Anything but the Squid

The South Korea Survival Guide

2010-12-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

"Sara, do you have indoor plumbing in South Korea?” “Isn’t it really hot out there all the time?” It’s amazing what some people still don’t seem to understand about South Korea. After reminding my friends back home that Korea is not in Southeast Asia, they have Samsung phones and their parents drive KIAs, I started to wonder more about what people think. A great many of them pictured me as a kind of survivor in a mysterious land, where I have always felt that South Korea has been very welcoming and comfortable. However, it is still a different culture, and I do feel that I’ve had to adjust. While there are no wild animals to fend off, dangerous treks across minefields or a need to survive alone in the wilderness for weeks with limited supplies, there are still a number of strategies to employ in “surviving” South Korean culture today as a foreigner.

Essential Skills

The first key to successfully making it through your sojourn in South Korea is by obtaining and mastering a specific set of daily life skills. Some of these may come to you naturally, but some take practice.

1. Body language

This is the true language of the world. In my first month in Korea, it took me a few weeks to work up the courage to eat out or go shopping alone because I didn’t know how to speak the language. The day I successfully pointed out side dishes to be bagged and weighed from the grocery store counter instead of just opening another can of spicy tuna for breakfast was a milestone event; one that required no talking. Now, in my second year, with a moderate grasp of the language, I have still found that gestures often trump spoken language. The value of body language is also what will keep us from being replaced by English-speaking robots, so use it wisely.

2. Balance

Not all of us are men, and not all the toilets are meant to be sat upon. The rest I leave up to you.

2. Patience

There will be moments when you are asked to attend a meeting or a lunch, and it may seem as though you are forgotten. Chances are you haven’t been forgotten, it’s just that your co-workers feel more comfortable speaking Korean and are happy to see you actively there among them. Take this time to practice meditation.

4. Willpower

Maybe you like very fresh seafood, or perhaps you want a little less intimacy with your food. Whether it be chewing a still-wriggling squid, roasting pig intestines, or pulling tender meat off a hunk of spine, a lot of the food encounters require a little acclimation. I once was asked to point to the fish I wanted, then watch it be scooped from the tank and butchered up for me to eat raw. Two years ago I may have turned up my nose at a fish with bones still left in it.

5. Chopsticks

They’re flat and heavy, but you don’t want to be the only one at the table using a spoon. Embrace the chopsticks. The goal is to be among children and their parents, and seeing the parent point at you, the foreigner with the cutlery skills of a yangban aristocrat, and scold their child. Chopsticks are not without advantages. They are very useful for twirling noodles, picking apart fish or slicing through that extra large leaf of kimchi (using two hands), or skewering fruit. They are also perfect for stirring coffee.

6. Singing

It’s better to sing into a microphone with increased reverberation effect in a small room than into an empty soju bottle a cappella in front of fifty teachers. I’ve done both, and I strongly recommend you consent to the former before being hauled up without time to protest to the later. Maybe you can’t sing. As long as it’s in English, you can sing fine. I’m not sure if you’ve heard Korean “trot” pop music, but there should be nothing frightening you away from singing here. Also, it’s worth noting that you should always pick your own song. If you don’t be prepared to sing the most obscure song you’ve never heard of. I keep an emergency “noraebang song list” saved on my cell phone.

7. Sharing

Some of the best foods in Korea are large dishes meant for sharing. And, unless you plan to eat pork cutlet and fusion spaghetti whenever you eat out, you may need to grab some friends if you plan to eat Korean food. Make your mother proud; she’s been training you to share since you were an infant. I’m not ashamed to admit this, but I have relied on sharing in the past to avoid the things I’d rather not eat mixed in with the rest of the dish; to help adjust to the food. It’s natural, healthy, and recommended that you share your meals so you can continue to build your relationships with others.

Blending in

It’s hard not to stand out in Korea as a foreigner. This does come with a bit of excitement; sometimes feeling like a celebrity, with parents dragging their kids up to say “hello” to you. While living here though, you will most likely want to convince people that you’re not actually a tourist. For most of us it’s impossible to fully blend in without cosmetic surgery, but there are a few ways to clue others in that we live here.

1. Two hands

It’s polite to offer and accept things with two hands, from drinks to money. Although most Koreans will forgive a foreigner for forgetting this, you’ll notice that they almost always appropriate this respectful custom to you. It’s courteous to remember to do the same, both with those familiar to you and strangers. The same goes for bowing; hand-over-hand locked at the thumbs for a highly respectable bow, or even just a brief nod of the head.

2. Order food at hofs

It’s a foreign concept for most westerners to order food at a bar. Whereas in Korea, you sit down at a table and are handed a list of anju, a kind of appetizer list, along with the drink list. When I was new in town, my friends and I thought the whole food thing was mostly optional. This was until I realized it had some adverse effects on our reputation. Even drinking moderately, the people around you may start to worry you are an alcoholic.

3. Bring a toothbrush to work

I once told my students that it was funny for me, when I first came, to see a line of teachers waiting at the sink after lunch. My students replied, “Are Americans dirty?” It’s a good idea to be seen in the toothbrush line.

4. Hiking apparel

For those who really want to look the part. As soon as you start hiking up a mountain in your T-shirt and jeans, you’ll start to feel a little unprepared. Not that I’m ready to trade in my jeans for colorful spandex just yet, but I do confess to buying a name-brand hiking backpack.

Resources

Everyone embarking on survival in a foreign land needs to draw upon their resources. Outside of your EPIK coordinators, tourism offices and embassies, there are many more local options.

1. Co teacher

This is your first local friend; the first person who will help you familiarize yourself with your town and your students. Also, they are probably the only person who will see you properly to the hospital when you fear a miscommunication with your doctors. Your co teacher is also a potential source of homemade kimchi, or sweet potatoes in the morning when they predict, usually correctly, that you have again neglected to eat breakfast.

2. That old woman on your street

She might be collecting your packages for you. She might usher you into her home to eat fresh peaches and shikhye on a hot summer day. Don’t shy away from the opportunity to greet your neighbors.

3. Students

If you ever find yourself in doubt about what to teach, ask your students. My students are my endless source of information about pop culture, fashion, and how to connect to their age group.

4. Face masks and kimchi

You may never need to go to the hospital again.

5. Friends

There is a need to talk once in awhile, when we train ourselves to talk slowly and maintain a long vigil of silence in formal business settings. It’s imperative to make some friends you can talk to rapidly and relax with- especially at your experience level. It’s fun to explore with friends without being led around. Also, don’t forget to make Korean friends. As much as I love my friends from America, many of them probably think the best chicken place is the first one they walked into. Korean friends have a broader range of insight, and also are the best way to fully get in touch with the culture.

6. Saunas and jjimjilbangs

Our bathrooms are small and space-efficient, but sometimes it’s nice to relax in a big bathtub. Plus, there's no better way to start feeling comfortable around a bunch of strangers than finding yourself disrobed among them; it’s perfectly natural and they don’t judge you. The jjimjilbang also offers a locker and a cheap place to sleep when you don’t want to put up money for a hotel or motel.

Status Boosts

Not all aspects of survival are hinged on basic necessity. If you really want to be an active, thriving member of Korean culture, there are certain ways to gain an immediate boost in renown and acceptance.

1. Cell phone

Your cell phone is a big deal. My first year, I opted for the plain free phone because it was still far cooler than the one I had in America. But fate dealt me a new hand when my phone fell out of my pocket into the toilet of a public restroom. True story- that happened. My second choice was heavily influenced by the phone’s theme song I heard on TV every day, and it didn’t take me long to realize that I now possessed the same phone as a good number of my students (much to their delight). Every time my phone was sighted, it provided the perfect motivation for English conversation, and gave me an edge in popularity.

2. KPOP knowledge

I was reluctant at first, but once I finally committed some band names and song catch phrases to memory, it did wonders for my rapport with students. Mostly, they don’t expect you to know KPOP. This is an advantage. The shocked gasps when you can sing a few words or say definitively that “yeah, he’s so handsome!” then you cease to be such a stranger among your students. And any time you can refer to a popular song or singer in your lessons, it grabs their attention.

3. Cyworld

South Korea’s primary online social network. It’s so exclusive, that even the members have trouble trying to figure out how to make you an account. But once you’re in, you have achieved a very respectable status among young Koreans.

4. Immersion into a cultural tradition

You don’t need to dedicate yourself to the studies of Confucius, but it always earns a little bit of extra respect to actively engage in something cultural. I chose to start learning Hapkido, and some of my friends have taken Taekwondo, traditional painting classes, and learned to play the ajaeng, a traditional wooden string instrument. Maybe could just be really good at Yootnori, but it’s definitely worth your while to take up a Korean hobby.

5. Basic language

A lot of people are afraid to talk to you. Although basic English and body language can get you through most encounters, even a small knowledge of the language will help people warm to you. Especially reading Korea’s alphabet, Hangul. Once my fellow teachers learned I could read Korean, it was a kind of entertainment for awhile to point to things and have me read them. It also goes a long way in motivating Koreans to speak your language if you show them you are trying to learn some of theirs.

6. A plant

You may not want to be the only teacher in the school without a plant on their desk. It’s aesthetically pleasing and will draw out some approving nods from the other faculty.

7. Billiards

Four balls and no pockets. If you can learn and show off your prowess with four ball billiards, you may quickly gain a few new friends. The same goes for bowling, tennis, and volleyball. Any interest or ability in sports gives you a connection and something to do with other members of your school faculty; especially drawing out the ones who have limited English ability.

8. Foot volleyball

I used to think the tennis courts near my house were just marked incorrectly, until I finally watched people using them. It’s played in teams, kicking the ball or hitting it with your head. Like other more common sports, this is a great way to spend time with other people and pick up a new curious skill. I’ve been in a few of the smallest farm towns in South Korea that still had a foot volleyball court. To be sure, I’ve never met another foreigner to know about this game, so you can imagine how exciting it would be if you were to participate.

I no longer view South Korea as such a foreign place, and I’m not just here to pass through. I have not only survived, but I have adapted. While you may not be intending to spend a lifetime here, it still is important to accustom yourself during your stay; show the people here that you can learn from them as much as they can from you. You don’t want to be holed up in your apartment clinging to your computer and counting your days to return home. Surviving South Korea quite simply comes down to figuring out what you can do to enjoy yourself the most during your time here.

Transitions

2010-03-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

Right before I left for America, I cleaned out my office, organized the English classroom, said goodbye to my classes, and made a farewell speech to the entire faculty. When I returned I was to make the switch from Gilju Elementary to Sung Hee Girl's High School, and was under the instruction from Taebun to head over there as soon as I returned. I shouldn't have been surprised then, when at noon the day before I was to go to my new school, I got a call from the Education Center supervisor and was told to return to Gilju for one month.

It made sense with my contract, which went from March 25-March 25, but we were all told months ago that because of the influx of people applying for EPIK, the late March orientation would be removed and all new teachers would come in February. Thus, Gilju was supposed to have a new teacher when I returned, and I could start at the beginning of the school year at my new school instead of a month into it. The supervisor explained that the move was probably now impossible because Gilju didn't get a teacher and they would expect me to return. She then called both of my schools to reverse all of the transition arrangements.

Thus, I returned to Gilju for the duration of this month, and everyone including the principal was confused as to why I was back. At first, between the jet lag and the confusion, I was really frustrated by this. Because teachers in Korean schools must change positions or schools every couple of years, I would have to adjust to an entire new staff of teachers (excepting Mrs. Shim who stayed on with 5th grade English) and confuse the students when I suddenly return for the new school year and am replaced by a new teacher in a month.

However!

Korea is Dynamic, and these inconveniences are both minor and irreversible anyway. After I let it soak in for a day, I found it relieving to come back. Gilju is comfortable for me, rather than jumping into an entirely new environment as soon as I returned. I know the classes, and I get to share my knowledge with the new Korean English teachers and help them adjust to co-teaching with someone who knows the ropes. I now also have more opportunities for advance communication with Sung Hee, which was difficult before because of their own faculty changing and my being in America. I'm also their first foreign teacher, so I think they aren't quite sure what to do with me yet. I've met some of the faculty twice so far, and I'm really excited because it seems like everyone is such a perfect fit to my personality.

There's also Yena. This year, Elementary English education added 2 hours a week for 3rd and 4th grade, which originally had been just 1 hour. Therefore, there are two new teachers for 3rd and 4th grade English, where last year Mrs. Im had done both. I've had a stroke of amazing good fortune as a result of my return and the reworking of the system, because the new 3rd grade English teacher is a kindred spirit. I'd not gotten close to many Koreans in the last year, because most of those that I knew were married with children. Yena, however, is exactly my age with the same college degree (English Literature) and has a passion for world travel, having done both mission trips and internships abroad. She also now lives only a few blocks away. When we first met and she asked me if she could find mozzarella cheese anywhere in Andong (not a chance), I knew we were destined to be friends forever.

What I had originally thought to be so inconvenient has turned out to be a complete blessing for my entire new year here.

Andong also recently has acquired a new set of Native Teachers, bringing our EPIK number up to 24. We can also now claim to be a multicultural set of EPIK foreigners, as we have added a pair of Canadians and a South African to our American mix. We are so progressive.

Because of our bigger number, we have formed groups for Elementary, Middle School, and High school teachers so we can keep ourselves organized and supported. Bonnie and I have taken up the chairwomen roles for the High School group, with Scott and Katie on Elementary, and Helen and Erin on Middle School. Andrew was appointed supreme leader by the supervisor because he still has seniority as being the first in Andong. My how our numbers have jumped in under 2 years.

Now that I'm aware of my ever-changing current schedule, I will return to my blog posts about the Southeast Asia trip. We did, in fact, make it past Ho Chi Minh.

Off to America

2010-02-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

This is my season of travel, as it seems quite never ending (though I say so happily). My last day at Gilju was yesterday, and I packed up my office before coming home to pack my next set of bags for home. For the next two weeks I'll be back in America between Illinois and Michigan, then back to Andong where I'll start my new job at Sung Hee Girl's High School.

This morning we woke up to our third snowfall in Andong at 4:30am, and this time the most accumulation so far with about 3 inches. Luckily, although the streets were nearly empty, a free taxi came rolling past our apartment to scoop up Scott and I. We met Katie at the bus station with about 10 minutes to spare, and after a 5 hour ride, we are now sitting at our terminal at the Incheon airport quite tired and early. Because the Lunar new year is tomorrow, we wanted to give ourselves a lot of time because of the traffic, which did add an extra hour to our commute. However, we are very excited to go home.

Excited too that we are on the same flight as Katie, which happened coincidentally. When we met up with her, we noticed also by coincidence, that we were all wearing our Converse shoes shirts with horizontal strips, and that Katie and I had on our matching blue penguin hats. We've maybe been spending a lot of time together lately.

Now we have the long flight ahead of us, which will land us in Chicago at 4pm on Saturday (and we're leaving Korea at 3pm on Saturday). The jet lag will be serious.

Vietnam- Ho Chi Minh

2010-02-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

Along with Scott, Andrew, and Katie, we started out our 2 week vacation in Vietnam from Saturday, 1/16, to Tuesday, 1/19.

We took a 5 hour flight from Seoul to Ho Chi Minh, and were relieved to finally get out of the freezing cold of Korea. Mostly because we were seriously under dressed in our T-shirts and light zip up hoodies heading up to Seoul the night before our flight. That didn't, of course, stop us from venturing an hour away from our guest house to find an On the Border for some Mexican food. Even though we flew Vietnam Airlines, I was still surprised that the two primary languages used were Vietnamese and English, with very little in Korean. English truly is the language of travel.

Ho Chi Minh will always remain in my mind with two dominant images: motor bikes and power lines.

The power lines were so packed together- I can't imagine how the power can all be sustained. What would happen if one of these was hit by lightening?

Riding away from the airport, these were the two things that struck me immediately. There are remarkably few cars, and I felt like we were adrift in a sea of motorbikes until we washed up on the curb of our hotel.

Every bike comes with its own unique personality. It is not simply a road packed with motorbikes, it is a high-fashion woman sitting side saddle on the back of a dirty white bike, a wicker bar stool set up between the legs of a father with his infant propped in between him and the front of the bike, a man weaving through the streets with has balance alone while his hands grip his spaniel, whose paws are planted firmly between the handlebars.

Or a yellow scooter covered in cardboard panels.

Or uncomfortable children.

And several with large unsecured items rushing to their next destination.

Crosswalks were an adventure in themselves. Unless at a major intersection, although they are printed in their familiar block white lines, none of them have lights or walk timers. None of the drivers stop, but are very good at maneuvering. Crossing comes down to guts and confidence in a real game of Frogger.

Katie and I were insistent on getting in plenty of cheap shopping, which we did a lot of in and around the Ben Than indoor market and, our favorite, the nearby night market. Out of one of our shopping excursions came a phrase we continued to quote for the whole trip: "Only for ladies" in a kind of brisk robotic tone. It came from a very joyless vendor when Andrew tried on a pair of pink sunglasses.

Outside of shopping, we spent our time in Ho Chi Minh sightseeing. Our first big stop was to the War Remnants Museum. I'm not sure what I expected being in Vietnam, because in America the primary thing we are taught to associate with it is the war, but it was easy to forget about the war outside of this museum. For that, I'm glad we went. The other name it's known as is the Museum of American War Crimes, so we really had to go in there with the expectation of some bias. Not, of course, that inside or out the Vietnamese treated us with anything other than respect now.

Before entering the museum, a variety of tanks and planes were on display. Inside were guns and shells, grenades and mines, and the most disturbing, pictures of war victims. The most disturbing being the victims of Agent Orange, and I'm not sure how I managed to go my whole life ignorant of it. It was used as a herbicide to spray and reduce the density of jungles, but it has continued to effect the children born to those exposed to it. After leaving, it was much more apparent too. With millions exposed, it would be hard to miss. Everywhere are people with physical deformities on their faces, or with missing or abnormal limbs. Some of them even seem as young as me.

Ho Chi Minh has such a beautiful and unlikely collection of architecture. As it has been heavily influenced by France, there are several building that seemed to transport me right back into Europe. Cafes with tables spilling into the sidewalks, Romanesque arches, and stone carvings made it seem odd to glance away from a building and suddenly see a woman wearing a traditional hat and selling coconuts on the side of the road. It's a very charming mixture.

The most obvious was probably the Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral.

A lot of the buildings in Ho Chi Minh are also very tall and thin when you look at them from the front, stretching far back. Sometimes they weren't even wedged between other buildings so the choice seemed odd to me. I imagine them as buildings full of hallways.

We spent most of our time walking around the city, but one time we took a pair of Cyclos out to China town.

