Fourteen Hours Away

Cambodia

2010-03-30T14:10:00.008+09:00

A few days--15 days--let's not mince words here; I've been busy! Anyway, let's get back to this blogging thing with the rest of my trip to SE Asia.

Cambodia was, without a doubt, my favorite country we visited. And I don't think I'm being presumptuous when I say that my traveling buddies feel the same way. There was something truly, genuinely charming about Cambodian people. And it wasn't just because we were in the tourist-friendly Siem Reap for most of it. People were kind and fun-loving everywhere we went. This is mostly remarkable because of how recently this country has been completely ravaged by civil war. It's estimated that the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge killed 1/5 of the population of Cambodia, or about 1.5 million people, though some claim the death toll is closer to 2.5 million.

Though Cambodia is currently seeing a renaissance of sorts with tourism booming and Phnom Penh looking more and more like any of the world's culture and business centers, you still cannot find a single person who did not have at least one parent, sibling, uncle, aunt, grandparent, cousin, or friend who was killed by the Khmer Rouge. I harp on this point to show what a grand spirit the people of this little country have. They are happy, outgoing, friendly, and proud in the face of so much tragedy.

One of our first experiences in the country was checking into our hotel in Siem Reap, the small but luxurious Hotel 89, which had been highly recommended to us by an Australian couple in Vietnam. Hidden down a back alley just outside of downtown was this little gem of Cambodian hospitality, with a staff who all spoke English and rushed to our aid whenever we needed--quite literally--anything. Any time we came in from the heat after marching around town, they were ready with glasses of water or lemonade and cool towels.

The lobby and front desk clerk of Hotel 89.

They were so nice, in fact, that when Andrew left our bus tickets to Thailand in the hotel room on our way out, one of the staff members hopped on his moped and drove the 15 minute journey to our pickup spot to deliver them before our bus came. Service like this in Cambodia costs $19 per night.

So by now I'm sure all of you are wondering the same thing--"Enough about this hospitality crap--what about Ankor Wat?!"

In a word--spectacular. What is there to say about buildings as magnificent and ancient as these that have seen so much history? Since I can't accurately describe their history or grandeur myself, I'll let the few pictures I have speak for themselves.

You should have seen what this temple was like BEFORE I got there!

Ankor Thom--one of Ankor's more gorgeous and intricate temples.

Katie, terrifyingly climbing down the steps to the top of Ankor Wat, which had been closed for repairs since October of 2007. It opened up again the week before we got there.

The magnificent corridors of Ankor Wat.

Still recovering from a bad bout of bronchitis, I thought that the second image down on the right in this picture was telling me I couldn't cough in Ankor Wat. It was a rough hour or so before I figured it out.

The rest of Siem Reap was magnificent. It was a European city uprooted and transplanted into the middle of Cambodia. You could see heavy French influence in everything from the architecture to the way the cafes and bars all open their doors and spill out into the street in the evening. And we did visit the Red Piano, where Angelina Jolie hung out during the filming of Tomb Raider at Ankor Wat. I drank a "Tomb Raider," their signature cocktail.

We rode around town in tuk-tuks, moped powered carriages with very knowledgeable and friendly (but pushy) drivers.

Aside from ravaging the town, enjoying absolutely fantastic food, and temple hopping at Ankor, we visited an authentic silk farm just outside of town where we were given a guided tour of the process from raising the worms to the final finished, dyed, and weaved product.

When all was said and done, I never wanted to leave that place. I could have spent another week, month, or year there exploring every nook and cranny of the country. If the people we met in our 4 days left such a great impression, I can only imagine how a little more time there would affect me.

Though I don't want to spend my entire life going back to the same places I've already been over and over, I don't think I can resist another trip back to Cambodia some day.

And the tuk-tuk rides are pretty fun.

Returning Soon...

2010-03-15T09:17:00.002+09:00

Come back here in the next few days for the glorious relaunching of my blog. Yes, I will finish up the trip to SE Asia, then move onto the start of my second year in Korea.

Prepare yourself for Blogfest 2010!

For more Blogfest, visit anythingbutsquid.blogspot.com

Vietnam

2010-02-09T10:51:00.020+09:00

On January 16th, Sara, Katie, Andrew and I flew into Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Saigon was definitely the right place to start off a vacation. The pictures above are a perfect example of where Saigon is today: at a crossroads between troubled and ancient past and an increasingly modern future.

Bustling markets, tropical parks, and literally a billion motorbikes are what make up the once ravaged capital of southern Vietnam. Though remnants of the war still remain in the form of crushed sidewalks and occasional victims of agent orange begging for change, much of Saigon has been transformed into a modern-day metropolis. Buildings skyrocket out of the landscape, sometimes obtrusively as they dwarf everything else around them. And there is as much a focus on tourism as any other business in the city. It is a juxtaposition of old and new, forced to meet each other halfway. And it's quite charming.
Above: the new Saigon Opera House. Below: a beautiful tropical park near our hotel.
On our first day, we walked around the downtown area, found the biggest (and most touristy) market in town, and had drinks in a rooftop lounge overlooking the rest of the city. We had planned to merely start our trip here, but Saigon wouldn't let us leave without experiencing a good deal more.

On day two, we took bucket-seat bikes for two to China town (where I ate KFC). Andrew and Katie's driver hooked us into the ride by handing us a handwritten letter dated some time in 2000 from a very satisfied former customer from California. He handed it to us when we told him we were from America, as if maybe we somehow knew the mysterious letter's author.
Then we headed to the Saigon Institute for the Blind where a visually disabled masseuse gave me the worst massage of my life. But he was a super-nice guy, and the room was air conditioned, regardless of the fact that it looked like one of the rooms from the movie Hostel. Here is my masseuse:

We also sampled the local cuisine: (OK, I didn't really eat the monkey brains)

And traveled to Saigon's Notre Dame:

And the War Remnants Museum (also known as the "Museum of American War Crimes").

Inside the museum, where I dared not take pictures, were thousands of pictures of burned, mutilated bodies and agent orange victims from the past and present and hundreds of examples of Vietnam-era weapons from both sides. The focus of the museum was most certainly the hideous, grotesque, torturous war waged by the blood-hungry American capitalist pigs. Ironic, as Americans seemed to make up quite a large portion of their ticket sales, and Americans are actually treated quite well around the city.

WHEW! I'm tired just thinking about that day again. We also went back to the market, ate dinner and half coffee downtown, and got ANOTHER massage at a hotel to end our evening. The second massage was much improved over the first, and we ended our stay in Saigon feeling relaxed and ready for the road ahead.

Up the Mekong

The next morning, we hopped on a prearranged bus that took us to a Mekong Delta tour boat. It was a great deal (about 20 bucks a person) until the ticket seller ripped off Katie big time. Katie wanted to pay in Vietnamese currency, and since we hadn't quite gotten a handle on the exchange rate, we thought nothing of it when the woman asked for over 800,000. In the end, we all split the difference and the trip went on unscathed.

Our Mekong tour, which was made up of about 16 different modes of transportation, was supposed to wind up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the next day. In the meantime, we got a great taste of local Vietnamese life by visiting a coconut candy factory where the show you the process from coconut to finished candy in about 6 steps.

That night we stayed in a very run-down hotel because the hotel booked for the tour had no room for us. Everything was very well organized. The next morning, we were told by the hotel manager to explore the town we were in and come back to the hotel at 9:00 to join with our tour. We took the opportunity to have a photo shoot by the Mekong.Unfortunately, upon our return at 8:45, we were told that our tour group left over an hour ago and the hotel manager had us confused with another group of young tourists. We were put in a taxi that rushed us away to a private boat which sped us back up to our tour group, who we finally discovered eating pineapple in a floating market.

When we finally found them, the woman on the right, in the blue shirt, told us that the pineapple was so good that "it drips into your heart." I hope she doesn't mind that we took that phrase and ran with it for the next two weeks.

The floating market was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. I still don't know if it was a place where actual Vietnamese people come to shop for food, or merely a bunch of people hired by tour agencies for river tours such as ours, but either way it was beautiful and fascinating.

After we were finished with the market, we hopped back into the boat, where the median age was about 65 (brought down significantly by the four of us). How many white heads can you count?

Below: ships in Vietnam all have eyes painted on the front, in order to scare away sea monsters.

We were then shuttled to a rice noodle factory where we saw people making the noodles the same way they have for centuries. It made me feel good to be there because it was the first place we'd been where there was nothing to buy, and I knew that it was an authentic small business.

We ended our day in another market, where we found out that our guide had absolutely no idea that we were supposed to be headed to Cambodia. After a few phone calls and a little extra cash, he had us on a bus to Chau Doc, where we were hoping to finally cross into Cambodia a day late.

The next day on the way to Chau Doc, our bus accidentally took down a low-hanging banner. The bus driver and tour guide were a bit upset, but we on the bus were just amused. Once we finally got going again we made our first pit-stop at a crocodile farm, where we were reminded of some simple facts of life, such as:

After that short pit-stop, we were headed again to the border crossing. We got into town quite late, and only had enough daylight to go to a temple on the town's single, solitary mountain. From the west patio of the temple, we were able to see our goal in the distance. The mountains you see in this far off, left-hand side of this picture are Cambodia, the town below is part of Chau Doc:Chau Doc is little more than a border town, with not much tourism to speak of. But what we did find there was something that is essential on every vacation: travel buddies. The bus from our Mekong Delta tour to Chau Doc was filled with a whole new group, and we hit it off with them spectacularly that evening.

From left to right is Creepy Guy from Vietnam, Ana from Japan, Sara, Me, Katie, Nills from the Netherlands, Andrew, and Charlotte and Jay from England. (I can't remember the Vietnamese guy's name, but he kept trying to hit on Ana the entire time.)

They were a wonderful group, and after dinner we went on a mission to find Chau Doc's only open bar. And we succeeded in our mission. Katie and Sara especially enjoyed themselves.After keeping the bar open for several hours later than the bar staff probably wanted to, we all strolled (stumbled?) back to our hotel, and pounded on the front gate for the sleeping clerk to let us in. It was a night I will not soon forget.

Above, from left to right: Sara, Charlotte, Jay, Andrew, Katie, Nills, Ana.

Vietnam was almost lost on us. We had few plans there, and didn't know what we wanted to see, but we found a nation brimming with spirit and life, and some new friends to share the experience with. And though we left Jay, Charlotte, Ana and Nills in Vietnam that last night, Sara and I were lucky to be able to go on to Cambodia with the two best travel friends of all.

Come back in a few days for tales from Cambodia!

Scenes from Saigon

2010-01-18T03:08:00.004+09:00

Over the next two weeks, while Sara and I are on vacation with our friends Andrew and Katie in southeast Asia, I'll only be posting small updates of our travels. Usually it will only be a picture or two. When we're back, I'll post updates on the entire trip. Today--we're in Saigon:
The view from our hotel.A barge on the Saigon River.
Dinner!

Tomorrow: the Mekong Delta.

In Korea, The Snow Also Falls

2010-01-06T09:41:00.008+09:00

On Monday, after months of suffering through useless cold, snow finally began to fall on my little Korean home. The kids nearly jumped out of their seats at the site of the big flakes falling from the sky. I've never seen people react so positively to a big snowfall. It was refreshing to be in a place where people love the snow, like Sara and I do.
Here you can see the snow falling down on the river. Save for a few trees and a wet ending, the mountain in the background looks like a great ski hill.

The snow-covered evergreens reminded me of Colorado. When I took this picture, it felt like I was driving into Winter Park or Breckenridge.

Snow falls so rarely in Andong that even the gas station attendants were excited. This little guy is wearing an SK Oil cap.

The next day, even though the snow stopped falling around 5:30 on Monday, my school declared a snow day.

To see a glimpse of Christmas in Andong, come back a little later.^^

New Books

2009-12-21T15:49:00.005+09:00

Recently, here at Dongbu Elementary School, my co-teacher and I were given a stipend with which to buy some materials for the English classroom. On the top of both of our lists was books. So we ordered a collection of traditional western and Korean fairy tales written in English, with accompanying animated DVDs. While the western books were familiar titles to me (Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.), the Korean books were, for me, a little peek into the childhood of Koreans.

I was intrigued by titles such as "Rabbit's Liver," "Return Kindness, Toad," and "Golden Dung Cat." But still one book aroused my interest above all the others.

