Thirty Days

A girl is sitting in a hospital room with her boyfriend of one year. He has a terminal illness. The girl is starting her first days of college at a prestigious-far away university next month. She will have to leave his side and move on with her life...He may pass away while she is gone, there's no telling.
With only thirty days remaining in Korea my stomach churns...that nervous, sad feeling you get when you say goodbye to someone you love, wondering if you'll ever see them again, but knowing that leaving is something that you must do and there are no other options.
So yes, my departure date is set and now I must focus on appreciating the time I have left on this little peninsula.
You know how people say, you don't know how to appreciate something correctly until it's gone. For the first time, I feel that the phrase is completely true. I wish that there had been some way that the knowledge I have of my 'home' could be transferred to when I first arrived. Although I have accomplished quite a bit while being here there is still so much more I long to do. Granted, there is still a month...so a little time remains. It feels unreal at this point, I know I'm leaving but I'm not even slightly ready for it; I just got to feeling completely comfortable here. There's still so much to do as well (Work related things, too)!!!!

Tourism: This past weekend I went to Changdeokgung (a palace) and Chandyakgan (a river) for a lantern festival. I'll post a link so you can see photos if you want. It was a lot of fun, however, it has gotten really cold lately. I had visited changdeokgung when I first arrived in Korea (it was my first tourist attraction here), but it had been really cold and all the leaves had fallen off the trees. I had wanted to go back before it got too cold because this palace is especially known for it's Secret Garden. Unfortunately, I did not make it in time because of it's tour schedules. It was nice to see it again though.
Click for photos!
It was nice to see all the lanterns lit up at night, too. I went with my friends Hayley and Jieun, but we were freezing!!

School: My students these days are as cute as ever. A few of them had contracted Swine Influenza, but none of them got too sick from it. One of them just came back from holding today (when they stay home to study for tests) and said, 'Margaret, you know I kind of missed you.' Peppero(빼빼로) Day was last week. It's kind of like a couples holiday, but students will give their teachers things on peppero day. Actually, as I was sitting here I just remembered it, and, being hungry, took out my peppero that a student had given me. If you know pocky it's kind of like that. Addicting and super delicious! I'll put up some pics of the loot I got soon.

Culture: This is my favorite Kpop song lately, it's called Chocolate Love. It's a music video by a very popular girl group, however, it is also a cell phone commercial. You see, to combat the piracy problem lately, the artists have just decided to use their hit songs as sponsorship songs for products. So the new cellphone is called Chocolate. And you'll see that they are using it shamelessly in the video. However, I don't think it's such a bad idea...why should we pay such exorbitant prices for music, especially when our world is in economic turmoil. Music is supposed to make people feel relaxed and relieve our stress not create more. So, why not take music and let it advertise, turn profit that way to offset that lost from CD sales. With no further delay, here is chocolate love,

Farewell.

Seoul video mashup

There's no place like home?

I don't want to go home. Those words often go through my head lately.
I am going to miss my students (so much), Korea, soju, and learning Korean (although, I must admit I have been lazy with my learning lately). I miss my family and friends, but that's about it. I wish that this little place I'm living (with 10 million other people), was only but minutes away from home rather than on the other side of the planet.
Actually, one of my old students came back today, and I was so happy to see him, sadly though I will only have him for a few more weeks...then my students go into holding (to study for their exams) and that's when I leave...so I won't see them again. :( :( :(
It's heartbreaking. I didn't think I would get so attached to them.
Mark and Jameson (2 of my foreign friends here) are leaving next week! I can't believe it!
In the meantime, last weekend I carved 'pumpkins' with 2 of my Korean friends. They were actually squash because we couldn't find pumpkins, but they still did the trick.
My co-worker also had Mark and I over for lunch at her house. Which was really fun, and delicious! :)
With them leaving that's about 50 percent of my friend circle (perhaps 75 percent)...I'm kidding (kind of). I'm still going to be quite nostalgic these next few weeks...which may come out in my posts. Readers, ye be warned.

crunch time

There are a little over 50 days left in my contract here. Well I suppose technically, if I had not extended my contract I would be going home in less than a month now. It's bittersweet, and it's also crunch time (for me and my students).
I realize I haven't written much about them lately. I don't really know why either, because they are quite dear to me.

I have actually started this program where I start calling some of them once a week and talk to them on the phone for a little bit. They really are adorable.
My essay students have been under a lot of pressure lately unfortunately, which in turn kind of means I am under a bit of pressure as well. They have the same amount of days left in my contract to take their foreign language high school test. So there's plenty of grading to keep me busy.

Besides that my speaking classes are cute. One of my students told me if she were given 10 million dollars she would buy an island, and then buy me so that we could play together on the island. Then, to top it off, she said that if I was ever for sale to be sure to let her know. I haven't really told any of them that I am leaving soon, except the essay students, and I'm kind of sad to go too. At the same time though, I am really excited about going back home and seeing all my family and friends that I have missed so dearly.

Now, outside of school hasn't been as busy. I have been saving money for my upcoming trip to Tokyo. I did get to go to a Korean Wedding a few weeks ago though. It kind of blew my mind. I mean, in the States, we make really big deals out of weddings, and there are many components to them (the ritual, rite, and reception). That's all rolled into one here though. There are round tables set up all around a large hall, with a cat-walk down the middle. The actual 'marriage' takes about 15 minutes I would estimate, and then everyone just eats. The bride and groom, who were in the western styled wedding dress and tux for the ceremony, change into their hanbok (traditional Korean dress, think Kimono if you are unsure or google it). They come back out and go around with their parents and bow to all the tables and thank everyone for coming. Oh yeah, and before the wedding the bride sits in the room where you can snap photos with her. The groom sees her in her dress long before the wedding too because they take their wedding photos together. Actually, the whole process is a bit honky because they take their wedding photos before the guy even proposed to his girlfriend. But, hey, it's a different culture.

