Holiday Season

I guess a really good New Year's resolution for me would to be more consistent with these blog posts... but I feel like that'd just be too hard for me!!!

Tree in Seoul

Since Christmas Eve, I've been enjoying a nice little vacation away from school. I started my break with a trip to Seoul. I went to a Christmas Service/Concert at church with Yuri. At first, I wasn't very excited for this event. Mostly because I was supposed to be on a bus to Iksan (about 3 hrs south of Incheon) to be at a Xmas gathering with some fellow English teachers, but also because the trip to Seoul that usually took 40 minutes, took over an hour and a half due to holiday traffic.  We even had to get off the bus early to jump on the subway in order to escape the snail-paced traffic, as well as the wails of a sick baby two rows behind me.  But eventually we got to the church and the service was more than worth the wait.  I really wish I had been smart enough to remember my camera that night. Seeing little 4 and 5 year old Korean children sing and dance to Christmas music was one of the most adorable things I've ever seen in my life. There was even an 8 year old girl who did a short magic show that would rival many adult-performed shows I've seen.

Korean Snow

The next day, I jumped on a bus to Iksan to meet up with my friends. I woke up at 6:00 AM to pack and catch the 8:30 bus in downtown Incheon. I got there a bit early, so I tried to sit down and rest a little, but I kept getting harassed by a pair of older men who turned out to be Jehovah Witnesses.  Finally my departure time rolled around, but something didn't seem right... After waiting until 8:40, an announcement was made (in Korean, of course) and I caught the word "Iksan" a couple of times.  Turns out, they decided to cancel the bus... and I had no clue why.  So I exchanged my ticket for the next available bus, which was cheaper than the first because the bus quality was lower.  Unfortunately, the next bus wasn't until 9:50.  Tired and cranky, I decided to walk up to the second floor to get breakfast at a Lotteria (similar to a McDonalds).  My mood didn't improve when I ordered in English and the lady behind the counter decided to serve 8 other people before me, even though I was second in line.

My awesome gift!

Eventually I made it on the bus and enjoyed a nice 3 hr nap.  I met up with my friends Grace, Mel, Toby, Carvelle, and Derek at a coffee shop. The details of the trip could get kind of boring, so here's a quick summary of what we did: We had a gift exchange (see picture for my awesome gift), went to a couple of bars, met up with another group of westerners, laughed at Grace and Toby (both from California) when it started to snow, played some games at Grace's house, and tried to sleep on Grace's hard, uncomfortable, freezing floor while the two girls slept soundly on the bed (and they woke up complaining that the bed was 'too soft').

At Clara's house

I traveled back to Incheon with Derek on Sunday morning. Since we were getting back kind of early, I decided to take Clara up on an offer to join her family for a Christmas dinner. I brought Derek with and we had an awesome time! Clara and her daughters cooked up a feast for us, with things like Korean steak, fried shrimp, fresh dinner rolls, dumplings, and salad. For dessert, we had a nice little blueberry cake to celebrate Jesus' birthday (something I know Dad would really appreciate).  After dinner, Derek and I went to a bar with Clara's daughters and taught them the wonderful game of Waterfall (better known in Houghton as Gogebic).

Birthday Boy

New Years wasn't anything special. Koreans get more excited over the Lunar New Year (sometime in February) so the celebrations last night weren't very extravagant. I'm sure things were different in Seoul, but after my Xmas Eve bus experience I really didn't want to endure another long bus ride. Last night was also Derek's birthday, so we got him a cake and sang happy birthday at one of the bars. Other than hitting up a few different places, nothing special really happened. I ended up crashing at Derek's place and playing some Black Ops. Not the most exciting night, but fun nonetheless.


I return to work on Wednesday to start prepping for my school's Winter English Camp. Believe it or not, I'm pretty excited to start working again. My co-teacher Mrs. Lee also promised to start giving me Korean lessons so I can pass off as a legitimate Korean!!!

They Come and Go

So this week has officially sucked... for some reason, people can't just stay put.

Obviously, my first thoughts go to the Orlando Magic.  For some reason, they decided that it was best to trade away four key players in order to revamp the roster, including my favorite, Rashard Lewis.  Granted, we picked up some pretty good players like Gilbert Arenas and (don't judge me for being happy about this) we got Hedo Turkoglu back.  But come on... things were going alright and our team was pretty solid.  They just needed a little bit of work.  Now the Magic need to spend the next couple of months working on team chemistry in order to have a fighting chance in the playoffs.

My next area of frustration actually makes sense.  I recently found out that two of my co-teachers, Sally and Clara, will be leaving our school in February.  Apparently, Korean public school teachers are on three year rotations and never stay at the same school for longer than that.  Sally and Clara have just completed their third years.  If I decide to stay in Korea for another year, then Yuri and Jin-sung's contracts will also expire.  Meaning, if I continue with my plan to stay here at least two years, none of my current friends from school will still be here.  Nice, eh?