We didn't really care where we went because we were just along for the ride, but the China town market at the center of the district was actually fascinating. It was like an old mall converted to act as a street market, with everything so packed together that it seemed like one endless array. We arrived near the end of the day, so from a second floor landing we watched as vendors packed their wares into giant green bags. I can't imagine what it feels like to organize that every day.

Perhaps the strangest thing we did was get blind massages at the Vietnamese Center for the Blind. It sounded like a good idea at first, until Katie and I were ushered down a creepy chipping hallway to the girl's section. I'm glad nobody could read the anxiety on our faces as we entered a dim, isolated, room and were greeted by a woman with one bulging white eye and one closed eye. Not that I want to sound insensitive, of course, but the general ambiance of the surroundings made me feel like we were just sent into a dirty hospital where our organs might be harvested for the black market.

Katie and I were put into separate curtained sections, and I was told "off" as the woman felt me and tugged at my clothes. I laid down on my bed and gripped the stained bear pillow reading "happy time," listening to an aged woman in the room next door repeating "are you OK?" to herself in a deep raspy voice that made her sound like a dying witch of old. After awhile I calmed myself and closed my eyes, and realized the whole place smelled like fresh wintergreen and everyone was very kind.

One of the biggest surprises of Vietnam was the coffee. It was by far better cold, but it tasted like dark chocolate, and never needed creamer. While most people our age might come to the city for cheep beer, we probably spent most of our time downing coffee.

Not that we didn't also sample the local beer. With our options of cheap beer being limited to three light varieties in Korea, it was nice to expand our palate. With countless options, we finally found a wonderful bar called GO2 with a section on the top floor overlooking the city. It was the most relaxed we were since we left Andong, chilling out in the company of each other without any itinerary.

The best meal of our trip was also in Ho Chi Minh, and I believe I can safely speak for all of us here. Down by the night market we stopped by an outdoor restaurant, lured over by the delicious smell of fish on the grill. Because the whole place was set up with cheap tarps and plastic tables, we knew that the place had to be all about the food. Correct. I have never devoured such a giant fish before. It was so soft, and each bit of it was dipped in a dish (right) with fresh squeezed lime and a kind of special pepper combo.

All of the food in Vietnam was incredible, especially the large pho noodles in a kind of soup. Most meals came with a plate of bean sprouts, fresh hot pepper and mint leaves to add. My only difficulty might have been my unnatural aversion to cilantro, which was quite plentiful.

I might still have dreams about dodging motor bikes, but Ho Chi Minh was a memorable city.

Not Quite Vietnam

2010-02-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Although I promised the post on Vietnam today, I found myself quite ill after a lunch of giant pork-spine soup . I could do little but lay in bed when I came home and try to keep other foods down periodically. That said, I will use this post instead as a kind of preface to tomorrow's real post on Vietnam.

The week before we left Korea, it finally snowed in Andong (the first real accumulation of the season). Two main things can be said for how the city handled snow: the public buses shut down, and the snowmen sprang up. As for the first, it didn't much affect me because I live close enough to school to walk, but I felt bad for the clusters of people huddling around bus stops, when I didn't see a single bus run for 2 days after the snow hit. Luckily, there are cheap taxis all over the place and I imagine it was a good few days for them.

The snowmen were much more fun. The only people I saw making them were middle aged men, which made me smile. With snow being so infrequent, it isn't a season of play only for the young. Actually, the children were probably all in school for the day, as they continue to take classes through their winter breaks.

I took these on my phone walking home from school:

(This one is modeled after a Korean "yangban," a traditional aristocrat (you can tell by the black hat style. It's hard to tell in this picture with the truck, but the hat also includes the wide brim sticking out on either side).

Although it was sad to leave behind the snow of Andong (and I dearly missed the epic Michigan snow this winter), I definitely looked forward to the warmth of two weeks in Southeast Asia.

The only problem was figuring out how to make the 3+ hour journey to Seoul (with the Han river being frozen up there) from Andong without excessive bulky winter clothing, since each of us only packed a single backpack for the trip. Socks with sandals? Oh yes.

Back in Korea

2010-02-07T05:44:00.001-08:00

I'm back from Southeast Asia! With all my pictures now sorted through (over 10 gigs...it took a bit of time) I'll be posting on Vietnam tomorrow, followed by Cambodia and then Thailand.

As for this week (yes, guilty, I've been back since Monday), I made it through my last English camp in Elementary school. I'd say it was bittersweet, but I'm also glad it's over. Unlike the others, where the gender spread was equal and the student count was about 8-10, this week I was gifted with 11 extremely energetic boys and 2 shy girls from the 4th grade.

Like the other two English camps I had at my school this winter, I was alone without a co-teacher. Usually I find the freedom kind of liberating from the routine of the school year, so I don't mind being completely in charge. In this case, teaching was near impossible when the boys refused to go near the girls for circle or team work, and wanted to spend most of the time swiping mop handles from the supply closet and having sword fights.

Even though it was tempting to play movies all week, I resisted (limiting it to one- Home Alone, a popular choice for little boys) and added more race and guessing games to tire them out. Using newly taught vocabulary and words they already knew, a popular game was one where two students faced off with a bell between them. With hands on their heads and backs to the TV screen, I showed the other students pictures to act out, and the opposing students had to hit the bell and say the correct vocab word. I put the girls on separate teams so they could pair up in the face of time-consuming opposition from the boys. Another variation was to use the same team and bell format, but show them scrambled vocabulary words (after, as a warm up for the day, giving them a word worksheet so they were familiar with scrambled words). In this case their teammates weren't acting, they could look at the TV screen this time, it was just a race between the two students to figure out the answer first.

Another invaluable activity I found was Highlights (the magazine for kids) hidden pictures. The kind where a bunch of little pictures are hidden in a big one, with a picture and word key at the bottom. After a search online I found plenty of places to print them out. A great way to get them to speak in English without noticing (because in looking for the pictures they would say the English words when talking to their friends). Very fun and surprisingly challenging. Meanwhile, I could covertly hide the mops.

Now I can rest. I really will miss all those kids, no matter how difficult they are.

On Vacation

2010-01-16T01:12:00.000-08:00

I'll be on vacation until Jan 31 in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, so it's likely I won't be updating my blog until I get back. I planned on a post before leaving, but time absolutely flew in the busy days leading up to the trip.^^;

Scott and I just arrived in Ho Chi Minh with our friends Andrew and Katie after a 5 hour flight from Seoul, and we're about to head out and explore. I'll let you know a lot more later, but right now the 4 of us are looking forward to taking a mental break from work for 2 weeks.

Abducted by the Landlord

2010-01-07T05:15:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I came home to find our landlord (probably in his late 60's) shoveling out the apartment parking lot with his wife. As with most of our run-ins, he spoke in very rapid Korean for a good 2 minutes. He can't speak a word of English, not even "hello." My approach is always to nod and say 네 ("nay" which is like saying "yes" or an affirmation) until I caught the words 오리 ("ouri" meaning "we") and 가치 ("ga-chi" which means together). Oh no. I tried to catch where, when, or what he was trying to tell me. He motioned to his mouth, which I took to be eating, then he smiled, nodded, and waved me upstairs. I fled upstairs with the assumption that sometime we bay get together for dinner.

OK.

Scott was home before me and had a similar experience. About 15 minutes later our landlord knocks on our door and launches into the same speech as before. after 5 minutes we realized he had no intention of leaving. He made a driving motion with his hands, and waved us out the door.

We aren't completely hopeless at Korean, but when it comes at us so rapidly in a random scenario we have very little to latch on to. Between the two of us, these are the words (the English translation) that we had figured out:

apartment
English language speaking
room 201
two students
private academy (hagwon)
high school
mother (room 201 mother)
Gilju Elementary school
Gilju Elementary school teacher (I gathered he was referring to me there)
we will go to Andong hospital together
my car
nearby
today

We did get into his car, not knowing what else to do. I felt like a detective fed random clues without a big picture. All we knew definitively was that we were going to Andong hospital, but we didn't know why. I had a few theories, based on the current evidence:

A. The mother of two high school students were formerly students at Gilju Elementary school.

B. Someone who speaks English moved into room 201, but they were now in the hospital and needed someone to talk to.

C. Since we've been sick all week, the tennents of room 201 feel we need to go to the hospital. Perhaps they found out because one of their students said their English teacher (me) at the Gilju camp was sneezing and having trouble speaking.

D. Let's see how far we can take to foreign tenants before they start freaking out.

After a few failed phone calls to get assistance, I finally got ahold of Taebun and handed the phone over to our landlord just as we pulled up in front of the pharmacy next to the big Andong Hospital. Ahah! We missed the words "nearby" the hospital and "pharmacy" in the midst of his fast talking.

The landlord talked to Taebun for awhile then handed the phone back, and even Taebun is confused. He says "remember I told you about the two high school students living in room 201?" No. He must have forgotten that one. What are two high school kids doing living alone in our building anyway? "The ones that want to speak English with you." He left that out too. "I don't really know, but I think this is an arranged meeting to start English lessons. Their mother works at this pharmacy." Oh dear. "You know, talking is fine, but you can't take any money." That I did know, because any outside work or tutoring is a violation of our contract. So that makes this whole situation a bit difficult.

When the landlord was mentioning the Gilju Elementary teacher, he was referring to Taebun and not me, because apparently he thought this whole thing was pre-planned and discussed. But when the mother of the two high school students sits down with us and tells us that she is the one who wants English tutoring, and 3 days a week, I realized that this isn't just a Korean to English translation mix-up, this is also a lack of Korean communication.

All the while at the pharmacy when this was being worked out with the mother, our landlord sat silently in a chair, arms crossed, leaning back and looking down at us from his upturned head; much akin to a mafia don. He did, after all, take us to a small location far from home to meet with a drug dealer (pharmacist). It all started to feel like shady English dealing under the table.

So we were stuck in the arranged meeting, which already assumed our acceptance and was for the sole purpose of arranging the dates and times. It was clear we couldn't go home until a bargain was made and phone numbers were exchanged. We told her we couldn't accept any of her money, but if she wanted to meet up with us once or twice a week to practice English conversation over a cup of coffee then that would be OK. We can be her English friends, not her English tutors. At least we postponed it until after we get back from America in March, so we'll see how it goes.

How I Spent the Holidays

2010-01-06T08:19:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

2009 ended with a busy winter camp schedule and 2010 started with a terrible cold that's been dragging on despite the full course of antibiotics that I fed into my system. Luckily the doctor visit and meds were only about $5 American. I have yet to report on my English camps, which have been vastly different from the summer camps, but I'll but that off for a few more days and see if I can't kick this nasty bug.For now, I'll let you know how I celebrated Christmas and New Year so far from home.

Christmas is a National holiday in South Korea, though the weight of it is much lighter compared to America. Nobody buys real evergreen Christmas trees, and the only ones we found in Andong were at grocery stores, and no taller than 5 feet, though I know that there are actual stores for Christmas decor in the larger cities. Many shops downtown played some Christmas tunes and did some decorating, but for the most part it was still pretty tame. Decor seemed to be treated like a kind of trend; an unusual sort of charm. Like something out of a 1950's Christmas magazine issue- garlands and bows, bells and trumpets and doves. Iced Christmas sugar cookies were the most entertaining- about $1 a cookie at the big bakery downtown, but nonexistent elsewhere.

And then there was the tree that popped up downtown:

A towering cone of flashing lights. I love it.

On Christmas Eve we decided to add our own touch of Christmas spirit to Andong at the site of the great tree. Somehow, miraculously, we all organized 20 of the Andong native English teachers to sing Christmas carols. We collected donation to go to two local orphanages (where two of the teachers volunteer), and our total came to upwards of around $700. Some of that did come from private donations prior to the event from people who couldn't make it. We were thrilled!

We had a whole booklet of songs, ranging from the solemn Silent Night, to the more upbeat Jingle Bell Rock. The biggest hits were Rudolph and Jingle Bells, because they have popular Korean equivalents. The most comical was our rendition of Little Drummer Boy, because we couldn't seem to match our ba rum ba bum bums to any consistent speed. But where we lacked in singing talent, we made up for with our sweet hats.

[The penguin hats were a Baskin Robbins promotion. If you bought an ice cream cake, you got a free hat. We ate a lot of ice cream.]

We also had Dave. Dave's Hagwon (after school English academy) had him dress up as Santa, so we suggested he show up to caroling in his suit. Much to our delight, he actually did, and with a big bag of candy that he handed out to Children.

We ended the evening with a trip to the bar to celebrate.

Christmas day was calming. The morning was spent at home. I surprised Scott by cleaning the apartment while he was asleep, and he surprised me with a delicious western-style breakfast in the morning. We opened presents, Skyped our families, then met up with some of our friends for a game of Balderdash and a trip to see Sherlock Holmes.

Po enjoyed his first Christmas too.^^

The days between Christmas and New Years Eve were spent at an overnight English camp out of town (but more on that later), so our celebrating was a bit subdued due to exhaustion. The big trend in Korea is to go to the east coast on New Years Eve and wait to watch the first sunrise of the new year. Since we didn't get back from our camp until about 4 that day, we skipped a trek out to the beach, but our Hapkido instructor took a picture on his phone and sent it to me so I wasn't completely in the dark. Instead, 10 of us went to our friend Erin's apartment for wine and fancy finger foods. We brought frozen cheese sticks, which looked a little sad between the homemade crab rangoon and the brie and crackers plate. We flipped on the TV to catch a countdown, which followed a large KPOP party in Seoul, and ended with the ringing of a large iron bell. Every town in South Korea has a bell to ring on the new year and for other special occasions. No giant ball, but the similarities were surprising. It was also interesting knowing I would get to see the new year in a time zone half a day earlier than everyone back home, who would later see clips on TV from around the world cheering after midnight.

School Festival

2009-12-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

I was helping a student after school last week (being the end of the year, school ends after lunch), when an announcement by the Principal came on the intercom. The student looked very excited and told me that there would be a festival at 2 o'clock with music and traditional dancing. She asked if I wanted to go with her, so we headed up to the auditorium on the 5th floor at about ten to 2.

It was a bit of a surprise walking in, because teachers were handed big brown envelops on the way in, and there wasn't another student in sight. I figured this was because most of them had gone home at 1 anyway. At 2 the principal was introduced and he walked up to the podium.

My student didn't translate too much for me as he was speaking, but what she did tell me was that he made a joke about underwear, remarked that only female teachers were in attendance (about 20-25 of us, but no men), and explained that children should spend more time at the library.

At 2:20, the two of us were starting to get a little stir crazy. This was quite a long introduction for a festival. Several of the teachers were reading a packet of paper that was in their brown envelop. At 2:30 my student looked a little crestfallen and told me that she hoped the dancing would start soon, because she had to leave at 3. At 2:55 she hopped out of her chair and left. At 3 the principal ended his speech, and I thought surely the festival would be starting, so I stuck around. Mrs. Shim, who came in after me and sat behind me sat next to me and asked how I knew about this. I told her my student told me about the festival.

The vice principal now took the podium, and Mrs. Shim pulled out a 16-slide PowerPoint printout from her brown packet. I sat through another Korean speech until 3:40, of which the only translation I got from Mrs. Shim was that walking is good fro your health.

As the vice principal left the podium, Mrs. Shim informed me there would be a student performance, and although she was going to leave, would I like to stay? I can't help but wonder what she thought I was doing there if not to watch a performance. Indeed, I stayed.

This is how I saw it, keeping in mind that I haven't yet seen a mask dance before this or had their meanings explained to me.

(The pictures are from my cell phone, so they aren't perfect)

A line of students enter with drums and gongs, playing in the traditional Samulnori style. They stand in the back for the duration of the performance as the musical accompaniment to each dance. Behind them enter another line of students, all in the dress and character persona's from the Hahoe mask dances so famous to Andong. After a group dance, they all leave, with only the Butcher character remaining for his (although a 6th grade girl was behind his mask) dance.

Enter the bull (controlled by two very coordinated students in its body). It charges the Butcher, who finally fells the beast with his stone axe after several blows to the head. After a song to accompany the sharpening of his dagger, he plunges it repeatedly into the bull, and pulls from it a heart and a pair of giant testicles that the Butcher holds up with a mighty proclamation to the audience.

Amazing.

After the Butcher's exit, the Widow enters and dances, then falls upon her knees and sends up a very haunting cry. After this, she stands up and starts taking a collection of money from the audience. With a handful of won, her dance becomes a bit more lively and she shuffles away.

The rest come out soon after, and their dances were a bit more difficult to interpret. The Servant and the Fool first have a bit of a scuffle do to the laziness of the later, and then the Monk, Scholar, Aristocrat, Flirtatious, and soon after, the Butcher, follow them on in a group dance with several changes of pairings.

It ends when the Aristocrat and (I think) the Scholar get into an argument over the possession of the bull testicles that leads up to a tug of war. The Widow finally takes charge of resolution, holding them up and shaking them in the faces of the two who have taken separate sides of the floor, and then ends up keeping them herself.

After one final group dance and a short Samulnori performance, the students all come out and take their masks off for a bow. All but one is a girl. I'm glad that I stayed, because I haven't had the chance to see student work outside of English class first hand until then. Elementary school performances are certainly very different back home, where about this time we'd be putting on Christmas recitals.

Losing Daylight

2009-12-15T05:39:00.000-08:00

Of all the things I knew I'd miss when I left America, I hadn't counted on Daylight Savings Time being on the list. My co-teachers said that Koreans tried using it back in the 80's, but it never caught on so they cut it. I can't imagine why. When I get out of work at 4:40 every day, the sun is already out of sight. By about a quarter after 5, it's black. That means all of my daylight hours are spent at work, and no matter how exhausted I am on Friday night I can't allow myself to sleep too late on Saturday. At least school is ending so I have less to stress about. I already thought of winter as a cold dark season, but it's far darker without that extra hour.

The Ondol

2009-12-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about Korea is its floor heating system, call the ondol. Although it's not always standard to have a heater, every apartment will have an ondol. They are also common at restaurants where you sit on the floor. Our apartment has two, for half sections of our floor. Each section has it's own control panel on the wall by our front door. I suppose this would be handy if we slept on the floor, cutting the heating cost so that only the sleeping area would be hot at night.

Ours actually doesn't get that hot, because our building was set up to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly, so it starts storing energy during the day and only gets warm at night. With the windows close, it does help to warm the apartment gradually. As we have a western style bed, we don't have much use for it when we sleep. However, there are other ways to benefit from this system. I've found that laying my clothes for work in the morning out on the floor results in the same joy as wrapping up in a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Also, the space and concrete support needed for the ondol keeps apartments from having those paper-thin barriers between the floors; something I would have loved in college.

My Schedule

2009-12-03T05:35:00.001-08:00

Now might be a good time to talk a bit more about my schedule lately.

