Holidaze

Hello! Sorry its been so long since I've written. The holidays are busy even in Korea!

So I finished up classes the week of Christmas by teaching a short rhyming lesson and then letting the kids watch The Grinch. Eventually - I got sick of teaching anything, and also really annoyed after the 7th time watching the Grinch steal Christmas from poor little Cindy Lou Who, so I found "Shrek the Halls" with Korean subtitles and let the kids watch that, and then Charlie Brown Christmas afterwards. Hey...finals are over and it was Christmas. Even teachers need a break.

Christmas Eve I went with Rebecca to our friend John's house for a small get-together. I brought a lovely Christmas train cake (complements of Paris Baguette).

We mostly just sat around talking, drinking, and eating. So nice! Christmas morning I skyped with the fam and opened my gifts. I was feeling pretty sad about not having a white Christmas, and what do you know...a Christmas miracle happened! Christmas night I went out to meet up with Sara, Anna, and Mark - and it started snowing! The Koreans seemed miserable but we were loving it up and had a great time walking around Hongdae (Seoul) and looking at the Christmas lights and snow. We ate some Korean BBQ for dinner (of course) and then met up with some friends.

Me and Sara at xmas dinner

Prices at the bars were raised because Christmas is sort of a couples holiday in Korea. When I went to the bank on Christmas Eve to pay a bill...the bank was decked out in pink hearts. Really? So all the couples go out to nice dinners and then out to the bars. While we waited for our friends, we stopped in a 7-11 and grabbed a few drinks (I know...we're classy, but everyone else was doing it too). While we were standing there, we noticed a hilarious garbage can....

Cans, bottles, and of course...pets.

Welcome to my life. We spent the night celebrating xmas with all of our friends.

The day after Christmas was to be our big "Ho Ho Ho Christmas Bar Crawl". I went out for some Mexican food with Rebecca, John, and Q, and then met up with everyone for some good holiday cheer. After a few bars, we decided to go to a noraebang...its become so popular for us to go to because we just sneak in our own food and drinks, and it ends up being cheaper than eating/drinking at a bar.

Anna and me

Rebecca, me, and Anna in the noraebang. Lovin the tambourine.

John and Rebecca starring in Noraebang: The Interpretive Dance

The floor was heated in typical Korean fashion, which explains the interpretive dance action on the floor. It was freeeeeezing out on Christmas. Sunday, Rebecca and I went to the movie theater in Uijeongbu to see Sherlock Holmes. It was pretty good, actually - but its becoming more and more apparent how the comedy is completely lost in the translation. There were a few US soldiers sitting behind us and during the funny parts it was literally only me, Rebecca, and them laughing. Hmmph.

Monday after Christmas I went to school in the morning to meet up with all of the teachers for our ski trip! We loaded our bags and goodies onto the bus and were on our way! The bus ride was about 2 hours. We went back to the Sajo Ski Resort that we had gone to for our field trip a few months back. The resort was in Chungju. We only had time to ski in the afternoon, but it was still so fun! Skiing is sort of expensive in Korea, and as a result it was many of the teachers' first time skiing. Its been awhile since I had skied myself so I was a little bit worried, but it was sort of like riding a bike. I knew I was in good shape when I got on the ski lift with 2 teachers, and Sera (who was a first timer) fell immediately upon her departure from the ski lift. Yeesh. I tried to teach her what little I know about skiing, but she can't really speak English, and my Korean is even worse...so I demonstrated as best as I could, but she ended up walking down the bunny hill anyway. Surprisingly, I did really well, taking only one really bad fall (which was more funny than anything...seeing my face plant into the snow). During one of my runs, however, the binding on my ski broke and I had to walk down the hill to get new skis :( After that though, all was well. I'm not much of skier, but compared to the teachers who spent most of the time on their asses, I looked pretty good. There were, however, a lot of young children on the slopes that day, and they were showing me up big time. I got lots of looks from the kids since I think its safe to say I was the only white person in the place, and a few of the brave ones even stopped to say "hello" to me and practice their basic English skills. So cute.

Sang Jin in her ski gear...her hat says Jamaica.

Where I skied!

Sang Jin, me and Mr. Ahn at dinner...Jin was loving the soju

We went back to our hotel rooms and got ready for dinner. Dinner was at a restaurant near the resort. After all that skiing I was hungry. And for dinner was...pheasant. Yep. I was a little hesitant because...what!? But I went with it (I mean, let's face it - I've eaten much much worse in my time here). It wasn't so bad. Dinner was accompanied by an excessive amount of alcohol. And of course we ended up in a noraebang. Of course, nobody knew any English songs, and those of you who know me well know that I can't sing a note on key for the life of me, so I sort of just danced and clapped along. I will admit though, that I'm learning more of the Korean songs...I've got K-Pop down!! Also, as boring as it may seem to be in a noraebang without anyone singing songs you really know...it has helped soooo much with my reading. I'm still pretty slow at reading Korean, but I notice that I'm getting faster and I really think its because of all that noraebanging with the teachers. My neighbor, Sang Eun, offered to sing a song with me and the one she knew was...Livin' La Vida Loca. Well...that's not embarrassing to sing or anything. But we sang it loud and proud and it was fun. I don't even think they know what "la vida loca" means. Seems common sense to most of us, but they literally don't know any Spanish so I had to explain it. So funny.

