Thursday, July 31, 2008

I'm alive! And doing interesting things!

I'm sorry y'all haven't heard from me in a day or two!  I had a wonderful (and wonderfully educational) day at the Seoul Museum of Art and Seodaemun Prison today, but it's currently 1:30am and I have to be ready to go to the beach at 8am tomorrow....so I'll tell you about it after that.  :c)  Tomorrow some of us are heading to Muuido Island, which is near Incheon, which is near Seoul; we're spending the day and the night, then heading back Friday morning.  I'm excited!  I'll tell you all about it when I get back.  :c)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I found the name of the ice cream monstrosity!

Apparently Kyle's crazy Froot Loop-tasting ice cream dish (from Thursday night) has a name: patbingsu.  According to another blogger ( http://english.visitseoul.net/visit2007en/aboutseoul/whyseoul/whyseoul.jsp?cid=46&sid=1654 ):


"There isn't a café or restaurant in Seoul that you can't find this crushed ice and red bean dish. It has evolved from the simple (crushed ice, sweetened red beans, roasted bean powder, and some rice cake) to its current iteration, a monstrosity of shaved ice, fruit (kiwi, strawberry, peaches, watermelon, and tomato), ice cream, corn flakes, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and (the essential) candied rice cake (duk: 떡). The formula might change a bit, but it's like iced bibimbap. You take it all and mix it up. My favorite game is duk hunting. You get a couple of people together and fish around this delicious concoction to find the candied rice cake. The winner gets to bask in the envy of the other competitors."


So there you go!  Here's another picture of Kyle's version of it:

What's up, Gongju?

I'm about to head off to the bus station to go to Gongju!  I decided I was going to go about an hour and a half ago...haha.  Yay for a week of vacation.   :c)

I'm not sure if I'll stay the night; I've got my toothbrush in case I decide to do so, but I'm just going to play it by ear once I get there.  There are some cool temples and a fortress and stuff; I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell you guys about once I get back.  Wish me luck!

Extreme temperatures, nudity, and fish chewing on my feet? SIGN ME UP!

Yesterday was WONDERFUL, y'all.  I spent Sunday night at Jess and Katie's apartment, chatting and hanging out with all the other "left behind" teachers (most of the teachers are gone on vacation right now).  I was up laaaaaate--partly because of the party and partly because I came home and talked on Skype with Mark until about 5:30am my time (oopsie!).  So I slept super-late yesterday, which was wonderful.  And then I joined some friends for a trip to a jjimjilbang.

Y'all.  Oh my goodness.

A jjimjilbang is a spa...sort of.  It's also a public bathhouse...sort of.  Basically, it's uniquely Korean, and uniquely wonderful.

Fabulous Canadian Amy had been to several jjimjilbang and took us to her favorite, which was about 10 subway stops away.  We got there, paid our 7,000 won ($7), and put our shoes in little baby lockers that were assigned to each of us.  Then we took the locker keys to another bank of lockers, where we changed into the t-shirt and short uniform thingies they gave us and locked up our clothes.  Our first stop was the downstairs part, which was co-ed.

Downstairs, there were four sauna rooms, each with a different decor and set to a different temperature.  We started in one that was a little cooler than room temperature; I can't remember its Celsius temperature, but it was probably about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  After a while in that room, we went into the next one, which felt like it was about 85.  We lay and relaxed, chatting a bit and generally enjoying the warmth and mood of the room.  (Like the others, the room had a low, domed ceiling, was made of rocks and wood, and smelled pleasantly earthy.)  Next, we moved to the hottest room.  I wish I could remember its temperature, but I would guess it was about 115 Fahrenheit.  And in this room, there was--inexplicably--a TV playing a kids' show in the corner (because nothing says "relaxing" like singing puppets), as well as little beds of rocks.  And y'all, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole jjimjilbang.  They were laid out almost like a row of coffins (!), and each was filled with little marbles of adobe...or something that looked like it.  So we lay in them, scootching around until the marbles conformed to our body shapes.  And they were warm, which was lovely.  So we lay there, relaxing and sweating, for about ten minutes....until we wussed out and moved.  :c)  The next room was a bit cooler, but still the second-hottest.

Also downstairs were a little restaurant, a water cooler (which we visited frequently), a nail salon counter, a workout area (including those fat-jiggling belt machines from the 1960s--AWESOME), some painful massage beds....and the best part of all.  The doctor fish.

For an extra 5,000 won (such a steal!), you can put your feet into a tank of water.  And in that tank of water are a few hundred fish, all of whom will happily nibble on your feet until all your dead skin and callouses are....well, fish food.  It sounds crazy, and it looks crazier--but it was nice!  After I got used to it, of course.  :c)  I wish I could have taken a picture for y'all, but I would have felt crunchy if I'd brought a camera.  Anyway, the doctor fish tickled my feet SO BADLY at first--I was practically having a seizure, I was laughing so hard--but then I got used to it, and it started to feel like me feet were tingly from being asleep.  After about 5 minutes, Jen, Jess, and Katie came over to join me...and they were all flabbergasted that I was so calm!  They were wriggling and giggling while I sat there, all Zen or something.  Muahaha!  They got used to it, of course.  And now our feet are all smooth and soft!

After we were finished downstairs, we steeled ourselves for the weirdest part of all: the upstairs.  (I know: weirder than the doctor fish, you say?  Yes.  Well....as weird, at least.)  Upstairs, everyone gets naked (!), but it's separated by gender at that point.  There's a big room with four warm tubs, two cold tubs, a shower area, a sit-down shower scrub-down area, some massage tables, and some crazypants-hot saunas.  We started in the warm tubs; the hottest was about as hot as a jacuzzi, and the coolest was lukewarm.  Then, I did a couple rounds of hot tub-cold tub-hot tub-cold tub, which made my skin tingle all over.  (I'd read in a guidebook that jumping back and forth from hot to cold is the quintessential jjimjilbang experience.)

