Teaching English in South Korea

Japan to Australia

2008-06-05T07:32:00.004-04:00

On my second day in Tokyo in rained all day so I decided to go to see some museums. I headed to Ueno where most of the major museums and the zoo are. I went to the Tokyo National Museum Main Hall and the Hyokei-kan which had a special exhibit on national treasures from the Yakushi-ji Temple. The special exhibit was very popular I had to wait an hour in line to see it. It was like being at Disneyland. The exhibit was cool but it really wasn't worth the wait,it has some cool Buddha statues and some pieces of an ancient pagoda along with other artifacts. The main hall was great it showed art and artifacts in historical order starting from some pieces that were over 5000 years old all the way to modern ones. The coolest parts for me were the samurai armor and swords. I decided to check into a business hotel for my last night in Tokyo, I needed to organize my bag and I was also tired of only having communal space. I found a hotel about 200 feet from the capsule hotel that was owned by the same company. It had a really good Internet special, I paid $70 and it included high speed Internet,it was nice.

My last day in Tokyo I went back to Ueno to see the things that I didn't have time to do the first day and the outdoor ones that I couldn't do in the rain. The first thing I did was to walk Ueno Park which has a great lake with lily pads and other Asian water plants growing all over it. There is also a paddle boat rental and many other gardens and fountains. Then I went and got some sushi, I was lucky enough to find what ended up being a great place. It was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant where all the pastel are the same price and you grab the plates you want off the belt and they go around the guys who are making them and you sit in a big circle around them. I have eaten at this style of sushi restaurant in hong Kong too. I choose this one because it was crowded with lots of locals,always a good sign. When I was eating I was lucky enough to have a professor from a local university sit down next to me. He was originally from the U.S. And has been living in Tokyo for 8 years. He said this was the best Sushi place in Ueno and the best for the price in all of Tokyo. He also told me of a dollar store to visit,which I thought was strange but he was very convincing so I eventually checked it out since it was right next to my train station to the airport.

The thing I really wanted to see was the five story pagoda, a pagoda is an ancient Japanese style building.Pictured above. I also need to mention that I hate zoo's, I think there horrible prisons for animals, I would personally rather be dead than spend my entire life in a cage and I think that animals feel the same way so I try to never support them. I don't ave a problem with wildlife parks or places where animals have a large area to roam,which some zoo's provide but very few and never Asian zoo's,there the worst! Having said that I really wanted to see the five story pagoda and after having walked around the zoo for an hour I realized that it was only possible to see it from inside the zoo so I reluctantly paid $6 to enter so I could see it....

After the zoo I went to the National Museum of Western Art,it only had one floor open but it had a lot of great pieces there was one wall of Monet's,there must have been a dozen of them. It was an impressive collection for it's size. The rest of the museum was being renovated until 2009. After this I only had about half an hour until I needed to head to the train station to get my train for Narita Airport which is 75 minutes away so I checked out the 100yen(dollar) store the professor was talking about. It really was quite impressive,it was big but I have seen bigger but the quality of the things you could get for dollar was unbelievable. You could even get 12aa batteries for a dollar or really nice laptop sleeves or camera cases and much more. I was impressed the professor was right....

I then got on my train to Narita,my flight left at 8:30pm and arrived in Sydney at 7:20am with a 1 hour time change so it was just under 10 hours. Narita airport had a free yahoo sponsored Internet cafe and a lot of shops but only a few restaurants. The Sydney airport sucks, I had to pay $5 to get to the domestic terminal from the international and there is very little to do here and the wireless site wont even let me pay for Internet,I'm not impressed. My flight leaves at 3:20,so I have a very long layover. I was at least able to plug in my laptop at the kiosk style coffee shop and have been able to watch some TV programs I downloaded and type this blog...Once you go past security there is more places to eat and it's not bad,the only problem is Jetstar wouldn't let me check in until 2 hours before my flight departed,but there dirt cheap so I still think they are a great airline!

I finally got to Cairns after a 3-4 flight. My hostel, the Dreamtime Hostel picked me up for free at the airport,there employees are very friendly and so are the people who are staying here,its nice but I need to crash because I start my SCUBA certification class at 8:30am tomorrow. Cairns weather is great its hot enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt at night....

Japan Day 1

2008-06-02T10:23:00.002-04:00

I got to Tokyo's Narita airport at noon; I slept a few hours on the 4 hour bus ride and 2 hour plane ride to Tokyo. then after getting my bag and clearing customs and the 1 hour train ride into Tokyo($10 on the regular train), the subway transfer to the correct stop, etc., it was 2:30pm. I then got some Subway, a guacamole/Japanese grassy straw type vegetable sub on wheat and watched the traffic for 1 hour.

I then started to look for one of the 2 capsule hotels in the area, I am staying in Akasaka, it’s a foreigner friendly area within walking distance of Roppongi where all the night life is. Cabs are very expensive so its best to sleep in an area that you plan to be in after 10pm when the subways close. It took me 2 hours to locate one as the first one was no longer open( a regular problem when you don't call ahead and rely on lonely planet) and the area is confusing because most of the street signs are in Japanese, After the first hour I started asking for help, which I should have done in the first place, but since the capsule hotel check ins aren't until 5pm,it didn't matter anyway.

I then got to my capsule watched 2 episodes of Entourage on my laptop and crashed for 13 hours, I was exhausted from drinking all night and traveling and that brings me to now its the second morning in Tokyo and I am at a coffee shop typing this I'm still not sure exactly what I'm doing to day but I'm about to head off on the subway and figure it out.... (Wrote this earlier)

I decided to go to Ginza to see the Sony building and whatever else was nearby. It is only a few subway stops away on the same line my hotel is on so that was nice. I loved all the gadgets they had there. It was 4 floors of stuff I wanted to buy. Joe if your reading this don't ever go there you’ll have to mortgage your house. They had all sorts of cool new gadgets, some where literally just created this week and they were prototypes so you couldn't even buy them yet. I think the most amazing thing was a little regular sized square battery, it didn't say what it was called or how powerful it was, but it was a standard 1 inch by 2 inch by ½ inch square battery. It was powerful it could run 3 processors by itself at once. I'm sure they were mobile low power processors but this is still amazing, you weren't even allowed to take pictures of it. The coolest gadget for sale was the Rolly, its a small cylindrical speaker system about 2/3 the size of an American pop can or jut slightly larger than an Asian pop can. It played music loudly and could spin and twist so it danced to the music, it even had a few moving parts that opened in closed in sync with the music, it was amazing. They also had some really sweet and ultra tiny laptops for sale that had only been out a few days. After the Sony building I walked around Ginza and looked at all the designer shops and the Kubuki-za Theater. Ginza is the oldest and most famous shopping district in Japan there was every designer I have ever heard of there and tons of electronics stores.

After Ginza I walked around the Imperial Palace grounds and gardens. The palace itself was closed, it always is except for 2 days a year, but it took me almost two hours to walk around it and see all the sights it's huge. I then went to the Yasukuni-Jinja which is a shrine and a few museums that are there to celebrate the 2.4 million Japanese who have died in wars since 1853. There are statues and memorials for several well known war criminals there so there are usually protesters there but I didn't see any. I can't really say anything anyway as these days we Americans regularly commit war crimes and we don't arrest our leaders who do this. The coolest things I saw here were a real Japanese Zero airplane just like the ones that bombed Pearl Harbor and were famous for the Kamikaze pilots. They also has a WWII era artillery gun that had tons of battle damage on it, there were at least 20 places were it was hit with gunfire or worse. This is what I did on my Monday. I just got down soaking in the sauna and cold pool in my hotel, I think I'm going to go out for a little bit tonight but not to late I want to get an early start tomorrow.

Leaving Korea

2008-06-02T10:12:00.002-04:00

Leaving Korea was an experience all in it own. I had about 35 people show up to one or both parts of my going away party, we had 28 people at the Tomato Brau and a few more who just came to the Psycho Bar. It was great to see everybody for one last time but also surreal. We started the party at 7pm, I finished all my last minute packing around 6 and then facebooked for the last 40 minutes that I had high speed Internet. (I'm addicted to Internet...) We were at the Tomato Brau until after 11pm eating but mostly drinking the all u can drink/eat buffet/micro-brewed beers. Then I went back to my apartment and picked up my bags. I managed to get everything in my 5400 cubic inch backpack with a decent amount of room but not weight to spare, in Australia you can only have 20kg of bag weight, mine is 20kg exactly. I also have a small carry on backpack with a few books and electronics in it for the plane ride plus I need it to carry around while traveling. I walked in and walked out with the bags leaving the keys in the mailbox. We then went to Psycho Bar and had a great time at my regular hangout until 3am when I drunkenly got on the bus and headed of to airport in Incheon near Seoul.

At Incheon Airport I got flagged by customs because my foreigner card was expired by two weeks and it took me an hour to get it settled,　it didn't cost me anything but in normal Korean inefficiency I had to have 4 different people stamp my ticket or passport and none of them were anywhere near each other,　but at least it was all free and as usual they were polite enough to have a young English speaking Korean help me and since he was younger than me he was ultra respectful. If you card is expired make sure your at least 3 hours early for your flight,　you'll get through but the line at immigration which I skipped thanks to my Korean escort had a 2 hour wait, so make sure you are respectful,　bow and smile to the customs guys and they will let you go ahead as long as you have a white face or a English speaking country's passport. This brings up another important thing to remember in Korea, always smile,　bow and wait and you will get what you want,　it just takes patience. If your rude or or making a rude face they will not receive you well,　lucky for me I was blessed with a smile that can open almost any door. Also when possible deal with a person who is younger than you as they are required to treat you better.　Goodbye Korea!

The last week

2008-05-28T01:06:00.003-04:00

I leave Korea in 4 days. The last few weeks have been crazy and surreal. It is strange when you are seeing people that you know you will never see again. Don't get me wrong I may see a few of them again but I will never see most of the people I have met again. Thats one of the strangest things about teaching English in a foreign country,there is a constant flow of old people leaving and new ones coming, nothing is permanent its a constant state of flux.

There is a lot to do before you leave, you have to pack,sell things,give things away,ship boxes home, fill out lots of paperwork for pensions,plan for your next job,schedule your travel plans, attend many going away events and say goodbye to a lot of people and places.

I am mostly packed at this point, I haven't actually put my things in my bag because I'm wearing the clothes I have left at this point,there the same ones I'm taking on my trip home,which is 25 days long.(I'll talk about that later) I have sold all the things I need to sell except my scooter,which was sold but the guy who was going to buy it just backed out at the last minute,so I'm a little stressed about that,but I should be able to sell it to the dealer or maybe someone else. The problem with selling it to the dealer is that changing a title over in a foreign country isn't easy and it may require me to have to buy a name stamp,which I might not have time to get before I leave. I have also given most of my things away already. I have already shipped boxes home to the States,I have 2 more boxes left which are already packed which I will send to Taiwan where I'm teaching next year. It costs about $30 a box if you ship them by boat which takes 5-6 weeks or more to get there. I had to ship almost everything I own because I don't want to lug extra things with me on my trip home.

In order to get your pension money,which is around $2000 you have to go to the pension office and fill out paperwork and give them your bank account info so they can wire the money to your account in your home country,the money takes about 6 weeks to get after you apply and you cant apply until after your second to last paycheck has been processed by the office,so if your on top of it the soonest you can get it is about 3 weeks after your contract is finished. Only Americans and Canadians can get the pension, Brits and Australians can only apply to have it count as a year on their national pension plans in their home country. But my director said Australians might be eligible to get the money in the future so check on this if it applies to you. I also have had to fill out paperwork to obtain my Taiwan visa which was extensive.

As far as my travel plans go I have been planning these for months now. My sister, our friend Rachael and I are going to Australia,New Zealand and Hawaii. I'm also going to Tokyo on my own before I meet them in Cairns, Australia.(the great barrier reef) The trip is 25 days and has required a lot of planning for flights, accommodations and activities. In Tokyo I'm going to staying a capsule hotel which I have always wanted to do it's a 1x1x3 meter room with a bed that has a TV,Stereo and a phone in it. It costs $40-50 which is a bargain in Tokyo. In Cairns I'm spending my first 3 nights at a highly rated hostel,which I prefer to hotels as you meet a lot more people that way. I did book my own room there. It is $50 a night. Then I am doing 2 nights and 3 days diving on a boat on the great barrier reef, I'm getting my Padi SCUBA certification. My sister and Rachael arrive the same day I board the boat but I won't join them until there 3rd day in Cairns. One I join them then it's 4 star hotels the last 2 nights in Cairns and in Christchurch, Queenstown, Sydney and Honolulu.

I have already had 2 going away parties(work and a small one for some Korean friends and a co-worker who is leaving for vacation before i leave) and my main one for my friends is Saturday night at the Tomato Brau an all the micro-brewed beer you can drink and all the food you can eat buffet. It's $19 and its from 6:30-10:30. There are 3 beers and there all delicious. Also the buffet has sushi, steak, shrimp, pasta, salad and many more things. After that were going to the bar we always hang out at called Psycho then I get on a bus at 3:30am and go to Seoul to fly out at 10:15am.

I also managed to win at my last poker night,its always good to go out with a win...

Thailands Southern Islands

2008-05-04T11:31:00.002-04:00

Back in February for the Chinese new year I spent 10 days in Thailand. It was my second time to Thailand, the first time I went to Bangkok and up north to Chang Mai. This time I went down south to 3 islands on the eastern side of Thailand. I flew into Ko Samui international airport after a 4 hour layover in Bangkok's airport. Then I went to Ko Pha Ngan by ferry,this island is famous for its full moon beach parties. Finally I went to Ko Tao which is famous for its diving.

I left Korea with my friend Michael who had just finished his contract and was traveling home. We had originally planned to travel together but we decided on the bus ride to the airport that we each had different plans, he decided to go to Nepal and hike to the base camp of Mount Everest before heading to Australia and then back home to the States. I decided I wanted a relaxing island vacation with little adventure and lot's of R & R.

Flying into Ko Samui is one of the best parts of the trip, I have traveled to many airports in the world, my best guess is around 50 of them. I have to say that the Ko Samui airport is by far the best in the world. The landscape and vies are perfect but the airport itself is more like a 5 star resort than an airport. There are ponds,gardens, and lazy boy like shaded recliners everywhere. Also when you are waiting for your flight they have free food,drinks,Internet and enough couches,chairs and gardens for everyone waiting to have a seat and a great view. There also in the process of building a large shopping area between the arrival and departure gates. The airport is a great place to spend a few hours,which you might have to while waiting for cheap bus transport.

On my bus I met a guy from Norway and he had been to Samui before, so he said he would show me around and I ended up hanging out with him and his group of about 10 friends for my first 3 days. We stayed in Hat Chaweng which is the busiest beach on Ko Samui. We stayed at some bungalows which where about 150 feet from the ocean. They were not the nicest places but they were in a great location,they were very clean,had AC and satellite TV and they were only $25 a night, it was a great deal. We were located about a 5 minute walk from the main night club area,just far enough away that you couldn't hear anything except the ocean. He knew a Thai girl and it turned out that her 2 best friends were working at a beach front office selling tours and jet ski rentals in the building next to our resort. When we were eating breakfast on the beach deck we could knock on the window of their office. So we hung out with the three of them a lot. It was fun but it was a touristy location so after 3 days I decided to go check out Koh Pha Ngan.

I took a ferry to Koh Pha Ngan and I lucked out because it docked in Hat Rin, which is not a very big dock but it is considered the backpackers party town. It's where the full moon party beach is and it has a lot of hotel,bungalows and entertainment options. On the ferry over I met to American girls(the first Americans I had met on my trip),most of the people there are European or Australian. They found a really good deal for a luxury hotel, called the Drop In Resort. Drop In has a resort and several bars and spa's on these islands. We got a really good deal,this place was 4 star,it had everything and we got a buy 2 nights get the 3rd free deal,plus a discount. It was only $31 a night and this resort had a pool, spa, concierge, rentals, Internet, satellite TV, AC, free breakfast buffet (which i only got up in time for once,but it was delicious) and luxury accommodations.