A few of the things I mention are in an article Bonnie (another fellow teacher and friend) and I wrote for Andong in the EPIK Newsletter. You can find it here (click on "Gyeongbuk" and Scroll down to "Andong Teacher's Give Back"):
http://epik.go.kr/boardnews/detail.epik?num=11
Unfortunately, they forgot to put Bonnie's name on the article, so it only has my name listed. She wrote the first part about the teacher's class, and I wrote about Korean class and martial arts.

Outside of school, which I'm at from 8:40-4:40, I have acquired a very active schedule in the evenings. Here is the breakdown:

Hapkido: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

(Above photo by Andrew, with Helen in the background and our Hapkido master on the left. Usually everyone's in uniform, but this was from a pretty laid back, small class day.)

Depending on what other things I have going on, I go from 6:45-7:45 or 8-9. It costs us 80,000 won a month (around $75). Scott and I joined up soon after our friends Andrew and Helen mentioned going about two months ago, though Andrew's knee incident put him on a month long hiatus. Hapkido is a form of martial arts that is sometimes referred to as kickboxing, developed in Korea (although they're most well known for Taekwondo). I love it, and it fills the empty hole that horseback riding filled in my weekly exercise routine. It's helping a lot more with my flexibility, which is nice after spending the second half of school cramped in a chair.

Our Hapkido studio is about a 10 minute bus ride from our home, and although we learned later there was one near my school, we wouldn't dream of switching. Not that it wouldn't be fun to spar with my students, but I would hate for a 4th grader to take me down. Plus, our Hapkido master is quite possibly one of the friendliest people in the country. He doesn't speak very much English, but it doesn't make a difference. As with most things in the country, we understand through body language, and this is the best example of that. We mimic him, and when we misunderstand a certain kick or take down move, he steps in and holds our leg or arm in the proper position, or shows us exactly which pressure point or sensitive area or the arm or leg we are aiming for. No further explanation needed. Ouch. A lot of the things that we do are in a line (rolls, flips, pad kicks, etc), so as long as we don't start, it's pretty easy to pick up on.

Poker: Wednesday, 8:30-12am.

Another hobby I picked up since I've been in Korea is poker. Ironic, considering how it's illegal for Koreans to gamble and I should choose to learn how to do it in their country. (picture taken on my phone- a bit blurry and dark)

After Hapkido we all meet up downtown and head to Andrew's apartment. He has a little side room, like a sun room with wall-sized windows, which is the perfect size for a table and chairs. We call our poker game "The Golden Pig" because we have a sparkly golden piggy bank that we all throw a 500 won coin into before each game. If anyone gets a royal flush, they win the pig. We don't have a backup plan for it when that inevitably never happens.

The usual group is Me, Scott (whose arm is pictured dealing), Andrew (on the right), Dave (on the left), and Helen (between them), although Alice and Katie come by sometimes if they don't go to their Taekwondo class. Katie is dangerous. We play with a 10,000 won buy in, winner takes all except second place, who gets their money back. Katie has never failed to get first or second whenever she comes. It's amazing. Recently we have picked up another two maybe-regulars, Miz, an Aussie from a nearby small down that scooters in to Andong, and Andre, another EPIKer from the September group with Helen. It's great to look forward to something in the middle of the week and be able to wind down and reconnect with my friends if I get too busy to see them otherwise.

Teacher's Class: Mondays at 6:15, once a month.

A big group of the EPIK teachers got together to teach a volunteer class on rotation every week, Monday and Wednesday. It turned out that so many people responded to help teach the class, that Scott and I only do it once every four weeks on Mondays. Because the classes change teachers every week, we took to using the schedule for "Survival English" on bogglesworldesl.com. It is very well planned, and we could use similar handouts and easily review the prior lessons to keep the whole class from falling into disorganized chaos.

Korean Class: Tuesday, 6:30-8:30

We tried a Korean class during the spring semester, but it wasn't a conversation class; there were about 8 Korean instructors to sit down with us and go over a textbook, but essentially no structure and a little tedious. Although it did give me practice in writing characters and their sounds, which has been invaluable. This new class has been much better suited to my personal learning style, with one instructor who talks with us. He asks us questions and we learn how to give answers based on our personal lives. What we learn is more from the impulse of the moment, which is fantastic.

Therefore, I leave every morning at 8:15 and get home at 7:45 on Monday (unless we teach the class, then 9), 9 on Tuesday, midnight on Wednesday, 5 on Thursday, and 7:45 on Friday. It's been harder for Scott, who teaches a 2 hour class after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays in addition to everything else.

In the rest of my free time I am constantly reading on my Kindle (I stopped biking so I could allocate the 20 minute walk to work each morning as reading time, in case I don't have time later on), hanging out with Scott and Po, playing some WoW here and there, or keeping up with my social life. Sometimes we'll meet up with our friends after Hapkido during the week, or since Thursday is the only day left unscheduled, we'll nominate that as a movie night (when a good English film comes through. Good meaning above 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, because we cant' be too picky).

All of it's fun and optional, of course, but sometimes I'm left feeling a little drained from it all. Monday morning always feels a little bit daunting.

Po from Pohang

2009-11-29T21:31:00.001-08:00

Scott and I met up with Alice at Emart yesterday because she was going to buy a Siamese kitten. Emart has a fully functioning vet clinic and pet store on the second floor here, which I didn't know about until this weekend. While Alice was cuddling her new found friend and signing some paperwork, we had the chance to fall in love with two little Persian kittens who were also in the store. We were doomed from the moment Alice went into that office. Not that it was a complete whim, for we'd already done prior research into having and relocating an animal back to America.

And that is how we met and acquired Po- we named him for the city he was born in. The vets in the office speak English, which helped make our decision at the time. He's only two months old and still has some shots and...other medical procedures to be done, so it makes it easy on us that we can just take him back there. He was born on Sept 26 and was bred in a home and not a kennel, so he's already litter trained and perfectly social. Persians also have the benefit of scarcely shedding and being quite quiet (as evident by his only 2-mew car ride home), a trait that will be of great benefit as a cabin passenger on a flight back to America in another year. I don't know if I should disclose the price of him, for that is the drawback of falling in love with designer cats, but I will say that he was only a fraction of the cost that a Persian kitten would be in America.

Back at home Po settled in quite comfortably.

He's quite perfect (so far...), because he already is a cuddly fuzzy lap kitty, but also very playful. An early fixation on wires meant we needed to do a bit of kitty-proofing on our apartment. During his first day, he discovered half of our apartment, and I think I'll miss his awkward little kitten gait when he gets older; bouncing and halting from place to place, flinching suddenly at the dangers inanimate objects pose after staring at them for 5 seconds. He still hasn't traversed the 15 foot expanse of open room to discover the kitchen or the bathroom yet, but I'm sure he'll be climbing into sinks in no time.

He can't yet jump up and down from anything, so it was a rather big surprise when he insistently kept finding ways to climb on the bed last night and effectively trapping himself there. We let him stay after about 4 rounds of this, taking our chances on his tiny bladder. I built him a makeshift ramp this morning in case he needed to conquer the bed again while we're gone.

He's currently experiencing his first independent run of the house while we're at work. Unless he's figured out how springy his legs are in the past 7 hours, I think our apartment will be relatively free of mayhem.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

It's probably not surprising that I was a little homesick today. I didn't have my parents or my puppy to hug, but at least I can see them on Skype, so I'm eternally thankful for technology. And
Korea also doesn't stock the Thanksgiving essentials that I'm used to: turkey, gravy, cranberries, stuffing, or pie. However, my co-teacher Mrs. Im did hand me a cup of coffee this morning and say "Thanksgiving coffee" so the day wasn't without its special touches.

I'm so lucky that all of my friends and family back home are continuously supporting me from so far away. With the holidays upon us, I will be missing you all the more. Thank you guys.

Surprise at Lunch

2009-11-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

About halfway through lunch today, a little girl sat down across from me and asked "which state are you from?" with perfect pronunciation. Upon recovery from my shock, I replied "Michigan." She smiled and said "Oh! Me too! I'm from Troy." This is how I met Jessica for the first time, and it's a wonder to me that in all the time I've been here we had never spoken before. She is in 2nd grade, and perfectly fluent in Korean and English (with a vocabulary above the average American girl her age, I'm convinced) even though she moved to Korea when she was 3. From the way she talked, I could have sworn she just stepped off the plane yesterday- very impressive. It was astounding to me just to have a full English conversation with a person under 20 for the first time in 8 months.

But for all of her advanced communication, she was still a little girl, so we spent the next fifteen minutes talking about Disney World. We both very much like Splash Mountain and Animal Kingdom, but she recommends the test track at Epcot on my next visit. There is nothing more endearing than a little girl excitedly telling you about a hippopotamus blocking the track of the Animal Kingdom safari ride with a giant piece of meat the size of her hand half sticking out of her mouth. I hope I can run into her every day.

Seoul and the DMZ

2009-11-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, the teachers of the Gyeongbuk province (that have been here since before summer) were invited by EPIK to go on a trip to the DMZ and Seoul. Our POE (Provincial Office of Education) officer, Angela, explained that is was a thank you for working so hard over the summer. Apparently they hadn't intended us to teach every day (that wasn't an official requested vacation day) although most of us had done so. Though some of my best teaching moments were during the summer English camps, so I took this trip as a happy bonus.

The trip started out on Friday at 9am at the POE office in Daegu. This meant hopping on the 6:30 bus out of Andong to make it on time. Ugh, yes. After a bunch of coffee and an hour and a half bus ride, we finally made it to the Daegu bus station bathroom. Since there were six of us- Myself, Scott, Katie, Alice, Bonnie, and Tom (Andrew got a ride with his co-teacher who was selected to go, and the head of the Andong office of Education), we split up into two taxis from the bus station. My taxi driver got confused and took us on a ride all over the city and to the intercity education office (though the one we needed and told him was located very close to the bus station), so it's really fortunate that taxis are so cheap in South Korea.

Because so many teachers were on the trip, we were split into three large tour buses; the Andong crew were allocated to bus 1. Lucky for us, this was also the bus with Angela, and Angela is awesome.

After making it to Seoul, the first place we visited was the Gyeongbokgung Palace. Scott and I had been there once during my late orientation in March (which I didn't write about due to my huge encounter with so many new things). The first time I wandered around by myself, but this time we were lead around by the bus 1 tour guide, whose English name was Bill. I was able to see where certain people lived: a special group of houses for concubines, for the prince, princess, and the grandmother (queen and mother of the crown prince). There was a carved stone picture on a chimney outside of the grandmother’s living quarters, covered with images of animals and plants that were carefully selected as symbols of long life, fitting for a respected aging queen.

Other features were more subtle; not as distinct as stone carvings, but slight alterations in the basic design. Most interesting surrounded the structures for the prince. The roof of his living quarters was missing the long white block that capped the other buildings, which our guide explained was so his spirit could ascend to the heavens while his body slept.

Another thing I would have missed completely was the shape and arrangement of the building posts. They were all round nearest to the places of the prince, surrounded closely by another set of square posts. I was told that the circle was the unending symbol of the prince, while the square the symbol of the royal guard, protectors of the prince. Some of these post placements were so hidden that I had to squat down and peer under the buildings to catch a glimpse. Also, the stone tiled pathways the prince would walk were uneven and riddled with imperfections, which I learned was to show that a crown prince was always to walk slowly and deliberately, without any cause to rush. I usually pride myself on picking out detail, but there were clearly things still tucked away from my careful notice.

The backdrop of Gyeongbokgung, a large mountain, was also an item of interest. Bill explained that the best location for a place, according to Korean tradition, is between a mountain and a river. The flow of water would guarantee good fortune for the future of the family, and the mountain offered strength and protection. For this reason the palace was built with the mountain to its back and a moat-like body river of water flowing through its front courtyard.

However, the strong imposing shape of the mountain also meant that living too close to it would mean disaster for future generations (though success for the first to live there), because there was too much strength energy to handle. Ironically, despite this manner of thinking, the president's house (in Korea, it's called "The Blue House") was built right next to the same mountain. The first president to live there was very prosperous, but since him, Bill pointed out that every president has met with some terrible misfortune, whether it be through shady dealings or suicide. Indeed, the last two presidents died within the last year. Interesting thought.

At the back end of the palace grounds there was also a folk museum. Not as grand at the National History Museum, but another good small place to go to glimpse replicas of daily life as well as some interesting artifacts. A section of the museum is set aside for temporary exhibits, and this I found most intriguing because it was a history of the female Hanbok. The fabric and pattern trends did change during certain decades, but the style has remained pretty much the same through the ages.

The front of the palace was slightly more lively, with traditional music and dance in the usual location for the guard changing ceremony. My favorite is the hats they wear, with big ribbons attached to a spinner to swirl around in circles as their head swings back and forth.

As soon as it was dark, we headed over to Seoul Tower.

In the dark, it was hard to notice anything but the large glowing tower itself, but there were some human figures suspended overhead (one of the Seoul Tower's trademark images) that were nearly transparent until illuminated by light. Very creepy.

Originally I had been confused about our arrival time, but apparently it's the most popular at night because of the city lights and the view is the clearest. However, I’ve never been so high up at night (the whole tower is 777ft high). and was seized by a sudden fear of heights when I had to step into that elevator. I could have sworn I felt the whole thing swaying, and I felt a little like my mother taking creeping careful steps to the wall of windows.

Before making it through the elevator line of imminent doom, the coffee shop on the observation deck caught Katie and my eye, with a big sign for a "Pumpkin Latte." True to its word, it was just that, but perhaps more actual pureed pumpkin than latte.

Friday night was eventful. Bill had been telling us all day on the bus about the best nightclubs that we could visit, with a free shuttle downtown from our hotel. After running into him again in the lobby on the way out, he told us we weren't dressed well enough and wouldn't be allowed in with our jeans, no matter how tight Andrew's were, so we decided instead to find a bar. Waiting for a shuttle though, Andrew's tight pants turned on him. Because we are all mature 20-somethings, we started practicing our sweet Hapkido and Taekwondo moves while we waited. Unfortunately, Andrew tried putting his right leg up on Katie's shoulder (not a move our Hapkido master probably intended for us) and twisted his left leg so hard that his left kneecap popped out. It was on the side of his leg. The side. Scott and I ran off to alert Bill and Angela and call 119 for an ambulance, and when we came back he was moaning out of pain and relief "oh you Korean angel!" for an old Korean woman had hopped off the shuttle just as we left to pop his leg back into place, and was rubbing it vigorously. He remained pretty positive about the whole thing, though he had to go back to Andong early.

The rest of us woke up on Saturday by a sudden onslaught of rain just in time for our ride out the the DMZ.

Ah, well, we were all still very eager to see it. Our first stop at Imjingak, gave me the first glimpse of the DMZ area: The Super Viking! There was a whole theme park of oddities, apparently making the DMZ more of a prime tourist lure for families with children. You know, apart from all of the swerving because of the large spiked road blocks scattered all over the road to make quick travel impossible in case of invaders.

Because of the rain, there wasn’t much to see or say through the mist around the observatory looking in to North Korea, save for a tree or two that may have still been in the South. Nonetheless, we were still required to stay behind the photo line (which was right where the observation deck roof stopped, so there was no shielding us from the rain). I'll have to go back. Behold, North Korea:

The trip down to the 3rd infiltration tunnel was better. I officially spent Halloween in a dark creepy tunnel used for the purpose of North Korean invasion. Like all of the tunnels they found, it was headed toward Seoul, and it was one of their longer endeavors. We had to wear hard-hats because it was rather short and narrow. Scott talked about this tunnel on an earlier visit to the DMZ, (at www.fourteenhoursaway.blogspot.com).

We also had a chance to see Dorasan Station, the train station built with a railway to Pyeongyang, in the event of reconciliation with the North. This would also allow for land travel to other parts of the world, which South Koreans are otherwise incapable of doing because of the Northern blockade.

Getting back into Daegu after the DMZ on Saturday was an altogether different adventure. The plan was to arrive back at 7. Enter the worst foreigner in Korea, Patrick. There is one teacher in the EPIK program who is like a badly written character in a movie- the kind written without realist qualities that make them human. Patrick decided to insult and inconvenience all several hundred of us without a care. Each time we set out, he decided to switch buses. On Friday he went from bus 2 to 3, Saturday morning from 3 to 1. He did this, of course, without telling the people in charge of attendance, making us 20 minutes late on Saturday (which made us then miss our time slot at the DMZ to watch a documentary and slip another hour behind). When our POE supervisor, Angela, told him he should go to bus 2, he told her he was going to stay on bus 1. Never mind that Angela's boss was also on our bus. After telling her no three times, his bus 2 tour guide came on and asked him why he had no common courtesy for others, and he told her he liked the bus 1 tour guide better. In the end he didn't leave.

On the trip back to Daegu, we stopped at a rest area and were told 5 minutes, because we were already so behind schedule. After 20 minutes, nobody could find Patrick. He wouldn't answer his phone, and people were searching the whole rest area for him. He had gone back to bus 2 without telling anyone. Incredible. We were then caught in a wave of traffic, and didn't make it to Daegu until after 10. That was 3 hours later than scheduled (and 40 minutes behind the arrival of bus 2). At this point everyone on our bus needed special arrangements, because the buses stopped running out of Daegu at 9:30. When Angela was explaining alternatives, our bus driver started shouting rapidly, causing Angela to stop, smile, and tell us "Oh, he is talking about the Patrick." I wonder if he'll be allowed to stay in the program after this one. We did have one small justice. He left his bag on the bus so he had to wait for us to get in.

Several of us decided to stay in Daegu anyway, so for me it wasn't terrible. Plus, it was Halloween, and foreigners in costume were abound. I managed to catch Swine flu, but not to worry, I didn't bring it back to Andong.

Happy 빼빼로 Day!

2009-11-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Whoever thinks Valentine's Day is a holiday dominated by Hallmark and candy companies has never encountered 빼빼로 (Pepero) Day. It's named after a single brand of chocolate-coated biscuit sticks produced by the Lotte candy company, and on November 11 (11/11) because the date looks like the sticks. Nothing beats this kind of marketing.

Its nationally recognized too, and every grocery store and stationary shop has a big display devoted to Pepero. I went into one of my favorite stationary stores for a pencil case, and half the stock had been moved or put away so that the length of the store was covered in different styles of Pepero, as well as cards, bags and baskets, and decorating materials for dressing them up as gifts.

The idea is that couples will buy Pepero sticks for each other, but it's also turned into a gift giving day for friends and teachers too. Before each of my lessons today, I asked my students "What did you do yesterday?" (because we're learning several expressions using past tense), and in every class they were shouting "Pepero! buy/bought Pepero!" Do I think Lotte's an evil corporation turning children into consumer slaves? No. I'm not that melodramatic. The whole concept is actually pretty fun. I mean, you can get about 4 boxes for the equivilant of $1, less if you choose to give larger individual Pepero sticks.