Besides that I've just been hanging out in Olympic Park a lot lately. Although, to be honest, it's getting a little too chilly. I hate how fall is short-lived. :(

This entry is a little short and hastily written. I apologize, and to make up for it I'm going to share some K-pop videos with you.
This one is called, 'Juliette' by 'ShiNee' (said, 'shiny' like, "Wow, what a shiny car!" ) I think it might be a tribute to Michael Jackson, but with these guys I'm never really sure.


And if that wasn't enough for you, Heartbreaker by a guy named 'G-dragon'. He just went solo. A Korean Kanye perhaps....guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I'm not going to hold my breath.


My students love these guys too....but even they agree that the g-dragon guys video is weird.

All that glitters is not gold, jade glitters too

Chuseok (or Korea's Thanksgiving Holiday), is a day which everyone goes to their parents' house, has a nice dinner, and celebrates family unity. What is funny is that Chuseok felt more like a real holiday to me than let's say Christmas or my Thanksgiving Day. This just proves to show, when you're alone (or semi-alone) for the holidays, the day does not matter so much as what is closed and how many people are on the street. Yes, this may make me appear slightly jaded, but lately I don't think that is such a bad thing. Being jaded usually means you are realistic, and who ever said it does not pay to be realistic? I used to think that Holidays were characterized by the company you spent it with, but if that were the case then how come every day when I was home with my parents it was not a 'holiday'? The feelings partially have to do with those around you, but they mostly have to do with the societal behaviors on a particular day. The stores are closed, people are either inside or spending their leisure time outside, and the only take-out you can get is Chinese food. So, if next year we chose to hold Thanksgiving on October 23rd instead, would it not feel like Thanksgiving? Family is exceedingly important, yet we only choose to truly appreciate them on certain days of the year when there's nothing else to do [or shop for]. Having these large, commercial national holidays might not be instilling the right values, but I suppose they do give everyone equal opportunity to cherish their families on the same day.

Quintessential semantics

Wow, I have quite a great deal to talk about, and I keep on putting it off. The longer I procrastinate the more things build up, and then the amount of things I have to catch up on expands. It's a travesty. Well, for me anyway. Primarily because I really want to document all my adventures/misadventures here.

The DMZ was good, bungee jumping was better. To be honest, the DMZ proved to be slightly anticlimactic. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was cool, just not quite what was expected. I really thought we would see some serious boundary patrolling by both parties. Really though it was just barren land in between 2 different sets of barbed wire. We saw some South Korean soldiers, but really nothing too impressive. We also didn't go to the commonly visited and heavily populated area of the DMZ either. That, perhaps, could explain it.

Our DMZ trip was mapped out into 3 different divisions, first, we went to the second tunnel. There are 3 tunnels that South Korea has discovered the North dug. We were allowed to go inside the tunnel, we walked about a kilometer, and then got to the "wide space" where we were then forced to turn around and walk back. We also weren't supposed to take pictures inside the tunnel. People did, although I wasn't one of them. Next, we went to the Peace Observatory. At this building they had a large model in the front up against really thick glass windows that allowed for a panoramic view...of a few large mountains. Like I said, not really what was expected. We were also able to go outside on a balcony and take some pictures. I think usually they have soldiers patrolling the area, and making sure you don't take pictures that are too zoomed in and whatnot. Our photos were not subject to approval though, because apparently the artillery was on lunch break. The last thing was a two in one deal. We did a drive by of a building that was once used by North Korea to torture South Koreans and POW's. Finally, we went to see an old Train site, which used to take people in and out of North Korea. Perchance of the funniest things about the tour was that at one of the stops my friend, Mark, volunteered to take a picture for this group of elderly Korean men. They were really friendly and crazy hilarious. Well, what do you know, but at the next stop we took they were there again, and requested Mark take another photo of them. Of course, Mark obliged.

After the DMZ it was bungee jumping time. I was really, really, really nervous. And I mean seriously, if I had an infinite amount of time on this planet I would have spent at least 3 months and 15 days typing really, really, really....etc.
Okay, I think you get the point. Anyways, the bus dropped us off on the bridge and they told us to make sure we didn't bring anything with us. The only thing we were allowed to bring was a camera. Brian, Jameson, Mark and I all traded off taking each others pictures and videos. Falling was not the hard part, believe it or not. The hardest part of bungee jumping is being on the brink of a very high surface and consciously making the decision to throw yourself off of it. Every fiber of your being is screaming at you to stay on that platform, where you feet are safely planted and your heart's beat is not being put in danger. Even reminiscing about the jump makes my palms sweaty. I don't regret doing it though because the adrenaline rush you feel, as you're free falling down towards what would be imminent danger, more than makes up for it. So to answer the question I've been asked a few times, yes, I would undoubtedly do it again.