Hat Rin was great it had so many western and middle eastern style restaurants that I finally got to eat some real western food, Korea is lacking in this and where you can get it,you pay a lot for it. I ate falafel, humus, pizza and subs for every meal. They also had really good Thai food vendors on the street and fruit smoothie stands. There was also easily 100 bars in this town,so the night life was fun. It was very laid back here,not crowded but I also wasn't here for one of the full moon parties,which apparently turns this peaceful little town into a New Orleans style party atmosphere. I rented a scooter here and drove all around the Island. I saw a lot of beautiful and secluded beaches and inland waterfalls. There was a black moon party while I was on the Island. It was fun and held on a different beach. they celebrate all 4 cycles of the moon here,but the party I went to is nothing like a full moon bash. After 3 days here I decided to head of to Koh Tao which is the smallest and least developed of these 3 islands. I got a ferry out of Thong Sala,the capital of the Island and also the main peer for boats.

While waiting for my boat I met a scuba instructor who convinced me to stay at his resort and go SCUBA diving with his company called Asia Divers. I had seen many advertisements for Asia divers on my trip already and I considered the fact that they had an office at the peer an omen. So I booked a 1 day experience diving trip with them,this also got me a discounted room at the resort. I got a room for $31 a night again,there were rooms for $15 w/o air con. But my room was a sweet,it had a balcony overlooking the pool and it was huge with aircon and satellite TV, it was nice, but not as nice as my room at the Drop In. Asia Divers is one of the largest dive resorts on Koh Tao. They had a really professional operation and a great location. Just a few minutes walk from the downtown party area. Koh Tao is by far the least developed of the 3 islands but it still had everything one could want. I had the best time here out of all 3 of the islands. It was the most relaxed atmosphere and the people here were the friendliest,tourists included. I stayed in Mae Haad Bay,the busiest location on the island.

The diving was great and I can't wait to do it again, I was only able to dive for one day because you cant dive 24 hours before you fly. I went on 2 dives. The first was in the Japanese Garden and the Twin Rocks there was a lot of brain coral there and one of those striped fish from Finding Nemo. My instructor was British and he was fun. A good sense of humor and he spoke English, I was afraid I might get a Thai instructor,but at Asia Divers you get an English one every time,that's why there so good. I really loved diving I plan to get my certification soon.

The night life in Mae Haad was fun,it wasn't too big or busy but there was a lot to do. I met some Canadians here and I hung out with them. There were 3 of them a couple who was traveling the world and there friend,she flew into Thailand to travel with them for 2 weeks. We went to a burlesque show,ate a seafood dinner on the beach, danced on the beach and went for a late night swim. It was a blast. Unfortunately, I was up drinking until about 6 am and I had to catch 8:30am ferry to Koh Samui to get my plane home. I slept for an hour then decided to go wait at the dock because I knew if I fell asleep I wouldn't make it. The only problem was the high speed catamaran boats are a bit bumpy and I must have thrown up 15 times in the 2 hour ferry ride, I filled up a 10 liter bag with beer vile puke. It wasn't a good ride.

This was a great trip and it was the first time I really ever traveled by myself. I loved it,it was very peaceful to be able to do whatever you want and I met a lot more people being solo than I would have otherwise.

Mart Drinking and open container

2008-05-03T03:54:00.004-04:00

In Korea it is legal to have open containers. You are allowed to drink alcohol anywhere you want at any time. It always seemed a bit oppressive to me that you weren't allowed to do this in most places in the States. We are told that this would lead to drunken chaos and led to believe that this is for public safety,but really it's just another way for us to be controlled by the system. Think about it,how much less would you have to drive drunk if you could drink outside of a store, in a park near your house,or just while you enjoy your walk to or home from your destination. It is very relaxing to do these things,drinking in parks is one of my favorite activities in Korea and it is much cheaper and healthier.(no smoke,although this isn't an issue in many places in the States anymore and no deafening loud noise)

Another of my favorite places to drink and one of the more popular places to drink outside in Korea is outside of the local Mart or convenient store. Most of these stores have tables outside for you to sit and enjoy your purchase whatever it may be. It has become a favorite activity of my friends and I. We will sit outside for hours and talk and drink. It saves so much money and it is much more peaceful than a noisy crowded bar. There have been times were I have been sitting around with 20 friends,singing,playing guitars and talking until the sun comes up. It's really a shame we have outlawed this in the States. But I guess it is our patriotic duty as Americans to make everything sensible and fun illegal....

Bullfighting Festival in Cheongdo

2008-04-25T08:46:00.007-04:00

A few weekends ago I went to a bull fighting festival in Cheongdo. It wasn't Spanish bullfighting with matadors. At this festival the bulls fight each other in head to head combat. What I mean by that is they push at each other with their heads and sometimes their horns. The fighting wasn't all that exciting or dangerous. The bulls usually just butted head,locked horns and pushed for about 5 minutes until one managed to either scare his opponent or get a lucky poke in with his horn,then the other bull would run away and that was it. There were a few good moves made,but for the most part you sat their for 10 minutes and then there was 5 seconds of excitement.

We had a good group of foreigner's with us, about 12 of us. We sat in the stands and drank and had a good ol time. The crowds were the best part. Old Korean ladies (Ajumas) and old Korean men (Ajacees) were there and a few even fell over from being old or drunk, not sure which. there were also a lot of young Koreans and many families. It attracted people of all ages and economic backgrounds.

The festival itself had some cool and disturbing things in it. There were a lot of tent restaurants with food and drinks. There were two tents zoos,were animals like bear cubs,snakes,baby monkey's,cats and lizards were kept in very small cages and many of them were doped up. It was pretty sad but not unusual for animal treatment in Asia. There was a bull art tent, it had paintings and statues and many other bull artworks,it was actually really cool. There were places to stick your head in photos that made it look like you were in the bull fighting ring. There were large statues of decorated bulls and bull deities. Their were bands and performers and mascots and all the usual festival stuff like that.

I think the most disturbing and interesting part was the row of bull pens.(pictured above is one of the bulls in his pen) It was quite sad to see these huge beasts kept in such small spaces and it was also amazing how there was just a rope between you and them,of course they were all chained together through there nose rings which I guess would have made a stampede very unlikely,but I was still hesitant to stand in front of them for long. Many of the Koreans seemed to enjoy taunting them which seemed cruel and foolish considering that if they did decide to charge I'm sure it would have led to a all out stampede and may deaths and injuries. The bulls were taken from this area one at a time by some handlers. Many of the bulls in this area were noticeably upset and were doing the hoof in the dirt charge signal they do before charging at something. I found this part of the festival to be very inhumane while the actual fighting seemed very natural and the bulls seemed to enjoy it, but they do the same thing in the wild when they are fighting for mates.

I would recommend this festival to anyone in Korea it happens in Cheongdo around the end of March and the beginning of April every year. Cheongdo is a a train stop between Daegu and Busan. I also wanted to mention one last thing I thought was interesting. The US Army had a bull they enter every year and it was the only white bull in the whole festival...

Eating Dogs and Drinking Cats

2008-04-05T08:52:00.000-04:00

I want to start this blog by saying that I myself am an ovo-lacto-pesco vegetarian, which means I eat only fish,eggs and dairy products, no meat. I also want to mention that you should not research this topic any further if you don't want to see some pretty disturbing images of dogs being killed. I choose a friendly image for my picture because I didn't want to see any of the other ones ever again.

In Korea as in many parts of the world eating dogs is an accepted part of the culture. Generally the only two countries that have mainstream acceptance of this practice are Korea and China but in many countries there are cultural minorities who eat dog. This even happens in Canada to a limited extent.

One of the big differences about Korea is the way the dog is killed. It is believed that the more scared the dog is and the more it suffers before it's death the tastier and more "medicinal" the meat will be. In Korea dogs are beaten to death with clubs, hung slowly, burned and tortured in many other ways. The consumers of dog meat want to get the most adrenaline as possible into the meat and this is the way they go about achieving it. Dogs are also often made to watch as other dogs have this done to them.

It is believed that dog meat, called Gaegogi (gogi means meat and gae means dog) can give men extra sexual stamina. Since the dog meat industry is a billion dollar a year industry in Korea one must assume a lot of Korean men need this stamina.(I couldn't resist saying it) The meat is prepared in many different ways. Their are traditional stews,soups and barbecues. The meat is also made into fermented drinks that can include the penis of the dog for an extra "medicinal" energy supplement.

I have known many foreigners here who have tried eating dog for the experience and several who do it on a regular basis. I don't think I would eat dog even if I ate meat, but that is easy to say since I don't.

I also know that cats are eaten in Korea in a fermented drink too. They are also killed very inhumanly,usually they are stuffed in a sack and then beaten to death against a wall and then liquefied into a drink. I don't know much about this, just that it is done.

When you move to a foreign country you have to be willing to accept the cultural differences that arise but this is one I will not accept and will never just ignore. If Koreans want to eat dogs I have no more of an objection to it than to eating other animals. But they need to stop the extremely cruel way that these animals are killed and treated. On the other hand this is not much worse than the way chickens are treated in the US....

Yellow Dust

2008-04-03T13:13:00.000-04:00

When I first arrived in Korea last May it was near the end of the yellow dust season. We have now entered the beginning of the season,which happens during spring. The yellow dust also known as the Asian dust comes from northern China and floats through the air all over Asia. It is worse over China, Korea and Japan. It is not all the time but periodically it happens in the spring and has been getting worse over the past decade due to the rapid desertification and increased pollution in China. The dust contains many chemicals and pollutants.

The main problems caused by the dust are increased respiratory problems, even people who normally don't suffer from these ailments can have problems. It also causes less visibility, at times it is like a light fog. This dust can also cover things and cause them to turn yellow. This is the most significant at airports where decreased visibility can cause canceled flights and also run ways and planes have to be cleaned when they are covered in the dust. It can also kill plants, harm coral, make animals sick and even kill smaller ones and it also effects the yield and quality of crops. I have asthma and it is slightly worse during these times but it hasn't been that bad but it is not as bad here in Korea as it is in China.

Many countries have tried to help solve this problem but it is still getting worse. Korea,Japan and the US among other nations have offered both financial support and materials to help combat the problem such as trees and sulfur filters. But China will only accept help if they can decide how to use the support which means the trees often get planted in areas where they won't help like next to highways in the wrong part of the country. The money can be used anywhere the government wants and the filters are stored and no factories are forced to use them. So the help has no effect on the dust due to China's mismanagement of the resources.

This dust can even reach as far as the U.S. and it effects global weather and air pollution. In certain parts of China the air can become so polluted it becomes deadly and fatality rates can rise almost 2% during these times. There is not much one can do except stay in doors during the bad times and wear a mask when they go outside. Many people including myself wear masks when the yellow dust gets bad.

Here is a link to wikipedia Asian Dust page if you want to learn more.
Asian Dust on Wikipedia

Konglish

2008-04-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

In Korea there is a language that is a hybrid of Korean and English, it's called Konglish. Konglish originated during the Korean War. Koreans would adapt English words that sometimes had the same meaning and sometimes had similar or different ones but regardless they would pronounce these words incorrectly and Konglish was born. Generally these words end in E and they add an E sound to the end of the word were the sound is suppossed to be silent, like Orange. They will pronounce it Orange-gee.

Also many times words in Korean that sound similar to English words will be used and the meanings of the Korean word will change. An example of this is haen-deu-pon (핸드폰; "handphone"), we use cell phone but they have adapted one of their words and most Koreans call it a hand phone even if they speak English very well.

There are many other examples and I have included a wikipedia link if you want to learn more. But the last one I want to mention is the incorrect use of grammar on signs, stationary and clothing. In Korea most t-shirts have English words on them and 99% of these sentences are grammatically incorrect. This picture is one that a friend of mine found on the web, I just liked it so I am using it here and it shows how Koreans have no idea what they are wearing. They all wear English shirts regardless of there ability to understand what it means and this kids parents probably didn't know what this meant or they thought it was funny, who knows....

Wikipedia Konglish Link

Domestic Violence,Razor Knives and Assaulting the Cops

2008-04-01T12:34:00.000-04:00

Earlier in the year I posted a friends essay about violence in Korea but I wanted to talk about the subject a little more myself. In many ways Korea is much less violent than the US or England. They have very few guns or weapons. The youth do not form many gangs, although they due exist. It is safe to say that serious life threatening violence is much lower here in Korea than in the US.

In Korea the students carry razor knifes around to cut paper and for art class. No one attacks anyone else with them.(I'm sure there are exceptions to that statement but they are rare.) In the US if you were to carry around one of these razor knifes you would be suspended or expelled and possibly charged with a crime and sent to jail. But no one seems to worry about it at all here. They also will sometimes bring air soft guns(plastic bb guns that sting when you are shot with them) to school sometimes. Sometimes the guns are taken away, sometimes they are just told to put them away and not bring them again. Even though these guns are relatively harmless they would also be just cause for suspension, expulsion or incarceration in the States.

Koreans view guns as if they were the black plague. They often ask how I can sleep at night in America without worrying about when I will get shot as if it was a certainty. They probably get this opinion from TV and movies because while we have more guns in the US than almost anywhere else in the world, I still don't have any friends or family that I know of that has been shot or even shot at. I have seen guns many times of course but never has anyone actually shot one except for in controlled recreational uses. But never the less Koreans assume we still live in the wild west were disputes are handled with guns in the streets.

That said there is a lot of domestic violence in Korea. I live in a relatively liberal, middle class part of the US, so maybe there is more domestic violence in other areas of the country. But in Korea it is not uncommon to view acts of domestic violence that in the US might happen less frequently but would be behind closed doors. Plus if I am seeing this amount just imagine how much must happen behind closed doors here. People just seem to accept it here. My second week here a buddy of mine and I got into a fight (it was more posturing and pushing than actual blows) with some douche bag because he pushed this girl to the ground outside a club and was about to kick her. My buddy yelled at him in Korean to stop and he also called him something to the effect of a dog fucker. After that the guy ignored the girl and rushed over to my friend,he picked up a sign and started waving it in the air. He didn't have the guts to actual hit my buddy, but he kept yelling and pushing him and eventually me for another 5 minutes, even as we walked away. Finally we got tired of it and pushed back and then he left. As a foreigner you can't actually hit a Korean regardless of who's fault it is you will be blamed. Luckily my friend had been here for 4 years and knew this otherwise my stay here might have been very short. Not that violence was needed because in several instances I have noticed that if you are aggressive here the people will back down quickly, its all show. Plus we just wanted him to stop attacking the woman which he did when he focused his intoxicated anger on us.

In Cleveland were I'm from if you did this it could get you shot, even in the suburbs were I grew up it would lead to a fight for sure. But here in Korea the men only seem to like to get in fights with there women or when the odds are stacked in there favor. Of course this isn't a theory that should be tested as there are people here who like to fight just as anywhere else. This is just a generalization. Plus men who hit women are usually cowards, this is true everywhere even in the States.

This wasn't the last time I saw domestic violence up close. There was a guy in my old apartment building who used to beat his girlfriend on a semi-regular basis. He almost always did it behind a steel door. We would call the cops but they didn't seem to care. One time he was beating here outside and the cops were called and he hit one of the officers. He was taken to the jail but was back home and hitting his girlfriend again within the hour. After that we stopped bothering with it, his girlfriend didn't seem to want us to stop it and the cops didn't care.

I have witnessed 5-6 acts of domestic violence in my 10 months here and heard what I thought were a few more. It seems that Korea is somewhat like America in the 50's where no one wants to get involved in other couples problems and they just ignore it. That seems to work for them but my friends and I can't seem to adopt this cultural trait.

With that said in general Korea is a less violent place than the US. I always feel safe here no matter where I am,that is unless I am sticking up for some women who is usually just upset that I intervened anyway. I have learned here that it is better to just walk away as the women here don't seem to mind being beaten or at least they have accepted the fact that it will happen to them. Each culture has it good and bad sides, in Korea violence is no exception.

Lunar Birthdays,Korean ages and turning 30 twice

2008-03-30T10:32:00.000-04:00

In Korea and in a few other countries in Asia people calculate their age based on the Lunar System. Basically, they are 1 year old when they are born not 0. They also get a year older on January 1st,not on their birthday. So when someone here in Korea tells me their age they are actually one or two years younger by International Standards. So I was born on February 7th, 1979. This makes me 1 years old until 1/1/80, when I would have turned 2(which is before my 1st birthday by International Standards). So this year I turned 29 by International Standards but on 1/1/08 I turned 30 in Korea,which sucks. This is still very confusing to me but I felt it should be mentioned.

This brings me to my next point. I will have to turn 30 twice. This just doesn't seem fair. When people in Korea ask me my age I usually say 29, but sometimes I say 30 and it hurts....

