Vacation Day 2

Second day of vacation went good, met up with Ken fairly early in the day, after of course sleeping in to 11 again. We pulled out a tourist map of the city and basically just took a look at what seemed the most exciting place to spend the day. The weather was nice so we planned a trip to Geumgang mountain, and/or the Daegu spa. They were both at the same subway stop so we figured we’d be able to hit at least one or the other.

The sun sets early in the land of the rising sun (which we are next to) so by the time we found the mountain it was about 5pm and we didn’t have much daylight left to explore the place. We decided to head up anyway as the view of the sunset wold probably e a good one. We took a cable car up the mountain and didn’t get around trip ticket. There was only an hour until the last cable car came down so we told the guy at the base that we were going to walk down the mountain after. As we were entering the park we saw a lot of older people with walking sticks coming down from their own hikes so we knew it was a fairly common thing to do. The man smiled and made a vague hand motion as to where to take the path down, telling us it was a 40 minute walk.

Now I suppose I could be giving the wrong idea with saying that we were going up a mountain, since its really not all that steep and probably not higher than many of the other little mountains around the city. We got up to the top of the cable car and chased the sunlight to some rocks on one side so Ken could take some pictures of the sunset. I had quite uncharacteristically forgotten my camera. We had a map for the mountain that pointed out a cool restored temple and guard towers down some path, which we started towards but we got sidetracked almost everywhere along the way and ended up climbing a path to a bit of a rocky peak to check out the view. It was being up on that mostly deserted mountain that made me realize how noisy Korea can be sometimes. The honking horns, the vocal salespeople, the pop music being pumped everywhere. Up at the top of the mountain it was just quiet. Well except for Ken’s incessant nattering but I’ve learned to tune him out over the years.

The light was fading fast and after catching a few more pics of the city (which looks really nice at night from very far away, finally found an angle where those garish ads are pretty) we decided to head down. We took a look at the simple map I had but it really didn’t give us a clue as to where the walking path was. We basically set out on the idea that any path that led down would get us to the bottom of the mountain eventually. Ken spotted one such downward path and we headed off.
It only took a few minutes to realize that we were probably not on the same path all the older people take down the mountain. The path was very small and uneven and even we were losing our footing a bit. Tourist spots here aren’t like ones in Canada, where they have all sorts of rangers and lights and stuff to make sure you don’t get lost. And I guess you could say we got a little lost. But we were still confident as long as we were headed down we were fine. The pic you see above was my little joke that we should just give up and go feral, “if you want to survive in the jungle, you have to think like a jungle!” Well about ten minutes after that pic we were we no longer on any semblance of a path and were just blazing our way down the mountain with little light. We kept in high spirits but were both getting a little concerned as to exactly where we were going to end up, since we had been veering a little away from the park entrance. I rebuffed Ken’s offers of water, saying that we had to conserve it, and advised him to find a weapon of sorts in case bears attacked.



Well after going down for a while we hit a fence, with barbed wire on it. This was a problem. It was blocking us from going any further down and we were both worried we had unwillingly stepped into some secret military base. We followed the fence for a bit and found a spot where it ad been peeled away enough to walk through and continued down. We found another path soon and rushed along it until we came out in parking lot to some building. Not sure if we were on private property or not we were happy to find some streets nearby and we soon found our way back to outside the park entrance.
We were both pretty tired from the trek so decided that finding the huge local spa would be a good thing. We searched around for a bit, but having had enough of trying to find our own way I just called Patrick and asked directions.

The only spa I’ve been to here is the small one attached to my old gym, so this one was a surprise. It was fairly busy but big enough that it was not crowded. I’m running out of literary steam so I’ll just give a rundown of all the cool things it had: hot tubs, cold tubs, aromatherapy tubs (we hit up peppermint, jasmint and ‘medicinal’), footbaths, high pressure shower things (like a massage), saunas, steam rooms and even an open air sauna area. The open air one was very interesting as it was cold outside and the tubs were very hot. I had trouble decided if it was worse to be cold out of the water or way too hot in the water.

The sauna helped relax us a bit, we headed back to my area and grabbed some dinner. We went for barbeque again, but the best dish it looked like they had was pork. Which is basically just big ol strips of bacon they bring to you. We had two servings of it, the first was relatively lean, the second was almost all fat. Here they are not really into lean cuts of meat so we tried to be discreet as we cut away the fat and stashed it in a bowl on our table that the hovering propetier couldn’t see.

If you want to see pics of the day just check out Ken’s blog, he’ll probably have a different perspective on the events as well.

Vacation Day 1

It was my first official day of vacation and basically didn't do too much noteworthy, but I had a good time. I started it off by sleeping in until 11 which is always a good first sign that it might not be the most productive day. I'm not usually home at that time on a weekday so I took advantage of the time zones being decently aligned to call my family, skype of course. Skype is a really cool way to keep in touch back home for cheap but i still have an odd distrust for it. Sure it has been good so far with either free or cheap (about $0.02/minute) calls back home, and the sound quality has almost always been excellent but I keep on thinking there is some sort of catch that I am unaware of. It's all fun and games until it demands a human sacrifice, then it gets serious.

I eventually hopped on a subway, with the simple plan of getting a case for my ipod. I've had quite a few mp3 players in my day and i can say without a doubt this one is the best, so I figured getting a case to keep it protected and shiny would be a good thing. i checked online and found on some forum directions to the only apple store in Busan. I've had troubles with internet directions before but I figured after being here a few months I'd be a little less turned around and find it easily. I was wrong. The directions told me which subway exit to get off in Seomyun (downtown) and said to walk for two blocks then cross the street. It didn't say which direction to walk in so I figured it would just be the same direction I was going in when I came up the stairs from the subway. This led me way off target.