It's mostly just the energetic spirit of giving, and as holidays go, this is by far the cheapest and most random. It also worked very well for English class, because shy students were given a catalyst to come up and speak to me personally using some simple English phrases ("Here you are," "This is for you!"). Adorable. It was a very good day to be a teacher. I think I shall be happily munching these sticks for a long time.

A Very Wet Hike

2009-11-09T22:07:00.001-08:00

The last time I went to Juwang-San, I came back and told my co-teachers, who told me I should return in the fall because of the beautiful colors. This being the first free weekend to make our way back, Scott and I hopped a bus with our friends Alice and Dave to do some hiking. This time we wanted to try and climb to one of the peaks, since last time we got a peak at the waterfalls.

(Dave is a Hagwan, after school academy, teacher that also works in Andong)

After a week of beautiful dry and rather warm weather, the rain started to fall as our bus was about 5 minutes outside of the park. We were not deterred. This being the third time mountain climbing in the rain since I've been here, I've gotten accustomed to wearing a poncho.

It was in a way good timing though, because Sunday was the last day for the apple festival running down around Cheongsong, so we were able to snag a couple single-packaged apples and a free cup of chrysanthemum tea (the best tea in the world, I'm convinced) right before they started taking everything down.

Since I've already written about Juwang-San once, I'm going to make this mostly a picture post about our journey to the top of Juwang-San peak. It is a good hike, because it has whole sections of flat pathway to break up the moments of intense upward climbing over rocks and roots, and the occasional built in stairway. And although the rain was working at beating the last of the autumn leaves off the trees, it was still vibrant and beautiful.

This is as far as we got, about .3km from the peak. It started raining incredibly hard by this point, and the rocks were slippery. To make our way through this particular spot, we had to creep around the big rock and hold on to the railing (about a 1 foot wide space where the person with the umbrella just came from). On the other side of the rail was an immediate drop down. Not that we aren't adventurous, but it was starting to thunder and we still had 2km to backtrack. Dave had wisened up about 20 minutes earlier and turned back, not that he looked any less saturated when we regrouped at the bottom.

We were slowly becoming one with the fallen leaves and the river of water at our feet. We were very wet.

The storm made the whole place look very eerie as the darkness started to close in under the clouds, and a creeping fog floated around us.

I'd like to say we should start checking the weather forecast before we leave to go places, but then we'd miss out on such splendid discomfort- and forget how good hot showers feel.

Priceless Language Moments 7

2009-11-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

Britney Spears will never sound the same again after this one.

I was riding in the car with Taebun, who sometimes listens to American pop songs, and the Britney Spears song "Womanizer" came on. Somewhere in the middle, he asks me "what does 'womanizer' mean?" I told him that is was a term for a man who has a bad reputation for using women poorly. He laughed and explained that he assumed Britney was singing about a man who was turning into a woman, using the example of how "an energizer gives energy." But since Britney is a woman already, he applied the womanizing to the man himself. Good point. From a ESL perspective, applying similar rules to different words can have a hilarious result.

Britney Spears' lyrics (or whoever) lend themselves quite easily to Taebun's assumption, too:

WOMANIZER
Superstar Where you from, how's it going?
I know you
Gotta clue, what your doing
You can play brand new to all the other chicks out here
But I know what you are, what you are, baby

Look at you
Gettin' more than just re-up
Baby, you
Got all the puppets with their strings up
Fakin' like a good one, but I call 'em like I see 'em
I know what you are, what you are, baby

Womanizer
Woman-Womanizer
You're a womanizer
Oh Womanizer
Oh You're a Womanizer Baby
You, You You Are
You, You You Are
Womanizer, Womanizer, Womanizer

Boy don't try to front I (I) know just (just) what you are (are are)
Boy don't try to front I (I) know just (just) what you are (are are)

You Got Me Goin'
You're also Charmin'
But I can't do it
U Womanizer

Boy don't try to front I (I) know just (just) what you are (are are)
Boy don't try to front I (I) know just (just) what you are (are are)

You Say I'm Crazy
I got your crazy
You're nothing but A Womanizer

Daddy-O
You got the swagger of a champion
Too bad for you
You just can't find the right companion
I guess when you have won too many, makes it hard
It could be easy
Who you are, that's just who you are, baby

(and so on...)

I wonder how many other people in Korea have the same translation.

Autumn Out with My School

2009-11-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

Every Wednesday, all of the students leave school after lunch, so usually the staff all gathers to play volleyball or another game similar to dodge ball (my inability to play well at both led my injured pride tochallenge some of the teachers to a footrace instead, then trip and roll in the dirt and gravel while I was in the lead 5 feet from the finish. Now I try and stick to hitting people with volleyballs). Last week, I was informed that instead of volleyball, we would go hiking. There's a hill right behind our school that I haven't tried yet and often hear people talking about, so I assumed that we would head up there during the regular 2 hours we would spend on volleyball.

I was surprised, then, when I was ushered into Taebun's car. When I asked where we were going, he didn't know. Neither did Mrs. Im when she got in, or the new 5th grade gym teacher. This is how plans usually play out, so I've found it's always easiest to go with it.

Therefore, when we stopped at a rest area after a half hour of driving, I was open for anything. This same rest area was the home of a trained duck (painted with sparkly red paint to set it apart from the common duck), which would jump (without flapping his wings) to catch bits of vegetables.

The next stop was to see Banghojeong, an old lecture hall built and named for the pen name of Jo Jun-do (but don't ask me who that is, other than a scholar of some note) on the rocks overlooking a lovely shallow river. The pavilions contain Jo Jun-do's works, as well as many poems by scholars. It's now accessible by a modern bridge, which I found to to be more aesthetic than eyesore; simple fluid lines in an unoffending white.

The location was inspiring, between water and rock. It was surrounded in yellow- little flowers and trees that I was informed are famously called gold trees- money trees. I stuffed some of the fallen leaves in my pockets, just in case.

Our next stop was a white stone beach, in a narrow long river valley between two hills.

The stones looked almost malleable, with as many soft soft curving dents as there were jagged edges. I didn't catch the name of the place, only that it's famous for photographing nude models.

We continued our journey through the land of apple trees. We were pretty close to the town of Cheongsong, which like Andong is famous in the country for its apples. In the summer, all of these trees had little bags tied on the branches to protect every fruit, but now they were hanging in bunches almost too heavy for the branches.

When we made our third stop, I was beginning to wonder if our hiking trip was going to involve any hiking. We arrived at Yongdamsa temple, and were greeted very enthusiastically by a male and female pair of Jindos (Korea's signature breed).

The male, after happily licking our principal, vice principal, and several of the teachers in turn (A remarkable attention to the hierarchy!), went running around our fifteen or so cars marking the tires with his urine. But not to worry, after all, this particular Jindo was a Buddhist (as evident by his Buddhist-marked doghouse).

The temple was quite small, built during the Silla dynasty (and rebuilt in the Joseon), smaller than the other grand temple's I've been to, with only a few buildings. But it is still functioning, like all other temples, and was so quiet in a little clearing beside a forest and a mountain. It was a nice change to see a humble temple.

Our final stop did involve hiking a small path down a slight mountainside, to see a small waterfall pouring into cavern visible at just the right angle between two rocks.

This trickled down to pool into a small pond in the nearby clearing beside the mountain, and turning my back to the waterfall, the contrasting openness was the most beautiful view of the day.

We didn't go anywhere extravagant, and made a lot of little stops which at first seemed to me a bit oddly chosen. However, that meant I saw several places that I couldn't take a bus or my bike to- places I wouldn't even know how to ask for. Surrounded by the colors of autumn, they had an out-of-the-way kind of charm and beauty. I can see the large mountains and cultural sites easily enough on my own, but these little trips are just another reason to be grateful for my school.

Weekend in Gyeongju

2009-10-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

This is part 2 of my Gyeongju weekend (again, sorry for the delay. Rearranged scheduling and my own brush with sickness left me inattentive to my writing). This takes place after the EPIK conference Thursday and Friday. My boyfriend Scott also wrote about the weekend on http://www.fourteenhoursaway.blogspot.com/, so check him out for additional perspective and photos.

Gyeongju is best known for having been the capital of the Silla dynasty, and because of this, it might be one of the most interesting places to tour in the country. It is absolutely full of history and interesting things to see at every turn, starting with the burial mounds.

On Friday after the conference, Scott, Katie, and I decided that the best place to start would be to walk around and see these mounds. They are quite literally everywhere. Gyeongju is like a giant graveyard. They spread out over the whole city, hundreds of them, sometimes in their own designated parks, other times sitting alone on a city block. Some of them are double mounds, for a king and queen pair. They are similar to the Egyptian pyramids, the rising markers for the tombs of kings- only in earth and grass.

Being that there are so many of them, we started to wonder how they managed to find all of the dirt to pile up. My theory is that Gyeongju really used to be several feet higher.

After a long day of walking, we returned to our motel to see another ancient site: a well stocked VHS library and our very own VHS player!

Saturday morning, we rented bikes to get around. One of the wonderful things about Gyeongju is that most of the historical sites are within a reasonable travel distance. This is different from Andong, where everything is spread out. Biking is therefore highly accommodated, with additional bike lanes or wider sidewalks. The river that runs through Gyeongju has the best of these, so we could bike along the whole river without having run ins with walkers or in line skaters (who also had their own designated roads).

Biking around the city was beautiful, and with all of the traffic congested with tour buses and cars, it was really the least stressful and best way to absorb all of the scenery.

Many of the most beautiful roads weren't even accessible by car.

Early on Saturday morning, Scott, Katie and I took off early on our newly acquired bikes to see more tombs and National treasure #31, Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia. Remarkably, still intact from its first construction (around 632-647).

Soon after, we were joined by our dearest most wonderful best friend Andrew (Do you feel satisfied now Andrew?), and formed a kind of cycling posse:

We were definitely the coolest on the streets, though the competition was fierce:

Our first stop was the Gyeongju National Museum.

It is home to the divine bell of King Seondeok, which is the oldest known bell in Korea and has a sound that promises to "stir the deepest emotions." Alas, we didn't get to hear it ring.

Being the capital of the Silla dynasty meant a good look at the treasures of ancient royalty, which prominently featured comma-shaped stones and accents of very thinly pressed and etched gold.

Near the museum was the Imhaejeon lake and gardens, which was originally erected as a site to raise rare plants and animals for the palace, as well as hold banquets for foreign dignitaries. The whole place was very circular- with an island in the lake, and a round pathway around the lake.

Our biking journey carried us south and east of the city into the countryside, where we found the Bunhwansa stone pagoda next to a small temple. It's the largest I've seen in width, and apparently it used to be about 7 or 9 stories high. But, like everything in this country, it too was destroyed by the Japanese and had to be reformed.

While I love all of the pagodas and temples, I was most fascinated by this bell ringer. Bells here are rung by fixing a log on two chains, pulling it back, and letting it fly forward to hit the bell. This one appeared to be retired. His face does look like its flown into a giant iron wall one too many times.

Saturday was wrapped up with an intense battle of pool. The pool hall even provided bright pink or black spandex gloves, for the truly serious players. We were.

Sunday was reserved for the biggest draw to Gyeongju- the UNESCO designated world heritage site, Bulguksa temple. It was the center of Buddhism during the Silla dynasty, but was burnt down by the Japanese and had to be restored.

Its entrance is now very well guarded.

The restoration was remarkable though, and it is one of the biggest and most beautiful temples in the country.

Unfortunately, this meant it was crawling with tourists. Not that I can blame them- after all, we were there too. Though the copious amount of vendors selling corn dogs and plastic dung-on-a-stick toys on the surrounding temple lawns did damper the serenity a bit. It was amazing to be in such a heavily populated place after the relative calm of cultural sites in Andong. Though inside all of the temple buildings, a natural reverence was maintained- especially in one large central structure referred to as the "Hall of Whispers." Shoes off, no cameras, and total silence. Even in a place crawling with noisy people, there were ways to find a soothing sense of harmony.

("Keep off")

Up the mountain from the temple was Seokguram Grotto, the home to a giant stone Buddha carved from granite and housed in an enormous chamber, surrounded by the carvings of eight guardian gods. Photos weren't allowed- but Scott found a good one from the Internet on his blog.

The view from the top of the grotto was extraordinary.

We ended our weekend with Gyeongju's signature food- sam bap, which literally means rice wrapped in lettuce. It was more like an enormous number of side dishes from whole fish, to soup, to various vegetables and mildly spicy pork; the most I've seen on one table since I came to Korea. It was delicious, once I found a place to start.

Delays

2009-10-23T09:18:00.001-07:00

Well, the intention was to finish my Gyeongju blog post during my free time at school today since Monday's classes were already planned. However, due to the H1N1 outbreak, my school has been canceled on Monday and Tuesday so I had to use that time to plan for Wednesday's classes. Tomorrow I have an English camp in the morning, a Korean wedding to attend in the afternoon, and a 3 way birthday bash to celebrate in the evening (Katie, Alice, and Andrew!). On the other hand, I'll have plenty of time come Monday! I just had to rework my schedule a little bit, but I'm not neglecting my writing on purpose. ^^;

EPIK Conference in Gyeongju

2009-10-18T23:00:00.001-07:00

I feel like I went into hibernation this week after making it through last week. Anyway, I'm awake now. This is part 1 of my 2 part four day weekend in Gyeongju (I'll work on the sightseeing half of it tomorrow). Thursday and Friday were spent at an in-service training conference for EPIK.

Thursday morning, Scott and I woke up at 7:25, just 5 minutes before we were meant to leave town. We also hadn't packed. Luckily, when we gathered with our co-teachers and Katie and her co-teacher fifteen minutes later, they were not deterred from first getting breakfast. Korean breakfast isn't anything like a western breakfast, so we had a traditional fare of soup, rice, and kimchi.

We arrived almost an hour late at the hotel after a 3 hour drive, but luckily that starting hour was designated for signing in, and being nearly last meant our name badges were easy to find. I heard a lot of people talking to friends about their awkward small talk or silences with their co-teachers on the drive down. For me it was a five word conversation: "Sara, take a nap" and my response,"OK." Taebun understands me, especially at 7:30am.

Because Scott, Katie and I have already been teaching for a long time, we weren't quite sure what to expect out of this conference. It was mostly for the new EPIK teachers who arrived in September and those of us that had the late orientation back at the end of March. There had already been one just before Scott and I arrived.

The first day ran from 11 to 7:30. Two lectures, a demonstration on co-teaching, and a"Discussion About Co-Teaching Styles and Interpersonal Relationships," which oddly was the only of the four where they split up the Native and Korean teachers into separate rooms. It ended with a fabulous eclectic buffet dinner to satisfy Western and Korean diets. Mostly I devoured raw salmon, which is surprisingly hard to find here.

The second day ran from 7:30 to 2, with two interactive lectures and an open forum. The primary target seemed to be for a newer teaching audience, but it was a nice refresher for me. One of the speakers had been in Korea for eight years, so I couldn't pretend to have her insight, so there was a lot yet to soak in. Particularly using warm up and short transition periods of time to incorporate improv and movement, even within large classes like mine. I also felt very useful at the conference during discussions, because I came with a lot of ideas from experience so far, and was able to pass those along to newer teachers; like making group forming into a game, and planning for classes with mixed degrees of English literacy. Likewise, the newer teachers had some fresh opinions that I could benefit from, which was helpful after doing my own routine for so long.

The target of the training seemed to be directed at better co-teaching, but I was a little surprised because the tables were set up in most of the conference rooms in threes, leaving every other co-teaching pair split up. Scott, and Katie are incredibly lucky in our co-teaching assignments, so this didn't really deter us from doing discussions and activities. However, for those who struggled with their Korean co-teachers, it appeared to me like they could, sadly, segregate themselves quite easily.

My favorite part of the conference was Thursday night, when Scott, Katie and I stayed in to teach our co-teachers how to play Texas Hold'em. We had to improvise, so while the Koreans debated over which flavor of squid jerky and mixed nuts the would buy, the three of us grabbed some beer, some highlighters and a couple packs of toothpicks to turn into poker chips. Back in the hotel room, while Scott went over the basics, Katie and I labored over marking hundreds of toothpicks. This was the result (set 1 of 6):

Of course, into the second hour we had to continue coloring the extra blank ones as the minimum bet raised and chips were traded in. In the end, we had a pretty awesome travel poker chip set.

It was a pretty epic game. They picked it up really fast, and Scott's co teacher Hyeon-beom almost put me out early with his raises before the flop and mythically good hands. But there was a lot of great luck. Somehow the whole thing was bizarrely magical, with rivers like this:

Whenever toothpicks changed hands, we turned it into a battle of the schools. Scott's Dongbu Elementary was stealing my Kilju money, or Katie's Bokju (sorry Katie if I butchered that spelling) Elementary money would change hands between them. Of course, I was responsible for slaughtering Taebun in a face off between us that made him the first to go out.

Although it wasn't officially a part of the conference, the conference gave us the rare opportunity to hang out with our co-teachers. The Korean teachers especially are so busy with extra school projects in addition to managing the ease of our lives here, that it seems so seldom that we get to sit down and have fun outside of the classroom. While most of the foreigners all went out together to the locals bars after the lectures and dinner was over, tempted as we were to join them, it seemed to be more exciting to see our co-teachers corrupted by the forbidden world of gambling. Well, with toothpicks anyway.

한글날

2009-10-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

즐거운 한글날 되세요!

The "Right" Way to Walk

2009-10-05T23:55:00.001-07:00

South Korea has officially changed its policy on walking. It used to be that people would walk on the left, even though driving is on the right. However, I showed up at school to find this poster all over the school:

The policy has changed, and now everyone is instructed to keep to the right side when walking. And just look how happy everyone is; how green the grass is on this side of the path! Although I've been walking on the right since I got here without much trouble, so it's mostly a formality I think.

Along with the sign, students were given the task of changing all the arrows on the stairs, and to help everyone adjust, 6th grade hall monitors with sashes now direct traffic on each floor in the morning in case of any confusion.

Andrew's Concert Video

2009-10-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Andrew uploaded a video on YouTube that he took from the concert I wrote about two weeks ago. It's of 2NE1 performing "Fire." Don't worry, it stabilizes after the first few seconds- who can blame him for a sudden outburst of excited dancing? You can hear me screaming periodically throughout. It's the best video I've seen of the performance, so check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsLOmwzI2yg

Grapes

2009-09-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

With watermelon season fading away, grape season is in full swing in Korea. Every bushel looks perfect and delicious, with large round purple grapes. The first time I tried them, I thought looks were deceiving. They skin was impossible to chew, and the way the inside held together like a slippery mass was enough to make me think I had the misfortune of finding only rancid grapes.