Once the party was over it was time to go to our temporary living quarters for the evening. We took the tour bus to what I thought was a hotel. The 'hotel' was the small town we were staying in's city hall, semantics. They asked for 8 of us (2 pairs of 4) to volunteer to stay in a 'guest house'. Since my three friends and I all came together we figured, why not? Nothing wrong with a guest house, right. Semantics strikes again. When they said guest house/home stay they actually meant we were going to be staying in a room in someones house. To top everything off the town we were staying in was so small that there was not an ATM in the vicinity. Jameson and I brought minimal amounts of cash with us, which at this point was all spent (AND we had to borrow from Brian and Mark when we went bungee jumping). Therefore, we had a grand total of 13,000 won (about $13) to spend for the remaining twenty four hours (between the four of us).
We decided though that after the day we had drinking was a must, and our money was well spent on 4 bottles of soju and a beer. We all sat and drank by the fire until our bottles were dry...sadly, our thirst had not fully been quenched. At this point, luckily, most everyone else had retired for the evening. Some of the other remaining people went to noraebang on the bus. So Brian, Mark, myself, and a new acquaintance from Great Britain decided to clean up the camp fire. While cleaning we absconded some unopened bottles of beer and other beverages that people had left behind. Normally we wouldn't do this, but due to lack of money, our good will, and the fact that everything would have been tossed the next morning regardless, we felt we had some right to it.
The rest of the night went well, and the noraebang-ers joined us by the fire. We got back to our homestay safely.

The next day we explored an area called 'White Horse Hill'. We saw the hill that was designated as the main battle ground area during the Korean War because of it's panoramic view of both Korea's. Once we finished the guided tour we were given these 'mine detectors'(radios) that were supposed to be mine detectors. We were broken up into groups so that each group would compete to find a land mine. As we were searching our 'detector' started playing some K-pop. We fixed it by adjusting the 'frequency dial' (changing the radio station), and discovered one of the 'mines' (It's getting ridiculous now). After that we went to harvest some rice. I now am a proud owner of a nice, big bag o' rice. I must say, I could not be prouder of myself for harvesting it.

We ate some bibimbap (mixed rice) and then headed back to Seoul. I promptly passed out at home.

I'm just going to quickly document some of the other things I have been doing here below, and provide some links for you to check out if you just so happen to be interested.

+ I went to a NANTA performance a few weekends ago. Which is meant as a Broadway production mock cooking show, done in real time. Very interesting, and exciting. Nanta in Korean means "striking relentlessly" so there is a lot of drumming on random things, acrobatics, chopping, and a little cooking too.


+I also had a day off today and went to a botanical garden with my co-worker, Katie. It was called the garden of the morning calm, and it was beautiful. :)
http://www.morningcalm.co.kr

And so ends my long-winded blog entry.

Bungee jumping

disclaimer: Mom, if you don't want to see your daughter jumping off a bridge perhaps you shouldn't watch this video clip. love you! xoxo



I went to the DMZ this weekend with some Avalon friends. We also went bungee jumping. This is the video of me. Excuse my friends, and their foul language. :)

We had a really great time.

I'll update later about the DMZ (demilitarized zone).

Three months, a near-death experience, and Jeju - at first glance these words are not related, post-reading it should make sense.

3 months is about all the time I have left in Korea. It's mind-boggling how fast the time has flown. There are still so many things I want to do before I leave. Things I want to accomplish and see. One thing I checked off my list about one month ago. Korea has an island that is situated on the very southern most tip. It's called Jeju-island, and it's infamous for being South Korea's very own Hawaii. Since it has been dubbed such, my comrades and I decided to go and check it out for ourselves. We had a 'summer vacation' that spanned for a grand total of 2 days, thanks Avalon. But since we had those 2 days we could leave after work on a Wednesday and spend until Sunday on the "Hawaii-esque" coast of Jeju.

Well, my co-worker and I at least thought we would be leaving Wednesday. Funny story, we almost died, and I am not being facetious. Our plane took off at 7pm and we were supposed to arrive in Jeju-si by 8pm, HOWEVER, on the way there we hit some massive turbulence. We reached the island, it was in plain view from the sky, but apparently the rains were really heavy.

We began our descent to the airport and the plane began to frantically shake far more than the turbulence ever did. People began throwing up the plane was tilting right and left. Then all of the sudden when it seemed like we were going to land, the captain zoomed back up over the clouds. More turbulence, more puke. Everyone was freaking out. Especially the Chinese people that were sitting right in front of us. They weren't panicking though. They were laughing, hysterically. They thought that it was hilarious that their friends were throwing up, and that we were all about to die. As we were taxi-ing, waiting to land, there was yet more turbulence. About 15 minutes later the captain announced that we would not be landing in Jeju-si at all, we would be heading back to Seoul. We couldn't believe it. We were also a bit nervous because we had seen our same plane land in Seoul de-board and then had us board, without refueling.

Luckily, we made it back to Seoul in one piece and with soiled shoes.

The ironic thing was that previous to this excursion I had been listening to a podcast about how to survive a plane crash, reading Malcolm Gladwells new book, The Outliers, which has a chapter about Korean airline pilots crashing more than other, and playing an online computer game that involved airplanes. Very suspicious, a sign perhaps, either way hints I didn't understand until after the fact.

Once we retrieved all of our belongings we had to get a hotel for the night, and get the next red-eye out of Seoul's airport. We got the 7am flight the next day and arrived safely.

Once we got there it was truly beautiful. We had such a great time exploring the different beaches, the lava tubes, climbing a mountain, and seeing waterfalls. One day, my friend Hayley and I went to a small island off of Jeju island. It was called Udo (Cow) Island because it's shape is supposed to resemble that of a cow. We call it the best island in the world (slightly sarcastically) because when we got there we got pushed on a tour bus that only spoke Korean. We didn't understand anything that was really going on around us. We got dropped off at the end of the bus tour on the other side of the island and then had to walk all the way back to where we caught the ferry. We had to get there before 5pm too or else we would miss the ferry that would take us back, and thus have to spend a night on the god forsaken island. We had fun though. We all went out on the town that night in Jeju-city. Kind of similar to Seoul, but on a smaller scale.