After three blocks I knew i was headed in the wrong direction and was about to turn around when some middle aged guy in a business suit stopped me. I didn't hear what he was saying at first because of the aforementioned ipod (podcasts rule, but I'll rant about that later) but after I managed to hit pause I caught the tail end of his introductions. he pointed at a nearby building and asked if I was an english teacher there, as he had a friend that worked there. I told him that I wasn't but I was an english teacher. He asked me for quick favor to help him with a little english. Now not being in any sort of a rush and always out for new experiences I was happy to help him out. He asked if I had eaten, I told him I had. Its always tough to tell if someone is offering to buy you lunch (fairly common) or is just asking how you are. There is a Korean expression that translates literally into "have you eaten rice?", which is like asking "are you well today?", since during a certain part of this countries' history getting a belly full of rice was a real challenge. Of course I hardly ever eat rice so by Korea's standards I've been having a rough time of it lately.
In any case we popped into a bank, which had me wondering at first exactly what kind of job he wanted me to do. If it was some kind of translation job he was going to be sorely disappointed. It turns out we just went in there to sit on their nice chairs while he had me edit a letter he wanted to send to a business associate he had met in Bankok. This man's English was already very good, especially his writing and the points I corrected were partially just simple grammar errors, but the main thing I did was just adjust his composition. It was a lot like helping friends re-word essays in university. The man was very appreciative and very impressed with the changes I made to his letter. I guess all of these blog posts have sharpened my wordsmithing skills to a razor-like edge. When you use a word like wordsmith I hope the sarcasm is understood.
He asked for my email address because he said he wanted a chance to show me around town sometime, but I think it is really just so he can email me letter proofs in the future. Either one is fine by me, proofreading like that takes little time or effort on my part but seems to make a world of difference to him. He also asked if i had any interest in teaching in a university, which could either be a random Korean question (they're always inquiring after my blood type to the point I wonder if foreigners are some sort of hospital resource) or a possible lead on a future job offer. In any case I told him I really didn't know much about university jobs so I couldn't say. Which is kind of a lie, I know that university jobs require a stronger background in grammar than I have. Canadians are kind of famous among esl teachers for having bad grammar, as it is not something we were taught in school to any great degree. i only have a loose grasp on what an article or preposition is, I just construct sentences by intuition. But I didn't think that telling the man I had just done some editing for that I have horrible grammar skills would make his day.

Before we parted ways I asked him if he knew the way to the store I was looking for, which he didn't but he flagged down someone and got directions and sure enough I had been walking in the wrong direction. He insisted on walking with me, but after a block or so he asked two ladies who were walking down the street if they would take me the rest of the way, which I found a little odd. In any case the ladies were friendly and I soon found my store.

Not much else in the way of excitement took place this day, although I did go to meet Ken after he finished work. We hung out with some of his collegues for a bit but I headed home early because I was tired and the subway closes early here.

It may not seem like a great vacation day (partially because I left a whole bunch of stuff out) but it was the type of nice lowkey day I wanted today.

Yep got me a long weekend

And don't really have more than a vague idea what to do with it.
I've got five days off, and its the most significant chunk of vacation I'm going to be seeing for a while. However I don't really know what to do with it. I haven't planned enough to want to leave the country. I suppose I could go to Souel, or maybe just explore Busan more.
Truth of the matter is that Busan is still so much of a mystery to me that going to another Korean city with no plan seems silly. But maybe doing something silly is just what the doc ordered.
i think I'll just sleep on it and decide tomorrow. If I really want to go and do something I'll do it, if I just feel obligated because I have the time off I probably won't.
I can't imagine Kenny would want to do anything too crazy, I don't know if he has as long of a break and he probably isn't ready to move past Busan yet.

Long weekend possible...

As much as I love working with kids, I love my own sanity a tiny bit more - as in way more not like the favorite one of twins you can't tell apart preference.

Some days it can be infuriating that they don't speak my language, despite my constant yells in their inquisitive faces of : "I'm an American, this is America, speak English!". Not true in three ways but still a handy phrase to them to know how to respond to. But by the chary of that same sentence I can see that it is in fact beneficial to me that they don't speak English. It was sorta the last day of classes for some of the kids before their winter vacation today I think, so they were extra special rambunctious.

Now I really don’t have any idea what is going on with my schedule in the next month. Nick told me that we have a five day weekend coming up, which to me is really really cool. I’m not sure if its true yet, I’m going to wait until tomorrow to find out. That way if its not true then at least I have until then to keep the hope alive. But I do know that the elementary schools are not doing regular classes for a month and my schedule will change slightly.

I was told yesterday that I had to show up at the elementary school at 9 am, so but my contract says I never have to start work until 10am so I had a little talk with the assistant director. It went well. She sat Nick and I down and tried to explain how the two days a week we teach part time at the elementary school were going to change. Now the schedule they had drawn up didn’t strike me as immediately great. It basically looked like I would show up an hour earlier and only get a basically lose an hour off my lunch break, the remainder of which lunch time I would have to get from the elementary school to the hagwon. Basically it was an extra hour or two of work two days a week. Now luckily I had good chunks of my contract memorized and patiently explained to them that they couldn’t actually make me show up for that extra time. They offered me overtime hours, but since my overtime pay works out to less than my regular hourly wage I said no. In the end I stayed firm and got them to take two classes out of those days and wrangled myself a nice 1pm-3:15pm break in the middle of the day where there was originally a 1-1:30pm break. I asked them to kindly put that agreement in writing for me. Nick thanked me for it later as he was just going to go with their original offer.

Now split shifts suck, but at least I can go to the gym during this time and therefore free up some time in the evening.

If you ever wondered if its tough to live in a country without speaking the language I propose a little experiment. Just when you go out be really disinterested in what other people say to you. Its about the same effect. Not that I am disinterested but sometimes my conversations with locals remind me of when you’re really drunk and not really catching what the other person is saying you’re just thinking about how fluorescent lights remind you of star wars. Its just kind of a feeling that overtakes me sometimes when I realize that I’m not going to spontaneously understand what they are saying and will have to just wait for them to stop talking.

Now at the same time I can understand that having people speak English in your country might be a little bothersome. The other day when Patrick and I were on the subway an old man came up and motioned to me that he wanted to sit down. I nodded and pointed at the empty seat next to me, wondering why he didn’t just sit down. Patrick and I were having a conversation, and half a stop later the old man turned to us waved his hand in a commanding way and motioned for us to be quiet. Now we were not talking loud and we were not the only ones on the subway talking by far. Patrick tried to reason with the man in Korean, but he had no interest in talking to him. It was about this time we realized he just didn’t want us talking in English, and that he really didn’t seem to like white people. I also thought about how he probably wasn’t asking to sit down before, just asking me to go away so he could sit down in peace.

