted to ride the "Beetle" ferry back to Busan, which was pretty nifty. It's a jet-powered ship that hovers 2 meters above the water and travels at a very fast speed. It feels like you are speeding across glass even though there are whitecap swells all around.

To sum up the trip: I think I will return to Japan. The Japanese people are fascinating because of their demeanor and their history and both cities were clean, easily navigable and inviting to explore for endless hours. Japan seems like the wise grandparent of Asia. Battle-worn yet still powerful. It's easy to see why Korea feels so overlooked and underappreciated next to such a titan of a country.

Another country down...continents and continents to go. I can't wait to see where I will explore next!

It's The Final Countdown

2010-01-11T00:19:00.000-08:00

Ah, what a year, what a year. I have done everything I set out to do in Korea, which was mainly to scour the country from top to bottom and see the sights and meet the locals.

I have made many friends in this country, some Korean and many from different countries all over the globe. New foods, new holidays, new customs... I could make this whole post a giant list enumerating the plethora of "new" experiences I've had, but you mostly know them from my previous writing.

Instead, this last post is about my kids. I've been teaching nearly 130 children for the past 6 months, and they have grown on me like little snotty, candy-flecked weeds. I will miss my little boys who turn beet red when they come to hand in their papers to me because they have a crush on the foreign teacher, and I will miss all my little girls who endlessly play with my hair and have whole conversations with themselves as they do so (SJ tells me that they are weighing the pros and cons of different updos for me :D )

My first week of class, the kids stared at me bug-eyed and tight-lipped; completely unsure how to handle the behemoth, light-eyed woman before them. It wasn't hard to break the ice because everything from my accent, my big feet overflowing the indoor sandals and my habit of bringing salad for lunch sends them into fits of laughter. Now I feel like I am leaving just when things are getting good. We know each other now. Students recognize flustered sighs from dangerous glares and will often silence themselves whenever I lift two fingers and pinch an imaginary sticker from their name on the sticker chart.

These past two weeks, I have been teaching from 9 to 4:30 each day, and I have been loading the kids up on good old Americana. They have learned about New Year's resolutions, how to draw the American flag, how America celebrates Easter, and I am doing an entire lesson on G.O.R.P (Good old-fashioned raisins and peanuts. AKA trail mix!) I went out and bought peanuts, raisins, banana chips, popcorn, peanut M&Ms, almonds and little baggies and labels so each student can have their own stash to take home.

My older students earned enough stickers for class participation that they earned pizza parties. Twice, I have had to brave the snow to go and fetch pizza and soda for my kids. While some of the kids are from middle class families, there are definitely children who come in wearing dirty clothes. They are the same ones that are dropped off way early for class and left waiting at the curbside long after all the other kids have been picked up. I'm trying to lavish prizes on them because I don't think all my children have the happiest or wealthiest of homes to go back to.

Korea is such a humble little country. I imagine Korea as a skinny adolescent, hunkered down low, trying to be overlooked by the bullies surrounding it: China, North Korea, Japan... but at the same time Korea is growing up and REALLY wants a little popularity, a little acceptance. That's why it's more common to get the gift of eyelid surgery (as in cutting the eyelid to make a crease) upon turning 16 than it is to get a car in Korea. They want to Westernize, to get competitive in the global market. Koreans are proud of their heritage yet act like the beaten animals of Asia- another country raises a hand at them and they cower down in fear. Koreans are sweet and industrious people. I am not sure if they will ever be unified with North Korea...or if Kia cars will take over the world (unlikely ;) ) but there are a lot of good things to be experienced in this country. Like the fact that I can walk alone at night. Anywhere. And be completely safe. The fact that I can set my purse in a crowded room, leave for the bathroom, and return to find it untouched. These people are very honest and good-hearted. If there is one thing I envy, it's the fact that I feel safer here beneath a terrifying communist world power than I do in my home town.

This weekend I leave for a last-minute trip to Fukouka and Nagasaki in Japan before hopping a flight on Monday to take me home. Asia has been good to me, and I recommend a visit to anyone seeking out a culture completely foreign to their own. I love South Korea and will miss SJ, but she tells me that one day she would like to come and visit me in Florida. I hope I can introduce you all to her since she has been my savior more times than can be counted over here.

So enjoy these last few photos and videos. I will be sure to add my Japan pics later. And Korea:

Annyong-hi kyeshipshio!!

6th grade, enjoying their pizza party.
This is a "large" bulgogi (meat) pizza, which is actually the size of a personal pan
pizza from Pizza Hut.

Koreans have this thing about carrying stuff- it must have a handle! So, every time you
order pizza or bring home a cake, they tie ribbons around the package to turn it into
a convenient little tote.

My favorites! 4th grade enjoying their pizza party, too.

"No, teacher, noooooo picture!"

Trail mix day! This is Jimmy... being the class clown as usual.

I figured Teacher Katy's true legacy is being a strange, health-fanatic foreigner. So
why not have a trail mix day? I'd rather have my kids inhaling dried fruit, nuts and
popcorn than chocolates and lollipops (although I did splurge and add M&Ms to the
lineup).They seemed to enjoy the lesson too and munched away like cows chewing cud
all during the lesson.

2nd graders. Elli and Bonnie!

Withdrawing all of my won form the bank and getting ready to send it as a wire
transfer to my bank account back home.

The only time in my life that I will be a millionaire. This was nearly 4 million won!

Alaska with Ian and Snowy Daegu

2010-01-01T17:50:00.001-08:00

After jetting through countless time zones, enduring 3 flights, 4 bus rides, 2 train rides, 2 taxis, 4 subway transfers and a 3-mile walk in 0 degree weather I can label another trip to Alaska as a success.

From December 16th through December 30th, I stayed with Ian on post at the Northern Lights Inn (military housing hotel) at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, AK. It's the second time I have been, and it was even colder than my last visit, dipping down to -30 at "night" (it is almost 24 hours of darkness in Alaska in the winter time). Despite the extreme conditions though, Alaska is like a different world. There is no wind and everything is blanketed in snow and ice. Fort Wainwright is also about 20 minutes away from the North Pole, so Fairbanks had a Christmas-y feel to it with all the trees decorated with lights and frozen Santa statues in the yards.

Living in a hotel room for two weeks can be frustrating, but that didn't stop Ian and I from having a pretty stellar trip. I was able to watch his graduation ceremony from WLC (he graduated top of the class and is a Sergeant now!!) and met several of his buddies that deployed with him to Iraq.

I made a massive batch of buckeye cookies that were mostly eaten every day by Ian and I, and I gorged on all the American foods that I have been missing so much like feta cheese and garbanzo beans. Ian was even sweet enough to brave the subzero temperatures in the dead of night to cut down a scraggly Christmas tree for me. We had to sneak it into the room, and the only decorations we had were mini candy canes from a candy dish in the hotel lobby, popcorn garland that I made using a little army sewing kit Ian had and cutting a star out of a disposable pie pan. A true Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

We visited Chena Hot Springs again and scored a real deal since rooms were half price for the Christmas season. All in all though, it was a low-key visit with lots of trips to the gym and date nights consisting of going to Pizza Hut for stuffed-crust goodness and hanging around the fireplace in Barnes and Noble until closing time, reading cookbooks and thumbing through magazines. I loved every moment of it.

Here are some pics of Alaska and Ian :)
I asked Ian to get a handful of potatoes for dinner and he came back with this monstrosity. I ended up leaving him with two sizable vats of mashed potatoes just because I didn't want them to all go to waste.
Chena Hot Springs

Hot steam was blowing on this patch of ground and the ducks would not leave this spot!
Blurry shot out the car window. This was on the way to the North Pole on Christmas eve at about 3p.m.

Ian's attempt at making a nice, round buckeye.

Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The poor maid who had to dig the pine needles out of the heater...
I got to wear Ian's old uniform one day when we went out in pursuit of sledding. The sledding never happened, but I got to experience the uniform at least. Very comfy... of course it could have been because it was about 5X my size.

Ian's graduation ceremony form WLC. Second on the right!

A view of Fort Wainwright from our hotel window
--

As for life back in Daegu, it's a bit lonely since many of my friends have already left to make it back before the semester begins. I am teaching from 9-5 to make up for days I missed for vacation, so my students are complaining about the long hours of class. To make matters worse, it's been snowing in Daegu!

As SJ tells me, this is a rarity. The sidewalks are encrusted with craggy shells of ice and piles of snow are mounded up around buildings and car rooftops. The kids LOVE the snow, and they are positively antsy in class, glancing out the window and sometimes sneaking it open to try and grab snowflakes. The fact that Teacher Katy is accustomed to tropical temperatures and Maegok is painfully cheap and won't turn on the room's heat make for a very crabby teacher. I ended up having to channel my American rage and indignation at being forced to teach in a room where I could see my breath at the women in the administration office who control the heater. Today I was able to to teach nix the trench coat and gloves and was downright toasty by 3p.m. But just to make sure I have heat for the remainder of my time in Korea, I gave the same women the stink eye when I was walking up the stairs.

Dinner with SJ, Seoul and North Korea

2009-12-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Technically, I was in two countries on Sunday. Shaina, Eunice, Amanda and I finally made the long trek to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that is the smudged line between North and South Korea. But before I dive into that tale, let's take a refresher on humble life in Daegu.

Living abroad is a different animal than traveling. I frequent the same grocery store, coffee place and vegetable stand daily. At E-Mart, the sample lady in the tofu section knows me by name and always gives me thirds. Fruit vendors know me as the loopy foreigner who sometimes just wants to buy 1 banana; not 14. My point is, you can get stuck in a rut even in South Korea. And what a rut it has been these past few weeks! I have been unable to shake illness for two weeks now, my food poisoning segueing immediately into some type of flu or cold. When I am not converting my temperature from Celsius into Fahrenheit on my complimentary H1N1 glass thermometer from orientation, I am confusing my children as I try and enunciate "m" and "n" sounds with a stuffy nose.

One bright spot in my week was finally getting to meet SJ's mother. SJ lives alone with her mom about 7 subway stops away from me. One way or another, SJ's mom was never able to invite me over although I have the suspicion that she was just nervous about meeting a foreigner. Regardless, I followed SJ home on a Wednesday night to meet momma and have some Korean food. mom definitely treated me right with japchae (noodles made from the starch of sweet potatoes, nicknamed "glass noodles"), sesame spinach, spicy tofu, pin-zized anchovies, radish and homemade kimchi. Let me pause on the kimchi!!! Right now, Koreans across the country are busy slathering cabbages with anchovy paste and red chili spice, stuffing them into large ceramic pots and burying them in the ground. Koreans eat kimchi with every meal, so this is a LOT of cabbage, and they are making a year's supply. Now, where do you store all of that kimchi? In a kimchi refrigerator, of course!! SJ led me to an office-type room at the back of their apartment and laughed as I gawked at their shiny, brand-spanking-new kimchi fridge. And that is the correct name: "kimchi fridge" as made obvious by the dancing cabbage cartoon characters on the doors. It's a special, air-tight temperature controlled fridge with massive bins designed specifically for storing the spicy, femrented cabbage. SJ's mom strapped me down with about 8 pounds of kimchi before I left and I will never be able to finish it before I leave Korea!

Our train to Seoul left at 8:20 in the AM. When we arrived, our first order of business was to stake out a love hotel and then navigate Seoul's fiercely confusing subway system to the Han River. Fast forward 3 hours of subway transfers and walking, we finally found the river and a stand where you could rent either 2-seater or single seat bikes for 3,000 won. Shaina and Eunice rocked the 2-seater and crashed into everything from streetlamps to a few close calls with Korean children while Amanda and I played it safe with normal bikes. My only issue was even with the seat raised to it's highest point, my legs were jutting out at the sides like stork legs because Korean bikes are tailored for much shorter people. We pedaled around the river, racing and having a good time and all of us were only too tickled to warm up in our hotel rooms and grab some dinner afterward.

The next day we had to meet bright and early with Adventure Korea, a tour group that organizes trips to the DMZ. We loaded onto a charter bus, Dunkin Donuts coffees in hand, and rode for an hour to a small city that was built specifically for that fated day when North and South Korea will supposedly reunite. The city boasts a theme park called "Peace Land", has a few Western restaurants and several watchtowers with free binoculars so you can look out across the border into North Korean territory. But if the border can be described in a word, it's eerie. There was no one there. The theme park was lit up with rides twirling and spinning and not a soul around to ride them. The shops were empty and with an overcast, snowy sky the whole place looked depressing and desolate. This wasn't even the actual border yet, either!
Peace Land
This train was shot up by North Koreans and their allies as it tried to pass the border and now stands as a very chilling reminder of the violence that still lingers between the two halves of the country.
Just my bad sense of humor. As a public relations major... I can safely say that North Korea has a permanently damaged reputation and I would never want this dude's job.
A few of the barren shops I mentioned are behind me. One thing of note though- look at the sign above me and you will see a red hat society hat! I thought of Grandma P. when I saw this :)

After the Peace Land park, we drove up numerous squirrely mountain roads until we came to the actual border, peppered with camouflaged gun turrets and swarming with both U.S. and Korean soldiers. There were normal homes lining the streets, but I never saw a single person walking outside anywhere. We ate a nondescript lunch at a small restaurant and lingered in a few gift shops before walking to the DMZ museum, which (with sweeping generalizations and an overly-optimistic and happy tone) feeds you a select history of the Korean War. The museum glazed over the brutality that POWs faced and touched very lightly on the actual fighting. Instead the museum (and every other place we visited in the DMZ compound) seemed to be fixated on this hypothetical reunion day that is eventually coming. The museum highlighted peace negotiations currently underway (really!?!), the beautiful wildlife in Northern Korea and basically how everything is hunky dorey between the two countries. Weird!
Kimchi pots

The scariest part about the museum was the tunnel tour. There are 3 known tunnels that the North Koreans have dug that stretch from North Korea underground into South Korea. These tunnels are wide enough to transport the entire North Korean Army in a handful of hours...and South Korean military officials believe there are at least 22 tunnels still undiscovered. So every day they are drilling and poking around the border, hoping to unearth another tunnel and REALLY hoping that there aren't any more tunels being dug as I write this post..

We were allowed to walk down into the tunnel (but all of our cameras were locked up) It was incredibly steep and damp. Our hard hats were constantly scraping the rocky ceiling above us and we all had to completely fold over at the waist to walk. Terrifying to think there are potentially tunnels even bigger and deeper then the one we toured hidden all across the border.
They turned North Korean citizens into friendly little cartoon characters. 0.o

I wish I could show you pictures of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea... but pictures were not allowed. We drove to the top of a mountain that sevred as an observatory for tourists to come and catch a glimpse of North Korea's capital city. We were allowed to take photos up until this thick yellow line and then the soldiers would confiscate our cameras if we stepped past the line to look into the binoculars. What I can tell you is I have never seen a city so still. It was like the movie "I Am Legend". There were no moving cars, no people walking outside. There were no lights on in buildings and no sounds of honking or planes flying overhead. The only noteable thing about the city was the enormous, life-like (fat belly and all) statue of Kim Jong Il sitting in the middle of the city.

I was on my tip-toes trying to get a decent shot.

By far the pinnacle of oddness though was the train station. The last stop on the tour, Dorasan train station was hands down disconcerting and uncomfortable. It's a fully-functional, fully-staffed, brand new train station complete with ticket taking counters, snack bars and bathrooms. And get this: it goes absolutely nowhere. The train tracks stop within a few feet of the border. Dorasan was constructed as a goodwill offering in the hopes that one day South Koreans will be able to freely travel up into North Korea again.

No trains..
It was a creepy day. Before catching our trian back to Daegu, we decided to splurge and eat at Bennigans for some second-rate albeit still tasty "Western" food. I had a $35 salad and about 3 baskets of bread and thought it was worth every dollar :)

To end on a less unsettling note, here is a picture of what you typically see on a Korean subway: people collapsing everywhere since Koreans can't seem to stay awake on public transportation.

Busan Observatory, Geumjeong Sanseong Fortress and Food Poisoning!!

2009-12-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

24 hours after my last post, our meal from our TaLK trip to Juwangsan Park decided to make a violent exit from my body in the form of 5 days of food poisoning resulting in a massive fever, being bed-stricken and not eating anything except nibbles of the b.r.a.t. diet (bananas, rice, apples and toast). I should have, WOULD have stayed home except that I cannot miss any more days of class and if fellow teachers suspected I was ill, I would have been hustled to an E.R. to get tested for Swine flu (on MY dime-$200!!) quicker than I could blink. So, Teacher Katy did not move from her chair for an entire week of class. It sucked, but I survived.

Last weekend was our planned trip to Jeju island, but due to my illness and Shaina deciding that she didn't want to go after all, we ended up doing another weekend in Busan. Unfortunately, I was still fairly ill, and a weekend full of hiking in the freezing weather has left me with a bad cold. I leave for Alaska on December 16th to spend Christmas with Ian, so I am trying like Hell to get decently healthy before I board that plane for 27 hours of traveling.

As for Busan, it was mind-numbingly cold. Busan is a coastal city and is the second largest city next to Seoul, meaning it's enormous and constantly struggling with it's "second city syndrome" and trying to one up Seoul. When you look at a tourist map of Busan, every inch of the city is titled as "historic site" this and "cultural heritage" site that. I don't know about you, but a fish market does not make the cut as a cultural heritage site in my book.

When we arrived at Busan, we staked out a love hotel to dump all of our bags. We chose the "Camus Motel", which was pleasingly swanky for a love hotel. Internet, a full-sized bed and a hobbit-sized bathtub! We were tickled that it was only 50,000 a night but the owner let us know that we couldn't come back to the hotel until nighttime because that's when "business" begins... 0.0

The bathroom door. A nice change since they are usually just completely see-through.

My hips could barely squish down into the tub but OH! How delicious it was to take a bath. I think I marinated for near an hour before donning my complimentary robe and collapsing onto the bed.

A mirror above the bed....
Amanda, enjoying the high-speed internet. Love hotels are good for so many laughs because you are constantly reminded in small ways that the room is designed for a very specific clientele (young couples who have no place to go because they still live at home!) For example, I was surfing the channels on tv when I bumped a button that suddenly projected the computer screen onto the tv's massive flat screen. Let your mind wander.

Shaina, Eunice and Amanda were vibing some lunch, so we headed to one of the fish markets to haggle for some sashimi. I passed on the meal for obvious reasons and ended up eating tangerines and a bag of salted almonds to be safe. Busan's fish market smelled particularly pungent after my week, so I passed on all the samples of raw fish that the vendors kept shoving at me, slipping around on their black rubber gloves.

You can amuse yourself for hours watching the live octopus tanks. Despite the mesh coverings
lining the rim of the bowl, octopus are excellent escape artists. This guy switched bowls about five times before plopping down onto the asphalt for a mad dash to the water. I guess a "mad dash" for an octopus is still pretty slow, so he was caught easily enough by a very elderly man who had been munching on the Korean version of a twinkie. The man tossed the twinkie on his lap, grabbed the octopus with the same bare hand and tossed him back into the bowl before he continued eating. Yuck!

After lunch, we decided to head to the furthest tip of Busan city, known as the "observatory point". After a winding, hair-raising bus ride along seaside cliffs we arrived at a park that was set up along the ocean. just when we thought we would have to walk all the way up a mountain to get to the observatory tower, a bright green, yellow and orange train drove up to he entrance. It was similar to the shuttles that take you to and from the entrance of an amusement park. So, we hopped on for 1,500 won and rode the train to the observation tower for a breathtaking view of the white-capped water and sun-drenched cliffs below.

At the observatory. I believe the needle is pointing to Japan.

You may have to enlarge this photo to see them, but there are several ajumma (elderly Korean women) on the cliffs, peddling their catch of the day. You can climb down the treacherous rocky paths to where these women are situated and eat the freshest seafood of your life for whatever price you manage to haggle down to (and it's ALWAYS cheap). I think I might laugh at the guy working the seafood counter at the grocery store when he tells me the seafood is really fresh.