But then we started eating them at school, which is where all of my eating epiphanies happen. I was instructed that for these grapes, you're not supposed to eat the skins. Instead, you squeeze the inside out into your mouth and suck the juice out.

There are two main varieties of grapes, both purple. One is very dark and smaller with seeds, and the inside if slightly more difficult to chew through, but the juice is incredibly sweet and quite often tastes like a very sweet wine. The other kind is a little lighter that the first, and is virtually seedless. They taste a more like the grapes I'm used to, only much larger and juicier. These are a little more expensive, but worth it.

KPOP Concert!

2009-09-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

KPOP (Korean Pop music) is the most popular musical genre in Korea, and on Wednesday we caught wind that there would be a concert coming to Andong. Even though I hear the songs a million times a day I have found that they have grown wildly addicting, so I was absolutely giddy at the chance of seeing a concert. Plus, it was free.

The concert came as day one of the Rainbow festival, and the whole thing appeared to be sponsored by the venue- Andong Science College. A large stage was set up in the middle of an oval dirt sports field, ringed with permanent cement risers, where we chose to sit, though rows of chairs were arranged in front of the stage. Most of us Andong EPIK teachers went together, including a couple that drove in from nearby small towns.

On the way in there was a medical checkpoint to take everyone's temperature and an automatic hand washing machine. As we were early, Andrew and I used the time and his new video camera to give impromptu interviews to Koreans about American trivia and their feelings about the concert, with some embarrassing but mild successes.

The festival website said the official start was 6:30, but for that first hour and a half it was mostly local or random musical entertainment. University student performers, Elementary school girls dressed as sparkling cheerleaders dancing to Ricky Martin's "She Bangs," and perhaps the most curious, belly dancers.

It was unlike any free concert I have attended; all of the headline groups (except perhaps one) had at least one song currently popular on the radio. And there were 8 of them scheduled. The groups that performed were 2NE1, 애프터스쿨 (After School), 원투 (One Two), FT아일랜드 (FT Island), LPG (Long Pretty Girls), 소리 (Sorry), 제니스 (Zenith), and XING (but not in that order). 2NE1 were the clear favorites, however, because they are one of the hottest pop groups in the country right now.

The format was different also. I am used to concerts where there is a main headliner and one to two openers, and all play for quite awhile. I was wondering how the whole thing was going to work, because the official lineup didn't start until about 8 o'clock; leaving 2 hours for all of the groups. The solution was that every group only played 3-4 songs each, which astounded me. Although this method kept the atmosphere charged up, because the bands played the top songs that everyone knew. 2NE1, who we assumed would be the last group since they were the biggest, was the 6th on, followed by After School and FT Island.

It was a ton of fun. We bought kim bap and packs of large flat crunchy rice cakes that melt in your mouth and stick to your lips from walking vendors, much like those that sell popcorn and hot dogs at sporting events. And even though we don't speak Korean most of the songs have a catchy English phrase here and there or in the chorus, which I know all the cues for, so it was no trouble singing along and dancing to the beat. There were also a few covers, including "Lady Marmalade" and Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff"- which Katie confused at first for a KPop song and announced "Oh, I've heard this one." This anomaly happens a lot after living here for awhile.

Here are a few links to the songs from the evening that I found the most exciting to hear:

2NE1: Fire (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISEoXdHb4W4&feature=fvst

2NE1:I Don't Care (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAxMO1KD0 Or, an upload I found on youtube from this concert (fun, but a little shaky): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyhEejIQ2FA

After School: DIVA (concert video, but not from this concert)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gJ2iwV7BEI

One Two: Starry Night (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZHt7ptDIlQ

FT Island: I Hope (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6MXzu2XN-o

At the end of the night, me, Scott, Alice, Andrew, and Katie piled into the car of Alice's friend Casey who drove in from out of town. It was all to familiar a situation after our recent return from Daegu, but after watching the line of buses with a crushing number of passengers try to inch out of the Science College behind a line of cars, I think Casey and his car was a Godsend. We turned on his mp3 player, rolled down the windows, and played 2NE1's "Fire," dancing as a single mass in the little car. Everyone we passed got into the groove and started dancing with us from the sidewalks and cars, and even the middle aged traffic director bobbed his head and waved his orange baton to the beat. It was the perfect exit.

I Think I'm Turning Japanese?

2009-09-23T21:45:00.001-07:00

A kindergartner pointed at me and shouted to his homeroom teacher that I was Japanese.

Well I suppose...

Saturday in Daegu

2009-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday it was decided that we should spend some actual time in Daegu. Scott and I have only been down there to go to Costco, so we teamed up with Andrew, Katie, and Alice who also haven't spent much time there.

Yangnyeongsi Herbal Medicine Market

The guidebook described this street as a place to go for all sorts of strange old remedies, to find antlers, magic mushrooms, and lizard tails. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but I think we all had it in our mind that it would be some dusty backstreet with cauldrons and witches. It was surprising, then, to find that it was a very well organized road with regular store fronts and regular people. There were also traditional clinics on this street, for herbal treatments as well as acupuncture.

Although that's not to say there wasn't oddities to be found for sale. Deer antlers, seahorses, turtle shells, and dried frogs. Andrew tried to ask one shop owner if he had any "secret" items that can't be sold on the regular market, but I think both the translation and the joke were lost on him.

And the smells leaping out of these shops and following us down the street were intoxicating; so many that I couldn't possibly figure them all out. Ginseng, certainly, but also a number of fragrant herbs and wood smells; they all blended together to become something unique and distinctive to the street as a whole.

Museum

We were a little lost out in the street. Apart from the obvious language barrier, I'm not even sure the average Korean would know what all of this stuff was. However, we did find a museum at one end of the street. It appeared to be recently built, with the latest in technology and fresh, clean carpet. It spanned over two floors, the top being for dioramas and videos, mostly, with a few display cases.

Although I'm still not sure what instruction on medicinal properties some of the items on display might offer.

The videos had four language options, and were actually very well done. The latest animation, and perfect English- I was surprised by them. They mostly detailed life and the process of diagnoses in the past, when this was the standard of medical treatment. A lot of the practice is still alive today, with the health benefits in Korean food. They are still using many of the same herbs for cooking; where they originated to prevent and treat ailments, they also happened to be tasty supplements.

The next floor offered a more hands-on experience, ending with a room where we could check our blood pressure and BMI. This floor was devoted to learning about the body from a traditional perspective. I learned the hours of the day that each organ is at its strongest, and what should be done. For example, between 5-7am it is the time for the colon, so that is the best time to have a bowel movement.

In one station, we could figure out which of the four typologies we were (they use Sasang typology, classifying you by elements of your mind and body). I came out as a Soyang type, but I'm not sure how accurate my answers to the questions were because I'm not really sure if I have a "strong waist." It was interesting all the same, and I learned that by being Soyang, beer is very beneficial to my health.

Most of the rest of the day was spent walking around downtown Daegu. We checked out the Kyobo bookstore, which actually has a pretty big English book section: everything from bestsellers, to teen, to a case devoted to Penguin classics. The most interesting perhaps was a screenplay section, where English movie and TV show screenplays were sold as books with both an English and Korean translation on the opposite page.

Free Hugs.

Just when I was starting to get disheartened by the whole H1N1-makes-me-look-suspect-and-untouchable issue, something amazing happened on the streets of Daegu. A small group of university students stood in the middle of downtown with signs reading "FREE HUG." They even grabbed us and pulled us over, we didn't have to go to them. I almost melted with joy; they weren't even wearing surgical masks.

But not all of the hugs of the day were found on the streets...

Dinner and Hookah

There is a restaurant called the "Holy Grill" with a picture of the Holy Grail on the sign, and in going it did indeed feel like coming to the end of a great quest. It is owned by two Canadian guys, and I'm convinced has the best burritos in Korea. Not that I've had many burritos in Korea. The whole place is devoted to the food expats miss so much, and all for a very reasonable price inside a classy place.

After dinner, we went in search of a a hookah bar we'd caught wind of, located next to a bar made from an old bus.

Inside was very dim, but set a relaxing mood by the flickers of lanterns and candlelight. We were seated in a small raised alcove set apart from the main room, cozy and perfect for the five of us.

We ordered a bottle of red wine, which seemed to be the main draw to the place, as I think we were the only people there with a hookah. It was the perfect way to end our time in the city.

Taxi Ride Home

We were slightly mistaken, however, in our methods of returning to Andong. We called a number to get information on the bus times, and a woman speaking perfect English told us that the last bus to Andong was at 9:50. At 9:50 the bus station was very closed, and it seemed a little suspicious when a taxi driver parked outside looked at us and said "Andong?" After some time, it was decided that it was the cheaper option at 80,000 won (plus at 3,000 toll) than all of us finding lodging and morning bus fair.

When we finally piled into a taxi, all five of us, we expected it to be a long hour back home being crushed together as we were. In the end, it took 40 minutes. We hadn't the opportunity of movement until we got home, but as soon as we emerged gasping for air and thankful for the gift of life, we translated on our phones what 140-160km translated to in mph. We knew it was fast, as the speed limit was posted at 100, and his GPS speedometer would give protesting beeps every time he crossed 160. The man had been going 90-99 miles per hour the entire way home.

But, since my mother is probably reading this in horror, I'll leave off with a photo of relaxing ginseng.

Rabbit Mallet

2009-09-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

This is the infamous rabbit mallet of which I've spoke, for those of you who wanted a visual.

Priceless Language Moments 6

2009-09-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Another one so soon! A group of six 6th graders walked up to me in the office a moment ago, with one girl holding a piece of paper. After much coaxing into speaking English by Taebun and a lot of giggling, the girl decides to talk to me.

Girl: Can I *pause* interview you?
Me: Sure!
Girl: He *points to Taebun* says he...uh...thinks he is Ge-Genus.
Taebun: Genus?
Girl: Ah! No no...uh...Jesus! He thinks he is Jesus!
Taebun: I'm Jesus?
Girl: What do you think?
Me: Do I think that he's Jesus?
Girl: Ah! Uh...no. Gee- *takes out cell phone to check the dictionary* Genius!
*Taebun is laughing*
Me: Ah, he think's he's a genius. Do I agree? Well hmm...
Girl: No what do you think...about...his think...he is genius?
Me: Do I think he thinks he's a genius? *looking at Taebun* Do you think you're a genius?
Taebun: I don't know, maybe.
Girl: No, his think. *she speaks rapidly in Korean to Taebun*
Taebun: Sorry, I don't speak Korean. Speak English.
Girl: Ah! *after a few moments* Why did Korea-..no...why. did. you. come. Korea?
Me: Why did I come to Korea? Because I like teaching and I like Korea. It was a good match.
Girl: OK. Thank you.
*The group moves to the other side of the office to speak with Taebun, then calls to me again*
Girl: OK. What about his...pronunciation?
Me: It's very good.
Girl: Why?
Me: Maybe because he's a genius?
Girl: Ah!
Taebun: *after all the students have left* They asked me why my pronunciation was better than other teachers, and I told them "because I'm a genius!" but I was joking. So what they were trying to ask was "My teacher thinks he's a genius, what do you think about that?"

Priceless Language Moments 5

2009-09-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Taebun: What do you think when I say "Answer the call of nature?"
Me: I think you need to go to the bathroom. You can also say "Nature calls!" and leave the room.
Taebun: What about when I say "Number 2?"
Me: You need to poo.
Taebun: Is it common to say?
Me: Yes.
Taebun: Really?
Me: Haha, yes.
Taebun: You could say it to your friend?
Me: Yes, if you want to.
Taebun: Could you say it to your grandmother?
Me: If I want my grandmother to know what I'm doing in the bathroom, then sure.
Mrs. Im: How about "number 1?"

Brittle Teeth or Kimchi of Steel?

2009-09-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

Today during lunch, I had a piece of one of my back teeth suddenly break off. A small but sizeable wedge- so now I can say that I've quite literally had a cavity in my tooth. Now, I'll be honest here, once the discovery of the detachment had been made, I wasn't sure if I felt more concerned about needing to go to the dentist, or delighted that I wouldn't have to eat the octopus soup and little minnows side dish. Although maybe it's an unfair comparison, because I've spent so much time getting fillings growing up; the hovering eyes of the dentist is much less of a concern than the beady eyes of dead dried fish.

Once the dentist was assured that I was not infected with the H1N1 virus because I've lived here for 6 months, we got down to business. Sitting there figuring out what was wrong with my teeth was a little frightening. The dentist took a look at my teeth, and while he was explaining the problem to Taebun he kept playing with a little model set of teeth in his hands. He kept pulling out one of the teeth from the model and putting it back, and Taebun kept saying "ohh" in a manner most foreboding. After 3 minutes I had worked up quite a sweat thinking he was going to need to pull the whole thing out. But really I just needed a filling because I had a pretty bad spot of decay.

The process was the same that I was used to, minus the happy gas. Quick and painless, except that I waved off the Novacane shot. The dentist was trying to get me to put in a gold crown, which would have been 250,000 won because it's uncovered by insurance, so I opted for the regular silver filling which was a much nicer price. The whole unscheduled visit cost me 8,600 won, about $7.

Korea Sparkling Competition

2009-09-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

I want to thank everyone who's been supporting my blog and keeping up with it. I love all of your comments. I was just told that I won in the Korea Sparkling blog contest for being in the top 100 blogs about Korea. I'm mostly pleased by the recognition; I love writing but I sometimes, many of you that are close to me know, fall victim to procrastination without the proper motivation. I love Korea, and am delighted to share my experiences with all of you.

Swine Flu Results in One Small Victory

2009-09-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

Of course I'm not going to start praising Swine flu, or H1N1, but in the middle of all of the fear I did want to report one positive outcome. I suppose you hope the fallout from any war will result in something positive to make the suffering mean something.

When I came to South Korea, in the middle of the joy and perfection I found there was one problem: soap. For almost five months, my school almost never had soap in the bathrooms. There was soap in the lunch room, but not the bathrooms. Not just my school, but all schools seemed to feel the same way. The students simply didn't wash their hands. Which presented a problem for the foreign teacher- with students always wanting a hello and a handshake. This was the same issue for public bathrooms. I never left the house without my own hand sanitizer. I found this odd in a country where the biggest concern is personal health, which you can see in their healthy diets, motivation to exercise daily, and practically flawless system of health care.

However, since H1N1 became an issue I don't think I've gone anywhere without seeing soap. Once a bar runs out in my school bathrooms, a new one replaces it. Teachers have stocked up on hand sanitizer. I can dole out handshakes and high fives to my students with extra gusto. Dunkin Donuts now has an automatic hand sanitizer dispenser at the checkout counter. Even the bars I frequent, with bathrooms to rival American truck stops, have adopted the new soap policy. It's a delightful utopia of sanitation.

Now, now, I can say South Korea is perfect for me.

My New Toy

2009-09-02T17:10:00.001-07:00

Korea really has awesome electronics. It's called a Samsung "Pebble."

My iPod finally gave out after a good long run, so I needed to find a replacement MP3 player. I was drawn in to the Pebble among a sea of rectangular MP3 players at one of our electronics stores, as a lifelong collector of stones and oddities. Although they come in a variety of shiny colors, most of which are chrome-like, I chose the one that looked like polished marble.

At 2GB, it only cost me 63,000 won- about $50. It charges completely through a small USB attachment that hooks into the headphone jack, so there's no cords to worry about. They told me the charge lasts about 13 hours. Perhaps the best thing about it is that it's not synced to any program, like itunes. It's simply a drag and drop folder, and its ready to go. It's very simple, but very unique. And if this one ever stops working down the road, it would make a great skipping stone.

From Busan to Hahoe Village: My Parents in Korea

2009-08-24T23:41:00.001-07:00

With both of my parents come and gone from Korea, I'm now beginning to slip back into my regular daily lifestyle. I'm back to school, with brain clicked back into teacher-mode. Although now my days are less busy and I can return to my somewhat neglected blog, I really miss having my parents here. It was exciting being able to show them around my new country, and sharing Korea with my parents made me feel closer to it as a way of life, not someplace fully separate from everything I left in America.

My mom came two weeks before my dad, right at the start of the English camp at my school. Her first glimpse of my life probably couldn't have been a very exciting one from a touring perspective, between jet lag and my franticness in planning my lessons, but having her see my life and teaching gave me an extra boost of pride in what I do. The next week you already know- we went to Jeju and had more of a vacation experience.

As soon as our flight landed back in Daegu from Jeju on that Friday, mom and I set off on a bus to Busan to get my dad the following day. Well, that was the plan until mom remembered that his flight came in Sunday and not Saturday, so we wound up with an extra day in Busan.

Being a port town, and a very large one, one of the first images going in is a fascinating number of large shipping containers stacked for what feels like miles. Not knowing what to expect, our arrival at the bus station gave us a fair bit of warning, as we were handed an English local paper with a headline about making Busan more foreigner friendly. Two swindling cab drivers put a small crack in my pure good opinion about Korean hospitality, the first and only two times I've encountered this in over five months, but it's only one city. Plus, the charms of Busan far outweighed the drawbacks so I would like to go back again sometime.

Mom and I had a lot of fun shopping around the city, which we didn't have that much time to do when we were in Seoul, and I was able to eat at American restaurants for the first time in months. We also ventured out to Gwangalli beach after catching wind that a Proleague Starcraft tournament was taking place there and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Busan was similar to Seoul, but smaller and easier to get around on foot. Although I have the navigation of Seoul's subway system down easily because of the nation-wide use of the T-Money scan card for transport, Busan uses a local system so it's not as tourist-friendly. However, it forced us to walk around and soak in more of the city instead of just leaping on a subway.

On one such occasion, mom and I found ourselves wandering down a back ally and came across a middle-aged man seated with a half watermelon and a large knife. Between chews and his otherwise serious disposition, his immediate reaction was to cut off two big chunks and offer them to us as we passed by. So you might say that the regular locals left a better taste in our mouths than the taxis in the end.

Dad seemed to like Busan too, but I think his enjoyment was derived from a different source than shopping and walking around...

Wolyeonggyo Bridge

One of our first things to do as a family was head over to the moonlight bridge, which was the first site outside of downtown and my school that I saw in Andong so it seemed fitting. Although, Mom and I had been here before Dad came, having taken a very indirect route through the small mountain behind Scott's school that would, theoretically, lead to the bridge. It ended in us getting lost and traversing through overgrowth and spider webs, weaving around burial mounds (though careful not to disturb them by getting too close) along the mountainside, and eventually coming out next to a very active-sounding house. We had to creep through their property and find our way down to the road near the bridge from there, and after that figured the best way to come this next time would be through the main road.

Although the last time I was there the cherry blossoms were blooming, I almost preferred the look of it on this visit because everything was more green and vibrant. The fall and winter should be stunning too, I think.

