Lights, Camera, Lotus!

Hello! So this past weekend was SO busy. Unfortunately, I left my apartment in such a rush on Friday that I forgot my camera L Everyone else did a good job of documenting the weekend though, so I can put up another entry once I steal get all the pics. Sara’s mom gave me a few already as well. The whole Dorsey clan was in town so we tried our best to show them Seoul. Friday night we went to the hotel in Myeongdong and took them out for some Korean BBQ. We decided to take Sara’s little brother out to our favorite spots in Hongdae, which ended up being one of our more ridiculous nights. Its really warm out now so it was nice to finally be out without dragging around a huge coat. We ended up at one club that’s usually really crowded, but we were the only ones there. So naturally we had a raging dance party just the 4 of us. Don’t judge.

The next morning we were all feeling the aftermath of such a crazy night, but we tried to pull it together. The Dorsey fam went to Seoul tower, and then we all went to a baseball game. It was my first one here in Korea, and it was pretty fun. They have convenience stores, Burger Kings, and KFCs inside the stadium – so you can get normal food at normal prices. There’s none of that $6 for a beer nonsense. We watched the Lotte Giants battle the LG Twins. The twins were HORRIBLE. I think there was a point where the score was 13-0. Finally in the bottom of the 9^th the Twins scored 4 runs, so there was a little bit of redemption there, but clearly not enough. We were cheering for the Twins too since they’re from Seoul, and the Giants are from Busan (I think?). I love watching baseball, but the Twins were so bad it was a little hard to watch. Also, I’ve never seen so many people get hit by pitches in a game, even in little league games I don’t think its that bad! I’m pretty sure the Twins pitcher hit like 3 of the Giants in a row, and then walked another guy, causing them to walk in a run. Unreal. The game was still a lot of fun though, and I’m excited to go to more.

After the baseball game we went back to the hotel to meet up with John and Q. We went to a little Korean restaurant and then took the Dorsey fam to a noraebang. After the noraebang we took them to our favorite hookah bar. After we had figured out what we wanted, we asked Q to explain it all to the waitress assuming that she couldn’t speak English. After a few seconds of Q babbling away in Korean, the waitressed asked us a question in perfect English, and we all just burst out laughing. Turns out, she was from California. Oops. I’m so used to assuming that people don’t speak English so when they can speak it perfectly its always so funny

Sunday we walked around Myeongdong and explored the area around the hotel.

Sara's dad, me, Q, Reebs, Sara, Sara's bro, John - practicing for the World Cup

We found a little sticker photobooth and crammed all 8 of us into it to snap some totally ridiculous pictures. We then walked over to Insadong to check out the Lotus Lantern festival that was happening. The festival is sort of the kick-off to the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday (which we celebrate on May 21^st this year). We got some food at a restaurant in Insadong and then went out to roam the streets. We tried “bundaegi” which is sort of a roasted silkworm larvae. I thought they were pretty gross, but I’ve eaten worse (scorpions and grasshoppers anyone?).

Having a very genuine reaction to the bundaegi (Q wasn't amused - he loves those things)

Me, Sara, and Reebs with our lotus lanterns in Bongeunsa Temple

There were tents set up in the street where we could make paper lotus lanterns. We went to Bongeunsa Temple where there were hundreds of paper lanterns set up. Just outside the temple on the street was a man holding some unknown critters. They looked cute enough, so we crept in a little closer to check it out. Before I knew it, he was holding the little creature out by its tail and threw it at me!! It was a flying squirrel!!!! It landed on my leg, and proceeded to crawl up my leg, up my body, and down my arm. The little kids started to swarm and I’m pretty sure I’m in about 300 random pictures. But aww the little guy was so scared and so adorable.

Showing off my new flying squirrel friend

Just a little baby! Look how cute he is :)

Once the excitement of the flying squirrel attack had subsided, we found out spots for the parade and watch the parade of lanterns, which goes from Dongdaemun Stadium to Bongeunsa Temple. We sat near the Jongno Tower - where we celebrated New Years a few months ago in the street. The parade ended around 9 and from there we called it a night. Here's some of the parade pics tho - complements of Mrs. D.