Meanwhile, Amy, Katie, Jen and Jess all got scrub-downs.  I didn't spend the extra 15,000 for it (although I probably will next time).  Basically, they lay naked on massage tables while Korean women with exfoliating mitts scrubbed them and slapped them from head to toe for about twenty minutes.  (I'm not sure what the slapping was for, but they did it exuberantly.)  According to the ladies' reports, the scrub-down kind of hurt, but they felt super-clean and fresh.  And Fabulous Canadian Amy said that her scrub-down lady seemed particularly fixated on her tattoos and scrubbed at them extra hard; the poor lady was probably confused, since Koreans don't really get tattoos (unless they're gangsters, of course).   :c)

The saunas upstairs were INTENSE.  The hottest one was 90 degrees Celsius; by my estimation, that's about 190 or 195 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Is that right, Daddy?  I'm sure you know.)  It was SO HOT, but it felt wonderful...for about five minutes.  :c)  And right afterward, I pushed the button for the turbo pressure-wash cold shower next to the cold tub, so I certainly cooled down quickly!  I also bought a bottle of black bean tea to help with the cooling down.  (As you might suspect, it tasted NASTY--albeit healthy.)

We spent about three hours or so at the jjimjilbang, subjecting ourselves to all kinds of inventive torture.  Yet at the end, I was the most relaxed I've ever been.  As we ate dinner at the Japanese place next door, we laughed about how every bone and muscle in our bodies felt like wet noodles.



My time at the jjimjilbang was foreign, wonderful, a bit frightening, and completely fulfilling; in short, it was exactly what I came to Korea to experience.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Oooooh yeah...the main attraction in Dongdaemun

I forgot to post pictures of the main thing in Dongdaemun district: Dongdaemun itself, which is an old city gate.  (Haha...silly me, distracted by all the shopping!) Unfortunately, we couldn't get up close to it.  But it's still cool-looking!


Oh yeah....and we also saw a HUMMER.  In ASIA.  I almost died of shock.

Dongdaemun and good conversations

Yesterday Kyle and I went to Dongdaemun, an area of town with lots and lots of market-type places and stores.  It's kind of hard to describe; it wasn't a market like I've seen them in the States, but there were similar things for sale.  I'll start with a video of one of the main markets:



People were seated at the little food stalls eating, and the sights and sounds and smells were quite interesting.  Unfortunately, we ate at a little restaurant before we found this market, so we didn't get to partake.  The main dish seemed to be green bean pancakes (I can't remember their Korean name), and they looked tasty!


Instead, we had some kind of steaming stew for lunch; we don't know what kind of meat was in it, but I guessed quail or something.  The stew also had ginseng and dates in it!


The area was divided into districts.  We saw such themes as custom tailors, gardening, weddings, books, raw seafood, camping/outdoor gear, and produce.  It was quite the assortment!  Being nerds, Kyle and I especially liked the book district. In one store, there were used English books available, and they were (curiously/amusingly) sorted by color rather than by topic.  But how else are you gonna sort books that are in a language you don't speak?

The market part itself was quite fun to go sightseeing in.  And it was PACKED.  (Even though my pictures don't really convey that.)


My favorite part of all was the seafood section, which had lots of ooky things on display.  AWESOME.



We also saw lots of ginseng!

Afterward, we came back to my apartment and ate kimbap (my first!  and it was HEAVENLY) and watched the new episode of Burn Notice.  We also mixed some soju, Korea's national liquor (made from sweet potatoes), with Chilsung Cider, a yummy Sprite-like soda.  And y'all, it was GOOD.

Kyle has quickly become one of my favorite people here.  Over the course of the day, we talked about everything from religion to politics to philosophy to the Muppets.  And it's absolutely uncanny how similar our frames of reference are!  One of us will mention something like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, or the law of diminishing returns, or Swift's A Modest Proposal, or Hobbes' versus Locke's view of human nature....and the other one knows that reference too.  It's bizarre; it's like we had perfectly identical educations.  It makes intellectual conversations that much easier--and more interesting!

Here we are in front of the dancing fountain in Dongdaemun.  Aren't we cuuuuuute?


Excellent Engrish t-shirt numero dos!

Today I got an AWESOME Engrish t-shirt in Itaewon, and it makes me happeeeee.  I was there to buy an iron, ironing board, hair dryer, and hair straightener from a Canadian girl who was leaving town.  (By the way: my hair?  Is apparently curly now.  It is the STRANGEST thing ever.  It used to be straight as a stick, but since I've been here it's been like POOF, BEEYOTCH.  So weird.)

Anyway: the shirt!  It's amazing.  It looks gray in the pictures, but it's actually lavender.

Feast your eyes on THIS.


(Across the top it says "SOMEONE WOULD...SEND ME ENERGY")


Saturday, July 26, 2008

Mmmmm....kalbi!

On Thursday night, a bunch of the teachers went out for kalbi. One of the Korean teachers, MJ, is leaving for a month to bum around Canada, so we went out to dinner to send her off. (She actually didn't end up getting there until about 10:30. Because apparently she is South American....or something. Hehe.)

Kalbi is basically big hunks of beef, cooked over an open flame.  The tables are low to the  ground and you sit on the floor.  Each table has two grills built into it, and the food cooks in front of you.  There are also lots of kinds of kimchi (basically, pickled cabbage...or sometimes radishes) and various other side dishes.  You take a leaf of lettuce and pile it up with pieces of meat, some kimchi, onion, yummy brown bean paste stuff, whole cloves of garlic (!), and whatever else you like.  Then you make a little lettuce wrap out of it and chow down!  In this picture you see the grill (obvi) and a bowl of warm kimchi.
Jess and Kyle, pre-engorgement.  Notice the conspicuous emptiness of the tables at this point; that wouldn't last long.  (Hey Furmanites: doesn't Kyle look a little like Mark Overcash?)
The restaurant.  I took this so you could see how the tables are situated.  And do you see the bookshelf thingies in the corner?  Those are for shoes; when you come in, you take off your shoes.  Fabulous.  Oh, and the basket of lettuce leaves is also in this picture.