I'm pretty bitter about all of this... but in the end, I guess it isn't that big of a deal.  It's not like I was going to spend the rest of my life here or anything like that.  I just wish these people would be able to stick around a little longer.  I've grown quite fond of them all and have even become slightly dependent on some of them.  I should be excited to meet my new co-teachers and make some new friends.  But in all honesty, I'd rather not.  I was just starting to feel comfortable here.  They just had to go and shake things up on me!!!

bah......

Are You Delicious?!?!

Hongdae (in Seoul)

Yesterday, I was invited out to lunch by one of my co-teachers, Clara. We met in Hongdae, which is a pretty popular place for young people in Seoul. Hongdae is a college area (more formally known as Hongik University).  The area is surrounded by restaurants, some shops, and an assortment of different bars and clubs. Since we got there early in the day, there weren't any drunks or any random shenanigans happening.

Far building is part of Hongik University

Clara came with her two daughters (pardon the crude way of writing their names... I'd show you in Korean, but I can't do the characters on my laptop): Seh-leen (close to Celine) who is 21 in Western age, and Seh-yun who is 19. For those of you who don't know, Koreans consider you 1 when born (so I'm 23 here, not 22). The have Christian names (Agnus and Rose, respectively) but I never used them since they didn't seem to fit.  Like most other Koreans who meet me, they were really shy to practice their English around me.  Having an English teacher for a mother, I knew they'd be better at it than most people their age, so I didn't quite believe their responses of "no, we don't know well" when I asked if they could speak the language.  As a teacher, I felt it was necessary to test their abilities throughout the day.

L to R: Seh-leen, Clara, Seh-yun

We started off by going to a cozy little restaurant on the outside of Hongdae. Not sure what the place was called, but it was kind of a dark, almost seafood restaurant-looking place with dark wooden floors, benches, and tables.  It would have been a slightly depressing place if it weren't for the wonderful space heater in the middle of the room and the cheerful Christmas music playing over the surround sound.  I had requested a place with kalbi (sort of like a roast beef) but the place didn't have it, so we settled for an excellent meal of bulgogi (sort of like BBQ beef). During my conversations with Clara's daughters, I busted out my driver's license, MTU ID, and ARC, all of which had pictures taken at different times over the past 4 years. The girls told me that I seemed to get younger over the years and even told me later in the day that I seemed younger than when we first met.  Not sure exactly how to take that...

The youngest, Seh-yun, was the first to become obsessed with talking to me. I think I got a full bite of food every five minutes due to either responding to her questions or laughing at her misuse of English. The best statement by far during the entire day was when she looked at me and said with a sincerely curious expression on her face, "Are you delicious???"  Before I could respond, Clara and her older daughter were bent over in laughter. For those of you who know me well, you know I responded with a Big D-like statement... "Why yes... yes I am" followed by a <wink, wink>.  She had meant to say, "IS IT delicious", referring to the bulgogi.  The conversation took another turn after we explained her error. She said, "Ok... really, ARE you delicious? I think so..."  I paused a moment to check Clara's response. I was relieved to see that she was laughing, yet again, rather than watching me for a potential inappropriate answer.

After our eventful lunch, we went for a coffee in a nearby coffee lounge. We all had coffee (the Korean word is just like 'copy') and slices of different cheesecakes. We spent a little over an hour there talking about random topics like guns and hunting in America, my family, and the American perspective of people who constantly play computer games (apparently the Asian stereotype is true... almost all of them love computer and video games).

After that, we headed towards Insadong, a very popular place in Seoul for foreigners. Along the way, Clara asked if I had ever been to a fortune teller. I said no, and she insisted that I try it out. It was quite an experience, so here's a rundown of the most interesting revelations of my life:

My fortune teller and me.

- I am a proud, shy, and delicate perfectionist, who is an entertainer and natural leader.
- I will get married after the age of 32 (God, I hope not...)
- I need to take care of my liver and bones (there goes my drinking plans for the evening).
- I will live to be 91 years old (I didn't ask if that meant Korean or Western age...)
- The best match for a partner will be an older girl (Seh-leen was my translator, and quickly tried to convince me that that was a mistake and a younger girl would be fine...)
- The best months for me to date are January (YES!) and October.
- I will be rich at the age of 32 and will never lose my fortune. 

Obviously, I don't believe anything that was said to me, but I do have my hopes for some of those things...

Korean art in Insadong

We went from there to Insadong and checked out a bunch of shops with traditional Korean art and souvenirs. We even went into a shop that bought and sold old collectibles from all around the world. My family can appreciate my excitement when I saw an old model of the Ecto-1. Some of the other things in that shop were really bizarre. For example, Clara handed me a really ratty and worn magazine that looked like an old Korean Cosmo. "Korean..... Playboy... or Penthouse", she explained. I was hesitant to flip through it, but curiosity got the best of me. At first, I was amazed to see that it was less revealing than a Victoria's Secret catalog, but it quickly made sense to me, seeing how conservative Korea is compared to the US.

Ecto-1!!!