Sang Eun and Sera at dinner

The next day we went to breakfast. They don't really have "breakfast" food here. They basically eat the same thing they would eat for lunch or dinner. So kimchi, rice, and soup for breakfast it was. Gah. I really just wanted some scrambled eggs and pancakes but no. From breakfast we went to a temple in the mountains which was really pretty. I can't remember the name of it because...well they're all sort of the same to me now. But here's a few pics.

After the temple it was time to leave so we hopped on the bus and headed home. We stopped for lunch about halfway home and arrived back at the school around 5. I went home from there. I spent Wednesday just cleaning my apartment and running a few errands (yep...no school for me!). My friends had to work Wednesday and half of the day on Thursday, but my school gave me the days off which was so nice.

And then...NEW YEARS EVE!!! New Years was absolutely amazing here, I don't think I can even begin to describe it but I will try.

A group of us met up in Insadong in Seoul. It was absolutely freezing out, maybe hovering around 10 degrees F. So cold. We started off at Starbucks and then went to a small hole in the wall Korean place for dinner. We were able to bring in our own drinks, which was nice because it saved us a lot of money. We sat in the restaurant for awhile just drinking and eating. Our next stop was a noraebang where we did the same thing...snuck in food and drinks and were able to sing our hearts out. Total spent on our New Year's pregame...around 15,000won per person. So cheap!

Sara, me, Anna in the noraebang on NYE

Sara, Rebecca, me, and Anna

Me and John outside Jongno Tower

About 10:30 we left the noraebang and headed out to the streets of Seoul. We were in the area by Jongno tower, which on New Year's Eve is pretty much the NYC Times Square of Seoul. The street is blocked off and people pack in around the Jongno Tower and the Bosingak Bell Tower (which is rung at midnight). You know how everyone in the US pretty much watches the ball drop in Times Square on New Years Eve? Well everyone in Korea watches the Bosingak bell ring in Seoul...and WE WERE THERE!! We bought some illegal fireworks and then crammed in with everyone else. I can't even begin to explain what it was like being in the center of the chaos. People were literally packed into the street and there were so many police and people that it was impossible to move. We were pretty much just moving with the crowd, unable to choose where we were going.

Standing on a ledge over the sea of people in Seoul

Bosingak Bell Tower

Before we knew it...the countdown (in Korean) was on and it was 2010!!!! The entire street was yelling, cheering, kissing, and fireworking to ring in the new year. Pictures don't really come close to explaining what it was like being there...but it was amazing. I took a video to try to show you guys what it was like...not sure it really does justice to the awesomeness of the moment, but check it out anyway. Spending New Years in Seoul really added to my experience here - to be able to say that I got to celebrate in the heart of Seoul on the street with everyone is so amazing. I'm so excited that I was able to be there with all of my friends and ring in the new year. Even almost an hour later, the streets were still crowded with people cheering and shooting off their illegal fireworks.

After that we went out until around 4:30 am and just celebrated 2010 with all of our friends. Overall it was a really great night. There's a clip from Seoul on CNN which put together a video/picture montage of New Year's celebrations all over the world. I think my goal is to celebrate New Year's in a different city every year. I think that's realistic...right? Plan for next year...maybe Sydney? :) Maya get ready for me!

New Years Day I went to Icheon with John to visit where our friend Q lives.

Cute store in Icheon :)

Anna and Mark met up with us and we went to a "spa". So in Korea, something that is really common is public bath houses. This was my first one. I don't even know how to explain it really. Its totally a cultural thing here. Basically there's separate women's and men's facilities, and everyone just goes totally naked and hangs out in these hot tubs or saunas just...washing each other? haha sort of gross to most people, but totally normal to Koreans. There's also places in the spa where you can get massages, pedicures, facials, etc, but you need to pay for it separately from your general admission. This bath house also had a joined men's and women's area (bath suits/clothing required). Anna and I had some trouble finding how to exit the massive locker room/women's bathing area, and we had to ask where the joined facilities were. Naturally nobody spoke English so we had to attempt Korean. All we could really say was "여자, 남자...같이?" pronounced "yeoja, namja...kahti?" Also meaning..."women, men...together?" Not even a full sentence and definitely had the potential to be interpreted in many wrong ways, but we got our point across and they pointed us in the right direction. Once we made it out, they had one big hot tub with lot of jets (outdoor even though it was freezing) and then different types of smaller hot tubs. There was chocolate, tea, herb, mint, etc. It was super relaxing after such a crazy night before. Usually they can be sort of expensive but Q's family is VIP at this one and we got in FREE! So nice.

After the spa we went to E-Mart and bought some things for dinner...fried chicken, sushi, wine, etc. We all went back to Q's apartment and then hung out and stayed the night there. Today we layed around all day and then ate dinner at a little Italian restaurant in Icheon and then went to an adorable little cafe for coffee. For a few minutes I forgot I was in Korea and felt like I was back in Italy!