Now I can respect that we are in his country and speaking a foreign language could be rude, but we were both paid to do that exact thing and we were once again not talking loudly. Now in Korean culture you are always supposed to defer to the wishes of an elder, which I usually do my best to respect. But in this case I just figured well heck, racism is racism and I’m not going to go out of my way to please him. So not only did we go back to our quiet conversation but I decided to not keep pulling in my shoulders like I always have to do in the narrow subway seats. This casual motion took a little of the old man’s shoulder room away and had the added benefit of letting my elbow jut somewhat lightly into his lower back. Somewhere near the kidneys. Surprisingly he got up and moved seats shortly afterwards, with an angry goodbye gesticulation to us. Well at least I finally answered that age old question : “when is it ok to bully an old man on the subway?” answer: “well never really, but its less unacceptable when he’s a rude racist.”
Anyway slightly earlier day at work tomorrow so goodnight all.

Mulcahy's Christmas

I do tend to forget to bring my camera with me to just about everywhere I go. Even when I know in advance its going to be somewhere fairly interesting. Ken was out of commission today, you can check his blog for all the details. I ended up meeting up with Nick and Patrick and a bunch of Patrick’s friends at an orphanage to play games with the kids and hand out presents. I got in on this idea a little late in the game, and really hadn’t helped do all of the hard work like organizing and preparation, I just donated some money to the gift drive the other day and that was about it. Now I know that handing out gifts to Korean orphans sounds very altruistic of me so I just want you to know that other people did all the really hard work.

That being said I was really glad I went, and I was able to lend a hand in the festivities. When we got there we brought lunch for the kids, some traditional Korean food like gimbap (kinda like California rolls) and bulkogi (like rigatoni, but not really at all) and a whole bunch of pizza. Pizza places are common here but it is considered a bit more of a treat than back home, and they put things like corn and potato wedges on them. Then we went out into the yard and hid a whole bunch of candies for the kids. Now ‘hid’ might be too strong a word, we were basically given the choice of either making it really obvious or near impossible (basically burying them). We opted for the former.
Now as far as I know we don’t really have orphanages in Canada, so I was a little curious to see what the orphans were going to be like. Nick was telling me that here a lot of these kids are just left in the Subway and eventually the authorities pick them up and bring them to orphanages. When they came they looked pretty much the same as the kids at the hagwon, even the way they dressed. This is slightly surprising, since those kids are the rich kids (or at least well off enough for their parents to send them to private school) and these ones are not.

They enjoyed their food but you could tell they were fairly shy around the foreigners at first. There was something interesting I noticed about the way they ate too, they actually had leftovers. Now this strikes me as odd because the kids I teach never fail to finish any food that is put down in front of them, in blind defiance of the cries of their sated appestat. These kids ate until they weren’t hungry anymore and then stopped. Weird.

I helped clean up while the kids hunted for candy, but got outside in time to help some kids get some hard to reach candies. It seems that someone had used a penknife to thread some candies into the branches of a tree that they couldn’t reach. That someone was of course me.

I saw one of the other foreigners with a handful of candy a bunch of the kids had given him. I just shook my head at him and admonished :”Geez man, stealing candy from orphans on Chirstmas day. You’re a real class act.” He laughed and just gave the only response you can. He shrugged and said: “Yeah well..”

Then we had our first game which was a dancing one. The premise being simply you dance when the music is playing and stop when it stops. We were pumping a NKOTB ‘Funky Christmas’ album, but at first not many of the kids actually wanted to dance. Understandable. When I was eight years old and my teachers ran ill concieved holiday dance parties in my elementary class I remember not wanting to look like a fool either. Nick and I broke the ice a bit by getting up in front of everyone and dancing in a way that was wilder and more embarrassing than anything they could think of so they just starting getting into it. I pulled out every fancy move that I could remember from four years of dance, movement and clown class from university and they seemed to really enjoy it. And yes I split my jeans but no one noticed.
We followed that up with a few other group games outside before heading inside for some Christmas carols. We sang a few for the kids, I even soloed a bit with Frosty the snowman when everyone else forgot the words. Either that or I was off tempo and the loudest. Who cares, I got my closeup.

Then some of the girls showed us some choreographed dance moves they had put together to some korean Christmas songs. Oh sure they weren’t actually all that good, but we all loved it anyway. I think I’m starting to understand how parents can watch kids do horrible plays and recitals and still like it. Its cheesy but the kids were just so adorable.

Then the big moment came when Santa showed up. Santa was in fact Patrick who had been waiting down the street for the last few hours so as not to ruin the surprise. Which kinda sucks for him since he missed the rest of the day but then it was a good surprise for the kids who had a new foreigner to look at. Santa was a little tall and thin to fit the regular image and his beard wasn’t white but honestly I don’t think the kids minded one bit.

They had been given ‘Dear Santa’ notes before so the gifts given out to the orphans (there were maybe 30 of them) were somewhat personalized. Renee, one of the girls who was the main organizers confided that they were worried since they sometimes had to guess and they weren’t always sure from the letters whether the kid was a boy or a girl. But for the most part there weren’t any big problems.

It was the first kid to go up, a pretty little girl, that had me all full of Christmas cheer. She got a teddy bear and you could see that from the moment she opened it she suddenly had a new favorite thing in the world.

The next kid was a boy who was given a knitting kit. I turned to Renee to see if we had to rush in with a replacement gift (they had a few in the back just in case) but she just shrugged and assured me he asked for it.

Overall the kids looked thrilled with their toys, and it was nice to see the older kids jut take the younger kids into their laps and explain their new gifts to them. Such a family relationship there.

Anyway the time at the orphanage I just consider a cool gift that I got, since it was the other people there that did all the really hard work. Now don’t tell me that dancing in front of kids is hard work, cause its not. Buying and wrapping gifts and making food and planning events is tough. I’m not saying I didn’t contribute, I’m just very lucky to have had a job that day that was the least amount of effort with the highest returns.
And just before I was leaving I went behind the mess hall to the chicken coop and chased around some chickens for a bit. Its not something Christmassy but its something I’ve long wanted to do and I figure in a Korean orphanage was a good place.