The last difference in Korea is that many of them celebrate their Birthdays based on the Lunar Calender(actually its the Lunisolar calender but they all refer to it as the Lunar Calender). Which is completely different than the Roman one or to be more specific the Gregorian Calender that is widely used today. I have included a link to wikipedia below if you want to know more about this calender, but it is based on the cycles of the moon and the solar year. The only way we use this calender in western society is to calculate the time when Easter will be on our calender. That's why it always changes its date. So your lunar birthday is different than your International one too. My International birthday is February 7th and my Lunar one is May 15th or at least that's what one of my students told me,so I am assuming she is correct.

This is all very confusing to me, 2 birthdays,2 ages and multiple calenders. the picture is of me on my International birthday this year in Thailand.

Here is a link to wikipedia if you want to learn more
Lunisolar Calender on Wikipedia

Pasta in a Cone

2008-03-30T09:10:00.000-04:00

There are many foods that I find strange and unique here in Korea. I am sure that this would be the case in any foreign country that ones visits. Some of my favorites are eating live octopus, well its dead put they cut it up right before they serve it to you and it squirms around on the plate for a good 15 minutes and you have to dip it in oil or it will suck on to your throat on the way down and it could possibly kill you. I didn't like this at all. One of my favorite foods is the egg sandwich. It's just 2 pieces of white bread, grilled without butter, a scrambled egg mixture the size of the bread and some veggies,cheese or meat depending on the kind you order. Then they top it off with both sweet and spicy sauces. It's delicious!!! There are many varieties, my favorite is the cheese or the Tuna. But they top it with all kinds of meats if thats your pleasure. The shop I get my sandwiches from is near my school about 400 feet away. It's called Sukbong. Yes it sounds just like its spelled, I have no idea what it means in Korean but the English meaning is obvious.

But now to my main reason for writing this blog. The most unique food I have come across is not Korean at all. It's a hybrid shop that combines Italian food with ice cream cones. It's called Balena. They serve pasta in a cone. The pasta is actually very tasty and the cone does make for a unique,cheap and practical to-go container. When I first heard about this place I didn't believe it,but I just went there and it really does exist. They serve all kinds of different pasta's in waffle cones. The cones are pretty tasty too. I have to say I might eat there again, it really was good. But Next time I am going to get a pasta without squid. Koreans put squid in everything....

The never ending cycles of newbies and going away parties

2008-03-16T13:30:00.000-04:00

I have less than 2 months left in my contract, the past 10 months in Korea have been great and it sometimes feels like I have been here for a lot longer and then other times it seems shorter. I have met so many new people here. I didn't know anybody when
I moved here so everyone I have met is a new person. There have been some really great people and some that I could have lived without. One of the unique things about teaching English in Korea is that there is a never ending cycle of new teachers. There is also a never ending cycle of going away parties.

When you first arrive you feel like everyone has been here for ever and you are the only new person. Soon you realize that many of the people you thought were veterans may have only arrived a few weeks or even days before you. It's also very likely that you will attend a going away party within your first few weeks here. I went to my first going away party on my 3rd night in Korea. It was for a girl named Kat and some other guy who I don't remember. I went to several other going away parties within my first month in Korea. Sometimes it seems like every weekend there is someone celebrating there departure. In Gumi this is usually done at the Waegook Cook Bar (sometimes its planned by the bars owner without there knowledge...). Other people put a more personal touch to there departure parties. Kat's was at her favorite restaurant which was followed up by a trip to the Nori Bong(Singing Room). We sang and drank until the sun came up, it was a blast. Other friends have had there parties at there favorites bars and one friend had his at the local microbrewery/buffet,the Tomato Brau. One thing that is set in stone is that whenever there is a going away party this means that a few days or hours later we will get a new teacher in Gumi.

It's always fun to see who the newbies are. Usually they are here for a few weeks before you meet them but occasionally you get lucky enough to meet one on there first or second day. I stopped trying to meet new people a couple of months ago because I figured I already new enough people. This doesn't mean that I haven't met anyone new it just means I wasn't making any effort to do it. I have noticed that there are now a lot of people I don't know. I have seen several shifts in the atmosphere of the town I live in since I arrived. This is because most of the people who are here now were not here when I got here. It seems that this is a regular occurrence here and all the lifers (foreigners who actually live here permanently or for at least 3-4 years) don't even bother to meet people until they have been here at least 6 months as most of them don't stay. This is a unique place,everyone is in a constant state of transition and many people view there year in Korea as just a vacation after college or a year off before they start there next chapter in life.

I am not sure what I will do next but I do know that I have enjoyed my time here so far and I am looking forward to the rest of the going away parties and newbies I have yet to meet.

"and miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep."

Soju

2008-03-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Soju is a sweet rice liquor that is similar to vodka only weaker. It is usually 20% alcohol and can get as high as 45%. It is almost exclusively made in Korea. Jinro is the largest producer of soju. Soju is the most common drink in Korea. Everyone drinks it for all occasions. People take shots of it and they make drinks with it. I personally can't stand it but it is liked by most people here in Korea. When you are offered a drink there is a strong chance it will be a shot of soju. There are many different kinds,the only one I can stand is bamboo soju,it tastes sweeter than the common rice variety. There are many rules to drinking soju. It's a cultural drink. You are expected to do shots of it at special occasions. I posted a wikipedia link below that lists all the rules and the history. There's one thing to remember about soju, according to Koreans " Soju has magic".

Soju on Wikipedia

Curling in Korea

2008-03-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

I recently went curling with 7 other people from Gumi. We went to a curling club somewhere in a small town in Korea. This club had 4 curling sheets or playing fields. I was amazed that a small town of around 80,000 in Korea would have a multi-million dollar facility like this. It was the same size as an indoor hockey rink,it had a cooling system to keep the ice cold and all that. One of the guys we went with was Canadian and he helped to get it built a few years ago, he said it costs around 3 million to build a facility like that. It was completely paid for by the city and it didn't cost us anything to play there. I don't think curling is very popular in Korea and as far as I know this is the only club. But there could be more, I have no idea. Curling is a sport that is played on ice. It's like shuffle board on ice. The board or sheet is the full length of an ice rink. You push a very heavy stone down the ice and try and get it to land on a large target about 100 feet away(a regulation sheet is 146 feet long and 15 feet wide,also the ice must be 23 degrees). The target is 12 feet in diameter. You wear a slick cover(called a slider) on one shoe to allow you to slide on it. When you release the stone(it weighs 44 pounds) you push off a starting block and slide on one foot using a broom to help you balance, you glide about 15 feet then release the stone and let it glide to the target. At this time another 2 members of your team will sweep in front of the puck to create heat on the ice to change its direction and speed it up. If your stone stops on the target you get points. That is if its still on the target at the end of the round. People can knock your stone off, only stones that that remain on the target at the end of the round get points. More points are awarded if your stone is closer to the center. It's the same as shuffle board. It was very difficult to stand on the ice and move quickly and it was even more difficult to glide when releasing the puck. You don't have to glide you can just push it if you want but thats not the best way to do it. But for old guys who play that how they do it. Curling is an Olympic sport(since 1998) and it is one of the hardest tickets to get at the Olympics,it has become very popular recently. I had a blast, anyone who has a chance should try it. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page.

Curling Wikipedia Page

Fun with Naming

2008-03-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

When we get a student in Korea who has never been to a private English school we get to give them an English name. Just like we used to get in foreign language class back in the states. My name in Spanish class was Pablo. As bored teachers we sometimes like to amuse ourselves with this process. I recently had 4 new students in a class, 3 boys and 1 girl. I also had a new student with the name Kramer. I took this opportunity to name the majority of this class after Seinfeld characters. I had Jerry, Newman,George, Elaine and Kramer. I told them what I was doing and why and they didn't like it but I bribed them with a pizza party and they reluctantly accepted. I still haven't had any luck getting Kramer to learn how to enter a room like Kramer did on the show,but I haven't given up yet... There are also many students named after numbers, I have Seven, One and Three in my classes. I also once named a kid Mario in hopes of naming the next one Luigi, nut no kid will take the name Luigi,they just refuse. I am not completely without compassion here, but some teachers are, if I wanted I could just name them and it would be final but I at least ask them what they want. I will trick them to take the names I want,but I give them at least the appearance of a choice. Many teachers just tell them there name and they have to take it regardless of there feelings for the name. Some other interesting names are Pole, Hangman, Hand, Action Jackson, Robot, Crazy Eyes, and Eight Arms. Not all of these are at my school but I asked around to a few friends for the strangest names at there schools. Please keep in mind that 98% of the students have normal English names. We are only bored sometimes...

Waegook Ski Trip to High1 Ski Resort and Casino

2008-01-27T03:13:00.000-05:00

This last weekend me and 44 other people from around where I live went to High1 Ski Resort to go skiing. The trip was organized by the Waegook Cook bar in Gumi. This trip had more Koreans and Military guys than it did English teachers which was a little disappointing but it was still a great time. It seems that lately the Waegook Cook has had a lot more military guys from Waegwon, a ton thats next to Gumi. This isn't the worst thing in the world but these guys tend to be a little young and some are not the most mature people in the world but many of them are great guys. It also needs to be noted that as more military guys show up this usually means that more English teachers wont want to.

Anyway the Ski trip was great we left around 6:40am, we were suppossed to leave at 6 but as usual someone or several people were late, we ended up leaving 2 people behind, but they caught a bus there later in the day and met up with us. The bus ride took about 5 hours, it should have taken less than 4 but as usual on a Waegook trip we stopped every 40 minutes for drunk people to pee. We went to a ski rental shop first and got our equipment and then headed off to the condos. We arrived at the condo area around 12:50am and the afternoon session started at 1pm so it was good timing, it would have been nice to be there at noon but it was better than I expected. After getting suited up and buying our 30% lift tickets my friend Mike and I headed for the gondola. We should have taken the lift but we didn't have a map until after we had been in the gondola line for 1/2 an hour so we decided to stick with it at that point. After this we always took the lift and this saves you 20 minutes to get to the top, live and learn.

We took 2 gondolas to the summit and then started our first run down. I believe this resort is the largest in Korea. It's very new and has 18 runs. One combination run is over 5000 meters long or around 3 miles long. There is a individual run that is 2,328 meters in length or almost 1 1/2 miles long. These are some serious slopes, I lived in Denver Colorado and have Skied the Rockies and this is comparable but not as good. The runs were well maintained but the beginner runs were very crowded and the intermediate and advanced runs were empty. I think this is because many Koreans do not ski often so most of them are beginners. When I was skiing the beginner hills they were very difficult because you had to constantly make last second turns to avoid falling skiers and snowboarders, at slow speeds this isn't a problem but I was going faster than everyone else by a good margin. Most of the intermediate hills emptied out into the beginner hills for the last parts of the runs,this area was also quite dangerous as most of these skiers didn't seem to have a proper understanding of slope safety and etiquette.

I skied a 4 hours session on the first day and a 4 hour morning session on Sunday. The conditions on Sunday morning were perfect until 11am when a snow storm came in on the top half of the mountain, it was a white out and led to some icy conditions on my last run, but all the rest of my morning runs were powdery perfection. The slopes ha a lot of restaurants and shops on them too, at the top their was a fancy Chinese restaurant with a 360 degree all glass view of the mountains, it was very nice.

After skiing I changed and went to the casino. The Kangwon Land Casino, this is the only casino in South Korea where Koreans are allowed to gamble, the rest of the casino are for foreigners only. I prefer the other ones. This casino was to small and crowded and it only had 6 types of table games and no poker. When I first arrived I asked about poker and due to a language mistake I was taken to the VIP floor where I thought there was poker. It turned out there wasn't but I had to buy $300 in chips to gain entry so I figured I would gamble there for a bit, I played a bit of blackjack and broke even after about 1/2 an hour. The minimum bet up there was $10, so I decided to go down to the main floor and gamble with my friends. The min bet there is only $1, not that I would bet that low anyway. The problem was that it was too crowded and I couldn't get a seat on a blackjack table after waiting an hour. So my friends Mike, Sung He and I decided to play roulette. We played the wheel for over an hour and when I was finished I was $60 up. Sung he decided she would bet some of Mike's money and lost it so he wasn't to happy but it was only like $20.

After this we got on the bus and went home, the trip back was the usual drunken rowdiness I have come to expect on these trips. I did manage to meet some new people on this trip and had a great time. I would highly recommend this experience to anyone in the Gumi area or just the High1 ski resort experience to anyone in Korea. Theres a link for the Waegook Cook website on the links section of my blog, contact Derrick for details bout this or any other Waegook trip. Theres also a link for High1 ski resort below in English,the Korean site has a really cool flash map.

High1 Ski Resort and Kongwon Land Casino

New Years in Seoul

2008-01-16T05:37:00.000-05:00

I spent 3 days in Seoul for the New Years celebration. I arrived the Sunday before New Years and left around 3pm on New Years Day. There were about 20 of my friends that were in Seoul for the weekend. 12 of us stayed in the same hotel. Its called the Motel Ritz, its a love motel which means that most of its clients are business men who meet there mistresses or paid acquaintances there. It's a really nice place and only costs $40 a night on weekdays and $50 on the weekends of course it was $90 on New Years Eve, but thats to be expected. We had 4-5 rooms depending on the night, the rooms have King Size beds so 3 to a room was the max. They are also very 70's chic with retro furniture and shag rugs, etc. All of the rooms also have 50 inch Plasma TV's with a ton of channels, a small refrigerator and a computer with free internet. It's a great place to stay in Seoul,its very clean and safe. Its in Insadong, the phone number is 764-0353. It's within a 3 minute walk of the main shopping street in Insadong.

It was very cold the whole time we where there. On Sunday we went shopping and then went to walk down the Chong e Chong(thats how it sounds to me) river in the middle of Seoul, it was lit up with lights and huge light displays, it was really nice. Then we went to Itaewon to go to Pancho's a great Mexican restaurant located next to hooker hill. Itaewon is the place in Seoul where there are more foreigners than Koreans. This is where you can actually buy western size clothes and other goods. It's also where all the best non Korean restaurants are and a ton of foreign bars. It's not the cleanest area and I wouldn't recommend staying there unless you want to shell out $100 or more a night for one of the major chain hotels there, the cheaper places are very seedy. However it's the best place to eat and meat other foreigners in Seoul and is only 20 minute subway ride or 10 minute Taxi(in non rush hour times) from Insadong or Seoul Station.

After Pancho's we went to Gecko's, which is probably the most famous Foreigner Bar in Seoul, we got a big table there which was no easy task(Thank you Yubi) and closed the place down, they kicked us out around 1:30am. This is early for a bar to close in Korea but the place was dead because it was Sunday and everyone also probably wanted to go home early to get well rested for New Years Eve the next day. Everyone besides us that is! Usually bars here stay open until the sun comes up, which the next bar that we went to did. After Gecko's we went to the UN Bar, its a foreigner dance club in Itaewon below Pancho's. I think it also doubles as a Filipino brothel. Itaewon is where most of the American Soldiers hang out and because of this there is a large amount of prostitution on the area, the main street Itaewono has it main cross section at a street called Hooker Hill(It is exactly what it sounds like) which is directly across the street from the Hamilton Hotel a nice chain hotel that costs $100-$150 a night and has a famous rooftop pool that you can pay $7 to swim in during the day. We then called it a night and the 5 of us still out grabbed 2 cabs and went back to Insadong and crashed around 4am.

The next day we all woke up by noon and checked out of our rooms, it was cheaper to just keep one room and keep our bags there all day and then check back in to the hotel after 8pm, this saved us $20 a room, this way the hotel can rent the rooms out during the day, this is a win, win situation. Please keep in mind this is Asia and things are different here. We all separated and recovered in different ways. Some people shopped, a lot of us saw a movie. It was too cold to be outside for very long. I saw the Golden Compass(all movies are in English in Korea with Korean subtitles,well some Korean films are in Korean, but most of there movies are from hollywood just like the States), it was a good movie but a bit confusing at first. We all met back up around 6pm and were able to check in to all of our rooms again.

We got ready for the night and went out around 9:30pm and got some Chinese food in Insadong. After that we went to The Bar(its called The Bar) and had a drink or two to stay warm inside. Around 11pm we went outside and joined the rest of the people on the street near city hall for a time square style New Years celebration.(I would guess there were easily 100,000 people there, but who knows) They blocked off a large 7 lane street and everyone poured in at 11pm on the dot. There were more police than I had ever seen before, they formed a human barricade around the street 7 cops deep and 1/2 a mile long on both sides of the road to control the mass flow off people to the main intersection. There was a stage set up there and lights to count down a a large building(no ball =( dropping ) The cops let people through to the street one at time in 50 different locations by opening up small holes in there human barricade, they also had columns of men in the streets 5 rows deep forming a sort of maze to slow the flow of people down to stop mad rush that would have killed people for sure.