I took a bus back to Uijeongbu, which dropped me off at the Uijeongbu Bus Terminal and then cabbed it back to my place. I'm actually quite impressed with myself for the amount of Korean I've learned considering I really haven't tried that hard. I mean, I probably should be trying harder seeing as how I'm in the perfect situation to be learning a new language. But getting in a cab by myself used to terrify me because I was so concerned about not being able to communicate what was necessary, and now I don't even think twice about it.

Tomorrow I'm going out to the airport to meet Kelsey who's flying in from Chicago before she goes back to Manila in the Philippines where she works. She'll be here for a week so I get to show her around this amazing city. One major thing I have yet to do in Seoul is go up in the N Seoul Tower, and its definitely something all visitors to Seoul should do, so I'm looking forward to that. Exactly 2 weeks until I leave for Thailand! Yay!!

K Pop song of the week is called Bo Peep Bo Peep by 티아라 (T-ara). New dance party song that blares from all the clubs in Hongdae on the weekends.

Hope everyone had wonderful Christmas and a happy happy happy New Year!!

"In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself." -- Frantz Fanon

Happy Christmas!

So you'd think I would've learned how to at least say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" in Korean by now...but I haven't. So English it is.

So last week I literally sat at school and watched an entire season of Desperate Housewives AND painted my nails (discreetly of course). I didn't have a single class because the kids had finals. Which meant that I still had to be at school but had nothing to do. Sort of sucked that I had to be there, but I also can't complain too much because I got paid to watch TV and skype my fam and friends. Yay!

Thursday was payday (!!) so I went with my friends Q and John to Myeongdong where we did some holiday shopping. Q helped me bargain with some of the people which was so nice, because they always raise the prices for foreigners, and with him being Korean and all, he was able to bargain them down to more reasonable prices. Woo!

Friday evening I hung out in Uijeongbu and snapped some pictures of the lovely Christmas decorations.

I bought myself a Christmas tree too :) Its about a foot tall and sort of resembles the tree from Charlie Brown Christmas. But all it needed was a little love, and now its beautiful (at least I think so!).

We had a Christmas party on Friday night with some of the people who live in this area - so we all exchanged gifts and drank Christmas punch and then (naturally) ended up at a noraebang where we sang lots of off-key and out of tune Christmas songs!

Werner, John, Q, me!

Bad Santas!

Holiday Noraebang!

Saturday we all just took it easy, since the holiday party the night before really took its toll on us all. Sunday I did some serious Christmas shopping. I know Christmas is only a few days away but it just doesn't feel like Christmas here for some reason. I think its the lack of snow. Or maybe its the lack of stress that I usually have this time of year as finals are finishing up. AGH. I don't miss those one bit, they were awful.

Monday I went to dance, as usual. I won't be able to go for about a month after this week, because I have some busy weeks coming up! Today I went ventured down to the COEX mall to get some last minute gifts. But just in case there is any doubt - here is proof that I have my gifts bought and wrapped before Christmas!

Attn Family: Gifts will be mailed Thursday at the latest - sorry they're late, but I promise you will get them (not to mention you'll be getting stuff from Thailand once I get back)! They're bigger than my little tree. Sorry about the lame wrapping/boxes/bags. I live in Korea. Christmas is sort of a holiday for couples here. Everyone celebrates, regardless of religion. So its not really all about family or Jesus. Its basically just commercial. Which is fine...but it sure does make finding certain things hard. Like actual Christmas boxes or wrapping paper. That's why your gifts have hearts all over them, and awkward Konglish phrases like "I love the fragrant" and "Sweet heart...you color my world with love". I'm not kidding, you'll see.

Next week I'll be on a ski trip with some of my teachers. The week after...Kelsey will be here! The week after that...Jane will be here! And we're planning to go to some dance classes at Soo Dance instead of the studio I usually attend. Willie Gomez is going to be here and is doing a week-long workshop, so we're going to try to attend some of his classes. Willie is a choreographer and is probably most famous for choreographing Britney Spears' most recent Circus Tour. He's really great and I'm excited to meet him and take some classes with him. And then of course the following 2 weeks I will be in THAILAND.

I'm starting to get really excited about Thailand. The 4 of us will be together the whole time, but a girl Sara knows will be meeting up with us for part of our trip, so we'll be 5 strong for some of it! We're really lax on our plans, except for a 3 night stay that we definitely want in Koh Phangan. We'll be there for the Half Moon Party. They have huge parties once a month for the full moon, but they rage for the half moon as well. I guess the full moon parties can attract upwards of 30,000 people. Half moon only brings in around 5,000 - but that's still a lot of people and I think we'll have a great time. You can look for Koh Phangan on the map - just click on the link! Can't find it? Look for Koh Samui (we're going there too!) and you'll see Koh Phangan just north of there. We're also going to go to Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket, and hopefully Phi Phi (but that's really a lot to do in the time we have). The only major city we won't make it to is Chiang Mai. I think if we had more time its a place we'd all love to go, but its just too far out of the way, and this really is more of a beach vacation than a touristy sightseeing vacation. So I guess that's just too bad. If we're lucky, we'll go back one day :) Can I also mention, with the exception of the flight, how disgustingly cheap this trip is going to be. Apparently for the bungalow we're getting on the beach in Koh Phangan all 5 of us can stay for 3 nights (with A/C) for 30,000won each. Yep. I'm paying around $27 for 3 nights in an air conditioned bungalow on an island in Thailand. I hope you all think about that when you're freezing in Wisconsin or Minnesota or wherever you are. The high in Bangkok was about 95 the other day. I win.