Allergy season is starting booooo. I’m starting to become sniffly mess. On the bright side – health care is cheap over here and I got lots of drugs from the pharmacy for about $4. Win.

The K-Pop song for this week is another Girls Generation song. Its called Run Devil Run. I've linked you to the version with the English subtitles so you know what its all about.

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to." -- Alan Keightley

Do You Funny Korea?

Hi! So the holiday season is approaching...can you believe it? I'm in shock that I am 2 short weeks away from my 4th full month of living here, and 2 1/2 weeks away from my first ever Christmas away from home. Unreal.

Last week I went to dance as usual. I really really like the studio and its so easy to get to on the subway. I'm excited to have a place where I can go to classes consistently!

Sara's mom came into town last Friday. She was incredibly generous and took us (me, Rebecca, Dave, and of course Sara) out to dinner and also reserved a suite for us to stay in at the New Seoul (Best Western) hotel. She had a smaller room for herself, and left the suite to us. Being out to dinner with her was so fun. We got to teach her the Korean way to drink, eat galbi, and use chopsticks! She wasn't too impressed by kimchi, but we assured her it grows on you. The location of the hotel was great because it was in the heart of Seoul so it was perfect for sightseeing, but was also a cheap taxi ride away from our favorite places to go out near Hongdae - and located on a subway line. Perfect. Mom and Dad: when/if you come visit I definitely recommend staying there for a night or two! We did our best to keep her jet lagged mother up until after midnight in order to try to get her on schedule, and then we went out for the night.

Christmas lights up near the hotel

Our Korean dinner

Saturday I went to Myeongdong with Rebecca, Mieke, and Q to do a little Christmas shopping. After that we went near the river that runs through the middle of Seoul to cheer our friend John on in the 10K he was running that day. It was freezing out, but he definitely appreciated our support. Rebecca and I went back to my place to take a nap and grab some dinner before heading back out in Seoul for the night to meet up with everyone again.

Me, Rebecca, Mieke, and Q in Myeongdong!

Anna and me out in Hongdae

We were sort of tired from being out late the night before, but since it was around 1am when the tiredness hit us, we really had no choice but to stay out. There was, of course, the option to take a 40,000 won cab ride home, but that wasn't too appealing, so we did the next best thing. No, we didn't sleep in the subway (or in the Burger King). We went to a DVD bang! DVD bangs are these rooms (remember bang - or 방 - means 'room') where you can just sit and watch movies. You have to pay per person - maybe around 5-7,000 won - but it sure beats shelling out tons of money for a cab! We sat/slept in there for 4 hours while we watched Wall-E and one of the Chronicles of Narnia movies. I wish I had remembered to take a picture, but I'm sure there will be more times so I will make sure to have some pics next time. When the subway finally opened Rebecca and I came back to my place.

We slept pretty late, but once we woke up we hopped on the subway one stop down to Uijeongbu Station. New Moon came out this weekend here finally and we had been dying to see it. I did my best to look for movie times online before we went, but of course I couldn't find them anywhere. So we decided to just wing it. Of course when we got there it was incredibly crowded, and the next available show time wasn't for about another hour and a half, but it worked out ok in the end. So, Korean movie theaters work a little bit differently than they do in the U.S. When you get there, you take a number (kind of like at the DMV). Once your number is called you can buy your tickets, and also reserve your seats. Check out this video by Simon and Martina to learn about movie theaters in Korea. They are a young married couple from Toronto who are teaching here in Korea. They spoke at our orientation about lesson plans and general cultural things that we should be aware of. They have a website and blog and YouTube channel - all with helpful and sometimes comical information about how to live and teach in Korea. The theater you see in their video is pretty much what every theater looks like from what I can tell. Overall, pretty normal.

The movie theater near my apartment is on the 14th and 15th floors of the Central Tower in Uijeongbu. Its basically just a bunch of restaurants, food courts, shops, and game rooms. Since Rebecca and I had to wait so long for our movie to start, we hit up the arcade. We played a motorcycle racing game, and a kill-the-zombies shooting game.

Bang! Bang!