It was very impressive, I have never sen such a well organized way of dealing with that amount of people before. I was very impressed and baffled until I figured out what they were doing, then it all made sense. The cops where all in full riot gear although I never saw even one altercation although I'm sure that had to be at least 1 with all those people in such a small place, it was shoulder to shoulder for 1 mile! We got to the main intersection almost first(I'm sure 1000 people beat us, but we were in the top 1%).

We eventually decided to move off the street to the sidewalk across the street from the stage for safety reasons. It was like the mosh pit at a Green Day concert I went to in 1995, only the pushing was unintentional and due to the fact that the crowd moved with its own force. So we stood on the sidewalk and watched the countdown above and saw a jumbo-tron with the stage acts(they were all in Korean anyway). We drank and had a blast, it was freezing! After midnight we stayed around for 1/2 an hour and watched the place clear out, it was amazing to see so many people appear and disappear in a 1 hour period, by 12:10 the street was mostly empty. Everyone light off Roman candles and it looks like a GI Joe verse Cobra firefight for about half an hour from 11:40pm to 12:10am.

At some point after midnight we went to a local bar and had some drinks and food and we called it a night around 2am, it was a long day and we were out to late the night before. I also managed to lose Yubi in the post midnight crowd, but she found us about 40 minutes later after she charged her dead phone, she ended up 2 bars away randomly, she was drunk and scared I think from being alone, but once we found her it was okay. I also found a bar that has a Belgium Trappist Ale in Korea, this is my favorite type of beer and it's impossible to get in Korea!!

The next day we woke up at noon, checked out went to Bennigan's at Seoul Station and got on trains and headed back to Gumi, it was a great trip and an amazing thing to see! I had a great New Years in Seoul, South Korea!!!!

Here is a link to some video I took
New Years Eve Seoul 2007/2008 Video on YouTube

Christmas Day

2008-01-16T05:19:00.001-05:00

Christmas is a celebrated holiday here in Korea, the most popular religion is Christianity here. It's not as big of a deal as it is in the States though. No one gets Christmas Eve off here and most of the shops and restaurants are open on Christmas day here. Since I just had 1 day off I decided to celebrate it with a couple dozen of my fellow English teachers. I called my family during their celebration and sent a few emails to friends too. At noon I went over to a couples apartment and we had a Christmas potluck party about 15 people attended. We all brought a dish, I brought Kraft Mac n Cheese and we had a random $5 gift exchange. This lasted until about 7 or 8pm.

I left around 6 pm though to meet another 15 friends at a Microbrewery/Buffet Restaurant called the Tomato Brau. It's a great place it costs $18 and it has all the Micro brewed beer you can drink, theres a stout(dark beer), a wiezen(brown beer) and a pilsner(yellow beer) the beer is delicious! The buffet is really good too, they have lots of Seafood,even good sushi and sashimi. There is steak,pasta, fries,nachos,salad bar,deserts and much more. We stayed there until 10pm and then I went home and went to bed since I had to go to work the next day. We go to the Tomato Brau a lot and usually we stay until midnight and drink all the free beer we can but it was Christmas. It was a good Christmas but I missed my family.

Unexpected Inappropriate Moments

2008-01-16T04:39:00.001-05:00

Unexpected Inappropriate Moments are something that happen no matter where you teach, when there isn't a language barrier these moments can become teaching moments. A teaching moment is an unplanned moment where you can use a situation in your classroom to teach your students a life's lesson. These can happen a few times each semester if you are on the lookout for them. When I was teaching Special Education in the States they were even more common because the students would often do and say inappropriate things. In Korea the students are generally very well behaved and respectful at least they are to me, but it needs to be said that I spend time making sure my students know that I will not accept certain behaviors, mostly disrespect and not following my directions. Some teachers seem to have problems with their kids, but I rarely do, I think my Special Education background has helped me to excel in classroom management.

Anyway back to my original point, when you can easily communicate with your students you can turn Unexpected Inappropriate Moments into teaching moments because they can fully understand what you are saying and they can get the meaning, when your students don't speak the same language as you do this becomes more difficult. Their is also the cultural differences that make this even harder, how do I know what is appropriate and inappropriate? There have been many times where I thought the students where doing things they shouldn't be and have been told its normal in Korea. Things like touching each other in non violent ways, ways that might be considered somewhat sexually inappropriate in the states are common place here. Teachers are even encouraged to hug and touch students. Even tickling is used with younger students in some situations, these things all seem a bit odd to foreigners but many of them make the students feel more comfortable around you, I still can't and won't touch and female students but I have found that tickling my younger male students when they are talking or misbehaving gets them back on track quickly. I'm still not sure why, but it works. Also when you talk to students they will often put there hand on your arm, this is still awkward for me but I have learned to not jerk my arm back and to just roll with it. When I first started I would pull my arm back and they found this to be insulting.

As far as the picture goes I was taking pictures of some of my students and one of the more rambunctious ones flipped me the bird, I was so stunned by this I started to laugh and quickly changed my face and pretended to be upset,even though I thought it was hilarious. I didnt send him to the principal but I did make him stand with his hands over his head for the remainder of the class (about 4 minutes), this is also an acceptable form of punishment here that would likely get you fired in the States. I thought about sending him to my director but I feared he would have been treated to harshly if I did. At the very least he would have received a demoralizing lecture were he would be screamed at for 5-10 minutes and quite possibly he would have been beaten with a stick for this. Either way I didn't want to be responsible for these actions, so I handled it myself.

I realize this is a picture I probably shouldn't be posting but I can't help it, its just so adorable.

The Great Santa Scooter Ride

2008-01-16T04:24:00.000-05:00

I had a Santa suit at my school and I received a large package from my family for Christmas so I decided it would be fun to dress up as Santa and ride my scooter home with my presents in my sack. I tied my sack to my handle bars and mounted my red scooter or as I called it this night, Santa's Sleigh. I only live about 2 minutes scooter ride from my school but this night it took me 20 minutes to get home.

I drove around my entire neighborhood yelling Merry Christmas and Ho Ho Ho at the top of my lungs to every person that I passed. Since I was dressed up as Santa Clause and sporting a real beard(which is odd in Korea) I got many strange looks. I had people stop me for cel phone pics. The Koreans in my neighborhood all seemed to enjoy my prank, some thought it was hilarious while others just thought it was very odd, but either way they were enthralled by me. It was the most fun I have had in Korea all year!

Hamburger Clause

2008-01-16T04:06:00.000-05:00

At my School we had Christmas parties on Christmas Eve, this was easy since we had classes scheduled until 9:30pm on Christmas Eve...

Anyway I dressed up as Santa Clause and Handed out Hamburgers to the kids. I named myself Hamburger Clause and it seemed to get a good reception from the kids. We got the hamburgers delivered from Lotteria(the Korean Mc Donald's). The kids didn't seem to think it was strange that there Christmas presents were hamburgers, I guess kids always want hamburgers! Every class I grabbed my red sack full of Hamburgers(it needs to be mentioned that I am a vegetarian!!) and handed one out to each regardless if they had been naughty or nice. I handed out around 250 hamburgers that day!

I also had parties in my classes this day and I bought the kids Coke to go with the burgers and they brought in chips and other snacks. We just played games all class long. I bought fries for my older kids and we played scrabble, the kids played in teams of 2-3 and got 10 letters and I get 6, they usually beat me so this seems to be a fair handicap for me. I also got to pass out candy canes with little presents attached to them that my mom shipped me from the states. The kids loved them,thanks Mom!

It was a lot of fun to dress up as Santa Clause and the kids got a kick out of it,it was also a good use of my beard.

Kimchi

2008-01-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

Kimchi is the most popular food in Korea. It's also a huge source of national pride for Koreans. Kimchi (or Gimchi or Kimchee) comes in many forms, it is a fermented vegetable. It is usually fermented in a spicy red chili sauce, but can also be in a white sauce which is not spicy. It is believed by some doctors that the red sauce is the reason why Korea has one of the highest stomach cancer rates in the world. The white sauce is said to be healthier by these doctors. Koreans, however love their red kimchi and I don't think they would give it up even if it was proven to cause cancer beyond any doubt!

The most common form of Kimchi and my favorite food in Korea is the cabbage kind. Baechu (chinese cabbage) Kimchi is made with cabbage and fermented in a spicy red sauce for several days with spices and other ingredients that vary by recipe. This is the most common type of Kimchi found in Korea, but I have also found the cucumber and radish Kimchis to be delicious. Kimchi is also used to make a very popular soup called Kimchi Jjigae (Pronounced Kim chee / chee gay) The process and recipe for making Kimchi is passed down in families and is a well kept secret for some. The women in families take their Kimchi making very seriously. I received a gift of Kimchi from a friend of mine for christmas. She is a foregin teacher from America that I work with, her name is Liz, here is a link to a video she made of her making my Kimchi present. She made it with a Korean family that she attends church with,here is the link

Liz Kimchi Video on YouTube

Many Koreans believe Kimchi is very healthy and some even believe it will prevent disease, I just think it is delicious and my favorite food in Korea.

The Korea Times

2008-01-13T08:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday a coworker and good friend of mine had an article published in the Korea Times, Korea's oldest independent English Newspaper, he wrote about a trip to China that the two of us took together. I thought it would be good to put it in my blog, here is a link to the web posting of the article
Michael Braun Korea Times Article
I wrote a blog about this trip already but this is a professional assessment.

Travel to China
By Michael Elliot Braun in The Korea Times on 1/11/08

It was September in 2007. And thanks to Korea's traditional Chuseok (Full Moon) holiday, I received many vacation days from my Korean ESL (English as a second language) academy.

Many foreign ESL teachers, including myself, took full advantage of this time off work. We had an amazing opportunity to explore a communist country recently opened up to the world for international tourism ― China.

Due to its sheer land mass, its law regulations, and its language barriers, many ESL teachers choose to experience China through a guided tour. And this five-day tour made efficient use of my seven-day holiday.

Approximately, 20 teachers left on a tour collaboration between a Korean company, Happy Tour Agency, and local Chinese tour guides. Our group met one tour guide in Beijing and the other in Xian. The flight, Air China, flew out of Daegu International Airport and landed in Beijing International Airport.

Upon arrival in Beijing, Wally, our Beijing tour guide, quickly blew our group away with local sites and food. And our group maintained a maddening pace to experience China's best features. Since we only had five days, a tightly budgeting schedule managed to provide us many exotic foods, spectacular shows, and tours of breathtaking attractions.

Indulging in China's food was a tough job; we worked our stomachs very hard. Since every meal resembled one seen at a Chinese buffet, I would not recommend a visit to China on a diet. However, as opposed to a normal buffet, each dish was laid out on our moment of arrival.

Each dish certainly tasted fresh, and the style of cuisine varied with each restaurant. Possibly, the king of all our meals was Peking Duck; a mouth watering dinner prepared with a great imagination. The restaurant created and served food for politicians, businessmen, and exclusive families. And it did so for a good reason.

Each elegant duck dish was prepared with great detail. And the restaurant created and served so many that they were stacked one on top of each other on our spacious table. This site seemed a little intimidating at first glance. But, nevertheless, our group managed to devour a dinner fit for a king.

In addition to stuffing ourselves with authentic Chinese food, Hannah Tour visited sights hard to believe exist. On our tour, we saw two of China's most cherished treasures: the Great Wall outside Beijing, and the Terra-Cotta Warriors in Xian.

They represent two manmade wonders of the world. Honestly, after first-hand views of these structures, it seems as if people should admire the engineers that designed these awe aspiring creations. Likewise, people should take pity on those poor laborers who made the massive works of art possible.

China, not only offers masterful statues, it also features masterpiece performances. I watched one show that triggered personal memories as a childhood performer. As a five year old child, while I walked casually between two adults, I often locked our hands together, sprung off my feet, and flipped myself completely upside down. I rotated like a man suspended in air by a bungee cord.

But my childhood stunt was certainly mere child's play in comparison to China's Acrobatic Show. Without a doubt, China's kids performed feats of amazement only reproduced by superheroes.

For instance, I watched one teenage girl who resembled Wonder Women. Just like a superhero, she rode a bike and supported three other girls on her arms and shoulders. Additional girls joined this human pyramid.

More and more girls piled onto her bicycle until the rider simultaneously supported 11 girls. Wonder Women's surreal performance complimented another actor's performance.

I gave him the pseudo name: Spiderman. Spiderman, a teenager, swung 180 degrees, back and forth, on his own webbing: a tight rope. At the end of his act, he flung himself from side to side while he balanced himself upside down, in a handstand, on a stepladder.

Recently, China has generously opened its borders to one more trade: tourism. And since these dinners, attractions, and acts seem incredibly difficult to believe, you should research them yourself; the experience will be priceless.

Michael Elliot Braun is an ESL teacher in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province. He can be reached at mebrauns@gmail.com.

Beards in Korea

2007-12-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

I recently decided to grow a beard. There were all the normal issue's involved in this, like itchy skin while it first grows in and the awkward look until it is fully grown in. However I also realized that Koreans really do not like facial hair. Of course there are a few Koreans who like it, but the vast majority, easily over 90% dislike it and some really hate it. My students spend a good portion of each class trying to convince me that I looked more handsome without it and that I should shave it off. They say I have a dirty face. Apparently in Korea's past Beards where common, they were a sign of maturity but sometime in the last 50 years they went out of style and today they are just not socially acceptable. It used to be when I walked down the street I would get a lot of smiles from Korean women, when I first grew the beard I noticed that I was being treated differently but it took me a few weeks to realize the cause, the beard. Anyway I am not discouraged by the Korean opposition to my beard, I like it and all the foreigners dig it too. So I will keep my beard and continue to tease my students by telling them I will shave it off if they all get 100% on their tests, which they never will....

Dancing Girls

2007-12-23T13:10:00.000-05:00

When a Korean business opens or they want to advertise they hire dancing girls. These are young women,that I assume are generally 19-25 years old and they dress in cheerleader like outfits with a 80's twist. They always wear skirts even in the snow, although this is common all over, women here wear winter leggings under their skirts. They stand on circular platforms that remind me of american gladiator platforms and they dance and say sales pitches into microphones.They repeat the slogans or pitches and talk to people who are walking by and try and get them to go in the business. There is also loud music playing, its very noticeable so I suppose it does its job but I often wonder how much it costs to rent these girls and the stage and sometimes there are balloons and flowers and those inflatable guys. I once read a blog that suggested that the girls that do this where once cheerleaders, then they become dancing girls and eventually they go into being coffee girls. Coffee girls are girls who ride around on scooters and deliver coffee to old men and talk to them, its kind of like strippers on scooters with coffee. This is a unique Korean cultural phenomenon, at least it is to my knowledge maybe this type of advertising happens in other countries but I have talked to many English teachers who have taught all over the world and no one has ever seen this before!

Waegook Bowling

2007-12-09T13:04:00.000-05:00

Today was the first of what will hopefully become a weekly bowling night. 7 English teachers from the U.S. and Canada got together and went bowling at a local bowling alley in my neighborhood in Gumi. The bowling alley was okay, the lanes were good, but the computerized scoring system wasn't perfect. There are many bowling alleys in Korea. Koreans love all things western and bowling fits the western stereotype perfectly.

Lisa, a Canadian English teacher started the Waegook(foreigner) Bowling Association on Facebook a week ago and we have high hopes of getting 3-4 lanes worth of teachers to participate. Currently there is a Sunday night soccer game that is competing with us. The soccer players said that they will stop playing outdoor soccer soon because of the temperature(it's cold...) and they will join us, so that will help.

I think once everyone hears about how much fun we had they will decide to come, it was a blast, most of the people couldn't really bowl, but they had fun and tried. I am a decent bowler, maybe 140ish average. I was by far the best bowler there today, but I know of a few teachers who are much better than I am, so hopefully they will start to come soon. We were having the most fun in the bowling hall, most of the Koreans were very serious bowlers, we were laughing,screaming,cheering and taunting each other every frame. It was a blast!

Come join us if you are in Gumi, Sundays at 8:30pm, in Hyyeong Guk Dong, near the park and the library, contact me if you are interested.

American Thanksgiving in Korea

2007-11-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Korea has it's own Thanksgiving, it's called Chuseok, I added a wikipedia explanation below.