Overall, it was quite an experience and a good time was had by all.

a cease-fire...or is it?

It was really surprising to hear that North Korea released the female journalists.
Especially after charging them to years of hard labor. North Korea is such a conundrum. It's hard to wrap your mind around exactly what Kim Jong Il is thinking. Many may or may not know this, but what happened with the female journalists happens to South Koreans more frequently. Understandably, for people in the US we don't really think of or care all that much about it; simply because it just doesn't hit that close to home. However, there was a South Korean man that was captured by North Koreans, and is still being detained, far before the US journalists were arrested. He was arrested at the Gaseong Industrial Complex that the Koreas share on the accusation that he was speaking against the North Korean regime to one of the North Korean workers. Another incident happened last week, a South Korean fishing boat harmlessly and accidentally wandered 10km into North Korean waters and was captured and the people on the boat, arrested.
What I want to say is, this is nothing new, and I feel bad that people are far more aware of it when it only has to do with their own countrymen.
Obviously, the relationship between the Koreas is far more complex than any other countries relation with NK. Families are still separated. Some people desire reunification, while others would rather die than see the day. That still is not the best excuse for the US's blind eye on worlds current and social affairs. In Korea there is no getting away from getting news about all different events happening in other countries. However, general news awareness is very centralized in the US. This is one of the things that makes it interesting to be immersed in the culture and life here because now I am aware of things I, otherwise, would not be.

Self-voyeurism and Hypocrisy

In a coffee shop in Korea you will hear many camera shutter sounds coming at you from all directions. These sounds are being emulated by cell phones which are being used prominently here as the new digital camera. It doesn't really matter which coffee shop you're in, Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Holly's, Tom N Toms the incessant sound is inevitable. Now, you may be thinking, "What's wrong with taking photos with your comrades in a shop every now and then?" if that were the case, I would be saying the same thing as well. However, they are not taking pictures with anyone. They are taking a picture of just themselves. Numerous ones at that.

In fact to market on these self-voyeuristic tendencies cell phone companies sell phones with a "self shot" camera feature. Where your cell phone has a double lens, one on both sides of the phone. This way you can look at yourself in the display screen as your taking the picture. Here's where the hypocrisy comes in. You would think that having this self-shot camera would allow you to take one photo and feel satisfied. This, again, is not the case. One must take at least 15 photos to feel fulfilled, and even then it's uncertain. They'll fix themselves repetitively in between shots, but never really change their smile or their pose.
Now, some may argue that perhaps these people are merely budding photographers. I beg to disagree, they lack gallimaufry in their shots. I will hand it to them though, they ace looking good in photos, and finding the perfect angle, to photograph themselves that is.

I can understand the want to present yourself well. It's a very necessary commodity in Korea. It's insanely competitive so you must be ready to compete with others appearance and intelligence.

To be continued...

What are you shopping for?

I usually think of all these interesting and awesome things I want to write about in here while I'm out. Then, when I get back and have time to write things down I'll just forget. Besides that many of the things I talk about are so completely random.

Oh well, here's the update: we started intensives this week. Which means I have to be at work at 7:30am. Therefore, I wake up at 6am, and those who know me well also know I am NOT a morning person in the slightest. I am teaching a few more classes this semester one of which is called American Culture. This class is, by far, one of the most fun classes I have gotten to plan for. Last week I did a comparison of American versus Korean greetings. How we shake hands...then as an added bonus I showed them a YouTube video of the Crips (a gang) handshake.

I then had the kids try to reproduce it. It was hilarious to see them attempt it. If anyone has any good ideas for American Culture, let me know. I want to discuss slavery and the civil war a bit with them, but I'm not entirely sure what else....

I also have an essay class - which I'm not a huge fan of because I have to teach it 3 times a week. Which means I have to come up with something to do with them everyday. It's tiring. It also gives me a taste for what a real teaching job would be like. I have to give it up to teachers...you have to have a lot of creativity to figure out something new to do everyday. One fun thing I've had them do is sign up for Merriam Websters word of the day. Which forces them to familiarize themselves with some really outlandish words. E.g.: Pachydermatous, Absquatulate, and skosh. Which, funny enough, the Internet spell checker does not even know. I do also get some relatively entertaining essays from them though.

Let's see aside from that...We went to MT a few weeks ago (Membership Training). Which was interesting. Everyone from my work packed into 2 big Avalon vans and drove off to some place a bit outside of Seoul. We stayed in these 2 really big hotel rooms. Everyone ate a lot of sam-gyeup-sal (BBQ) and got drunk. Then, we all went to sing karaoke and played weird team building games. In fact, the one Korean male teacher we had was so excited about all the events he carved a fake microphone out of a carrot.

We finally get a vacation this upcoming week, and it could not be more welcomed!

Aside from that I'm just hanging out here - completing the daily grind, and patiently waiting for my contract to be up. The school did request that I extend my contract until December 9th, which I am considering...

It's a really nice day today. I can see the mountains outside my window. The trees peaking out over them is so nice. You know (or maybe you don't), Seoul is completely surrounded by mountains. It's a city right in the center of a mountain range. Come to think of it, I'm not really all that good at describing things...so maybe I never mentioned that before.

The following words are not for the feint of heart, or children...if you're easily offended or not mature please stop reading now.