Only in Korea can you climb around slippery cliffs at sunset, buffeted so hard with the wind that you almost fall over into the water completely unsupervised.

Shaina and Amanda, soaking up the scenery. We all perched on the rocks, shivering and watching the massive ships heading out to sea, glinting in the sunlight. It was fantastic.

I snapped this moments before loading into the bus that would take us back to the center of Busan city. Korea is a beautiful country, and I will miss the sight of mountains on the horizon dearly when I return home.

That night, we all wanted something HOT to eat! What better than traditional Korean winter fare: soup! So we stopped into a Korean restaurant and ordered 2 dinners a piece and all paid less than 6 dollars for the entire meal. I ordered spicy tofu and pepper soup and tuna bibimbap (rice with shredded vegetables and spicy chili paste). We all shared bowl after bowl of miso soup and shredded seaweed with sesame oil too. It was a feast fit for royalty. That night, Shaina and Eunice decided to go out drinking while Amanda and I stayed in to get to bed at a decent hour. I didn't want my Sunday to be ruined from lack of sleep, which turned out to be the right decision because Amanda and I had a wonderful adventure the next day.
Sunday morning at Dunkin Donuts. It's not the Dunkin Donuts you know in love in the states. Korean Dunkin Donuts serves creations like the "kimchi croquette", which is a garlic roll stuffed with spicy cabbage and anchovy paste. How about pairing that with your coffee?

I realized that I have been in Korea for nearly half a year and I have not taken many photos of all the squat toilet signs I've encountered. In Korea, the typical bathroom usually has a row of all squat toilets and a single "Western" toilet, usually reserved for mom's with little kids or handicapped people. Squat toilets free up faster, so it's usually the toilet of choice if you are in a rush, but that doesn't mean Westerners are as adept at the kimchi squat. I have seen so many foreigners with suspect wet spots around the bottoms of their pants where misfires occurred.
Jay, my mentor teacher, has mentioned a fortress in Busan to me several times, saying that it would be worth a trip. So, Amanda and I rallied on Sunday and took the subway to the end of the line as far North as it would go. Once off the subway, we took the most terrifying and nauseating bus ride of our lives up a winding mountain PATH (you can't call that thing a road..) to the top where we were dropped off. Geumjeong Sanseong Fortress is massive and loops around several bordering mountains. The walls are ancient but mostly intact, and you could spend days hiking to each gate. We hiked to the South gate and wanted to call it a day soon after just because it was so strenuous.
South gate
This crazy volleyball/kickball hybrid sport that Koreans love to play.

Eating lunch along the ancient fortress wall. This photo was taken at around 1:30 p.m. and every Korean we passed along the way was halfway loaded with Soju already. Drinking culture is huge here!
We decided to ride the cable car down the mountain because the scenery was too beautiful to pass up. Unfortunately, we were corralled in with about 20 drunk, old Korean men and women who were playing grab ass and acting more juvenile than teenagers. Amanda and I were horrified and amused to see all these old men and women pinching each other's butts and exchanging casual kisses the whole ride down. The cable car reeked of soju and it was incredibly awkward to be the only two foreigners around but we won't soon forget the experience.

Once we were back in town, Amanda and I decided to go back to the same restaurant where we ate dinner just because the owners were so friendly. We drank gallons of miso soup while we relaxed indoors (waiting for Shaina and Eunice to meet up with us so we could take the train back to Daegu). The owners packaged our dinners up to go, and we got back to Daegu around 10p.m.

Thanksgiving, The Zoo and Juwangsan Park

2009-11-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

Like the belligerent Americans we are, my friends and I refused to forgo a traditional Thanksgiving meal and braved the elements to come together for a homemade dinner in the lobby of one of the dorms at Keimyung University. I will forever be the champion of holiday celebrations, so I'd been been harassing my friends for weeks about this dinner. We all went shopping together to split the cost for ingredients, and ended up paying 14,000 won apiece to concoct what I consider to be a damn fine replica of a Thanksgiving dinner considering there are no OVENS in Korea!

Our dinner consisted of stir fried apples which I coated with cinnamon-y toasted oatmeal (yes, I sacrificed oatmeal for this meal!), smashed potatoes with garlic, sweet potatoes (the indigo-colored Korean kind), 2 roasted chickens, a canned vegetable mixture of peas, carrots and corn, a loaf of bread and peanut M&Ms. Quite the sumptuous feast for 4 American girls feeling achingly disconnected from the celebration back home. Since we all have to work on weekdays, we did not get around to the dinner until 9p.m., but the company was worth it and we all stockpiled leftovers to continue the food revelry the next day!

It was frigid outside and the walk to the university dorms was long, so I wrapped all the food I cooked in towels and stacked the containers in my backpack to try and keep them warm.
Garlic smashed potatoes- a salty, buttery success!
Shaina, who informed us that she is not celebrating Thanksgiving with her kids because she wants to do a week on Hanukkah instead to "represent. " :)
We were so cold and hungry! The girl to the far right is Amanda's (center) co-teacher for class. She probably thought this was the strangest celebration ever. We were all flustered trying to explain Thanksgiving to her, and the fact that almost all the food for Thanksgiving is baked and takes days to prepare and cook. She just kept nodding and smiling and we were like "nooooooo, really! Americans eat phenomenal food on this day- believe us!"
So good in 20 degree weather!
Purple sweet potatoes!
My apple crumble creation- made with oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, apples and stevia!
Last picture, I promise. We just don't get much American-type food over here, so we were all very excited.

In class, I devoted an entire week to Thanksgiving festivities. I showed the kids "Garfield's Thanksgiving" and had each class make hand turkeys as Thanksgiving cards for their parents. Most Koreans have never seen a turkey, so the different interpretations of a "hand turkey" were hilarious! Many students literally drew their hands (fingernails, wrinkles and all) and some students drew rooster-like creatures with dancing corn and pies around them (we learned about traditional Thanksgiving food, too).
This is Jessica, but I call her "the monkey" because the moment she sees me, she wraps around one of my legs like a chimp and SJ has to pry her off before I can start class (or worse- all the other students start entangling themselves around my legs trying to hitch a ride).

I think the last time that I visited a zoo, I was on my middle school trip to Washington D.C. I've always considered zoos to be one of the most depressing places you could go...and Daegu's zoo was no exception. The best way I can describe the experience is that it was like a train wreck and even though you should, you couldn't look away.

It was a crisp 30 degree day when we visited, and even in a sunbeam my teeth were chattering. The zoo was easily overlooked because upon first glance you think you just accidentally wandered into a little park in the middle of the city until you spot the dingy, rusted cage bars bordering the park. The cages were miserably small, made of concrete and barely had enough room for the birds to spread their wings let alone give the jaguars room to sprawl out. There was everything from lions and tigers to wolves, seals and one old, decrepit elephant that looked suspiciously like he was shaking in the cold. I was with Eunice and Shaina and we all had a teary-eyed moment watching the elephant stand there scraping peanuts out of the dust and lifting them up to his foamy, crusted mouth before disappearing back into some sort of iron cage the size of a small shed.

It was tragic... and it makes me at least appreciate the seeming cleanliness of the zoo I remember visiting. Although I took some pictures, they wouldn't do anything except depress you, so I won't bother uploading them.

On a much more positive note, we also completed another TaLK-sponsored cultural trip. This time, the destination was Juwangsan Park, a very popular national park full of waterfall-rimmed hiking trails and renowned for serving up famous Korean Ginseng chicken, which is just a porridge of boiled rice with some ginseng in it and an entire chicken placed in the bowl, which you proceed to pick apart with your chopsticks. I actually had a good laugh at the meal though (whilst munching some tofu instead) because the restaurant owners brought out these little bowls of salt for all the foreigners. Koreans use little to no salt in their cooking, and if there is one thing Americans love more than sugar, it's salt! I watched everyone scrape heaping spoonfuls into their chicken/rice porridge with great satisfaction. After eating, we all just sat there, relishing the heat radiating up from the floor. It was the warmest we would be all day because after eating, we headed for the Juwang trail head to start our walk.

Calling the trail a "hike" is a stretch since it was plain walking 95% of the time. But what beautiful scenery! There were massive cliffs and lazy, semi-frozen water falls trickling all around, giving us the impression that it was raining when really it was just misty.

A beautiful way to spend the day. If it seems like I have been hiking often, it's because this coming weekend is our trip to Jeju, the island off the southern tip of Korea. Mt. Halla is on Jeju, and it is the biggest mountain in Korea. Not to mention that we will be hiking Halla in December... so there will very likely be snow on the trail. Florida is so flat, you can fall asleep while driving and probably be fine for five minutes if you didn't touch the steering wheel. So hiking is an enormous challenge because of the altitude and the temperature! Wish me luck. There will be a new "Jeju" post coming soon, assuming that we make it back alive ;)

Golgulsa Temple

2009-11-15T03:36:00.000-08:00

From choking down still squirming Korean cuisine to stripping down butt naked with women quadruple my age, I have dabbled in the most eccentric of Korean cultural traditions. But a big piece of the pie has been missing: delving into the extremely foreign and ancient religion of Buddhism.

Korea is a predominantly Buddhist country, and I often find myself bumping into monks decked in traditional gray cotton garb in the most mundane of settings (a monk had to nudge me once because I was sitting on the sleeve of his robe without realizing it!) The beauty of the Buddhist faith is that it invites people from all religions to come and find similarities in Buddhism that mirror those highlighted in their own faith. Point in case: the temple stay.

This past weekend, Shaina, Amanda and I set out for Golgulsa Temple, a Buddhist temple famed for it's very accessible (meaning they have a monk who speaks ENGLISH!) temple stay program. Temple stays are a means to dip a toe in Buddhism; to test the waters, so to speak. For however long you pay for, you can sleep, eat, chant, pray and essentially coexist with the resident monks to get a crash course in Buddhism. There is no quicker way to learn the tenets of an ancient religion than to shadow someone who devotes their every waking moment to its practice.

2 subway lines and 3 bus rides got us to Golgulsa's gates at around 4:30pm, and with Korea's temperatures plummeting into the 20s and below in the evening, our cups of green tea were clattering around on their saucers as we tried to warm up in the main office. It was 40,000 won for 2 days and 1 night of Buddhist life- a bargain when you consider you get all your meals included, tea time, exercise classes and a place to sleep.

A hollow wooden gourd is tapped to signal the beginning of prayers and meal times, so we were delighted to hear the "tap tap-tap-tap" sounding off at 5:30p.m. Luckily, my one prior experience with Buddhist dining at Dhongwasa temple prepared me for the meal. Buddhists believe in moderation, so eating is simply a ritual to fuel the body. So what does that mean? That means that you better elbow your way in front of all those little bald men or there won't be any tofu left! A Buddhist meal is typically finished in under 30 minutes and you are REQUIRED to eat every bit of what you serve yourself. And I mean every. bit. If you leave even a single grain of rice behind, the women behind the counter who prepared the meal are likely to swat you with a ladle and you will be sentenced to bowing punishment by the Grand Master (the big daddy monk in residence). And let me tell you- bowing is no joke! 1 bow is actually a complicated series of kneeling and placing your forehead on a mat three times in succession and punishment bows are prescribed in the thousands. For example: you are late to chanting- that's 3,000 bows, please. I'm sure you are scoffing and saying to yourself "yeah right, like someone would actually do that many bows." Let me attest: it's real! It generally takes anywhere from 13-18 hours for a 3,000 bow punishment to be completed (and punishment bows can go higher than 8,000!!) I was never late... to anything!

See?

After our meal of tofu, kimchi, rice, slivered onions, sesame spinach and red bean dok (rice cake), we had to get changed and walk in the arctic, thought-obliterating cold to sunmudo training, which is Buddhist martial arts. 90 minutes of it. The training began with chanting for 1/2 an hour. Unfortunately, it was all in Korean, so I mouthed some of the sounds but I haven't the faintest what I was saying. Following chanting is meditation, the most important aspect of Buddhism. When I asked one of the monks what the most important principle behind Buddhism is, he told me it is to know yourself. That sounds pretty spacey, but it has to do with the fact that until you know yourself through and through, you cannot hope to connect with the divine at all because baser human inclinations like pride, anger, lust etc. would interfere (sound familiar?). Meditation is used to quiet your mind so you can get beneath all that and realize that every single human being is the same, and all of our struggles in life are completely self-imposed.

I'd like to tell you that something miraculous happened and that I had a true moment of zen huddled on the cold wooden floors of the training room. I could lie and say that the heavens parted, and infinite wisdom and peace rained down upon me in my supreme meditative state and that I awoke enlightened. But no. I sat there for another half hour, shaking from the cold, muttering in my mind over a numb butt and lower back pain and worrying when I would next get an opportunity to go pee before this running and jumping martial arts business started up. (As a side note, I asked the Sunmudo master what he does to combat the stiff back that sitting cross-legged on a hard floor will give you and he said with a huge, endearing smile: "Why, I sit on my couch, of course.") Once the actual Sunmudo began it was 9pm. We began with light stretching (one of the moves was to rub your belly and smile!) before channeling animal movements into our exercises: running around smacking your knuckles on the ground like a chimp, slithering on the floor like a dragon and running on all fours like a tiger. And then we played leap frog! Quite possibly the BEST game of leap frog ever! There were 2 monks present among all the temple-stay participants and they were vaulting over people, laughing uproariously and acting like children. Once sunmudo was finished, we had to bundle back up and traverse the vertical, hellish hill to our room, which housed 6 people. It was Korean style, meaning we slept on a few blankets on the floor, but we all tried to go to bed as quickly as possible because.... here's the clincher.... monks get up at 4 IN THE MORNING!! Apparently, that's when the cosmos begin to jive. CLICK HERE for a video of some of the chanting.

None of us slept though. The wooden building was creaking like a haunted house all night and the gale force winds were seeping through the rice paper coverings on the doors. And the wind chime. OH the wind chime... I wanted to rip it from the rafters and chuck it into the woods, but I didn't want to be smote by Buddha or anything, so we all lay there listening to clanging metal bits and groaning floorboards until 4a.m. rolled around and a junior monk came chanting around our building, knocking on the same wooden gourd. Buddhist courtesy wake-up call. Chanting and meditation lasted for an hour and a half, and it was a comical juxtaposition: bleary-eyed, shivering foreigners, poised stiffly on the floorboards, glancing obsessively at the clock ticking away the seconds next to these serene little mounds of gray robes with bald heads poking out, oblivious to the temperature and the time; happy to be there. Oh, and since Buddha traveled the world with a dog at his side, there are all these husky-type dogs (a specific breed in Korea known as the Jindo) walking around next to the monks, acting just as zen. They had their own pillows in the temple and were sprawled out, relaxing among the fog of incense and trance-inducing chanting.

Breakfast was at 5:50 after walking meditation (outside!). Because it was Sunday, we were allowed to observe and participate in Balwoo-gongyang: the traditional 4 bowl meal that Buddhists use to promote mindfulness when eating. The bowls come to you stacked within one another like Russian nesting dolls. You have a rice bowl, soup bowl, vegetable bowl and water bowl. At the beginning of the meal, a splash of water is poured into the rice bowl and you use it to rinse out each bowl before the food is put in BUT you don't throw the water out: you keep it in the water bowl. The ultimate point of the meal is to clean your bowls so there is not a single particle of food left over in your bowl once the meal has finished. You are supposed to savor and appreciate every facet of the meal from the work that went into producing the food, to chewing to reveling in the sensation of being full at the end. It's a simple meal of rice and vegetables, and at the end, a junior monk will give you some hot water to wash out your rice bowl. You take a piece of kimchi (you are supposed to save 1 piece for this exact purpose) and scrub the bowls clean using the kimchi and chopsticks. Moving the water form bowl to bowl, you clean each one until you have some hot water with a few spices floating in it at the end. You drink this and eat the piece of kimchi. Rinse one last time with the cold water form the water bowl. A junior monk comes around and collects this cold water into a large bucket and brings it for inspection to the grand master. If the water is as clean as when it was first doled out, then the meal was a success. Many of the temple stay participants messed up and had dirty bowels or drank the water because they forgot how to correctly dispose of it- but I did the whole thing correctly! After the ceremonial breakfast meal we had tea time with one of the monks (an opportunity to discuss Buddhism and meet each other) and walked around the temple grounds until it was time for lunch. Too pooped to linger for much longer, we decided to head back home after lunch.

Walking through the countryside, trying to find Golgulsa Temple. The moment you get outside a major city, Korea becomes extremely rural. We were traipsing through rice paddies and persimmon orchards until we finally found a big wooden sign with a leftward-facing swastika, the Buddhist symbol of eternity, unity and looove.
This is a Jindo, a breed of dog only found in Korea. They were everywhere!

Rubbing the Buddha belly for luck.
:)
Our accommodations. Men on the ground floor, women above.
Rice paper walls DO NOT do a good job of keeping freezing wind out. Let's add something to the list of "things I miss": drywall and insulation.

6 girls to a room. Traditional Korean style with mats for the floor. Our floor heater did not work very well, so we were freezing the whole night.

Sunmudo training.

If you didn't pay attention, the penalty was a roundhouse kick to the face! Just kidding, but the monks were sparring. So cool to watch.

UPDATE ON PEPERO DAY:

So much for banning Pepero day, Maegok was awash in Pepero wrappers by the time class let out. I ate every single pepero I was given and had the best sugar high of my life that evening. here are some pic of some of my first graders, pepero in-hand.
Note the flu masks.
Juliet- the cutest 1st grader EVER!

Weekend in Seoul, Billibow and Peppero Day

2009-11-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

If I were a car, the needle would be pointing to a 3/4 tank full of gas-I am still rearing to go. Taking stock of my experiences thus far in Korea, I admit that I'm impressed with my steadfast optimism; not my usual forte. During orientation, we were warned that shortly following the "Honeymoon" phase of our love affair with Korea, most TaLK participants would undergo a deep and bitter resentment of this country and would begin dropping from the program like flies. However, I am 3 1/2 months in, and I feel right at home.

This past weekend, Shaina's sister, Alicia, visited all the way from Boston. During the week, we all palled around in the evenings, going to cafes and making fun of all the Korean quirks that make this experiences a real gut-buster. For example, while we were waiting for Shaina and Alicia to meet us in the lobby of the train station, a drunk/homeless guy started yodeling and doing a wobbly, groin-swiveling dance. I did what any respectful expatriate abiding by customary Korean politeness would do: I filmed it. Here is the video.

Teacher Katy fulfilled her own agenda by ending classes early on Friday to make it to the train station on time. Actually, classes are somewhat of a joke lately since attendance began to plummet. My 2nd grade class of 38 students has petered down to a mere 7 because parents all across Korea are gripped with the Swine Flu panic. Every holiday and field trip has been cancelled, and most national and state attractions (theme parks, nature preserves, the zoo, etc.) have been closed to prevent the flu from spreading. Alcohol hand sanitizing machines are sprouting up overnight in the subways like metal weeds, and the "subway salespeople" I mentioned in my last post have tossed their nutcrackers and and are peddling face masks instead. They sell out every time. Maybe all of these preventative measures would do some good if Koreans young and old understood the first thing about contagious illness: that you don't violently cough/sneeze in each other's face!!!! This is every foreigner's biggest gripe with Korean people: their utter lack of germ-conscientiousness. Example: I am seated next to a 40ish woman on the subway. She has to cough. Does she face the other direction and send her phlegmy rain of spittle away from my person? No. She leans her head back and fires it, cannon-like, into the air to hover in a viral cloud around my face. Example 2: Teacher Katy is grading activity books. The child offers me his/her book and simultaneously sneezes across my keyboard and then proceeds to wipe their face with their wrist, smearing dirt/snot/candy residue from their mouths in streaks across their cheeks.
My school has asked me to wear a mask. I think I look like Reptile or Subzero off of Mortal Kombat.
We arrived at Seoul at 9p.m. Friday night. Unfortunately, our first hour and a half was spent walking, walking, walking in search of a love hotel to leave our stuff in. When we finally found one, the owner was already asleep (the owners sleep on mats on the floors in tiny rooms with sliding windows barely big enough to fit your hand through). We had to keep tapping on the window until he woke up, crazy-eyed and disoriented to take our 60,000 won and shove 2 sets of keys to us through the window. After unloading, we headed back to the subway to ride to Hongdae: Seoul's drinking district.