And so, without further ado, I'd like to share with you one of my new favorite Korean traditional stories:

Thunder Farting Daughter-in-Law

A long time ago, there lived a good hearted daughter-in-law. But as time went by, she got so lean. Mr. Kim worried, and asked, "Are you okay? Are you sick?"

His daughter-in-law's face turned red and answered, "I've never farted. That's why." Her father-in-law listened and laughed.

"Baby, just fart!"

"My fart is so strong," she said. "So father, hold on tightly to the door handle."

Mr. Kim held it like his daughter-in-law said.

'Pop, Pop, Pop' it was like thunder! Alarmed, Mr. Kim got angry and drove her out. The daughter-in-law met nine silk traders under the persimmon trees. The silk traders wanted to eat the delicious persimmons. But they were too high in the tree, so they could not pick them. The daughter-in-law said she would pick the fruit for them.

"If you pick the persimmon, I'll give you all the silk and donkeys," one silk trader said.

"OK."

The daughter-in-law farted as hard as she could under the persimmon tree.

"Plop"

The sound of the fart made the fruit fall down. The daughter-in-law got silk and donkeys. Her husband had followed her and saw the whole thing.

"The ability to fart like thunder is so useful! Let's go home together," he said.

Mr. Kim listened to the story and danced with joy.

"My daughter-in-law's fart is the gold!"

The End

Ping Pong

2009-12-08T15:48:00.007+09:00

For the past two weeks, Dongbu Elementary School students in grades 4-6 have been involved in an epic ping pong battle royale.

Mr. Choi, explaining the delicate nature of the competition.Split into two divisions (boys and girls) students initially took on their own classmates, but the championship round will pit the two best of each gender against each other, regardless of grade.
Mr. Choi, my main co-teacher and Korean best friend, explains how to kick some ping pong butt!

This week marks the lead up to the final round, and every student at Dongbu is gritting their teeth in anticipation. "WHO WILL WIN?" I hear them muttering at lunch. For you see--the winners walk away with a 10,000 won gift certificate that can be used at a variety of online vendors as well as brick and mortar book stores.As is the way of things--to the victor go the spoils. And for the defeated, only humiliation, isolation, and ridicule await.

I'm not kidding--my kids are really taking it THIS seriously.

Here's a video of the end of one of the matches: >.<
The kid swinging the broom around was charged with the task of keeping people from getting too close to the action, which he took to mean "swat at 4th graders as much as you can."

May the best ping ponger win!

A Student Letter

2009-12-08T15:28:00.004+09:00

Today as I was walking through the halls of Youngnam Elemetnary School on my way to my 3rd hour class, I was stopped by the same little 3rd grade girl who used to resist leaving my classroom until she could tell me, "Teacher, I love you!" and give me a great big hug. She was awestruck for a moment, but then reached out her hands to present me with a handmade envelope, complete with pencil drawn arrow in case I didn't know how to open this strange device.
I told her (in Korean) that I was on my way to a class and couldn't open it just then. She said, "Ok!" and ran down the hall with a smile. But as soon as I got into my next class and started the movie we were watching today, I opened it up as carefully as I could to preserve her sticker-sealing system. Inside was a simple, but endearing note:Thank you, Young-eun!

Thanksgiving Day

2009-12-01T13:55:00.005+09:00

Though I have no photographic or video evidence of it, on Saturday night foreigners from Andong and the surrounding area gathered for a feast of such epic proportions (and portions) that it must have rivaled that of the earliest Thanksgiving dinners. Our friend Alissa, who was blessed with a cavernous, ground-floor apartment, offered her place up to us as a venue. I never thought we would be able to pack 19 people comfortably into one of our tiny Asian apartments, but we did it!

The guest list included almost every EPIK teacher in Andong, plus a hagwon (private English school teacher), and a few EPIKers from out of town. We also had a Brit and an Aussie to share our day with, which marked both of their first Thanksgivings.

Though I had some early fear that the meal would not sufficiently feed the massive turnout, the menu wound up being bountiful and delicious:

-Fresh tossed salad
-Deviled eggs
-Cheese and crackers
-6 Rotisserie chickens (Turkey is a little expensive/difficult to cook here)
-10 lbs of mashed potatoes and gravy
-Turkey gravy and mushroom and onion gravy
-Twice baked potatoes
-Sauteed zucchini and almonds
-Cinnamon and sugar apples
-StoveTop Stuffing
-Dinner rolls
-Fruit Salad
-Wine
-Steamed broccoli with cheese
-Pumpkin pie
-Pumpkin casserole

It was absolutely a meal fit for kings.

I can't say enough how thankful I am not only for a good job and many great experiences here, but also that I can share it all with so many great friends. Cheers to the Andong crew for making Thanksgiving feel absolutely authentic and reminding me of one of the reasons why I decided to stay for another year.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

Hand Turkeys

2009-11-23T16:32:00.003+09:00

Bringing Thanksgiving Day to Korea...
...one hand turkey at a time.

Visit Korea Year

2009-11-19T13:29:00.005+09:00

Since Sara and I arrived in this strange country we now call home, I've been seeing advertisements for "Visit Korea Year." On November 11th, the government finally kicked off the big celebration and began to pump this image into every major outlet they could reach:
Study it for a moment.

Mm hmmm....

You see it too, don't you?

It doesn't take much!

2010-2012?!

Uh, pardon me, but WHAT? The last time I checked, 2010-2012 was 2 years (or 3, depending on how you interpret the dash). Did I miss a major shift in the practice of how the world counts years? Korea launches a multimillion dollar campaign to encourage foreign (mostly English-speaking) tourists to finally shell out a few thousand bucks and take that vacation to Korea they've been planning since they were little, and the phrase its based on is a glaring mathematical and linguistic error.

I'm sure someone out there has a good explanation for this, but I have yet to hear it. It may have something to do with the lunar calendar (which Koreans follow for many of the dates and events in their daily lives), but the fact of the matter is that the Western world (which they're appealing to) doesn't.

Personally, I think this is just another example of Korea running at full speed to English-ize their country, only to fall flat on their face a quarter of a lap to the finish line. How can a country that spends more money per capita on English Education than any other nation in the world make SUCH a glaring error in this huge multinational campaign? If they're willing to dish out those kinds of bucks, I would gladly take a slice of the pie for the 6.4 seconds it would have taken me to let them know that there's a tiny oversight in their approach.

Alas...I still hope you all come visit Korea during the 24(36?) month year of 2010-2012. There are many great things to experience regardless of how they're publicized.

할로윈

2009-11-10T15:32:00.005+09:00

I refused to let my first Halloween outside of American get dampened simply because I was in a culture that doesn't celebrate it. So I did what any good, Halloween-loving American would have done in my situation--I forced Halloween on my students in an attempt to brainwash them into believing it's the greatest holiday ever.

The students (and, surprisingly, the teachers) were actually fine with my little plan. They were fascinated by this strange holiday where we "dress up like monsters and beg for candy." And so, I promised my students an entire month of Halloween activities. We started slow, by watching a scary movie (The Others) and worked our way up to the arts and crafts. I focused on Halloween during my after school English programs each Monday and Saturday. For the first two weeks of the month we watched The Others and learned about scary movies. The next week we made pumpkins out of strips of paper, thanks to a brilliant idea I found online for mess-free pumpkin carving. I was NOT about to risk the money, time, or mess of having thirty 10-year olds carve pumpkins in my classroom.

At Youngnam, I had the 1st and 2nd graders make pumpkins out of balloons, another clean Jack-o-Lantern method, and then taught them terms about fall and Halloween.
And of course, no Halloween would be complete without trick-or-treating. I told my students to visit me (any time except during a class) on Friday, October 30th and say "Trick or treat!" Weren't they surprised, then, when I wasn't there on the 30th because I found out on the 29th that I would be going to Seoul with the rest of the EPIK teachers in Gyeongbuk. When I returned on Monday, the students were not happy with me. So I promised them that if they came back on Wednesday, I would have their candy. Well--I forgot about it on Wednesday. So I pushed it to Thursday. And FINALLY, on November 5th, my students had their candy. Luckily, since Halloween is nearly meaningless here, they didn't mind the tardiness too much. They cared much more about the results than the practice of getting them.

And so my crusade is put on hold until next October, when I will continue bringing Halloween to conservative Korea--one school kid at a time.

Weddings!

2009-11-09T10:19:00.004+09:00

Congratulations to my cousin Chris and his new wife, Abby, who were married yesterday.I wish I could have been there!

Hanguk Wedding Day

2009-11-03T15:21:00.010+09:00

After jealously listening to many of our friends discuss their trips to Korean Wedding ceremonies, Sara and I were finally invited to one in October. My friend and co-teacher Kim Missuc married her long-time boyfriend on Saturday, October 24th. At first, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to make the wedding for a number of factors. We both had to get up at 7 to teach an English camp from 9:00-12:00 on the Saturday of the wedding, and had to be back Andong by 5 for a triple birthday party featuring Alice, Katie, and Andrew. To add to those troubles, the wedding was to held in a small town called Bonghwa about an hour north of Andong and Sara and I are transportationless.

But of course Koreans would never let things like that stand in the way, and Missuc had lined up a bus from Andong to Bonghwa to send in her friends and family who didn't feel like making the trek on their own. So after literally running to a taxi and speeding home, Sara and I changed our clothes from English camp garb to wedding fare in approximately .73 seconds. We then hopped in another cab to make sure we got to City Hall (the pickup point) by 11:30, when the bus was scheduled to leave. We got there at 11:29, and knew that the day would be OK.

The bus was not quite as "Koreans Gone Wild" as I had imagined a wedding bus to be, but we were handed free snacks, including beer, on the way. It was obvious that Sara and I were quite the spectacle, as people craned their necks and whispered to their seat-mates upon spying our pasty white skin. This led to extreme anxiety for me, as the last thing I wanted to do was take attention away from my friend on her wedding day.

When we arrived, we followed the crowd (all we could do, really) into a sort-of run down building. But on the fourth floor was a rather cute and modern wedding hall.We must have looked lost and fore lorn, because a delicate older woman in a hanbok grabbed us and led us the line where we would turn in our envelope filled with 30,000 won, the standard wedding gift here. We were then ushered into a small room where Missuc sat, glowingly beautiful, in front of a bank of photographers.

Except something was different. She wasn't the quirky, silly, talkative girl I teach with. She was a bride, suddenly elegant and proper. And when she waved us in to say hello and take a picture, we were immediately mobbed with a dozen people taking pictures of Missuc and her foreign friends. I handed my camera to the professional photographer there, but this was the best picture he could take with my point-and-shoot:

When we were finally able to leave the barrage of flashes and whispers, we nestled quietly into the back of the wedding hall to await the ceremony. As there weren't enough chairs for everyone, we took it upon ourselves to stand. When Sara and I turned around, we realized that 10 members of what looked like special ops were standing behind us.

We never really got a clear explanation for why they were there, but we figured it had something to do with Missuc's hubby's army days. The ceremony started soon after.To the dismay of many people, I'm sure, I am not going to go into great detail about the ceremony itself. For one, it was almost identical in many ways to an American wedding, except that many of the elements that would be held during the reception at home are done during the ceremony here. The bouquet was thrown, speeches given, and mothers honored, all during the 30 minute ceremony. In case you're wondering, they did NOT kiss during this ceremony, but I don't know if that's standard in Korea or not.

I will go into detail about the end of the ceremony, which was both hilarious and interesting. On their way out, Missuc and her new husband were stopped by each pair of guards they passed.Each pair chanted a command at them that they had to complete before they could move on. It started small, with hugs and kisses on the forehead. But my favorite was when both the bride and groom had to take one of the groom's shoes and head to the opposite family to beg for money. The person who gathered more money was the winner. I'm not sure who won, but I would bet it was Missuc. That girl's got charisma.

After this, there were about 20 minutes of pictures of all sorts, several of which Sara and I were invited to participate in.If I can get my hands on one of the professional pictures, I will surely post it.

After this was, of course, the buffet lunch. We headed upstairs to find a GIANT hall filled with tables, food, soju, beer, and hungry guests.Sara and I each filled a plate and headed to a corner where we wouldn't be as obviously noticed. Unlike American weddings, there was no dancing, no DJ, and no hoopla during this portion of the afternoon. It was simple lunch, and then the wedding was officially over. The wedding started at 1, and by 3 o'clock Sara and I were gearing up to head back home.