After crossing over the bridge we checked out the cultural museum, which is split between the museum itself with artifacts and displays modeling the customs of Korea and Andong itself, and a number of historic buildings outside of the museum that trail up the hill nearby- all moved to that location due to the construction of the dam to escape being buried under the river.

Chung Yang San

Then the mountain. Chung Yang San. I recall after the first time I went there with my school, coming home and saying to Scott that "I have just been to the most beautiful place that we'll never go see, because I'm not climbing up there again." But we certainly did.

Both me and my parents and Scott and his set out. The plan was to find, to the best of my knowledge, the original pathway up the mountain that would lead first to the temple and then to the sky bridge. We found a map that showed us three possible entrances. Only the two furthest from the town where the bus dropped us off led to the temple, and since I spent my first trip there sleeping in the back of a teacher's car and trying not to drool all over one of my co-teachers' shoulders, it came down to a 50-50 guess. Naturally, I selected the wrong one of the two, which turned out to be a very steep driving path for cars up to the temple, and generally used only to walk down. Luckily, the rain held out until we made it to the temple for shelter.

Not having checked the weather beforehand, we were a little ill-prepared the rain, but a vendor counter under the shelter of a raised pavilion was stocked with rain ponchos so we all remained in good spirits.

While we were waiting, the temple supplied all of us taking cover under the pavilion with a tray piled high with dokk (soft rice cakes), these covered in a plain white powder or a peanut powder.

A short distance from our shelter was the large shared temple water basin for getting a drink, so with food and water and great company, it was a welcome break from climbing and the perfect way to experience the communal atmosphere of the temple.

Now, on my first visit, I recall huffing along behind the energetic Mrs. Shim, with serious doubts about my survival. This time I had apparently gained a great deal of stamina, because from my place in front of the line looking back, I could see the same echos of slow-down-or-I'll-consider-pushing-you-off-this-mountain in the eyes of our families.

Actually all of us did very well, and it seemed the strain of climbing wasn't as bad as I'd envisioned. If my parents were having a hard time I would never have guessed, because they were cheerful the whole time. Even though the rain came and went in bursts, added on to the climb itself. It was the first time I'd done anything quite like it with my parents. It seemed everyone handled it much more adeptly that I did on my first trip.

We finally made it to the sky bridge. Because of the rain, a thick mist hung around the mountain peaks, billowing in and out of the cables of the bridge as the rain began to pick up again. Before crossing, however, there was a matter of business to attend to for Dad's fellows back in Ohio...

("O" "H" "I" "O" the signature group stance of the OSU fan around the globe)

Crossing the bridge was the most fun of the entire journey up. It was ironic that I should be up there with my mom, both having said that I wasn't planning to go back, and having touched on in my blog that my mother would probably have a heart attack if she had been there.

Well cross it she did, and with her first step she cried out, to her horror, "It moves!" Once that had been accepted, a new discovery was made: halfway across the bridge, a glass bottom had been installed for about a ten step span. I'll leave her to speak for herself on that one.

With a last look back as the mist began to to devour the bridge, I think my mom made her peace with the thing.

I hadn't known the path beyond the bridge, which turned out to be longer (about 7km) and far steeper than the path up. This time, there wasn't a temple to stop at- we had planned for this route back because the entrance to it was the closest to the village.

Where my legs felt pretty normal the whole way up the mountain, they felt beaten and betrayed the whole way down. We must have been a very interesting sight making our way down that path. We all seemed to have a different approach. At any given time or terrain, one of us might be walking backward, forward, sideways, in a serpentine path, or clinging to another for support.

Treacherous as it was, there was no denying the beauty of the place, especially in those rare moments where the path would even out for a few feet or there would be a break in the treeline (though glimpses outside of the tree cover made us feel like we hadn't gotten any farther down, far us as we were for a long time).

We walked away victorious, and this time I can change my tune a bit and say I'd love to go back.

After braving the mountain, we settled on tamer exploration the next day and kept our discoveries within the city of Andong. Unbenownst to me for the last five months, Andong has had an underground museum on the edge of our park, in what I had overlooked as another pavilion.

The whole place hinges on technology- without historical artifacts, but is very cool and hands on. Walking in, we registered at a computer and were given ID cards that were synced with our names and email addresses. Certain areas involved scanning the badge so the computer could greet you by name, or send a file to your email address. One station was an interactive computer "print block." After picking a traditional woodblock picture or perhaps an old scroll or proverb, then picking an ink color, we had to take up a pad to dab the screen so that it "applied ink" to the print block, then once finished it stamped it out and sent it to our emails.

Other stations included a large step-activated map on the floor to zoom in and out of Andong's historic places, a stage to learn and project yourself into the Andong mask dances, a small electronic encyclopedia of artifacts that could be flipped through using only your outstretched hand in the air as a mouse through motion sensors, and even a DDR style game where your victory ensured a princess' safe passage to freedom across a river on the backs of Andong citizens.

One of my favorite things to do with my parents was eat. One of the best parts of Korea is the food, for sure. Dad I wasn't worried about, knowing his enjoyment of spicy foods, and that he'll try everything at least once. Initially I was worried about my mom, knowing her picky style of eating that leaves out onions and peppers, and Korean food is mostly doused with a healthy supply of red pepper paste. Indeed, she had planned to hate it too, and brought with her a stock of chocolate chip granola bars and a few sticks of beef jerky to give her the protein to survive the month. Both of us were mistaken. She loved the food, especially the spiciest food Andong has to offer- their specialty, Jim dok (very spicy marinated chicken with noodles and vegetables). Happily, when she left she gave me over half a box of uneaten granola bars.

Hahoe Village

It's funny, Andong's main attraction is Hahoe villiage, a traditional preserved folk villiage just outside of the main city, but in five months it's about the only big Andong cultural site I hadn't seen. However, this made it all the more enjoyable to experience something new for the first time with my parents.

Hahoe rests on a penninsula-shaped curve of land along the Nakdong river, the same river that flows down through the Andong dam and past my house. It's been very fortunate as well, in that it wasn't wiped out like many such places during the Korean war, so it preserves the feel for the old way of life.

Hahoe isn't a relic town on display, however. It's still an active community where people live their lives, and in that sense it feels both truely authentic and slightly unsettling. I wasn't sure, peering through a gate to a house courtyard, if I should wander in to get a closer look, or if it would be bothersome.

But the sense of that concern faded quite quickly after a bit of wandering and taking it in. The people living there are clearly very accustomed to visitors, as people from around the country come every every day, especially on weekends. Informational boards in Korean and English mark the more famous houses, so the village is very accomodating and very proud of their legacy.

As the villiage curves along the river, so does the whole town seem to curve and flow in everything from the paths to the roofs. There was no one plan or structure to the whole of the place, and manuvering through wide and narrow roadways, in and out of courtyards, it lost the sense of rigidity modern towns adopt in their network design.

The most stunning sight of Hahoe, to me, is a 600 year old zelkova tree tucked away down a single path in a central part of the village, home to a fertility goddess. With branches the size of tree trunks, it appeared to be a cluster of several trees in passing on the other side of the wall. All around it are lengths of rope, twisted with paper messages and wishes. Mom wrote down a message requesting grandchildren. I wrote a message counteracting that and tied it around hers. That was close.

It was the perfect way to close out the week with both of my parents, in a very quite and relaxing place where we could soak in Korea's culture and walk together without the feeling rushed or burdened by time.

Just a short ways outside of the village is a mask museum (surrounded by countless vendors and plenty of good food), which was a great escape from the heat. I had thought, perhaps, the museum would be devoted to the Hahoe masks alone, but it's split into three parts: Korea, Asia, and World masks. I hadn't quite known the changing degree of masks throughout Korea, for the Hahoe masks are so iconic that I had just assumed that they were the most recognized style.

Though we did indeed get a closer look at the Hahoe mask tradition, we also got to see the differences from region to region- which couldn't have been more different.

Hahoe masks were mostly made from wood, but others employed a wide range of other materials and fibers such as paper, hair, plant material, and gourds.

Farewell to Father

After everything, it was back to Busan with us for a goodbye to both my dad and Scott's parents, who ironically ended up on the same Northwest flight just a few rows apart. We didn't waste the day on travel alone though, and ended the trip with nore bang!

Dosan Seowon

My mom stayed for a few extra days, and although most of them were spent getting back into the routine that the end of summer demanded I reaclumate to, my mom and I did swing out to Dosan Seowon on one of the days. I had wanted to take her there, knowing her interest in Confucian culture.

This time the academy was undergoing a bit of restoration on a few buildings, but even the construction beams didn't betray the lines that the structures set out to achieve; they seemed to fit well together and didn't appear too invasive.

Mom seemed to fit well here, and was very serene, like it was perfectly her element. Much more suited to her than treacherous bridges, anyway.

I miss them both.

Ashley's Wedding

2009-08-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a quick congratulations to my cousin Ashley and her husband Dan on their wedding day. The sun is rising here, which probably means that they are done with it and winding down for the night at their reception. She's the first of my cousins to get married, and it would have been delightful to be there and see it. I wish them all the best, and the most I can do is extend my congratulations through my blog right now- but perhaps I can be there next year to celebrate their first anniversary.

Only in Korea

2009-08-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

So my mom just called me to tell me that she would be late to my apartment because she met a woman on the street who grabbed her wrist and led her off to her home. The woman doesn't speak English, and my mom doesn't speak Korean, but she is slicing up peaches and they are apparently having a great time. Only here would I think of this as being a perfectly normal occurrence.

Vacationing in Jeju

2009-08-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

For the first week of my official vacation, my mom and I flew off with Scott and his parents to Jeju-do; an island province off the southern coast of mainland Korea. It attracts foreign tourists, but also a high concentration of Korean vacationers and honeymooners. Koreans weren't allowed to travel outside of the country until the mid 1980's, so it has a long history of being the exotic travel destination within Korean boundaries. It was once home to several active volcanoes, but now the large inactive craters just decorate the horizon. The largest of these is Hallasan, located in the center of the island and is both the largest mountain and home to the only natural lake in South Korea. Other smaller (the one below) craters sit on the outside borders.

The rocks created created by the volcanos have also contributed artistically to the residents, and perhaps the most signature image of Jeju is of the dol hareubangs (literally, "stone grandfather"). These little guys are everywhere: along roadsides, at entrances to paths and buildings, or set upon hills. I started to regard them as silent but charming tour guides.

We arrived at a somewhat ironic time. Right as we left Andong to go to Jeju, I learned that George W Bush had been in Jeju and had just left to go to Andong. I can't decide if I'm disappointed or if it was fate.

The Hyatt Regency and It's Beaches

Instead of staying in Jeju city on the north end where we flew in, we booked a hotel on the southern coast at the Hyatt Regency.

It reminded me of a cruise ship on the outside, and on the inside all of the rooms centered around a big courtyard.

The pond is home to many fish, and if you get close enough to the edge of the pond they will swim up to you, stick up their mouths, and make sucking motions in case you have food for them.

It was the perfect place to mentally get away from teaching for a few days. At night we left the patio door open to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean. The twenty or so bug bites I incurred as a result were so worth it.

The Hyatt has two main beaches next to it. The first is large and sandy, and attracts the most people to it because it's between two hotels. The other beach was more my style, rocks everywhere and the sand is darker with grains of black and orange mixed in. Since Jeju was once highly volcanic, most of the rocks were formed by lava, and are covered into little speckled holes and depressions.

At night, Scott and I went down as the sun was setting and the tide was coming in. We drew little pictures in the sand at various depths to see how long it took for the water to engulf them. This eventually turned into a battle between us and the ocean, and the pictures turned into written taunts to see if the ocean was strong enough to erase them.

Further down this beach, the rocks become more concentrated, presumably because the cliff that shadows it has dropped bits of itself. On our last day, my mom and I decided to do a bit of beach combing for interesting rocks. As I walked down toward the shore, I was alerted to a crunch under my feet. When I looked down, I saw dozens of little snail shells bobbling along in a mad migration away from me. The expanse of rocks from the cliff to the water line is so dense; it forms several little communities that I started paying more careful attention to.

Yeomiji Botanical Gardens

During our first full day we all went to the Yeomiji Botanical Gardens, which is hailed for it's diverse garden themes and thousands of plant species. It has a large greenhouse in the center, which is surrounded by different garden styles: French, Italian, Sunken, Korean, and Jeju Native. The Jeju garden was a wild tangle of plants, and it led to the more visibly defined Korean garden, with signature intricately painted gazebo and large square lily pad pools.

The Italian garden's best feature was a large fountain that I could walk under or take steps to a small area above, which gave me a nice view of the French garden.

Inside the greenhouse, it is also sectioned off by garden type: Cactus, Jungle, Flower, and Tropical Fruit.

The flower garden was by far the simplest, with its pockets of flowers standing out on their own against largely green leafy backgrounds.

In addition to the plant life, the gardens were helped along creatively by a number of statues. Some, like this one in the flower garden, were worked naturally in to the curves of the surrounding life.

Others were a bit more lighthearted in setting the mood of the garden location- dinosaurs in the jungle garden, or this one in the tropical fruits garden.

Cheonjeyeon Falls

Near the botanical gardens is a bridge that leads to the Cheonjeyeon Falls. The bridge is covered with images of seven nymphs, handmaidens to the Emperor of Heaven, traveling to the falls to bathe.

There are three falls, although the first is the most tranquil with a large unbelievably blue pool. The water seems to come magically through the rocks itself, though on rainier days it would also roll over the flat space above the rock wall.

Sanbanggulsa Grotto

Sanbanggulsa Grotto was about a 45 minute bus ride east along the coast from the Jungmun resort complex. It's a Buddhist temple and shrine winding up the lower regions of Sanbang mountain, with a breathtaking view of coastline below at every level.

Apart from the view, it was the most interesting Buddhist temple area I've visited so far. Most of them are very simple, with most of the extravagance contained inside the temple buildings except for the painted roofs and possibly a small shrine outside. Sanbanggulsa is a true grotto, and is a cluster of buildings and statues of stone, ceramic, and marble.

Not everything matched perfectly, but it was like walking through an antique shop; once everything could be taken in, it was easy to be drawn to certain smaller items tucked away in the nooks of the grotto.

The largest statue in the grotto is large golden Buddha- my head came about midway up his seated knees. There is only one other gold Buddha in the grotto, which I passed on the way to this one; it appeared to be a younger version of Buddha, seated in a thinking-man pose, while this larger one was Buddha in his characteristic, divine, seated pose.

From the busiest bulk of the grotto, stairs continued to wind up the side of the mountain. The stairs ended at a more simply laid shrine set into an open cavern. Water dripped from cracks along the ceiling, and collected in a trough below for drinking.

At first I wasn't sure if I should be taking pictures, because there was a monk sitting peacefully at the entrance and another older man standing watch over the place. However, when the older man saw me sneaking a few shots, he grabbed my wrist and led me up the stairs at the back of the cavern and pointed to the view. If I wanted to take pictures, he wanted to make sure I had the most choice vantage point.

After leaving the grotto, a short walk led us to investigate a sizable stone box on a hill.

This is just one of many such structures around the island, and once acted as a lookout for enemy ships. The posted guard would light a fire to send smoke signals across the island in the event he spotted something (or run on foot to the next lookout during rainy days). A summon to the Rohirrim, perhaps?

Teddy Bear Museum

After all of the walking of the week, my mom and I chose to visit one of the island's many strange museums, and the Teddy Bear museum sounded too adorable to pass up. I wasn't sure if it was going to be a gimmick when we first went in; I might have expected all of the quality of an American tourist trap off the highway, but it was actually very interesting and true to the the subject area.

It had three galleries- the first was a historical look at Teddy Bears throughout the decades with a collection of iconic bears from the original Teddy, to Paddington Bear, to Winnie the Pooh and Beanie Babies. It also displayed a number of Teddy Bear substitutes for famous figures like the Beatles, Queen Elizabeth, and Elvis- as well as great moments in history like the moon landing and the fall of the Berlin wall.

The second gallery was of great art redone by teddy bears: The Creation of Man, The Kiss, the Mona Lisa, and many others. The third gallery was devoted to saving the polar bears, which I suspect is a changing gallery, and had several displays of teddy polar bears trying to escape from extinction by trying such methods as moving to warmer climates or painting themselves at panda bears.

Perhaps if I can come back, I'll try out the miniature theme park, the chocolate museum, or the park of over a thousand goblin statues. Jeju is certainly full of exotic island beauty and curious oddities, and it would take me more than a week to explore everything new and interesting.

Back!

2009-08-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Back to the blog! I've been unable to update for a little over a week due to failed internet proximity and a very full schedule. My dad arrived this weekend, so now both of my parents are in the country so I'm having a great time showing them around. I'll be putting up a post about my week on Jeju island tomorrow- I was almost done tonight but am far too tired to upload photos.

Kilju English Camp

2009-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have made it to summer vacation.

The final stretch was English camp at my school this past week, which had me a little worried at first. Not only would my mother arrive in the country the weekend before so I'd have to prepare early, but I would have to plan to teach a mix of third and fourth grade students in three rotating groups of twenty at a time for 50 minutes each. I'd never taught the third grade before, and only see the fourth grade on Fridays (half of the fourth grade classes, alternating every other week). After asking about what to expect from the third grade, I was warned ahead of time that they were in the beginning stages of English- in fact only just learning the write the alphabet. Oh dear. Mrs. Shim was set to be there on Monday and Tuesday, Mrs. Im for the other days, so at least I wouldn't be without assistance. And my mom would be there to sit in for a couple of days which was really cool. The worrying went away after I got there and saw everyone all together.

It was great to finally be able to interact with the third grade (my English room shares their hallway but we only talk in passing) and spend more time with fourth. The younger kids seems more willing to speak up around their peers and play without being embarrassed. Plus, with two students writing "Voldemort" and "Barack Obama" on their name tags, the tone for the week was set to be very fun.

(Above: "Barack Obama")

This is the topic breakdown I settled on for the camp:

Day 1: Body parts.
Day 2: Letter games.
Day 3: Animals.
Day 4: Colors, Shapes, Numbers.
Day 5: Likes and dislikes.

On day one, I learned that they already seemed to know most of the basic body parts. Though a few of them still needed to be taught that we have two feet and not two foot. Mrs. Shim encouraged me to teach additional words upon pointing and asking me what things were, and I'm not sure which was more funny, having twenty little kids chanting "belly button" or "butt."

On day two, I found that the third grade had been misjudged. Not only could they write the alphabet, they could write several words and, on a worksheet I challenged them with, the letters that came before and after after other letters. I played two games that went over very well. For the first, I put magnetic letters on the whiteboard and made them form two lines. When I called out a letter (uppercase or lowercase- I had both sets up there), the pair at the front of the lines would have to find and circle the letter on the board. Each team had a different colored marker, and the winning team had the most circles in the end. For the second game they formed three lines. I showed the student in the back of each line a letter, and they had to draw the letter on the back of the student in front of them, which was then passed forward until the person at the front of a line could say the correct letter. The first game required more speed and quick thinking, while in the second the team that went the fastest seemed to make the most mistakes during the letter transfer.