After that Nick, Patrick and I headed down to the Seaman’s Club for Christmas dinner. It’s a club run for merchant marines that specializes in western fare. They had a buffet set up with all sorts of traditional Christmas food. Turkey, ham, beef, potatoes, corn, pie- basically just like back home. So I got to end the day with a nice comfort food meal with some good friends. It would have been better if Ken had been able to come along for the day- but hopefully I’ll be able to show him a good time on new years.

Anyway this was a really cool Christmas for me, probably in some ways the most Christmassy Christmas I’ve ever spent.

I hope that all my friends and family and even the people I don’t-much-like-but-don’t-totally-hate are having great Christmasi too. The rest of you? Well I hope you get diarrhea.

Twas the night before Christmas

Its always kind of hard to realize that christmas is only about an hour away for me. I know that many have worried how lonely I'd be at christmas, but I do intend to spend it with friends and so far haven't felt all that lonely. I miss everyone a whole bunch but that in itself luckily isn't making me lonely.

I met up with Ken again today and I think I may have given him the gift of whatever stomach bug I have. And it really does seem to be the gift that keeps on giving. We walked aroung the area that he's in for a bit and saw quite the bit of christmas themes. It actually looked alot like the decorations and festivities you would see in Toronto on Christmas eve, but for some reason it still didn't seem real to me. There was something missing, and not just a sea of palefaces. And it wasn't the company of my family which even back home I wouldn't usually see until christmas day itself. Then I looked down and noticed something, my jacket wasn't zipped up. Then like a sexy version of Ebeneezer Scrooge I discovered what I had been missing from home. Soul-numbing, spleen-chilling cold. Christmas just isn't the same without it. its warmer.

Anyonghasay-Ken

Well its been a few days since my last update and that was partially due to the horrible stomach craps I was having on Friday and Ken coming into town. I'm fairly certain something I ate on Wednesday just did not sit well, but in any case all of that unpleasantness has passed.

First off Friday at the school was pretty fun for the most part. The entire time with the kindergarten kids was just taken up by Christmas festivities. First off they had Nick and I dress up as Santa Claus and hand out presents to the kids, which was kind of neat. Its the first time I've ever dressed up as Santa and the reactions of the kids was largely favorable. Some of the younger kids seemed confused at first but once they realized we were giving shiny presents away they warmed up to our act considerably. Some of the older kids tried to point out that I wasn't Santa but in fact Kevin, which I denied vehemently. It was tougher to keep up the ruse when Nick pulled off his beard cause he got some hairs stuck in his throat. Then Nick and I played some songs for the kids. I'm not the best guitar player but the songs were simple enough, although I thought we would have more time and only got to do Rudolph and the 12 days of Christmas. Frosty the Snowman was our showstopper but we never did get a chance to break it out. We had managed to put in some 'Oooga Chuckas' (a la Hasselhof's 'Hooked on a Feeling') in the song in place of the 'thumpity thump thumps'. Patrick had taught the kids Ooga Chucka about six months ago and he says its the one thing that stuck with them.

After that point we all went on a bus ride to a theatre across town and watched a musical production of 'The Nutcracker'. Now this is the first time I had ever seen the Nutcracker, it was one of those Christmas stories that I was always aware of growing up but never really heard it. Well now I have heard it. In Korean. Its still largely a mystery. Muscials are very visual so I did get the general plot but for a lot of it I was just entranced by the spectacle. It was just about what you would expect from a Canadian kids musical with a decent budget except that it looked like everyone was dressed by the costume designer of Final Fantasy 9. i realize that comparison will be lost on most everyone who reads this, but rest assured its a very good comparison. Overall the musical was relatively enjoyable and the kids seemed to like when something on the stage involved blinking lights or confetti.
The rest of the day after that was business as usual but you would think with so much cool stuff going on in the morning I would have some good pics but all I managed to snap were some pics of our kids getting ready to go into the muscial. They're the kids in the back, I don't know who those kids in the front are.

The other teachers were taking lots of pics of us when we were dressed as Santa and hopefully I'll get some of those up soon.

After school I got a call from Ken and went down to his neck of the woods to meet up with him. It was about a 40 minute subway ride, which is unfortunate b/c it means we probably won't be able to meet up all that often most regular work days. In any case i found that Ken's area of town is fairly upscale and more westernized than my area. The corner I met him on had both a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts among a few other western restaurants. I also saw a lot more westerners walking the streets than I do around my area. Ken seemed to be doing alright, besides being in complete denial about having jetlag. I saw the place that he's staying in for a few weeks till his apartment is ready and it looks like he will have things a little easier overall than I did when I started out. Bastard.

He was still a little anxious about some things so we went out for dinner so I could show him how easy it was to order food in Korea. Now the problem is that I don't really go out for food much and really don't speak much useful korean. I've been keeping up with studying it but sometimes learning how to say 'the young boys jump' just isn't immediately useful. We went to a grill house and I knew I was in a little trouble right away when I saw that the menu was written in a calligraphy, so I stumbled a bit with ordering since I couldn't 100% figure out what letters were there. Then the waitress asked me something and I had no idea what she meant. I knew she was just asking for further details of the order but I couldn't recognize the words she was using. After apologizing for not understanding a lady at the table next to us helped me out. Turns out the waitress was asking if we wanted our pork ribs with or without bones. Well now I know the word for bone. We had a good meal and a few drinks. My stomach was feeling better and I was very hungry from not really eating all day (aside from a dozen maalox) and I even enjoyed the beer and soju. We hit a bar after the restaurant mainly just to keep talking and so I could impart what little tips and hints I had. Most of these tips seemed to be sliding off Ken's half asleep face. The jet lag was obviously catching up with him so we made plans to meet the next day. I showed him how to use the subway and I was off.
Today he showed up and i let him use my internet phone to call home and he updated his blogs and stuff. Then we just did a little bit of exploring, I tried to help him order some food throughout the day and although it never really went smoothly he started to understand that it didn't usually go smoothly for me either. Invariably a waitress or clerk will say some random thing you don't understand, but by the time we had dinner tonight Ken managed to handle the ordering all pretty well. For a good part of the day we just hung out at my place and talked, but we did head down to the docks so I could pick up tickets for the Christmas dinner we're going to. Nick was supposed to come along for that too but after calling him and finding that he was in that borderline dead state of being hungover we just did it ourselves.
It was kind of odd for me to be kind of the tour guide here since although I've been here two months I really don't consider myself that knowledgeable yet. I haven't been confident enough to go outside my comfort zone too often.