Afraid we would not make it back to Andong in time for our birthday party, we decided to buy a ticket for the intercity bus, rather than wait for Missuc's wedding bus to leave. Much to our dismay, I got a call from Missuc about 10 minutes after we bought our tickets (and 40 minutes before the bus left) that her private bus was leaving soon, and we were invited on it. Since we had already bought our tickets we decided to just go on the intercity bus. We walked around the town of Bonghwa for a few minutes (which was all it took to see most of this tiny villa in the countryside), then headed back to the bus terminal.

We immediately spied our bus (with Andong written on the front) and boarded, even though it wasn't leaving for about 15 minutes. I showed our tickets to the driver, who waved us back, and then immediately started backing out.

Oh.

Shit.

Yep--you guessed it--wrong bus. About 10 minutes in, a nice woman asked us where we were going and we told her Andong. She smiled politely and told us that we were not going to Andong. After a brief panic attack, we learned that we were headed to Chunyang, a town even smaller than Bonghwa and another 30 minutes north. Sara and I briefly butted heads as she was feeling sick and I was pissed off, but then made a joke or two and made the best of a bad (or at least inconvenient) situation. We walked around and discovered a surprisingly charming little town nestled in the Korean hillside.The next bus to Andong didn't leave for almost two hours, so we had no choice but to look around a bit.In addition to a peaceful setting in the mountains, Chunyang also had an oddly placed, brand new walking bridge complete with artsy tree sculptures.It also had a market that went on for days, considering the size of the town.And once we had gotten our fill of Chunyang, we headed back to the bus terminal, had a quick photo shoot with some middle school girls, and headed back onto the same bus that had led us astray in the first place to go back to Andong once-and-for-all. We pulled into Andong with just enough time to run to meet our friends for their party. And as a long day stretched into a long night, Sara and I partied hardy with our friends--all while dressed in a full suit and dress.

And the leaves that are green...

2009-10-29T13:25:00.005+09:00

This weekend I will have a few more extensive updates for you, but for now I wanted to show how rapidly the colors are changing here in Korea. This is the view from my classroom windows last week.
And this week.You can click the images for more detail. Fall is certainly beautiful when you're surrounded by mountains of trees!

Visiting the Capital of the Silla Kingdom

2009-10-20T15:11:00.012+09:00

Long before there was Korea there were three different kingdoms in the region that the North and South Koreans now call home: The Goguryeo to the north, the Baekje to the southwest, and the Silla (pronounced she-lah), which existed from 57 BC - 935 AD, in the middle. Lucky for us, the capital of the Silla, Gyeongju, is a thriving city about 2 hours away from Andong. Even luckier, Sara and I were sent there for a conference on co-teaching last weekend. And I will never turn down a some-expenses-paid vacation.

The conference was fun, but nothing special. It was very similar to orientation in many ways, except that I was able to be there with my co-teacher, which was more fun than helpful. It's good to teach with someone you can call your friend, and not just a colleague. For more details on the conference itself, see Sara's blog (anythingbutsquid.blogspot.com). The conference itself lasted a mere day and a half until Friday afternoon, so Sara and I, along with our good friend Katie, decided to stay in Gyeongju for the remainder of the weekend.

Everything in Korea is old, but Gyeongju is really old. And it's obvious. But it certainly hasn't escaped modernization. For example, outside of our conference hotel room was a view of the stunning Gyeongju Tower, an observation tower in the middle of the Gyeongju Cultural Expo Center.

Though we didn't get to go up in it this time around, it was still cool to see.

While downtown Gyeongju looks basically like every other city in Korea, the one thing that is stunningly unique about this place is the mounds. Oh boy do they have mounds.And mounds.Mounds and mounds of mounds.

What are these oddly shaped hills you say? They are the tombs of literally hundreds of Silla Kingdom kings, queens, and dignitaries. And they were EVERYWHERE. You could not turn a corner in Gyeongju without stumbling head over heals into a giant heap of tombs. Some are more culturally important than others, but they are all equally impressive. What's more, it was all me, Sara, and our friend Katie (pictured above) could do to not run up them and roll down like giddy 4th graders.

Aside from the mounds of kings, there were also mounds with trees.Mounds you could go in.
And mounds you couldn't.
The ones above are the tombs of the founder and first king of the Silla Kingdom as well as the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th kings of the Silla Kingdom. No word on where the 4th king ended up, but in Korea, if they don't talk about it, it can't be pretty.

After Sara, Katie and I were finished investigating all of the tombs, our friend Andrew showed up and we all rented bikes, a popular way to travel around Gyeongju.Our first stop was to Gyeongju's national museum, which was small and unimpressive, but entrance was free so I can't complain. The buildings were certainly cool.
It was also fully equipped for the handicapped, old, and WEAK. I was pretty tired from all that biking. Does that count?After that we stopped off at Anapji pond, which is a man made pond formerly used as a leisure spot by the Silla royalty. Like nearly every important, historical, and beautiful building in Korea, most of the buildings there were destroyed long ago by numerous invasions by the Japanese.
After a long day of biking, we sampled one of the other fine things Gyeongju has going for it.You can sit at home and talk about how you could live without McDonald's all you want, but spend 7 months of your life without a hint of authentic western food, let alone a decent cheeseburger, and then we'll talk. I had McDonald's 3 times in the span of two days, and I don't regret it one bit. My only regret is that we didn't get to visit the Gyeongju KFC.

On our last day in town, Andrew, Katie, Sara and I decided to trek out to the must-not-miss Bulkuksa Temple and Seokguram. The former is considered the No. 1 historical and scenic site in Korea by the Korean government. It was certainly beautiful and scenic, but it was also marred by more tourists than I've seen anywhere in Korea.
The temple wasn't terribly different from many others I've seen before, including in Andong, but it was nestled nicely into a mountain, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. And while there were a lot of people (including screaming children) it was still a peaceful and beautiful place to spend the afternoon.
It was especially nice to see it in the fall, since all of the leaves in Korea are now bursting into full color.
Our last stop, Seokguram, is a very old Buddhist grotto which contains an enormous statue of Buddha built into the mountain. Built in the 8th century, it has stood the test of time and now stands as a great monument to Buddhist culture in Korea and around the world. Since we aren't allowed to take pictures of the actual Buddha, I am borrowing this picture from Wikipedia to give you a good view.

Upon leaving the grotto, visitors are met with a spectacular view of the East Sea (Sea of Japan), which was a great site to see right before leaving Gyeongju. It is a good reminder for me that I need to return to this beautiful city.

When's the Made for TV Movie?

2009-10-08T09:42:00.006+09:00

I was recently asked some questions by a reporter named Lynn Dill back home to have a story put in the local Crete newspaper about coming to Korea. Now I'm front page news on the news group's website! Big money!!! Check out Russell Publication's to read the story.

Many thanks to Lynn, who wrote a fantastic article!

UPDATE Oct 10th: I fixed the link. You should be able to read the article now.

New Kid

2009-10-07T09:10:00.004+09:00

We got a new student in 6th grade a few weeks ago who is absolutely stellar in English. He attended the Daegu English Village, a very good English program in nearby Daegu, before coming to Andong. But whenever you get a new student, you worry about them fitting in. So I was naturally concerned when we did the comparisons lesson and our new student, Minho, at barely 4 feet tall and maybe 65 pounds dripping wet, was paired with our sumo-wrestler 6th grader, Taeyong, to write 3 comparisons sentences about each other. At the end of class, each pair was instructed to come and read me their three sentences.

Taeyong:
"I am taller than Minho. I am bigger than Minho. I am stronger than Minho."

Minho (slightly bored with the remedial-for-him activity):
"I am shorter than Taeyong. I am weaker than Taeyong. I am smarter than my whole class."

I think he'll be OK.

Tacos and Wii with my favorite Koreans!

2009-10-06T16:07:00.005+09:00

Last week, Sara and I invited two of my coworkers over for some Wii and to introduce them to the wonderful world of Mexican food. Choi Hyeon-beom, who've I've spoken about before, is my main co-teacher and the 6th grade teacher. Park Nam-yeon teaches 5th grade at Dongbu, and while I don't teach with her, she is the closest in age to me and Sara at my school, so we hit it off well.

Everyone adored the tacos...I mean how can anyone not? They were quite delicious, and thank to mom for bringing me the tortillas and taco seasoning, without which we would have been sunk. It was quite an adventure explaining everything from the name to the preparation and just exactly how to eat something that I've been enjoying since my youth.

Afterward, we introduced them to the Nintendo Wii. Koreans know all about the Wii, but few people own one because of the focus on PC-based games instead of console games (Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox) here. While it's always fun having new people over to play the Wii, it was somehow even more fun to watch uber-athletic Koreans take on the system.
Even ping-pong was a serious matter.

And of course, as beginner's luck runs rampant on Wii, Nam-yeon beat the tar out of Sara...and all of us.

What the heck is that thing?

2009-09-23T10:04:00.004+09:00

Last week this equipment showed up in my room for "air quality testing" a.k.a. H1N1 testing.I'm not saying that foreigners are being singled out in the hunt for the flu, but I will note that my room was the only one tested because, "many students go there." I guess the lunchroom doesn't fit that criteria.

Good news though: Dongbu English World is a flu-free zone!

Cha-Ching!

2009-09-17T09:07:00.003+09:00

Here's an article from the Korea Herald (one of Korea's largest English-language newspapers) about the strengthening won.

Rising Korean won rings alarm bells

Lucky for me, this bad news for Korea means good news for foreign teachers sending money back home next year!

Swine Flu Strikes (but not in the way you think)

2009-09-16T09:37:00.008+09:00

We had heard rumors for about a week that the Andong International Maskdance Festival, one of Korea's largest, most spectacular (and for us, most LOCAL) festivals was cancelled due to the Swine Flu. But being the optimistic little foreigner that I am, I convinced myself that no one would cancel the city's largest annual cash cow based on a potential outbreak of the flu. But of course, I was wrong.

Today, the Maskdance Festival's official website (www.maskdance.com) posted this notice:

"Andong Festival Tourism Foundation is obliged to cancel the Andong Maskdance Festival 2009. We are sorry to inform that the Andong Maskdance Festival 2009 is cancelled due to the diffusion of H1N1. According to the indicator of Ministry of Public Administration and Security, major events must be cancelled to prevent the spread of H1N1 virus."

As much as I love this country and this city, I wish someone would just tell them that wearing their masks, washing their hands, and not making out with strangers who are sneezing and coughing is as effective in preventing the spread of flu as cancelling one of the country's most interesting annual events.

I would love to see the reaction in Chicago if the Taste was cancelled because of Swine Flu.

For the record, here are the numbers: appr. 7,000 people have been infected with H1N1 in Korea (out of a population est. of 50 million). Nearly all have recovered fully, and only 6 elderly people, most of whom had other, preexisting conditions, have died.

So long, Maskdance Festival! Maybe Sara and I will see you next year. Unless, of course, there's a really nasty case of the sniffles going around in September 2010.

My Korean Name

2009-09-10T13:19:00.004+09:00

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone asked if they could give me a Korean name. After countless itterations of my English name (from Si-co-teh to Suh-ca-tchi), I could tell the Koreans were getting a little tired of trying to figure out my name. And lo and behold--at lunch this week my principal finally said enough was enough.

"He needs a Korean name," he said to Mr. Kim. "Tell him to give me a few days and I'll come up with a Korean name for him."

And so Mr. Kim told me the situation, and I was ecstatic. I've actually been waiting for someone to do this. The Koreans are always asking for English names, so I wanted some reciprocation in this process. Apparently, though, "a few days" actually meant 1o minutes, because before lunch was over I was named. He tapped Mr. Kim and immediately started to explain what he was thinking.

And so I was born...again:

서한일

Or, for those who don't have extensive training in reading Korean written language, Seo Han-il (pronounced Suh Hon-il). Now, I was just happy because it had Han in it, and I see myself as a young Han Solo. But then I was told the reasoning behind my new name.

서: West, as in Western man.
한: Korea, or a korean person.
일: Lit. the number 1.

So to string it all together, I am Western Korean Man Number 1! There was even a ceremony yesterday to legitimize the thing, during which I was given a Certificate of Appreciation for being a dedicated teacher and co-worker. The principal explained that I was the "best foreign teacher in Andong." Whether that's true or not (I tend to think not), it was great to be the topic of conversation for the day.

Now I am referred to daily as 서생님, Seo sangnim or Seo Teacher, the formal manner in which teachers are addressed in Korea.