We practically killed ourselves trying to play some Japanese version of Dance Dance Revolution. We couldn't choose the setting for some reason so instead of doing it on "Easy" which we would have preferred, we ended up on "Totally Impossible" and made complete fools of ourselves. Whatever. We get stared at wherever we go anyway, we might as well give them something fun to look at while all eyes are on us. Its getting pretty old to be stared at everywhere we go. Its like they're waiting for us to do tricks or something offensive or something. I don't understand it and I certainly don't appreciate it. There is no possible way I am the first non-asian they have ever seen. I always have the urge to yell "I'M SORRY I'M WHITE BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO STARE AT ME!" every time I walk onto the subway - but of course nobody would understand a word that was coming out of my mouth. It sort of reminds me of that scene in Mean Girls where Karen asks Cady why she's white. "You can't just ask people why they're white..". Makes me laugh every time.

While we waited for our movie to start we also got to talking about how we're surprised more people can't speak English given the infiltration of American culture in their country. Its so strange to think about from their point of view. Of course, all of our movies are in English, and that's pretty much how it is, with the exception of the occasional foreign film. But can you imagine if every box office in the United States had over half of the movies in a different language, and you had to read subtitles all the time? If half of the movies I saw were in Spanish, or French, I would certainly be more inclined to learn that language. And speaking of language...we also got to talking about the fact that literally everything we do can be stressful because we have the constant concern that we won't be understood or that we ourselves won't understand. Even going to the movies, as fun as it is, can be a bit more challenging because chances are that the person helping us can't speak English, and we need to somehow communicate what movie we need to see (although generally the movie titles don't change, but occasionally they do) and what time we want to see it, and where we want to sit. We got lucky this time, and the person who sold us our tickets spoke English well enough to tell us which theater we were in and where to go. Restaurants can be the same - especially if the menu doesn't have the English translation we sort of just have to guess and hope we're not getting raw cow liver...but we're figuring it out more every time.

So anyway...we saw New Moon. We even got awesome Korean "New Moon" (뉴문) posters! This picture is backwards since I took it with the camera on my computer but since most of you reading this can't read Korean anyway...you get the idea.

The movie was in English of course, but there were Korean subtitles to go with it. I'm afraid some of the comedy of it was lost in translation. There's a part where one of the girls is being incredibly sarcastic and bratty and Rebecca and I were cracking up - but we were the only ones laughing. Guess it didn't come through in the subtitles. The movie was...well those of you who have seen it, or seen Twilight know the quality of those movies. We didn't care though, we loved it. At least we can recognize that the acting is bad. My students on the other hand think it deserves an Oscar. They aren't used to those Michael Bay/James Cameron blockbusters that we are so accustomed to in the US - so their expectations for movies are a little bit lower. There really isn't a film industry anywhere in the world like Hollywood - so they think anything that comes from America is amazing. Its pretty obvious by watching any Korean movie or TV show that they just don't have the same quality of production. Here's a trailer for a movie that came out this summer here called 해운대 (Haeundae)...pronounced hay-oon-day. It was filmed on Haeundae Beach in Busan where I visited a few months ago. Its about a tsunami that hits Busan. Look for the Rainbow Bridge and the fireworks! I saw this movie after I had visited there, and it was so strange! But this movie is a recent Korean hit and everyone has seen it and loves it. The trailer alone will probably make you laugh (although believe it or not its supposed to be a really sad movie) - but hopefully you can gain enough insight from the trailer into the film industry here. No joke, its apparently the best movie that came out this year. Yikes. I admit, it was a little sad...but I would not say it was good.

Last week I did "celebrity interviews" with my kids. We reviewed the basic who, what, where, when, why, and how questions and then I showed them a mock interview that I did with Kanye West as an example. I handed out sheets with different prompts and told them to choose a partner and interview a celebrity of their choice, or they could make up their own celebrity (like themselves). In addition to the "who, what, where, etc." questions, they also had to ask 3 'fun' questions not using those words. Then they had to draw a picture of their celebrity or signature "gear" like Kanye's shutter shades. One of my students decided to interview me. I'm sure you can only imagine how that went. Since I needed to be walking around the room helping the other kids, I asked him to write down all of his questions and then I would stop back to answer them. Some of the questions made sense. But here are some word-for-word examples of what I found waiting for me when I went back to his desk...along with my responses. Of course I corrected his grammar as we went, but the questions are so much better in their original form.