School has been a breeze this week. I'm doing like a 10 minute lesson on rhyming - explaining what rhyming is and then asking the kids to rhyme simple words (cat/hat, mad/sad, sing/Japan...wait what?). Yes, its true. I asked my kids to rhyme with the word sing. And they did well at first: ring, king, thing. But then some kid yelled out "Japan!" and I knew it was hopeless so I just started the movie. I'd like to give a big shout out to Dr. Seuss for helping me teach kids how to rhyme. Woo! The Grinch is a big hit, and even though they can't understand everything, they still get the story for the most part and I think most of my kids have enjoyed it. I love the Grinch myself, but after watching it 10 times this week, I may never want to watch it again.

We have another holiday party planned for Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day I'm not sure what the plan is. I think most of us want to Skype with our families and friends - so we'll spend much of the day doing that. Apparently its really common to go out to a nice dinner on Christmas, but we're a little behind on making reservations soooo maybe we'll just make our own dinner :) The day after Christmas, however, we have a fabulous holiday activity planned! So....in Hongdae where we always go out, there is a chain of bars called "Ho Bar". Sounds like a strip club or something, I know. But its not! Its just...a normal bar. Not sure how to explain it. Its just normal. It has been a dream of ours since we got here to do a "Ho Bar Crawl" because there's at least 10 of them in the Hongdae area, not to mention the countless others sprawled across the Seoul metro area. But, in the spirit of Christmas, we have decided to make this a "Ho Ho Ho Christmas Bar Crawl". We're smart right? So the whole gang and then some is getting together to celebrate Christmas and hopefully make to every Ho Bar within walking distance. Proper holiday attire is required.

Hm..I think that's all for now. Sorry its been so slow lately. But I swear, the next few weeks will be crazy and I'll probably have to make 2 posts for Thailand (or it will be the longest thing I've ever written).

Here's your K-Pop Song of the week! Not Christmassy (sorry). But popular! Its by a group called B2st (that's pronounced Beast). 2 in Korean is "i" pronounced "ee". The song is called Bad Girl. Not sure how old they are, I'm going to guess like...16. So again, Courtney and Meghan, they are all yours!

Missing you all and thinking about you during the holidays. To get into the holiday spirit - I've made a small donation to Amnesty International. For those of you who would like to donate somewhere, but don't know where, check out this website. The Life You Can Save website has a pledge you can take, as well as a list of charities and foundations you can give your money to. It doesn't have to be a lot - every little bit helps! AI is my charity of choice, but choose a cause that's important to you and GIVE! Merry Christmas (and Happy New Year!!).

"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." -- Sir Winston Churchill

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Hi! This past week was pretty laid back. I had a few cancelled classes due to final exam review and swine flu vaccinations so my week was pretty easy. I also let half my classes watch a movie (in English of course) because I know they're stressed about finals, and I figured I'd give them a break.

Had a dinner one night with some of the people in the Dongducheon area - we love to get together when we can and cook "normal" meals. Korean food is good, but its kind of boring. We're used to it by now, but we also miss the diversity of all of the yummy things we can get back home, so we like to have Indian, or Italian, or Mexican food nights. Mmm!

Friday I went to Seoul with Sara and her mom and Rebecca. She got a hotel room for us again, and took us out for Indian food. So nice! The hotel was in an area of Seoul I've never been, and now its probably a bad thing that I know about it because there's a pretty sweet mall there. Oops. The hotel was in Seoul Times Square, which is a relatively newer area from what I hear. It was really nice though. We just spent the night hanging out in the hotel and being lazy.

Yeongdeungpo Station

Rebecca and the sweet sweatshirt we found - "stold my love". Who is Tom???

Hotel and shopping center at Seoul Times Square

View from the hotel room

Saturday we took Sara's mom to see Deoksugung Palace, Gwanghwamun Square, and Gyeongbokgung Palace. Gwanghwamun, which usually has fountains and flowers, was set up for Seoul's Snow Jam. They basically brought in a bunch of fake snow, since it doesn't really snow here, and set up a small area for children to sled down. There was also a big ski/snowboard jump for a show they put on later that day, and an ice skating rink. It was a bright, sunny, and relatively warm day, so some of the ice rink was melting. I'm sure all of you back home weren't having that problem!