Hot, bubbly cauldron of egg stuff.  I never caught its name.  It was steaming like fajitas when they brought it to the table!  It was yummy.
Kimchi!
Another kind of kimchi!
Bowl o' raw onions and brown liquid they brought us.  Looks weird, right?  And anyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly the world's biggest onion fan.  But Y'ALL.  IT WAS REALLY GOOD.  Who knew?
Kyle's ridiculous/awesome dessert thing.  I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS THING WORKS.  It is kind of terrifying.  I mean, the top part is ice cream; check.  But the reddish-brown stuff?  IS BEANS.  Seriously.  And they're sweet.  (?)  And the clear cube things, Kyle and I decided, reminded us of "a cube inscribed in a spheroid" of a grape....because we are nerds.  Anyway, they're grape-like in texture, but sweeter.  On the bottom was shaved ice with some kind of flavoring.  And there were crispy flaky things sprinkled throughout.  And somehow, the whole thing had a pervasive Froot Loop-like taste.  HOW CONFUSING IS THAT???


Anyway.  I was lovely!  Oh, and eventually, MJ came.  How adorable is she?


This is me trying to be a serious blogger.

For my next trick, I shall......POST A VIDEO!  I hope!


Let's see if this works.  Cross your fingers.

My Koree-wahs. Well, some of them.

I love my second morning class.  There are ten of them, and they're quite smart and energetic.  Some of the boys can be a handful at times, but the class is super-adorable, so of course I can't hold it against them.
On Thursday, I made up a game for them.  We'd just finished reading chapter three of a book called The Big Balloon Race, so I made up slips of paper with things that happened in the book on them, and the kids had to put them in order.  (They're learning how to write summaries, which is more difficult than you'd think; imagine being nine years old and having to understand a story in your second language, then say it in different words.  It's hard!  But they're getting it.)
Becky and Annie, hard at work!
Hehe...hi, Peter! Also pictured: Jason, Soo-Sung (not "Susan," as I first thought he said), and....Sabina.  I think.  It could be Zinna.  (They're twins.)
Shone, with some awesome kicks.  Who has lions on the bottoms of their shoes?!  Shone is a quality individual.  And that's Sarah in the background.
Oh man....one of my favorite things about this job has been coming up with team names for the games we play.  This was my first attempt: Team Hot Dog and Team Hamburger.  I was such an amateur!  Yesterday, I had Team The Office versus Team Burn Notice versus Team America's Next Top Model...and for another game, I had Team Jim versus Team Pam.  The kids have no idea where the team names come from.  All they know is that if Team Simon gets another question right, they'll be tied with Team Alvin--but at least Team Theodore is four points behind.    :c)

BTdubs: read the comments!

Hey by the way!  I thought I should point out to y'all that I often reply to comments y'all post.  Sometimes I clarify things or answer your questions--and for the rando chantyman story, I posted an update!  Y'all DO want to know who that guy was, don't you??


Anyway, just thought I'd point that out in case anyone was interested.  And I don't know if you get an e-mail tell you when I reply to your comments, but if you don't, maybe check back in a couple days.  Y'all make some insightful comments, and I've enjoyed the feedback!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

assorted, themeless photos!

I haven't posted pictures in a while.  Do y'all want some pictures?  Are you sitting at your computers, your little pea-pickin hearts simply PINING for some pictures of Korea?

I'm sorry!  I didn't know!


This is COEX, the glorious Mecca of consumerism that I visited on Tuesday.  It was a magical experience.


And this is the view from my balcony.  My building is a carbon copy of these, which made finding my way home very difficult for the first couple days.  It was like wandering through some postmodern concrete jungle of high-rises.  In the distance, though, there's a mountain!  It's quite unexpected on the horizon; it looks like a curious chubby kid poking his head into the frame of a picture.  I hope I'll get a chance to go check it out soon.

And this is the street where my school is!  I was on my way back from COEX, and I'd just come out of the metro.  See that neon cross on the building up ahead?  And the red and white text just above that?  The red text says "SLP," and the white text says "Sogang Language Program" in Korean (I assume).  That's my school!  We're on the seventh floor.  Other tenants in the building include a grocery store, a noodle shop, a little salon, a few flea-market-style clothes shops, a bakery, two (!) other English-language schools, a bank, a pharmacy, a couple doctors' offices, and a chicken restaurant.

It's quite convenient; if I need to make a withdrawal from my Korean bank account, I just elevator myself down to the second floor.  If I want a tasty 85-cent lunch, I go down to B1 and buy some ramen a la Cup-of-Noodles.  If I want some yummy and nutritious kimbap for a dollar, I head to the first floor.  It's a pretty sweet set-up, and it's inspired some fruitful fact-finding missions (fruitful and alliterative, apparently).  Some days after school I'll go wandering around the building, smelling the perfume testers on the first floor or perusing the three (three!) different kinds of soap dishes in the grocery store.  I've already discovered some treasures and beacons of weirdness; both kinds of findings are supremely satisfying.

rando chantyman

Every morning around 8:30 or 9am, some guy wanders by our apartment, chant-groaning something indiscernable.  It freaked me all the heck out the first morning here.  I think he walks up and down each floor of our building (we're on the 13th of 15 or so floors).  Since the building is outside access--in other words, the hallways are outdoors--I first heard him in the distance.  I couldn't tell what the noise was, or even whether it was human in origin; it was just a faint droning, so I didn't think much about it.  The apartment isn't air-conditioned, so all our windows were open.  In fact, I'd propped the apartment door open to help with the air circulation.  (We're at the end of the building.)

And then the droning grew louder.

Just as I decided that the noise was definitely human, I also realized that it was coming from my floor.  ("And the call was coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE."  Dun dun dunnnn!)  Whoever it was was getting CLOSER, and LOUDER, and the door was wide open.  Y'all, I almost peed myself.  Senor Droneyman got all the way up to our door--as close as possible without actually being in the doorway--and then turned around and droned his way back toward the elevator.

WHAT THE POO.

He came back the next day too, and the next day...and every day since.  I talked to Roommate Jake about it, and we think he might be blessing the building?  Or something?  The droning sounds vaguely chant-like, so we think he might be performing some kind of Buddhist ritual.  I've been meaning to ask Roommate Kevin (one of the Korean school administrators) about it, but I rarely see him.  Half the time I don't even know if Kevin's here, since he keeps his door closed.  I've gotta find out, though; I'm really curious!

gym class, minus the stinky uniforms

On Tuesdays this month, I'll be co-teaching the pre-schoolers' gym class.  At SLP (my school), gym class is an hour-long period after lunch where the pre-schoolers (age 5 or so) play games and stuff, but it doesn't involve changing clothes or copious sweating.  At first, I was kind of indifferent about teaching gym class; I didn't think much about it.