I warned you, so I'm not going to apologize for the following words. I forgot to mention a really interesting experience of mine from last weekend. My friends and I ventured to the red light district. Not even a mile from my house there's an area where you walk down the alley and boom, you hit a shopping area. That is, if you're in the market for a prostitute. It was seriously the oddest and most bizarre experience of my life. There are all these "shops" with big windows which are kind of like sliding glass doors. Inside the doors are chairs where the hookers sit, in their underwear. They walk around the rooms as they are on display. Some of their heels are incredibly high, some of them dress more risque than others. The point in fact, however, is that for 80,000 won ($80) they are yours for a half an hour. As we walked down the road it was really strange. They have pink lights shining out from behind them, and some of them have puppies walking around the rooms with them...kind of cutesy, and disgusting all at the same time. I have to admit though as we were walking down the street I could hardly really look at anything but the road straight in front of me, and wish I could just get out of there. First, it felt really shady walking down that road as we would see Korean men walking around too...definitely not for the same reason we were. Second, I felt a little bad that we were walking down there for the pure curiosity of it...I mean there has to be some awful reasons these women are selling their bodies. As we were walking down some Korean guys approached my friend, Brett, and told him that foreigners were not "allowed" on this street. He said that because the prostitutes will not take foreign men's money. If they do, they will lose their Korean business...which apparently is what keeps them afloat. The hypocrisy of this culture is mind boggling. I'll get into that in another post later on though. Either way, once we walked a bit we decided we wanted out. There's only one way in and one way out of the area though so we had to walk back the same way we came in. No one really said anything to us or bothered us, but no one really had to. We didn't want to be there.
If you're interested in what it looks like check out the following video. I didn't take it, but I absquatulated it off YouTube. This video doesn't really give a good portrait of what the one near my house is like. The one in the video is smaller, and it is also shown during the day so there aren't really any people.

And on that note, I'm out.

What makes your throat sore in only 3 hours time?

I'm starting with a few pictures from Sokcho because I think I left those out of a previous post. So, these are from a few weeks back when my friends from Avalon and I went out of town.
This is a picture of the mountain that we climbed up. It is called Ullsan-bawi mountain. It took a long time and comprised over 800 "stairs" that we had to go up. However, in actuality it felt like we were mountain climbing. In fact, some people were wearing helmets. We didn't get that memo.Did any of you know that 70% or Korea is mountains...we found that out, the hard way.Finally, just hanging out at the top. It took us a while, but we finally made it up there. After we got up to the top we considered just staying there forever. It was a really great experience though.

Moving on, Michael and Brian were here visiting this past week. It was really nice having visitors. I got to show them Seoul, and I think they enjoyed their time here. We did a lot of things so to recap it all here would take a really long time. We went to N Seoul tower, Children's Grand Park Zoo, Gyeongbokgong palace, Deoksugung palace, the War Memorial Museum, Suwon Fortrees, and Suwon Korean Folk Village...to name a few things. By far the coolest thing, for me, was Suwon fortress because I had never been there before.
Michael and I actually took a picture that I think he's going to send to the Record there.The very last thing we did while they were here was soju night and noraebang. The boys put up a big fuss about noraebang saying they didn't want to do it. Michael said that he would MOST DEFINITELY not sing. Welll a few shots of soju and 3 hours of noraebang later they were singing a different tune, literally. That is also the answer to the question which is the title of this particular blog entry. Noraebang makes your throat sore...if you do it for 3 hours straight.

This upcoming weekend Mark and I have to do this team building activity where we spend the night at some place with all of our co-workers...should be interesting. I have to remember to charge my camera battery...I had forgotten when Mike and Brian were here. So I had to rely on them to take all the photos.

More to come.

Hello, Kitty. Why don't you have a mouth?

One of my students rendering of me. Pretty precise, I think. Quite simpsonesque.

Hi my family and friends!!

Hope everyone is happy and healthy. Life has been pretty eventful, and things are only going to get more busy starting on Wednesday. On Wednesday my friend Michael is coming to visit, and on Saturday my friend, Brian, is flying in also. It's going to be crazy fun! We were all supposed to go to Japan together next weekend. Sadly, because of my works obsession with Swine Influenza prevention I can't go with them.

Also, my friend Mark moved up to Nokjiwon from Middle School this week to help us out. Which is nice of him. We really, really needed someone to help out.

My Korean lessons seemed to have plateaued. They were canceled two weeks in a row. I'm still trying to study though. I wish I could practice more.

This past weekend on Friday I went out with some friends for drinks to de-stress. At the Hof (a place where you order food and grab a few drinks) that we were at there were 3 business men sitting next to us. 2 of them were pretty well gone, and the other was just feeding them more and more booze. The 2 extremely drunk guys both passed out in the hof. We decided to take some picture with them. Once the sober guy had enough of making fools out of his friends...he just left them. They slept there for the remainder of the night, and were still there when we left. What a great friend. Comedic for us though.