Min Joon: "What your hopes?"
Me: "To have a good career."
Min Joon: "Where did you fall in first love?"
Me: "We met in high school through a friend."
Min Joon: "Do you funny Korea?"
Me: "Yes I think Korea is a lot of fun."
Min Joon: "Do you delicious Korea food?"
Me: "Yes I like Korean food but sometimes it is too spicy."
Min Joon: "Do you love me?"

It was all just so adorable I had to laugh. Of course I answered the "do you love me" question with a simple "yes". However, he changed my answer so that it said "Yes. I love Min Joon". Gaaahh! This was the same kid who a few days before had interrupted me while I was teaching class with "Amy! What's your name?". All the kids, including the other teacher in the room with me burst out laughing. Definitely up there at the top of the list of memorable quotes from my kids, along with "I am English very well".

Here's the picture he drew of me (backwards again from being taken on my computer). It totally resembles me, right?




In the spirit of the holidays I made a little video of me and Jin on Elf Yourself. I sent it to her, and she told me she almost cried watching it she was laughing so hard. Its a pretty common website among my friends and I during the holidays, but Sang Jin had never seen it before and she thought it was absolutely hilarious. Made one for the fam too, so you can watch Bob break it down here. You can also see us in the country version and the singing version.

Next week is finals for my students, which means no teaching and lots of time for skyping everyone! Also, I'd like to send some Christmas cards home to people so leave your addresses please and I'll send you some (don't judge me on the improper English, I'm just working with what I can get over here).

My student's "do you love me" question made me think of this song for your K-Pop video of the week. Maybe this is where he got it from? This song is called Abracadabra by the Brown Eyed Girls. The music video is incredibly racy for Korea, and I have to admit even by American standards its up there with some of Britney's. I've linked you to the version with English subtitles so you can understand what its actually saying. The video still doesn't really make sense with the song - but that's Korea for you.

Its getting really cold here. Luckily it doesn't snow much, I've only seen a few flurries. But I'm still not happy about it. 39 days til Thailand!

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind."-- Seneca

Seoul Train

Hello again! This is another long one everyone. If you want the Cliffnotes version, scroll down to the last paragraph. You may want to read all of this after you see it.

So the first week of school progressed rather well. Once the kids got over their initial fear of me, they became a little more open to attempting to speak with me. Some of them had some very interesting questions, like if I had a boyfriend, how many I’ve had and how long I’ve dated each of them. They also want to know which of their male classmates I find “most handsome” and which teacher is “most handsome”. Um? Haha not sure how to answer any of those questions appropriately but oh well, if it gets them hearing, speaking, and understanding English I’ll answer their questions. Naturally my answer was that all of the boys are handsome and same with the teachers. They saw through that though and had no trouble remembering the English for “you lie!”. Haha well. What am I supposed to say? They also have the basic questions like what is my favorite sport, and what do I like to eat (cheeseburgers! I’m going to live up to the American stereotype and I don’t care). Some of the male students are much more outspoken, and like to blow me kisses and tell me they love me. Another has offered to teach me Korean himself (said with the flirtiest English he could manage). When I politely turned him down all the girls in the class broke into applause. I guess we know how they feel about him. Some of the more shy students like to come into the teachers’ office where I have my desk and sit next to another English teacher who is able to translate for me/them when they can’t understand me or they can’t find the right English word. One girl made me a bookmark with the Chinese character for love. She asked for my favorite color in English and was so proud of herself when she realized that I could actually understand her. The next day, I had my blue bookmark! Also, all students learn 1500-2000 basic Chinese characters, which is why its in Chinese. Another girl stopped me after a class that I sat in on, and gave me candy and thanked me for coming to this school.

Favorite thing out of a kid’s mouth so far: “Hello. I am English very well”. Thankfully Jin was in the room with me and was able to laugh at it. I think he meant that he speaks English very well, which is ironic, but also hilarious.