I was overcome with the sensation that I was revisiting the red light district in Amsterdam the moment we arrived with flickering crimson-colored lighting bathing the narrow streets. There were bars everywhere you turned and you had to watch your step lest you slip and fall in a pile of vomit congealing on the sidewalk. Alicia, Amanda and Shaina all grabbed some soju at a bar called "With" but decided that the steep prices weren't worth it, so they hit up a "Buy The Way" (Convenience store) for some Hite beer and we headed to "Candy Candy Noraebang". "Noraebang" is Korean karaoke. You rent a room, which has sound proof walls, it's own sound system, tv, mini fridge and plush couches and chairs. Noraebang establishments have THE best selection of songs I have ever encountered, and we sand everything from "Zombie" from the Cranberries to "Part of Your World" form Aladdin.
Picking our next song.
Shaina and her sister, Alicia (left).
Ah Konglish, you never cease to amuse me.

The next day, we headed to Itaewon, which is the foreigner's district in Seoul. We cruised the streets aimlessly, picking up a few more souvenirs for people back at home, but at 4 I had to part with the rest of the group to meet with Angela, the coordinator for the TaLK program. Angela was instrumental in getting me to Korea in the first place, answering my feverish rapid-fire of e-mails at all hours of the day and night and helping me coordinate with the Korean consulate in Georgia to schedule my interview not once, not twice but 5 different times before we settled on a workable date. So, I met up with her to go and get a pedicure at some hole-in-the-wall salon that was absolutely popping when we arrived. Angela is a fascinating woman since she was born in Korea, but raised in the Middle East and Australia before returning to Korea. She says things like "No, worries mate" in an accent tinged with extremely proper Indian-esque pronunciation and then launches into Korean with the owner of the salon. Talk about a woman of the world.
My delish sashimi lunch in Itaewon.
Shaina made a kimchi and rice pumpkin!
That night I had my first rendezvous with another traditional Korean dish: rice porridge. A continuous light drizzle and chilly wind left us feeling like popsicle people by evening, so when I suggested a porridge restaurant, the girls were down. Korean porridge is usually made from white rice boiled down into a paste-like consistency, then mixed with ground sesame seeds, seaweed flakes and whatever flavors you want like tofu, shrimp, crab or ::gulp:: abalone- a crustacean that takes a hand saw to cut open and tastes like bitter shoe leather. I had broccoli and tofu and it was divine- like a warm brick in my belly for the rest of the evening.
Korean porridge!
Every so often you will find these signs for a "special massage". It's always the most expensive, and sometimes it only appears on the list once night has fallen.
On Sunday, Shaina had to accompany her sister back to the airport, so Amanda and I headed to a Jimjilbang (public bath) to pass the time before Shaina got back and we would take the train back to Daegu. It was glorious as it always is, and we both actually fell asleep on our mats, lying on the heated wooden floors, surrounded by Korean families snacking on hard-boiled eggs, tangerines and boiled sweet potatoes. I have a hard life, don't I?

Back in the grind in Daegu, the only time to go out is during the evening once everyone is finished with their classes and lesson planning. Foreigners have repeatedly mentioned a bar called "Billibow" as a great place to go to hear Western music and, of course, play billibow. Billibow is a nickname for a game that is a fusion of billiards and bowling. You hit a pool ball with a pool stick down a long bowling lane to knock over miniaturized pins at the end. Strangely enough, I scored the same in billibow as I would during normal bowling (90-120 range)!
Look what I found!

Peppero Day is the most genius business idea I have ever witnessed. It's a national holiday that really isn't an official holiday at all. Peppero are a popular candy in Korea (think very thin bread stick covered in chocolate- almost like a Take 5 candy bar in the States). it's celebrated on November 11 (11/11) because peppero resemble the number 1. Koreans go mad buying up all these Peppero arrangements (in the shapes of stars and hearts,etc.) from the store to give to their significant other, friends and family. It's a bit like Valentine's day. However, because of the Swine Flu panic, Maegok (my school) does not condone celebrating Peppero Day. As I am writing this, I am preparing to go to class, and I am eager to see if Peppero Day will still happen. My guess is it will be as popular as ever since my kids were thrusting peppero in my face all day yesterday despite chastising and warnings from the Principle.

Expect an update to this post with news on my first ever Peppero Day!

Danyang Lake, Gosu Cave, Halloween and Mt. Apsan....whew!

2009-10-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

After an hour and a half of contortions and getting dripped on by stalactites, I was all spelunked out after our trek through Gosu Cave. But let me back up:

TaLK paid for our second "Cultural Excursion" trip, which turned out to be a visit to a beautiful lake up in some random mountains, an underground hike through a jagged cave system and then dinner at another lake with some unique rock formations.

Once again, the plan was to meet at 8 sharp at Daegok Subway station, which is a solid hour and 10 minutes from my apartment. That night, we had stayed out late at a foreigner ball called "Sugar Joes" to watch some live music from a band called "Adrenalin." It turned out to be an excellent evening because the band played a lot of soul and R&B. But the best part was the fact that one of the band-mates was a 14-year-old white lab who spent the evening begging for pretzels from the bar top. I rolled around on the dirty bar floor for a solid 20 minutes, getting licks and laughing over the pronounced "brain bump" on the back of his head (for all you dog owners, you know what I'm talking about. The knot on top of their heads that houses the peanut-brain ^.^)

We did not get home until about 2 a.m., so during the first 2 hours of our 3-hour bus ride to the mountains, I was splayed out over 3 chairs, dead to the world. When we arrived, you couldn't help but to be jolted awake when a blast of 50-degree wind whipped clear through you. The scenery was picturesque because the leaves are just beginning to turn; with all the trees a muddy mix of browns and burnt oranges. Being from Florida, I've never seen a true Fall, so Korea is going to be a treat.
Doing the Kimchi squat
This was REALLY high up!
These ladies were so thrilled by the cruise! Actually, the one in the middle gave us that container of popcorn when she saw me take a picture. Koreans do that all the time: try and feed me. Everywhere I go it's like sample day at the grocery store.

After the boat ride (including after some impromptu Norabang-karaoke- from the cruise's 70 and older crowd) we headed to Gosu cave. In any State or National park in America, the "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" decree is strictly enforced. I remember trying to snatch a pine cone from Yosemite and getting a tongue lashing from a park ranger, foaming at the mouth over my impertinence...my disrespect for the American Park system... However, in Korea, if you feel the impulse to snap off a chunk of limestone stalactite for a souvenir, the penalty may be a raised eyebrow and a grunt from the park coordinators. In Gosu cave I was flabbergasted to see tourists taking photos (the deadly, corrosive power of the flash!), empty water bottles tossed on to the ground and kids slithering across slippery rock formations like it was Mother Nature's slip N slide.
The unexpected singing and dancing on the boat ride. These people were breaking it down to some Korean jams from the 40s and 50s and subsequently falling down when we hit a rough patch of water. None of them could stop laughing as they kept tumbling over the seats and each other with each swell that rocked the boat.
Our lunch.
The first inklings of fall!
The entrance to Gosu Cave

I saw a dad give his son a boost up to these puddles so he could splash around in his rubber boots. Can you imagine getting away with that at Yellowstone?
A photo op station. These worked much the same as a roller coaster at a theme park. You came to a certain spot in the cave that was supposed to make you gaze up in wonder (going along with the analogy it was like the point where you hit a major drop in the roller coaster) and this hidden camera takes a candid photo of you. Whereas pretty much everyone is in the throws of screaming on a roller coaster, there were some HILARIOUS pics of people caught off guard picking their noses, pulling wedgies or just looking supremely bored. Needless to say,. I did not purchase the 20,000 won photo of me slack jawed, staring at my camera and deleting pictures. Not a Kodak moment.
Look Mom, a trumpet tree!Perhaps a neat-o audio cassette of a popular 80s one-hit-wonder as a souvenir from Gosu Cave?
Beneath our rather overwhelming Captain Morgan stance, there is a man dressed as a woman. We have no idea why he was dressed this way, we only know that his friends were laughing and taking photos, so we suspect a lost bet.
Posing in front of the aptly named "3 Weird Rocks". 3 Rocks. In the middle of a lake. We were there for 2 hours 0.o

Bored on the bus ride home, one of our Korean friend's decided to terrorize unsuspecting passengers. Korean Bugles for fingernails and a Scream mask she won at a balloon-popping contest held out in front of Gosu Cave.

For the past week, I have been inundating my kids with Halloween mania. I had Halloween Bingo, YouTube scary videos including THIS one, which made some run out of the room, a color-your-own haunted house game and tons and tons of M&Ms and Snickers to give away as prizes. It was fun to see what Korean children thought of Halloween, and I can boil it down to this: they think Americans are quite literally posessed by demons one night and terrorize the land and that chocolate is the only means of subduing this madness. Pumpkins are an everyday food in a typical Korean household, so carving a face on one and putting a candle inside was mind boggling. I taught the kids the names of all sorts of Halloween costume ideas (vampire, ghost, witch, mummy, etc.) but the funniest was their pronunciation of zombie: Jom-b. The letter "z" is mispronounced almost as often as the letter "l".
I wanted to test the counting skills of my 4,5 and 6th graders, so I made these little containers of M&Ms. Each one had over 200 pieces, and I wrote the exact number on the back of each pumpkin. The kids had to write their guesses on slips of paper and I gave the whole thing to the kid with the closest guess.

For Teacher Katy's Halloween, I decided to head downtown to an expat bar that was throwing a free Halloween-themed bash catered to non-Koreans. I went as a mummy...or at least I had the intention of going as a mummy. But somewhere along the way I was mixed up with a Greek Goddess/dead bride from the 80s. With no costume stores in Korea, finding something to wear definitely gave the creative juices a workout. I wanted a clever costume that cost almost nothing: thus my idea to be a mummy with gauze costing a little less than a quarter a roll.

The subway ride downtown was entertaining. Koreans do not celebrate Halloween at all...so there I was, wrapped up like a burn victim with crazy eye makeup, next to Amanda who was channeling Daisy Duke from Dukes of Hazard under the oh so unforgiving harshness of fluorescent lighting.There are already Christmas trees up in the subway!

It was a stellar night with some of the funniest and off-the-wall costumes I have ever seen. For example, there were the lost Canadian backpackers. They had these massive hiking back packs adorned with Canadian flags and kept pushing through the crowd, guidebooks in hand, asking for directions in Fargo-inspired accents. I also saw a guy dressed as Wolverine with metal chopsticks taped to his hands, MC Hammer (a token black guy with parachute pants), the entire bad guy lineup from Mortal Kombat and my personal favorite: the lesbian lumberjacks (pictures below).

Class class.

The remnants of my mummy costume at the end of the night.

SJ and I are quite the trailblazers. On Sunday, we decided to spend some quality time together and hike Apsan Mountain. I asked her what "Apsan" means, and she said it means the "nearby mountain". So, people in Daegu have nicknamed it the "close and familiar" mountain because it pretty much rests up against metropolitan Daegu.

Look at all the families nestled amongst the trees, picnicking.

Every day on the subway, when we reach Seongso (my stop) and I leave to go to the gym after class, SJ tells me to "Keep it tight." When I asked her what she does for exercise, she mentioned yoga because it helps her feel firm "and not squish." Now, many, many times when we talk I pick up on these hitches with the English language, but "feeling squish" was just too good to pass up. I explained that she is feeling "squishy" and it's now our power mantra during hikes. She was pretty tired when I took this picture, but like a drill sergeant I started shouting at her to "fight the squishy" so she jogged the rest of the way up with me. I am so proud!
54 degrees. brrr.
She says I am the devil because I make her work so hard.

This was impressive! This man had a monopoly on the popsicle market being that he is the only guy crazy enough to haul dry ice, popsicles and a backpack full of loose change up to the top of a mountain.

My schedule for November is jam-packed full of nonstop traveling, so the blog will be updated whenever I get a spare moment. Expect great things!

Downtown Daegu and Maegok Madness

2009-10-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

Dollar General would make a fortune here in Korea. Why? Because Koreans are absolutely bonkers about spending money on large quantities of useless things. Tae Kwon Do may be the "official" pastime of Korea, but I am telling you now that shopping is the greatest thrill for Koreans of every age.

Exhibit A: While quietly minding my p's and q's on the subway, alternating between observing my shoelaces and closing my eyes to avoid the inquisitive stare down, a man with a rickety 4-wheeled cart saunters in, dressed in a cheap suit with a wrinkled, soggy-looking cardboard box precariously perched on the wheeling contraption. The instant the subway doors snap closed, he begins rattling off his spiel in a loud, infomercial announcer voice. He's selling, for a limited time only (limited because he will be escorted off the subway soon by Daegu Metro employees), special indestructible (unless dropped, banged or mishandled in any way) nut cracking scissors! He produces a chestnut and a walnut from his pocket and de-shells them quicker than you can blink. Glancing around, no one seems particularly moved my these miraculous scissors. And yet, you can see the desire to BuyBuyBuy welling up in these people. What if, at some unforeseeable time, they find themselves in need of these marvelous scissors? God forbid they should have to crack those future nuts by hand. So people begin to rifle through their purses and pockets, collecting the 4,990 won ($4.99!) to purchase the scissors. The man sells 7 pairs before the subway train stops, the doors open, and an exasperated Metro employee in a tan jumpsuit herds the salesman off the train.

Other bargains I have seen are special coarse scrubbing sponges with the pattern of the Korean flag printed on them, "Golden Oldies" CDs (This is a man who walks in and turns on a boombox perched on his shoulder and subjects passengers to 5 minute intervals of songs from The Carpenters) and a "blind" woman peddling chewing gum and FDA-approved cutting boards.

Once you exit the subway, the deluge of shopping opportunities doesn't stop. Most subway stops are two levels underground, the lowest level being where the train receives passengers, the next level for shopping and then eventually you get above ground. The middle floor is a labyrinth of cheap shops ranging from accessories stores (oodles of cheap earrings, flimsy belts and leggings, leggings, leggings), imitation leather stores all the way to belly dancing stores. At first, I thought these belly dancing stores were costume shops until I noticed that they only carry sequin-encrusted bras and bejeweled skirts. Apparently, belly dancing is a craze that was swept the nation, and women are flocking to these stores to buy turquoise, fuchsia and canary yellow wispy belly-dancing costumes to wear to their classes. Juxtapose this to the fact that a bikini is regarded as the swimsuit of a harlot (it's one pieces all the way here). It makes no sense!

Above ground, things get considerably more expensive. In Downtown Daegu, the streets are crammed with designer stores including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Dolce and Gabbana and all the other top name brands. Wedged in between these powerhouse names are artsy boutiques that will charge 500,000 won for a scarf the size and texture of my dish towels.

And it's loud. The closest I can come to helping you get the picture is this: have you ever been to Disney or whatever theme park and suddenly been engulfed in a pack of Asian tourists? Deafening, right? Imagine that times 10. Add the constant clacking of heels, honking of taxis, the pulsing uhn-tiss of dance and techno music pumping out from overhead speakers, food cart vendors hollering on taped up megaphones, cell phone store employees grabbing you by the shoulder to steer you towards the latest widget and phone contract.... it's chaos!

At home, spending a day perusing the mall was often just to people watch. Rarely did I buy much because 1.) fashion is not a priority for me and 2.) it's so damn expensive. Maybe some Dippin' Dots, but that's the extent of my shopping. I'll spend my money on plane tickets and good food, thank you. But in Korea, the people are saddled down with oodles of bags. During one of our Korea vs. America conversations, SJ explained to me that shopping, whether it be for winter boots or a few fresh pig bellies from the food market to grill for dinner, is like a sport in Korea. There is a lot of walking and heavy lifting. You grow breathless haggling with the store owner, trying to finagle the price lower. You barrel into crowds elbowing and contorting to pluck the best merchandise from racks and boxes the moment it is brought out. And then, when the day is done and you have 32 plastic and paper bags dangling from your limbs, giving you the appearance of a human Christmas tree, you get to brag. THAT is what Koreans truly love.

Korean woman 1: "Last Saturday I found these shoes for just 12,000 won at Seomun Market. They were the last pair in red and the guy wanted 24,000 for them."

Korean woman 2: "Oh really? See, because I found those same shoes, in red, with rhinestone encrusted shoelaces for 11,000 won. I had to bargain with the shopkeeper for 3 hours before they gave in."

Korean woman 1: "Well I got a matching silk scarf as part of the deal, and I only had to bargain for 2 hours and bribe the shopkeeper with my lunch."

You get the idea. Fashion and bargaining prowess are King in Korea.

At Maegok, Swine Flu mania has finally caught on. At first, all I noticed were spray bottle of alcohol placed on short tables at all the entrances (there is a picture of a pig face, sneezing by the bottles). Then there was a school field trip cancelled by the Principle for fear of transmission of the flu bug among the students. Yesterday, Jay (my mentor teacher), stood next to me and began to heatedly whisper in a conspiratorial tone that one of his students had a fever and he needed to drive them to the hospital immediately to check if it was indeed swine flu. I will find out today whether it was Swine Flu or just a cold, but the fear in that man's eyes! Goodness!

More and more of my students are coming to class sporting face masks, so it looks like I am educating the next wave of painters for Korea. While I definitely think the hype over Swine Flu is bogus, it doesn't stop me from bathing in hand sanitizer at lunch time or treating the kid's name tags and workbooks like vessels of the plague. I think I will plan a lesson on hygiene...

Click HERE for a video of my students trying to give me a new hairdo. After all this touching, I was positive that I would catch the funk but I am still one of the only TaLKers who has not gotten ill yet, knock on wood.

I am very comfortable with my daily routine in classes. My students know my temper too, and have learned the difference between a warning tone of voice and the "Oh shit, teacher Katy is gonna go ballistic" tone. Since next week is Halloween, I have been hyping up my students for all the fun things I have planned for them. I have scary videos (where things jumo out and scare you), coloring games with pictures of witches, pumpkins and ghosts, Halloween-themed Bingo, and about 5 tupperware boxes filled to the brim with expensive, imported M&Ms to divvy out as prizes alongside Snickers and Twix bars. For the M&Ms, the students all have to guess, in English, how many pieces of chocolate are in the container. They will write their guesses in complete sentences on paper, put them in my Jacko'lantern trick or treat pail and the winner gets the whole container! It's a lesson on big numbers in English in disguise.

One of my most successful ideas has been the sticker reward system. Students earn stickers for doing homework, participating in class and just for being exceptionally cute and/or in need of cheering up (Teacher Katy has been known to give out stickers and candy to make an upset 1st grader smile again).

Here is the reward system.
And here are some of the sticker charts. As you can see, I have quite the little overachievers. The most popular reward so far is the "Terrific Kid" certificate. It's printed on thick, expensive paper with the Maegok Letterhead on top. I write particular accolades for the student in flowery, run-on English and sign the certificate. They LOVE these, and often I will have parents come in and thank me in Korean for recognizing their kid. In fact, sometimes it's hard not to feel like a celebrity sometimes when my 10 minute walk to campus every day feels more like a strut down the cat walk or like a scene from a Disney musical. People lean out of their windows to shout down a greeting. Shopkeepers wave from behind their counters and women pushing strollers and bicycling children match my pace just so they can walk beside me, smile and stare. God forbid I should have a booger or trip one day...the entire city would probably hear about it in the news.

Remember the post called "A Day In The Life"? Well, that fruit vendor who peddles up and down my neighborhood has taken to driving at night too. So the hollering never ceases! Walking back form the gym one night, I managed to turn my camera on for a few seconds to video him. He was giving me a very suspicious glare over the steering wheel, so I couldn't film for long. Click HERE to catch a glimpse of obnoxious fruit vendor dude.

Also, here are some funny photos of moments that appealed to my sense of humor about town:
How is this store not being sued?