Seoul Plaza

Sledding for the little ones

Skating in Gwanghwamun Square

Which, by the way, I'm so disappointed I wasn't in Madison for all the excitement that happened last week with the giant snowball being left in the middle of University, the massive snowball fight on Bascom Hill...and of course the DAY OFF SCHOOL. Since when does UW cancel classes? There were blizzards when I went there too and never a single cancelled class. I'm mad.

Haechi

Gyeongbokgung Entrance

Gyeongbokgung

Pagoda picture (the winter version - we'll eventually have one of all 4 seasons)

Anyway...after the palace I left them and came to Uijeongbu. I went out with my friends John and Q and Rachel and then we met up with some of our friends from South Africa, Mieke and Werner. We went to a great little Korean restaurant that after we had stuffed ourselves to the max, and drank ourselves drunk, we each ended up paying around $8. Unbelievable how cheap things are here. After dinner we were off to the noraebang for a few hours of ear-splitting drunken singing. We even threw in a few Christmas carols. As much as I love going out in Seoul, some of my favorite nights have been just hanging out in our obscure little Korean towns doing random things.

This week is finals and so I'm spending my week skyping everyone and watching American TV shows online. Yay. I got to leave school early today and went to a teacher's house with some of the other teachers for lunch. So nice!

Christmas is about a week and a half away yet it just doesn't feel like the holidays here. Its true, there's lights up everywhere, but there's no snow. I feel like I've always had a white Christmas, and this year I definitely won't. Sort of sad. But we do have some holiday activities planned, since none of us will be with our families.

What else? Not much to say I guess. Pay day is Thursday, which means this weekend will be much more fun than this past one :)

Here's your K-Pop update. This song is by CL and Minzy (from 2NE1) and its called Please Don't Go. There's no actual video for it that I can find, except for live performance versions, so this link is just for the song.

Also, have you guys seen this video of the little boy playing the ukulele and singing "I'm Yours"? Its freaking adorable you need to watch it!

I really thought I had more to say...but I guess I don't. Sorry. Hopefully next week I will be more interesting. Bye!

"It is not down in any map; true places never are." --Herman Melville

Turkeyless

Hi everyone!

This past week was business as usual around here. I had the occasional cancelled class (which seems to be a weekly occurrence) but overall nothing too exciting. Last Tuesday I attended a meeting in Seoul about North Korean human rights. It was really informative and I plan to go again. Its a great place for me to learn more about the situation, but also to get involved. There are so many opportunities in Seoul that I wasn't aware of. Everything from protests and marches, to handing out information in central Seoul, to volunteering with those who have managed to escape. For those of you who don't know, people who attempt to defect from North Korea do not attempt to do so by crossing the DMZ. Its completely impassable, and so they generally go through China to Vietnam where they can claim political asylum at the embassy in Hanoi. If they are caught in China, they will be detained while they await repatriation to North Korea. Once they are returned to NK, they will definitely face punishment. Punishment is usually served out in one of the prison camps, which likely involves torture, and execution is even a possibility. I could go on forever about this and all of the injustices, but this isn't a human rights paper so I'll cut myself off. But please watch this video and read this article that was on CNN about North Koreans who are lucky enough to make their way to South Korea, and how their reintegration into society is difficult after being isolated and fed propaganda their entire lives.


Wednesday I went with Christine, a fellow Badger, to a dance studio in Seoul. We took the hip hop class and it was actually really good. It felt sooo good to get back into a studio! The staff was really nice, and did their best to speak English to us (naturally we were the only non-Koreans in the place). Our instructor was really nice as well and tried his best to explain things to us in English. Precious. But hey! They count in English! And not just for us. I was happy. I would definitely go back there again, but I think later this week we're going to check out another studio in Seoul that I was recommended to try, but this time for jazz. Both studios are pretty far though - about an hour and a half on the subway each way. Gah. But to me, its worth it.


Thursday I went to dinner with my friend John and several other native English teachers in the area. It was basically a welcome dinner for the teachers who have just arrived here. They were from all over the world - U.S., South Africa, the UK, Canada, etc. Most of the people had only been here for a week or two, and some only for a few days. Its amazing how much I've learned in only 3 months! From basic Korean vocabulary to cultural differences, I was able to answer so many questions.


It never ceases to amaze me how cheap things can be here though. There were about 13 of us at dinner, and our total bill was only 150,000 won! That's about $125. That included all of our Korean BBQ, side dishes, and beer and soju. Unbelievable.


This weekend I went back to Dongducheon where I hung out with my friends John and Q. We cooked ourselves a nice little Italian dinner and then proceeded to down 4 bottles of wine between the 3 of us. Of course we ended up at a noraebang (this one had free ice cream!) and noraebanged the night away.

John and Q

I look like I'm about to be kicked off American Idol...