The way it works here is that the kids are basically in the same classroom the entire day, and it’s the teachers who switch classes. So there is nothing in the classroom specific to a subject. No science posters, no history timelines, etc. The kids all have little cubbies in the back of their room, and each teacher is assigned a homeroom, but then throughout the day the teachers spend their time in the office to make their lessons plans, and then move to the classes accordingly. I am special however, and have my very own English classroom. This means that the school has bought me not one but two very nice Samsung computers, and my new classroom (which is still getting some of the electronics worked out) is complete with a new white board AND a huge touch screen that is hooked up to my computer, so that I can click and move around on the screen without having to actually be at the computer. Eventually I’m having a sort of virtual reality system built in a corner of the classroom so I can do crazy stuff with that. So high tech. I’m still learning how to use it, but its so great.

The schools in Gyeonggi-do province are ranked from best to worst. My school is one of the worst. Maybe some of the other teachers from UW are in a similar situation but I don’t know. At my school a lot of the kids come from a family situation or home life that isn’t so good. Not all of them, but Jin told me at least half. She said that the students have no incentive to do well in school because they can graduate just on attendance. They don’t have plans to go to college and Jin explained to me that most of them don’t have anyone at home who really cares either way if they go to college or do anything valuable with their lives. Actually, she put it this way: “They have no dreams”. Um. If that’s not depressing I don’t know what is. I almost started crying. A school full of kids with no dreams?! In addition to this – and I’m finding a general consensus on this from the other UW high school teachers – there is little in the classroom or in the school to offer encouragement otherwise. The walls in the schools are bare, hallways classrooms, everything. I plan to decorate my English room with things that are visually appealing to kids, and sort of force them to understand what is said. For the classes that I’ve sat in on, the students literally just sit there, they read a paragraph or so, and the teacher basically just translates it for them. There is no speaking really – which I assume is why the kids are so hesitant to speak to me. Its obvious that my job is to engage the kids in conversation, but the challenge is getting them to actually do it. My obvious incentive is candy, because I mean who doesn’t like candy? But I think eventually that will get old and I’m going to have to get more creative. Its just strange to me that there is no real push for these kids to actually learn the information, they just memorize it enough to pass the test if they sort of care about their grades, or, since most of them just don’t care, they just sleep. Maybe its because its English and everyone learns it? I mean if everyone in the U.S. had to learn Spanish I feel like it would get annoying, but since we get to choose what to learn, its more enjoyable? I don’t really know. I mean when I was learning Italian, I had big plans to go to Italy – which as we all know I followed through with – so I had an incentive to learn the language. If these kids have no desire to travel there may not be that drive. English really is important though, and I know I’m extremely biased, but I’ve noticed in my travels that if two people speak a different language, they tend to communicate in English. Example: while waiting in line to buy a boat ticket to Capri in Italy, there was a German couple ahead of me in line. They couldn’t speak Italian, the man at the ticket window couldn’t speak German, but they managed to communicate through English. See? It really is important!

But also, the teachers of foreign languages in the U.S. seem much more fluent than foreign language teachers here. I don’t mean to undermine them, or make an unfair comparison – the U.S. does have more resources – but sometimes the teachers don’t say things properly, grammatically, in the class. Maybe it happens in high school Spanish classes all across America too and I was just never proficient enough to notice? I don’t know. I really was expecting the kids to know more than they do, but I’m literally going to be doing the very basics with them: colors, numbers, animals, articles of clothing, and all those lessons that we all remember from our high school days of flashcards and jeopardy. That makes it easy on me, but how do you make something visually appealing to kids (I have to use visuals since I can’t speak their language to equate it with a word they know in Korean), while at the same time making it fun but conducive to learning without being too childish. Meh. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. I signed up for this, and I’m still excited about it, and I hope that I will be a change of pace from their boring translating grammar lessons everyday. Its just going to take a lot more encouragement and creativity than I had anticipated. But no worries, I have lots of time during the week to come up with creative things and plenty of encouragement to give. I am the youngest teacher here (except maybe the student teacher who is still in college), so it’s not that long ago that I was in high school and I remember what it was like. Hopefully my age will be an advantage and if they think I’m “cool” they’ll be more inclined to participate and actually learn.

