Merry Kri-Seu-Mah-Seu!!

Christmas day brings me to my last week in Korea. Been a heck of a ride. Today Kevin's Mum took us out for dinner to Bono Bono, a higher-class sushi buffet (yes, Buffet!!) very popular in Korea. Unreal. Puts even Wabora (yes, Thom) sushi to the test.

I taught my last round of classes on last Friday, so it was a bit of a farewell with the students. I still hang around the school a bit, but won't be teaching. Had the Christmas party at the Hana club that I'm staff at on the Saturday night, ended up going to second and third round with a bunch of friends and a Canadian fellow who was travelling. Dennis happened to be a graduate of elec eng at Waterloo a few years back, had some good nostalgia.

After that night of mayhem I crashed at a jimjilbang in Sinchon for a measly $6. Decent place to sleep if you don't mind hardwood floors and bring earplugs. From Sunday to Tuesday I had booked a temple stay at Hwagyesa temple in Suyu, so was looking forward to this experience. At a temple stay you are able to live with the monks at a Buddhist monastery for a number of days; many of them are relatively wussy 4hr sessions, I felt like jumping into something a little more challenging to get the full exposure. I'll hopefully post more about it later if I get myself to it, it's a entire new subject. For now though, more pictures!

New Student in my class.


Velocirapteacher says work hardah students!!!


Spongebob Life with the Kinders. Great game.


Evan and the gals of Alpha and Beta class.


Santa Claus and some sort of Lumberjack Elf.

Mid November Update

Been a seriously long time since I've posted on here. Once you get used to things you end up forgetting that there is another side of the world that you used to exist in. I end up not thinking of anything I want to tell people, but I've put together a few things that might be interesting.

Cellphones:
Are used with alarming frequency. Seriously alarming. Your subway pass can be a little charm dangling from the cell you push to the gate for the door to open. Cellphones are total status symbols. A celebrity, rather than being considered a sell out, reaches the apex of success when they are in a cellphone commercial.

Drinking culture:
Is reasonably complicated, and has it's own rules and regs. The structure is of the '1st round, 2nd round, 3rd round' variety. 1st round is generally a restaurant with drinks and tons of food (always meat in copious portions). 2nd round is at a sitdown bar that requires you to also purchase anju, drinking snacks. This can be very tasty, but is sometimes frustrating when all you want is a single beer and you're forced to buy a $8 plate of chicken snacks. 3rd round is off to a club or noraebang (karaoke bar). Drinks of choice are beer (Cass, Hite, OB) or Soju. Mixed drinks are always available, but at a premium. For the economists reading, one beer is generally about 2000 won. Pitchers are of the 2L, 3L, and 5L variety, and are around $9, $11, and $15. The oh-cha (5L) is truly a sight to behold.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears:
I'm teaching the Kinder class this story as a 'jazz chant' skit. I've been wondering, are Mama and Papa Bear having marital difficulties? They're sleeping in different beds. Why does Goldilocks favour all ofBaby Bear's belongings? What is the moral? Don't find preferences you actually like or Bears will come back? Or don't wander into houses with open doors? These questions are keeping me awake at night.

Gangnam and Apgujeong:
These two neighbourhoods are insane. 'Plastic Surgery Capital' of Korea, while there are many attractive faces about, there are a great deal of very obviously altered ones. Lots of new money, flashy cars, and the more monied clubs. Met a Japanese realestate speculator who bought me a drink after I bounced a creep hitting on his girlfriend. He flies to Korea every few months just to party. Also got free tickets to a Big Bang (Some disgustingly sugared but ironically emo boy band) concert by writing our names on a Cass promotional beer wagon.

The gym:
Treadmills are for running, deal with it. 'Hey everyone, look at the crazy white guy running over there!!! Hahaha!!'

I like European exchange students. Also, kudos to my Frygukeen brother. You are a champion, that, will go down in history. That'll do.

Evan.

And the Weather today...

Today was overcast and 15 degrees. It poured for several hours. It's supposed to drop to below 10 next week. People are afraid.

Birthday, a tooth, and a ballin' suit to boot.

More pictures of the children I teach has been requested. Thought I'd drop some today, as it was quite eventful for the kindergarteners. Sally turned 7, Joseph lost a tooth, and Chris has an awesome suit on.

Photo Diary #4 The Legend of Pusan

Right then! So after a week of procrastination i've finally put up some pictures from the great trip Kev and I had to Pusan. This trip was characterized by a blistering pace of travel and sightseeing; more was compressed into a four day period than I thought possible. Due to the long weekend(National Foundation's Day), we had Thursday and Friday off so we had a fair bit of time. Thursday morning we hopped on the highspeed KTX train south to Mokpo on the south west corner of Korea. Kevin's familial property is nearby.