So this week is Thanksgiving. I'm sad I'm missing it. Nobody here celebrates it, obviously. So while all of you are eating your turkey and enjoying your days off school and work, I will be sitting at school with people who don't have any clue that a very important holiday is being celebrated. Some of us have a get together planned for Thursday and probably another one for Saturday so more of us can get together since we're spread all over the city. Turkeys are hard to come by and even if we could find one...nobody here has ovens. How are we supposed to make turkey without an oven? What good is an oven on Thanksgiving without a turkey? That fact shocked me when I first got here. But Korea is so....Korean. And they don't make any food other than Korean food. And their food doesn't need to be baked..ever. Therefore ovens are not necessary to them. I asked what they do when they want to make cookies. I was given a blank stare followed by the reply "we buy cookies", with a silent but implied duh at the end. Well then. We may have to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with popcorn, toast, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans.


My flight to Thailand has been booked! Its official!! Sara, Rebecca, Anna, and myself are leaving early in the morning on January 16th. We have a layover in Beijing, and arrive in Bangkok around 6pm. We leave Thailand on the 31st, and are taking an overnight flight back to Seoul, again with a layover in Beijing. I'm so excited - I absolutely cannot wait. January is supposed to be the coldest month in Korea, but I won't be around for half of it to find out - I'll be loving life on a beach in Thailand. We don't have many specific plans yet. And it will probably stay that way. We will do the usual touristy stuff of course, but we plan to spend a lot of our vacation just relaxing and beach hopping. Eventually we'll need to book another flight from Bangkok to Phuket, but it will be extremely cheap so we're waiting until we get closer to the actual time. Can't wait. This is going to be one epic vacation. I'm also especially excited for January because not only do I get to spend half the month in Thailand, but I also have my friend Kelsey from high school visiting me from the 3rd-9th. She's living in the Philippines right now, and is making a trip up for a week to see me. I only have to work the 2nd week in January (as far as I've been told) and the rest of the time I will have free. Oh and I'm still getting paid. My job is ridiculous.


School is going well. I asked one of my students today what he did this weekend and he said "I ate kitchen". He meant chicken, and I knew that, but it still didn't prevent me from cracking up. I suppose...if you switch the ch and the k around, chicken does sort of sound like kitchen if you're a non-native speaker just learning English. Hee funny ^_^ The kids are still sort of all over the place (remember that immaturity I talked about last time?). Sort of annoying. If I had things my way, I'd bring them all to the U.S. for a few days so I could show them what high school life is like in America, because they just have no idea. Courtney sent me a few pics of high school life from her perspective, which I'll turn into a "high school in America" lesson for my students. Learning culture is important when learning a language so I try to incorporate it into as many of my lessons as I can. I showed some of the pictures to one of the other English teachers, and she was so surprised. I had to explain about every student having their own lockers "no, they're not for changing" and that there's an auditorium for performances "it doesn't take place in the cafeteria", and just...a bunch of other things that I would've thought was common knowledge but clearly I was wrong. She thought Fort's high school library looked like a university library...to which I had to explain that of course a university library is much much bigger and most universities have more than one. Wisconsin has a list a mile long.


Some of these things are just so difficult to explain that I wish it were possible for everyone to visit the U.S. so they could see for themselves. Inversely, I wish I could send all my friends and family over here as well so that you could all see for yourselves the cultural differences that I deal with daily. I'm getting used to many of them, but sometimes I still forget. I forget that when someone older than me is pouring my drink for me (alcohol is not poured yourself, someone else pours it for you) that I should hold the cup with two hands as a sign of respect. I forget to give a little bow when I pass another teacher in the hallway (as is customary). I usually smile and give a perky little wave before I remember where I am, and then sort of awkwardly give a little head nod, ashamed that after 3 months of living here I still can't remember to bow. I'm working on it. When I eventually go back to the U.S. I'll be bowing left and right and no one will have a clue what I'm doing. I do my best to remember every little thing about life in the U.S. but I know that after being fully immersed in a completely different culture for a year, or more, that reverse culture shock is going to hit me pretty hard. Coming home after an experience like this is always more difficult of an adjustment. Luckily...that is far far far away for me, so I'll worry about it later.


Here's some pics of me in the classroom. This is from an open class that one of the English teachers I work with, Choi Yun-Hee, had to do, and I helped her with it. Every now and then teachers have to give an open class where they are critiqued and evaluated by other teachers and the principals. Which is why you can see the vice principal and my co-teacher, Sang-Jin, in the back of the classroom. I figured I'd post this to prove that I actually do work over here, since facebook albums and blog entries probably suggest otherwise.

Helping a student read

Acting out a scene from Friends with one of my students

In my classroom I have a "virtual studio" which is like a green screen (but mine is blue) where I can place the kids in any number of scenes: the bank, post office, doctor's, etc. It is projected onto the big touch screen board I have at the front of my classroom. In this particular picture, although you can't see the scene, we're standing in an episode of Friends. We were discussing the differences and similarities between Thanksgiving and Chuseok, and watched part of an episode where Joey gets the turkey stuck on his head. Classic!


Here's your weekly dose of K-Pop. Its by a group called 소녀시대 (pronounced So Nyeo Shi Dae). They generally go by the English name Girls Generation or their acronym of SNSD. The song is called Gee, and we all go nuts when it comes on in the clubs, naturally. Its pretty catchy, especially the "Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby" since that's all we can understand really. In true K-Pop fashion there's about 30 of them all 18-20 years old. For all of you who can't read Korean - where it says 뮤직비디오 after the title...that literally just says "music video" phonetically in Korean. Easy.


Hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving! I will be celebrating by hanging out with people from all over the world who love Thanksgiving even though they aren't American, and I'll be watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving on youtube. But I'll be...turkeyless :(


"There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Soju Think You Can Dance?

Hello again! This is a long one and it may be awhile before I write again so enjoy this while it lasts. Since my last post I’ve spent my week of “quarantine” in Seoul mostly. I visited the Seoul Museum of Art where the works in the main gallery focused on dissonance and the human capacity for brutality as well as the impact of globalization on the natural world. Some of the art was a little creepy and sometimes almost grotesque but showed an interesting way of looking at our current situation in the world. Pictures weren’t allowed so all I got was a picture of this in the main entryway.

Entryway of the Seoul Museum of Art (10 colors of Seoul)

Seoul Museum of Art

After that I walked around some new areas of Seoul and visited Gyeonghuigung Palace, which was built in 1623. It was destroyed during the Japanese annexation (1910-1945) and a Japanese school was established. Only the main “audience hall” has been restored as well as a few of the inner courtyards.

Gyeonghuigung Palace

The entrance gate (Heunghwamun) has moved around Seoul but has been at its current place since 1988.

Entrance to Gyeonghuigung (Heunghwamun)

Following the palace I walked down the street to the statue of the Hammering Man. It’s 5 or 6 stories tall and made out of 50 tons of steel. American artist, Jonathon Borofsky, created it. This blacksmith has been hammering away silently since 2002.

“Is work just a meaningless ritual that we allow to dominate our lives?”

Finally, I visited the bronze statue of Yi Sun Shin. He was a general who...did something important in the 1500s? I sort of forget. I think he built some sort of warships that helped defeat Japan when they attacked Korea. All I wrote down on my notepad was “geobukseon = turtle boats” so maybe he invented those. Clearly I need to improve my note taking skills. This is also one of my favorite places I have seen in Seoul so far. The area surrounding the statue is a bunch of fountains that kids splash around in, and further behind the statue is an elaborate design of flowers. My camera is at the end of the road, however, and died before I could take pictures of it. Once I get my first paycheck (!!!) I’ll hopefully be able to afford a shiny new camera. They have some baller technology over here so I’m looking forward to taking part. Won’t be for a few more weeks though, so pictures may be few and far between until then.

Kids playing in the fountain in front of the statue of Yi Sun Shin

I also visited the COEX Mall during my week off here. It’s located under the World Trade Center here and is huge. I had a map of the mall and I still got lost. It has nightclubs, bars, restaurants, an aquarium, a 17 screen movie theatre, several arcades, a kimchi museum (the only museum dedicated to pickled cabbage and its health benefits), a karaoke room, and more. I definitely want to go back here when I’m not poor to do some quality shopping.

Jin has been a huge help in getting me settled in here. I still don’t have internet or a cell phone because I’m still waiting for my foreigner registration paperwork to go through, but hopefully will have those things very soon. Jin showed up at my apartment the other night with a box of pizza and miller lite and 4 bags of stuff from Home Plus for my apartment. Um. Yes. She rocks. She told me she was Santa Claus. Precious. She also cooked for me one night. She told me she was going to cook “Korean noodle” for me, so I thought it was some fancy Korean dish. Turned out to just be the Korean version of Ramen. It tastes about the same, but 20x more spicy. I went through a quarter of a gallon of milk just trying to finish it and was sweating by the end.