Chuseok, also called Han-ga-wi (한가위) (from archaic Korean for "great middle"), is a major three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.

Of course no one celebrates American holidays in Korea, except for people on the military bases. I was invited to go to a friends house on a military base in Daegu to have dinner with them on Thanksgiving but since I had to work that was impossible. So I ended up not doing anything for Thanksgiving, the American one, I ate some potatoes and corn but that was it. I have never been a person who really got all that into holidays so for me it wasn't a big deal but it was strange that a week before Thanksgiving I didn't even realize that it was coming up. It wasn't until I was watching the Buckeyes beat Michigan that I was told it was just around the corner. If I hadn't have had a video call to my family I might have forgotten about it completely. I also got a email from my friends in Daegu with a picture of their baby in a Thanksgiving outfit, so that would have reminded me too.

I guess this blog is pointless,its just about how easy it is to forget about American holidays when you are on the other side of the world. Christmas is celebrated here so I will be able to celebrate it with the rest of the country and my fellow teachers. Businesses and Cities have already began to decorate places with Christmas decorations. I was in Seoul last weekend and we saw a public square being decorated with a huge Christmas display and what might have been a skating rink or large stage.
I also ate at Bennigan's and they had their Christmas decorations up and were playing all Christmas music. SO I guess even without a Thanksgiving they put the Christmas decorations up the weekend after it regardless.

Halloween in Korea

2007-11-18T07:35:00.000-05:00

Halloween is not celebrated in Korea but many kids go to English schools or have English teachers at their public schools and they celebrate the holiday there. At my school some of the teachers dress up and we take the classes to a room where we scare the kids and give them candy. I dressed up as the scream killer and another teacher at my school was a goblin nun.I scared the kids on the walk to the room by hiding around corners and jumping out at them, a few even fell over they were so scared(in the US this wouldn't be acceptable but it was expected of us here and the kids loved it,the more scared they were the happier they got) then we lead the classes in a pitch black room where the other teacher was hiding behind a table. Then I shut the door and waited until the hidden teacher was by the kids, then I turned on the lights and we screamed. The kids are scared and they love it. We then give them candy and had a brain box(pumpkin guts in a box that says brains on it) that the kids can stick their hand in, also there is Halloween music and the teachers have special lessons about the holiday for class that day. Other schools have similar celebrations. The English teachers at public schools even dress up.

At some schools all the teachers both Korean and Foreign dress up, pre-schools and daycares also celebrate the holiday. Most Korean kids are exposed to Halloween. They love it, they get candy and get out of their normal studying routine, so whats not to love. Many of the kids also dress up and they love this too.

I also know that many of the US military bases open their gates on Halloween and allow Korean and Foreign kids to come on base and go trick or treating. In Daegu their was a line of over 1000 kids a half hour before the event started.

6 Months in Korea, half way done

2007-11-18T05:34:00.000-05:00

On November 15h I finished my 6th month in Korea. Time has gone by quickly but it also seems like I have been here for years. I have gotten to travel to Thailand, China and see quite a bit of Korea. It has been a great experience and I have learned a lot about myself and about people from other countries outside of the U.S. Most of the English teachers here are from Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and of course the U.S. Before I came to Gumi I new a lot about Americans and Canadians but I have gotten to learn about the other English speaking people in the world. I have also gotten to learn about Korea, it's culture,customs, history, people and even a little bit of it's language. Koreans are very different from Westerners and I have learned a lot about myself through them. I have learned that I love some of their foods, especially their Kimchi. I have learned about their kindness and their tempers. I have challenged my vegetarianism, my patience and my intellect. I have gotten to make many new friends that have and will continue to change me for the rest of my life.

If anyone is thinking about teaching abroad for a year I highly recommend it, sometimes it sucks, but overall it is a great experience and at least in Korea you can make a lot of money and pay very little in taxes to Korea(less than 10% for pention,health care and taxes). I am very happy to not be supporting the U.S. Government right now, I don't agree with their policies and I am happy that none of my money will go to support needless wars. So far Korea has rocked and I look forward to the next 6 months, I plan to travel to another country before I leave during the Lunar New Year in February and I will be spending 5-6 weeks in Australia after my contract is finished.

Pepero Day

2007-11-10T18:32:00.000-05:00

On the 11th of November in Korea they have a holiday that is similar to Sweetest Day in the States. They celebrate Valentines Day here but it is also similar to Valentines Day. The day is called Pepero Day. Pepero is a cookie stick that is dipped in chocolate in its most popular form, sometimes it has sprinkles or nuts on the top too. Also some of the smaller forms have the chocolate on the inside of the cookie. The idea is that you give your boyfriend or girlfriend Pepero on the 11th and/or flowers or other romantic gifts. As with Valentines day in the States school children exchange this candy with their classmates regardless of their romantic involvement. As a teacher I was given a ton of these sticks. The day was most likely started by the Lotte, the company that makes the original form of this candy. There is a story that it was started by young girls in Busan, Korea's second largest city, it's said that they exchanged the candy and wished that they would grow up tall and thin like the candy. Regardless it started back in 1994 and has been copied in Japan with a different candy called Pocky.

Sangju Mountain

2007-11-08T10:45:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday all 21 teachers and staff from both the schools I work for went to Sanju Mountain for a group hike. We all left at 9am on one of the buses the school owns. We traveled a little over an hour to get to Sangju Mountain. I don't know the exact length of our hike but it was around 8km. The mountain is very beautiful. It is surrounded by a small town, I am not sure of the name of this town. The hike was mandatory which pissed me off, but it was fun. My school tries to get all the teachers together every month or two for bonding. I find it a bit draconian to tell people what they have to do on non work hours but at least we get free meals out of it. It's better than the ridiculous trainings we also have to attend on our time, those really piss me off. But TIK (This Is Korea) most management decisions here are not based on logic but are rather based on trying to control people, which is about 40 years behind the US style. Anyway, the hike was cool, a few of the teachers struggled on the hike, our owner took more than an hour after the rest of the group to finish the hike but everyone finished eventually. The top of the mountain had a temple, most mountain peaks in Korea have temples, a solar power array and a helicopter pad. There were also a few spots were you had to use a rope to go up or down. After the hike two of the teachers and I got drunk while we waited for the owner then we went to a duck restaurant, I had cod. It was a fun and scenic forced hike.

Violence in Korea

2007-10-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

This is a letter that a Canadian friend of mine wrote about her experience with violence in Korea. I thought it says all that needs to be said, so I'm putting it on my blog with her permission.

There's a kid in class 304 that I absolutely hate. Last year within my first month of teaching, he almost made me cry, I was so furious with him (I've since learned that there are better ways of getting a student to do what you want then screaming at the top of your lungs. Like pulling them out of the class by their ear.). He was playing on a cellphone and when I caught him he refused to give it to me, then he refused to leave the classroom, and my co teacher at the time, who was completely useless and left at the end of December without saying goodbye to anybody, stood idly by. Finally, using said-grab-ear maneuver, I dragged him down to the principals office.

Since that moment, I've refused to acknowledge this student, despite him saying (in a rude, mocking way) "HELLO!" to me in the hallways whenever we pass, or shooting his hand up in the air and going "Choyo!" which means 'me' in Korean to give an answer or write something on the board if he knows he'll get a candy. There have been so many classes where he'd be sitting at the back of the room, straining his arm for me to choose him while all of the other students were dead to the world, and I would choose another student at random just because. I hated him that much.

Well I decided a couple of weeks ago to let it go and acknowledge him seeing as how it was my last couple of weeks and I didn't really feel quite so justified on being such a hater. I even gave him a candy once for writing something on the board. And then, yesterday happened.

I'm not quite sure on all of the details, but from what I've gathered it went something like this. Their math teacher, a woman in her late-thirties/early-fortie s was trying to quiet down the class, and he would not shut up. So finally she went to the back of the classroom where he sits to admonish him personally. For whatever reason he got up, either punched or slapped her, then began to strangle her before throwing her on the ground and stomping on her. Thankfully, she is ok, and was at work today.

The student was told not to come to school today, but did anyhow and was essentially locked away in the guidance counselors office. They're talking about transferring him to another school (and only if another school accepts him) as the worst punishment he could receive, which is counterintuitive to what I think. He would be lucky to be transferred to another school, it would be getting off easy. He should go to jail.

Anyhow, it's a safe bet that I won't be teaching him anymore. I've always wanted to send him out straight away because he invariably does something disruptive, and nine times out of ten I have him standing at the back of the classroom with his hands over his head (the light end of corporeal punishment here in Korea) within the first five minutes of class. That is, if he's not sleeping by the time there, in that case, I just let sleeping dogs lie.

Mrs Shin, my favorite co teacher, and I were discussing what we would do in that situation, and she honestly had no idea, which I felt really badly about. The teacher who was assaulted probably didn't either. And Mrs Shin is a tiny tiny woman (and a MILF, haha); she's probably about half the size of me. She suggested "Wouldn't you call the police?" and the image in my head was "Excuse me, attacker, while I pull my cellphone out, I just need to make a call." And so I asked her "Well how do you do that if his hands are around your neck?" She gave me a "Mollayo" look (I don't know in Korean) and so I told her that a better option might be to knee him in the balls.
Mrs Shin: What?
Me: KNEE HIM IN THE BALLS.
Mrs Shin: Puzzled expression. So I grab my would-be imaginary attacker and demonstrate the kneeing motion. She got the picture.

I think my coworker Jennifer (one tough lady from Pittsburgh) and I should teach a self-defense class at school. Middle school is a funny age. These kids truly still are kids mentally, but they're beginning to grow into adult bodies. And, to me, it's terrifying that some of the little, and I mean really little Korean women I work with have no idea how to defend themselves. I'm not saying that I could avoid getting hurt but I could at least do enough damage that would hopefully get me into a safer situation. Poke him in the eye, knee him in the balls. Grab, twist, pull.

One thing that I'm stoked to leave behind me in Korea is the daily onslaught of casual violence. Make no mistake, what happened in 304 class yesterday was by no means casual, but routine violence is a daily occurrence in this country. It's funny, all of us foreign teachers said that what happened yesterday was something we would expect at home, something that probably wouldn't even surprised us (the teachers at my school were just shocked.), but never here. But on the flip-side, we see violence everyday here that is completely unthinkable back home. The stuff of everyday public school punishment in Korea is the subject of scandals and lawsuits back home. Let me explain.

Kids hit each other on the regular here, and don't get in trouble for it. I screamed at a first grade boy last week for hitting two girls. I made him stay behind during lunch and reamed him out until he was almost in tears. I don't really know how much he understood but I know he damn well understood "You, Canada, America, hit girls, police, jail. DON'T DO IT AGAIN." Hopefully I shook the fear of death into him and he won't grow up to beat his wife, but that probably won't happen. I walk into classrooms regularly where one kid is wailing on another, boys against boys, girls against girls, boys and girls against each other. I always make the one who I actually see doing the hitting stand at the back of the class with their hands over their head and invariably the students whine like "It was his/her fault!" but I tell them I don't give a shit, you were the one I saw hitting.

And herein lies the rub: that's just the students. Fifties and sixties-style punishments are still the norm in Korea. I must admit, I think it's pretty hilarious to make the students stand with their hands over their heads, because I feel it's harmless and really pretty funny. They get so embarrassed! I don't really feel bad about doing it as my favorite teacher of all time, Mrs Hagger, who I had a bunch of times for English in high school, used to make the boys do it with books. And boy was it ever funny. However, I totally draw the line at actually touching a kid with violent intent myself. I find it barbaric. (And I find it so funny that I now living in a society where it's necessary to make that assertion, where it's not just a gimme.) I was having this discussion earlier today with Miss Che, and she was saying that while she doesn't believe in hitting the students because she "believes in basic human rights" (I loved how directly she put that), but it puts her in a difficult position with regards to the students. Because students quickly learn that you're not going to hit them, they're less well-behaved. They honestly show less respect. So while she would never hit a student, she recognizes that because of this, she needs to work harder at discipline. But this lady can yell: when she talks you listen!

But that's just me. My office has twelve regular teachers and two 'head' teachers. And the two head teachers, who are some of my favorite in the school, regularly dish out the beatings. They have these instruments which are essentially wooden spoons except bigger that they use to whack the students' calves. But the way it's done, it's methodical, and not emotional. And for that reason it doesn't seem barbaric. It's just the way that things are done here. (I can already feel the outraged emails coming!!) Maybe I've just been living here too long. The students come in and they know what to expect, and most of the time it doesn't really hurt them, and I had one teacher explain to me that the reason they use the glorified wooden spoons is because the noise they make when they hit skin is much worse than the pain itself, and so it scares kids enough into falling in line. I've never seen a student seem too bothered by it, and I once actually interviewed a student, who I used to tutor, on this subject and he said that he prefers to be hit as it happens and then it's over, rather than having marks taken off or have to do community service or whatever. There have been times where there has been a whole lineup of kids in the office after school to get a beating, and they all laugh and joke about it. But I did see Mrs Li, one of the head teachers in my office, the other day, rap a girl across the knuckles eight times so that she was crying, and then on top of that made her stand with her hands above her head. That was a bit much.
(On a side note, the other head teacher in my office is Mr Cho, and I totally love this guy. He's one of the kindest people I've ever met. But I watched him actually bite a kid on the shoulder a couple of weeks ago as a joke punishment, and it was one of the cutest/creepiest things I've ever seen. I almost busted a rib laughing.)

So maybe you're all reading this now and thinking, what a fucked up way to think. Corporal punishment is funny? Well, we talk a lot in our culture of desensitization. From the news, from video games, from movies. And when I say the news, I don't just mean the coverage of the war, and the Columbines and the Virginia Techs, but also the rampant violent crime that exists in the everyday in the US. Granted, it does exist in Canada as well, and no one, especially me, is denying that. So this next section is a little difficult to word. Many of us living in North America are desensitized to the violence in the media, but we would still lift a finger if we heard the woman next door getting the shit beaten out of her. In Korea, that is also commonplace. Name me a foreigner who has come over here and not heard screaming in the middle of the night, or at least knows someone closely who has. So while we see it on the news, rarely does it come so close into our personal space that we have the need to do something about it. Flip over to Korea, where it's so commonplace, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't pick up the phone to call the police, as the language barrier prevents it. Maybe I should have learned how to say "The woman next door is getting the shit beaten out of her!" BUT, one thing I have become desensitized to is kids getting whacked with a wooden spoon in my office. It's still jarring every time it happens, but you come to realize, as a foreigner living in a foreign country, that there's nothing you can do to stop it. You can preach about it till you're blue in the face, but in the end, you're only here for a year (two if you're me!) and after that you'll have moved on with your own life and teachers across this wonderful country will continue to beat their kids. And that's not gonna change for a while.

It's such a strange dichotomy that exists in Korea, which goes for this issue and countless others. Violence is used on a regular basis as a means of punishment, and yet when incidences like this happen, it's a massive shock. Going back to Virginia Tech, the teachers at my school were horrified that the murderer was Korean. I had Mrs Shin rush up to me the next morning and was like "Did you talk to your parents?!?!?!" and I was like "Yeah... why?" And she replied "Well, aren't they worried about you? Do they want you to come home?" While I told them that no one in Canada or America, except hillbillies and rednecks, would think anything of Koreans because of this, I'll bet that more than a few Koreans were outraged that the Great Evil America could so corrupt one of their own.

Anyway to sum this up concisely as I'm out of time at work: Violence in the classroom sucks, but Korea is still a safer than America ;-)

Recycling in Korea

2007-10-23T10:34:00.001-04:00

I have been meaning to write this blog for a few months now. I was suppossed to write it last week as part of a national environmental blog day, but I forgot, so I am writing it now. Recycling is required by law in Korea. You have to separate all your trash into six separate bags. Plastics, Glass, Metal, Paper, non-food trash and food trash. The plastics, glass, metal and paper can go into any plastic bags you get from the store, the non-food trash has to go into bags you buy that are green or white depending on the size. The food trash has to go into bags that you buy that are yellow, all food you throw away has to go into these bags which are then composted. The rest of the recyclables are recycled, very little trash is actually thrown away in this system, I throw away less that than a 10liter bag a week of trash, I usually throw out my green non-food trash bag every week so it wont get stinky and its usually only 2/3 full. It is amazing to see how much of my trash gets recycled, I would say around 85% of my trash is recycled or composted with this system and its very easy, it takes me no time and I keep all the bags under my sink. I have always tried to recycle in the US, but they are very strict about what they will take. Here you can recycle any plastic, paper, glass or metal, they take it all. The bags that you buy for your trash and food waste are expensive and the money is used to pay for the landfills and collecting costs. The system is years ahead of what we have in Ohio.