Forget euphemistic names that conceal diet products true nature- Koreans are very blunt. They disdain fat people, so there are walls and walls of drinkable concoctions that tout the ability to melt the fat right off you!

Busan Annual Fireworks Festival

2009-10-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

My toes are purple and crushed-looking. That's what I get for wearing flip flops to a fireworks show in Korea, where women change heels like underwear.

At 11:30 Saturday morning, my friend Amanda (the red-head from Texas) and I boarded a train for Busan again. We rode on the mugunghwa train, which is the slow and decrepit, nearly-retired albeit cheaper train. I brought a book (my last of 8 that I brought with me- I am out of English books now) but I didn't read because it was so entertaining to watch all the cheapskate ajummas pilfering seats the whole ride long. It would go like this: the train car would be filled to the brim with passengers. Clearly, the ajummas either purchased "standing" tickets or flat out boarded the train without tickets because each time an employee walked past they would slink into the corner, trying to appear busy. The moment a paying passenger left, they would swarm the seat like vultures, flapping and squawking at each other, jostling around until a victorious ajumma would plunk down in her MC Hammer parachute pants with a satisfied grin until she would be shooed out 5 minutes later by the next passenger with the rightful ticket to that seat. On second thought, ever seen the movie "Finding Nemo"? Just think of the flock of seagulls all chanting "mine" over and over again....

Since we enjoyed it so much last time, we decided to spend another day at Spaland, this time bringing Amanda along. It was very relaxing, with only one hiccup: Amanda fainted coming out of the sauna. The moment she closed the door, her pupils began dilating and contracting and I could tell she was going down. She went limp and it was a good thing Eunice and I were on either side of her because we caught her before she smacked into a row of wooden cubbyholes. After some fanning and several bottles of water she was revived, and we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading towards the baths. A traditional Korean Summer food is this concoction called "patbingsu," which is gone from restaurants now because the weather is considered too cold. However, Spaland continues serving it all year long because of the steamy sauna setting. Koreans believe that the temperature of food is just as important as the ingredients, so you often find cold and chilled dishes in the hot months and bubbling, inferno-hot dishes in the chilly months.

Patbingsu is one of the things I will miss most from Korea. It's a bowl full of delicate shaved ice with heaps of sweet red beans (the size of tic-tacs), jellied fruits (pineapple and mango mostly), bananas and strawberries or some combination of fresh fruit, sweetened condensed milk and maybe a scoop of fro-yo or ice cream. Many restaurants will also garnish with cornflakes or some small candies. Sound gross? Trust me- Patbingsu is the ambrosia of Korea. It gets all soupy and intensely sweet when mixed together and, like all Korean food, is meant to be shared. I got my own because I'm a pig... and I ate it all.
This was not the patbingsu we ordered (just a photo from the internet) but it gives you the general idea of what patbingsu looks like.

We ended up lingering until almost 7p.m. at the spa, which was two hours past the original plan. The "spa fog" of warmth and relaxation quickly dissipated once we were outside in the 50ish degree weather, jostling around in crowds of people stretching as far as the eye could see. Busan was inundated with visitors because the Fireworks Festival is ranked as one of the top in the world. Luckily, my mighty Amazon stature (compared to Koreans, at least) saved the day because I was parting the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. 1 jarring, jostling and mildly combative hour later, we were ocean-side, with a decent view of the water where the fireworks show would be held. The theme this year was "Busan: A love Story," although I never would have guessed from the choice of music.

The soundtrack to the fireworks included "Do-Re-Mi" from he Sound of Music, "Black or White" from Michael Jackson, some old Elvis jams and the battle music from Braveheart. While the music made me laugh, some of the fireworks were truly spectacular. Whereas every fireworks explosion I have seen usually fades after a few moments (maybe with he exception of the golden trails of sparks from the "weeping willow" fireworks), there were bursts that lingered for several minutes in the sky at this show, floating down towards the water and eventually extinguishing with a little "hiss" sound. Then there was the bird. This green, red and blue fireworks bird zoomed around the air for about 2 minutes before igniting into a flaming phoenix, continuing it's circles above the crowd. I have never seen such creative shapes in fireworks either, form daisies to hearts, smiley faces and even the green outline of a squatting frog.

Two instances of "Weird Korea" moments: 1.) You could be at a Baptism in America and SOMEONE is going to let loose a "whoooooo!" of excitement. It can't be helped, we like cheering for everything. But in Korea, during a FIREWORKS show, the most I heard were some stifled "oohs" and "aahs". It was eerily quiet and all the Korean spectators seemed to be transfixed and borderline emotional after the show. Sniffling, smiling like they just watched their kid win the National Spelling Bee or something... it was strange. 2.) I took photos of the gobs of litter blowing about on the streets after the crowd began filtering out. Mid-photo, an elderly Korean man began waving his hand in front of the lens, shaking his head and acting highly indignant and agitated. Eunice explained that he was ordering me not to take photos of the trashed pavement because I would show them to friends and give Korea a poor reputation among foreigners. When I took another picture, I thought he was going to blow up so we had to hightail it outta there before he decided to do more than just yell.
Here is a pic of the streets after the show, moments before old man hand came crashing down over the lens.

Walking to the shore to get a better view
These are blurry because I was taking them while being hustled along by the herd of people pouring through the streets. This is a typical rice/popcorn snack cart. They sell these massive bags full of rice cakes, sweetened puffed corn and fried rice chips.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Chestnuts are a Korean fav for snack food in the chillier months.
Kimbap (Korean version of sushi). Asian fast food.
Whole, dried squid is another popular snack item. It tastes like delicious, salty seafood jerky.

It was a madhouse trying to get to the train station on time to catch my ride back to Daegu. The police closed down several subway stops because of overcrowding (numerous people were trampled) and the streets were clogged with cars are scooters, making a taxi out of the question. So we ran. Far. It took half an hour to run far enough on foot to get to an open subway. Once underground, it was pure pandemonium trying to skirt the ticket lines and jostle and elbow our way into as subway car. Luckily, Eunice's boyfriend was with us and had a genius idea to take the subway to a different stop than Busan Station, which was surely overrun with latecomers trying like Hell to catch their trains. So we went to some small station that was desolate, and like magic, our train pulled in the moment we arrived. We made it back to Daegu at around midnight, which is too late to catch the subway so I ended up paying hefty cab fare to get to my apartment, but it was worth it to see the insanity of the Busan Fireworks Festival.

On Sunday, Amanda and I spent the day leisurely flitting in and out of local stores in Downtown Daegu. It was a riot trying on Korean clothing. Most pants would not come past my knees and my shoulders were apparently too broad for even the "2X" size shirts. In Korea, 90% of the clothing is tagged as "One size fits all". I think there needs to be a disclaimer that reads "Except non-Koreans" directly underneath because none of my fellow TaLKers have had much success with Korean clothing.

As I have mentioned, tattoos and piercings are uncommon in Korea, so when we happened upon a "piercing boutique." we went inside just to see if it was legitimate. Apparently, a professional tattoo and piercing artist in Korea can get by with a crusty jar of petroleum jelly, some medieval piercing needles soaking in tepid tap water and a stack of store brand band-aids. Blood-borne illness-no thanks!

Busan International Film Festival and Spaland

2009-10-12T04:42:00.000-07:00

Lately, people have been calling me "the camel." Each weekend, I don my bulging red backpack, which causes me to hunch over at the waist, and I double-fist water bottles like it's happy hour in Gainesville before a home game.

I was particularly bulky on this past weekend's excursion because I was loaded down with bedding (2 blankets and my overstuffed, fuchsia pillow), backpack, a pendulous bag of food, my purse and my camera. As if being a foreigner doesn't draw enough attention, try getting stuck in a subway turnstile entrance because your enormous pink pillow snagged. Ug...

Since everyone was short on money from our blowout Chuseok weekend, we decided to take up the offer from a friend to stay at his apartment. However, with one double-sized bed and 7 people to put up for the night, most of us were sleeping on the floor. It was cramped, but at least the price was right. At around 9 on Saturday morning, I sat up with a crick in my neck and had to laugh at the 6 other bodies splayed out all across the floor. the bare floor. People were sleeping with their jackets rolled up for pillows, still dressed in their clothes from the night before. I am perpetually the early riser, so I had to wait another hour and half before the rest of the group was coherent enough to even form words. Moods brightened once we took a chilly walk to a Starbucks and loaded up on Venti coffees. An item on the Korean Starbuck's menu that I think is worth mentioning is the jelly coffee. Imagine your typical iced coffee loaded down with sugar and cream and big, blobby lumps of grape or strawberry jelly wallowing around in the bottom of the cup. Sound disgusting? I can assure you it's quite delicious. If you just get past the image of bloated red and purple slugs sloshing around the bottom of your drink, it's a great flavor combination, especially when you mix the jelly bits throughout. I wonder if it will ever catch on in America?
Across form our table, a Korean girl was creating these intricate roses out of Starbucks napkins. I have no such skill, so I made a straw wrapper into a cheesy mustache instead.
The idea for the day was to get in line for the 14th International Busan Film Festival for tickets to one of the rave review, independent films. However, by the time we arrived (around 3pm) all of the tickets were sold out except for two movies: "The Enlightenment Film" and "PilgrIMAGE". The "Enlightenment" film analyzed political views in a post modern world. Yuck. So we chose PilgrIMAGE, which was a movie made by a father-daughter duo, which revolved around visiting the homes and filming locations of famous directors. The movie was at 8:30pm on the other side of town, so we decided to go and grab a bite while we were wasting time. Max, the guy whose apartment we were staying at, suggested a place called "The Fuzzy Navel," which is possibly the only Mexican restaurant in the entire country.

The city of Busan is the second largest in Korea, and is very industrial, with factories and sky-rise buildings crammed right up to the beach. In Korea, THE quintessential beach to visit is called Hyundae Beach, which was where "The Fuzzy Navel" was conveniently located. A Mexican restaurant on the beach sounds like a promising combination, right? Well, I was not dissapointed upon first walking up. The restaurant was blasting 90s alternative and rock music (Think Red Hot Chili Peppers, Audioslave, The GooGoo Dolls, etc.) and I could see tortillas on people's plates, not to mention that the place appeared to be a foreigner magnet. We ran into several people from orientation who were there for the film festival, too.

I ordered a taco salad, excited at the prospect of eating guacamole since avocados are so difficult to find in Korea. 20 minutes passed, then 40...then we were up to an hour waiting for our various orders of tacos, burritos and nachos. Now Mexican food is by no means a delicacy or that difficult to throw together, so I'm not sure what on earth took so long. When the server finally started dropping off our food, we were all sorely dissapointed at the limp, tasteless tortillas, the guacamole without a trace of salt or garlic and the salsa that (swear to God) must have been concocted out of ketchup. So much for Mexican food in Korea. And to add insult to injury, it was one of the most expensive meals I have eaten so far in Korea. Lesson learned: Mexican food does not exist in Korea.
The Spanish is soooo wrong on this menu. Word of advice if you have never traveled internationally before: be suspicious of translated menus. English on a menu means the prices are considerably jacked up because the restaurant is catering to foreigners.

After eating, we headed out to Hyundae Beach. From the various descriptions I've heard of the beach, I was expecting a white shoreline that extended as far as I could see, dotted with families spreading out beach blankets and picnicking and playing frisbee in the waves. Basically, I was thinking of Florida. Something you must grasp about South Korea though: it is a tiny country. North America is a vast and varied continent with a kaleidoscope of geographies ranging from beaches, to mountains, to prairie land, desert, etc. Korea is only as big as some of our larger states, so I was shocked to see that this famous tourist beach was only maybe 3 or 4 miles long. People were packed like sardines along the dunes and no one was in the water because it was just so damn cold. My Korean friends tell me that in the summer it's so crowded that it's risky to leave your beach chair for even a moment at the risk of losing it to some pushy foreigners or desperate Korean family looking for a patch of sand to call their own. With mid 60 degree weather though, the beach crowd was thinning, so we staked out an empty patch of damp sand and watched the moviegoers intermingling with the few Koreans who had picked the wrong day to go beach-combing.
This was a self-portrait of the artist.

We watched the sun dip beneath the horizon and huddled closer and closer as the rays began to fade. Getting to crunch some sand between my toes was a pleasant reminder of beach days back home, and I saw a few die-hard Korean kids rolling around in the tide with purple lips and chattering teeth, building sand castles only to stomp them down moments later, laughing maniacally. Once again, children are the same wherever you go on this planet.

Juxtapose me next to these typical young Korean women and the stark contrast in fashion is laughable. Korean women are always dressed to the nines while I look like an bohemian bum the majority of the time. It was hard not to laugh though as their stilettos aerated the sand, winding tracks of dime-sized heel holes all over the place.
Relaxing and people-watching.
Weird Korea: This is the Korean Squat. From toddlers to 90-year-old ajummas, all Koreans practice the squat. Maybe it's out of habit from the squat toilets that are common all across the country (even in a McDonalds you have the choice between a squat toilet or a "Western" toilet. It's funny to see how long the line is to the Western toilet and all the foreigners and young, trendy Korean ladies waiting eons to go while the squat toilets are always open, always being used by older Koreans.) You see the squat wherever you go. Waiting for the bus in the heart of metropolitan Seoul? Drop a squat. In a fancy department store waiting for the salesperson to bring out your size 245 Manolo Blahnik shoes? Drop a squat. While it's more common for the older Koreans to squat whenever and wherever, the younger generations can't seem to fight the habit. When it's 6 in the morning and the clubs are winding down, when people are exhausted from drinking and dancing and are waiting for a cab to pull up, it's quite a scene to see all these drooping, squatting 20-something Koreans, hunkered up against the buildings, squatting just like their grandmas selling produce on the street corners. I love it!
Eventually, we had to scoop ourselves up form the sand and take a bus to the movie theater where the film festival was being hosted. The theater was only half-filled (like I said, we had to chose from the remaining dregs as far as our film selection went) and the director was actually standing down by the screen, shuffling from foot to foot as the technicians bumbled around with the roll of film up in the projection booth. This guy was memorable too. I'd venture a guess that he weighed in at nearly 400 pounds and was sporting 2 lazy eyes and 3 chins. The film itself was poorly acted, but mildly entertaining because many of the locations they filmed, I have visited (Rome, Lucerne in Switzerland, Alaska...). The father and daughter are from Canada, and set out to visit the home of Charles Chaplin, the filming locale for "The Sound of Music" and even stopped by Kansas to put in a word about "The Wizard of Oz". It was cheesy, but we were all weary from travel and scarfing down shrimp rice chips (the snack food of choice in Korea) and were too tired to care.

On Sunday, I awoke before everyone else again, but decided to let them sleep in until at least 10. The initial plan was to visit a fish market and have a big sashimi lunch before heading back home to Daegu, but we were sidetracked when we decided to head to the Shinsegae department store. Shinsegae is the largest department store in the world. It is directly on a subway stop, so you can actually get on the subway, travel to the 1st floor (which is underground) of Shinsegae, spend all day exploring the stores and attractions and never see the light of day. Shinsegae is a world onto itself with lux food courts (we are talking gourmet food, made to order), restaurants, a Whole Foods grocery store, clothing stores, pet stores, a movie theater, driving range, sky park, ice rink, spa and arcade (to name a FEW things)... We stopped to get coffee, but ended up lingering for 6 hours.

By then, our group had been reduced to just Max, Shaina, Eunice and I. Shaina and Max wanted to go ice skating, but I thought it was a ripoff because you had to rent skates, buy gloves and then pay for two hours of mindless circling around a slushy ice rink inundated with little kids being filmed and hollered at by their parents. Eunice and I decided to go to Spaland: the public bath on the first floor of Shinsegae. Obviously, I could not take photos in a public bath, so I will largely have to depend on my powers of description to express how amazing I find the bathing culture in Korea.

The public bath is one of the few remaining unchanged traditions in Korea. Most Koreans, women and men, go at least once every week to clean, visit with friends and family and just enjoy being together. The public bath is the old time porch-sitting days of America. Just naked...

The Korean word for these bath houses is "JimJil Bang," and is usually recognizable by a picture of a semi-circle bowl with steam wisps curling upward from the rim. These places are very cheap (ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 won depending on the services you buy) and include saunas of varying temperatures, hot and cold bathing pools and body scrub and massage services.

When you first enter a jim jil bang, you take of your shoes and put them in an assigned locker (standard- you never wear shoes indoors in Korea). Then you are sent to your assigned locker in either the men or women's portion of the Jim Jil Bang. The moment you cross through that curtain, it's like being flung into a nudist colony. The spa provides some loose-fitting clothes for the sauna (think what you would wear to get an x-ray), but you are butt-naked when you head to the bathing pools to scrub and wash. The saunas were relaxing. With about 12 different rooms in all, Spaland had sweltering charcoal-heated rooms, rooms with tanks full of jellyfish bobbing around, "magnetized" rooms, sound-therapy rooms which had deep, reverberating bass playing underneath the floorboards and even cold rooms, which were meant to cool you off after the baking hot sauna rooms. Once you have sweated sufficiently, it's time to bathe. You strip down, carrying only a hand towel and whatever necessities (conditioner, lotion, razers) you need and head into one massive room filled with naked girls and women of every age and body type, dipping in and out of various heated-pools before plopping down on a footstool to scrub the dead skin off eachother. As I write this, I can imagine your shock at something like this, but I must press a point here: this is one of the best experiences you can have in Korea if you really want to see how this culture operates. I saw entire family trees from great-grandmothers all the way down to the youngest little girls splashing around in the pools, combing each other's hair and just relaxing. In korea, there is a special rough-tectured towel known as the "Italy" towel that every single Korean uses to bath with. When you soak for long enough in the pools, it makes your skin soggy and pliable. The Italy towel is meant to be used all over, and the harder you scrub, the more skin you will see pilling off your body like an old skin sweater. And it's BLACK. I was so grossed out that I scrubbed until my whole body stung just because I wanted to get as much off as possible. Since it's nearly impossible to scrub your own back, that's why it is good to go with friends and family. I saw many endearing moments between grandmother's and their daughter's, giving each other a scrub down and just chatting away.

After removing a whole layer of skin, we went to the shower stalls and washed and then went into the "powder" rooms to blow dry our hair and toss on our sauna clothes to go get massages. The whole day was simply divine, and I walked out feeling as limber as a wet noodle. unfortunately, Shaina and Max did not have an equally enjoyable day. About 15 minutes into their ice-skating experience, Max crashed to the floor, splitting his chin open on the ice. He was rushed to the emergency room where he had to get multiple stitches and a prescription for penicillin. The bill was about 160,000 won, which was the last of his money for the month. Needless to say, it was like walking into Hell's gaping maw when Eunice and I fluttered out of the spa in a wave of shampoo-smell and smiles. The rest of the evening was a quiet one, and I felt a little guilty for sitting so relaxed and content the whole train ride home while Shaina was sending silent death glares our way.

All in all though, a very enjoyable weekend for me. In fact, I believe I will be returning to Spaland this weekend when I visit Busan again for a different festival. All I know for sure is I am not going anywhere near the ice rink.

Chuseok Weekend

2009-10-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

NOTE:

This is a somewhat risque post. Sorry if it offends anyone, but the tale of this past weekend cannot be told any other way!

I just fit a good 20% chunk of my overall most ridiculous and memorable lifetime experiences into one nonstop weekend that centered around a handful of other girls and I traversing Korea from the bottom up.

Let me begin:

Thursday, all the children in my class were dressed in their traditional Chuseok clothing called "hanbok." Hanbok are very colorful pants and dresses (bright pastels) made out of silk that only appear during the Chuseok (and sometimes New Year) holidays. "Chuseok" is Korean Thanksgiving. It's a large meal with family to celebrate the coming of the harvest season replete with all sorts of traditional food and after-dinner activities (think going for a hike instead of watching football on t.v.). Although SJ invited me to join her family for the holiday, I wanted to make the most out of the extended weekend and travel while Koreans were busy with their families.A little girl who wanted to take a picture with me while we were waiting for our bus. She is wearing a relatively plain hanbok to give you an idea of how ornate they can be.