We ended the day by going to a fried chicken restaurant and jumping on the subway together. At this point, I had almost completely stopped talking since both of Clara's daughters had reached the point of comfort where they could say pretty much anything they wanted to in English. They said they hoped to hang out with me again sometime soon. Clara jumped in, " maybe we can take him out to dinner in Bucheon... somewhere delicious." 

Tale of the Lost Notebook

Here's a pretty interesting story that happened today. If you check my Facebook, then you already have the general rundown of what happened. But I figured it was worth explaining in full detail, so here goes. Just to warn you, this might be a "you had to be there" kind of story...

To start out, you need to know that I carry around a blue notebook everyday at school. It's where I keep all my lesson plans and outlines. I usually don't plan too far ahead into the week, but the notebook still comes in handy so I don't forget things when I first teach a lesson.  So it's basically my crutch/lifeline that keeps me from winging every lesson.  Today I had my 4th grade classes. I usually pick up on the routine really early in these classes, since most of the work we do involves step-by-step instruction from the text book.  In other words, I don't need my notebook for very long, if at all.  My first two classes are in one of the English classrooms, but my third and fourth classes are in the actual homerooms (so I go there to teach).

I'll try to cut this down a bit to keep from boring you... When I finished my third class, I returned to my office for a 5 minute break. I then walked down to my fourth class to teach my last class before lunch. It was there that I realized I had forgotten my notebook. No big deal, I wasn't really using it much anyway. I realized that I either forgot it in my office, or in the last classroom.  Before lunch, I checked both rooms and it was nowhere to be found. I wasn't panicking over this, since it was a basically a notebook with pages of past lesson plans. But then I told my co-teachers that I couldn't find it... and this is where it gets interesting.

My head co-teacher, Sally, instantly starts to worry. "Did you check all the rooms?! Where did you have it last?? Have you asked the other teachers where it could be??? You had better send a message to all the teachers to help you find it!"

"Ok......" I responded. So I typed out a message in our school's messenger system. Sally made it so it would go out to all the teachers in the school. But before sending it, she retyped my whole message in Korean. At this point, I'm really starting to wonder why this whole thing is such a big deal. Before I could say anything, Sally sent the message. And instantly... she said something under her breath in Korean. "Ohh... I meant to send it to the teachers in the school..." she started. "But... I think I sent it to the Principal and Vice Principal too."  So I'm thinking... "oh wonderful"... now my two bosses are going to see how dumb and careless I am. Fortunately, it was just a notebook. No biggie.  Sally went into one of the other classrooms and I killed some time during my break.

About ten minutes later, Sally comes in with a strange smile on her face. "Your 'notebook'... did you mean, a paper notebook?"  I answered, "yeeaaahhhh....".  Sally covered her face and said, "I told the whole school that you lost your LAPTOP!"  Apparently... 'notebook' is the Konglish (Korean-English) term for a laptop computer. Suddenly, the reason for Sally and my other co-teachers' concern over my lost notebook became very clear. And I'm thinking, "Ok... now the whole school thinks I lost my computer... including the Principal".

Almost immediately after making this realization, my other co-teacher, Clara, walked into her classroom (the first room I taught in today) and yelled, "MAAARRRKKK!!! COME HERE!!"  As soon as I heard her voice, I remembered that I had left it underneath the TV in the classroom...

To make things even better, I had to go down to the Vice Principal's office to get him to sign a paper for training I have next week. When I went there, he seemed very concerned (but can't speak much English) and kept saying something that sounded like "notebook".  I just nodded and said "yes sir" and I think he got the picture that the situation had been resolved.  For the rest of the day, I had about 5 or 6 other teachers walk up to me and ask me about my notebook.  My friend, Jin-sung, told me it was best just to tell them that I had found it. If everyone found out that I had them in a panic over my lost "paper notebook" then I probably wouldn't have too many fans among the school faculty.

So yeah... today was a fun day. I think I'll bring my laptop into school tomorrow, just so people see that I "found it".

A Little More of Gyeyang Mountain....

Again, let me start by apologizing for not posting in a REALLY long time! But this time, I have a special treat for you guys. Instead of making you read a boring explanation of my really cool adventures, I figured I'd share a short video with you! This is from when I went to Gyeyang Mountain with Yuri. I'm sorry it's so short, but after about an hour of frustration and saying really bad words to the video uploader, I found out any video I post has to be smaller than 100MB (about a minute). I could have just put it up in pieces, but it wouldn't have looked as nice. So it's really short, and you might need to watch it a couple of times to catch the details.
In the first section, I'm on an old helipad from when the mountain was used in the Korean war. I eventually zoom in on a small town (you might not be able to hear me explain) which is Wondang, the place where I live. I pan over to another place on the right, which is Seoul (you barely get to see it before it transitions to the second part).

The second section is just a view from the very top of the mountain, showing you all the people and little "shops" they have up there.

The third and final section is a better view from the top (again, cut short), along with a little message from Yuri, to my parents.

Another apology for the poor quality... it looks much better on my computer. 

ENJOY!!!