China in 4 days

2007-10-13T14:48:00.000-04:00

I recently went to to China during the Chuseok(Korean Thanksgiving) holiday. I went with a tour group of 21 other English teachers from near where I teach in Korea. I am glad I decided to take a tour as I only had 4 days and there is no way I would have seen even half of what I did by myself in that amount of time. However tour groups allow you to see a lot quickly, but you just get to see things quickly and its a very commercialized version of china that you get to see, except for the times when we broke away from the group and got to see some of the real sites.

On the first day we left from Daegu International Airport in the morning, I went with 2 of my friends who also teach in Gumi, Mike (known as Chicago Mike, there are a few Mike's in Gumi, he prefers Michael but...) and Jenny. We also had 2 of our friends who were on the same flight with us Traci and Beard, they had a whole week off and were going without a tour group, but they were on the same flight with us, very random. Our flight was 2 hours late getting to Beijing because it was 2 hours late leaving Beijing, which I am told is fairly common. So when we arrived we were already behind schedule. After clearing customs, getting our bags and finding our entire group we were another hour behind schedule. Let me tell you that the airport in Beijing was insane, there were thousands of people outside the security area waiting for people, I have flown many times but this was something I have never seen before. Our tour had to meet but it was impossible to find people and there was nowhere within hundred feet of the gate were you could even stand let alone get a group of 22 together. Eventually we all found each other in front of a KFC and I was also able to get a double espresso from Starbucks and a mozzarella panini, go capitalism! We were suppossed to see the Temple of Heaven on this day (Sunday) but because we were late their was no time so we went straight to dinner. We always ate at very commercialized Chinese family style places that catered to large tour groups like ours, don't get me wrong the food was good and authentic enough, but I prefer to find the whole in the wall local places when I travel and being a vegetarian I was usually not very well taken care of, but this is life in a meat dominated world, you get used to it. I was lucky enough because Jenny is a vegan so she had it much worse and at least I had company in my food misery. Also one interesting thing is all the restaurants had lazy Susan style turntables in the middle so the dishes could be shared by all 8 -10 people at a table easily, very efficient! We then went to an acrobatic show, it was amazing, it was a school were they trained the next generation of Chinese acrobats and it was impressive. They had one kid who did things on a tight rope, like walk non his hands and push off into flips and land back on the rope, he also had a routine where he balanced on a ladder on the rope and jumped off of it, there were a ton of talented young kids who will no doubt end up in acts like Cirque de Soleil. After the show we went to our "4" star hotel(more like 2 1/2), it was clean and nice enough. The area of town we were in didn't have anything to do, but Mike,Jenny and I walked around our area and located a convenient store to get some supplies and alcohol, we also ate some KFC, which is everywhere in China, I saw 2 Mc Donald's and 20 KFC's during my trip. We had a drink and went to bed early, well not really it was probably 1am.

The next morning we left the hotel at 7:30am, breakfast at the hotel was good, it was always the same for breakfast a large western style buffet with some Asian items thrown in, which was perfect for me, I needed a solid meal where I could get food I can eat. On Monday we visited the Temple of Heaven, which we were suppossed to see on Sunday. It is a very large temple where they would sacrifice animals and have royal ceremonies back when china had royal families, before the communist revolution. It isn't a religious temple, but rather a royal one. After the temple we went to the Forbidden City where we saw where the Chinese emperors used to live, it was stunning, and gigantic. I took lots of inappropriate pictures here and everywhere, I am sure they will offend any Chinese who look at them, but I love to defile sacred places in my journeys, I try to be respectful of religious places, but the Political(Royal in this case) are fair game. We saw among other things the rooms where the Emperor kept his 1000 concubines! After the forbidden city we crossed the street and went to Tienanmen Square, it had all sorts of Olympic propaganda in it, but it was still a amazing site, I could just imagine the 1000's of college protesters there when the tanks came in to remove them, it's huge, like everything in Beijing, they build to impress and they do! After this we headed off to the airport where we hopped a flight to Xian. We arrived in Xian Monday night, its only a little over an hour by plane from Beijing. Our guide in Xian was a women and she was much more accommodating than our guide, Wally in Beijing, but Wally was a hoot! He was an ass, but funny. We got massages in Xian, she took us to a great place, I got a 2 hour full body and foot massage, some of our group went to a dance show instead, some did 1 hour of the dance show then 1 hour off massage, I opted for 2 hours of massage, I love massages! It was the best foot massage I have ever gotten. Our hotel in Xian was great, huge rooms and true 4 star quality.

Tuesday morning we went and saw the famous Terra Cotta Warriors
archaeological site. They have built 5 huge buildings around the dig site, its very impressive to imagine a emperor who had 10,000 life size clay warriors,horses and weapons built to take with him in the afterlife, vain, but impressive. After this we went to his tomb, the Qin King Tomb, its the largest tomb in the world, it seemed more like a park and palace than a tomb, the mound was hundreds of feet tall and it seemed like a mountain not a man made tomb. Then we went to the Huaqing Hot Spring, its a beautiful hot springs palace used in the summers by the emperor, his family and his top 100 concubines. There were separate hot springs for all 3 groups plus one for the staff, the water here was amazing, it felt like lotion when you touched it, it was so soft, i have never felt any water like it before, it is also very clean and can be drank. It's built on the side of a mountain, it would be a great place for a vacation home. After this we went to the airport and flew back to Beijing where we met up with Wally again. Wally was a funny guide, but as I said before not very accommodating, but he would always say follow wally(sounded like faw wow waaall wee), he was fun and entertaining although it was more us laughing at him, but it worked.

The next day we went to the Great Wall of China, it really isn't something you can describe with words, its infinitely huge, it appears as far as the eye can see, it is also very steep, at some points the steps were so steep you were using your hands to climb up it not walking. There were also so many people selling things there, they were quite annoying. Then there were the hordes of Chinese with their red hats, I don't know why but all the Chinese groups wore red hats and it was like a red sea when you saw them, there were easily 10,000 of them within sight when we arrived. It was an experience I will never forget. Of course there was also a large Olympic sign on the side of the mountain here. After the wall we went to a Peking Duck dinner, the famous meal in China, which I cant eat of course, it was delicious I'm sure. Then to a Kung Fu show, were we saw people break steal with their hands, heads and do all sorts of amazing feats. Then off for another 2 hours off massages. Then Mike and I walked around the neighborhood for a bit.

The last day we flew out of Beijing, our flight was 1 1/2 hours late leaving china, again. So we arrived 1 hour late, hopped in bullet cab(called this because they make a 40 minute trip in 25, its best to close your eyes) and went back to Gumi. I had to teach an hour after I got home. It was a great Chuseok Holiday!!!

Just another day in the capital of the land of Kimchi

2007-09-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

I went to Seoul again this weekend to celebrate the birthday of one of the teachers from my school, she has some college friends who moved to Seoul last week and she wanted to visit them to go out for her birthday. I got to Seoul late Friday night and I ended up staying in Itaewon, I didn't even get a cab at Seoul Station until 1am, there was a 40 minute wait in the cab line in the pouring rain, my train arrived at 12:10. The hotel I usually stay at was booked, the person in front of me in line got the last room. All the other hotels I know about in Itaewon were also booked so I ended up staying in the worst hotel I have ever been in next to the grand ole opry bar. It was unpleasant and smelly but only $30.I survived and got a hotel in Sinchon for Saturday night, it was $60 but it was really nice, marble, bath robe, free drinks in the fridge, extremely clean, etc. The name of the hotel was the Anytime Hotel. It is located behind the McDonald's and Burger King In Sinchon near the #2 exit from line 2 of the subway. I did get to eat at Pitas for lunch on Saturday, I had a delicious hummus and falafel pita wrap, it was the first real pita bread I've seen in Korea. It is across the street from Burger King in Itaewon which does have the best collection of western restaurants in Seoul. I didn't do much Saturday afternoon, all I did was rest since I didn't get much sleep Friday night. On Saturday night I took a 50 minute subway ride to COEX mall to meet some teachers and their friends at the COEX Mall Intercontinental hotel. We had some drinks in their hotel room and then they went to dinner but I took the subway back to Sinchon so I could meet up with Yubi when she got off of work and then go to Hondae to meet Robyn and Lisa and go out with them for Lisa's birthday. We met at some Hof(bar) above Starbucks and had a few pitchers and waited for everyone else to meet us. Once we had a crew of about 15 people,mostly Canadians we went to we went to Tinpan a western style bar/club where there was hip hop music and people dancing on tables. It was just like a college dance club in the states. Also Hondae is very dirty theres trash and puke all over the streets. 3 of Seoul's largest Universities are in the area so its just one big party town there. It's like nothing I have ever seen and I have seen a lot!

Pink Eye or The Eye Disease

2007-09-09T08:16:00.000-04:00

In Korea they treat Pink Eye a little different than we do in the U.S. In the U.S. if you have Pink Eye you are sent home from school until you are no longer contagious. There are some schools in Korea that do this too, but many of them including my school apparently do not do this. I was told by my director that she tells students to stay home if they have Pink Eye, but I was told by several of the students that they were told they should still come and they can be put in a separate room, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. Regardless of the policy of my school it seems that in general many schools in Korea allow and expect students to attend school with this highly contagious disease, this isn't surprising to me because of the high value Koreans put on education. I was also told by a student that her middle school makes students come because many students would infect each other on purpose so they could get a few days off of school, this probably happens in the U.S. too. So they just make all the infected students go to a large room and they have a separate class for them. I guess its not really a big deal to go to school with Pink Eye, you don't get fatigued or dizzy, the only issue is that you are contagious and will spread the disease to others. I can't say that I am thrilled to be working with contagious students and I will also say that if I get Pink Eye or as they call it in Korea the Eye Disease I won't be coming to work until its cleared up, but hey I guess I would get to use my 3 sick days then. All I have to say about this is TIK (this is Korea), that about sums it up!

Seoul 2, The Adventure Continues

2007-09-06T08:53:00.000-04:00

I went to Seoul about a month ago, it was my second trip to Korea's capital city. Every time I and anyone I know goes to Seoul we always want to go back the next weekend because it is so much fun, this time was no different. I arrived around noon on Saturday. I took the KTX train from Gumi with a short transfer in Dajeon. When I arrived I met my friend Yubi and we went to Itaewon to eat Mexican food, I love Mexican and you can't get it within 100km of where I live. We went to a restaurant called Poncho's, it was good, I had a burrito, taco, enchilada combo platter and a ultimate margarita. The food was great but it was expensive, for 2 people to eat Mexican in Cleveland where I am from it would cost maybe $20-25 and $5 a margarita, depending on the size. In Itaewon it costs $40 for the meal and $10 for each margarita, but it was worth every won. After lunch we headed off to COEX Mall. This is a huge mall that is below the trade center in Seoul. I have never seen a mall this big before, I think I saw maybe half of it and it took most of the day. I got to get a picture on the Simpson's Coach at the movie theater at the mall. I bought some popular science magazines at a book store and did a lot of window shopping. I am a mallrat and I love to see a country's malls. We also ate at Pizzeria Uno, which to my knowledge is the only one in Korea and it was delicious. I had a real caesar salad and a very good pizza, with no corn.(for some reason a lot of pizza's in Korea come with corn on them, I don't know why but I don't like it) After the mall I went back to Itaewon and got a room at the Itaewon Hotel. I then walked around Itaewon and ended up going to the Reggae Bar and met some cool people from Minnesota who had only been in Korea for 3 days. I drank their until about 3am and then I went to bed. The next day Yubi took me to Insadong an outdoor market that sells all sorts of things. We went to a toy museum, which I loved because I love toys. They had a ton of old Voltron and GI Joe memorabilia and hundreds of other cool toys, it was a lot like Big Fun in Coventry, Ohio but you couldn't buy most of the things. We then walked to the Cheong Gye Cheon river. It's a really cool park on the banks of the cleanest river in Seoul. You can swim (more like wade, but its Korea, Koreans don't really swim)in it and many people do including the two of us. After playing in the river and walking for a mile or so we ended up downtown near city hall. Yubi took me to where she works and then we took the subway and went to Sinchon where she lives. There are several Uni's (Universities) in this ares, so it is all 18-25 year olds, its like a really, really, really big campus. It's one big party. We went to a PC room here and then headed back to Seoul Station where I hopped a train back to Gumi. It was a great 2 days in Seoul, I loved my time there with Yubi!!

White Water Rafting Trip

2007-09-06T08:46:00.000-04:00

3 weeks ago I went Rafting in Korea on a local bus trip with the Waegook Cook Bar. It was a good time. There were about 40 people who went, about 25 foreigners and 15 Koreans, it was a good mix. We left around 9:30 in the morning and it took 2-3 hours to get to the river. No one really drank on the way their, a few people might have had a drink or two but for a Waegook Cook Bus the drinking was kept to the lowest possible level. When we arrived the instructors tried to organize us into groups based on sex and size but we didn't care we wanted to be with our friends so the whole raft organizing took over 1/2 an hour. Then we met our guides and got our gear and rafts. My group had Derrick in it, the owner of the Waegook Bar and a crazy South African man. He was jumping out of the boat and attacking our poor guide all through the trip. We had a blast, we splashed all the other boats around us, jumped out and threw all the girls out of our raft many times. Our guide seemed to particularly enjoy tossing the girls off the raft. The river itself was pretty tame. There weren't any rapids that I was worried about and maybe only 1 or 2 that I wouldn't have swam through. It was a few class 3's and mostly class 2 rapids but the trip was still a lot of fun because it was a good group. The best part was a huge rock that we got to jump of off, the river was maybe 20 feet below, I did this a few times. We also got to use the raft as a slide into the river off of another rock, these were both a lot of fun to do. I also met May a beautiful Korean English teacher on this trip and I also got to hang out with many of my friends from Gumi. After the trip we had a Korean barbecue which is when you take strips of meat, I think it was beef this time, but they also do this with pork and you fry them on large skillets in the middle of the table. We also had rice and my favorite Korean food, kimchi(cabbage fermented in a red paste). We started drinking at this time and continued to drink on the bus trip back to Gumi. We also stopped at a famous dam in Korea on the way back, it was very scenic. All in all I would say it was a great trip, if your in Gumi during the summer I recommend going on the Waegook Rafting Trip, the river isn't that great but the people make up for it!!!

Thailand

2007-09-03T09:40:00.000-04:00

Thailand was an amazing place. My adventure was a short one. I finished work at 9pm on Wednesday and had to be back at work again the following Tuesday at 1pm, well at least I was suppossed to be there at 1pm as usual things in life don't always happen as we plan them. We left Gumi at 2:30am on the night bus to Inchon Airport in Seoul, its a 4 hour bus ride. I slept most of the way, my traveling companion Mike slept the entire time, for that matter he slept the entire time on all buses, trains and planes that we took on our trip, I'm happy he was able to sleep so easily, I wish I had the same ability. We arrived at Inchon Airport 3 hours before we were to board our plane so we had a lot of time to kill. We couldnt get there any later because the next bus didn't leave Gumi until 4:30 am and this would have been to late. So we ate some breakfast, exchanged our won(Korean dollars) for baht (Thai dollars), then we started the line to wait to check in, we waited a minute for the Thai Airlines staff to be ready then we checked in, their was some problem with our e-tickets so our extremely tall(6 feet) and gorgeous Korean attendant took us to another line and sorted out the issue, after about 15 minutes we were checked in, we then went through security and went to our gate.

We boarded a very large plane, it was probably a 747, but i never checked. Royal Thai Airlines has 1st class service, they even had 30+ options for in flight meals, I got the ovo-lacto vegetarian meal and mike got the fish meal.(he's Jewish and he wanted to make sure he wouldn't get any pork) The flight was only five hours and it wasn't very crowded so i grabbed a middle row of three seats and slept the entire way besides the first and last 30 minutes.

