Photo Diary #3

Just a quick update to show some pictures of the past couple of weeks. Been very busy getting acquainted with the school and teaching english and exploring this huge city.

Teaching english thus far been a unique and rewarding but frustrating experience. From my employment as a swimming instructor I would have expected some skills to carry over but the learning curve was much steeper than I thought. The language barrier makes it very tough to explain yourself and the younger classes can be absolutely insane. These kids go to school all day, come to english class, leave 5 minutes early to catch a bus to head math prep, and then study all night. Most elementary schools have Saturday classes every other week, and totally unrealistic homework demands.

I teach kindergarten classes after lunch; we're doing a skit of 'The Tortoise and Hare'. I then teach a 'chant' class with first and second grade students three days a week. The bulk of my teaching time is spent doing 'listening' and 'storybook' classes with third and fourth grade students. I'm the defacto accent specialist at the school as all the other teacher's first language is Korean. Questions like "How many syllables does the word 'dodge' have?" are regular.

In the picture below I'm teaching a 'chant' class to the Beta group, they're in grade one and two.




Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, was on the weekend of the 14th of September. The kindergarten kids came wearing Hanbok, the tradition dress. I look like a bit of a plug, it was a very long day. My boy Kevin is on the right. The little girl with her tongue out is 'Cindy'. She's my favourite.




Last weekend I went out to visit a palace and a museum at Gyeongbuk-dong. As most are well aware, the US has been in a bit of an economic pickle lately. SK is financed very heavily by American investment, so their market is very susceptible to any fluctuations. I watched the Won evaporate by 12% over the weekend Lehman crashed, much to my chagrin(I'm paid in wons). Riot cops were out in full force all over the city to lock any shit down. Koreans have a long and proud history of taking to the streets; it's a sort of right of passage I think. Last time they did was the huge beef protests against importing american meat

Outside the 700 year old Joseon palace of Gyeongbokgung was a half dozen of these armored busses and maybe 250 odd cops. I was a little apprehensive of taking a picture of them, but I snapped a shot of their equipment stacked outside the bus.




The people know how to riot, and the cops know how to fight back. Billy clubs? Truncheons? Night sticks? Nah man, we go straight for swords. Seriously. I wouldn't want to face off against a pissed off SK Riot Cop in full gear with a hard rubber katana.




Went out for beer and samgyeopsal later that night with a bunch of friends. Samgyeopsal is uncured strips of pork belly, a little thicker than bacon. It's served to you raw and is cooked at your table on a little butane bbq at the modern places, or a sunken charcoal grill at the more traditional restaurants. From the left, Vincent, Emily, Evan, Min-Jae and Kevin. The Asian 'V' is obligatory in photos. If you don't do it, it seems to mean you aren't enjoying the picture.




On last shot, apologies for the shaky photog skills. Coming out from a bar around 1AM to the main drag and a nice view of maybe two dozen standard armored police busses. Kevin wasn't too interested when I suggested we find/start a riot.


This weekend is 'National Korean Foundation' day. From wikipedia: The day celebrates the foundation of Gojoseon, the first state of Korean nation. According to Samguk Yusa, Dangun founded Gojoseon on the 3rd day of 10th lunar month, 2333 BCE.

We get a 4 day weekend so we're heading down to Pusan on the south east corner of Korea. It's the world's 4th busiest sea-port so I'm sure I can get into lots of trouble. Will return with pictures and tales.

Evan.

Photo Diary #2 - Sinchon

Chronicle of a night out in Sinchon last Thursday. Just Kevin and I; a bit of a quiet night exploring this flourescent student bar region. On a side note, for a little bit of context. I'd like to present a couple of slides for your viewing pleasure. Please direct your attention to the following link and review:


http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pdf/subway_rt.pdf


As I'm sure many of you are quite familiar with, this is a map of our beloved(maybe?) TTC subway system.


Now if you will, please click on this picture to open the larger version. On the far left, highlighted in red is where my apartment is at Gaehwasan station. Pretty evident is the huge complexity of the fair city of Seoul. Makes you realize why they call it the 'Republic of Seoul' sometimes.