Animals for day three started with a focus on plurals and basic articles since I found out quickly that many students had a vast animal vocabulary already. It can't just be "dog" in a sentence- drilling vocab is great until they start saying "I have dog" or "dog is pretty." We also talked about how animals move and put them into the categories: walk, run, fly, swim, hop, and climb. for the final activity, I made them choose three animals, mix them together, and make them into a new animal. Then they had to circle Yes/No questions (Can it climb? can it fly? etc).

Day four was my favorite. After counting to twenty and reviewing what they already knew about colors and shapes, I put all three things together. I brought a bunch of cut up shapes from various colors of poster paper. I told all the students to scatter them throughout the room, then when I called out a color (blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and pink), they had to race around the room and find them, then place them around the corresponding color name card on the ground around the room. One student chose to put a blue triangle in Mrs. Im's hand, so she had to stand there in the same place holding it up until I called out blue- which of course I held out on for a few rounds. Once all of the shapes were found, I made them tell me the number of pink shapes, blue shapes, squares, triangles, animal shapes, etc.

Afterwards, they returned all of the shapes to me, and I called out other colors or shapes for them to find in classroom objects. The door was a rectangle, the computer a square, the clock a circle. My favorite was oval- one girl pointed to my face, another boy found a paper cup and squished the top of it down a bit.

Day five was shorter than the rest, because the start of the day was spent on surveys and the end on a quiz game and distribution of gifts to all of the students. The class was only thirty minutes, so I spent the time talking about likes and dislikes and what our favorite things are. I ended with a game where everyone sat on chairs in a big circle with one person in the middle to start by asking the question "Do you like _____?" If the seated students liked whatever they chose to say, they had to shout "yes I do!" and quickly run to a new chair. The person left standing without a seat left had to ask the next question. It wasn't a game of winners and losers, though in one class they deemed me the loser because I was the one left without a chair, well, "teacher, six times!"

Rabbits and Rice Cakes

2009-07-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

The moon is fantastic. In America, we believe that there's a man in the moon. I stared for years up at the moon and never saw the man. But then, I never quite saw Taurus in the stars either. I thought the whole business was left up to astrological hopefuls. And then I came to Korea. I have now learned that it might not be a man up there at all. In fact, it might be a rabbit making rice cakes.
(Pictures from a google image search)

Now that I can see.

Wednesday

2009-07-27T05:23:00.000-07:00

That is when I plan to post again. My mother flew in this weekend, so I was up in Seoul hanging with her, and now I'm back in Andong enjoying her company and planning English camp this week. Thanks for checking back!

Solar Eclipse

2009-07-23T04:17:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday, I got to witness the longest running eclipse this century. Although it was a total solar eclipse over China, it moved just south of South Korea as it got to us, so in Andong we were able to see it as a near-80% eclipse.

I was teaching English camp at Scott's school when it was set to peak around 11 am, and happily the school was enthusiastic about letting everyone out during its six minute span.

The school passed out strips of red filtered paper, as well as strips of film that were taped triple thick to look through. Scott also brought out the crafty shoebox eclipse viewer, which was a clever way to get the students to stop staring at the sun for so long. Anyway, better than my English lecture to please stop staring at it or you'll get permanent retinal damage children.

I just feel very lucky to have miraculously ended up on the other side of the world so I'd be able to witness a historic solar eclipse. It was absolutely incredible- the last time I remember one, I was in Elementary school in the western hemisphere. This time I was teaching Elementary school in the eastern hemisphere, so it all comes full circle.

Here are a few other pictures I took of it:

(Through a dark purple strip of film- a little macabre.)

(Through the orange strip of film- kinda sci-fi.)

Juwang-San National Park

2009-07-15T21:50:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, Scott and I went to one of the most beautiful places in Korea, Juwang-San National Park. Since our two year anniversary was last Thursday, Scott surprised me with the journey- and no where could have been more perfect.

We hopped a bus on Saturday to Cheong-song, a small town south of Andong, and wandered around until we found the Hill Motel- a brand new 5 story hotel that only cost us 40,000 won (about $35). It's one of the nicest places we've seen so far, and it was conveniently located right next to the most fabulous pizza place, a bakery for breakfast, and across the street from the bus stop for Juwang-san so we could get an early start on Sunday.

It also had a fascinating Fire escape system- in case of fire, jump out the window and repel down the side of the building. Sweet.

When we woke up on Sunday, the clouds were heavy and dark, but we had armed ourselves with umbrellas and bunkered down at the bus stop early enough, so we were optimistic that the bad weather would pass. After arriving at the park, we found ourselves in the middle of a sea of bold North Face outfits and hiking equipment. In our jeans and T-Shirts, we maybe stuck out a little extra.

After passing by a long line of small shops and restaurants and paying the 2,000 won to get in (about $1.50), the first thing inside of the park was a temple, resting under the watchful eye of the mountain peak. This is also an active temple, with monks going about their daily business despite the crowds of people passing through. The buildings were fairly spread out, with a large central courtyard.

Large basins full of water were arranged in circles and rows, with wide lily pads and stunning lotuses in varying shades of pink and white.

Juwang-San is named for King Ju of China, who hid in the mountains and caves from revolutionaries (who unfortunately did catch up with him eventually). The first glimpses of the park were of dense valleys, with the footpath winding beside and over small creeks. Our first English informational sign inside the park was to watch out for famous purple flowers known to the area, that make "visitors feel mysterious." Alas, I think they were past their bloom and I felt rather plain. All of the thick green was a good consolation, so every season is stunning. I'd love to come back again in autumn.

Once the main path led us sufficiently far into the park, it branched, and branched again. We discovered that the whole place is a labyrinth of paths leading to various peaks, waterfalls, and caves (with signs marked in both Korean and English). Although it's not necessary to follow the main pathways through the park, many areas are fenced or blocked off. To maintain perfect preservation of the park, sections of it are restricted for 20 year periods so it can be unaffected by humans. Once the period is up, they are opened to visitors and different areas are blocked. I think this a perfect way to balance our human desire to explore everything, yet still leave nature alone.

We decided to prioritize our time to first visit the caves and the waterfalls. The caves were tucked away deep in the woods or through streams and up cliff faces. They were both blocked by large rocks from venturing too far in, because they weren't lit and the tunnels got narrow pretty early in. In each one there was also a shrine with candles.

At some points, the paths intersect rest areas that are non-intrusive to the environment. The restrooms are updated, and are the only buildings in the park other than the occasional gazebo. And, of course, if you wanted to take a break and lift some weights between the restroom and the river...

(The brand name on the pad reads "Family")

The gazebos were a nice touch for the option of resting away from the rain, which despite our former hopes kept coming down at random. It really wasn't a bother though, because it enhanced all of the colors and sounds, and added a misty glow around the mountains above us.

We preferred to hang out next to the large rock walls as it rained, or just walk on through it.

(Leaves through my umbrella)

The park features three main waterfalls. Although there are countess other smaller ones scattered throughout. They can all be accessed from one main route, which we finally caught up with after a couple hours of wandering about on our own.

This far in, large rock formations became more frequent and rose straight up instead of gradual and hilly.

With so many towering rocks, the park mascot (Smokey?) was more focused on protecting children from rock slides than preventing fires.

Because of all the cliffs, sometimes the only pathway between was for a waterway, so walking bridges were fixed above the water- hugging the side of the cliff.

The first waterfall also wrapped around the rock wall, a spiral staircase of watery ledges that was impossible to take in all at once.

The route to the second waterfall also required following the trail of water, though it detoured away a bit to where the rocks met the deeper forest.

A clearing opened up into a shallow pond, which was fed by the two-tiered waterfall. The location of this one was more calming. Like the stream we followed up to it, the water in the pond was only a few inches deep and made a large circle, like a rippling reflecting pool.

The third waterfall was more of a hike to get to, further up the mountain. It proved to be a blend of the first two waterfalls, only much larger. Surrounded by towering rocks, but also feeding into a shallow pool that dropped off again further downstream.

Next to the waterfall, we were stopped by a small group of picnicking Koreans who offered us something akin to a pancake with flour, green onion stalks, leaves (sometimes with squid or various other veggies). They also gave us glasses of Soju and Dong Dong Ju, a delicious rice wine. After hours of walking, we couldn't have been more hungry and grateful. You can't top Koreans for random hospitality. Although maybe it was because I looked like an unfortunate heathen in my mud soaked jeans.

On our way out of park, passing through the row of restaurants, I was waved over by an elderly woman bent over a large bowl of water. We couldn't speak a word to each other, but she immediately started scooping water from and pouring it on my legs to wash the mud out of my jeans. After thanking her many times in Korean, she rolled up my pant legs and we both had a good laugh at how they flopped around as I started walking away.

To explore the whole park in one visit would be close to impossible. The day was fading before we could get a chance to climb up to the mountain peaks.

The park is only about an hour bus ride from Andong (and although we had to take a second bus from Cheong-song to get there, there was a direct bus from the park to Andong going back), so I plan on going back again to explore the rest of it. And even if I explored it all, I could still come back in 20 years and find there was more to see.

The Korean Dining Experience

2009-07-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

I now have a whole new perspective on eating. Everywhere you eat in Korea, there will be something on the table that is not exclusively for you. This is very different from America, because we are used to having our own plates and often frown upon sharing.

A very popular style of restaurant has a table with a circular grill in the center. Depending on the restaurant, they may specialize in chicken, pork, or beef (the most expensive because of particular import regulation, but very good). You get the number of servings for everyone at your table, brought to your table raw, but it's a free-for-all around the table with chopsticks as you eat off the grill. For pork and beef, you'll also get a basket/plate of leaves to put your meat on with a little soybean paste and wrap it up to eat.

If you're at a restaurant where main dishes are ordered individually, they will still give you a number of side dishes in little bowls to be shared around the table. There is always at least one type of Kimchi, and a number of other things depending on the restaurant (fish, bean sprouts, potatoes, peanuts, anchovies, pickled turnip, corn, black beans, etc). There's so many different flavors on the table- it never gets boring. You never select the sides, they just come with any order. If your meal comes with soup, you will get one bowl of soup for everyone to eat from (When I was out with my school they were giving me a separate bowl at first, to be polite, but I prefer the sharing now).

Even at non-traditional restaurants you'll usually find that you are given something to share. Scott and I went to a restaurant called "New York in New York" and ordered steak and pasta, but we still got the dish of Kimchi. The salad bars at Pizza Hut and Mr. Pizza are priced only for two to share. The idea is that mealtime is a shared experience. It's liberating. It feels good. You also stop noticing how much you eat. You're not always worried about finishing a giant portion, because everyone is eating the same meal. And if there's something questionable that you're afraid to eat, you can always choose to leave it for someone else. But I never do that...

Apartment

2009-07-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that I never really said anything yet about our apartment. It's a rather large studio, but not square so it feels like two rooms. It was built in February, and has a keypad entry for both the front and apartment doors. The stairway and halls are very nice, with marble tile floors and trendy wallpaper panels on the ceilings. The lights are motion censored in the hallways and at the keypad out front.

Welcome!

This is the first thing you see when you walk in our front door, although the cabinets are usually closed. You can see all of the room we left for our guests' shoes if they come over...

This is our room as you see it when you step up from the entryway into the main room. It's changed a bit since I took these pictures about a month ago, but it's kind of in a constant state of change at the moment. We now have a desk for the computer (pictured here on our small dining table next to the bed), and that table is in the center of the room with two brown suede chairs (no legs, floor seating style).

Here's another angle. Outside of those doors is a room for the water heater and a tiled floor with a drain so we can hang clothes to dry. It has also become the storage room for our laundry hamper, suitcases, various boxes, and the basil we've been growing (thanks to our friend Erin here for the seeds). It may be cluttered, but it smells like bruschetta so that's alright with me.

Flipping around now, you can see the other side of the apartment. The two big white doors mark our closet, which is heavenly. Inside, in addition to the hanging room there are two long drawers at the bottom for storage. And then you see our kitchen to the right of it.

It's a pretty standard kitchen- a wonderful size. And then you notice the washing machine.

It's in the kitchen, under the stove top; right where you would expect to see a stove. It's a large drum, without an agitator, which is very nice. The only problem we faced when we first used it was figuring out the settings. This is what came out after trying the dictionary, under the column translated to be Spin Dry (from top to bottom):

- river

- Buddhist monk

- medicine

- spin dry + (unknown)

- drainage + (unknown) + dance

We stopped trying to translate at this point, and have switched instead to random trial. It all tends to come out pretty much the same.

Through the kitchen is the door to the bathroom. Yes- the whole room is our shower. It's very space efficient and you get used to working around the sink and toilet pretty fast.

Perhaps one of the best features of the apartment is the roof. The stairs go up one more floor and lead to a door to the roof. It's like an outdoor room. Nobody goes up there, and it's walled with the same marble tiles in the hallway interior covering the ledges. The floor of it has been painted green, which was fun at first because the sun baked it to make little bubbles that popped like bubble wrap wherever you walked. It offers some great views.

To the right...

...and left. This was when we first moved in and the cherry blossoms and those yellow flowery bushes were in bloom. It's all very green now. To the left of the road is a long strip of exercise/sports park, just beyond that is the river that leads down through the mountains and to the dam.

I love our apartment.

The Classroom/Hallway Complex

2009-06-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

Often times I face kids who won't listen to me or seem disinterested. I'm not talking about the shy kids, but the small percentage of the class that become a real upset in the effectiveness of my teaching. It feels like a battle some days in the classroom with these students. I've identified three main types:

Oh, were you talking? Some students will simply not pay attention to me. I walk up and ask them "Hello. How are you?" and they will look through me like I didn't speak at all; like they haven't heard that same phrase every day. No response, no words at all.

Endless Repeaters. They still try and repeat every word I say (But I've remedied most of this practice by calling out really big English words that they can't begin to pronounce- that usually gets their attention! "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!").

Alphas. Not only will these students ignore me, but they will talk loudly with their friends. Changing the groups around doesn't seem to help much. Their homeroom teachers rearrange their seating chart in their main classrooms so many times, that they always have someone to chatter away with. In some cases, they will try and talk over me. These kids are why my voice is gone on Friday. If I try to get their attention, often times they will roll their eyes or laugh at me and look at their friends. I'm like a monkey on display, and oh, isn't my language just so funny and foolish?

However, mostly it's these same kids who will wave wildly to me in the hallway between classes, or in the cafeteria and shout "Sara! Hello!" like they haven't seen me for years and can't contain their delight in seeing me again; big smiles on their faces. Sometimes, not twenty minutes after I saw them in class.

When I first came here, I felt like a celebrity. I wondered if that would ever fade, and now I'm not sure it will. I definitely feel like I'm reaching a good number of kids in my English classes, but even if I don't, I feel like I'm some sort of image to the others. I'm the foreigner in their school, and when the rest of the student body is present they want to act like they have a relationship with me; like a status symbol. I don't meant to sound self important or pretentious, but from my own observations about the contradictory behavior of some of my students, well, it's one conclusion I've drawn.

Food I Never Thought I'd Eat

2009-06-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

I think this list will probably grow the longer I spend in the country, so I'll keep you posted. These are some of the things that I've had so far, well, that I can conclusively identify anyway (I don't want to talk about the mystery foods I've eaten...):

1. Squid. I'm a disgrace to the name of my blog...but yes, I have tried it. Actually the first time I was deceived, because they were breaded squid rings on a plate of french fries. They looked an awful lot like onion rings. It's chewy and I avoid it the best I can...so maybe it's now "I'll get used to liking anything but the squid."

2. Kimchi. I can't get enough of it now. It's salty and spicy, and oh man...wrapped around a little ball of rice. Delicious. I've even gone back for seconds at lunch.

3. Goat. Yep. The school lunchroom introduces me to so many new meats I never considered...

4. Puffer fish. With my teachers out to dinner on Teacher's Day. They didn't tell me it was once a poisonous fish until after I ate it.

5. Cuttlefish jerky. It looked like the stripped off skin of a human finger with a knuckle in the middle. I can't say that I finished it. Scott did though.

6. Raw beef, raw egg, and pear. I was out with my school for drinks when I encountered this one. It was, I'm not joking, a big heaping plate of chopped up pieces of 100% raw slimy beef. To top it off: a cracked open raw egg, and some strips of pear. The whole thing was then mixed together, and everyone at the table was urged to dig in with their chopsticks. I'm still alive.

Bongjeongsa

2009-06-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Scott and I went to Bongjeongsa (As Mrs. Im explained to me later: "bong" is a colorful bird, I think a phoenix, "jeong" a place where the bird rests, and "sa" meaning "temple").

(I pulled the above photo from the Internet, to give you an idea of the size and location of the main area)

It is a still-active Buddhist temple that was built in 672 AD. It is said that Ui-sang (a monk and scholar) threw a paper crane into the air and built the temple where it landed. Therefore, like most beautiful and historical places in the country, it is set up on a hill. The climb to this one was only about 10 minutes though, which was great news because Scott and I picked the day of 90-something heat for our venture.

We were welcomed to the sound of a high pitched gong ringing at about 20 second intervals. Between rings, we could hear a man chanting. As we walked around we finally caught a glimpse of him, repeatedly standing and sitting back down to bow low to the ground, through the open door of National Treasure Number 15; The Hall of Paradise. It is the oldest existing structure in Korea (It's only been repaired three times: in 1363, 1972, and 2001).

The whole place is quite large, and has several smaller temples on the grounds as well as a large drum, a large bell, and an intricately wired speaker system hiding in the trees so that chanting or daily messages can be heard everywhere you go. This took us quite awhile to figure out- Scott and I were convinced the trees themselves were calling us to meditation. Even walking away, the temple no longer in sight, we could hear the low soothing tones of a man speaking with gentle recorded chimes and flute tones in the background.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing to us was that the temple is still active. We didn't know this at first, because up front it appears to be any other historical site of interest: ticket booth at the base, informational signs outside of every building, travelers walking around with their families taking pictures. Yet it also felt very much like a place where people lived: shoes outside of the doors, farming tools worn from constant use, a mat airing on a fence outside of sleeping quarters, incense wafting from a door just barely cracked open, an outdoor dining area with hanging bananas and tomatoes waiting for mealtime.

And of course, the kimchi jars (traditionally, kimchi is created and stored in large jars buried underground- except for the covered top of it for easy access).