But it is great to have Ken here, I've met a lot of friendly people here but its nice to have someone here I feel really comfortable with. Its also nice to have a friend who is similar to me in not always wanting to go out drinking. I don;t mean to offend or judge those ESL teachers here that do that I just choose not to myself for my own reasons and its nice to have someone here to hang out with in other situations.

Plus I figure it should make learning the language so much easier if we just split it up. I'll learn the nouns if he'll handle the verbs and adjectives. Should cut my study time in half at least.

And his heart grew three sizes in his chest...

Major medical complicatoins of said condition aside I had a good pre-christmas day at work today. The party at oxford isn't until tomorrow (did I mention thats the name of the school I teach at? Gonna look pretty good on a resume) but the elementary school I teach at had some festivities today.

One of the classes I teach I basically just ran an english themed christmas party for, my only task given to me was to teach them a christmas carol: "I saw three ships!". You probably don;t know it by name b/c it is not terribly popular or good but if you heard it you woul know it. I was provided with a tape to teach the song with, which I managed to mess up. We heard the carol once and then I could not find it on the tape again. i must have fast forwarded and rewinded twenty times and just heard some bratty kid singing 'they'll be coming around the mountain.' But the kids seemed to find my inablility to find the track more entertaining than anything else.

I've got a wicked stomachache right now from something I ate yesterday and will have to cut this blog short as the naseua is getting the better of me. It hasn;t decided which end its comingout yet but it won't be pretty either way. some highlights of the day though were when one girl showed up ten minutes early for on eof the classes (all of her classmates were still playing soccer) and looked so bored and sad. SO I took one of the left over ballooons from the first class, put a penny inside, blew it up and drew a picture of santa on it. We batted it back and forth for ten minutes (the penny adds a randomness to its fall that makes the game more fun) without a single word being said in communication. Now when her male classmates showed up they of course wanted to play too and the first kid spiked the ball into a desk so hard the penny popped the balloon. I was afraid it would be a sad moment but I let the girl keep the penny and she was thrilled (foreign coins are huge here).

Also the following pic is of the gift that this group of classes made for me, a korean flag signed by each one of them. I only see these classes for 50 minutes a week so its cute to see that I make such an impact for them. I know thier teacher made them make it but its still sweet some of the messages they left. I'm not sure how much they know what thier messages mean, judging by the number of 'I love you"s I got. I even got one proposal on there. From a guy named Ben. But his english is good enough that I know it is a joke. Anyway I'm really thinking bed would be a good thing right baout now, but reast assured this gift somehow managed to bypass the 'no stuff nailed into the wall' agreement I made with my landlord. Not that she knows it yet.

Haven't talked to ken yet today, got an amil that he had no idea where to find a phone and was experiencing some culture shock. His director is taking care of him though and its unlikely I'll hear from him today at this point. i'll repost this tomorrow all spell checked.

Christmas is coming early this year

Well I suppose it is in the strictest sense, since I am 14 hours ahead of normal time (which i also call real time.) And i suppose it will be triply true when I take into account i got me a package from a hot little thing in Canada that looks like a Christmas gift. Heather has been all secretive about what the gift would be and I won't open it until Christmas but the customs declaration form on the box has an easily decipherable code. Roasted coffee could mean a million things though. I've gotten so used to the instant crap that I wonder what kind of sensation it will be when i finally get a real cup in me. It will make that subway ad I saw the other day ring true: "Don't Worry be Coffee."

But the original reason I was referring to Christmas coming early is that tomorrow I get me a jetlagged bushy tailed Ken of my very own. He should be getting into town sometime in the afternoon, and if he's up for it I'll go over to his neck of town and hang out. Part of me was hoping to be very fluent in Korean and be able to introduce him to everyone in the city by first name by this point. Partially b/c I know how much he's gonna pickup in his first 6 weeks here and how it will easily top anything I've done.

In any case I hope I get to see him tomorrow, I don't know if his school or coworkers have plans for him. Also i really should find time to practice for Friday. Nick and I were informed were would be dressing up as Santa for the Christmas day on Friday. I'm fairly certain that they mean two different costumes and not having to split up into head/tail sections. Both of us being in the holiday spirit we decided to throw together a few carols on Nick's guitar and surprise everyone with them on Friday. Of course I haven't played in ages and I could use a little practice. My fingertips are sore just typing now. In any case the next few days will be busy, but busy with fun stuff I want to do. And isn't that the real meaning of Christmas? Or does it have something to do with Jesus?

I'll Merry your Christmas!

Christmas is almost upon me, a point that I sometimes forget up here. I already took care of all my gifts for my family and before I left. I decided to buy a gift for my girlfriend off eBay and got screwed out of a couple hundred dollars; yep i was hoodwinked by a shishter, duped by a fiend, taken in by a taken-inner. Didn't mention it along with my other woes these past weeks because it wasn't strictly Korea-related, and thats where the blog related hilarity lies. I've bought on eBay before without troubles, this here was an A1 scam.

Anyway the yuletide is almost upon me, and this is my first Christmas ever when I'm not in the country of the cold. They deal with Christmas a little different here, its not as commercial. Not for a lack of trying from the advertisers, more a lack of obsession by the consumers. Sure you see ads at the stores but it all comes across as a half-hearted labor day sale. You will be happy to hear however that the Koreans do pay allegiance to a white Santa (not sure what their Jesus looks like, but at least they're on the right track). The kids in my classes all seem to be looking forward to it a fair bit but even they will admit that it is only their second favorite holiday. The first is typically something called Children's Day that is happening in May I think. I don't know much about it, any attempts to interrogate the kids on it are met with language barriers and the expression "Moo-ah-la?" which I think is Korean for "What you talking about, Willis?". Somebody really should teach those kids some english. In any case I'll assume its a planned uprising of sorts and plan correctly.