Here you can see Kevin's maternal Grandfather, the proprietor a sweet country restaurant, and myself chillin' after lunch. Mr. Kim owns a Sasum (elk) farm nearby, so we stopped at this restaurant for some of his elks. Next is me enjoying some sengsasum and elk antler liquor. Sengsasum is small marinated strips of raw elk. Quite palatable, it was very soft, almost gooey meat. A traditional delicacy, it's served with the distilled juice of elk antlers, which is is quite similar to my good friend Jaegermeister. Last shot here is Kev and I up on the hill overlooking the farm. To get there Mr. Kim drove us up a mountain in what appeared to be a 30 year old 4x4 land rover type deal. Very exciting. We're facing towards the shrine to his Grandmother and ancestors where we paid our respects.



That night we headed south to Mokpo proper, climbed a mountain there and did a quick driveby tour with Kevin's uncle. After a very picturesque sunset overlooking the harbour and massive shipworks, we took a cross-country bus east towards Pusan. That night we stayed at the Vesta Jimjibang on Haeundae beach for a measly $8.



Note on Jimjibangs: Dotted all over Korea is the culturally unique establishment known as as a Jimjibang, or sauna room. Basically they're very nicely decked out sauna's, with segregated male and female whirlpool areas and a common area with huge clay saunas. Entire families to come and sweat out some toxins for a few hours. I say it's pretty unique because there's really nothing quite like it. Because they're open 24hrs a day and many have 'napping rooms' you can save yourself a lot of money by staying at them. Just bring earplugs. It seems that in Korea, the harder you snore, the better a sleep you are getting.

That Friday we got up early for a ferry tour of the Pusan harbour. This place is unreasonably big. Claimed to be the 4th largest commercial port in the world, it's busyness is compounded by Korea's status as one of the most prolific shipbuilding nations. The cargo vessels shipping goods to and from Pusan are just ridiculously big. Hyundai, who we know for making cars, has an even larger ship building division.

After the ferry tour we walked down Haeundae beach, the most famous in Korea. The Pusan International Film Fest was taking place, so Kev and I took the obligatory 'I was there' shot. The rest of the day was spent at an Aquarium, walking all over downtown Pusan, going to City Hall, and a night out in the student district of Seomyeon. A note on the second picture here: This was a wonderful sight that made me pretty jealous. We found a primary school with a slide that went from the second floor of the school OVER a busy road and into the play ground. I believe batman, indy jones, macgyver and wonder woman went here together.



Saturday morning was a bit fuzzy, but we managed to drag ourselves to Beomuhsah mountian for a climb. Amazing views of the sprawling metropolis of Pusan, however the pollution was a little nauseating to see. You can see the haze in the first picture. At the summit were these two Ajushi's (old men) enjoying some Ramyun and Makkoli (riceish wine).



The climb down was through a valley between Beomuhsah and the rest of hte Pusan range. Halfway down there was a Buddhist temple with the building sprawled down the mountain. Very transcendental two hour walk back to the subway station, complete with Buddhist chanting that echoed through valley. Thart night we entered the foreigner district for a night out, which is never advised. Too many drunk expats exploiting cheap Korean beer.

Sunday morning we headed to some Film Festival events, walked through an open air market and shopping district, and climbed Pusan tower. From the tower we could see the summit we climbed the day before; gave good context for the height of hte tower. Doesn't approach the CN tower. We then headed town to the fishing wharfs to watch a little tug vs. trawler action. Great fun.



As it was approaching time for our train back to Seoul, we headed to the Jalgachi fish market where I was the only white person in the vicinity. For Gordon's amusement, notice the little old lady hanging out behind her dried fish, and the gigantic octopus for sale. Also notice the sweet electrospaceship dolphin on this fishing vessel. Goodluck or to scare off space pirates, I'm not sure.



The train back to Seoul encountered a slight snafu, the tickets we had been sold were keyed in for hte wrong date, and they had sold our seats again. Were we allowed to ride the train? of course, but that meant we needed to stand in the cabin area between cars. Would never happen in Canada, but was kinda fun. Increased our hobo quotient a bit I think.

Back in Seoul we stopped at a traditional bar for some Dongdongjuu and seafood pajon: milky rice liquour and an egg/riceflour pancake. Very good epilogue for this trip.



All in all an excellent weekend. Good chance to see some of the Korean countryside and experince a harbour city. Pusan has a bit of a 'twang' accent that I couldn't quite pick up on, but has a similar jokey quality as Newfies do in Canada. Tried to take my father's advice to be a Traveller and not a Tourist as much as possible, and I think it worked out.

Back into the thick of teaching and touring Seoul on the weekends. Visited Itaewon and a large war Museum yesterday (I hugged a Scud!!!). Jealous of those who got turkey this weekend. Enjoy your poultry.

Take Care,
Evan.

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.