Went to immigration the other day, so I could get my foreign registration card that would allow me to get all the essentials like a cell phone and the internet. A girl who was about my age at the immigration office was there working as a translator. For Mongolian, Vietnamese, English and Korean. Um? I’ve never felt more inadequate. Seriously? When did this kid learn all these languages?

On a not-work-related note, I went shopping the other day with Jin in Myeong-dong (a neighborhood in Seoul). Boy, was I missing out by not going here. As much as I loved the COEX mall, Myeong-dong was even better. COEX will be saved for when its cold out and I don’t feel like walking around outside. But Myeong-dong is an awesome shopping area with tons of little streets, shops, food vendors, and A FOREVER 21 AND ZARA! Right. Next. To. Each. Other. I was in heaven.

Myeong-dong, Seoul

Jin and I shopped around for a long time, grabbing random things to try on. Cue the crazy movie montage of us trying on some of the most ridiculous outfits and accessories we could find. We looked absolutely crazy but it was so much fun and of course a great girl-bonding experience. Guys sit around, watch sports, and drink beer. Girls shop. We also made a dinner out of the yummy food vendors on the streets. We ate some sort of sausage (they call it bulgogi) with pressed rice cakes stuffed inside (tteok = rice cakes). There was some dried octopus tentacles available but I passed on that. She also took me to some cute shops where I was able to buy things to make my apartment more homey, like an adorable alarm clock, little magnets, coffee mugs, etc. And most importantly she took me down some of the smaller side streets I wouldn’t have thought to go down with bargains on shoes. Woo!!

Jin and me in Myeong-dong.

Met up with Anna finally last Thursday. We went with another guy from our program and walked around Myeong-dong and Insadong. Friday I went to Suwon, which is the biggest city in Gyeonggi-do province. It should be about 2 hours on the subway but that was not that case. The subway ride there was terrible. It was way overcrowded, and my train didn’t come for 30 minutes at my transfer station, which made me 30 minutes late to meet Anna. And we didn’t have cell phones so that was a problem. One of the people I was going to meet up with happened to have a cell phone and was with Anna, so as soon as I got off the subway in Suwon, I called him from a pay phone and while I was standing in the phone booth freaking out that I had lost my friends, I serendipitously ran into Catie and Rebecca who are also from UW. I don’t even know how they found me, I was huddled in a phone booth in front of a massive multi-level subway station on one of the busiest roads in Suwon. But I was so relieved. We all found each other eventually and had a great night. I did, however, have to do a sort of “walk-of-shame” back home from Anna’s; literally end to end across the 2^nd largest metropolitan area in the world. No big deal. Anna also cooked breakfast on Saturday morning, consisting of scrambled eggs and toast. Since forks are hard to come by in these parts of the world, I was forced to eat my eggs and toast with chopsticks. And I did it. Without too much effort.

Anna and me out in Suwon

Scrambled eggs, toast, and chopsticks. The epitome of blending cultures.

Saturday Anna and I met up with some friends in Seoul that are doing a non-UW teaching program, and went clubbing until 5:30am. Why so late? Because the subways closes at midnight and doesn’t open again until 5:30 or 6am depending on the station. And its probably a 40000-50000 won (so like $40-50) cab ride to my apartment. When we all left the club at 5:30, people were still raging pretty hard. Once the subway opened up, we hopped on a train and slept the entire way home. We probably looked crazy – like we don’t get enough stares as it is. By the time Anna and I made it to my apartment, it was 7am and the sun was shining and people were starting their day. But we slept until 3:30. Not sure I can handle partying til the sun comes up every weekend. I think in the future we’ll just get a love motel – a really cheap hotel where Korean businessmen take their mistresses. But they’re usually full of foreigners who just need a cheap place to stay in Seoul. At least I can check partying until the sun comes up off my list of things to do here. Sure it won’t be the last time.