But then I started to make a list.

During one of my observations today, I started writing down ideas for gym class activities.  Drawing on my extensive P.E. and youth group repertoire, I came up with some pretty sweet ideas, including:
  • Mother, may I?
  • where the wild wind blows
  • the winking game (my personal junior high youth group favorite)
  • bull wrestling (holla, Katie Snow!)
  • a challenge whereby two teams brainstorm to come up with a way for 8 people to support themselves with only 5 feet total on the ground....then 4 feet...then 3...then 2... (that's from my post-high-school Jamaica mission trip)
  • some variation on TV tag (animal tag?  English-words-starting-with-S tag?)
  • blob tag (another highlight of my junior high youth group experience...especially when it involved linking arms with a cute boy.  SCORE!)
  • duck duck goose (which, incidentally, is called "duck duck grey duck" in Minnesota...did you know that?  it is!  Minnesotans are kind of wackadoo.)
  • car, dog, fire hydrant (again, a junior high youth group brainchild; it's an adaptation of rock, paper, scissors--except that it involves your entire body)

Y'all.  I am getting so excited about teaching this gym class.  What does that say about me?  I'm pretty sure it says I have a very refined sense of fun.

German Konglish! Er....Kongman! Gerlean?

Yesterday I saw a student's mom wearing a t-shirt that almost killed me.  It was in German....kind of.  It had received the same Roman-letters-look-cool-so-we-don't-care-what-it-says treatment as English often gets on Korean t-shirts; accordingly, it made my day.  Possibly it also made my life.

I didn't catch one of the words, but I whipped out my notepad and wrote down the rest of it before I forgot it.  It said:

DIE KUNDE
IST ETNE
______ DES TEUFELS

which translates to:

THE CUSTOMER
IS DUKC
______ OF THE DEVIL

(The German word for "duck," Ente, was misspelled.)


Y'all.  IS THAT NOT AMAZING?  I'm so disappointed I couldn't see that one word; I really want to know what was of the devil!  Was it the duck-customer?  Or was it something else entirely?  The world may never know!

So Chinese sounds like that to Koreans, too!

The funniest thing happened today in one of my classes.  (I was observing it; I'll be taking over in a couple weeks.)  Diana Teacher, one of the fabulous Korean teachers, was leading a discussion that involved subjects in school.  One of the kids mentioned taking Chinese, and another kid started imitating a person speaking Chinese.  He was all "ching cha ya chong" in a nasal, sing-songy voice--basically, he sounded exactly like an American imitating Chinese might sound.

I had to force myself not to laugh out loud.  To me, Korean and Chinese don't sound all that different; Korean sounds a bit "ching cha ya chong" to my ears, even as I'm getting more accustomed to it.  I wanted to go "uh, Charlie, you say that jokingly, buuuuut.....that's kind of what you sound like when you speak Korean," but I don't think that would have gone over so well.   :c)

What's up, Whitey?

On my way to COEX on Tuesday, I crossed paths with another white person.  We were in a crowded subway station, and I saw him before he saw me.  He looked up just before he passed me, and his double-take and astonished expression almost made me laugh out loud.

It's been quite interesting to be a minority for the first time in my life.  I mean, I lived in Germany and all, but I spoke the language and looked more or less like everyone else, so I didn't really draw any attention.  Here, though, I always feel highly--what's the word--noticed?  It's not that people stare; I'm just less anonymous.  It hasn't really made me uncomfortable or anything.  It's just.....interesting.

I keep running into people. No, I mean literally.

Did you know that Koreans walk on the left side (of the sidewalk, of the stairwell, etc.)?  They do.  Well, that's actually not true....only about two-thirds of them do.  WHICH IS SO MUCH WORSE.  Add to that the fact that I forget and walk on the right about half the time, and you end up with a lot of narrowly-avoided collisions.  Oh--and it's monsoon season, which means it's rained four or five days out of the past week, so people are walking around with umbrellas and looking down.  THAT certainly helps the situation.  :c)


I'm thinking of building a floating guardrail around myself.  And I might add some flashing lights and beeping noises.  Maybe THEN I'd stop running into everyone ever.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Resident alien

One thing that's been really salient to me since I've been in Korea is my utter cluelessness--and, as a counterpoint, my good intuition. When I studied abroad in Germany, I'd already taken five and a half years of German; I was quite comfortable getting around, asking for what I needed, conducting my business, and getting to know people. Here, I don't know anything. Y'all, I don't even know how to say "hello." Or "thank you." When I buy something or order food, I'm reduced to a mime....and a bad one, at that. Such utter cluelessness of the language is uncharted territory for me. And it's WEIRD.

[Sidenote: I'm planning on devoting more time to learning Korean...just as soon as I settle into school a bit. I'll let you know how it's coming along.]

The first observation--that being so clueless is raw and new for me--has led into a second observation. Y'all, I've been surprised at my own intuition. For instance, when I sign a credit card signature pad, I don't know which button is "ok"/"accept"/whatever, so I just press one...and it turns out to be the right one. Or yesterday, when I was working on my lesson plan on the school computer, I was able to easily find my way around Microsoft Word even though all the pull-down menus were in Korean. Ok, that second example is probably more recognition than intuition, but you get the idea: I've been surprised at how often I'm correct when I guess at something I don't know.

It's only my sixth day in Korea, and already I've returned something at a store, filled out forms, gotten an x-ray taken, asked for directions, and done lots of other things--all without speaking a word of Korean. It's amazing to me how much I've been able to figure out--and how I've been able to communicate to other people. Being here has forced me to think outside the box a bit; it's been an interesting exercise in self-knowledge.

"When I go to COEX, I like to buy Lori Teacher colorful pens."

Today in my second morning intensive (my smartest-yet-squirreliest class), I told the students that I'd gone to COEX (the aforementioned giant shopping complex) for the first time yesterday. So as a warm-up, I had them go around the room and say what they liked to buy when they went to COEX. And one of the students said "when I go to COEX, I like to buy Lori Teacher colorful pens." How very sweet....plus, and excellent use of an indirect object! Lori Teacher was very proud on both counts. :c)

Ahjummas everywhere

In Korea, I see lots of ahjummas (grandmotherly women) out and about. I'll run into them in an elevator, working in a restaurant, walking on the sidewalk, or riding the subway.....they're all over the place. Germany has a similar proliferation of old ladies out and about, and today I realized that in both countries that proliferation stuck out to me. Why is that?