But these monks don't live like the American Amish, as I was inclined to consider at first. They may live in a traditional setting, with traditional vocations and rituals, but they are not without modern amenities. In addition to the speaker system, the first clue was the freshly paved street that lead up up to the temple (and the monk driving the fancy black car that passed us). They also have electric lighting, and at least three flat screen computers that I saw turned on through a screen door. So although they live very naturally and harmoniously in the traditional path of Buddhist life, they seem to have a nice balance with the modern world.

Priceless Language Moments 4

2009-06-19T00:50:00.000-07:00

Mrs Shim: Sara, do you know "pile"?
Me: Yes I do, like a pile of papers? a stack?
Shim: *points to butt* pile. Women have pile. Do you?
Me: Oh? I don't know. Maybe?
Shim: Number one for patients here.

*I type "pile" in a google search and scroll down*

Me: Oh...right. We usually call that "hemorrhoids" in America.
Shim: Hem-er-oids? Can you make a sentence?

Images of Guns

2009-06-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

Two stories here, but for the second I have to credit our foreign friend Peter for sharing at the bar the other day.

1. Plainly Stated in School

For the last day of the "what will you do this summer?" lesson, as part of the plan I had students write three sentences with accompanying illustration on a paper to show what they will do this summer (or this weekend, or after school). In one of my classes, I looked down on my usual rounds and saw a boy had written "Kill a person" on his paper, and was in the process of drawing a nicely detailed M16 underneath it. I asked him "Oh, in computer games?" and he responded with "No. Real life."

I told Taebun, but nothing came of it; the kid was probably just being funny. I, however, have been conditioned to feel horrified. I can only imagine how that would be handled differently in America (Interesting too, considering Scott's recent air soft gun incident). I'm glad nobody can own guns in this country.

2. Peter at the Airport

Peter was at an airport not long ago and shared this observation: Two military men dressed in army fatigues, each walking around with a large gun in each hand. I was shocked just to hear that, because I've not yet seen a real gun in this country although I have seen many military men. He then told us that their free hands were clasped together and "swinging back and forth like school girls." It's very common for men or boys to hold hands here, as friends or otherwise, but in uniform with their guns? that one's new. I think that image will stick with me for a long time.

My Open Class

2009-06-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday was my grand debut to the teachers of Andong. I opened a 6th grade class up to about 25 other English teachers (and some from my school that wanted to watch), as a part of the TEE program ("Teaching English in English"). We had a banner and everything! Scott, Katie, and our other foreign friend Jin were there with their co-teachers among the spectators, so I did have a supportive cheering section.

The lesson was "What will you do this summer?" with an emphasis on the world "will" to express future planning. I actually wasn't worried about it at first. I love to teach these kids, and I always have a million ideas for making changes. Taebun suggested that we dismiss the book and completely revise the lesson, just keeping the same objectives.

The real worry came when Taebun showed up with a complete set of new materials that I suddenly had to fit in and keep track of for the lesson: puppets to use in demonstrations of speech, magnetic white boards for the students, 5 picture cards, and around 9 word cards and magnetic word cut-outs to make sentences with. All of these things were to have a specific order of placement. On top of these, and the fact that I'd only taught in my new English room a few times so far, I had to think up a game that would use more materials.

It's funny, I felt so over encumbered by so many new things, that I couldn't keep my head straight. They were great new resources, but to use all of them for the first time during an open class made me worry that my students would be struck clueless by sudden over stimulation. Taebun and I rehearsed the entire class about 4 times, so by then I felt a little more comfortable. That and I taped my scripts and direction cues to the back of my puppets' heads.

This is what we came up with, and how it panned out:

1. Warm-up/Greeting. Taebun asked the weather/day/date (on this he surprised me by turning to me and asking "is it right?" and I laughed and said "actually I don't know"...a good strong first words for all of the teachers. I did get some satisfaction though when he accidentally wrote "2008." We're a good team.)

2. Storytelling. Taebun and I put on a small puppet performance about "Mike" and his English teacher "Sara" discussing the upcoming summer vacation (to prep for the lesson theme). Although Sara said she would study Korean, Mike ran off when she asked if he would study English.

3. Statement of Objective. This was written down in briefly in Korean, so I'm not sure what it said. It was meant to help along those who might tune out because their English is low, so they need to know what it is they are meant to pay attention to in a completely English lesson.

I think the best part was when Taebun grabbed the magnetic sentence for the lesson title and read it aloud: "I will visit my uncle in London." I did my best not to giggle, but it didn't take long for him to realize that it was supposed to be the sentence that read "What will you do this summer?"

4. Look and Speak/ Listen and Repeat. We finally hit our stride after the few hiccups, and put on our second puppet performance with "Jinho" and "Peter" with the more direct summer planning dialogue. I questioned the class about what they heard, and we did it again. We then did a few repeat-after-me phrases for practice: "What will you do this summer?" "I will go hiking" "I will visit my grandmother"

5. Reading. Taebun asked me "What will you do this summer?" and I showed a picture card with a boy camping to the class, had them guess it, then had them guess each word in the sentence "[I] [will] [go] [camping]" and stuck it on the board.

6. Magnet board activity. Each group (tables of 4-5) had a magnetic white board and an envelope full of magnetic words. Taebun showed the students a picture card for a summer plan, stuck it to the board, and had them race to find the right words for the sentence. They had to hold it up and shout it out. They were "I will go swimming," "I will play soccer," "I will study English," and "I will visit my uncle in London." Taebun was very clever in his preparation on this one for the words, because he through in tricks like "visiting" and "playing." Many students got it pretty fast, but we did make sure all the groups had it before moving on.

7. KABOOM! I found a similar game for vocabulary review online awhile back, and decided to fit it for this lesson. I prepared cans (1 for each table) with sentences in it with about 12 different summer plans ("I will go to academy," "I will play the piano," etc). Mixed into the can were also papers that read "KABOOM!!!". I think I had it worked out to be 36 sentences and 10 Kabooms per can. I spoke, and we demonstrated (two times for clarity) that one at a time, each student would take a paper, read it, then hold on to it. If they pulled out a "Kaboom" everyone would have to shout it, and that person would have to put all of their papers back in the can. The first student to have 6 papers was the winner. It was great, because the more papers every student had the greater the chance it was of pulling out a Kaboom. Many groups started chanting "Kaboom! Kaboom!" when a person who was close to winner had their turn come up. Awesome.

8. Review. A Listen/Repeat exercise reviewing the sentences stuck to the board. Also a brief demonstration in substitution: "play soccer" can become "play tennis, " "study English" can be "study math," etc.

9. Short test. We passed out test papers for review of basics. First I said few sentences and they had to mark the right picture, and second they were shown pictures and had to choose the right sentence. After collecting them, we said thank you and goodbye, and sent our students home.

There was a TEE meeting afterward with all the teachers to discuss the class, but it was all in Korean so I'm not 100% sure exactly how it went. They did point at Taebun who stood up to speak after about 10 minutes, then pointed to me and said "Sara?" I looked at Taebun who said "say something," so I laughed and asked "what did you say?" It maybe seemed obvious to them, but I couldn't tell if they wanted me to explain my ideas for the lesson, gratitude for everyone being there, how I felt the lesson went, or if I like ponies (I do.). At the end, they did open it up to the foreigners who generated some English discussion about our teaching experiences.

The biggest thing I took away from the open class was that my students actually can understand a whole class run in English. We even finished 10 minutes ahead of schedule because they picked it up so fast. Usually I'm faced with students with discipline or listening issues, who fight us and demand "Korean!" as they tune out when I speak and find themselves not understanding the game until someone says something to them in Korean. This time, the students were great listeners because they were surrounded by so many strangers watching them. Even the most obstinate students were like angels speaking English as a beautiful and natural chorus, and the more shy among them spoke up. A frightful sight to behold, indeed, because I didn't know how to act with such a well behaved assembly. It was an eye opener for me. Now, if only every class could be an open class.

A Few Thoughts After Seoul

2009-06-11T01:03:00.000-07:00

Me, Scott, Andrew, Katie, and Peter were in Seoul this past weekend. These are just a few things that captured my notice (though the more specific chain of events are covered on Scott's blog, since it was his birthday weekend).

1. Foreigners.

Foreigners are everywhere in Seoul. At least in the areas with the most nightlife and shopping. As a result, it's not necessary to speak Korean. We tried a few times at restaurants, but with us trying to speak Korean and them responding in English, it started to feel a little bit silly. You would be hard pressed to find difficulty in getting around, as there is English everywhere.

The restaurant options are also more diverse, and many bars are Western styled with most of the space for standing or dancing. Where we went in Shincheon, it was very strange to see that most of the people in the bars we went to were not Korean. And the Koreans I did encounter at these bars were very outgoing and spoke at a high level of English.

Another interesting thing I found was that the foreigners in Seoul act very differently to each other than they do in Andong. In Andong, if we see another foreigner we usually are very neighborly, because A) they probably also live here, or B) they are a tourist and might be disoriented in a more traditional town. In Seoul, foreigners are more like strangers on the street. the anonymity is almost unsettling after two months in my smaller city.

2. The Chair District

Apparently Seoul has large districts devoted to single items. Not knowing this at first, I was starting to grow suspicious after five blocks of chairs. As if that weren't strange enough, almost none of the thousands of chairs seemed to have a matching mate. There wasn't a single era, function, or style of chair missing representation. They were stacked and pushed together, sprawling from the inside of small shops to the street. It was almost impossible to tell where one shop stops and another starts; it all blends together.

There are so many different angles poking out amidst this giant mass of chairs. It would be impossible to choose one among the number of them, and almost a little wrong; like taking a distinct color or shape out of a cubist painting.

3. Dongdaemun's Clothing Market

While the guys (Scott, Andrew, and Peter) were at sauna, Katie and I took off for some shopping. We did actually find a popular shopping district near a women's college, but on a tip from Katie's co-teacher we set off for the Dongdaemun subway stop to find some sort of amazing shopping building. It took about an hour and a half to find the place, where we got lost in the sea of chairs and found a gigantic food market that almost turned me full blood vegetarian, but we finally found the place. It was right across from the old Dongdaemun gate, which is striking against its modern day backdrop.

What we discovered was the longest building possibly ever constructed. Standing at one end, it's impossible to see the end of it, as it runs parallel to a small section of river. Inside, what we found what was probably the wholesale shopping heaven for older women in Korea (pictured below is the one place I found a gap in people to take a picture, which was the most youthful of the sections). The clothes were mostly a little too petite and outside of our age group, but the place itself was remarkable.

It was divided into small booths in one endlessly long, windowless, hallway that stretched the entire length of the building. After 40 minutes of walking without getting a glimpse of an end, we did finally bail out. To walk the whole thing would end only in fatigue for those not fortified with an iron will for shopping. Perhaps with time and practice, I will be ready to try again.

Happy Birthday Scott!

2009-06-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

A happy birthday to Scott, who I would be lost without in my life.

Our birthdays are like milestones to mark our adventures, and I'm glad you came with me to Korea to celerate this one.

My English Room!

2009-06-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's finally finished and I can use it. The only thing missing is the books that will go in the "mini library." I'm so happy!

Four Cakes, Four Bars, One Birthday

2009-06-04T23:46:00.000-07:00

You might say that my party started on Thursday with an impromptu run-in with the foreigners downtown, but I was so tired from the week that after a pitcher of fruit Soju at IDA I feel asleep on Scott. So I really think it started with:

Cake #1

Scott bought me cake #1 on Saturday to share with the foreigners at Candy (our most frequented bar), but after a brief talk with Katie he was a little concerned. What we didn't realize is that it's customary in South Korea to share your cake with the rest of the restaurant or bar on your birthday. The cake was the perfect size for me, Scott, Katie, Alice, Andrew, and Danielle, but perhaps not up to the task of feeding our normally-crowded local haunt.

Luckily when we arrived at Candy there were only 3 other filled booths, so it was a success. The employees brought us some marinated chicken on a hot plate, some chocolate peanuts (M&M style with an extra crispy layer ), and a bowl of cornflakes and fruit mixed with slushy-style milk for "service," which is what they say when they mean it's free.

Because I've been drinking only light Korean beer since I've been here (Hite and Cass), we moved on to possibly the most expensive bar in in Andong: Wabar. The atmosphere is unmatched, and it has a ton of imported beers and mixed drinks (which are actually hard to come by here)...provided you're willing to pay the equivalent of $13 for a White Russian or $10 for the bottle of Guinness that, yes, Scott bought me. Oh Guinness.

Akdong (the "new downtown" district of Andong) was the next stop for the evening, which is about a 10 minute cab ride from the city center.

On my birthday the cab prices were set to rise from the starting rate of 1800 won to 2200 won so it was a last hurrah of sorts. We stopped at Indys, an American-western-style bar (although still with the Korean layout of booths).

Indys also specializes in the tower of beer.

Everyone wanted Indys to play the birthday song for me, but they wanted to know where our cake was. Worried that only cake + birthday = song, Scott and Katie dashed off to find a new one (luckily, there are bakeries everywhere). While they were gone, we learned that Indys wasn't playing the song not because we didn't have a cake, but because they were busy preparing:

Cake #2.

Followed several minutes later by Scott and Katie's return with:

Cake #3 (and a sparkly party hat that I wore around for most of the night)

With two cakes before me, Indy's switched on the birthday song- which was in English. So far I've heard this song at three different bars since I've been here, and it's always in English. The lights turned off, crazy flashing lights turned on, and I stood up to dance around to the "Happy Birsday!" techno remix of the classic chant. Amazing.

Cake #3 was cut, and I was intent on passing out a piece to every booth in the bar. I made sure that a large piece went to the man responsible for the construction and thoughtfulness of my cake made of fruit. Unfortunately, I only made it to three booths before we decided it was too dangerous for me to make the deliveries. The first booth gave me a slice of pineapple and a glass of beer to "One shot!!" (and I have my pride), the second poured me a shot of soju, and the third poured a shot of soju into a glass of beer and again "happy birthday! one shot!" but after one small sip, Katie stepped in to save me from certain collapse. I one-shotted a slice of their watermelon instead.

Our final stop was a restaurant/bar that we discovered several weeks ago has the most amazing food (alas, I have no idea on the name). They also bring you a complimentary large serving bowl of broth that is so spicy that it will knock you out like a shot of soju if you don't sip it carefully.

Here I met 4-6 new friends, none of whom made Scott feel very happy. Two tables of Korean men wanted to take pictures of me with them, which I didn't know when I was tricked into going over there. When one found out Scott was my boyfriend, they sent him some Coca-cola as a peace offering.

And then, well, it wouldn't be a night out without...Nore Bang!

We decided to be finished at 2am after Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing", which was really 4am because Andrew's watch was broken.

Sunday was relaxing, and took no recovery on my part- thank goodness. One of Scott's co-teachers, Mrs. Lee, invited us to her husband's art studio in a converted old school (Scott has already been there, on the day of my English camp at the middle school). I could curl up in a corner of this place and be happy forever.

She arranged for a pottery instructor from a local artist community to come and show me how to make a traditional-style doll out of clay. I made the male version, to compliment the female doll that Scott made on his previous visit.

Finally, Monday came; the day of my actual birthday. While in America I would be turning 24, in Korea I'm still 25 (until the new year when I will be become 26). entering my mid-twenties won't seem so bad in a year when I return to America and can shed the extra years I'm carrying around.

On my way to work, I picked up:

Cake #4

It was a good way to reconnect with some of the teachers in my school- I wandered around the halls passing out cake. I recommend it, communal birthday cake really lifts the spirits.

Mrs. Shim was worried when I showed her the cake, because I didn't "cut it with Scott this morning." She thought perhaps he would feel left out from my birthday if I ate my birthday cake without him. I told her he was probably OK missing out on this one. If she only knew.

When I came home, Scott had this waiting for me:

I was so excited. After Mrs Lee's husband's studio, I really had an itch to paint again- but lacked the means. He couldn't have found me a more perfect gift. It also seemed to be a fitting end to the birthday journey. An empty canvas.

Exhaustion

2009-06-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

I am very tired. I'm not sure if work is getting more difficult or if I'm just getting more involved- probably both. I have most of my birthday blog written, for those who inquired, and I promise to have it up tomorrow. For now, I need to do as so many of my co workers say: "take a rest"

Oh! My English room is finished too! So expect more about that in the near future. I'm pumped.

Dosan Seowon Confucian Academy

2009-05-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

Scott and I decided that we needed to see more old things. We are living in the cultural epicenter of South Korea, but sometimes when we get free time all we want to do is collapse after a long week of teaching. Figuring out how to get there was really easy, but I have to give part of the credit to my encounter with the French man at City Hall when I did my ARC registration, because it was through helping him that I procured the map of Andong. The map includes sites of interest, as well as bus times and numbers to take, and where to find said bus. We took the 67 bus on a 40 minute ride north for only 1,100 won (about $1).

Dosan Seowon is the oldest Confucian Academy in Korea, and is built into the side of a hill overlooking a river. The architectural style is much like other old buildings and temples in the area, curved to complement the lines found in nature, with striking details painted in bold colors on the undersides of all the roofs.

I like finding the buildings that haven't been as carefully maintained with their painting, although the richness of color in the ones that have is still breathtaking. For the entire lifetime of some of these buildings there have been people climbing under these roofs and painstakingly following the pattern of the original design, which indicates a reverence and respect that is fascinating to see.

The location of the academy is perfect. It is up high enough that you can look out and view the entire river valley below, the distant mountains, the forests stretching out for miles beyond the walls. However, the trees in the front block anyone from seeing the Academy from below.

Just across the river is a small round hill on which Sisadan is located (a memorial to an overpopulated examination once taken on the riverbank- more on that in Scott's blog), and even from there the academy view is obstructed by the trees.

It's fitting that way. The buildings themselves serve to blend in with nature, and the essence of Confucian thought is to focus on cultivation the individual and study- which is dramatically served in such a place.

The Academy was built under the teachings and influence of the Confucian scholor Yi Hwang, but wasn't fully completed and chartered until after his death. Being there though, you'd almost think that there was never a more important man at the academy, as his memory is everywhere. The letters he wrote above all the building entrances, the lotus pond he put in that is now home to dozens of frogs, the bamboo garden that he tended and is still growing wild today. There is also a small museum now in one of the buildings where you can view some of his writings, carvings, and even the broom he used to sweep the floors and pot he used to spit in.

The who academy is open to the walking public, with the doors of the old store houses, dormitories and main lecture hall open (provided you please take off your shoes before you enter). The only buildings left locked and sealed are the building where they printed their books (below), and the library which seem the most untouched by restoration. Their purposes have long been served; empty vessels for ancient Confucian air.

Aside from the museum and a guard post on the grounds, the academy is left alone by modern devices. Although, behind every building you will spy a fire extinguisher. A decent precaution, considering the rate of Arson against sacred relics in this country.