Once we arrived in bangkok, Thailand's capital city, we tried to catch a train or bus, but it was too confusing so we grabbed a cab and headed downtown to the train station were we bought train tickets on the night train to Chiang Mai, Thailand's main Northern City where all their adventure sporting and jungle touring is based out of. We had about 5 hours to kill before our train left Bangkok so we grabbed a Tuk-Tuk ( like a golf cart but faster) and we had the driver take us to a suit shop( The Brioni Shop). It would have been better if we new one in advance but we didn't so we took our chances, the tailor he took us too made very nice clothes but it was a little pricey but still way cheaper than US department or suit shops. Mike had 2 suits made, I just got 1 short sleeve button down shirt made, I cant get shirts in Korea very easily because my belly is just to big for them. After the fitting we paid and were off to get some authentic Thai street food, so after a quick stop for some supplies we headed to a street vendor that our driver recommended and we had some delicious pad-su-u (I'm sure this isn't how its spelled but it is how it sounds to me) its a thick noodle with a semi-sweet glazed sauce and vegetables, it was really good!!! Then we drove back to the train station wrote a few emails, mostly too our mothers saying we were alive and well.

Then we got on the night train around 7pm and headed off for our 12 hour train ride to Chiang Mai, we had 2nd class sleeper seats, which basically means we had fold down beds and a curtain for privacy, it was very comfortable and we met some cool people who work for a Thai non-profit company that runs a barge that goes up and down the river in Bangkok and they have children come aboard and they teach them about environmental education.

Once we arrived in Chiang Mai we checked into our hotel the Pagoda Inn (email: pagodainn2003@yahoo.com), its a really cool hotel, it was like $12 a night with air con( thats Asian for air conditioning), it was like a mix between a hostel and a hotel, it had very nice rooms with all the luxuries but it had that small traveler feeling, it had little areas to meet and talk and a small cafe, I would highly recommend it to anyone going to Chiang Mai.

We then got picked up by Jason who owns Siam River Adventures (Siam River Adventures Website) , he took us to the Siam River, pretty far upstream 1 1/2 from Chang Mai, we had to go on a dirt road to get to the village his base camp is based in, it was really cool, we found this company in the national geographic explorer magazine so it was very hardcore and expensive, but as Jason said he is the most expensive for a reason. It was totally worth the money, it was a great trip, we rode elephants on the way to the camp and then we rode the river back, it was a very good rafting trip 7 class 4 rapids and a lot of class 3's. Then we went out in Chang Mai. Then we went shopping in their night market and bought all sorts of cool things.

The next morning we went Mountain Biking down a mountain in the Suthep National Park, it was 1200m downhill, it rocked! We went with Chiang Mai Mountain Biking , we found this company in the same national geographic explorer article. After mountain biking we got massages at the most expensive and according to Jason the nest herbal massage shop in Chiang Mai. It was called Kradangnga, its located next to the Sian River Adventures Restaurant/Shop. Now when I say it was the most expensive it was but it still just cost us $15 for a 2-hour full body massage, I love south East Asia!!!!

Then on Saturday night we hopped on the night train again and headed back to Bangkok. When we arrived in Bangkok we stayed on Khaosan Road, the most famous street for backpackers to stay on in bangkok, its a street thats also a market and bar strip. it was one huge party 24/7. We stayed at the 3 son's Inn, it was cheap maybe $18 dollars for a room with 2 double beds and air con. We shopped and got 3 more massages in bangkok, in all we had 8 hours of massages for like $70 US. While in bangkok we also saw a few temples including the famous Wat Po where the worlds largest laying Buddha statue is located, its 50 feet tall and 350 feet long and bronze, it was ridiculously huge. We also saw a Muy Thai Kick boxing Fight actually we saw a whole card full of matches, 6 of them. We did a lot more shopping too.

Then we headed to the airport and flew back to Korea. We left Bangkok at Midnight on Monday and got back to Korea (45 minutes late) around 8am on Tuesday, we then hopped on a bus and got to Gumi (45 minutes late again) at 1:15pm, we had two 45 minute delays both our plane and bus were 45 minutes late so of course we were late to work and our bosses weren't happy but whatever.... It was a great trip

Intensive Sessions: Summer Fun

2007-08-08T09:51:00.000-04:00

Korean parents brag about their kids private academy (hogwon) educations, its like having the best car or the biggest house, the most expensive clothes, etc. Unfortunately for the kids this means that they have to go to their regular school, ,which is private if their parents can afford it. Then they have to go to anywhere from 1-3 private academies after school and on the weekends. It also needs to be said that the public schools have classes every other Saturday for a half a day. Many kids go to school from 8am to 9pm. I have known a few kids who went from 7am to midnight. I consider this to be insanity but it does make very hard working and intelligent young men and women, it also creates extremely unhappy and depressed ones. Don't get me wrong not every Korean child goes to school this much, but if they don't its usually because their parents can't afford it. There are also many well adjusted and happy children here, but in general I find them to be very depressed and unhappy. This brings me to summer vacation. Vacation works differently here in Korea instead of getting a 3 month summer vacation they get a 5 week summer vacation and a 5 week vacation after the new year. So what do Korean children do during their vacations, relax, play? They go to school of course. They attend intensive sessions at the private academies like the one I work at. They do have less school on their vacations, most of them don't start until 9am and they finish by 6pm. Some only go for a few classes. For me this means that I have to teach from 8:30am to 5:30pm for 4 weeks, which is a bummer because my usual schedule is 2:30-9:30. I also don't really get anymore money for this because I am not really teaching more than the 27 classroom hours I agreed to in my contact. I work at a good school but I think for anyone who wants to work in Korea as a teacher they need to negotiate many things in their contract, the schools find many ways to make you do tings you are not really suppossed to do. But like I said I am happy with my school but as always it could be better, but I signed my contract, which is better than average but I have never been one to settle for better than average, I prefer outstanding. If anyone is thinking about teaching in Korea email me and I will help you to get a perfect contract, I think I know all the tricks now.

Korean Fashion: Totally 80's

2007-07-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

I want to take this opportunity to talk about the fashion in Korea. I know every country has their own fashion trends but I have to believe that Korea has some of the more unique ones. I will start with the t-shirts. Every t-shirt in Korea is written in grammatically incorrect English. It is so bad, I have a theory that they make the shirts wrong on purpose, because you would think that if they didn't do it on purpose they would eventually get at least one shirt right. This type of English is called Konglish, or Korean English. Another odd thing is that you almost never see a shirt that is written in Korean and if you do it is usually from an event and the Korean is the details about the event. The last thing I will say about the t-shirts is they are stuck in the 80's. I mean bright neon pink, green, yellow and orange, you know what I mean. All the women under the age of 30 in Korea wear extremely short skirts 80% of the time. They also always wear high heels, the 3 inch kind, all the time. Even when they are at the beach in a bikini they wear high heals. Speaking of the beach, the Korean bikini is usually 4 pieces, the top, which is always padded, the bottom which is usually a boy short or modest cut, you wont see any thongs here. Then there is a waste wrap and some sort of top cover. I think that many of them wear less clothes on the bottom half of their body everyday then they do at the beach. This is not to say that western bikini's are not worn because they are, but most of the bikini's are the style I described. Now don't get the wrong idea, these are the most beautiful women I have ever seen and there are a lot of them but they just seem to have a problem with the beach. They also hate the sun, women walk down the street with umbrella's when their is no rain to keep the sun off of them. This is probably why many of them have such fair and healthy skin, but I still find it strange. I have also noticed an obscene amount of converse shoes. So many people where converse, I would say more people wear converse in Korea than did back in the 80's in the U.S. Next I will discuss the Flower Boy. This is the term for young Korean men, who take more time and look almost identical to the young women of their age. Many young men fall into this category. They wear man bags (purses), have long hair, wear pink, etc. The only way to tell the difference from 100 meters is by the pants, they don't wear skirts. Another interesting trend here in Korea is the couple shirt. After three months of dating someone in Korea it is customary to buy and wear matching rings. At this point and sometimes before it is also customary to buy and wear matching t-shirts. They are usually the exact same shirt, same color, everything. Sometimes they will vary the color slightly but it will still be the same design. Some crazy couples will even take it a step further and wear completely identical outfits, the same shoes, socks, pants (usually jeans of the exact same color and design), bags, watches, sunglasses, rings and even hats. I can only assume they wear matching underwear too. The last fashion trend I will mention is the socially acceptable trend of wearing the same outfit several days in a row. For some reason it is okay to wear the same clothes more than one day in a row without washing them. Don't get me wrong they don't wear dirty clothes, but as long as they stay clean they don't seem to mind wearing them again and no one else seems to think it is strange. I like this environmentally conscious trend, but I don't think they do it to save the earth. I think it has more to do with the fact that clothes are very expensive here and it costs to much to buy a lot of outfits, so they compensate by wearing the ones they do buy more often. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Korean fashion, I'm sure I will touch on this subject again in the future.

Boryeong Mud Festival

2007-07-23T10:28:00.000-04:00

Well I guess I am now finally recovered from the Mud Festival, that is except for my cuts and scrapes which will need 1 more week to fully heal. It was crazy. We met up at the Waegook cook at 8:30am on Saturday morning and 45 of us got on a chartered bus(no bathroom) and headed to Boryeong. When I pulled up on my scooter I could already see people drinking, I think a few of them were still drinking from the night before. We drank so much on the way down that we had to stop every 45 minutes for someone to go to the bathroom, which was really annoying, but shit happens. My biggest complaint is that we didn't get a bus with a toilet in it, a minor issue. So our 2-3 hour trip turned into 4+ hours after all the stops, and everyone was drunk when we arrived. Boryeong is a Beach city located somewhere between where I live and Seoul. It is very nice, there are a lot of nice hotels and restaurants, but for the 10 days of the Mud Fest it is just a huge party town. We all got off the bus, there were 12 of us who reserved 2 rooms ahead of time at a hotel that was very close to the action. So the 12 of us walked to our hotel. We were led by some Korean girl who we asked for directions, and since Koreans are so nice she walked us to our hotel. There was also another 2 groups of people from our bus who stayed at the same hotel, the Brits and some other Americans( a shout out to Traci, this was her crew and I know she is reading this). The hotel was nice, we stayed in a traditional Korean style room, which means no beds just a floor and some blankets, which makes it easier to fit 6 in a regular size hotel room, we ended up sleeping 9 in there but that wasn't the plan. As soon as we set our bags down we got changed into our mud clothes and headed off for the beach, we first went into the mud pool, which is a big pool filled 1-2 feet high with muddy water and people wrestle, splash and play American style football and rugby in it. This is the place where I got most of my cuts, scrapes,bruises, etc. I am very tough to knock down it takes 3-4 people to do it, or one really, really big army guy as I learned. So everyone wanted to wrestle me and knock me over all the time. Korean men love to wrestle, their very homophobic but for some reason they like a lot of male contact, I don't understand but hey it's their country. So I wrestled a few old Korean guys, all my friends and a few army guys who of course take it very seriously. As usual the more I stayed up the worst I got it in the end, damn my low center of gravity and cat like reflexes. After this we went to the Mud Jail where you can paint yourself with mud with paintbrushes. It is really a gazebo with plastic jail bars where you paint and throw mud on everyone inside. Next to this was the mud wrestling ring, its a bounce house style ring. Also the kids mud pool, no one under 14 is allowed in the adult pool, which is good because they would probably get killed. Also nearby was the mud pool zip cord, where you zip down from a 25 foot platform to a pool of mud American Gladiators style. After we got all muddy we went to the ocean which is only 100-300 feet from the activities depending on the time of day(the tide really does move 200 feet). We swam for a while got the mud off then went to the mud painting area, its like the jail only there is more mud on tiki tables with a lot more paintbrushes, there are 100's of people painting themselves with mud in this area at all times, they even have colored mud to use here. SO after this we were really muddy and we went and did some of the activities again. I forgot to mention that we were drinking the whole time while doing all of this, at this point it is like 4pm and I have been drinking for over 7 hours. We did the mud obstacle course this time to, which starts off with a rope climb, then a slide, then a muddy hill climb and a slide, mud makes it all very difficult, it was also a inflatable thing ,everything I mentioned besides the pool was an inflatable thing. (like a bounce house at a carnival). Then we decided to go shower and eat. After eating we continued to drink but without the mud. I went to bed at like 4am, I was drunk the entire day, 20 hours straight, this is the longest I have ever drank. I easily drank 30 beers. I then passed out around 4am, woke up the next day around 10am, and went back and did it all over again, without the drinking, I didn't touch a beer on Sunday, but many of my friends did, their insane, literally. I ate Pizza for lunch/dinner then got on the bus around 5pm and headed back to Gumi. Oh and yes there were still people drinking on the bus ride back and we stopped every 45 minutes again, only this time it was more for puking and less for peeing. All in all I would say this is a once in a lifetime experience and I would recommend anyone who teaches in Korea to attend the Mud Festival, its every July, this was the 9th or 10th annual one, around 1 million people go the festival over 10 day period, or at least thats what I was told, a lot of people just go for 1-2 hours, its not that far from Seoul.

Final Exams

2007-07-13T12:06:00.000-04:00

This week was the end of our Spring II session. We had our final exams this week. One of the disadvantages to working at a good School as opposed to one of the many crappy private schools (Hog wons) here in Korea is the amount of extra work I have to do compared to many of the teachers in Gumi. Most of the English schools here just do a minimum amount of work with the students, there are a lot of games and handing out worksheets and puzzles and that kind of stuff. However there are a few reputable schools and mine happens to be one of them. As a actual teacher I find this comforting because I do actually like teaching the kids English. But the downside to this is that I have a lot of extra work to do. Normally we give the students a test or essay every week which I have to grade, this is not normal most English teachers don't give or grade papers. We also design our own curriculum, I don't have to do all my classes but I have a fair share of all the classes we teach, there are 9 foreigners at my school so I design 1/9 of the curriculum. This is a lot more work than many of the other teachers in Gumi do, but I like the fact that my school isn't a joke. That said, I hate finals week. We have to design the tests, 2-3 for each of us. Then we have to administer the tests which is the easy part, but I have 100-120 students during the week, so I have to Grade 120 final exams, half of them long essays in 2 days, then tally the scores, also the session scores, quizzes homework, participation, etc. Then add all that up give them a grade, write a paragraph comment on each student, enter their scores in the computer, than handwrite them on their report cards( I don't know why this isn't electronic, but it isn't). I also have to write a review of each of our books. needless to say this isn't a fun week.

My only salvation is that I am leaving in just a little over 7 hours to go to the Mud Festival, its a party that draws around 1 million people to a resort town in Korea where they have a mud party, everyone gets all muddy and drinks excessively. It's gonna be awesome. I will write about it in my next blog.

Seoul, 4th of July and Canada Day

2007-07-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I took my first trip to Seoul, S. Korea's capital city. I took the KTX train from Gumi to Seoul Station. Their are 3 types of trains that can get you from Gumi to Seoul. I don't know their Korean names but one is called the slow train by foreigner's, it stops at every stop between Seoul and Gumi, this train takes 3/12 to 4 hours and costs $15 each way. Then their is the regular train it only stops at major stations between Seoul and Gumi, it takes 3 hours and costs around $21 each way. The fastest train and most expensive, about $28 each way is the KTX train. It takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes if you can catch it in Gumi, it only stops in Gumi 2 times each day. The option I used was to take the regular train to Daejon and transfer to the KTX to Seoul that is the most common KTX option as you can do it at anytime of the day, this way takes about 2 1/2 hours and costs like $1 less. The KTX is the fastest because it makes the least stops and because it is a newer train and can travel at much faster speeds than the regular trains.

Once I arrived in Seoul I met a friend and she took me around the city. I got to go to a authentic Korean lunch at her family's house. I also went to the electronics market which is the largest in the world. Then we went to Gecko's which is one of the most famous foreigner bars in Seoul. It's in Itaewon, which is near the military base and where you will see the most foreigners in Seoul, its also where the most foreigners live in Seoul both military and civilian. I parted ways with my friend here and met up with some of my fellow teachers from gumi. It was the Saturday before
Canada day so all the Canuck's were looking to go drinking. We got 3 hotel rooms in the art district and then we cabbed it back to the Rocky Mountain Bar in Itaewon, this is another foreigner bar. It's located next to Hooker Hill which is pretty much what it sounds like but it is also the main street in Itaewon for bars and clubs. After a couple of hours we went to the UN Bar which is very close to the Rocky Mountain and Gecko's. We ended the night here and went back to our hotel at around 6 a.m. There is no official closing time for bars in Korea and I am finding out that leaving a bar when the sun is up is common.