Is there some quality that Germany and Korea have in common that increases the autonomy of little old ladies? Or, put differently, is there something about the US that keeps old ladies from going out to conduct their business or to work...at least, to the same degree that Korean and German old ladies go out and about?

Or is it just that American old ladies are usually with American old men?

Or are there a similar concentrations of old ladies in public in the US as there are in Germany and Korea, but for some reason the numbers appear different to me? (And if that's the case...why does it seem like there are more of them here and in Germany than in the US?)





Anyway...I was just musing over that. Ideas?
Haha...I meant HTML, not HTMP.  I win!

um.....riiiiiiight.

Not sure what I did to the HTMP in the last post to make it turn black at the beginning.  In fact: if anyone knows how to imbed a picture in the middle of the text, please tell me.  The way I've been doing it, I upload pictures and they appear at the top, so I have to cut and paste the HTML lower; that's how the black text thing happened.  Also, because I have no idea what I'm doing and shouldn't be allowed on the internet without supervision.

Help, anyone?

Konglish is deliciously hilarious

I found some awesome Konglish when I was out shopping today.  For those of you who don't know, Konglish is the Korean version of the Japanese sensation of Engrish.  Both involve the use of English words in a foreign country in a way that is amusing to native English speakers.  (Some textbook examples are a Japanese t-shirt that says "I hate myself and I want to die" and a menu item called "mud crap pizza.")  In the case of t-shirts and such, Engrish and Konglish often aren't intended to actually be correct; they're just stylistic.  A similar practice would be Americans' fondness for getting tattoos of Chinese characters because they look cool.  You get the idea.


Anyway, I found some juicy incidents of Konglish today, which filled me with glee.  The first is a napkin; it bears the name of the restaurant where I ate (a delicious) dinner.  Margaret, I dedicate this photo to you.
So close!  The restaurant paid enough attention to detail to put an umlaut over the "u" in Hansel, as it should be in correct German...but they whiffed it on the "s."  Apparently, Gretel's friend is not a strapping young German kid, but a Baroque composer.  Who knew?  :c)

I saw this sign at COEX, a giant (and awesome) shopping complex thingy.  I didn't know until now that trade hatches from eggs!   :c)

Hehehe....not explanation needed!  Except to say that there's a giant question mark on the back of the shirt as well.  You know, just in case the shirt wasn't amusing enough on the front.

Okay okay okay: WHOADANG, right?  I'm sorry the picture's not very good, but I was in a store and didn't want to arouse suspicion, so I had to take it quickly.  The shirt says WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE RNSLANG ALTRNTV ANY WAY?  I would also like to know the answer.  (Let me know if you find out.)

And finally, the piece de resistance--of which I am now the lucky owner: a fantastic t-shirt I bought for 9,900 won.


aaaaaand let's go in for the close-up!

"Alterhate reality" sounds like a fabulous name for a death metal band, don't you think?  And the rest of it....well.  It just doesn't make any sense.  WHICH IS FABULOUS.  It's modeled after the front page of a newspaper, but the "articles" are all "talky talky, newspaper words, blah blah blah."  They're clearly taken from actual news articles, but there are words capriciously added and subtracted, ensuring that the t-shirt makes no sense at all.

It is glorious.  I cannot wait to wear it.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

omigod: shoes!

[Preamble: if you don't understand the title of this post, feast your eyes upon this.]

Now then!

My second day of teaching was today, but I don't feel like going into all that.  Well, actually, I'll give you the quick version: I'm beginning to hit my stride, it's difficult to keep my vocabulary simple enough for the kids to understand, my favorite (and smartest) class was strangely rambunctious today, and it turns out my morning classes' curriculum is way over the kids' heads (we were "beta testing" the curriculum, if you will) so we're scrapping a lot of the original syllabus--which makes my job easier.  And I got to leave at 4pm today!  Woohoo!
I decided to go shopping this late afternoon/evening.  It was awesome.  More on that later!  Including pictures!

***AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED DISCUSSION OF SHOES***

As I was sitting in the subway tonight, admiring my pretty new notepad, I decided to start jotting down little observations I have.  Hopefully I'll write quick little blog entries about some of those observations, in case someone other than me finds them interesting.  :c)
For my first post of that nature, I noticed a theme among my ideas: shoes.  Now, I'm not really a shoe person; I pretty much wear flip-flops just about every day of my life.  And I own a reasonable number of shoes; I'm not one of those crazy shoe women.  But since I've been in Korea (soooo...for the past 5 days) I've found myself noticing and admiring Korean women's shoes.  I tell you what--these women wear some ridiculously cute shoes!  I hear myself saying that and it sounds so....not me, but seriously, you'd think the same thing if you were here. 

Apparently I'm becoming a shoe person.

I discovered today that Korean women have an excellent reason for wearing cute shoes every day: they are CHEAP.  (The shoes, not the women.  Although who knows?  Maybe the women are too!)  In fact, Korea has a glorious and brilliant practice of selling shoes in the subway stations.  Racks and racks!  Of shoes!  Cute ones!  FOR NINE THOUSAND WON.  THAT IS NINE DOLLARS.  FOUR AND A HALF DOLLARS FOR EACH SHOE.  AMAZING.  I CANNOT CAPITALIZE THAT SENTIMENT ENOUGH.

Perhaps actual stores sell shoes for eleventy thousand dollars a pair; I don't know.  But the subway shoes are cheap!  I love this country.  Check out the pair I bought tonight!  Did I mention that they only cost nine dollars?  They only cost nine dollars.



You can't really tell from the picture, but the straps are white and a really pretty shiny blue.  (They look kind of navy blue here, but they're lighter and shinier in person.)  But seriously!  How cute are they?!  And how silly do I feel getting this excited over a pair of shoes?  ("Very silly" is the correct answer.)