I've also been going around introducing myself to my colleagues in Korean and telling them that it's nice to meet them. They know I'm just kidding around, but maybe this really is a good way to reboot the year- to start over and dedicate myself even further to this school and its staff and students.

Maybe this can be the Semester of 서.

(Note: If the Korean language in this post comes up as boxes and numbers, you need to install the proper language pack to see it. Each browser has a different way to do that, so ask your resident tech nerd how if you're interested.)

Swine Flu SCORE!

2009-09-07T21:27:00.003+09:00

To backup Sara's post, the swine flu scare has also improved some hygienic conditions at my school. There is now soap everywhere in my school (even on my remote floor) as well as fresh paper towels in the first and second floor bathrooms. Also, I was given a GIANT bottle of hand sanitizer for both me and the kids.

My favorite part of the day is watching the kids wash their hands outside of the cafeteria, get a big squirt of hand sanitizer on their way INTO the cafeteria, and then use the sanitizing machine directly inside of the cafeteria. One thing's for sure--these kids are NOT getting swine flu. And neither am I!

One of the Downfalls

2009-09-03T13:17:00.003+09:00

Peter King, the current editor of the NFL section of Sports Illustrated and SI.com, has picked the Bears to win the NFC this year and fall to the Patriots in Superbowl XLIV. I tend to agree that they might go all the way (or close) this year, which pains me because I know I can't watch any of it.

Unless, of course, I bite the bullet and pay out the nose to the money-grubbing NFL.

Consider this: before I left for Korea I paid $119.99 to watch any MLB game I want, live or archived, for the entire year. For those who don't want to do the math, that's 2,430 games that I can watch this year for 120 bucks.

The NFL, on the other hand, wants to charge me $209.99 JUST to watch Bears games. That's almost twice the price for 16 games of football. Of course, I could pay the $30 more and catch all 288 NFL games. But when you break it down, I find it hard to stomach the price disparity (appr. $0.05 per MLB game and $0.83 per NFL game or $13 per game if I just get the Bears option).

Now, I know football is an expensive sport, what with the grossly over-paid athletes and exorbitant, multi-million dollar stadiums. But come on. $210 bucks to watch something online that I could watch at home for free with a hanger sticking out the back of my TV? Sounds a little stupid to me.

The worst part of all of it, of course, is that I'm considering buying it.

Please, oh please, somebody in the Chicago area buy a Slingbox and give me access to it!

Little Things

2009-09-01T11:33:00.003+09:00

At the end of class a minute ago, a little girl waved and said, "Have a nice day," as if I had just met her on the street in Chicago. The best part is, I know she knew exactly what it meant. It's these brief exchanges, when you know you've really taught these kids something, that the job feels truly worth it.

There are time (like today) when I, like my English-teaching colleagues, get frustrated because it seems like we don't get through to the kids. They don't pay attention or you just can't explain a simple concept to them, and suddenly you feel like a failure, unable to make a kid understand what "do you like ice cream?" means. It's these times when I want to huddle into a ball and get on a plane to a nation where I can have a conversation with a little kid that's longer than 6 words.

And then a 9 year old girl waves and says, "Have a nice day" as she's leaving.

And I get up and go back in for the next class.

The Final Leg, Part 3 of a 3-Part Series

2009-08-28T13:05:00.013+09:00

After leaving Andong for the last time. My parents and I set out for the big city. And when I say big city, few in the United States who have not been to Asia can really understand just how large the cities here can be. Seoul is like another country, another continent, an entirely different existence altogether. Conservative estimates of the city's population place it around 10 million people, but if you include the entire metropolitan area, it could be much larger. I certainly feel small in this sprawling megalopolis of a city. So when mom and dad set foot in Seoul, it was obvious that they were small fish in a very big pond.

Day 1: Lotte Hotel and Sightseeing
Since navigating Seoul can be difficult for out-of-towners, we wanted to stay near most of the things we wanted to see. Since we were planning to go to the DMZ, we decided to stay at the luxurious, 5-star Lotte Hotel. Lotte is one of Korea's biggest corporations and they definitely show it in their hotels. The newly remodeled Lotte Hotel is one of Korea's best, and possibly the best hotel I've ever stayed in. The price tag may be hefty, but we got lucky when we got there and were automatically upgraded to a junior suite because our rooms were overbooked for the night. The result was a stunning hotel suite with a gorgeous mountain view, automatic toilet, mirror/TV in the bathroom and a console next to the bed that controlled everything from the lights to the blinds. I will post a video tour of the room a little later, but for now here's a picture of the view.
On our first day, we stayed near the hotel and went out to see the town. Since the hotel was in Jung-gu, the heart of downtown Seoul, there was no shortage of things to see. We went to nearby marketplaces, down the high-profile shopping streets, stopped to watch street merchants make exotic deserts and, yes, even found Dr. Pepper. Our first night there is a blur of lights and people, making it hard to render in words.

Day 2:The DMZ and Gyeonbokgung Palace

On the second day, we fulfilled one of dad's (and my) wishes for their trip to Korea. We visited Korea's foreigner's-only de-militarized zone. In order to take a tour there, you must present a passport from a foreign country. Very few Koreans, outside of military and tour guides, ever see the DMZ. What are they missing? A surprisingly developed tourist attraction.

(See, the DMZ's only a LITTLE scary, with plenty of bright colors and flowers. :-D)

The entire area is full of small museums, gift shops, sculptures, and other paraphernalia related to the Korean War and ensuing stand-off between the North and South. Another surprising aspect of the DMZ was the downplayed nature of the US involvement in the Korean war. If you didn't already have intricate knowledge of US-Korean ties, you would never know the USA ever set foot in Korea. Still, the tour was enjoyable, and we got to see some very interesting things. One of them, of course, being North Korea.
The mountains you see there are in North Korea. I would have gotten closer, but the observatory where you can look into the reclusive, communist nation (Dora Observatory) has a strict policy about getting to close with your camera. Right at my feet was a yellow "no cameras" line. I could hold up my camera for a shot at this point, but couldn't go to the railing with it. The girl in the white dress with the umbrella was our tour guide.

We were told that you can clearly see the different between North and South when you get to this spot by looking at the mountains. That was true, as the North Korean mountains are far more bare than the South's. N. Korea has used up many of the trees on their mountains for fuel, since they have a painful lack of infrastructure and modern energy sources.

From the Dora Observatory we went to Dorasan Station, a train station built with the sole purpose of one day connecting North and South Korea by rail. A map inside the station showed how, with the North's cooperation, people could travel to and from South Korea from any point in Asia or Europe by rail. Today, because of the strict regulations on immigration, there is no rail service passing through North Korea, and South Koreans must travel by sea or air to leave the country. But Dorasan Station serves as a tangible example of how serious South Koreans are about eventual reconciliation with their Northern brethren.After the DMZ, we took a taxi to Gyeongbokgung palace, which I blogged about when Sara and I first got here. It is a reconstruction of one of Korea's oldest and largest palaces, where the head of state lived for many years during the dynasties of Korea. Unfortunately, due to the repeated Japanese occupations, it was destroyed time and again until it was finally totally leveled during World War II. The current compound, while expansive and beautiful, is newer than many of Seoul's skyscrapers.
Day 3: Back to Busan
On our third day in Seoul, the only thing left to do was leave. But not wanting to waste a single moment, we decided to go back to Busan the most interesting way we could. So instead of a bus, we decided to take the KTX (Korea's cross-country bullet train) from one end of the peninsula to the other.With most of our travels behind us, and mere hours left on the trip, mom, dad, Sara, the Eagles and I set out for one last dinner, as close to the hotel as we could possibly manage. We ended up having a delicious beef soup at a nearby restaurant famous for its bulgogi.

And so, after one of the best vacation of all of our lives, there was only one thing left to do.

NORE BANG!

And sing we did, for hours until every one of our voices were strained from shouting out the most intense ballads and musical masterpieces to ever graze our ears. We sang everything from the Beatles to Johnny Cash, and from Grease to Phantom of the Opera. What a wonderful way to end a splendid vacation--and no vacation in Korea is complete without a trip to nore bang.

Mom and dad made it back to the states safe and sound, and things here are back to the way they were a month ago. Classes have started and the summer warmth is finally starting to cool away. I don't know if we'll ever make it back here as a group, but if we don't, at least we made a damn good time of it while we could.

Scott and Sara's Korean TV Debut

2009-08-25T21:07:00.003+09:00

While Sara and I were watching the Andong International Mask Fashion Show today (a bloggable experience in it's own right), we were approached by a very friendly gentleman carrying a microphone and a woman with a clipboard. Since it's not unusual to have a conversation sprung upon us by a Korean wondering what we're doing in Andong, we dismissed the microphone and clipboard. However, after a few minutes of talking, the man quickly asked us if we would give an "interview." We told him of course, at which time we were told what to say.

It was less than a minute before we were in front of a TV camera shouting:

Scott: Andong City!
Sara: Is very exciting!
Together: Andong ro oseyo! (Welcome to Andong!)

Now, we assume, we will soon be on a some random TV news program welcoming people to our fair city. Hopefully people at our school will see it. We also think that by the end of this week people will probably be screaming for our autographs while sobbing and trying to rip our clothes off.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to see ourselves since we opted not to have cable installed when we came here.

Ah. Such is life.

Mom, Dad, and The Capital of the Korean Spirit, Part 2 of a 3-Part Series

2009-08-25T09:13:00.014+09:00

It didn't take long after our return from Jeju-do for my parents to experience what many people call the real Korea. Resort towns like Jungmun (where we were in Jeju) and big cities like Daegu and Busan certainly have a different, more international, feel than the "little city" of Andong. Andong, though a frequent tourist spot for Koreans, is unusual territory for westerners. The city's slogan, "Capital of the Korean Spirit," refers to Andong's long-standing and deep-rooted tradition of Confucianism and Hahoe Village's status as one of Korea's oldest and most traditional folk villages. When we returned to my Korean hometown, my parents were definitely thrown into the deep end.

Downtown
Our first stop was visiting downtown Andong. I wanted my parents to be familiar with their surroundings since I wouldn't be able to be with them 24 hours a day. I gave them enough know-how to navigate a few spots and showed them where they could get an English menu if they needed a bite to eat. Still, we ended up eating almost all of our meals together, so translation wasn't a problem.

During the downtown tour, my parents were introduced to our very Western downtown (Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut), as well as some of the more traditional nooks and crannies. We walked down "Chicken Street," which is Andong's largest traditional market. It's called chicken street because you can eat Andong Jjimdak there, an Andongian twist on a traditional Korean spicy chicken dish. Though our market is a bustling intersection in Andong, mom and dad were unimpressed due to their previous visit to the Busan fish market, Korea's largest.

Korean Hospitality and Mrs. Lee
On day two in Andong, we were scheduled to meet one of my co-teachers, Mrs. Lee, for dinner at her mountain art studio, which I have blogged about previously. The plan was to go to the Jebiwon Stone Buddha in the morning and head to her house in the mid-afternoon. On our way to the bus, I got a call from Mrs. Lee, during which I quickly figured out that the plan was for LUNCH, not dinner. Ohhhh Korea...

So with a limited time-table, but an urge not to waste a minute of my parents vacation, we hopped in a cab to visit Yeonghoru, a traditional wooden pavilion overlooking the Nakdong river and all of downtown Andong. The pavilion's history is a little cloudy, but what is known is that it's over 500 years old. Around the ceiling are planks of wood with poetry written on them in Chinese and Korean. Apparently, Confusian scholars would come from all over Korea after hearing of the view from Yeonghoru and would compose poems to be hung on the ceiling. Years later, the poems still hang there, a constant reminder of the transcendent nature of some places.

On the way out, my parents and I ran into a Korean family who were very eager to talk to us. We told them where we were from and what we were doing in Andong. The father, we found out, had only been studying English for a few months. But he spoke far better English than all of my students who have been studying for several years.
Afterward, we headed back downtown for lunch with Mrs. Lee. The meeting lived up to my mother's expectations (my mom repeatedly told me that she was most interested in how Koreans lived at home), as Mrs. Lee cooked us a traditional (and delicious!) meal of sam gyeop sal with an array of side-dishes. Unfortunately, she had bought enough food for six (as she thought the Eagles, who were still in Busan, would be there), so my parents and I could hardly walk at the end of it all.
After lunch, Mrs. Lee suggested that we go to Hahoe Village (pronounced hah-hway) and the nearby Confucian academy, Byeongsan Seowon with her. Though we already felt as though she had done enough, I know better than to refuse an offer like that from a Korean person. If they offer to do something for you, it's not just a formality here. So we found ourselves touring Andong with Mrs. Lee for most of the afternoon.