Now with Christmas I only get one day off, so I don;t have a heck of a lot of plans. I think I get two off for New Years and might try to get out of town for that. Ken is coming into town in a couple of days and i really should keep my schedule clear in case I have to spend the weekend cradling him in my arms, feeding him kimchi and whispering: "just close your eyes and pretend its poutine".

Now I am not grinchin out on anyone but its actually kind of nice to have a break from Christmas. Now its one thing to be in Canada and not get wrapped up in the commercialism of it all but its another thing to be really separated from the whole holiday. I have no doubt I'll spend most of my life in Christmas dominated countries so this is more of just a nice little breather. I hope that everyone back home is having a stressfree Christmas, and will enjoy their time with friends and family.

Will I miss my family on Christmas? Most definitely, but none of those feelings will sink in until the day itself when I get incurably wistful and make some homemade eggnog out of milk and soju and sing Christmas carols.

The carols I do get a lot of here though. Nick and I discovered we had both taught our classes how to sing "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells..." (although I did not try to belabor the double entendre of Robin laying an egg) and the music they play at the gym is full of pop star covers of Jingle Bell Rock in Konglish. They are also really big on that old Wham! song 'Last Christmas', to the point where they will have a playlist of two different covers of the song playing two minutes apart. They seem to be singin by phonics only, which probably explains why they are so heartfelt. Tough to make that song deep when you actually know what the words mean.

And yes Schwindt, the title of this blog is a tribute to you.
Why don't you shut up for old time's sake?

Kimchi and Me

Well I went to the temple today to make Kimchi, it was an interesting experience. I arrived late after not finding the shuttle bus at the station. I was told to catch the shuttle bus at the bus station and didn't for some reason make a beeline for the small green van that was in fact the shuttle bus. i would have taken the time to explain what a 'bus' is but it was my day off so no english teaching.

The temple grounds looked nice enough, although I didn't really get a chance to explore too much. There wasn't that big of a group there and only one other westerner, a guy called Joey who is a high school exchange student from Wisconsin. There was also a television crew filming a segment for the news. And they angle they seemed to be going for was to focus on the two westerners making kimchi. We pretty much had the cameras following us around the entire afternoon. I don't mind being the center of attention so it was kinda neat I guess, and the other dozen attendees seemed happy to et us have the limelight. They even had us stage our entrance to the temple, coming in together down the long path and looking around in awe at everything.

I spoke a little korean for the cameras just basic phrases like: "Korean Kimchi is delicious! (as if I was aware there were even other types of kimchi) which they were all far too impressed with. But for the most part i just answered their questions in english, which means I'm now curious to watch the segment when it airs to find out what they are going to put for subtitles. We went out to the fields and dug up some cabbage and then did the cooking show version of making kimchi. Which basically means that we would soak the cabbage in saltwater,but not for the twelve recommended hours. We then chopped up some pears, radishes and leeks and rubbed down some pre-fermented cabbage with them and voila: kimchi!. Okay there were a few more steps but thats the basics. Sometimes Joey and I were at a bit of a loss as to how to answer some of the reporter's questions. Alot of questions like why we were in shortsleeves when everyone else was wearing winterjackets (a combination of it not being that cold at first and not wanting to get kimchi on my jacket) and how did it feel to throw foil wrapped yams into a firepit (liberating?). Most of it went like this:

reporter: Was it tough to get the cabbage out of the ground?

My kneejerk response: Nope. They gave me a real sharp knife to do it with.

My Actual Response: I wanted to be very sure to do it right and not damage the plant. It was a very new experience for me.

Likely subtitles: U S A! U S A!

They were all really friendly at the temple and invited me back for traditional japanese kite making next month. It was a bit of a cultural experience, just maybe not the one I expected. I'm not going to find a pristine old temple with monks and people carting rickshaws. The truth is the television culture and the warm response they have to north americans is more about what Korean culture is like now. If I want something a bit more esoteric I should hit up a museum (which I of course plan to do). This is probably the equivalent of going ot a maple syrup festival in Quebec. And they sent me home with an ass load of kimchi (one batch of which I mostly made myself), which will make an interesting addition to my breakfast.




Oh and this new wallpaper rips when you use velcro tape or glue on it. Things you learn. I'm going to have to make a few minor repairs. If only somebody had warned me not to try to put stuff up on the walls.

"Thank god for velcro..."

...that's something I invariably find myself saying every day but today I really wanted to give Arthur Velcro a double high five. I was told not to put things on my wall with glue nails or tacks. So I took a look at my local dollar store (cause that's about my spending limit for interior decorating) and found some velcro tape. Now the picture on the package showed this stuff holding a remote control to the wall. Now I figured, well if its strong enough to hold a remote control on the wall it must be strong enough to hold a big mirror and a bunch of pictures onto poorly mounted wallpaper.

I was not told to avoid taping things to the wall. It was implied. Oh boy was it implied. But never said.

So I've managed to put my stuff back on the walls with a clean conscience. And does my stuff fall down? Sure yeah a bit, but it doesn't get too broken. And don't we all need a little crash now and again to remind us what a cruel and powerful mistress Gravity is? That could just be me.

Tomorrow I am planning to go to a Buddhist temple and make kimchi. As per the title of this blog I think my relationship with kimchi is allegorical of all my struggles in life. Cabbage is an evil food that represents the evil cabbage that is within all of us. I eat it almost daily now, all pickled and spiced. I realize now that kimchi isn't cabbage its dead cabbage that has been stripped of all its evil flavor and nutrients (well actually it can be other stuff like radishes and stuff, kimchi is more of a process than a food, and actually is very nutritous). So in reality tomorrow I will kill some cabbage, which represents me subjugating the malicious mushroom inside of me. Its a complicated allegory.

Its about time I started taking in the culture, and this seems like a good way to start. I read about the event on a korea forum and signed up (b.y.o.apron was the only requirement), as the kimchi making festival is a popular cultural thing here. Sure there's a part of me that feels like it might just be a bunch of Buddhist monks Tom Sawyering me into making their lunches for the winter. But then there's the other part that says that these monks probably know all sorts of kungfu and I'd better do what they want. Luckily for me that same dollar store sells nunchucks.