Bless you, Koreans-who-sell-shoes-in-subway-stations.  Even though you make me feel like I have giant feet.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Saturday > Friday

Saturday was so much better than Friday, y'all.  I still woke up crazypants early--at about 5am, after going to bed at 2:30--but I put some soft music on my iPod, put on my eyeshield thingy, and forced myself to go back to sleep....and it worked!  I woke up at about 10:30, then went into school for some more training with Jenny, the [basically] principal of the school.  We went through a lot of information about the curriculum, the school, and what I'll be teaching; it was a lot to remember, but it helped clear some things up for me.  Yay!

In the afternoon, I watched some Office with Jake, my temporary roommate.  He'd never seen it, but he really liked it.  Yesss...a convert!  Then, I took a nap (darn jetlag....) for a couple hours, and got up and got ready to go out.  Most of the teachers at my school were going to Itaewon that night, which is an area of town with lots of nightlife.  It's near the US military base(s), so it's kind of a hub for expats.  It's also got kind of a reputation for skuzziness, though....I've heard it referred to as "Shitaewon."

Most of the teachers were splitting cabs over to Itaewon, but Jake wanted to take the subway because it'd be a few thousand won (a few dollars) cheaper, so I tagged along.  I've pretty much been tagging along with Jake this whole time, and I wanted to try out the subway with someone else the first time, so it seemed like a good idea.  Before we went, we stopped at this little 24-hour noodle place downstairs from our school (and near our apartment), and it was really good!  I had ramyan, which is what Americans know as ramen, and it was quite tasty.  It also had two dumpling things in it, which were delicious.  I tell you what, though....it is REALLY DIFFICULT to eat ramen with chopsticks.  I kind of suck at it, y'all.  And Korean chopsticks are metal, which makes them extra-slippery, so there was lots of slurping going on.  Bye bye, American table manners!

When we got to Itaewon, we arrived at the pub, Wolfhound, about half an hour before everyone else.  And I made a couple new friends!  Well, actually, I was already facebook friends with one of them...haha.  A few weeks ago I posted some question on a facebook group for expats in Korea, and this girl Hayley replied, so I added her as a friend.  Then, when I was sitting in Wolfhound, I looked over and had that itching "do I know her from somewhere?" feeling about this random girl sitting one table over.  And finally I figured out that she looked like Hayley's facebook picture, so I went over and said "um.....are you Hayley?"  And she was!  So we chatted quite a bit.  She had a friend named Stefanie who was there, and she's cool, too.  Hayley's from London and has the COOLEST ACCENT EVER....and better yet, she seems to know the whole expat community.  She's very social and upbeat, so I was glad to get to know her; I'm sure it'll be nice to make friends outside of my school.

Once the rest of the teachers got there, I really enjoyed hanging out with them.  Plus, there was a guy who used to teach at our school and is now teaching public school--his name's Eric--who is ridiculously awesome.  So we all hung out for a couple hours, then left to go to...um....Hangdo?  Or something?  I can't remember the name of that section of town...dang it.  But anyway, we went to this place called Jane's Groove, which had a dancefloor, so you KNOW I was happy.  It was almost completely Westerners in there, as was the case with Wolfhound...kinda crazy!  Dancing with the other teachers was a lot of fun, and it helped me feel better about them than I had the night before.  I think my suspicion was correct--that they're essentially cool people who had just had a hard week at work and were letting off steam on Friday night.  Oh, and there were a couple people who hung out with us on Saturday night that weren't there on Friday, like Kyle.  Who deserves his own paragraph.

So I think that Kyle might be the male version of me...haha.  He actually reminds me a bit of the other male-version-of-me, Mark, a good friend from Furman who I also kind-of-dated last year.  Kyle looks a little like Mark and has a vaguely similar personality, so all night I was like "mmmm, Mark....WAIT NO IT'S NOT MARK IT'S SOMEONE ELSE!"  Ha ha....my brain was confoosed.  But anyway, Kyle is awesome, partly because he justifies my nerdiness.  Jake has been making fun of me for being a nerd, but Kyle is nerdy in the same ways!  It's AWESOME.  We were geeking out about statistics at Wolfhound, which was fantastic.  And he also likes art museums and stuff.  I'm sure we'll be hanging out a lot.  (In fact, once Jake and I got home, he was making jokes about Kyle and I making a cute couple....but I think Jake's jealous that I was hanging out with Kyle more than him.  Hehehe.)

Anyway, so Saturday night was SO much fun, and Jake and I didn't get home until about 5am.  Going to bed while the sun came up was quite interesting!  Then, on Sunday, the two of us got up around noon, and Kyle came over at 2.  We'd talked about going to a place called Technomart to get some stuff, so the three of us set off on the subway again.  And....y'all.  Technomart is.....insane.  And also amazing.  And also kind of a zoo.  But also undoubtedly amazing.  It's about 10 or 11 stories high and about the size of a grocery store on each floor, and it's essentially a giant shopping mall of electronic stuff.  Kyle and I agreed that it seems like people rent space, kind of like at a flea market, and sell stuff individually; and the floors have different themes.  They had really nice LCD flatscreen TVs for super-cheap--we saw one big one for 400,000 won ($400) that would have sold for $2000 in the States.  (But Daddy, I'm glad to say that they had my camera for $220, so we got it cheaper in Atlanta.  Woohoo!)  Some of the stuff seemed to be priced similarly to American prices, and some was cheaper; but you could bargain with the sellers!  And let me tell you, bargaining is fun and interesting when the buyer and seller speak two different languages.  There's lots of pantomiming.

I bought some speakers for my computer and iPod for 21,000 won.  Jake and I tested them out last night, and they were AWESOME.  [Sidenote: to ask the salesman whether they had good base, I pointed to them and went "BOOM ba ba BOOM ba ba BOOM....good?  Is okay?" and it seems to have gotten the point across!]  I win!  I also bought a couple outlet converters for 8,000 won together ($8), plus an awesome fan that made sleeping last night SO MUCH more pleasant for 25,000.  Poor Jake had to listen to me being excited about the fan for, oh, about two hours straight.  But I told him he'd change his tune when he had to go sleep in his hot, stuffy room without a cool, luxurious fan.  I told him that when he (inevitably) came knocking on my door at 4am asking to share my fan, I'd make him be Big Spoon.

Last night, Jake and I spread out all our teaching materials and puzzled over what we were supposed to be teaching...haha.  He's only been here a week longer than I have, and intensives (classes in the "high season" for our school) start today, so we're both teaching new classes.  We kind of figured it out, though.