The next day I basically just did a lot of preparation from Mike and Brian's visit. Then, on Sunday I had made plans to go and meet up with my Korean co-workers. We went to this museum for a Hello Kitty exhibit (which was way over-priced might I add) then we went to eat some lunch and ended up at the NORAEBANG (노래방)! Which is, essentially, a singing room. We had tons of fun messing around, dancing, and singing til our throats were sore.The day before we went to the museum, my friend, Casey, pointed out that he hated Hello Kitty because she had no mouth. I, not being a huge fan of her either, never really noticed this until he pointed it out. Ironically, when I got to the museum there was a sign that "answered" the conundrum...kind of...not really. To be frank, it didn't make any sense at all.If you can see it, it says: Why Hello Kitty doesn't have the mouth?
To share her emotion with other people.
Makes absolute no sense, and is in bad English, but oh well!
I've also been listening to podcasts lately. Since it is kind of hard for me to get regular access to the news, it is one really nice method of staying informed. I've been listening to numerous ones, however, one has really piqued my interest. It's called 'How Stuff Works', and I highly recommend it to anyone I know. http://www.howstuffworks.com/ They had one really interesting broadcast about future innovations last week. One of the innovations they think would be helpful now is an international language. Did you all know that there was an international language created in the 19th century called Esperanto?!? Weird, don't you think? 2 million people speak this language apparently. If you want to learn it you can go to this website: www.lernu.net/

Also, I want to wish a very happy Father's Day to my Daddy!! I miss you so much, and I wish I could be home to celebrate this day with you!! All my love, Dad!Alright, well that's all for now, folks! I'll try to update again soon.

Love,
Marg

Can you survive on the thirty-five?

The bus system in Korea is abysmal. Not in the sense that the actual transportation system is a mess. On the contrary, the number of buses and wait time leaves no one wanting.
The ride is a different story.
Some basic principles the bus drivers follow:
+ Unless someone is chasing after the bus to get it to halt, there is no stopping...at any cost
+ The doors must always open because of velocity
+ There is no such thing as a red light...only different shades of green
+ It seems as though if 1-2 people do not fall over every hour the bus driver fails to get paid
+ The shoulder of the road is, in actuality, the carpool lane exclusively for buses.
+ Taxi cabs are the mortal enemy of the bus.
+ All the bus drivers must be friends so they can wave at each other.
+ Catching a person in the door as it shuts is also criteria for receiving salary
+ There is no hesitation in switching lanes. Cars or no cars, the bus will merge.
+ Most importantly, similar to the film Speed, if the bus goes under 40 MPH at any time it will explode.
Simple, right? Enjoy your ride on the thirty-five!

Quick update.

Hi all!
Work has been really busy lately. Mainly because both of the previous teachers that were teaching with me left, and they sent one "replacement". However, that one replacement turned out to be a dud. He got fired right before my 2 new co-workers left. Then, it took a week until we got another replacement. So, I was stuck doing 2 peoples jobs for a week.
Now, the new-new replacement wants to move to another school.
Anyway, work is just a huge mess, and I would rather not talk about.
That's the update on the work-front though.

Since the last time I updated I've done quite a few things. I went on 2 hikes, went to Lotte World (the Disney-land of Seoul), Seoul National Museum, and a few other things.

We went to this ones place called Sokcho this weekend. Where we climbed a HUGE rock!! Maybe 780 meters up. I'm not entirely sure the distance that we walked to get there, but it took us a really long time. The view from the top was really beautiful. Unfortunately we did not get to see the caves and the mountains, but I think we'll return sometime soon to check them out. There were some strange happenings while we were in the area, but nothing tooo crazy.

My friends Brian and Michael are supposed to visit towards the end of the month, and I am super excited about that. I will try and post more soon...maybe post some pictures and such!

Much love!!!

lanterns, buddhas, and breakdancing

Hi everyone!
I have a little bit to catch up on, since I think the last time I updated this was after we all returned from Boseong. 2 weekends ago was Buddha's Birthday celebration.

When I think of Buddha, the above image is definitely the first thing I think of. I'm sure you feel the same.

Basically, Buddha's B-day means there is a huge parade and celebration in Insadong (the old-style/massive Saint George St. of Seoul). We had a great time and saw a lot of interesting things.

Everything started at Jogyesa temple. The whole place was covered in Lanterns. My friend, Brian, and I had actually gone there a few weeks ago when they were beginning to prepare for it. However, they had added many, many more lanterns since our last visit!

It was a whole festival where you could go to booths and make things.

Above is one of the booths featured at the festival. Apparently, they give out free teeth examinations...and, also, paint your face. So, if you are cavity-free you get a happy tooth painted on your face. If you need a root canal, sad tooth. Actually, I really don't know, that's just my prognosis.

For example, my friend made this lotus lantern cap. He let me wear it for a little while. It was hilarious. Any Korean person that saw me in it took my picture. I had one guy come up to me and tell me I was a Korean princess!

All around us there was music playing and people having a great time. This is an example of one of the many shows going on at the time. I was really hoping to see one of those traditional Chinese dragons, but I suppose I'll have to go to China for that.

We got to Insadong around...1pm and the parade didn't start until around 7pm. It started to rain too so we went to this board-game room place for a little while. Actually, it is quite a novel idea. Basically it is an establishment that primarily deals in board games. They give you a "menu" of the different games they have. You choose one and pay a set fee for it. Then you can sit there as long as you like and play the game. We chose Monopoly, and had a grand time. They also served probably the best hot chocolate in the world!

Finally, it was time for the parade. This is one of the many, many floats we saw. Although we had to wait an excruciating amount of time for the parade to start. It lasts about 3 hours (if you want to see every float that passes by). We, however, decided not to stay for the entire thing, considering we had not eaten dinner yet. We discovered this amazing restaurant named Toma-Tillos, nearby. Best Mexican food I've had in Seoul thus far. Don't get me wrong, I love the Korean food, but sometimes you want a little taste of "home"/tex-mex.

Somewhere in between that weekend and the past weekend I did a whole lot of nothing...work was really, really dead. We had virtually no students because of the fact all the kids were testing. Now, they're back though.