After finishing my classes on Thursday, I jogged to the subway and hustled to my apartment to fix some dinner and stuff some last minute items into my 20-ton backpack for the road... or train rather. In Korea, if you are traveling to another city, the more refined mode of transportation is the train. The "KTX" is the railroad system in Korea, and they offer a range of ticket choices from straight up standing in the accordionish rubber area that connects train cars to first class, luxury leather seats that lay flat like beds. First class is upward of 100,000 won though, so we cheaped out and opted for the standing tickets. I had a wet butt for a solid hour because I was lucky to get a "seat" on top of the sink in between cars on one train ride. However, our first train ride was to Seoul and we thankfully purchased the tickets in advance and had a little section of 4 seats all to ourselves. Shaina, Eunice, Amanda (from Texas), Nicole (New Zealand) and myself were tuckered out when we arrived in Seoul (at 8:45pm), so a hotel was the biggest priority on our list. We hailed a cab, which took us to a hotel district close to downtown.
One of many train rides. Traveling like true hobos.

So this next sentence won't startle you, let me preface it by saying that Koreans live with their families until they are married. Also, since most Koreans live in apartments or very small, single-room houses, it makes privacy a scarce commodity. So: The gang and I stayed the night in a love hotel. They pepper the narrow streets, wedged in between apartments, behind the businesses that are crowded on the main roads. All of them offer hourly rates and advertise with Las Vegas style neon lights. There are themed love hotels (think jungle room with putt-putt golf course grass instead of carpet, medieval, ocean, dessert, etc.), automated love hotels (no embarrassment when the only witness to your rendezvous is an LCD touch screen), ritzy love hotels that offer expansive flats, Western beds and marble floors...the list goes on and on. We chose to stay at one of the first places we encountered: The Santafe hotel.
See-through window into the bathroom. As Shaina pointed out, there must have been a certain strategy in mind because the beds were always pushed up against the bathroom wall as opposed to the wall you share with your neighbor.
Condom baseball.
Getting cozy. There was a watermelon-sized bottle of lotion and a box of tissues on the bedside stand. When we flipped on the TV, we discovered why.

Too tired to rouse ourselves for clubbing, we had a fun night in laughing at our sleazy accommodations. On Friday morning, we struck out to find some coffee before heading for the subway. However, we soon realized that everything was closed for Chuseok save McDonalds and Burger King. So, we chose McDonalds because it was 5 feet closer, dropped our piles and piles of bags and ate granola bars and drank McCafe coffees.
My crew. From left to right: Shaina, Eunice, Nicole and Amanda.
A rice paddy! These are everywhere in Korea. Any other time you would see old people squatting down low amid the rice, weeding and tending. But because of Chuseok, the rice fields were empty.
No wonder I have an aching back!

Our first destination was a place Shaina found online called "River Land" in Cheongnyangni (very far north). The Web site pitched River Land as the ultimate water sports and thrill-seeking experience in Korea. One man with a red lawn chair perched on an inflatable boat does not a speedboat make, but I will come to that. As it turns out, River Land was situated on the outskirts of a very rural town that was all but abandoned for the holidays. Walking through the empty streets, I got a glimpse of true country bumpkin Korean life. Rice paddies, straw-roofed houses, foreign roots and mushrooms drying on sheets in the sun, laundry strung up between trees and mangy looking dogs tied to posts in the driveway standing on guard as we passed. 4 subway lines, 1 train ride a bus and a taxi later, we found ourselves on the bank of an enormous, pristine river that wound around the mountains like a watery snake and put me in mind of some of the boating I have done in Tennessee, only on a much grander scale. The hotel we stayed in (Hannam Hotel) was right on the water, and we haggled pretty ferociously with the owner to let all 5 of us board in one room. But what a view! Our room overlooked the water and even had a bathtub (quite the rarity in Korea).

Wandering through the deserted streets of a tiny town, searching for a bus stop. This was right about the moment when we realized "River Land" was probably not going to meet to our high theme park expectations. Luckily, it turned out to be even better :)

One of the main reasons we decided to venture all the way up to River Land is because of the bungee jumping that is offered on site. The bungee tower is some 100-feet above the water and juts out into the river, giving you a spectacular view of the mountains right before you take that petrifying leap. Anyone who knows me should know that I am no daredevil... but I am also not above peer pressure. Somehow my damnable crew managed to convince me that my trip to Korea would not be complete unless I experienced a jolt of adrenaline by leaping off a building, attached to said building by the ankles. Fast forward: there I am, shivering despite the radiating, setting sun, precariously close to the edge of a steep drop down to the frigid water below. My toes were curled around the metal platform like fingers, my brain screaming at me to "ABORT: CHOOSE LIFE" I was up there for a solid 10 minutes, crying, snotting and begging the bungee operator-man to let me back down. He continued to refuse (bungee jump operators are NOT nice people) until finally he relented when I had reached the point of wailing. He acted all pissy as he began to unhook the bungee cord, and I caught a few VERY impolite words in Korean. Indignant, I told him to put the cord back on immediately, gave him the most scathing look I could muster despite my teary eyes and jumped head first off the platform, screaming bloody murder. The thing about bungee cords: they are incredibly springy. A forceful leap means an even more abrupt snap back upwards, flinging your body like a ragdoll... All the muscles in my neck ache as I write this, and several blood spots have appeared under my eyes from the force of the cord whipping me around. It felt like I was dangling there like bait on a line for an eternity until a little old man on a red lawn chair in an inflatable boat rowed out and steadied me, laying me down on the floor of the boat and paddled me to shore.

Hannam Hotel in Cheongnyangni.

Our room
The view from our room's balcony.
The beastly bungee tower.
I was white as a sheet with a jackhammer pulse. There are two options when bungee jumping: jump with a harness around your hips or attached to your ankles. Jumping with only your ankles tied is more expensive because it's a greater risk. However, many bungee enthusiasts believe that jumping with a waist harness is like getting skin number for a tattoo: you are cheapening the experience. So, I decided to just suck it up and go opt for the ankles.
Supermaaaaan!
Seconds away from bouncing back up.

As you are lowered towards the water, you are in a constant spiral. I was about to throw up, so I kept shouting "faster, Boat Man, faster." It was rude, but a second more and a cyclone of puke would have been raining down upon him. The girls love to make fun of me by shouting "Faster, Boat Man" now whenever they see me.
After bungee jumping, the girls and I were invited to go on a sunset cruise on what can only be described as a yacht. It was glorious, dangerous and freezing cold. Worth every moment!

Look closely and you will see pinpricks of blood under and around my eyes. When the line went fully taught, I saw this explosion of white across my vision, which turned out to be several little blood vessels bursting. Apparently, it's a common occurrence after bungee jumping, and I just hope they fade away with time.

After the sunset cruise, the same group of men took us out to a Galbi restaurant, which is Korean for a "meat" restaurant. These are some of the most expensive places to eat since they serve thick slabs of raw pork and beef that you cook over a metal grill in the center of your table. Luckily, they had seafood bibimbap, so I didn't go hungry. The meal was probably around 200-300 dollars all told after multiple rounds of soju were added to the bill. Since it was only 8pm when we finished eating, we decided to head back to their hotel, which was conveniently next door to the Hannam Hotel. Now I am not in the habit of carousing with middle-aged men, strangers at that. But we outnumbered them 5 to 3, and I was keeping a sharp eye on all of them the whole evening, on the lookout for shady and expectant behavior. Thankfully, I can report that there are still respectable people in the world. We had a great night watching Korean comedy shows on TV, comparing accents, political views, drinking preferences, everything... We ended up leaving without any trouble at around 3 in the morning to walk back to our hotel, pack and get ready for bed. Or maybe I should say get ready for floor?

Asian people love to make strange faces whenever you take a picture. This guy's English nickname was "Leno". He spoke the best English out of the group because he is a Harley Davidson dealer and his primary clientele are American soldiers (go figure). There were two other men: a dentist and then the man who funded our whole evening. The wealthy guy happens to own a hotel on Jeju island, the tiny island off the southern coast of Korea famous for it's beautiful waterfalls and panoramic vistas of the ocean. All of them were relatively unattached with no family to spend time with for the Chuseok holiday, so I think we made it a memorable weekend for them.
Another Korean quirk: This is how they open a bag of chips.
Keep in mind this feast was after our humongous dinner. Whereas you may get a handful of stale peanuts or pretzels in the States, Koreans like to drink in style. This spread included fried chicken, corn salad, fruit, chips, steamed dumplings and to celebrate Chuseok: Pine needle rice cakes, which have been steamed over pine needles and taste like you are eating a forest. Beneath that stack of apples is a large gold-colored fruit. This is a Korean pear. They are just as crispy as an apple but with pear flavor, and they are the pride and joy of Koreans because you can only get them in Korea.
Back in the hotel, gossiping and laughing uncontrollably over the good fortune of our evening.

Saturday was actually Chuseok day, so everything was quiet. We got up early to catch a taxi ride into town to catch a train back to Seoul. Flipping through a guide book, I discovered a national park directly on the outskirts of Seoul called Bhukansan National Park. We were sore from bungee jumping, aching from sleeping on the floor and just damned tired from so little sleep, but the mantra for my stay in Korea is "You may only be here once", so we packed our bags and headed back toward Seoul to hike in the glorious weather.
Example of strange Konglish. Ever seen these options at your local Starbucks?
Shuffling from one mode of transportation to the next is immensely time consuming. One thing I am beginning to miss is the luxury of hopping into my car and taking a direct route to my destination. Subways, buses, taxis and walking are cheap and better for the environment, but it can take a whole day to travel 50 miles. Seoul is one of the most convoluted and imposing subway systems I have ever seen, so we did not reach the national park until around 4:30, meaning we had to book it or we'd be hiking in failing light.

Koreans will take a nap absolutely anywhere.

Being all Buddhist again ;)
Have I mentioned my aching back enough?

It was a beautiful ending to the day with the whole mountain side lit up the color of butter from the setting sun. The trail was also fairly empty because of the holiday, so we were yodeling and making fools of ourselves the entire time because no one was around to give us scolding stares.

Trudging back on to the bus, we headed to Itaewon, which is known as the foreigner's district in Seoul. Now, for over 2 months I have been completely immersed in Korean society. Every person I see in the street, the store, at school... they are all dark-haired, dark-eyed Koreans. So imagine my surprise when upon exiting the subway in Itaewon I was thrust into a crush of fair-haired foreigners, all chattering away in English, Spanish, Dutch, German, etc. I was dumbstruck. With the Chuseok holiday, most Koreans are out of town, add to this the fact that we were already in the foreigner's district and I felt like I was right back in America. Sweaty and exhausted, we made a beeline for the first motel we could find, "The Hilltop Hotel". It's aptly named because it was a steep climb to reach the place and we noticed a lot of...indecently dressed women on the trek upward. 50,000 won a night for a room the size of a broom closet with 1 twin bed (there were 3 of us). But we paid it, left all our bags in the room and headed out for dinner...which turned out to be Coldstone ice cream. Coldstone is the ice cream of the Gods and it rose up out of the street like a shining beacon of hope and comfort. Well, that's dramatic... but the ice cream was delicious, and it was such a treat to sit down and actually be able to eavesdrop on other people's conversations.

Stuffed full of a cup of the Gotta-Have-It sized Verry Berry, we lumbered back to our room to shower and get ready for bed. Shaina happened to flip open her travel guide, and we discovered with a thrill that we were staying on the notorious "Hooker Hill", which explained the nearly-naked women prowling the streets like jungle cats the whole walk up. It would also explain the ghastly red lighting in our room that reminded me of the red light district in Amsterdam.A lot of men hustling the Hell out of there early the next morning...
Two ladies of the night.

We spent Sunday wandering aimlessly around the streets of Itaweon, shopping for souvenirs and soaking up the English. I really enjoy haggling (true car dealer's daughter ;) ) and ended up saving a pile of money just from exasperating the salespeople. We tried on horrendous Korean clothing (Koreans love gaudy outfits with enough sequins and rhinestones to be costumes on a Broadway performance) and ate a delicious lunch of sashimi and greens where I was able to steal 4 sets of nice chopsticks without getting caught!

The trip was a wild one, and I am looking forward to next weekend because I will be traveling again. Look forward to more outrageous stories and photos, and just to end on a great note:
The Gator Nation exists even in South Korea.

Geojedo P.O.W. Memorial, Goeje Island, Oedo Island

2009-09-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

Hoorah for free travel! This past weekend, TaLK funded the first cultural excursion trip for our province, which turned out to be a visit to the coast. On Saturday, we were all supposed to meet at Daegok subway station at 8 a.m. to load on to a charter bus for a 3 hour ride to some obscure coastal town. However, we were stuck waiting there for 45 minutes all because 1 girl came in late after drinking. The trip was mandatory so we couldn't leave anyone behind and since it was a Saturday morning, it looked more like a bus full of drunks than tourists because Friday night is when all the bars and clubs offer no-cover entrance.

Once we finally had all 34 people, we left. They served Subway BLT sandwiches for breakfast, which was the start to a terrible day of nausea for many people. Halfway to our first stop, a few people started to get very ill on the bus, which you can imagine made the trip unpleasant for the rest of us. Our first stop was a memorial to Korean P.O.W.s and was a strange combination of theme park and museum. There were emaciated, filthy plastic life-sized P.O.W.s that you could take a photo with. There were life-sized bombs, tanks, planes and even a fully functional P.O.W. camp replete with barbed wire, barking dogs and a fairly impressive attempt at reconstructing the squalor of prisoner life. A little depressed, we left after 45 minutes of halfheartedly exploring.

Inside the tank, you rode an escalator up and a Korean woman's voice rattled off the names of people involved in the Korean War.
This is how graphic this "memorial" was...
Holy crap- Canada actually fought?
Luxembourg, what the Hell gives?

Another fine example of Konglish.
SJ! And down low is Shaina's co-teacher Sol.

The mood picked up when we stopped for a sashimi lunch at a restaurant situated right on the water. The fish was excellent, especially slathered in the red chili sauce that is a Korean staple at every meal. I intend on buying several tubs of this sauce and bringing it home so if you'd like to try some serious spicy goodness, let me know to bring you some. About an hour later, we all piled into a small, enclosed boat that would take us to see a string of islands a half-hour's ride into the water. People were fine for the trip out to the islands, but once the boats puttered up to the rocky cliffs for everyone to get some pictures, they cut the engines. The waves were rocking the boat so intensely that water was lapping in through the windows. That's when the Exorcist, projectile-vomiting began. Dodging puke streams, I scampered out of the enclosed portion of the boat to the railing along the sides to get some fresh air and better photos. Something bobbed up to the surface in the water right below me, and when I looked I realized it was a gargantuan, beach ball-sized jellyfish! In fact, these jellyfish seemed to be everywhere, bumping into the cliffs, the boat, each other...wait a minute.... I was in the middle of a jellyfish orgy! A tour guide later explained that we happened to be at Goeje Island the one time of the year that these particular jellyfish like to mate, so it was quite the spectacle.
Right after lunch, we all went to hand our legs off the end of the dock. Those buildings are about the extent of the town (I think we ate at the only restaurant around.)
Our view from the dock.
Isn't this impressive? I got serious air!
All of the Daegu crew, pictured in front of our trusty vessel.
This is how windy it was- it gave me Medusa bangs.
Taking off.
Maybe it's the Placebo Effect, but I believe I avoided getting ill because I took anti-nausea medicine. In Korea, they give you this little glass bottle of mystery ingredients that you are supposed to down in one gulp. It tastes identical to very flat Coke and doesn't leave you groggy like Drammamine- genius.
Goeje Island
If I had taken this photo a fraction of a second later, you would see this girl violently throwing up. I came out to the railing just to escape the din of screaming babies and retching noises and actually ended up with the best photos because I was literally dangling over the water to get the best shot.We were up next to go inside this hidden crevice in the cliffs.

The first jellyfish!
I waived at these fisherman just to see if boating etiquette was the same everywhere in the world. Turns it, it is :)
These things are tricky to get a decent shot of.

Oedo Island was similar to the first island we visited, but with one key difference: it was some one's property. Yes, some bajillionaire apparently owns the island and charges admission for people to come and walk through the gardens. It was beautiful with the entire ocean spanning across the horizon dotted by fisherman's boats and a few barges that were just specks. There were lush gardens covering every inch of the island and all the hedges were trimmed in strange, spherical shapes. That's what started the perversion. Several gardeners were out trimming the hedges and the "trimming the bush" jokes began to fly. I don't even really have to comment much, you can see from the pictures that we were in hysterics over bush jokes by the end of the trip.

Eunice was molesting the statuary.
I won!

These ships were very far away; I had to use my zoom lens to get this close.
To add to my earlier post called "Weird Korea", here is something strange: couples wear matching outfits. This is not even a good example of how terrible the outfits usually are! I have seen Disney pairings (a guy was Mickey Mouse and the girl was Minnie, both with matching ears, clothes and face paint) animal duos, attempts to look like celebrities...everything.
Can you tell which portions of the statue are touched the most? ;)

Indeed, I wrestled a bear on Oedo.

The closer it got to nightfall, the colder it became. We were all shivering and ready to leave by the time we made it back to shore, and it was a quiet ride back to Daegu. TaLK will be taking us out on another excursion in October. For now though, I am looking forward to this coming weekend because it is the Korean holiday Chuseok (their version of Thanksgiving). I am in the midst of planning a weekend of scandalous good times, so I am sorry this post is not longer. Juggling lesson plans, traveling and blogging can be tedious, but I promise to always keep everyone updated.

Ulsan and Gotbawee Mountain

2009-09-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Honey, Gigs, Jackson, Zero and Ghandi. Would you like to venture a guess as to whom or what these names belong? Why, 5 Korean young men studying their English at college, of course. Allow me to explain:

Bored with weekends in Daegu, I decided come Hell or high water that I was going to travel to the coastal city of Ulsan to visit a girl named Marie, who I had never met face to face. Marie didn't know it, but she was instrumental in my decision to come to Korea. After hours of fruitless scouring and surfing on the TaLK Web site and random expatriate blogs on the internet, I was unable to find any decent photos or videos having to do specifically with the TaLK program that showed what life in Korea would truly be like. Disheartened, I visited Youtube.com as a last ditch effort thinking maybe someone had uploaded something. Lo and behold after typing in "TaLK Scholar Program" into the search bar, a list of videos popped up from a girl my age who documented her flight to Korea, her first few weeks of orientation, even a night out drinking with the locals (soju bombs!) Obviously, this girl is Marie, and she is originally from Oregon and liked her experience with the TaLK Program so much that she has stayed in Korea for over a year now.

Getting to Ulsan to visit Marie was quite the trek. First, I had to take the subway to a far off stop called "Seondangmot" (which translates to "liver," I think), which was nearby Seobu bus station. The word "station" conjures on image of shiny, clean bus terminals, a constant flow of traffic to and from a ticket counter and a spacious lobby in which you can wait for your bus, right? Instead, Seobu had shoddy, half-hazard....somewhat illegal... feel to it. I had to wait for a woman to come come back to her desk to buy a ticket (there was no "break- I'll be back in __ " sign anywhere...) and despite my best efforts at asking for the bus number in Korean, she still stared at me as though I were shrieking rather than talking to her (Many Asians wear this pained expression when you speak English or butcher Korean). So, I paid 7,000 won for a pink post-it-note-sized piece of paper and hoped that it was for Ulsan. The "waiting area" for the bus was a line of benches outside under a tarp, some just plywood boards propped up on cinderblocks. I sat down and contemplated eating my lunch, but I was attracting a lot of stares, so I just pretended to play a game on my phone instead. A man with a germ mask sitting next to me was not content to let me mind my own business, so he waved his hand in front of my phone and said "foreigner". When I looked up at him, he immediately declared "I do not have swine flu" (In Korea, speaking the term Swine Flu is as good as screaming "bomb" on a plane or "Anthrax" in a post office"... they are extremely suspicious of foreigners right now for fear that they will bring the disease) I told him that was good news (what the heck do you say to that?) and he continued to speak shaky English to me. He gave me his business card and tried multiple times to get my cellphone number. Realizing that I needed help telling the bus driver that I wanted to be notified of my bus stop when we arrived, I gave this guy a fake number so he would do me the favor of talking to the bus driver. Then I scrambled on to my bus before he could talk to me any more!