Friday was my first meeting with all the teachers at my school and I met the principal. I had to speak a few words in front of all of them, just where I was from and all that jazz. 95% of the teachers at my school can’t speak English so Jin had to translate for me, but I think she got the point across. My school is really big. Especially considering it only has 300 students, I was shocked at how much space there was for so few kids. Sam Soong High School was just built in 2008 so its brand spankin new and all shiny. The city its in, Yangju, is a newer city, just north of where I live in Uijeongbu. All of the buildings are new and the area is extremely nice. I wouldn’t have minded living there actually, but its sort of far from the subway which is my only way into Seoul unless I wanted to sit on a bus forever, so living in Uijeongbu actually works out better. After I met everyone and sat through a faculty meeting of which I understood absolutely nothing, it was time to eat!! Jin drove me and 3 other teachers to the restaurant. Jin and driving. Wow. Jin is 28, and has had a driver’s license for 10 years, but has actually been driving for a shorter amount of time than my 17 year old sister. She told me she’s only been driving for 6 months, and seems to think that traffic signs/rules/etc don’t matter. She either flies over the speed bumps in the road or drives off the road to avoid them. Her erratic driving has to stand out in a place where traffic laws are more or less followed pretty closely. She would fit in better in Italy with the way she drives. Also, I’m pretty sure its legal to turn left on red here, because I’ve seen so many cars do it. Either that, or people just don’t care as long as no one else is coming. Anyhow, after she got us lost even with her GPS, we made it to the restaurant which was in Dobongsan, just south of where I live, bordering Seoul. There was probably 30-40 of us in a private room with a karaoke machine. Karaoke (noraebang or 노래방 – which means singing room) is very popular here and is taken very seriously. I tried explaining to Jin that karaoke is something that only really drunk people do in America but she didn’t care, and made me sing anyway. I dragged her up with me and we did a little duet to a Counting Crows song (Accidentally in Love, from the Shrek soundtrack) – it was one of the few English songs on the list that Jin knew the words to. She knew it better than I did though! Dinner was amazing, and I finally got my first taste of Soju. It’s a type of Korean alcohol that’s most comparable to vodka, but not quite as strong. It’s also common in Korea to pour drinks for each other, and when someone offers you a drink you must drink it. I was seated next to the principal (big deal!) and he made sure my glass was never empty. I returned the favor for him as well. Soju is usually paired with beer, so after my 5th shot of soju I switched over to Hite (sort of the miller lite of korea). Everyone kept offering me drinks, since I was the newbie. Halfway through dinner everyone was quite drunk and dinner turned into a drunken karaoke dance party with people running back to their seats in between songs to take bites of their food. Watching my 60-year-old principal sing and dance to a Korean boy band was one of the highlights of the night. Absolutely hilarious. I think the only American song that played was the one Jin and I sang together, but the Korean music was upbeat and we raged for a few hours before the party finally broke up. I also learned that “cha bang cha bang” (자방자방) means “bling bling”. Bahaha I didn’t realize “bling bling” wasn’t a universal phrase and could be translated.

After dinner, I went back to Uijeongbu with 3 of the other teachers who live near me, my neighbor Sang-Eun included. Jin told me when I first got here that Sang-Eun can’t speak English, but I think she was just nervous about speaking or something because her English not only exists but its not bad at all! She struggled with some translating and her vocabulary is limited, but overall I could understand her just fine. The 4 of us stopped at a bar near my and Sang-Eun’s apartment for another round of drinks and then went home. It was a great night overall. Everyone was very curious about me and Jin told me that a lot of them had so many questions for me but couldn’t speak English and so everyone was really hesitant to ask. I told her to let people know that if they have questions they can ask away as long as she doesn’t mind translating.

First day of school was interesting. All the kids stared me at, and they kept peeking into the office to look at me and giggled every time I smiled or looked at them. Some of the “brave” kids would say “HI!!!” to me, but when I asked them how they were, they giggled and didn’t know what to say. Guess we’ll have to work on that phrase… I also helped to show some kids on a map of the U.S. where I was from. And another girl wanted to say hello and ask a few questions but didn’t know how, so one of the other English teachers wrote out a few sentences and the girl just read them off the paper to me. I knew she had no idea what she was saying when “I am excited for your class” came out of her mouth, and when I asked the teacher she confirmed that the girl did not have a clue what she had said. Once again, most of the teachers don’t speak English, but at lunch I sat next to a teacher who had clearly memorized a phrase so he could say something to me before I ate: “Have a good lunch”. Absolutely adorable. I think a lot of people here are really hesitant to speak English, especially to me since its my first (and sort of only) language. They learn English throughout their schooling, but have no real application of it, and so I think a lot of people question their own ability and therefore become really shy when the time comes to speak.

I got to leave early to get the results from my drug test (mandatory for all of us English teachers) and had planned to head straight to the immigration office to apply for my foreigner registration card but um...they lost my pee at the hospital. So I had to retake that test and can’t pick up the results for a few more days. Jin was disappointed because it meant she had to go back to school sooner than she had planned (I was allowed to take the rest of the day off), but she put it off by ditching with me to get ice cream. I helped a teacher ditch school on my first day. Already bringing the American way to Korea.

Today was my 2nd day of school and the kids still seemed scared of me. I also had to get up in front of the entire school at their school assembly and speak/introduce myself to everyone. I thought it was kind of pointless since no one could understand me, but I stopped after every sentence so Jin could translate. I had a few more "HI!'s" today, as well some "i love you"-s and a "will you marry me" from some of the boys. If it weren't so funny it would probably be illegal. I just can't help laughing at them though, its really quite adorable. School lunch, on the other hand, is not so adorable. You just sort of get what you're given at school, no choices really, and no one ever brings their own lunch. Today, was fish. And I'm not a big seafood person to begin with. But then, it was literally like a chunk of fish had been cut off and cooked. And I had to pull the bones out of my fish with chopsticks and a spoon. All I wanted was a fork and knife. And maybe a cheeseburger. So I ate the rice, the veggies, and tried to tolerate the unbelievably spicy kimchi. I sort of picked at the fish, but really couldn't bring myself to eat it.

Anna has arrived in Korea safely for those of you who read this that haven’t heard from her yet. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet up this weekend and I can show her what soju and 노래방 are all about.

And just to make you all jealous, here is the view of the sunset over the mountains that I get to see out my apartment window every night.

"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." - Bill Bryson