On Saturday a bunch of my ex-pat co-workers and I went to this performance called "We-on". It was really fascinating to see because it was traditional/nontraditional. They had the kind of traditional instruments pictured below, however, they increased the tempo a bit of the music. Meanwhile, there were break-dancers grooving to the beat. Seriously, artistically,probably one of the coolest things I have seen in Seoul, thus far.

Last weekend I went to a baseball game with a co-worker. A Korean baseball game, and an American baseball game are very similar...with some exceptions. The whole crowd sings really cheesy and effeminate songs. They hold this really long blow-up sticks that they hit together for the games entirety, oh yeah, and all of the players ( minus one) are Korean. I went with one of my co-workers from my school.

Rachel and I enjoying the game.Their half time show...these two guys came out and pretended like they were going to fight. They had been big bobble head guys, but when they took their heads off they had these masks on underneath. It was actually kind of odd.

This little kid had lost his family. He came up to the front of the stadium with his cell phone. He had been trying to call his father, but his Dad wasn't picking up his phone. Poor kid.

I just got done with a really long day at work today (Amanda, has off all week because she went to the Phillipines. So, we've been having to cover for all of her classes. Definitely have to be in high gear this week). Fortunately, we had yesterday off for this thing called Children's Day.

More to come soon. I'm going hiking this weekend with some of my Korean friends! :D

Miss, and love you all!

Green Tea Escapades

This past weekend, myself and a bunch of friends all went to Beosong to visit a green tea plantation. I know, green tea, doesn't sound like it would be that exciting, right? Well, guess again (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic).

We had to wake up pretty early on Saturday to head down there. In fact, the bus left the station at around 8AM. The bus ride was about 5.5 hours down. Quite long. We also almost got off at the wrong station, luggage and all. We had to scamper back onto the bus very quickly when we realized our er. One we arrived at the bus terminal, we actually needed to be at, we explained we wanted to go to the plantation. We got pushed onto another bus, hereafter to be referred to as, "the celebrity express". At first, the bus ride seemed like it would be uneventful, however, at the first stop we made, about 15-20 high-school boys piled in. These boys proceeded to come to the back of the bus where Amanda, Tasha, and I were. They started asking questions while looking vocabulary up frantically in their cell phones.

excerpt from our interaction:
Boy 1: Ah...um, where is your destination.
Us: The green tea plantation.
Boy 2: Oh, very nice.
Us: Where is your destination?
Boy 2: We go home.
Us: Oh, you live close to here?
Boy 1 (I suspect just realizing what our first response meant): no, no! not green tea! you come to my house!
Boy 3: Ahh, he's kidding. joke, joke.
Us: Are you having a party at your house?

They also told us that Jameson looked like Keanu Reeves from the Matrix, asked numerous crazy questions, told us that they were each others grandmothers, and they helped us know when we needed to get off the bus. They also requested to get their picture taken with us.
Once we disembarked off the celebrity express, we went toward the plantation. We still had all our bags because the people at the bus terminal left no time for discussion about finding a motel.

We all had quite a bit with us, that we did not want to lug around the plantation, but we really didn't know what to do with it. We asked this lady that had a store/hut if we could leave it there. Very kindly she let us store all of our stuff behind her shed, and we all headed off to the fields.

As soon as we got into the tea establishment we took a nice long path up a bunch of stairs that we assumed was the path to the green tea fields. HOWEVER, after climbing the massive staircase we realized that, in fact, it was just a trail that took us back to the entrance. The good thing that did come out of it was we got to see a vast bamboo garden (Mom, you would have loved it). After we took that little fake excursion we decided to take a break and buy some green tea icecream. I got a green tea smoothie, and it was delicious!! Everywhere we went we heard the Korean word for foreigner (way-gook), and go numerous points and stares. My friend, Mark, who has dreadlocks was inspected by 3 older ladies (referred to as ahjummas).Anyone who is anyone climbs this hill. However, the younger generation likes to take it to a different level. It's something the young ladies like to do, and I like to call it "extreme hiking". It is something so dangerous that I'm not even sure if I can put it into words. Therefore, I will let this picture first illustrate the activity: Do you see the issue. If you didn't, let me point out that this young lady is climbing a mountain in 4 inch heels. Now, let me tell you, those are not the highest heels we encountered, nor is this the worst terrain we had to journey upon. She is having such difficulty navigating on her in own, that she has to use her boyfriend as a crutch. Those ladies that do decide it is a sage idea to wear heels to these kinds of destinations, must have the most crucial fashion accessory. That is, their boyfriend (sporting his own couple t-shirt). We city kids were not tooo surprised by the actions of these young ladies, however, in Seoul the girls live in heels (I suspect sleep in them as well) so we're acclimated to this type of ludicrous behavior.