Went to Home Plus with my neighbor Sang-Eun. Thought I was going to fly out the open window on the bus that I was standing next to because the bus was so crowded and the driver drove like he was on drugs. I was hanging on for dear life. Dropped another 100000 won trying to get my life together in this country at Home Plus. I usually buy western food at the grocery store, because I can’t really cook and some of the preparations for Korean food are sort of more than I can handle and more than I have time for. Sang-Eun is all about teaching me the names of food though, which is great. So I learned some basic words, which I’m really struggling to remember already but she’s really helpful. She cracked me up though when it was my turn to teach her. I was picking out some rice wine (so good and cheap!) and there was a “mountain berry” flavored one. I think we would just call it mixed berry – the pictures were of raspberries and blackberries. And when trying to say that the berries are grown on the mountains, she could only come up with “the berries live in the mountain”. So cute. The supermarket part of Home Plus is full of samples at practically every aisle. Sang-Eun made me try something that…I don’t even remember the Korean name because I was trying to get over what it was in English. Noodles and pig’s blood cooked up and stuffed in a sort of sausage casing. Oh. My. God. I told her I didn’t think I could handle eating it, but she dragged me over to the sample cart and made me do it. To be honest, it wasn’t totally disgusting as far as taste goes. But it sure wasn’t good. Maybe it was a case of mind-over-matter. But my mind won and I had a hard time getting it down. She let me stop at the yogurt sample cart so I could have something I actually liked. Ahhhh I can’t even believe I ate that. She also tried getting me to buy bugs in a can. To eat. Her reasoning was that the bugs are smaller in the Korea so they’re easier to eat than the ones in China. But I drew the line at eating pigs blood. After buying our goods we went to the food court in the Home Plus. Lunch was not so good that day, there was straight up crab legs in my soup for the second time in two weeks. I couldn’t bring myself to deal with pulling crab meat out with chopsticks and a spoon. Or eat soup that had legs of a sea creature floating in it. So at the food court I got fried pork with a sort of sweet and sour sauce, and a big bowl of spaghetti. It was Korean style spaghetti, which was a little different, but still so good. And I ate every last bite. I don’t even want to discuss the irony of me eating pork immediately after freaking out about pig’s blood. All the other dishes had rice, and I’m so sick of rice because I eat it every single day at school. So if I can avoid it, I will.

I am enjoying squid jerky though!

Me and my squid jerky. Yeah I'm really eating it. And YES I actually like it.

Finally got my cell phone. Signed a one year contract with LG, and got a free phone. Usually I’m picky about my phone, but I got a cute baby pink cell phone for free. Not the best phone in the world but definitely not the worst. Has video calling, a Korean-English dictionary, texting, music downloads, and all the other good stuff. I had to wait for 30 minutes while some paperwork went through, so Jin and I decided to get some food. She suggested chicken and beer. Did Ludacris circa 2003 pop into anyone else’s mind when I said that? So fried chicken and a beer for 30 minutes turned into another beer. Which turned into Jin making a few phone calls and inviting some more teachers (luckily at my school there’s quite a few teachers that are in their late 20s, so I have people somewhat my age to hang out with), which turned into more beers, and before I knew it I was belting out the Backstreet Boys in a noraebang. I scored 100% singing Backstreets Back, which I am both extremely proud and ashamed of. You really never know when all that useless pop knowledge will come in handy. Amazing too, how my brain can pull up those ancient lyrics but can’t remember some of the stuff I learned my last semester of college.

Learned that the word for "station" (역) pronounced "yeok" and the word for "f*** you" (욕) pronounced "yok" are extremely similar looking and sounding. And I live near Ganeung Station (or Ganeung Yeok), which means that I need to be very careful when telling somebody where to go to find my apartment or where I live. I could be kicked out of a cab in the middle of who knows where, real quick.

So in short: Korea so far has meant that I can now successfully party til the sun comes up, make it home in last night’s clothes across a city of 20 million people, avoid unintentionally offending a cab driver by mispronouncing a simple word, find my friends in a massive subway station even though the odds are against us and we have no real means of communication with each other, eat scrambled eggs with chopsticks, sing the Backstreet Boys error-free while in a Korean karaoke room, and eat pigs blood noodle-y stuff and squid jerky. Beat that resume. These skills will be applicable at some point later on in life right?

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." --Mark Twain