This morning I woke up at 6:30am--so my jetlag is abating, which is good.  Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up to my alarm!  Woohoo!  :)  The nice thing about getting up early is that I can check my e-mail, have some coffee, and update my blog before I have to trundle off to school.  I'm hoping it doesn't rain today, because I'm hoping to wear my favorite dress; it IS my first day of school, after all!  It pooooured yesterday and the day before; Jenny (the principal) said it was monsoon season, and I'm not sure whether she's kidding or not.  So I'm about to embark on my first week of teaching.....wish me luck!!!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

some very redeeming things about yesterday

I totally forgot to post some awesome pictures from yesterday!  Oh man....these are awesome.
First, from the morning: the parking lot below my temporary apartment.


I mean....how do the regularly-parked cars get OUT?  The double-parked ones are all up in their Kool-Aid!  [note: I later learned that people push the double-parked cars out of the way.  Or else call the phone numbers displayed in their windshields to get people to move them.  Seems totally inefficient, but....whatev, you silly Koreans!


Second: my first squatty-potty experience!!!!


How awesome is that?  It was at the hospital--in fact, I had to pee into this thing, INTO A CUP.  But I'm a good squat-pee'r; I've got a whole summer's worth of peeing-in-the-woods experience.  Thank you for that, Phoenix Outdoor.
And finally, third:

Korean chairs!  I know that thing looks kind of crazypants, but when you lean back, the two panels swivel a bit and cup your back.  So your spine isn't pressing against your thing, and the chair back is kind of conforming to the shape of your back.  They're AWESOME.  (Hey, it's the little things, right?)



Okay, I'm off to take a shower and go in for a little more training.  Then, a little shopping jaunt.  Yay!  Today's going to be much more fun; I'll see to it.    :c)


longest. day. ever.

Just finished my first day...and it's 1am.  As I mentioned before, I woke up more or less around 4:30am, so this has been a reeeeeally long day.  First, the other newbie (Jake), a girl renewing her contract (Nancy) and I were taken to the hospital to go through our health screening that's part of the visa requirement.  Some of it made sense--like the blood and urine tests, presumably for drugs.  But many employers require that, so no big deal.  But they also tested our vision and hearing!  I'm not sure what that has to do with the ability to teach English--unless you're completely deaf--but whatev.  And they even measured our chests!  Nancy and I were like "....what the poo?!"  The nurse lady just whipped out a tape measure, asked us to raise our arms, and went to town with our lovely lady lumps.  It was...curious.

Then, I went to the school for the first time.  It was surprisingly small!  But probably part of that is due to the compactness of everything in Asia.  The school is on the 7th floor of a building that also has a bank, a grocery store, a few little restaurants, and some kind of Christian organization (or maybe a church).  The latter tenant actually makes my life a lot easier, because there's a giant neon cross on the side of the building--which, of course, makes it easier to find.  Thanks, giant cross!

My first impression of the school is that it was LOUD.  There was a constant din of kids hollering in unison and teachers bellowing over them.  Apparently, teaching at my school involves a whoooole lot of shouting!  The curriculum heavily emphasizes repetition, so the kids spend a lot of the classtime yelling various sentences in unison.  It seems like the kids stay interested when they bellow the answers, so it's fine....it's just gonna take some getting used to.

I spent the school day observing classes (both in person and on video), learning about my schedule and the curriculum, and meeting people.  And good LORD are there a lot of people to meet!  I'm usually pretty good with names, so I think I remember most of them, but I'll admit that it's hardest to remember the Korean teachers' names.  They use English names, but...well...they look alike to me.  Although to be fair (to....whom?  myself?), I interacted a lot more with the Western teachers than with the Korean ones--and as for the Koreans I DID talk to at length, I remember their names.  The day was kind of overwhelming, especially because they were trying to cram an entire orientation into one day, but at least I feel more capable now than I did about halfway through it.  For a while there, I was having a hard time understanding and retaining things--and I have to teach on Monday, so it was a bit nervewracking!  I feel better about it now, though.

Basically: this coming week starts the Korean public schools' summer break.  Hagwans (which, including my school, are private supplementary English schools that students attend after their normal school each day) go into overdrive during the public schools' breaks.  Instead of just teaching classes in the afternoons, when school gets out, my school (and all the hagwans) hold extra morning classes as a kind of English-learning day camp.  Those classes, called "intensives" are above and beyond the teachers' normal workloads.  Lucky me gets to start teaching at the beginning of intensives....SCORE.  At least I got what sound like good classes, though.  And I've got veteran teachers who'll be helping me out the first week.

During my second week here, the whole school shuts down, and all the teachers get our first of two weeks' vacation for the year.  (The other begins around Christmas.)  I just found that out yesterday, and I'm pretty bummed about it, to be honest.  Since I only get two weeks off a year (plus the occasional national holiday), I really wanted to use that time to travel someplace cool, like Laos or Japan or Thailand.  But apparently it'd be expensive to buy a plane ticket only a week ahead of time; and plus, I haven't earned money all summer, so I'd be going further into debt before my first paycheck.  So it looks like I'll be spending my week in Seoul, with a possible sidetrip within Korea.  It's not ideal, but I'm hoping I can get in some good sightseeing within Korea; at least there's plenty to see here.

At the end of the workday, I hit a wall.  The jetlag hadn't gotten to me all day, and suddenly I was absolutely drained.  I drank four cups of coffee, but I still had no energy through dinner.  Then, a bunch of the teachers came and joined Jake and I (who had gone downstairs for Korea's version of chicken wings) and started drinking.  I got a bit of a second wind, but it was still really rough to be out among people.  And inevitably, as often happens when co-workers socialize outside of work, there was ample griping.  It wasn't any more negative than most conversations of its kind, but I was in no mood to sit through it.....but unfortunately, I had no idea how to get home.  I hadn't gone directly from my (temporary) apartment to school yet, so I stuck around until about 12:45, when Sam (my future roommate) offered to take me home.  (To everyone's credit: I'm sure someone would have walked me home if I'd asked, but I never asked.)