Though a wonderful experience, my parents both felt a little overwhelmed by the excessive hospitality they were receiving, as they both thought Mrs. Lee was doing too much. I wholeheartedly understand, even if I am more used to it now. A perfect example of the overwhelming generosity of Korean people toward their guests and the difficulty that we westerners can sometimes have of accepting it.

The Rest of Andong
During my parents remaining days here, we visited many of the local hot spots such as Dosan Seowon, which was under construction:
The Jebiwon Stone Buddha, a HUGE statue of Buddha carved into a hillside (he's in the back there):
And Mask Dance Hall, which mom took very seriously:
On one of our final nights in Andong, my parents finally met Hyeon-beom when we all went out for Andong Jjimdak. Unfortunately, since we were in a small backroom of the restaurant (with 8 people), I don't have any good pictures of that meeting. In short, my parents loved meeting HB, and HB loved meeting my parents.

The Final Day and The Sky Bridge From Hell
Due to dad's persistence that he visit the sky bridge detailed in one of Sara's blog posts, we found ourselves visiting Cheongnyang-san Provincial Park on mom and dad's last day in Andong. For a detailed account of the climb to the top of this "small" mountain, see Sara's earlier blog post. To completely understate the entire experience, this mountain is steep. This is the kind of place where real mountain climbers go for a good time, and Average Joes like Sara and I and our parents go to see just what we're made of. Let me just say, dad decided to go back after a mere 15 minutes due to some chest pains, and he was most certainly the lucky one. If I'd known what we were getting ourselves into, I might have joined him. Here are some pictures that don't even begin to give you a scope of what we went through:
When we finally reached the Sky Bridge, we were lucky enough to have a view of absolutely nothing. The fog was so thick, we could barely see the other end of the bridge.

Down below us was a beautiful view of--well, more fog:

Still, we had a good time, and we had fun teasing dad when we got back down for sending us all up there. In the meantime, dad had a lengthy conversation with some young Korean girls who wanted him to visit their traditional house. As cool as it would have been, he decided to stay and make sure he was waiting for us when we got back down. What a guy!

And now, after a week in one of Korea's most traditional cities, I can say that my parents are truly and thoroughly Korean.

After a good night's rest, my parents and I packed up and sped off to Seoul during my extended vacation. (I was allowed to use two of my winter vacation days now so I could spend a little more time with the 'rents!) Come back soon for more details about the last leg of our journey.

Act II

2009-08-24T09:22:00.002+09:00

Today is the first day of the second half of my first year in Korea.

Catch all that?

To explain, today is the first day of the second semester for Korean schools. The kids come back to school on Wednesday, but I'm here today to get ready for the semester. I thought perhaps that I would feel a similar pressure to the start of my term here--that some insurmountable feeling of potential failure would take me over, and I would curl up in a ball in the corner of my classroom hoping that school never starts.

But instead...there is nothing. It's another day at work. Only a few people are here today, as most of the teacher's are given this time off (due to their seniority). And I'm here, with a few colleagues, getting ready for the semester.

After nearly a month of English camps and traveling, I feel like I'm so acclimated with this culture, these people, and this job that the whole thing has become routine. Not boringly so, mind you, just routine enough to feel comfortable. I'm not worried about the semester start, and I'm certainly not worried about teaching anymore. It's nice to be able to relax.

As for the blog, consider this the official reboot. Later today, I'll post some pictures and tidbits from part 2 of my parents visit to Korea.

See you in the funny pages!

Vacation's Over

2009-08-15T20:50:00.003+09:00

After a 2 week vacation from work and (unexpectedly) this blog, I am now back in action with a whole slew of new stories, recaps, pictures and videos from the past few weeks.

My apologies for being lax on the updates recently, but I promise to make up for it in the next few days with a barage of posts.

Cheers!

Parents' Arival and Jeju-do, Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

2009-08-09T23:53:00.017+09:00

I guess it's about time I poured some much-needed life into this desert island of a blog. My extended absence from the world of web logging has been mostly due to the exciting arrival of my parents in Korea. But now that they have gone back to the states, I would like to update you all on the exciting first week of our adventure.

Busan
Mom and Dad flew into Busan the evening of Thursday, July 30th and were pleasantly surprised to find that jet lag never truly hit them. They were a little tired for some time on the second evening, but handled the transition like pros. Though I only got to spend a night with them in Busan, Korea's second largest city, we took some time to appreciate the nightlife and have dinner at a local Pizza Hut. I figured I would leave the traditional food to the traditional-oriented Andong. It astonished me to find that both of my parents were immediately enamored (and maybe a little overwhelmed) with the culture I've now gotten used to.

Arrival in Andong
Upon finally getting to the Capitol of the Korean Spirit (Andong), I checked my parents into the highly disappointing Hotel California. What was supposed to be the chic downtown alternative to the Andong Park Hotel (the most well-known of Andong accommodations) quickly turned into an exercise in futility, since the nightly air conditioning didn't come on in the day or night, several of the room's amenities didn't work, and hot water wasn't turned on until 8 o'clock each morning. My parents insist that everything was fine, but they spent the rest of their Andong tour at the Andong Park Tourist Hotel.

Regardless of the hotel situation, our two day stint in my Korean hometown was well-spent. We explored the area near the Andong Dam, toured Andong's charming downtown area, and sampled some of Korea's finest dishes in the local restaurants. Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of our first few days was that Mr. Larry "please bring a fork along" Williams is actually a chopstick champion to be reckoned with.

Jeju-do
My parents introduction to Andong was short lived, though, as we set off for Jeju island, often referred to as "Korea's Hawaii." On Jeju, we stayed in the luxurious Hyatt Regency Hotel, where we were pleasantly surprised to find that our ocean view room gave us both extraordinary views of the ocean:

and the mountains:

We spent half of our time enjoying the posh ameneties of our five star hotel, such as delicious western breakfast with a gorgeous backdrop:

and a drink or two in the calming, lobby-set cafe:

The other half of our time was spent climbing, clawing, hiking and otherwise killing ourselves through the island's many walking tours.

We visited the black sand beach near our hotel, which was set against stunning cliffs.

And climbed our way down through one of the island's parks in pursuit of glistening waterfalls.
Dad was slightly unhappy when we thought we were going back to the parking lot, but instead wound up at a very sudden dead-end.On our final day in Jeju, the entire crew (me, mom, dad, Sara, and Linda) trekked out to a Buddhist temple and mountain grotto that was purported to have some of the finest views in all of Jeju. Our guidebook simply said the path would be a climb "...about halfway up Sanbang-san mountain." Enter Sanbang-san:

Still, we braved the steep climb:

And arrived at the breathtaking grotto, where we drank from a cistern filled with fresh, cold, and clean mountain water, flowing directly from the rock itself. And the book was right, the view was to die for.

Stay tuned in the coming days for the second update from mom and dad's trip to Korea!

Dongbu Summer English Camp

2009-07-25T15:42:00.006+09:00

In addition to the weekly English camps that I teach at Dongbu Elementary, most schools in Korea also set up week-long summer English camps. Dongbu is no exception. For the past week, Sara and I spent the mornings at Dongbu with two select groups of students. The lessons are still focused on learning English, but as teachers we are no longer bound in any way to the textbook, which makes the camps more free and fun. Here, I will highlight two of the activities we did this week.

Watching the Eclipse
As I'm sure many of you have seen from Sara's blog and heard in the news, we were privy to the longest total solar eclipse for the next 120 odd years. Where we were in Andong, it reached about 75% total darkness, but the entire experience was incredible cool none-the-less. After explaining to my kids the term "solar eclipse" (ilshik in Korean), I warned them heavily not to to look at the eclipse directly, but to look through the special viewing devices we had. I also showed the kids how to make a pinhole eclipse viewer, which they found quite interesting.

Minji, one of my fourth graders, thought the entire experience was especially fun.

It was a surreal experience seeing my students watch a solar eclipse. I couldn't help but reminisce about when I was in elementary school and there was a total eclipse during the day in the US. All the kids at Balmoral went outside to watch it, and I remember distinctly being too awestruck to speak.

At first, my English camp students were just being their same, rowdy, fun-loving, excited-to-be-outside selves, but when the daylight started to dim, and they began to stare, mesmerized up into the day sky through doubled over pieces of film strip, I noted that some things are truly universal. Bewilderment and amazement at the wonders of the natural world is one of them.

After the eclipse had passed and we all returned to Earth, we paused for a photo op.
Cooking Class
Both mine and Sara's classes had a cooking class during the week. She and Hyeon-beom made sandwiches and punch, while I was a little more than surprised when Missuc showed up with a recipe and ingredients for fried bean curd sushi. In truth, it wasn't nearly as difficult a recipe as it sounded, and the kids had a great time.The students had a blast, the sushi was quite delicious, and my two co-teachers and I acted as judges in a very serious cooking competition. Since the students' results all tasted basically the same, we awarded top prize to presentation. The girls presented me with this lovely piece of art ("It's Mr. Williams!"), but first place still went to the boys who created a forest out of their parsley.

Juwangsan

2009-07-16T16:06:00.004+09:00

As of last Thursday, I am the luckiest man in the world, because I have been considered a VIP to one Ms. Sara Long for 2 years. To celebrate our anniversary, I took Sara to Juwangsan National Park. We spent Saturday night in Chungseong, the small town near the national park, where we relaxed, ate pizza, and watched TV in our luxurious motel room. (It really was pretty nice, I'm not just being sarcastic!)

The next morning, we packed up what little we brought, put on our hiking boots, and headed off to the park for a day of hiking.

As should be expected this month in Korea, it rained about 65% of the day, but there's something about this park that makes that okay. There are rivers, waterfalls, ponds, and creeks everywhere, and somehow the rain falling on the canopy above us was more soothing and fitting than obnoxious. By the end of the day we were soaked, dirty, exhausted, and thoroughly fulfilled. Juwangsan is breathtakingly beautiful, and a great place to get some exercise and get away from the hustle and bustle of Korean cities. Since I'm sure Sara will give you all beautiful pictures and a description to match, I'll just let my camcorder speak for me. Here's a video of the beautiful Juwangsan National Park. I have intentionally left the audio in so you can hear the same serenity we were privy to.

An Open Letter to My Readers

2009-07-10T08:58:00.004+09:00

Hi everybody!

Sara and I both recently entered our blogs in a contest which awards travel money to English-language blogs about Korea. The reason I'm telling all of you this is that the awards are judged as much on the merit of your blog as they are by the number of followers and comments you have. So I would like to request two things:

1) If you read my blog regularly, but have not become a follower, please click on the "Follow" link to the left and create an account. (If you use Gmail, AIM, or Yahoo you just need to sign in.) After clicking the "Follow" button, click on "Create a new google account" and follow the instructions there. It's very easy to do!

2) If you've already decided to follow, leave me comments! Under each post there is a link that says "Comments." If you click it, you can read what others are saying and make comments of your own. Aside from boosting my numbers for the contest, you can also tell me what you think of my writing so far and give me ideas for future posts.

I hope you've all been enjoying reading about my adventures as much as I've enjoyed living them. I wish I could bring you all here with me and show you the many wonderful things Korea has to offer.

Cheers,
Scott

Just Another Day in Korea

2009-07-07T15:21:00.007+09:00

The Fourth of July really sneaked up on us expats. The Thursday before American Independence Day, we all started to realize that the day was about the pass us by, with the foreigners just going along with the flow. It is strange celebrating a national holiday in another country. You want everyone around you to care about it, and to ask you about it, but why should they? It isn't their country, and it's not the appropriate time for them to be interested or excited. So we had to come together as a group and have a Fourth of July extravaganza to remind us all where we come from.