We stayed at a really nice hotel and the weird thing is that you don't need a credit card to get a room in Korea. So I took full advantage of their trustfulness and stole two really nice 500 thread count pillow cases and a plush towel. What can I say nice linens are impossible to find in Korea. We checked out of our hotel around 2pm and went to Ali Baba's a middle eastern restaurant in Itaewon. We then went to the main shopping area in Seoul, I don't know its name but every designer shop I have ever heard of was here and hundreds I have never heard of. We then went to the electronics market again which is not near the other shopping area. We bought an espresso machine which was very tough to find in Korea and I bought a rice cooker for $35 which is a very good deal they sell for $60 in Gumi. We then went to an Italian restaurant which wasn't to bad and then took the regular train back to Gumi, we got in around 1am and then I scootered back to my place which is about a 10 minute ride from the train station.

The 4th was 2 days later I had to work 12 hours on the 4th because we had our textbook workshop in the morning before class. After work me and some fellow American's went to the Waegook Cook Bar and drank heavily, we then went to a local school playground and did what Americans do best, blow shit up! We bought fireworks at the Dollar Store and yes they are real fireworks not the grocery store crap from the U.S. We bought Roman Candles, big bottle rockets, spinners, sparklers, the ones that shoot colored fire out of them in the air, black cat's, etc. You can buy these everywhere its heaven!! We then got politely asked to leave by a maintenance guy who was very happy that we were picking up the trash and putting it in a bag, hey were inconsiderate Americans but were not litterers! But seriously we were being cheered on by a few Koreans, they were happy to see the show. We then went back to the Waegook drank some more and went home, not to bad of a 4th celebration for being half way around the world.

Getting a Korean Driver's License and scooter plates

2007-06-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

Getting a driver's license in Korea is pretty easy but it is a unique experience. First of all I am lucky that my school is very helpful. (and insistent that you get a license,which is partially why there so helpful)One of our administrators drove me to the capital of our province, Daegu, to get my driver's license. It is only about 25 minutes away and easily accessible by train for me, but since I had no idea where to go once I got there the ride that Jay gave me was greatly appreciated.

I feel it needs to be mentioned that I am the only foreigner in Gumi that I know of who has a scooter and is legitimately licensed, registered and insured. Most teachers don't have any sort of license let alone registration or insurance.You really don't need it unless you happen to get in an accident or pulled over by the police(which is very,very rare). Even if you do get pulled over they would most likely just let you go instead of dealing with you. It is possible to get a ticket for not having a license or even have your scooter impounded, but I have never heard of either happening. However, my Hog Won (private school) is particular about following the rules which is good since most Hog Won's just break laws and have no regard for their teachers rights. My school is the exception.

The first thing I did was buy my scooter from a legitimate source, a bike shop. There I obtained my title for the bike. Then I got insurance for about $170 for the year, this includes theft and accident coverage.(my scooter is worth about $900 but foreigners are targets for theft so I felt this was a good deal) The next step was to take the title and insurance paper's to the local Hyonggok City Office and register my scooter. This costs about $30 for the fees and taxes(thats sales tax and all cost's,pretty cheap by US standards). At this point my scooter was legitimate I had a license plate and theft and accident coverage.

The last step is to get my Korean Driver's License. I have a valid Ohio License, so I took that to the Daegu City Hall, paid about $40 (stamp fees,test fees,license fees) and got my license. You have to fill out everything in triplicate and its all in Korean but luckily my friend knows a lot of Korean so he helped me. You also have a quick physical exam and eye test.Then you take a 20 question computer exam on Korean driving laws. This was difficult considering there is no material in English to study from. The test is also in broken British English, I managed to get a 65% and passed, I don't know what the minimum required score is to pass but I think it might be 65%. Regardless I passed. Then they took my Ohio License and gave me a Korean one, it's valid for 10 years. I am suppossed to return it when I leave and get my Ohio license back but since my Ohio one expires in February and I will already have a new Ohio license when I leave. I am going to keep my Korean License as a souvenir of my journey.

Koreans are very kind, Baby Hens are common and Scooters are fun!

2007-06-17T01:24:00.000-04:00

I met some really nice Koreans this week. Over the weekend I went to the Waegook Cook and I met two Korean women who I talked with for over 3 hours, they were very helpful and taught me a lot about Korean culture and language. That same night I also talked with another group of 4 Koreans, two couples, they also were very friendly and helped me to better understand their culture and they wanted to know about American culture too. It seems that most Koreans I meet will go out of their way to help you and love to discuss Korean ideology and they want to know about American Ideology as well. However, the best example of Korean kindness I have seen so far happened to me at the ATM. I put my card in and instead of getting the usual menu that has a prompt for English I just got a screen entirely in Korean and I could not get my card back. I still have no idea what the screen said but I asked the lady next to me if she spoke English(she didn't)but when she saw my screen she stopped what she was doing and called the bank and had them send a tech guy their to retrieve my card. She waited with me for 15 minutes for him to arrive. Then she explained what had happened and then waited another 10 minutes why he got my card back for me. Then she got her money out said goodbye and was on her way like it wasn't even an inconvenience for her. I was blown away by how helpful she was.

I also have to tell a story about teaching this week. One of my youngest students a girl about 9 or 10 years old came to class with a baby hen in her backpack. At first I didn't know what was going on, all the kids were very excited and I kept hearing a chirping noise but I just figured it was coming from outside. Then I realized it was coming from the classroom and I put it all together. The students kept saying "Pia Pia" which means baby hen in Korean, but I had no idea what it meant at the time. The girl had bought it on the street for 50 cents before class, I had no idea what to do so I grabbed a Korean teacher and she seemed un-phased by it. She took the bird to the office but it in a box and told the girl to get it after class. Then she went back to teaching like it was a regular occurrence. I can only assume that this has happened before because none of the Koreans seem to think twice about it. All of the Western Teachers were very surprised by the reaction of the usually strict
Korean teachers. We were also surprised that they sell animals on the street to children like this.When in Rome...

Lastly I bought a motor scooter this week, its 100cc and seats 2. It's red and has 3000 miles. It cost me $700 and another $100 for insurance for the year. Scooters are very popular in my town with western teachers and Koreans. It has been a lot of fun driving it around. I have already taken it to the top of our mountain road on Gumo San and to all my favorite local hot spots. Its nice to be more mobile.

Luxuries of Korean Life and Bars

2007-06-09T01:42:00.000-04:00

This week I hired a maid to clean my place. For twenty dollars a week she cleans my apartment and does all my laundry. In the U.S. I could never have afforded this Luxury. We had another holiday this week on Wednesday, it was Korea's Memorial Day. On Tuesday Night the entire staff of my school went out to eat, apparently this is something that we do every month or two. We went to a very nice restaurant near downtown across the street from the cities park. I had the best shrimp fried rice I have ever eaten, of course it was called something else, but that is what I associated it with. The hardest thing to get used to for me when eating out in Korea is that they share everything, everyone eats off of everyone else's plates and there are many side dishes that people just eat from. They even share big bowls of soup, they all just dip their spoons in and eat. The soup is just too much for me, I can handle the side dishes but hands of my en tree and I don't share soup! They did have dark beer at this restaurant, which is a huge plus as its difficult to get here. After the restaurant we went to the Waegook Cook Bar, Waegook is the Korean word for foreigner, so the bar is called the Foreigner Bar, it has a western menu and a better selection of drinks than Korean bars(called hofs). The owner is a South African man named Derrick, he married a Korean woman and now lives in Gumi. Here is a link to the Waegook's website, it has their menu and more. www.waegookcook.com After the Waegook we went to the Nori Bong (Karaoke Bar) that is conveniently located below the Waegook. At the Nori Bong the Korean teachers sang a bunch of Korean Songs then a few of the other western teachers came down and we started singing american songs. At the end of the night I had managed to lose my voice again but I had it back the next day.

The Week I lost my voice

2007-06-02T02:06:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that teaching is difficult if you cant speak. If their are any mute teachers reading this blog, I take my hat off to you, its not easy. The week started off well, but then on Wednesday I started to feel sick, by the end of the day my voice was vary horse and I was congested and feeling a bit feverish. When I woke on Thursday morning I could not speak at all and I mean at all. I couldnt even make a sound. This obviously presented me with a few problems for teaching that day, in the States I simply would have called in sick and been done with it, but In Korea you only get 3 sick days per year, they require a doctors a note and since I am knew I didn't want to call in anyway. So I went to work and was amazed at how compassionate all my students were to my illness, they were on their best behavior and they all seemed genuinely concerned for my well being. So I used a lot of the tapes that accompany our books, handed out a few crossword puzzles and had the students do some book work and I made it threw the day without incident. On Friday morning when I woke up my voice was still horse but I had it back again and I was able to go back to business as usual. On a separate note I watched several Cleveland Cavaliers playoff games this week, we are currently up 3-2 in a best of seven game series against the Detroit Pistons, GO CAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!. I am able to watch TV from the States via a device called a slingbox, it is hooked up to my TiVo back in Cleveland and it streams(plays video for the computer illiterate)live TV and all my recored shows directly to my computer in Korea. I can watch all the same TV I did in the states, its wonderful. However even if I didn't have a slingbox I would be able to see the s as they played them live and during prime time on cable here in Korea. They love basketball and have had most of the playoff games on cable here this year. They also show a few regular season games per week I am told. Its a very small world! The last thing I will talk about is trash. Its different than in Cleveland. In Korea you have to separate your trash. They sell prepaid bags for your Food and non recyclable waste, which you are legally required to separate.The fine is steep if you are caught putting trash out incorrectly, several hundred dollars for repeat offenders. They also require you to separate your recyclables into bags(any plastic bags will do, you don't have to buy these), you have to separate Plastic,Paper, Glass and Metal. So basically under my sink I have 6 different trash bags, two of which cost me money and there not cheap, its like $1 a bag. I of course am happy about this as I recycled back in Cleveland and I am happy they don't add food waste to their trash dumps, this is a much better system than in Ohio. Its more like California's or so I'm told as I have never lived their. In Lakewood the city where I lived in Cleveland you had to use blue bags for recycling but you could buy them or just use blue grocery bags and you didn't have to sort it, the city took care of that.

The First 10 days

2007-05-25T11:08:00.000-04:00

Well I have been here over 10 days now, the time has flown bye. The first few days of school were hard. I was jet lagged and there were a lot of new procedures and policies to learn. Teaching has been a challenge so far, but most of the students have a good basic understanding of English so it has been manageable. I teach writing and speaking/listening classes. The school is like an office building in the US, it has around 10 classrooms that vary in size but the largest will hold maybe 15 kids. I am going to try and figure out how to add pics to this blog soon, so you may be able to see what I'm talking about. My biggest complaint to date is that they don't turn on the air conditioning until people complain, but at least we have air and when it gets real hot they will have it on all the time. The kids are just like kids in the US, some are nice others are rotten. In general they seem more respectful of teachers than in the US but there are exceptions. I think I have been received fairly well by them, they seem to listen and do what I say most of the time. They listen more than the Special Ed kids I worked with in the US for sure. The curriculum that we use is fairly straight forward and with a few exceptions the text books are pretty easy to teach and straight forward for the kids to follow. I am glad that I signed on with a school that has a set curriculum and lesson plans, I would not be happy if I had to create my own right now. The school is in the middle of a commercial section of town, their are hundreds of stores,restaurants,schools,churches and Bars(called Hofs) within a 10 minute walk from the school. There are not any American chains within walking distance but there is a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut within a 5 minute cab ride.(I haven't been to either yet) There is a Lotteria (pronounced La Teria, I probably spelled it wrong but that's close),a Korean version of McDonald's about 100 feet away and also my 2 favorite restaurants to date, Suk Bong and a Korean Sushi Place with a name that's in Korean which I don't know and couldn't spell even if I did. The Suk Bong is a sandwich shop which makes egg sandwiches, its two pieces of toasted white bread, scrambled egg, cheese and toppings of your choice with a sweet sauce and hot sauce, its delicious. The Korean Sushi place makes Sushi Rolls, only there larger and contain cooked meats and fish instead of raw meats. It's not actually sushi but that's how we foreigners refer to it. Besides teaching I have gone out to several restaurants and Hofs. I went to VIP's an American style buffet place that's in downtown Gumi, its a lot fancier than a buffet place in the US, think Olive Garden Quality in a buffet and that should give you an idea, not great but sufficient. I also have been to a Korean Sashimi restaurant twice now, this does serve actual raw fish, its real Sashimi. I went to a place that they give you meat and you cook it yourself on flat top grills built into your table, since I'm an ovo/lacto/pesco(eggs,milk,fish in Latin) vegetarian I didn't eat the meat, but I was there and I got a veggie soup. Yesterday was a national holiday here in Korea, it was Buddha's Birthday, so we had the day off. 3 of my fellow teachers and I went to Daegu(the capital of the province I'm in) It's a large city with over a million people, its about a 25 minute train ride or drive away. We saw a Baseball Game, the Samsung Lions (my provinces team) verse SK(not sure what it means), the Lions won in a slug fest 9-6. Then we went to a commercial electronics store street that has around 50 electronics store next to each other, I bought an Olympus Digital Camera, it was about $80 dollars cheaper than in the US I figure and it included a free case, 1 gigabyte memory card and 2 batteries. I would say I saved around $125 US in total buying the camera in Korea. After that we went to Subway for subs and then to the movies to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The movie was the same cost as the US and subway was like $1 more expensive. The Baseball game was $8 for good seats and beers were only $2 per can and they give you the can unopened, which in Cleveland, where I'm from would mean that opposing players and bad officials would probably be stoned to death by full cans of beer, but Koreans are less violent than pissed off clevelanders.

Arrival

2007-05-16T22:37:00.000-04:00

My 13 hour flight from Chicago to Seoul on Korean Airlines was the best of my 9 flights to Asia. Korean Air has great customer service and they provide you with lots of extras even in economy class. They fed me several times, gave me a toothbrush, hot towels, socks, lotion and more. They also have a lot of very attractive Korean flight attendants, which doesn't hurt. They wear 1950's outfits that are modernized. When I arrived I was greeted by Scott from ETN and he bought me a bus ticket to Gumi and took me to the bus. The bus ride took around 4 hours and I slept the entire way. When I arrived in Gumi I was met by the Director of my school, a Korean and Jackie, a Kiwi teacher(thats what people from New Zealand call themselves). They took me to the school so I could see it. Then I went to my apartment where I met 4 of the other English teachers. They were all very nice and Dan from Wisconsin even stocked my fridge for me with beer, water and juice! I also met Travis from Indiana and Robyn and Lisa two very attractive Canadians. We drank a few beers and then I unpacked and went to bed. My apartment was furnished and was bigger and nicer than I expected. Their are some differences from the US in apartments. Their is no stove just 2 burners(not a hot plate its a stove top). I have a washer but their is no drier(which I'm told is very common in Korea). I have floor heating(which is efficient and more advanced than my place in the US). My internet connection was already hooked up and its also faster than the US. I have a fridge lite(thats what we call them)its smaller than a US fridge, its somewhere in between a standard US fridge and a large college dorm fridge, it has a freezer on top(a real one). I have a video phone that has a camera to let me see who is at my door. Their is an air conditioner and toilet(some places just have holes in the ground). My shower is my entire bathroom and you have to turn on a switch to get hot water ,its not a different handle like the US, but the studio apartment is very modern and nice, its also larger than I expected. (20'x30' if I had to guess) So far I am very happy with my living conditions!!!

Leaving Today

2007-05-14T09:37:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in the Cleveland Airport waiting for my flight to Chicago. Then I have a little less than a 2 hour layover at O'Hare. Then its a non-stop 13 hour flight to Seoul. I flew to Hong Kong 4 times for Business so this isn't my longest plane ride, but I am dreading it!!! Once I get to Seoul I will get a bus ticket from Scott of ETN and then its another 4 hours to Gumi, my final destination. I have so much luggage with me, I checked 2, 50 pound bags and I have a large backpack and laptop bag filled with heavy electronics, security was worried about me because I had so many batteries and suspicious devices, but once I told them why they were very friendly. I hate flying to Asia!!!!!!!!

Preparing for the Trip

2007-05-04T22:32:00.000-04:00

One week until I leave on my year journey to Gumi, South Korea to teach English to children ages 8-17. I just received my visa, it was a fun process, it took about 3 weeks. I am glad that I used ETN(English Teachers Network) to obtain my employment, Scott form ETN made the process seem easy, he took care of all the details, all I had to do is interview, ask questions and prepare to leave my life in Cleveland for one year, which is enough. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with the technical stuff. Anyway leaving the country for a year has its own complications, it was nice to have someone else handle the paperwork and employment details.

If your interested in Teaching English in South Korea I recommend ETN, as long as you have a bachelors degree your all set. http://www.etnkorea.com/index.htm