Moving on, after we traveled all the way to the top of this huge hill that was a green tea farm we snapped some photos and began our pilgrimage back down. I believe this is the mountain we were atop. On our way down we encountered another group of ahjummas. This time it was myself, not Mark, that was their pray. The one woman came running up to me. Grabbed my hands and gave me the biggest bear hug I have received since arriving in Korea. She then said (sarang-ee-eh-oh) which basically means, she loves me. I told her I loved her too. It was pretty hilarious.As we continued our venture back down we stumbled upon a small ancient house - type - thing on stilts. Sooo, what is the most obvious thing to do. Try to get inside, of course! haha Unfortunately, it was locked. We took pictures though.Finally, we left the green tea fields. We collected our stuff behind the woman's shed, and headed to a beach town nearby, where we were planning on staying. We had decided before we left that we would stay at a Min-bak. A min-bak is, essentially, a home stay. Some are nicer than others, but either way you are usually staying at some one's house that has extra room. Well, there were a plethora to chose from. Somehow, though, we ended up in one owned by one crazy ahjumma. Don't ask how. It just happened. The min-baks are really cheap though. Only 30 per room (so, less than 10 each). She gave us 2 rooms and apparently we stayed in the Ahjumma's room. Because she slept on the kitchen floor. CRAZY! Either way the whole time she was running around behind us, yelling things in Korean that we could not understand. The running joke was that she was going to kill us in the middle of the night. Ultimately, we fell in love with her, though, and parting the next morning was sorrowful. We found some good eats in the small town and got a huge spread of Korean BBQ. Which, for those of you that are not familiar is the closest thing to heaven that I have ever tasted. Well, besides kimchi. Kimchi is a bite of heaven...once you have been eating it for a while you begin to get kimchi withdrawal. At dinner there was the cutest kid sitting at a table nearby. He kept staring and smiling at us. We all waved at him and said Hi. Then, Blake started playing rock, paper, scissors with him (guy-buy-bo). It was hilarious because the kid kept losing, but did not want to stop playing. Later that night, we went to the beach to drink some beers and just relax after a long day. A Korean man walks by and says hello to us. It was a great chance for Blake and myself to practice our Korean so we start talking to him. Blake knows a lot more Korean than I do though. Anyways, we get his name, which is Mr. Woo. I think he was already a bit intoxicated. His phone kept ringing too, which, at first, we thought was a defense mechanism to not speak English with us. We soon found out that we were very wrong, though, because he put us on the phone with his wife. His friend Mr. Kim came to retrieve him. A little while later though, Mr. Woo, Mr. Kim, and a few new additions returned. Gifting a bunch of beers in a plastic bag. We took a few pictures with them.If it looks like our party has grown....it's because it has. We met 2 more random foreigners in the streets of this small town and invited them out on the town with us. Mr. Woo is the one in the blue hat. Mr. Kim is the one in the black hat, and the other guy...we never got his name.
After that we all went to noraebong (karaoke), set some fireworks off on the beach, and then went to bed.
This entry has been insanely long. I don't even know how long I have been typing this out. So, I'm going to sum the rest of this up without pictures.
After we woke up the next day, one of the girls and I went to go get us tickets at the bus terminal so we could all get home. We were just planning on buying the tickets at the place about 15 minutes away, and then coming back. When we got to the terminal though the lady told us, in Korean, that the bus back to Seoul "did not exist". Fantastic. She promptly had us buy tickets to some other town so we could get back. She just got them for the 2 of us though, and put us on the bus immediately. Leaving the rest of our friends in the beach town. We thought the bus ride would be maybe 20 minutes to another city nearby. After an hour and a half on the bus....we realized we were not going to be able to go back and retrieve them. We had to call them and have them meet us in another city named Gwangjo. Which, apparently, was the original capital of Korea. Finally, we got back to Seoul at 10pm that night. Overall, the trip was a booming success. We plan on doing one of these once a month from now on. It was so nice to get out of the city. Being here for 5 months, I didn't even realize how much I missed the quiet. You know, there is still so much stuff from the weekend that I left out, but if this gets any longer I am going to need to consider publishing it.
Over and out.

Some Video Clips

View outside


Gyeongbokgung - Palace Guards


Walker Hill - Cherry Blossoms

Flowers in April

Today I went to go see cherry blossoms with some of my co-workers from the office.

This week has actually been pretty fun. Work has been really slow because the kids are doing level tests. Which means that we didn't have half of our classes this week. Basically, this week has had a very minimal amount of stress. The cherry blossoms are beautiful. We went to this place called Walker Hill. It's a hotel kind of close to my house, just about 10 minutes away and across the Han River. What was funny was that there really wasn't any kind of park to walk through, and many of the pictures we took, were taken in a parking lot. We laughed about that a bit. There really isn't any other way to describe them to you. I think only pictures can really get across how amazing it was. We all went out to get some 참치 (cham-shee - aka: tuna sushi) after that. Let me just cut to the chase:

Pictures Galore

Today is the last day in March. Spring is here...kind of. Some days it's warm-ish and other days it's freezing.
It's been a little while since I have updated. We had the PT competition a few weeks ago. The students did really well. I took some pictures, but they did not come out very well. I'll post some on here.
I've just started Korean classes a few weeks ago. So far things are good. I have an alphabet test this week. I also went to see a Buddhist temple last Friday. It was pretty cool. I kind of got my friend and I lost at first though. So we had to walk around for a while. We finally did find it and it just so happened that they were filming some sort of festival that day. We didn't take many pictures because we were afraid it would be disrespectful. My friend took a few, so when I get them from him I'll post them. This is the only one I took at the temple. It's a 500+ year old tree. If you look in the background you can see lanterns hanging. There were thousands of them and they were all over the place. It was really pretty.
After we left the temple we went to a restaurant to get some food. We ordered something...we weren't really sure what it was. When it arrived, it came in a huge pot. It was really delicious though. This is before we cooked it. You stir it all up. Alright well I'm going to make this short and let the pictures do the talking.
This is a cell phone decoration that my co-worker bought me.
Beware the yellow dust. They give these face masks out at Dunkin Donuts....
The weird street signs never get old.
Another weird thing in Seoul. Even the trees get IV's.