No news is good news

Well I heard a few grumblings that I did not update my blog recently, but that's probably indicative of how smoothly things have been going for me this last week. Now I haven't been getting up to anything particularly exciting, one of the things that surprises most people is that most of the time here its just a work, gym, eat, sleep routine like back home. And that there is not newsworthy.

But now that a little shit has hit the fan again I feel I have something to gripe about, which is really my best fuel for posting. While I was at work today apparently my landlord sent some people to redo the wallpaper in my apartment and clean the place. News to me, I only found out after the fact when I was on my way home from the elementary school and received a call from my school's secretary telling me that the landlord was mad at me for putting stuff up on my walls. Which I think is unfair because there were things up on the walls when I moved in. I was told not to glue or nail anything to the wall. Now I had hot glued some pictures to the walls, however it was thick, coated sturdy wallpaper and honestly I had caused no damage. I know because I had moved the pictures many times and there was absolutely no trace of them. I think its silly to put someone in a small apartment with white wallpaper and tell them that they are not allowed to put anything up. They put crazy people in white rooms. White rooms sedate ambition and higher brain functions by forcing you to face the futility of infinite absence of color and life. I think along with junk food and alcohol they help a lot with pacifying the working class. So I was a little miffed at being told off second hand, and finding out that someone had been in my apartment while I was out. The place didn't need new wallpaper and a cleaning (I had spent six hours on Sunday cleaning the place to the bone). Well 'luckily' for me it turns out that the secretary was only half right. They did not clean the place. And in truth they did a half assed job on the wallpaper so really its more like a quarter right. I now have two different kinds of wallpaper up in my apartment. One is a shiny offwhite the other is a shiny grey floral pattern. My guess is that the landlord hired the cheapest labor she could find and they just used the ends of two rolls of wallpaper they had lying around, and maybe about half the amount of wallpaper paste they should have. There are tons of places where the wallpaper is bubbling out, sometimes half an inch in places. Some of my outlets no longer have covers on them because with the way the wallpaper is put on they no longer fit. And the floor was filthy, it looks like they were standing on my computer table from the mess that was left there, there is dried wallpaper paste on all the formerly clean wooden surfaces in my house (thats where it all went), and bits of wallpaper all over my bed and room. I couldn't even put up my pictures again (which I fully planned to do) since the wallpaper was done so poorly.

I called the school and bitched them out. Firstly bout not telling me someone was coming into my apartment (they said they forgot) and secondly for letting a half assed job take place. They asked what they could do to help, which seems to be a common thing here. Everyone is very upfront about offering help, but as I 've discovered it is really ineffectual. I told them that I would have to stop talking to them about it because I was too angry and didn't want to say anything out of line and that they had unfortunately made it obvious that they are not capable of helping me.

I'm really starting to wonder if this whole damn thing was a mistake. I'm not thinking of bailing, but I'm really really just getting sick of being treated like rube.
Anyway after cleaning last weekend I did take some pics so here is what my apartment looked like when I was happy with it's appearance, now it looks like a very cheap motel room.

Post away

Well now that I finally can view this site in english everyone can feel free to post without having to sign up or anything. I found the button to that.

Pictures

Now that I finally have internet I can post some pics. i haven't taken very many, but heres some from my Japan trip.
I'll post pics of the old apartment vs. new apartment later,



A weird Japanese arcade, we were lured in by the pretty lights.



A game in said arcade. If you'll look closely you'll see that the prize is indeed onion crackers.




street curling, just like in Canada!


the pony in the middle of the street. WTF?



the nice little japanese noodle restaurant with the porno mags under the counter.



Ben and Julian, midway between smooth enlgishmen and sloppy drunk (unless those are synonyms)


Yep the bar was called "Happy Cock"



This was the robe the hotel had for me. I though it was so cool it came with an offical Mr Miyagi headband. Settle down Blake, I know Miyagi was in fact Okinawan- but thats okay b/c I realized after the pic that the headband was in fact a belt.



Japan is wierd.



But then so is Korea.

I should be sleeping

...or getting ready to at least, but I know my loyal readers are dying for an update. Heather 'cause she's fond of me and Ken because he's looking for clues. Its been a busy couple of days but good.

I moved into my new place on Monday and so far I like it. Its not big but its got a nice little look to it, with sliding glass doors and tons of closet space. Its tough to explain why but even my first night there I felt so much more comfortable. My first morning was not quite as good. I was woken up by a strange beeping noise. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It seemed like it was either the intercom or the floor heating unit (thats how they heat apartments here). It woke me up at about 7am, and I wasn't planning to get up until 8. I fiddled with every wierd looking dial I could find but the piercing noise just continued every minute or so for about half and hour. Even with earplugs in I couldn't sleep. Then it just stopped. I figured it was something about me turning the the floor heater on the night before.

Anyway it went away and I made a mental note to ask someone about it but completely forgot. School is starting to hit a good level of coasting, I can just go in and do my thing and the day passes pretty quickly. Even quicker on Tuesday because it was parent/teacher day at the Elementary school and I didn't have to do my exercise class for the teachers at the end of the day. Technically I was good to go for the class and a bunch of teachers showed up I was told. But the main teacher I work with on Tuesdays told them with the parents in my classes it was a long exhausting day for me. Truth is I think she just didn't want to work out and figured the easiest way to get out of it was to cancel the class for everyone. Fine by me!
So I had some experience with the parents of students and the principal even sat in on one of my classes. Me, I love an audience so I did some of my better classes, and got some good reviews. At the time I didn't even know I was being reviewed.