The bus ride was an hour and 45 minutes. When I got off, I had to take a cab to Ulsan University where I met Marie. Originally, she taught Elementary school-aged children through the TaLK program. Since her contract with TaLK is done, she now teaches students at her college, which she said is much less stressful. One of the requirements as a University teacher is to spend at least 1 hour with your students outside of the classroom. That's where Honey, Gigs, Zero, Jackson and Ghandi come in. These were 5 of about 9 guys who Marie and I spent the day with walking around the beaches of Ulsan. We took two cars to the beach, which was 30 minutes away. The car ride was a quiet one as first because as I have mentioned- Koreans are very self-conscious about their English. It was a good chance for Marie and I to talk some, and the guys would offer comments about the weather and maybe Michael Jackson or Barack Obama (two names that I think every Korean knows, young or old).

When we reached the ocean, it looked as though a hurricane was imminent from the white caps on the water. Stepping out of the Kia minivan, I was blasted with gale-force winds and nearly lost my sunglasses. The beaches of Ulsan are covered in black pebbles, and because of the high tide, we chose to walk down a cement bridge that led to a bright red lighthouse that looked out over the tumultuous water. We arrived at around 3, and the harbor was full of fishing boats, unloading their catch into a market that was right in the beach parking lot. After taking dozens of Titanic-themed photos with he guys (think Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet on the prow of the ship doing the semi-flying stance) we decided to walk through the fish market. The smell of seafood, alive and dead, hits you like a punch to the face when you enter the big, flapping white tent that houses all the fishmongers. There are no prices, and you are sure to get charged triple if you are a lone foreigner, but thankfully we had all of the Korean guys, and the plan for dinner was sashimi. Marie and I were hustled to the restaurant (it makes Korean men uncomfortable to have women lingering when there is "business" being discussed...) and waited for the guys to negotiate a good price for 3 different types of fish.

Glorious weather- freezing, but beautiful.Marie and Jackson. He chose the name Jackson as a nickname for Michael Jackson.
The boys were too afraid to climb out onto the sea wall. I thought they looked like giant jacks or maybe asterisks!

Revolting! The guys bought a few of these for our sashimi dinner, but I would not touch them!
One of our fish. They sprayed his gills with something so he would start to die, I think...

The whole time I couldn't help but feel amused because this was just like an episode of "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain" or "Bizarre Foods" on the Travel Channel. There I was at a stinky fish market, about to eat a creature that was alive literally moments ago with a group of people that probably played drinking games at breakfast that day. The plates of fish that were served were massive, and there was no rice served with the fish, rather some shredded cabbage with spicy chili paste mixed in. Traditional sashimi involved taking a sesame seed leaf, stuffing it with some of the spicy cabbage and raw fish pieces, rolling it and popping it into your mouth for one big bite. There were also quail eggs (which I tried for the first time in France- they are delicious!), raw peanuts and raw garlic if you wanted to get really adventurous with your fish wrap. Thoroughly stuffed and vaguely concerned that I had swallowed more fish bones than I cared to think about, I jumped when there were two bubbling pots of red broth placed on the table in which the heads of our fish were bobbing, staring at us, eyeballs, teeth and all. Koreans consider the head the most flavorful part of the fish, so this spicy soup was intended as the coups de gace for the already bloated diners. I couldn't stomach it. Not that it tasted bad, but picking around the scales, cartilage, bone and unidentifiable floating bits just wasn't worth it since I was already so full. The meal ended with several drinking games where the penalty was eating a spoonful of raw wasabi (I watched several guys double over in coughing/crying fits after losing) and then we left to visit one more beach further down so the guys could stop and get coffee and throw pebbles at seagulls.
2 different types of fish (I suspect one was red snapper) and the stuff in the middle are a few of those sea worms RAW.
Pebble-throwing game. They were hitting each other and seagulls.

A beautiful sunset. This is misleading though- it was frigid out!
Jackson had a food baby. He estimated that he was about 6 months along.

We arrived back at the University at about 7:30, and I decided that it was probably best to leave then because I did not want to chance missing the bus and having to sleep on Marie's floor that night. When we parted ways, we agreed that the next hang out would be with me in Daegu.

Sunday proved to be one of my favorite days so far in Korea. After much harassing and pouting, I finally convinced Seong Ji to come out and do something with me that doesn't have to do with getting groceries/picking up mail/anything where she has to be a mom and not a friend! SJ suggested that we climb Gotbawee Mountain because it is famous among locals for a large stone Buddha at the top. She said that I could go and give a "big bow", which is the nickname Koreans gave to the act of bowing to this particular Buddha.

We met on the subway at noon and took a 45 minute-long bus ride up into the mountains. I often marvel at how incredibly exposed I always appear whenever I am with SJ. Her hiking outfit consisted of jeans, a long sleeve shirt that said "Elvis is Alive"and then a light cotton jacket, a hat and a handkerchief to pull around her face. I was wearing running shorts and a tank top. SJ's multiple layers are to cover up every inch of her skin because Korean women obsess over the paleness of their skin. While Americans bake in tanning beds, Koreans are slathering on SPF 50 BENEATH their gloves, hats and jackets.

Let me tell you: it was certainly no easy feat getting to Buddha. The hike itself only lasted a little over an hour, but it was nearly vertical- SJ and I were using our hands to crawl up stairs on all fours as often as we were standing upright. Many of the stone steps were crumbling and dislodged, and the entire time I marveled at how treacherous this hike was. And then there are the people completing this hike: children hanging in slings from their parent's backs and women that could not possibly be a day under 80. It's flabbergasting how spry the elderly are here in Korea because they have to be- there aren't any wheelchair ramps or cable cars in Korea. A squat toilet alone is enough to cause a broken hip but when you walk into a restroom with an elderly person and there is a choice between a Western toilet or a squat toilet, they pick a hole in the ground every time! But how worth the exertion it turned out to be! I knew we were close when I could hear a Buddhist monk chanting. It's a strange, inhuman sound because these men practice chanting their whole lives until they begin to utilize sections of their vocal cords that the normal person never uses. And they chant for hours on end without so much as a sore throat.
All along the climb you see these little stacks of rocks. They are meant to send good luck your way as long as they remain stacked.
SJ- she must have been unbearably hot.
Less than halfway up.
The view from the halfway point.- SJ was too afraid to climb out onto the cliff with me.

At the top, the air was thick with incense and a low hum of whispered prayers. As far as I could see, we were enclosed in a lush green mountain range. Daegu was a dot of civilization- you could cover it with a fingernail if you held your hand up to your face. The spectacle of so many Korean people performing the proper Buddhist bow (remember my post about Dongwhasa Buddhist Temple and the tea ceremony) simultaneously was mesmerizing. Up and down, up and down on the mats, people were holding prayer beads, eyes closed, sending out their wishes of good health and longevity for their loved ones. Since I was literally the only foreigner on the entire mountain, people stopped and stared when I got on a mat to bow, and several elderly people accosted poor SJ, asking if I was Buddhist, if I could speak Korean, if she was Korean, etc.
Prayer candles and prayer beads for sale.

That haze is largely from all the incense smoke wafting around from the altar to Buddha.
I had just finished my three bows, now I had to clear my mind and try and stare at the tip of my nose for 5 minutes. I cheated and posed for this picture though!Look how much I stand out.

Another tradition On Mt. Gotbawee is to place a coin on the stone wall for the luck and success of your children. Since I don't have any children though, I re-routed my Buddha blessing to my Mentor Teacher Jay's two little girls. He actually cracked a decent joke and said "maybe you should pray for your vacation time." Haha Jay...
My coin.SJ saying her prayer after placing her coin.
Rice offerings for Buddha. So that's what is inside all those Korean people's backpacks!

On the hike back down, SJ and I had the shakes. Our legs were trembling uncontrollably, and we kept laughing at eachother because all these Ajummas (ladies with the visors, hiking gear and sandals with socks, remember?) were passing us with ease, up and down, while we were clinging to the guard rail for support. The truly devout Buddhists were exiting the mountain just as you are supposed to exit a real temple: backwards. Yes, they walked down the mountain backwards so as not to turn their back on Buddha. And one last thing I must comment on: the extreme hiking attire of Koreans. It's hot right now , people. But that doesn't dissuade Koreans from wearing Northern Face and Under Armor cold weather gear from head to toe. And brandishing hiking sticks, canteens, backpacks, water-proof watches with compasses, etc.

The bus ride back was quiet and pleasant. SJ and I talked some about her future with her boyfriend (she thinks he is husband material :) ) and then for a short while about North Korea. SJ confirmed my suspicion: that Koreans really feel mostly a sense of loss and sadness at losing half their country to a man who has lost his mind. She spoke very lovingly of Northern Koreans, almost like they were simple-minded as sheep and just being misled. I asked if she was ever scared or nervous to live beneath North Korea with the constant threat of bombings and she shrugged her shoulders and said "Nope, not really."

A fine weekend, indeed. The first nip of Autumn is in the air, and soon I think the temperature will begin to drop. I look forward to the coming of October because the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving: Chuseok, will be celebrated. Look forward to more exciting chronicles from the adventures of SJ and Katy!

A Day In The Life

2009-09-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

Each morning at around 6:30, I awaken to the frenetic hollering of a man screeching prices over a megaphone, driving a flat bed Hyundai truck full of spoiling fruit. I'm certain I would be on edge too if my livelihood depended on people purchasing black plastic bags full of overripe Korean pears, apples and sweet potatoes... especially when they cost around $2 for the equivalent of almost a two week's supply.

After my rather abrupt WWII propaganda-esque alarm clock is done sounding off on my street, I set about making E-Mart brand coffee in my wee, $50 coffeemaker. To my reasoning, it stands that I should be allowed closer to 6 or 8 cups of coffee just because it's such a weak brew no matter how many scoops I use. Yet caffeine is caffeine, so by the time I am set to go to class I am shaking like a leaf on a tree with energy to rival even my craziest of 1st graders. Mornings are good for blog writing and lesson plans, and catching the conclusions of B-rated American movies dubbed in Korean. To date, I have seen Jaws II, Total Recall, Terminator 2:Judgment Day, Con Air, Speed 2 and a FRENCH version of E.T., dubbed in Korean with British voice overs...

I leave my apartment at around noon to walk to the subway. Because of the stares I tend to generate, I usually wear sunglasses and headphones to appear preoccupied. While this sounds antisocial, it only took a handful of days before my skin started to crawl at the sensation of so many people (men, women and children) staring at me unabashedly wherever I went. Even babies ogle me. I have stood in many a checkout line with a newborn blinking up at me, drool dribbling down their mom's shoulder as they contemplate the strange, sweaty woman above them. I say "sweaty", because I am usually hefting my backpack wherever I go, and I'm often heading to and from the gym. One difference between Western and Eastern culture is the social acceptance of appearing disheveled in public. At the gym, all Koreans shower immediately after working out. The only grungy people I see on the streets are the homeless, and even they keep a tidy area with all their belongings neatly stacked, their hair looking semi-groomed and their clothes all buttoned, zipped and properly fitted. I am an anomaly not only because of my physical appearance, but because I have the nerve to grace the sidewalk in yoga pants with my mascara running from the sweat rolling off of me after a workout.

On the subway, I take the green line headed towards Munyang 3 stops down to the stop called "Daesil" ("tay-sheel"). Maegok is only an 8-10 minute walk from the subway, and it passes numerous high rise apartment buildings, which are occupied by many of my students. School is letting out just as I arrive, so I have to wrestle and contort my way through a sea of children all clamoring for the opportunity to shout "Teacher Katy, hello!" and then run away, screaming maniacally. I have to get my game face on because children are the ultimate predators. If they even suspect that the teacher is tired or is feeling in any way un-enthusiastic about the lesson at hand, they become mutinous. Using exaggerated facial expressions, large, sweeping hand gestures, running, jumping, hiding, screaming, whispering... teaching class is physically-taxing and I find that it takes my vocabulary several hours to recuperate afterward. But the effort is well worth it when just one thing I teach is remembered. I was glowing for the rest of the day simply because my students remembered the word "absent" when I called out attendance for the class.

I have a 20 minute break in between my first and second class, which I use to shovel in a salad as quick as I can. I made the mistake of eating too slowly my first day of teaching. This is what happens: Korean students often arrive 10-15 minutes early to sit close to the front, arrange their books, pencils and stare at Teacher Katy. They want to know what Teacher Katy is eating. Some of them want to eat what Teacher Katy is eating, or at least try to poke it. Many of them try to fortify my meals with melted, lint-covered chocolates and hard candy that they snatch deep from the recesses of their pockets. Ever try to spear a leaf of spinach with chopsticks? It's a laborious process fraught with dropping, so I often will just use my hands to pick up food.... so my lunch is a spectator sport for the kids.

When classes are eventually finished for the day. I usually linger to print out the next day's handouts and to sweep and rearrange the desks and chairs in the room. Ever read the comic strip Peanuts? Remember the character PigPen? I never knew children could be so filthy! There is an unknown sticky substance on all of the name tags of my 1st and 2nd graders... and there is a thick silt of erasers, pencil pieces, bits of waded up papers, spit balls, gum wrappers, food particles and, of course, dirt coating the floor when the students make their mad dash out of the room. Once I've cleaned, I lock all the windows and doors, trade my comfy school-issued flip flops for my running shoes and make the trek back to the subway. Many of my students are already racing bikes, hanging upside down on tree limbs, rollerskating and causing general mayhem on the streets by the time I start my journey home. I often meet the parents of my kids although they act very nervous around me because their 6-year-old knows more English than they do. Usually a nod and a smile is all they can muster.

The rest of my evening is usually some combination of gym, E-Mart shopping, dinner and calling home. Some nights I take the subway to have dinner with friends and sometimes I will meet with people Downtown to have dinner, but week days in Korea are similar to week days at home: I stay in.

For anyone reading this blog considering living abroad, let me summarize the epiphanies you will have during your stay (at least a few of the epiphanies I have experienced thus far):

1.) Friends made abroad are often friends made out of self-preservation. Meaning: you will always pine for the company of your friends at home. Yes, you will meet some incredible people abroad, but no relationship replaces the tried and true friendships you have back at home. For anyone who has gone to college, it's a similar experience as your first semester away. You meet many people and consequently hang out with people that you don't necessarily see yourself palling around with in the future. But the alternative is spending the evening alone with nothing but the internet for conversation, so you go out of your comfort zone in terms of the company you keep.

2.) You will miss the smell of your water, laundry detergent and dryer sheets.

3.) If you are in a country that speaks a different language, especially one you are not fluent in, you will miss sarcasm and witty turn-of-phrase. These are the filigrees in the art of conversation that are lost. Cultural differences and language differences make cliches and the jokes that worked so well with your friends almost impossible to reconstruct abroad. Case in point: I told SJ that a line we were standing in was moving slower than molasses on a winter day. She wanted to know, first, what molasses was, second, why I was outside in the dead of winter, third.... well, you get the idea. :)

4.) You will miss your big gray cat. Or whatever pets you have, if you have them. You will come home and wish they were there for that big, slobbery hello, that motor-like purr or that frantic tail wag.

5.) The biggie: you will miss your people. Of course you will miss your family and friends, but it goes beyond that. You will miss your culture. September 11th just passed, and I felt this desire to be in America. To flip on the TV and be inundated with the same "remember 911" newscast on every station. To be surrounded by Americana, which, honestly if you have not been abroad, you have no idea what America is all about. We are a really vivacious population. We like things faster, bigger, stronger and better than anywhere else in the world. All of those typical, oh just shoot-me-now-I-can't-take-it cliches about America (being strivers, dreamers and people of indomitable, enterprising spirit, etc.) are true. We are different from every culture I have ever experienced because we don't quite grasp the concept of "no". We are a little spoiled... and we live beyond our means because we have the space, natural resources and ignorance that no other country can match. But I miss that. I love my big, crass America. If America were a person, she is the one in the group that everyone loves to hate, but who always has the best stories after a crazy night out on the town. Korea is a lovely stray into a world of modesty, quiet reserve, ancient tradition and introversion...but I will take million-dollar, 30-second Super Bowl commercial mania and deep fried twinkies and Oreos any day... because it's just more fun.

Here are some photos of buildings and other sights I see in my typical day. Already this little corner of Korea feels like home and will be missed once I leave.
Red Moon Fitness is my gym. I would take pictures inside... but I get enough curious stares as it is. What I really wanted to point out is the sign above, "HoneyWell English". This is an example of a "hagwon," which is the Korean term for a private English school. The vast majority of people who come to teach English in Korea teach at businesses such as this one. They can be tiny such as HoneyWell, or be as large as an entire public school and dedicated strictly to teaching English (although these are rare because they are so expensive). Hagwons are about as numerous as hair and nail salons in any city (and are often wedge in between!) Many have poor reputations for long hours, shoddy facilities, unfriendly "hagwon bosses" and most are floundering financially, so signing a hagwon contract can be a dicey venture... one that I did not want to take. The benefit of the program that I am working in is that it's a government contract. The Korean government started the TaLK program 3 years ago and sends participants into public schools in more rural areas. I have a salary, full health care, my flight to and form Korea is covered and my housing is paid for, not to mention the government has a budget for "cultural experiences", meaning I get to take trips several times a month to famous Korean destinations and get a monthly allowance for a Korean hobby. nice.E-Mart, the Korean Wal-Mart. 5 stories of shopping madness accessible via a magnetized escalator that locks your shopping cart to the ground while you are riding so it doesn't roll away from you and mow down unsuspecting shoppers. Also a good place to grab a free meal if you are crafty. There are so many free samples (of everything- fruit, meat, cereal, drinks, etc.) that you can feed yourself nicely if you linger long enough.
A photo that sums up Korea in one shot: Kia and Hyundai vehicles, high rise buildings, mountains in the distance and an orange haze across the sky during sunset. I think the haze is from air pollution, but that could just be a rumor that began circulating during our TaLK orientation.
My bank: Nunghyup Bank. It's known as the rural bank, and more commonly as the "farmer's bank". It exists only in more rural areas of Korea, and on the ground floor of the bank there is a small market where local farmers can sell their produce. And it is only a 5 minute walk form my apartment. Buying "locally-grown" food in America seems like a joke once you have shopped in a market like Nunghyup's. The farmers are all squatting down on bright blue tarps spread across the sidewalk, sunburned with black fingernails from ripping up various roots, mushrooms and other veggies from the ground probably earlier that morning. And they are always so damn happy! I can buy a bag of 10 of the biggest carrots you have ever seen in your life for a dollar. And if I smile and say "hello", the lady who sold them to me will toss 2 more in just because she is so excited a foreigner stopped at her tarp.
This is directly beside my apartment building. Can you guess what type of restaurant it is? Why a poisonous blowfish restaurant, of course! Korean restaurants are all about specialities. There are noodle restaurants, fish restaurants, clam restaurants, beef restaurants, soup restaurants, etc. these blowfish places are incredibly popular, and yes, if it is prepare incorrectly you could have a severe reaction to the fish. but dying is unlikely unless you are really old or a baby. The best part? the blowfish are kept in a big tank at the front of the restaurant, so they are one of the first things I see every morning when I walk out on my way to the subway.

Daegu International Body Painting Festival

2009-09-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

If it weren't for the weather forecast, I doubt the body painting festival would have been as successful (or as full of men) as it was. When I left my apartment at 3 in the afternoon, the weather forecasters were promising rain; buckets of it. However, when I arrived at Duryu park, the sun was burning through the clouds... and the male portion of the audience was looking dissapointed. As for the artists and models, it meant that the fashion show would go on!