Sara and I decided to host the event on our roof, which apparently caught our landlord's attention since he came up to see what the hoopla was. Luckily, he saw we were causing no harm and allowed the festivities to continue. He is a really nice guy.
We scoured the town for everything we could find to make the event truly American. We had hot dogs (in dinner rolls), hamburgers (in sliced bread), potato salad, pasta salad, chips, beer, watermelon, pop, and cheesecake. Our roof truly was American territory for one glorious night. Sara and I even bought a charcoal grill for 15,000 Won (about $11-12) so we could have a genuine cookout.
Peter and I found some quality time to entertain the pack with our newest hobby: jammin'.
Jin brought her puppy (pictured right), so Melody could experience her first bit of Americana.At the end of it all, Peter, Sara, Alice and I ended up on the roof (possibly inebriated) belting the Star Spangled Banner at the top of our lungs. For a brief second I pondered what it would be like to hear 4 foreigners at 2AM in America shouting some anthem I'd never heard. I guess it would be pretty strange, but I quickly returned to the overwhelming feeling of strange joy coming out of that moment. I doubt it would happen between me and my friends in America. There is just something about living abroad that gives you a newfound respect for what you've left behind.

And all in all, the night was a rousing success with good food and great friends. It felt very much like celebrating the Fourth in a small town in America, or on a rooftop in Chicago. Surrounded by my friends and living the way I'm used to, I realized just how great of a country I come from. Looking out onto the Andong skyline and sharing the Fourth with a few choice Korean friends helped me realize just how great of one I live in now.

Happy belated Fourth of July to all my friends and family back home.

PS
Thanks to Alice, whose pictures I stole from Facebook to make this post. Soon, I won't have to do that when I get the new digital camera that Tim and Linda (Sara's parents) bought me for my birthday. Thanks guys! You're the best!!

Guitarin'

2009-07-02T10:41:00.001+09:00

Last week I finally broke down and bought myself a new toy. I just couldn't wait until mom and dad got here at the end of July to play again. Here's a quick vid:

Great Classes, Mekchu, and San Nac Chi

2009-07-01T09:26:00.006+09:00

As is becoming common in Korea, I had another epic, adventurous day yesterday. It started on Monday night when my main contact at Youngnam Elementary, Kwon Mi-hye, called and told me that 3rd and 4th grade were finished with the textbook and wanted me to prepare a lesson to teach to those classes. It may seem like short notice, but I was actually very excited. I have been tossed around like a rag doll, never knowing what I would do for the day at Youngnam. Now I actually had a chance to plan my own lesson there.

The Lesson
I started with my usual warm up. I tell them good morning (or afternoon), ask them how they are, and ask them about the weather. The weather here is so often sunny that when it is overcast and dreary, like yesterday, they still rattle off "It's sunny!" as if it's the only thing they know how to say. So I give them an exaggerated look like they're crazy and they giggle and say, "It's cloudy!"

Youngnam has a lot of materials, including magnetic panels depicting scenes of various weather. So after the warm-up I asked them how the weather was in each panel and then had them put magnetic game pieces with umbrellas, gloves, snowmen, suns, clouds, and fans in the right place by telling me where they go. By the end of this part, the kids are noticeably bored with weather, so I move on.

I then go into Hangman and tell the kids that the answer is their next game. They are very excited. Korean kids absolutely LOVE Hangman, and it teaches them spelling and phonics. Many kids could not connect the meaning between letters and sounds when I got here, but they certainly can now. The answer to the hangman was "drawing."

The drawing game was simple, but very effective. The class was divided into 3 teams. One team sends up an artist to draw something on the board that they know how to say in English, then their team has to say the word. They have to do this within 10 seconds. If they say it correctly, the artist draws a card from a deck of playing cards. You get however many points you draw, face cards being worth 10. I threw in a catch: if you speak Korean while at the board, your team loses two points. I added this rule when I realized kids were drawing a face card and excitedly shouting out "SHIP!" which means 10 in Korean. In the last round, the points are doubled. Obviously, the team with the most points wins. The kids loved this game, and the teachers loved me.

Dinner
My teacher's went out to dinner to say goodbye to Mr. Choi, one of our administrators. He was leaving for another school and yesterday was his last day. We had some sam gyup sal (grilled pork) and nang myun (spicy, cool noodles). It was delicious, and I celebrated my great day at Youngnam with a beer or two. The outgoing Mr. Choi also poured me a shot of Soju, as did my vice principal. It was a wonderful dinner, and at the end I was ready to go home and rest a bit. I thought the night was over. I was very wrong.

Nore Bang
Like usual, we ended up at an ENORMOUS nore bang (private song room, or Karaoke), where the staff immediately brought in somewhere between 20 and 30 bottles of beer and set them on the table. I was astounded that our principal had ordered that much beer, so you can understand my amazement when they rolled in 30 more. Mind you, these are not your standard 16 oz bottles. They are enough for 2 0r 3 glasses of beer each. And there were only about 15 of us. We did, of course, drink almost all of it. After all, it's rude in Korea not to finish your food.

San Nac Chi
I stumbled out of the nore bang and had to stand there for a second to see if I would be able to walk any further or if someone would have to carry me. I had mentioned earlier that my friends have eaten san nac chi, but that I had not tried it. This prompted a quest from my staff to find it for me. Ok...enough beating around the bush. What is it? It's octopus. LIVE octopus. Live, wriggling, sticky, chewy, slimy octopus. And it's actually quite delicious. I watched the chef struggle with the whole creature in the kitchen. She rinsed it, pulled it straight, laid it down, and took a cleaver to it. Within the minute, we had a full plate of wriggling tentacle. With each bite, I could feel the suction cups sticking to my cheek. As many of my friends have stated before--it's the only food that fights back.

The teachers I was there with also ordered another bottle of beer and a bottle of soju, but for the first time, I felt comfortable enough to refuse. To be fair, none of them really drank it either. Mrs. Lee, our designated driver for the the evening, then took everyone home, where I passed out, and awoke the next morning surprisingly refreshed. My teachers told me the san nac chi would invigorate me, and I guess they were right.

Moral of the evening:
Wanna avoid a hangover? Grab some live octopus.

PS
Once more, I apologize for the lack of pictures. I still do not own a camera. I will post videos of the san nac chi the next time we go to eat it, which we will because Sara has not tried it yet.

Creativity in Teaching

2009-06-29T11:46:00.005+09:00

Through most of my days, I am bound, at least partially, by the sloppy, confusing, and inadequate lessons of the Korean public school system's English language textbooks. The lessons are all titled things like "Can I have some water?" and "She is tall!" They offer little to no vocabulary, and hardly ever require the students to write or read, instead relying on choppy, poorly acted flash computer animations to have students repeat shallow and useless dialogue. By the end of the semester, the students will be lucky to remember more than half of these phrases, and even luckier if they can attach meaning to them.

The good news is, I work with a group of people who also notice the flaws in these books, and therefore have quite a bit of freedom OUTSIDE of the classroom. You see, Korean schoolchildren, for better or for worse, go to school for between 8 and 14 hours a day. This isn't an exaggeration. Last Friday, Sara and I saw an entire classroom of children leaving a private English academy in Okdong at 11:30 at night, and boarding a bus to go home. Some of the kids were as young as 8 or 9.

As for my part in this after school overload of education, I am required to teach 5 English camps, or after school English classes, per week. Two on Monday and Thursday each, and one on Friday. I also voluntarily teach one at Youngnam Elementary on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month. During these times are when I get to wander away from textbooks and test material and get the kids interested in learning a foreign language. And in these times, I am free to teach whatever I want, however I want. The following are examples of some of the activities I use.

Hangman
When I got here, the kids could look at a word they knew and never be able to figure out what it was. They know how to say it, and what it means, but give it to them in writing and it's a lost cause. To fix this problem, I now start many classes with Hangman to get them to spell things and work on their phonics. The kids can now sound out words, and sometimes even pronounce them correctly on the first try. They also love shouting out letters. (Who doesn't?)

Cafe Dongbu
During my first week here, given the opportunity to use the plastic food in my room, I created a game where students would have to order food in groups. Each group had a waiter or waitress, and I was the chef. I printed off menus of all the items available, and gave them to a "hostess" to seat the students. When the waiter or waitress for each group came to me with a food order, I would either tell them we're all out or give them their order. If we were all out, the server would have to come back and ask for something else. The winning team was the first group with one entree per person. This activity caused the students to interact with each other and me in English, but also to read off of menus and write down orders. They had to play the entire game in English. It was a bit hectic, and some food did break, but it was fun and they learned. And that's the key.

Jeopardy
These kids LOVE it. Several very good Jeopardy templates are available online for PowerPoint. I download them and use them for review every 2 or 3 weeks to make sure the kids remember what they've learned. The categories usually include "Vocab" where they are given a picture of something and have to tell me what it is in English; "Say it" where they are given a Korean phrase and have to translate; and "Teacher Trivia" --a host of facts about me that they should remember such as my hometown and favorite baseball team. They play in two teams, and it is a blast.

Twister
My room is filled with small, round, brightly colored stools that the students sit on. One day, I decided to turn them into two large twister boards and have the students play boys v. girls. The boys liked it, the girls didn't. But it did make all of them improve their listening comprehension for body parts and colors.

Board Races
These games are versatile, fun, and appealing for everyone. I have two dry erase board in my classroom. I divide the kids into 2 groups and have them, one at a time, go to the board. I stand at the back of the room and say a vocab word (or phrase) from the day. The student who gets the word right first is the victor, and we go on until there is a clear winner. I've also used this with time, during which I drew two clocks on the board and had them write in the time as I said it. The students have a blast, and probably don't even realize how much better there listening comprehension and spelling have gotten since I've started doing it.

More games and activities another day, hopefully with some pictures/videos! Later tonight I will post a short blog/video about my latest creative acquisition! (Which some of you may already know about...)

Bongjeongsa

2009-06-24T16:21:00.003+09:00

Sara already beautifully described Bongjeongsa temple, so I won't bore you with another recounting of the same thing. Instead, I made a short video of our trip there for you to enjoy. Make sure your speakers are on so you can here the sweet Incubus song!

Youngnam

2009-06-20T15:59:00.005+09:00

Youngnam Elementary School is a very different environment than my 4 day a week school. It is 6 times larger and much, much busier. I go there on Tuesday, my busiest day, and teach 6 straight classes, at the end of which I am exhausted and ready to quit teaching all together. It's not that I have a terrible time there, it's just that teaching elementary school kids for 6 straight hours can really drag on you.

Negatives
The size of my secondary school is undoubtedly its biggest downfall. Because there are so many students, I am constantly mobbed, surrounded, attacked, shouted at, and sometimes even harassed by students who are downright dumbfounded to see a foreigner in their territory.

Also because it's so large, the teachers are very busy. Yet for reasons that I cannot figure out, I am asked not to prepare a lesson. Each week I am supposed to assist the Korean teacher by helping with their lesson plans. Initially, the arrangement was set up so that the Korean teacher would start class for 5 minutes, I would be given 25 minutes to teach the lesson and play a game, then the Korean teacher would review and end the lesson with the last 10 minutes. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way. Instead, the teachers usually come into the classroom with either a lesson plan that is mostly in Korean or no lesson plan at all. And since none of them really speak more than 10 words of English, they have a very hard time trying to explain to me what they want. Usually, they just say, "Ok, you teach now!" As if I'm some kind of teaching cyborg that can fly by the seat of my pants for 6 hours.

Positives
I have to say, I don't always enjoy my time at Youngnam. It is exhausting and the students literally never leave me alone (even if I want to get a drink or go to the bathroom). But there are some shining moments in the darkness. I teach three 3rd grade classes and three 4th grade classes, so I am able to teach essentially the same thing a few times in a row. This allows me to improve it and refine it, and makes me feel accomplished at the end of the day.

Positive number two is a little girl in my 3rd hour class. She's a 3rd grader, and every time she's in my classroom, she stares at me until I look at her, at which time she reveals a giant, adorable smile that makes my day every time. To make it better, she waits until everyone is gone at the end of class and comes up to me with one of her friends to remind me that they love me. So cute!

Positive number three is the food. I don't know what it is, but the food at Youngnam is just fantastic. It always tastes fresh, they give me the perfect amount, and it is very rarely something that I just don't like. I know this has nothing to do with teaching, but it is one of the better aspects of my second school.

Closing
And that's all I have to say about them. Youngnam is a good school with a dedicated and talented staff. Unfortunately, I'm not there enough to ever get totally used to the environment, and as a result am usually tossed around a bit between the teachers, who aren't quite sure how to handle my presence either. But damn...they serve some good bulgogi.