On the subway ride to Sinchon I had one of my most interesting experiences thus far. We had planned on getting some food downtown so we left Gimpo around 7 PM. On the underground car with us were about a dozen very friendly ROK Marines. They had just finished Guundae, their mandatory military reserve service for the year and were celebrating before heading home. Some of these guys were pretty intense, there was a paratrooper, a couple mountain rangers, and even a SCUBA search and rescue/demolitions dude. One spoke pretty good english and we had a good twenty minute chat and snapped a couple pictures with the promise that I tag it as "Republic of Korea Marine Corps". So, here we go:



This is in the middle of Sinchon after dinner. It's huge. Probably 6 by 6 square city blocks, with lots of little alleyways between buildings. One block is indistinguishable from the next. It's populated with 4-8 story commercial buildings with restaurants and bars on each floor. Bars are called 'Hofs', from Hoffbrau, the only German loanword (that I know of) in Korean.



Here's another shot of a larger building. Notice the PC rooms two floors apart. I don't know what there are more of in Korea, Hofs or PC-bangs. Halfway up is 'Cafe Room', which has the Korean characters for Norae-bang: Kareoke. Also everywhere. Like a virus that sings cheesy K-pop songs while you drink Soju.



And here is Kevin looking stunned at the last stop of the night. There's a chain of bars in Sinchon known as 'Ho Bar'. The Chinese word for good is Hao (as in Ni Hao!) and the Korean approximation is Ho, resulting in some great cross-language jokes. There are bars I-V within walking distance, so it was a pretty respectable goal for Kevin and I to have a beer in each and head home by 12-1 (It was a thursday night, classes to teach in the AM). We couldn't figure out what the Open~am8:00 sign meant, or if in fact they do close.



Sadly, there were no Marines on the subway back. That's all for this night.
Cheers.

Photo Diary #1

It’s been quite a busy week. Getting settled here at the Academy was pretty easy, everything’s well organized. Apartment is nice, as you can see. My room is pretty spartan, I packed quite lightly. Most Koreans sleep on the floor, on this waterfilled pad about an inch thick. It's hooked up to a water heater and a small pump, so your ass gets warmed in the middle of winter! Pretty cool if you ask me. I might have one of the only western style beds in Gimpo.

Kevin and I spent the weekend touring Seoul. Visited Deoksugung, a 15th century palace. It kept getting destroyed by various rampaging hordes, including Chinese, other Korean Kingdoms, the Japanese, and by Koreans in retribution when the present King at the time capitulated to Japanese Invaders. Rebuilt now with many relics from each dynasty, it's a tourist hotspot. Most of the tourists however are Korean nationals, who seem to visit it with a sense of patriotic duty.

Very Impressive Statue of King Sejong Himself:

Was a King's Residence, now a museum of American art (ironically enough).

Scoping out a nice large Bell. Notice to the left, the 15th century precurser to Nebelwerfers and Katyushas (For Joe and Keith's benefit.

Walked around downtown Seoul for a little while after, there was a large gathering of Evangelical youth in a square just outside city hall. Korea was one of the only SE Asian countries that welcomed missionaries in the 18th and 19th century; as such there's a significant Christian population. You can pick out churches on the Seoul skyline by the red neon crosses all over the place.

They were chanting "Christ-Jesus-God" in Korean to the suited dude on the right. There were groups with diff. coloured shirts representing various churches all over the field.

Headed down to Cheonggyecheon afterwards. Cheonggyecheon is a creek that flows east-west through Korea. After the war is was used as a dumping spot for industry, and was paved over to form a giant pollution culvert through Seoul. President Lee Myung-Bak decided this was not cool, and spent about $1 Billion in reconstruction. It's now a great place to see other white people and courting Koreans.

aannnnd now I'm tired of adding pictures.

Soon to come: Our night out in Sinchon (the 'Ho Bar', meeting Marines on the Subway etc), City Planning in Seoul (For My Father and Mac's sake), Dating Habits of South Koreans, and a brief synopsis of my experiences with Soju.

Cheers,

Evan.