After school on Tuesday I met up with Rocky to get some help hooking up my cellphone. When I met up with him he told me that the school had fired him. Which really sucks, he was definitely my favourite Korean teacher there. The school has been losing a lot of students lately, and I guess they just needed a scapegoat. The only 'problem' with Rocky was that he was very strict with the students and didn't let them play around. This made the students unhappy and they complained to their parents they didn't like school and their parents complained to the school. Of course if you aren't strict with the students they can't learn any english b/c they're playing around all the time- hence the speech contests & festivals. Staged shows to convince the parents their kids can speak english. Anyway its a bit of a shitty buzz, but Rocky wasn't happy there and we're gonna keep in touch. He still helped me set up my phone though (email me for the number if you want it, I'm still figuring the international dialing codes) and we grabbed some dinner.
Its wierd at the school because the director has told me what a good job teaching she thinks I'm doing and has told Nick that she is not pleased with his lack of control over the class. Now some of my discipline things have been working fine (although the students are getting a little too sticker-happy for my liking) but the truth is Nick and I are probably about equal in managing classes. Mrs. Kim evaluates our teaching by walking by the class at a random point maybe twice a week and peeking in. She saw me today with one of my elementary class very well behaved as I taught a lesson. Although if she had walked by five minutes ealier she would have seen me letting the kids punch me in the stomach as hard as they could while proclaiming myself "Ultimate K-1 Fighter!". Partially to let the kids blow off some energy before making them sit for half an hour and partially just to affirm my position as Alpha Male. So its really just luck of the draw there.

I joined a new gym yesterday, the old one was too much of a hike from my new place and this one is on the way home from work. Its about the same as the other one as far as price and equipment but this one seems a bit friendlier. The staff knows a little more english, although they had to pull a member off the floor to help with me signing up. His name is Joon and he's a Korean that lived in San-deigo for Eight years, real nice guy. His English seems darn near perfect and he's just back in Korea completing his civic duty. He's opting for two years of public service rather than a tour in the army. Wow sometimes its great to be Canadian, I can't imagine what mandatory military service must be like. Jsut about every male here over the age of twenty has been in the army.

The next morning I was woken up at 5 am by that beeping. I hit things. I muttered. I took my intercom apart with a screwdriver but couldn't get it to stop. Half an hour later I was fiddling with every button and knob on my floor heating panel (messing with gas powered appliances. yay!) before I thought to check the pocket of my coat which was hanging right beside the intercom and floor unit. the beeping was the cell phone in my pocket's battery warning. I had forgotten and left it on two nights in a row, and i had replaced the battery inbetween without making the connection. Silly me. I would haved laughed. But there was one problem. It was 5:30 in the gorram morning and nothing is ever funny then.

Today after work I went for my first workout at the new gym and really liked it. When I came in I had to fill out a health questionnare and undergo some BF% tests. It was funny b/c the consultant didn't speak english and had conscripted Joon into translating the entire thing for me. He didn't seem to mind, and it was nice to see a familliar face. Anyway the tests say I'm 18% bodyfat and need to lose 5 pounds. I'm not surprised that I'm carrying a few more pounds, too many simple carbs, fried chicken and beer (its been tough to turn down social invites here) and Schwietzer's melted prize candy (I had left a bag of chocolate on the floor, forgeting thats where the heat comes from in my place) but theres no way I'm focussing on losing weight.. And its Korea, everyone has a beer belly! (Note to Heather: don;t worry I won't get fat). But now that I'm settled I've started eating a lot better, just took me a while to get a kitchen good enough to cook in.

It was surprising that the consultant at the gym was impressed by the Korean I did speak. i literally just said hello. Joon was syaing that some of the foriegeners that have joined in the past didn't speak a single word of Korean. I didn't see any other foreigners, bu tI did notice on the day pass sign in sheet on my way out that someone had written "Stargazer" and "I don't need a name!" in the columns that I assume were "name" and "signature". they rightly assumed that the desk clerk woul dhave absolutely no idea what they wrote if they wrote it in english.
Anyway I really do have to go but we're having a work gathering tomorrow and it'll be while befor eI can update again.

And it looks like on saturday I will finally be getting my own internet!

"What characters? It was just a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes."

That quote from the Royal Tennenbaums sums up the musical the kindergarten kids put on last night. Maybe its my four years of theatre school and just being very desenitized to seeing things on stage but it really wasn't all that good. It was another day that I had to show up on a Saturday, although this one (christmas musical) was mentioned in my contract. I think I've got this and one picnic in the summer as my required saturday 'work'. Which really wasn't work. I had to show up in a suit and greet the parents as they come in. I got a lot of compliments on my suit, the pinstripe one i bought for $2 at a thrift store years ago that was apparently customed taliored for someone my exact build. Weird thing about Korean culture is that even guys would come up to me and just randomly say 'you're handsome' and walk on. And no they weren't gay. Gay people don't exist in Korea, thats the story and they're sticking to it. So basically the kids have been working on this musical since before I came to the school, which has been great for me b/c it has led to two spare periods in the week. Which will now sadly dissapear next week.

So after greeting the parents Nick sat in the audience and I snuck into the sound booth and hung out there for the 2.5 hour show where I could hang out with Rocky and apparently look really bored as I dozed on the lighting board. The show was basically the kids memorizing bunch of little skits and signing and dancing. Alot of the words were far beyond thier level of vocabulary or comprehension, it was more of just a show for the parents. To show them that thier money hadn't been wasted at the school. On that note one of my elementary students was there to see her little brother and when she was talking to Patrick before the show her mother kept on telling her to 'talk to him in English', little did she know that hello and goodbye was about all the functional English this kid has. I've been drilling the 'how are you today' => 'fine thank you' with this kid for three weeks and when I asked her it she just started blankly at me. Good to know I'm making a difference.

They told Patrick Nick and I that they would like it if we could do a little presentation for the parents too. Foreign teachers are usually there to impress parents, so they wanted to show us off as much as possible. Of course we had no time to prepare so we decided to sing theme song to Fresh Prince of Belair, do some freestyle breakdancing (or in my case jazz dancing) and finish off with individual raps (My choice was 'Turtle Power!', the only rap I know). In any case we got bumped when the director made an impromtu speech. Which was fine with me cause after almost three hours of childrens stories in a language that they don't understand the parents were not looking interested in anything performing that didn't come from thier own loins, and even then you'd better be damned inmpressive.

So it finished and all the kids were really excited, which was cool. I do like the kids and there was some joy in seeing them all in sparkly kimonos doing a rendition of Peter Pan that included a sound clip of "I will always Love you" by Whitney Houston. Everyone thanked me for all my hard work afterwards, which I made sure to tell them consisted of absolutely no contribution whatsoever.

Anyway I better get going I have to pack a bit for my possible move tomorrow, which will be tough considering I have no boxes or any idea where to get some.