The commentary for the show was completely in Korean. Thankfully, SJ tagged along at the last minute and brought her boyfriend, Seong Lok (who didn't speak a lick of English). I recruited her (as I so often do) as my personal translator, which was great because I was completely wrong guessing the theme of each painted person. Below are some photos. I tried to snap a shot of the front and back of each contestant, but some were bounding across the stage like gazelles, so excuse some blurriness (I was sitting very far away).

She was definitely a crowd favorite. Her theme was "chameleon". Click on the pictures to enlarge them (you can see a chameleon on her ribcage- I'm sure that's where you are looking anyway ;))Those are the artists who painted him. He is the younger brother of the girl on the right and he was terribly nervous. He said "I am naked on a stage right now! I can't stop shaking."
His theme was "fire", thus the phoenix and fire dragon.
Her theme was a peacock. I didn't see it at all....there was a second peacock entry (scroll down some more) and the second is much more obvious.

"Colorful Daegu" is the slogan/motto for Daegu. It's plastered on everything from buildings to street lamps, sidewalks and even on toilet seats!
This girl was so spicy! She posed and worked the stage for a solid 10 minutes before the host had to wrestle the audience back from her. She is also quite possibly the tallest Korean woman I have ever seen.

He represented animal spirits!! I loved the nails.
They never said her theme :(
Waves of the ocean.

"Chinese spirit"

Native American! No specific tribe mentioned, though.

This guy was all the way form Russia! His theme was "Color, line and pointillism"

"Demented Clown/Evil Circus".....wearing Wonder Woman boots I might add. And very interesting positioning of the um.... pupils of the eyes?

She was sooo dynamic! She did several ballet moves. her theme was "My imaginary butterfly"

Japanese Geisha.

They have not announced the winner yet, so your guess is as good as mine. In my opinion, it is a tie between the Chameleon and the Butterfly. The most intricate artwork was on the "Waves of the Ocean" girl, but you just can't beat the charisma of the Butterfly- she rolled around on stage in nothing but paint for crying out loud!

I'd love to hear your votes for the winner- just comment on this post :o)

Foot-sucking Fish and Maegok Elementary

2009-09-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Spontaneity is usually not my forte. I am a planner with a solid agenda set days, weeks, even years in advance. So, to meet a stranger on the subway and subsequently join him at a sushi restaurants with 9 other strangers is an event for me. Here is how the night panned out:

I was power-walking through the stifling labyrinth of the subway at 11 at night with sunglasses and headphones (to prevent the inevitable stares I attract), on my way to see a friend for a few minutes before I needed to hop back on the metro to ride all the way home when I distinctly heard a man shout "foreigner." Since I'm usually the only Caucasian in a 20 mile radius, I turned around and found myself facing a 20-something-ish Korean guy looking so excited it made me nervous. The look on my face prompted him to spit out an explanation faster than I could decipher: he is an English teacher too and he has only been in Korea for a week. He is Canadian-Korean, has no nearby friends, knows no one and is astonished to bump into me. If it were anywhere else in the world, I'm sure I would have kept on walking but he did indeed look lonely and desperate (and since when are Canadians ever dangerous people?) so I ended up giving him my name for him to find me on Facebook. Sure enough, the next morning he sent me a message inviting me to a sushi restaurant that evening with some other English teachers (whom he had not met either). I had a rousing evening planned of mopping the floor and just generally acting like a bump on a log, so I figured why not and headed into Downtown Daegu after I finished classes.

How can I explain the comforting feeling, the welcoming sensation of hearing "hey what's up?" instead of "Anyong haseo". I felt like I might as well have walked into a restaurant back in the States! All told, there were about 10 of us hogging the tables at a small, crowded sushi restaurant. We exchanged the basics: names, schools, which program we are affiliated with and what subway stops we are close to. And then it was Korea-bashing/whining time! We talked about what luxuries we miss most (cars), what foods (wheat bread and de-boned fish), Korean oddities (we have all fallen into the squat toilet at least once and all of us laughed about peeing on our pants by accident). We exchanged teaching horror stories and made fun of our stunted, Konglish (Korean-English slang) vocabularies: "Katy, you soy sauce pass, yes" or "From Canada. Canada." (repeating words is something burned into your brain when you are teaching elementary school children).
This particular restaurant had a conveyor belt that rotated plates containing 2 pieces of sushi each. According to the color of the plate, that's how much you would be charged. Every so often a random slice of cake or piece of fruit would appear on the belt, but they all looked a little suspect... as though they had been rotating a few hours too many. And by the way, it is much cheaper to just order a plate of sushi. These 2-piece plates can be about 2,000-5,000 KRW each, much more expensive than ordering from the menu. One of my greatest disappointments in Korea thus far is the sushi/sashimi selection. There isn't any salmon or tuna in the roll, usually just some bland, unidentifiable white fish and a lot of spicy mayonnaise sauce and ham. Sushi/sashimi is a Japanese food versus "Kimbap," which is the Korean take on it (no raw fish, ham, egg and a lot of fattening sauce). The evening was a success regardless of the food though because I was in good company.

After dinner, we all decided that since it was a Thursday night and we had class the next day, staying out late was a bad idea. the slow shuffle back to the subway was underway when one of the girls, a kiwi (New Zealander) named Dianna suggested going to Dr. Shin's Fish Cafe. You cannot hear the title "Fish Cafe" without being intrigued, so she hastened to explain that it's a coffee shop where you can buy books, lounge in armchairs and, naturally, have your foot callouses be eaten off by tiny, translucent fish for around 6,000 KRW. Sign me up!
Some of the crew I met up with. They gave us these little shot glasses filled with jelly-like substance and a dollop of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. There were slices of plain white bread on the counter and you could make yourself some toast before getting your feet sucked on 0.o

I posted a video of the experience HERE. I apologize that you can't really see the fish... but I took some photos too, which are much clearer (posted below). I'll attempt to describe the sensation: place your feet in a tub of tepid water that is ankle-high and imagine the slippery/slimy feel of about 200-300 little fish bodies caressing your feet. Spread your toes and imagine them darting and wriggling in between the crevices to pick at the particularly crusty morsels on the webbing between your toes. The fish had mouths that were only a fractions of an inch, but you could feel a slight pull each time they would suck on your foot. The bigger fish had mouths the size of a pencil eraser and about as much sucking force as someone sipping through a straw. It was ticklish and disturbing. And I can't wait to do it again!

They kept swarming the guy's feet! He would dip his big toe, and all the fish would zero in on it. He kept having to take out his feet so I could get some fish love.

Besides my intense bonding with strangers, I have been teaching Monday-Friday, 1st-6th grade for the past 2 weeks. It's astounding how much 1 year can change a child. While my 4th grade students are quiet, studious and still happy to sing silly Disney songs in class, my 5th and 6th graders shoot lasers at me with their eyes all class long. They make no effort to hide their boredom, and the class size is dwindling as they beg their parents to be removed from the after school sessions (I teach directly after regular elementary school hours end). As for 1,2 and 3rd graders...well they are basically on crack. I cannot enter a room of 1st graders without them screaming "Katy Teacher" in unison, barreling toward me and attacking me with hugs, running around me in circles or picking up some random object and trying to say it's name in English. I have students jump up and latch on to my arms to hang from them. I have students who will twist the projector to face me because they think I am a movie star and the projector is a spotlight. I have little girls that want me to brush their hair and boys who want to learn "bad" words (The "bad" words they know are currently: silly, crazy, loco, psycho, bonkers, and the very naughty word "stupid")

Click HERE for a video of my 3rd graders. I have a 10 minute break in between classes to prepare my lesson for the next wave of students filtering in. However, a few spare moments of quiet is difficult to find when certain students come to class immediately after the previous one leaves. These 3rd graders are definitely my brown-nosers. They are always early, always sit at the front and never stop raising their hands to answer questions even for a moment during my lesson.

My school is Maegok Elementary, and it was finished being built march of this year. Everything is new and working so I can't complain about my classroom, especially when I have heard horror stories from some of my fellow TaLKers. For example: Shaina has no Internet access in her classroom. When you are strapped for ideas or need a way to occupy the kids while you revive a frozen powerpoint lesson, there is nothing better than pulling up funny videos on YoutTube.com. The Internet is a classroom Godsend!

While I enjoy teaching because it's a new and different job from all the others I've had, I will say this: I would never teach elementary school kids. Mothers and teachers around the world, my hat is off to you. Young children are absolutely exhausting. They bicker, they physically fight, they cry, they get sick without warning... and more than anything they have very sensitive feelings, which I must be extra cautious with because I sometimes don't know what's going on because of the language barrier. Yesterday, a fight broke out between two little boys (with the older, bigger boy punching the other smaller one with glasses on the head) in my 4th grade class because one kept calling the other "crazy head" and "fat". The boy with the glasses was shaking like a leaf for the remainder of the class and now will not raise his hand to answer any questions for fear of being picked on. The Snell part of me wants to grab the older boy by the arm with a really hard yank and traumatize him in front of the entire class ...maybe by embarrassing him with hard questions and taking stickers away from his name of the sticker reward chart but it wouldn't be fare and children, like puppies, don't understand retroactive punishment.
This is the P.E. for Maegok. Those buildings in the background are apartment complexes, and they are pretty much what house all Koreans who live in the city. Most of my students probably live in those exact buildings.
Those are Korean Hangul letters at the top, but usually names are written in Chinese characters in Korea (2nd line). Why? Because the Korean alphabet is not very old! For a long time, Koreans wrote and spoke in Chinese simply because they did not have a language of their own. And by the way, you pronounce my school's name "May- go-cuc" but say it quickly, so "May-gok"

They had closed the gate, so I apologize for the fence. But note the colors of the school: orange and blue!!!!!!

So, what's the best part of being a teacher you ask? Is it the fact that you finally get benefits like full health care? Is it the the thrill of teaching something to a child and watching their eyes light up when they finally understand? Is is the satisfaction of having a job that impacts society because you are educating tomorrow's leaders?

Sorry, but no.

It's the fact that I get to wear orthopedic sandals at work all day. What could ever top that?
Koreans wear indoor and outdoor shoes. So when I com to school, I immediately take my shoes off and place them in a cubby and get to wear these extra squishy, leather flippy floppies that the school provides. Hell yeah!

Seomun Market and Daegu Arboretum

2009-09-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

Ah routine, what a love/hate relationship. I find myself plodding along to the subway station, developing muscle memory when it comes to my morning routine of roll-off-bed-into-kitchen, fix coffee and oatmeal, sit at computer and check Facebook, etc.

Even tasks that were at one point a novelty (ex.- leaving maggot-filled food bucket on street at night to discover it miraculously emptied the next morning) have become mundane. I am quick to be bored. So, I was looking forward to this weekend as an opportunity to strike out and explore all the hidden gems of Daegu. Unfortunately, Shaina's immune system trifled with my plans. For the past week she has been hacking up a lung. For a while I caught the funk, but it quickly passed, and it seems to be lingering for Shaina and some of the other TaLK people... so I am waiting to do any serious traveling until everyone gets healthy again.

Saturday morning I knocked out some sorely needed chores, went running and piddled around cooking an extravagant lunch (tofu scramble with corn, mushrooms and broccoli) to burn time until noon rolled around and all of my normal 20 year-old friends began waking up. The tentative plan was to meet at Daegudong subway station to celebrate a friend's 20th birthday. However, the communication was poor, so by the time we met, everyone was flustered and annoyed at the lack of a formal plan. I did what I am good at doing: abandoning ship and doing my own thing. Yes, I pulled a "Snell", snatched Eunice and Shaina from impending boredom and whisked them away to downtown Daegu to explore some more.... and of course use Eunice's translation capabilities for my own gain.

A while back, my Ipod decided to up and die. Oddly enough, Apple is not very popular in Korea, (which Eunice explained is because Ipods are too big and do not appeal to Koreans who prefer microscopic computers, mp3 players, etc.) so finding an Apple service store was difficult. And pointless as it turned out: I was quoted $135 just to send my Ipod in to an Apple service center in the states. Looks like I know what I want for Christmas!
Eunice wanted me to take a picture of this girl's outfit. This is typical Korean fashion...

After the trek to Apple, we decided to visit Seomun Market. It's exactly the type of market you are envisioning: squawking, caged chickens flapping about in cages, coating the fish monger and his fly-covered catch with a thin layer of wispy down... nameless roots and leaves piled high on old newspapers with 70+ year-old women squatting among the leaves, haggling with locals and ignoring foreigners. Fabric stores, fake-designer shoes, "authentic" Korean antiques.... Seomun Market was a poppin' place on a Saturday.
This is the freshest fish you can get in Korea... and it's on display way underground at the entrance of the subway. Advertising is comical here.

Traversing through a marketplace is more for spectacle than it is for shopping. The Koreans selling food/clothing/God-knows-what know better than to waste their time on a foreigner who probably doesn't speak the language and who has no use for 20 pounds of fermented soybean paste. I was content to snap a few pictures until I saw a cart piled high with these perfect pine-tree green watermelons. Dad, as you read this, know that you have passed the "watermelon hound" gene down to your daughter. Every summer in Florida as well as on road trips, Dad would always track down a lone fruit stand on the side of the road and would stop to buy some of the local fare. Some of my happier memories are of eating watermelon on the deck with dad, juice running down our forearms and a pile of seeds littering the grass and deck railing. So, with an immense jolt of nostalgia, I stopped and pointed to one of the biggest melons the guy had to offer. 3,000 KRW (Like $2.90).
This is an art form in Korea: sweet rice balls/cakes. They are made from sweet rice flour and usually filled with sesame oil. The rice is formed into any shape you can imagine from sushi rolls and Disney characters to entire replicas of octopus. All edible!
Cramped quarters. Not to mention that scooters/motorcycles are allowed to drive on the sidewalk pavement in Korea, too.
Here's that 20 pounds of fermented soybean paste I mentioned earlier :o)
Chicken.... stages 1 and 2.

The first kittens and puppies I see in Korea.... and they are caged right next to the food. I wanted to save them all..
A puppy among some very fat rabbits. Nothing was pinning these rabbits here; I thought it was strange that they weren't constantly trying to escape.
But no oatmeal..
A Korean specialty: caterpillar larvae. It has the most repugnant odor you can imagine. Like putrid, fried mothballs....
Annnnd I made Shaina eat one. The little Korean ladies frying the larvae in a wok said that they cured all illness, so I was only trying to help..hehe.
The fruit of my labor. GET IT!?!? I love puns :)

While the rest of the group bickered about dinner, the Trinity (Eunice, Shaina and I) decided to go off and have dinner on our own. Shaina was feeling very poor at that point, so we rushed her to the nearest subway stop so we could ride back to my place for dinner. I proposed sashimi/sushi because there is a restaurant directly beside my apartment. Once there, Eunice got a call from her boyfriend, so she switched on a video chat application on her phone! I was amazed!--
The sashimi was just decent... it doesn't make sense to me that a country that is a peninsula could be so clueless as to how to do sushi right. What made the meal worthwhile are all the exotic side dishes the server brought out. A Korean meal is synonymous with a meal of maaaaany dishes. So there were the staples: kimchi, sesame-marinated spinach, fermented spicy roots.... and then there was a newbie on the table: abalone.

Abalone is the stuff on the left, and that is the creature's shell that it is resting on. If you are a fan of the Travel Channel and have ever watched No Reservations or Bizarre Foods, I can guarantee you have seen abalone. It's some sort of very thick-shelled sea creature that is considered a seafood delicacy because it must be cooked for hours to become edible. It's slimy, coated in a white mucous-like substance and smells like briny seawater. It tastes exactly like the aforementioned description. All 3 of us discreetly spit the abalone into napkins and hid the wads in our purses because we did not want to offend the server.
This is how they serve fish in Korea. I feel like I am eating fried bait because not only is it tiny, it's just a crappy species of fish. To eat it, you spear both chopsticks into the belly of the fish and rip him apart. You cannot avoid the bones because they are hair-thin, and all the organs, scales and eyes are supposed to be eaten too. I will never shun the seafood counter at Publix again.

Eunice put a hurtin on that fish. She ate every little morsel using her chopsticks!

After dinner, we headed to my apartment for movie night using my computer. Unfortunately, you can never visit as long as you would like to because the subway stop running at around 11:30, and we live over an hour away from each other.

On Sunday, the plan was to go to Daegu Arboretum (the 3 of us) and to spend the day reading on park benches but Shaina texted me early on in the morning to say she still felt like death, so I decided to just go alone. Getting lost on my way to a park is loads better than going stir-crazy in my apartment.

So I packed an extra large carrot in my camera bag, wrote down my address in Korean (if I ever get lost, I can at least hail a cab and just hand him my address) and struck out to find Daegu Arboretum. I had to ride the subway to the very last stop on the line, and when I first emerged from the tunnel I was disoriented because I was suddenly in the country! Stifling the first inklings of panic, I searched for English anything... and luckily found a sign with a picture of lots of trees and the word "Arbo." on it, pointing down a street, reading 150m.

I walked for a half hour, winding through side streets and growing more nervous by the minute. I was just about to use break down and use the 5 Korean words know with the owner of a vegetable cart when I spotted a sight for sore eyes: an aajima! (hajima/aajima- the ladies with the massive visors) and she was dressed to the nines for hiking!
When in doubt, always follow the hajima (and her offspring in hajima-training). Especially when she's decked out head to toe in Northern Face hiking gear. Koreans like to go to extremes when it comes to their hiking clothing. It's still well above 90 degrees right now, but Koreans still don long sleeved, cold-weather hiking jackets and thick, fur-lined hiking boots just for a casual walk in the park.

Sure enough, I was led straight to the arboretum, which turned out to be a lovely day. The park was packed full of families on Sunday outings enjoying the cloudless, perfect weather. For some history in the arboretum: it's a free park that was built over a landfill. It extends over several hundred acres and is part of a tree-planting initiative that the Republic of Korea has begun to be competitive in the new green/eco-friendly trend.
A hothouse filed with different types of cacti.
These metal coils were heating the room, keeping the temperature roasting!
I had no one to take pictures of me, so I contented myself by taking pictures of posing Korean people. This culture has a love affair with photography, and everywhere you looked there were parents setting up tripods to photograph their children, young girls snapping photos that are sure to be their next Facebook pictures and couples trying to take the most cutesy kissing poses in pics possible.

Another thing Koreans love: dipping their feet in water. A few posts back I put up a picture of a stream built straight through the heart of metropolitan Seoul. This concept of an open stream that you can wade into is all over Korea. On this particular Sunday with all the families at the park, the kids were having a ball splashing around in the water.

I found a praying mantis in the grass! When the kids saw me squatting down to take a picture of something, they all started crowding around me, trying to poke the mantis with a stick. This was the only shot I could get without any little hands in it :)

It was a pleasant break from city life. No honking horns or flashing neon lights. No fruit vendors shouting about their prices through a garbled speakerphone like it's a Communist China national rally at 4 in the morning. The only mar on the day were the stares I was getting, not so much because I was the only foreigner for miles, but because of two conspicuously placed lime green band aids on my chest. I'm sure it looked like I was hiding a chemotherapy port or something, when really the band aids are covering a very nasty burn from a hard boiled egg incident.

I have never cooked with gas before, so I must have turned the heat up too high because 3 eggs that I was boiling became 3 temperamental bombs, which exploded and coated my ceiling, windows, pots, pans, sink, fridge, floor and ME with scalding egg fragments. In fact, it was like having eggshell shrapnel lodged into my skin! I had to pull off a particularly large sliver of yolk off my chest, which melted off a huge tract of Katy-flesh: thus the band aids. So, when I come home and reflect back on my myriad of injuries and illnesses that I suffered through in Korea, I can always have a laugh that, no, I never caught Swine Flu... but I did have second degree burns from explosive eggs.

Getting Settled

2009-09-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

With the smell of garlic lingering around my kitchen like a thick fog and my suitcase unpacked and tossed behind my washing machine, I feel like I have finally made a home out of my apartment here in Daegu.