Teachering

2009-06-18T10:33:00.005+09:00

We're now nearly three months into my first year as a teacher, and for those who are wondering, I think I've gotten the hang of it. It's obvious to me that every single teaching job, even in the same school and grade, is so vastly different that they never match up perfectly. One teacher can never be compared to another and every situation is unique in both positive and negative ways. My next two posts will deal with this issue in my two schools. Here are the negatives and positives of working in a small school like Dongbu.
Negatives
Because Dongbu is so very tiny (about 140 studnents), I am only able to use each lesson plan I make once. This means that lesson planning can be harder for me because I have to make sure it's perfect the very first time. I don't have the luxury or experimentation or guinnea pig classes, since I only see each class once or twice a week. Even if I do see them twice a week, the lesson has to be new each time. This is a challenge that I accept, since I think that teaching the same lesson over and over can be boring. But it is also very difficult since I need my lesson to go flawlessly on the first run without any sort of rehearsel. I can say that it does not always go that way.

The other major drawback is that I am the only full-time English teacher. Most other schools in Andong have several Korean English teachers and one native English teacher. This allows the other foreigners to spend more time planning and preparing with their co-teachers, since none of them have homerooms to manage. At Dongbu, all of my co-teachers are also homeroom teahers. HB teaching 5th and 6th grade with me, but he is also the 6th grade homeroom teacher. Mrs. Lee teaches 4th grade, and Mr. Kwan teaches 3rd grade. This leaves precious few moments in which to talk with them about lessons, and pretty much leaves me on my own when I have to plan one. This also means that when they prepare a lesson, I usually find out about it at the start of that class. It can be very hectic, and also very lonely, since they are teaching their classes most of the day while I am alone in my office.
Positives
Though the size of my school can be taxing because of lesson planning, it also allows me to bond more with the students. I know the faces of every student in my school, and I have started learning many names (a feat which most of my foreign counterparts will never accomplish). I have a core group of students (mostly 6th graders) who visit me in my classroom during breaks and after school. I don't think I teach them much during this time, but it's still fun to stumble through single-word conversations and see what they've learned since I've been here. They also do me favors like arranging the chairs in my classroom for the next lesson and the occassional shoulder rub, which is a real bonus. (Side note: yes, the first time a 6th grade girl started rubbing my shoulders I about peed my pants and ran to the office to tell them I didn't mean it. But I soon learned that this kind of student-teacher interaction is acceptable and common in Korea. It isn't uncommon to see a teacher grab a student and hold him/her tight to their chest for a few moments to calm them down.)

Also because it's small, Dongbu stays out of the lens of the Andong Office of Education a lot of the time. I am sometimes not subject to the politics and policy BS that other foreigners are, and I am eternally grateful for that. While some other foreigners in Andong are never allowed to leave early or just relax for awhile at school, I get a good deal of free time. They also sometimes seem to care more about my needs than my job performance, though I never let that get in the way of being a good teacher.

The school treats me very well and the staff understands that while I am in Korea, I am as much a student as I am a teacher. They are gentle, considerate, and at times forgiving when I do or say something that isn't totally appropriate. They also try their hardest to make me feel at home and help me learn about their culture and language. Yesterday, Mr. Kim (our special education teacher) sat me down on the mats in his classroom and brought out some flash card puzzles with Korean words on them. He taught me the words, then separated the words from the pictures and had me re-join them. I think I owe that kind of treatment to the fact that Dongbu has fewer staff members than the average elementary school classroom has students.

Closing
And these are my currrent thoughts about working in a small school. It can have its drawbacks, but I think the perks outweigh the downfalls. I am very happy to be at Dongbu four days a week and Youngnam only one. More on the situation at Youngnam tomorrow.

(The pictures in this post were taken during my open class, several weeks ago. That's why you can see some of the other teachers in the back of the room watching. We don't usually have an audience like that.)

Birthday 2.0

2009-06-11T20:24:00.013+09:00

Day 1
My birthday officially started on Friday, June 5th when Sara and I, coupled with our friends Peter and Katie, hopped a bus to Seoul to meet our other friend Andrew for the weekend. On the ride up, we played "20 Questions" to two bottles of soju. (Did you ever realize you can turn any childhood game into a drinking game?) Eventually, we had covered all the simple topics (people, places, things), and when I became stumped with one of Peter's words, I asked him "is it in my mouth?" I was shocked when he answered "yes." I then asked, "Is it delicious?" This time, he replied, "Not particularly." When we discovered that the answer was 'light,' I felt compelled to text Andrew and tell him that "light is not particularly delicious."

Once we were in Seoul, we trekked out to find Andrew, eat some delicious Mexican food for dinner (a very special treat for us), and hit up a bar or two. But first, we thought it wise to find a motel for the night, before we became too inebriated to stumble through a conversation in Korean with a front desk clerk. Parents--you'll be happy to know that this hotel did not have any vacancies:
After eventually booking some rooms at the Hotel Nobelesse for 50,000 won a night, we headed out into the Seoul nightlife. Where we were, Shincheon and Hong Dae (Hongik University), the bars were mostly filled with foreigners, which was actually more of a culture shock for me than bars packed with Koreans. I've become so used to Korean bars that being in western bar filled with westerners was a little uncomfortable. Still, it was fun. Our haunt for the night was:

Normally, Andrew is a little more handsome than that. (but only a little)

After a day of work, a 3 hour bus ride, and several hours of nightlife and nore-bang, we ended night one by passing out in our hotel.

Day 2

On day 2, we all woke up and had lunch at a nearby Pizza Hut. This wasn't particularly special for us, since we have a Pizza Hut in Andong. After lunch, the girls went to shop and the men went off to sauna. I will let you use your imagination or ask me later about what sauna entails, but I will tell you that the women's and men's are on different floors. I can say that it is the most refreshing experience a person can have and the best cure for a hangover.

After that, we walked about a mile or two uptown to visit the cryptically named "Doctor Fish Cafe." I assume many of you know what this is. I knew about it, but didn't know the name. It's a cafe, like any other, with one important difference. Instead of resting your feet on the floor, you put them...well:

I think the video speaks for itself, but for those who are wondering: yes, it tickles like crazy. To be specific, the fish (from China or Turkey) eat the dead skin off of your feet. But since they are scavengers, they only eat dead tissue. They never nip at you, and it never hurts. They are simply a very natural (and manly!) pedicure.

After that, we met up with the girls and went out to a delicious (if expensive) Indian restaurant. While there, Sara presented me with the first of 4 cakes I would get over the next several days.After dinner, we went up near Hongik University and bar hopped for a few hours before getting a few more hotel rooms for the night some time around 5:00 AM. The next morning, we hopped back on the bus and headed back for Andong. When we got there, Katie, Sara and I were all a little shocked to realize that Andong felt like home for us.

Day 4 (after a day of rest)

On Monday, the students were mortified by the prospect that I would be at my 2nd school for my actual birthday. So at the end of the day, a few of them ran across the street to get me some cake and a small gift. For all of those looking for pictures of the poo stick mentioned in Sara's blog a few months ago, look at my left hand.

After a day of teaching, the foreigners went out for one final night of birthday fun. We went to Woodstock, one of our local regular places, and had a few drinks and another cake (number 2).
Unfortunately, since Sara's birthday was a week earlier, I was a little tired of cake by this point.

I also had a little too much to drink, which made the beginning of my actual birthday a bit slow and groggy. Still, I tried to make up for the morning with a positive attitude during:

Day 5 (June 9th)

At Youngnam that day, the teacher's bought me cake number 3 (not pictured), and some of the students gave me cards and presents. It was a great way to get over the rough morning and feel really good at Youngnam for the first time. I finally feel like I fit in there.

After school, I went to my bi-weekly teaching course, where the teachers/students had bought me cake number 4:After that class, Sara surprised me with a a picnic in one of Andong's most scenic spots, above the Nakdong River looking over downtown. We watched the sunset, ate sandwiches and watermelon (and drank a Dr. Pepper that she had hidden from me just for my birthday), and I opened my gifts. She got me the most perfect thing I could think of: a shirt. I'm not being sarcastic, I have been dying for a short sleeve, button-up shirt that I can wear to work, and she found one that fits me perfectly and looks great. I hadn't bought any shirts for myself because clothes are actually quite expensive here. She also bought me a very old, leather-bound, Korean Bible. I may not be able to read it, but my affinity for old books and Sara's tradition of giving them to me made this a birthday for the ages.

And that's the whole story. I have to say that there's nothing like spending your birthday in another country. I'm already awed on a daily basis by everything around me. To have attention shoveled on me at the same time was fantastic, memorable, and at times a little overwhelming--but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Tolerance

2009-06-05T09:44:00.004+09:00

A few days ago, one of the students in our school brought an air soft gun to school and shot some of his classmates. The assumptions from the staff was that he was acting out in response to repeated teasing about his weight. If you aren't familiar with air soft guns, they work like a BB gun, except the pellets are plastic and there's less pressure involved. They can't really do any harm unless you get someone in the eye. Still, when Hyun-beom told me about the incident, my first reaction was utter horror, having grown up in a place where the rule is no tolerance.

I know I'm making assumptions here, and feel free to correct me in the comments if you think I'm wrong, but this kid would have been out of school in a heartbeat in America. He would have been suspended with mandatory psychiatric evaluation at the least, and expelled at the worst. In Korea, the approach was a little different.

The entire class sat down and wrote letters to each other about the incident. By the end of the day, everyone was friends again.

I'm not saying this method is perfect either. In fact, I'm not necessarily saying one way is better than another. Guns shouldn't be tolerated, but at the same time--people should be. Certainly, some kind of punishment might be called for in a situation like this, but the matter was resolved anyway. The student understood what he did wrong and his classmates realized that teasing him about his weight probably led (in part) to the action.

I guess what really intrigues me about the situation is that in a country where you can buy any number of weapons easily and quickly, kids get kicked out of school for having them. But in a country where firearms are absolutely impossible to procure, a slap on the wrist is all that's necessary.

Happy Birthday

2009-06-01T08:46:00.001+09:00

The happiest of birthdays to Sara, without whom my life would be boring, inconsequential, and incomplete.

I love you.

N. Korea

2009-05-29T11:36:00.001+09:00

In response to Amanda's question from the comments section of my last post, and due to the fact that some people may want to know what it's like to witness the N. Korea situation almost first hand, here's a post on just that.

To put it simply, no one in S. Korea, including Sara and I, is worried about N. Korea. At all. People don't even talk about it. Everyone here seems to agree that the North is simply trying to engage in some kind of international pissing contest. Occasionally, Koreans will ask me, "Are you worried?" And I reply with a very quick, "Of course not." They usually then say, "Me either." That's about the extent of any discussions about N. Korea.

The two major points about the North are that 1) they threaten some kind of military action in response to a nonissue about once a week or so, and have for years. Because of this, no one in South Korea takes them seriously anymore, though they do have an exceptionally large army. 2) The DMZ (the border between N. and S. Korea) is the most heavily guarded and armed border in the world. They ain't gettin' in here.

Though I believe that Kim Jong Il is crazy enough to make good on some of his threats, he would be silenced so quickly by the US, Korea, and Japan, that the North wouldn't have the time to do any sort of real damage. I think, also, that he honestly doesn't want to start any wars. He just wants to be taken seriously. Maybe he should try losing the platform shoes and unspiking his hair.

Bottom line: The media makes North Korea sounds a lot scarier than they are. Kim Jong Il likes to shout a lot, but he carries a toothpick, not a big stick.

Online Translations

2009-05-28T13:36:00.001+09:00

According to Google Translate, one of many free, multi-lingual, online translation tools, today my principal sent all the teachers this message using the school's messenger system:

Today is Dragon Boat Festival, one of the four major holidays.
To the head in the head, wrapped geunedwimyeo changpomul scope of the medicated malryeoseo tteuteoda plug this season injinsuk

Nutritional supplements and forget

Happy day

Iran was not happy to see he's a freak.
Someone loves me and I understand ㅗ
I feel good this morning for a ㅓ P, this is the pendulum move.
I feel good chachimeul begin!
Happy, happy day in the morning,
This is a happy day, happy life.

Tae car from the trail

Mr. Williams two of the best 6th grade class, the kid has wasted a lot of trouble.

Safety training, evacuation training for today's disaster.
To order the map, the training and rapid response.

Bbs weeks to 29 days hoejangsang jangyounggeun the mother to pass.

Believe it or not, I don't put too much faith in these things. I usually ask Hyun-beom what they say instead.

Sara and Scott's Wonderful Weekend

2009-05-25T11:59:00.001+09:00

Sara and I had a great weekend.