So, all in all.....it was a ridiculously long day.  And it was overwhelming--in chaos, new people, poking and prodding, noise, jetlag, and good ol' fashioned fatigue.  (Oh--and the first time I ate in Korea wasn't until about 2pm today.  Perfect!)  But at least I'm up late now, so I hope to be on Korean time tomorrow.  I've got a couple hours of training starting at noon, and afterward I'm going to strike out into the city, start getting oriented, and run a couple errands.  I'm going to try to get a cell phone and a new outlet adapter (because NEITHER OF MINE FIT)....and some other stuff that I'm forgetting right now because my brain is friiiied.  I wish some of my lovely stateside friends and family were here to give me a hug!  I know I'll feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed soon, but for now....well, at least my first day is over.

Friday, July 18, 2008

ohmagrooness I'm really heeeere!

It's currently 6:43am, and I've been up since 5:30....which my body, conveniently, thought was actually 4:30pm the previous afternoon.  Awesome!  Wish me luck that I don't crumble into a jet-lagged, comatose puddle by dinnertime.
So I made it to Seoul!  I left Atlanta at 12:20pm on Wednesday and arrived in Incheon (near Seoul) at about 9pm on Thursday.  Taking into account the time delay and our time-warp across the international date line (SO COOL), plus my taxi ride to where I'm living, I was traveling for 22 hours.  Dag, yo.  But it was uneventful, which was good!  Here are some highlights.

**On the plane from Atlanta to Detroit, I sat next to a lady wearing a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt.  We chatted a bit, and she even laughed at my joke about buying my sister a Hello Kitty backpack so she could come to my house and steal it.  Score!  (Yay for The Office!)

**I sent my dad and Margaret a text message just before I left Detroit that said "see you in Toky, yo."  HA!  I'm hilarious.

**On my Detroit-to-Tokyo flight, I was shoehorned in coach between two other people, and Window-Seat Lady got up and crawled over us twice before we could even take off.  (Joy!)  But then the flight attendant asked if I'd like to move to an empty bank of seats in the middle of the plane, so I did.  And Y'ALL.  I had four seats, in a row, all to myself.  And I had their pillows and blankets at my disposal, too!  So I was able to completely stretch out and sleep, which was a blessing on that 14-hour flight.  Thanks, flight attendant lady!

**In the Tokyo airport, I changed my last $10 of American money into yen so I could buy a lil souvenir.  I was hoping for the aforementioned Hello Kitty backpack for the aforementioned sister, but alas...they were too expensive.  So I bought a pretty hairstick instead.  My mom just taught me--like, three days ago--how to put my hair up with one, so now I'm all set!

**While I waited to board in Tokyo, I watched sumo wrestling on TV.  And it was AMAZING.  Did you know that sumo wrestlers grab each other by their little thong/loincloth thingies in order to get each other off balance?  Which requires reeeeeaching around behind your opponent and kind of fondling his butt a little before you find purchase on his thong?  It's true.

**Seen on a tourism advertisement in the Seoul airport:
Oh man...that REALLY makes me wanna go to Jeonbuk.  :c)



Okay....off to get dressed and have my first day at school!  I hope the other kids like me.....

moving to Seoul!

Hello innernets, and welcome to my blog!  I think this means that I officially have a big ego.  :c)

I just moved to Seoul--as in, seven hours ago--so I thought I'd keep you lovely people updated on my life here.   I'll start by re-posting a facebook note I wrote a couple weeks ago that explains why I'm here.  Happy reading!






This is how the last couple weeks have looked like for me.

me: "la la la, when I leave for Korea, la la la blahdy blah"
everyone I know: "whatwhatwhat? Korea? for realsies??? when/where/why?"

Okay, so maybe I'm in the only person who really says "for realsies." Well, Margaret does too, but that doesn't count, seeing as how she and I have joint custody of a single vocabulary.

[Get to the point, Lori!!!] Anyway, so I'm going to Korea. Yes! I just got a job (um...last week? ish?) teaching English in Seoul--Gangnam, to be specific. (That's a neighborhood of Seoul; it means "south of the river." Guess where in Seoul it's located?) The plan is to teach there for a year, do something else somewhere abroad for another year, then return stateside for my Ph.D. after that. I'm still planning on pursuing clinical psych, which was always the plan; I just decided that if I was ever again going to take a big chunk of time to travel, now would be a good time. So off I go!

I don't know just yet when I'm leaving, but it sounds like it'll be a couple weeks. My visa documents (including my Wake Forest diploma...gulp) are currently somewhere over the Pacific; once my school gets them in a few days, it shouldn't be much longer before I've got a flight and an official departure date. I still have to interview at the Korean consulate in Atlanta, but everything else is pretty much worked out.

Y'all, I'm so excited! I'm already starting to learn the language (I can mostly read Korean letters now. Hi, I'm a rockstar.), and I've been learning about Korea and the teaching of English for about a year now. My wonderful and generous father ordered me the Rosetta Stone and a bunch of books about Korea for graduation, and yesterday I bought 2,000 stickers. (Hey, I'm gonna be teaching elementary school kids....a girl needs stickers.) Also, everyone has told me that deodorant is a precious commodity in Korea, so I'm thinking of bringing a 10-year supply and starting a black market among the expats in Seoul. If I get a corner on the deodorant market, I'm pretty sure I could finance at least a year's worth of weekend trips, don't you think? ;)

To be honest, my first choice was to teach middle schoolers or high schoolers; it just seemed like it would be easier and make for better QoL (that's "quality of life," for all you non-psychology kids). But then I saw a facebook album of the school's head teacher, Terry, and...oh lord, y'all. Those kids are so stinking adorable. If y'all know me at all, you know that I'm a sucker for cute little kids. Thus, because I am a creepy, stalking, picture-stealing type person, I will share some of Terry's pictures with y'all. Even though I haven't *technically* met the man. Hi, Terry! My name's Lori; I'm a creepy, stalking, picture-stealing type person!


Thanks to all of y'all who have been asking about me and my upcoming 7,000 mile, 13-time-zone jaunt. I'm excited, although it'll be sad leaving all of you lovely people so far behind! Thank Baby-Jesus-in-a-sombrero for that miracle called the aeroplane, because y'all need to come visit me. All of you. Maybe not all at once. But maybe so! Maybe y'all could charter a plane and come see me TOGETHER, and there would be love and adventure and sightseeing and danger and intrigue and spontaneous musical numbers.

Y'all get on that.