My apartment is cozy and functional. Luckily, my experience at the dorms at UF prepared me for living in a small space. Utilizing every square inch is key. Doors are used as drying racks, kitchen cabinets are good for temporary storage for clothes until I can find a more suitable spot. (I had a sock plop into a pot of simmering black beans the other day... thank goodness it was clean :o) ) I will mention that my Spaghetti dinner with SJ and my friend Eunice was very successful! Because I didn't have an immersion blender, the sauce was more like chunky salsa, but it tasted fantabulous- everyone had seconds.

This $10 bag of Denmark (they translate the Dutch into Korean on the back!) mozzarella cheese was cheaper than the $20 tiny tube of Kraft parmesan cheese. o.0
Eunice had seconds...thirds...fourths...photographed it... hehe. She definitely appreciates my cooking.

I have also had time to strike out and explore my surroundings more. The essentials have been covered (the bank, the big box store/Walmart's Asian cousin, how to navigate the subway, etc.). I even signed up for 5 months at a local gym called "Red Moon Fitness". This experience actually deserves some storytelling just because of the freak occurrence that happened during my first workout.

Enter Katy: lone white woman standing about a foot and a half taller than the surrounding sea of grunting, sweaty middle-aged Koreans. My first obstacle: where do I change? Thank goodness the girl working at the front desk was the same girl (Her English name is Lucy) who signed me up. The previous day, SJ and I scoped out 3 gyms and decided on this one because it had the best equipment... and I haggled like a true car dealer's daughter and got five months for 150,000 Won (that's about 26 bucks a month; no sign up fee!! Mega deal.) Lucy smiled at me and said something in Korean. I smiled back, looking helpless and pointing to my clothes and shoes, at a loss trying to ask for the changing room. To make the scene more awkward, I had just come from my School (Maegok) and my mentor teacher (a man named Jay who I will describe in a bit) had given me toilet paper, a broom and a mop to bring home with me. So, I'm certain that Lucy believes I am employed as a janitor here in Korea. We flailed about with hand gestures for about 5 minutes before she took all my cleaning supplies and stashed them behind the desk.

I followed her into a separate room that turned out to be the women's locker room. She smiled... rapid-fired some more Korean my way and then left me with nothing but a key to locker 66 (I looked for locker 99 for 5 minutes before realizing my error) and a folded up set of work out clothes that would probably fit snugly on a 12 year old. Culture shock moment #4,672: There are no private changing rooms in Korea. Women quite abruptly shed every piece of clothing the moment they entered the communal room. I was blinded by the sheer volume of stark nudity around me!! Especially considering the typical age for this gym's clientele falls somewhere between 55 and 70. I tried to soothe my burning eyes and hustled out of there, double time.

I hopped on to a treadmill seeing as they are usually the simplest machine to figure out. However, each time I tried to increase the pace, my machine would suddenly lose power. I tried switching to a different machine when an elderly Korean man walked up and started pushing buttons, demonstrating the controls for the treadmill. By then I had already figured out that the first machine was broken, but I didn't want to interrupt this guy while he was making himself feel important. Unfortunately, the spectacle of a dim-witted American girl hopelessly button-mashing on a treadmill attracted an elderly Korean woman as well. She made the mistake of climbing on to the back of the treadmill while it was in motion (the Korean man kept upping the pace until I was in a dead sprint just to keep up!) when she lost her footing and was flung off the treadmill like a ragdoll, her head striking a dumbbell weight rack behind her. I completely lost my patience with the pushy Korean man by then and shooed him away, pushed the emergency stop button and got down on the ground beside the Korean woman. She was unconscious for a solid 5 minutes and paramedics ended up coming to take her to the hospital. Quite possibly the most awkward experience I have had in Korea yet... I have to admit with some shame that I was frantically hoping that the woman remembered the correct sequence of events when she came to... because to the casual observer I am certain it somehow appeared like it was my fault the woman fell. A freak incident... all because she was trying to be overly helpful. Yikes.

Concerning my teaching, this week has been sort of like syllabus week at school. I have taught some of my classes, but the lesson plans consist of introducing myself and explaining the rules to the kids, which are:

1.) No talking when teacher Katy is talking!
2.) You must raise your hand to speak in class.
3.) No touching your classmates.
4.) No cellphones.

Yes, even 1st graders have cellphones in Korea!

The room that I teach in is actually Maegok's music room. So there are instruments everywhere. It's spacious and smells like new paint so we have to open the windows or else risk getting all the children high off fumes. On Tuesday I spent the day creating powerpoints and working on lesson plans. While I was working, some random 3rd graders came in and asked if they could play the piano. Can you say child prodigy? When the little girl started to play I had to fight back applause and tears, it was stunning. And with well-honed Korean modesty she told me that she isn't that good and her parents tell her she needs much more practice before she can become famous.
The little boy was a ham. He kept trying to block out the girl who was playing the piano (and she was so shy it didn't matter because she kept hiding!) The girl in the orange outfit is dressed for P.E. And as is the case with the the majority of the world, Korean children adore soccer above any other sport.

My big, beautiful classroom which is barely large enough to hold some of my classes! I teach 1st-6th graders, 6 different classes total. that's almost 200 students. I expect some of them to drop out before the semester really kicks off, but so far no one has.

My mentor teacher, Jay (Jae Hyuk Choi). He is in his 40s if you can believe it! He lived in Australia for about a year, so he is much more Westernized than any other Korean man I have met. Great guy to have around: he steals toilet paper, cleaning supplies and pens from the school supply room for me :)

SJ! Acting like she is one of my 1st grade students.
Tiny desks and even tinier toilets! I nearly fell off when I tried to use the girl's restroom with a toilet only 4 inches off the ground.

So far, I have taught 1st and 3rd graders (today I get to teach 2nd and 6th graders). Lately I have been feeling under the weather with some kind of chest cold, so it's difficult to speak, nonstop, for 4 hours to kids with the attention span of goldfish. But it's also a boatload of fun :o)

I played singing and clapping games with the 1st graders and used SJ's translation skills a lot. The 3rd graders were a pleasant surprise though because they understood most of my instructions as long as I spoke with exaggerated articulation and hand gestures. I divvied out names cards that had the student's Korean name and English name and spent the class teaching everyone how to pronounce their crazy new English names. I have never met a "Sweymey" in my life; some of the English names these kids have are hilarious and sometimes resemble the names we give to pets: Jet, Max, Rufus.

In Korea, common courtesies such as letting someone know about a party in advance are unheard of, so it was so typically Korean of Jay to casually mention that we were going for a walk in the park, then to dinner THEN to a tea house after work. With the entire school. Including the Principal and Vice Principal! I was under dressed and had prior plans with a bag of frozen dumplings and the book "Love In The Time f Cholera" at my apartment, but something told me this party was specifically planned for SJ and I and not going would be a blemish on the remainder of my time here in Korea.

What a night it turned out to be! Some 30-40 teachers and staff attended. We went to 2 different beautiful parks and strolled around soaking up the greenery. We even watched a water fountain show (think tiny Las Vegas Bellagio Hotel water show) at a park with a lake before heading to a traditional Korean restaurant to have dinner. I should have known that I wouldn't escape the evening without being recognized as the newbie in the crowd, and sure enough the Principal busted out a bright pink ice cream cake, a bouquet of beautiful summer wildflowers and a birthday cone-shaped hat that I had to wear the whole night. Only Jay, SJ and a Korean English teacher could understand me, so mostly I just smiled, giggled and tried to bow a crap ton throughout the evening.

Going to a tea house after dinner was an amazing experience! The tea room was spacious and had an excellent view of the surrounding park. But the most glorious part of the evening was the fact that it was a full moon. We were able to watch the moon rise over the distant mountain tops while we sipped our green, peppermint and chamomile teas. There was dried apricot and persimmon and pumpkin seeds at the center of the table to snack on, and everyone was in high spirits and exceedingly friendly. At around 9 when the conversation was dying down some, one of the men at the table clinked his glass and called me to the center of the room to stand. I was mortified when he hushed everyone, turned to me and asked

"So Miss Pretty Katy, who is the most handsome man in this room?"

Can you guess who I pointed to? It should be obvious: the Principal of course! Shameless flirtation and flattery will get you everywhere in life. He turned tomato-red and laughed hysterically, shaking his head but looking wholly pleased with my answer. The guy also asked me who "Miss Maegok" was (like Ms. America) and I pointed to a very quiet, very beautiful woman at the center of the table who turned out to be non other than his daughter in law! Score!

It turned out to be a marvelous evening, and I look forward to attending many more impromptu staff outings in the future.
Smile and say "kimchi!"

My Apartment

2009-08-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Click HERE for a video tour of my apartment.

Below is my address in both English and Korean. I believe it should be fine if you simply write my address in English. However, to be on the safe side, maybe use the Korean version as well. You can print out the Korean version and tape it to the envelope/whatever or laugh at your inability to write it as I just did. :o) Good old-fashioned snail mail is much appreciated. I would love to hear from everyone!

Katy Snell
PYUN-AN HOUSE 300, 1000-365, IGOK-DONG,
DALSEO-GU, DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA
704-929

Korean version:

대한민국 대구시 달서구 이곡동 1000-365
편안오피스텔 300호
704-929
Katy Snell

Remember the girl I mentioned in my last post? Let me explain a little more about Seong Ji. She is my Korean co-teacher, so she will be my translator in class. Seong Ji (I gave her the nickname of SJ) was placed with me through TaLK, so she is not required to be anything more than a coworker.. but that has not been the case.

Every day, SJ calls me, e-mails me and basically makes sure that I am alive and well. I enjoy her company because she is the epitome of a Korean woman: not a smidgen over 100 pounds, pale white skin and exceedingly demure and modest, often covering her mouth and bowing her head when she speaks which is a sign of humbleness in Korean women.

I love SJ because despite our immense culture clash, I can tell that she is a wonderful, caring person who wants to be my best friend in Korea more than anything else. She helped me move all of my things, negotiated with the gas company (she put my utilities in HER name!), showed me how the garbage system works, took me to the bank, took me food shopping, got me my address, hails taxis for me... the list is embarrassingly long. Not to mention that it is exhausting to communicate with each other. While SJ is fluent, I have to use dramatic hand/facial gestures to make sure my point is understood. Cliches, euphemisms, metaphors, similes, references to any type of Americana and large words are all lost on her, so basic speaking becomes physically taxing. This will improve with time once we get to know each other better, but I have a perfect example of the sort of misunderstanding that can happen between us: A very common expression used among friends in America is to say "Oh shut up!" or "Be quiet" and laugh afterward. I noticed a horrified expression on SJ's face, and when I asked what was wrong she wanted to know what that person had done to offend me so deeply. Often, SJ will take words at face value, so when she hears "shut up", she thought I was telling my friends off!

By the end of the moving day, I could tell that SJ was bone-weary and near collapse from chauffeuring me all over Daegu. But she never said a peep and was nothing but smiles from 8 in the morning to 8 at night. When it came time for her to leave, I gave her a hug which surprised her. I thought I had been too forward, but then she looked at me, smiled and said "We will be good friends, Katy. I want be your friend but also your mom in Korea make sure you ok all the time. We will learn much from each other." I don't think I can describe her personality any better than with that statement :o)

Sorry for such a short post, but I am busy unpacking and food shopping. I plan to go to the grocery to get things to make SJ spaghetti bolognese for dinner. While it seems like a plain meal, it is VERY difficult to find decent Italian food in Korea and the ingredients for the meal will probably scalp me for around $30. But SJ is excited and it is the least I can do to show her my gratitude. I will make sure to take pictures of our dinner night together.

Donghwasa Buddhist Temple, POSCO, Folk Village

2009-08-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT: If you click the pictures, they will enlarge so you can get a better look at everything!

I know where Buddha got his belly. A few days ago, my fellow TaLKers and I along with our Korean co-teachers (the Korean people who will be our translators in class) got to take a trip up into the mountains to visit a famous Buddhist Temple to observe a tea ceremony and Monks dressed in baggy gray outfits performing their daily prayers. And of course we got to eat too! I was in heaven (or I had reached the sublime as the Buddhists would say :o) ) because Buddhists are vegetarians and they eat laaaarrge quantities of food. But let me recount the day before I dive right into food descriptions and pictures.

Geographically speaking, Daegu is situated in a basin, with mountains encasing the city. In order to get to the temple, we took a charter bus up into the mountains, barreling up the squirreliest roads fathomable, dodging old ladies with baskets of vegetables precariously balanced on their heads and children playing stick ball in the streets. Thank goodness I had the foresight to pack a lot of Drammamine.

Once we arrived, it was a steep uphill climb to the pavilion where we to participate in early morning prayer. There was a lady dressed in traditional Buddhist garb who taught us the correct way to praise Buddha when you first enter the temple (a man strikes a small, hollow wooden gourd over and over while you kneel and place your forehead on the ground 3 different times). Sound easy? Hardly! My knees were shaking with the effort to keep my feet close together while simultaneously squatting down onto my knees, bending over to touch my head to the floor and never once using my hands to assist me. And the woman who was giving the lesson performed the prayer around 7 times... (that's 21 bows for all you mathematicians out there ;) ) yet by far the most comical element of the prayer is going into what I like to describe as "trance" mode. You must sit on the wooden floor, Indian style as we would call it (by the way, the lady kept saying "yoga..yoga!" to me- yaaaay flexibility!) with ramrod straight posture and you must try to focus your gaze on the tip of your nose and keep your tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth. You should try this right now.... stop reading and give it a shot!. We had to hold this position for 5 minutes at a time. I'm not sure about enlightenment, but I definitely felt dizzy.

After prayer, we had a waif of a woman give us a tour of Buddha's stomping grounds. This particular temple is touted as being over 1,500 years-old, and to see it is to believe it. As the story goes, long ago a phoenix landed in this sacred spot and became one with the surrounding mountains. A phoenix is the fabled flaming bird that symbolizes rebirth and renewal (HUGE tenets in Buddhism), and on the eaves of every building, there were brightly painted birds symbolizing the phoenix. Coolest of all was the phoenix tail though- there was a hefty slab of reddish rock jutting out of the stone staircase leading up to Buddha's effigy and below it were three oval-shaped white boulders. This was the phoenix's tail and 3 "wishing" eggs that you could touch for wishes.
I touched each stone and wished for the continued good health of all my loved ones, so I hope everyone is feeling extra blessed ^.^

Here are some photos of the scenery. It was a gray, damp day, which was nice since Korea has been every bit as sweltering as Florida.

There were 4 of these big dudes, and each one serves as a protector for the temple.

I always love to photograph the ceilings of temples. look at how ornate the patterns are! By the way, the flower is a lotus, the holy flower of Buddha.
Each roof tile has a hand-painted prayer on the underside. Similar to La Segrada Familia in Spain (google it!), many Buddhist temples seem to be funded by donations. So visitors can purchase a tile for like $5-$10 and it will be fitted to one of the buildings in need of fresh roofing. It's a means of inexpensive Korean health insurance :o)
Buddhists revere all lifeforms... even creepy, man-eating spiders. (Ok, so it was the size of a quarter... but it looks huge in this picture!) When we had tea later in the day, our host explained that hot water leftover from afternoon tea cannot be immediately tossed out because it could inadvertently kill an ant or worm. Whoa.
Look very closely at the top of the temple and you will notice a swastika. The swastika is all over Korea from cell phone accessories to swastika sweet rice cakes and children's underwear. It even signifies vegetarian food on packages! What the swastika actually means is eternity, and literally translates to "ongoing luck". Because the Nazis generally used a right-facing swastika, the Buddhist religion usually uses a leftward-facing swastika to differentiate it from the horrific stigma the rightward symbol carries (however, the swastika was NEVER meant to represent anything but positive qualities). An interesting note: I looked it up and the leftward facing swastika means mercy and love while the rightward-facing one signifies strength and intelligence...

MASSIVE BUDDHA! (Think University of Florida Century Bell Tower huge..) He had multiple neck rolls and huuuuge, drooping earlobes. Probably the only respected fat person in Korea ;)
This tasted like river water.My completely vegetarian Buddhist meal. Tofu, cabbage, spicy curried rice (the red stuff), potato-leek patties and lotus root! The lotus roots are the circular, tan things with black sesame seeds on them. You can't eat just one.

The lady who gave us the praying and subsequent tea ceremony demonstrations. Tea ceremony lasts for about an hour just to make a single pot of loose-leaf green tea. (Buddha seriously needs to be introduced to sugar and cream..) But it was fun and incredibly authentic. I just had a numb butt for a solid 2 hours afterward.

You must offer 3 cups of tea. One to your neighbor, one to God and lastly one to yourself.
Korean people are cuddly. They have no concept of "the bubble" and are constantly in your personal space. I have no clue who this girl it, but everyone here likes to take pictures with foreigners. Great for times when you are feeling lonely... not so good for times like, oh let's see.... showering! At every hotel, I had a maid walk right into the bathroom while I was showering to restock towels and check the shampoo bottle.

Remember to wash your hands :) I love this!

After our temple visit, we drove to a nearby museum that housed all the greatest brass works of Korea. Apparently, Daegu is famous for it's brass bowls, chopsticks, cymbals, etc. Here are a few of the more impressive pieces in the museum.

This is how many dishes are served in a typical, traditional Korean meal.
Funeral candlesticks
My battle cry. This gong made your ears ring!

So funny! This mat (and those 4 sticks flying through the air) are a traditional, ancient Korean board game. You had to move pawns across a map and these sticks told you how many spaces to move (like dice). However, each wooden stick had a blank side too, so you had to toss them a certain way to get high numbers. Enter in this insane little Korean lady. She is a prime example of what we would call a "Hajima". Notice the large, Poker-player visor, the socks paired with flip flops and the baggy, elastic waist pants. These are the traits of all Hajimas and they are to be feared! These are the type of women who will snatch you by the ear and holler at you in public... and consequently the types of women who will snatch board game dice from you to show you how the game SHOULD be played. Every time she threw the sticks, she shouted some kind of unintelligible hawk-like screech. And she won. Every. Time. Fear the Hajima, for she is very crafty!

After this day, we had another 'adventure" day where we visited an ancient folk village and Korean steel mill. I like to refer to this day as Korean good PR day because, honestly, why the heck else would we visit these places?

Unfortunately, they would not allow us to take photos of the steel mill, but it turned out to be fascinating. The mill is called POSCO, and it is the 4th largest producer or steel in the world. The complex is located on the northern coast of South Korea, and it is as large as Stanton Island in NY. They lead us on a five minute walk through one of the steel-processing buildings, and I have never seen anything like it before! A 4 football-fields long-conveyor belt was carrying these yacht-sized molten plates of steel across a constant flow of freezing-cold water. The steel was neon orange, and the water would skitter across the surface like oil in a frying pan. 70% of the steel produced in the plant is utilized domestically, but I will note that on my new KitchenAid stand mixer that I received form my birthday (Thanks Mom and Dad!) the mixing bowl comes from Korea!!

Below are some photos of the Ancient Korean folk village that we visited. People actually still live and work in these villages, and they seem to me to favor the hippie communes on the 60s. Everyone lives and works together, sharing everything and becoming one giant, extended family.
In Korean culture, only the mentally-unstable wear flowers in their hair... which my tour guide pointed out to me directly after I took this photo.

Kimchi pots, which are buried in the ground for 6+ weeks to create the spicy fermented cabbage dish that accompanies every meal.

Meryl Streep's Korean twin was our tour guide!!
Can you tell who is Korean and who isn't?

Rice fields!

I would like to introduce you to someone: Seong Ji. She is a very special person: my Korean co-teacher. Since starting this post, I have already moved into my apartment. That blog update will come tomorrow, but just know that absolutely nothing would be possible with Seong ji ("sung-gee"). She and I are becoming fast friends, and I will talk about her more in depth in my next entry. This could be one of the few pictures where I catch her off-guard though, because Koreans hate not posing for photos.

As for now, I am off to tackle the subway and try and navigate around town to meet up with some friends. Wish me luck, and I will post the saga of my apartment-settling experience soon.