Friday
After a scary run-in with a neighborhood dog on Friday (see Sara's Blog) we had a carefree and heartwarming (not to mention delicious) dinner with Sara's co-teacher, Im Miye, and her family. Her two children were darling and her husband was as nice as she was. We were a little late due to the dog-biting and all, but our hosts understood and we had a wonderful time playing darts, talking to Mrs. Im's husband's students via webcam, listening to their adorable kids speak select phrases of perfect English, and learning a little Korean while our hosts learned a little English. It seems that no matter where we go in this country, everyone always wants to learn a little English, and we are always willing to learn a little more Korean.

After dinner we (what else?) went out drinking with the foreigners. It's amazing how soon after swearing off Soju everyone is willing to dive back in again.

Saturday
In what seemed like an ill-fated day, Sara and I started Saturday by missing the bus to Andong's largest and oldest Buddhist temple, Bongjeongsa, by about 6 seconds. As we were walking to the bus stop, I was reading numbers off the numerous buses parked there. "Ok, there's 67, 76, 0-1, 49. Oh Oh! There it is! 51! The one that's pulling away..." And as it drove off without us, I slumped down on a bench, dejected because I felt like we may miss out on Korean history for another week, a point which I was determined to correct this weekend.

Ever the optimist, Sara pointed out that the Andong Art Festival was going on at City Hall this week, and that Saturday was supposed to have something to do with children and singing. We decided to try it and, after running into some friends we hadn't seen in awhile, marched on to City Hall. We found a spot in the Auditorium and had our spirits lifted for over an hour watching Korean children and their parents sing traditional and pop songs to an enthusiastic audience. Afterward, we left and headed home for a relaxing evening of video games. (gotta chill sometime!)

Sunday
Determined to make good on my personal promise to experience some Korean history, Sara and I trekked off to 도산서원 (Dosan Seowon or Dosan Confucian Academy), which is the oldest Confucian Academy in Korea. We were plenty early for the bus this time, and got to the site just in time for the clouds to break and the temperature to rise. On the way there, we passed over the dry riverbed of the river that runs through Andong. It's dry because there has been little rain in Andong as of late.

After that, we arrived at Dosan and toured one of Korea's most treasured landmarks. I didn't get many good videos because I was trying to take it in through my own eyes, but here's a quick video that should give you an idea of the architecture and setting.

There were about 15 or so buildings in total, all built into the side of the mountain. Each set of buildings was another short staircase up the hill.

After we were done with the main site, we went across the river to Sisadan, a small shrine where a stone pillar which marked the memory of an event from 1792 when so many people showed up to Dosan to take a state examination that they had to move the test site several miles away to the riverside.
Yi Hwang, the Confucian scholar who started the Dosan academy, was largely responsible for the huge spike in interest in Confucian teaching several hundred years earlier. The pillar was moved to this location when the Andong Dam was built, and the site where it had rested for 200 years was flooded. It now sits in the shrine you see in the picture above.

After we had exhausted our exploration of Dosan, we grabbed some drinks and waited for the bus, which didn't take long to show up. When we got back to Andong, we were starving, and found a great traditional Korean restaurant with delicious bi bim bap (rice, veggies, red pepper paste, egg, and a whole lotta yummy), where we ate heartily and reflected on our great weekend. If most of our weekends are half as good as this past one, our time in Korea will be very well spent.

Oh yeah...and at the Confucian academy, I learned how to fly. I bet you always wondered what Confucianism was all about.

Saturday Afternoon-Art Gallery

2009-05-19T16:04:00.001+09:00

On Saturday, Mrs. Lee (who teaches 4th grade at Dongbu) invited Sara and I to her husband's art gallery for lunch and an art opening. Sara unfortunately couldn't go, but HB and I decided to go anyway. It took me awhile to discern exactly what I was going to. At first invite, I thought I was being asked to some kind of ribbon cutting at a new building, then I thought it was a pig roast at Mrs. Lee's house, then an art gallery opening at Mrs. Lee's house. Finally (upon arrival) everything was explained.

On the way there, Hyeun-bum said to me, "We are going to an old school." He couldn't have been more right. Mrs. Lee and her husband own an old shut down school in the mountains just outside of Andong. When you walk in, there are still faded pictures on the walls of students from the 1970s during assemblies and soccer games. The halls are filled with old desks and supplies, and up a staircase and to the right is a bona fide living quarters where, I would find out, Mrs. Lee and her family lived for 4 years before moving closer to downtown. After a delicious lunch and about 10,000 rounds of a game called "Guessing game! Just one more time!" with one of the children there, HB and I went around back to an open-air structure behind the school filled with colorful tables and a backroom full of pottery and a giant kiln. In this room, Hyeun-bum and I proceeded to make 10" sculptures of Korean girls in traditional Hanbok dresses.
(I hope HB doesn't mind me posting his picture on here)

From there, we went to a room even further behind the pottery room to find a small gallery, newly refurbished with state of the art lighting and newly-installed carpet. Inside were a few artists standing proudly around a table of food, their art hung around them on the four walls. I don't know much about art, but these paintings, with deliberate but delicate brushstrokes and soothing earthy tones that made each picture look just a little misty, were right up my alley. Most of the art depicted traditional Korean homes or buildings, with titles like "Home" and "Freedom." I was fascinated by the art, even if the Koreans were more fascinated that I could read the artists names on the signs next to it.

It was a great afternoon with Hyeun-bum where I felt like I finally experienced a bit of Korean culture without any added pressure of expectation. And it was all capped of with this image as we drove home on a rainy but warm Saturday in Andong.
I think it might be nice to climb to the top of those mountains. Perhaps next weekend...

Later on--Saturday Part Deux: The Never Ending Night!

Teacher's Day

2009-05-16T18:35:00.002+09:00

May is holiday month in Korea. Last week brought Children's Day and Parent's Day. Buddha's Birthday was right before that. Next week is a day celebrating marriage. Yesterday was Teacher's Day. Teacher's Day begins with the students (sometimes reluctantly) giving their teacher's carnations and reading them letters. Then the teacher's all go to a predetermined location for a volleyball tournament with all the schools in the city. (Dongbu lost in the first round, but they put up a damn good fight!)

Lunchtime

My staff went to a restaurant up in the mountains. After an (accidental, hour long) detour through the mountains north of Andong, HB and I arrived at the restaurant. During our adventure finding the place, several members of our staff called us to make sure we were OK. When we got to the restaurant, shots of soju were immediately poured and glasses of beer consumed. The main course was yumsogoki (barbecued goat meat) which was a little tough and very fatty, but still delicious.

After several shots of soju and a few glasses of beer, I began speaking Korean, which quickly gained the attention of the staff. Immediately, I was being handed bottles and slips of paper to read, with each oration being followed by rousing applause and chattering about how great my language is. Nevermind that I had no idea what I was saying most of the time...

Enter Kinny

There was another school at the same restaurant with a TaLK scholar in tow. TaLK is like EPIK but for college students or people with 2 year degrees. The other school's staff marched Kinny over to me, so I approached. What ensued was akin to parents in the park putting their babies in front of each other to see what they'll do. Kinny told me he was from San Antonio. I told Kinny that my Aunt Julie and Uncle John live in Boerne. Kinny told me about his school. etc. etc. (Did I mention he was absolutely sloshed?) All the while, both schools watched in quiet awe as we spoke rapidly in English and shook hands.

When Kinny left I turned to Hyeun-bum and asked how to say "He's very drunk" in Korean. He told me, and I turned and announced the now-forgotten phrase to my co-workers, who immediately burst into literal fits of laughter.

Saxophone Live!

From there we went to a bar called Saxophone Live which was a Karaoke Bar (nari-bang in Korean), but with a man playing saxophone with each performance. It was a lot of fun, as you can see below.
That's Mr. Kim, our special ed teacher, singing. Our school bus driver (who was also emcee) on the left. You can see the saxophonist on the far left. (I took this with my cell phone, sorry!)

After some prompting, I got up to sing a well received rendition of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. After I finished singing, Hyeun-bum told me that he got a call that police were out in full force to pick up the hundreds of drunken teachers if they dared get behind the wheel of a car. I joked with HB that if you get caught, they send you to the North.

After more soju and more beer, we were all up cheering on the current singer. At one point Mr. Kwan, our 3rd grade teacher, turned to me and said, "Sikotchie!" (my name butchered in Korean) "You sing--again--Village People!" I courteously abstained from the Village People, but HB and I did do a fun duet of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door together.

Nighttime

As if 5 hours of drinking weren't enough, I then joined Sara's school downtown for a few more shots of soju and some more beer, followed by bar-hopping with the foreigners. We went to a foreigner favorite called Woodstock, a cheesy but character-filled attempt at an American western bar. We then went to WABAR, which has a great selection of imported beers and cocktails, as long as you want to pay $6-9 a drink. We then flipped over to Okdong (the new downtown) to go to another western bar called Indy, but not before meeting our friend's adorable new shitzu puppy. All in all, it was a great day, a great night, and somehow Sara and I ended up at home with a can of BBQ Pringles that I picked up somewhere along the way.

Teacher's Day, in Andong, was an absolute riot. What's more, I finally feel like I'm not just "the foreigner," but a bonafide teacher and resident. Andong is starting to feel more and more like a suitable home, thanks in no small part to a great cohort of colleagues and friends.

My Adversary

2009-05-12T10:43:00.001+09:00

For the doubters, I present...THE BUG!

The Wikipedia article can be found by clicking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Asian_Hornet

Excerpt:

"The stinger of the Asian giant hornet is about 6 mm (¼ in) in length, and injects an especially potent venom that contains, like many bee and wasp venoms, a cytolytic peptide (specifically, a mastoparan) that can damage tissue by stimulating phospholipase action, in addition to its own intrinsic phospholipase."

The REAL Bug

2009-05-12T08:50:00.001+09:00

I'm afraid my "Heart of Darkness"-esque post yesterday about the bug was either too long or too serious. It was supposed to be funny. o_O I hope people don't think I've turned into a malicious serial killer over here. (I mean, come on. The bug whispering his last words to me about the betrayal of his beloved colors? Comic GOLD!)

Anyway, this is what really happened.

A giant Korean hornet flew into my room. (That's not just a guess, it was a hornet and it was about 2 inches long) I left it alone for a good long while before I tried to shoo it out, but when it wouldn't leave I had to kill it because I had 3rd grade coming in soon and I didn't want anyone getting stung. I will say, it was quite an ordeal trying to kill it though, hence the epically overblown post.

Later today: Costco! (Though I think Sara beat me to it)

The Bug

2009-05-11T13:33:00.001+09:00

All I ever asked of the insect world was to be left alone. I sat in the Dongbu English Village today at approximately 1130 hours. I was preparing as best I could for 3rd grade in the afternoon when I was rudely interrupted by sometimes. Not just any something--The Bug, a 2 inch long, black and yellow beast of an insect that looked like a cross between a hummingbird and a wasp.

For a short while, I left The Bug alone. Once I realized he would be hanging around for awhile, I began to research on the Internet what this potential bug might be. After not finding any results, I grew nervous of his presence. I watched him as he circled the ceiling of my room, ever aware that he could strike me at any moment, and with 3rd grade coming in a mere two hours, I knew The Bug would have to be dealt with.

But I am a fair man. It was time for lunch, and I shuffled off to the cafeteria, closing the door behind me. I gave The Bug ample time to clear my room, figuring that left alone he would simply fly out of the window.

I ate, I talked, I relaxed, and then...I returned. At 1240 hours I returned to Dongbu English Village. I cracked open the door, looked left at the restaurant poster on my wall, and saw nothing. I walked leisurely to my desk. *Bzzz* He immediately flew at me, beginning what I had hoped would never come to pass! I gave him time...I gave him a window...he decided to stay.

War.

Grabbing a book on my desk, I began to swat forcefully but with precision at the bug. After realizing that I would not easily reach him I came to the conclusion that he was drawn to the colors on my retractable posters. I rolled the vinyl English tools up to the ceiling and he was dumbfounded. His colorful paradise was ripped away, and all that was left was a sea of drab, brown, mahogany panelling. He began to roam again. This time, The Bug did not limit himself to the ceiling or the north wall, as there was nothing keeping him there any longer. With his altitude lowered I swung at him, as he flew at me, again and again, before I finally landed the winning blow.

He soared like a clay pigeon through the air and landed, on his back, in the middle of a sea of brightly colored stools. He looked left and right, knowing at least that he would die surrounded by the very things that drew him into my English Village in the first place.

"Betrayal," thought the bug.

But if I had any mercy, it was not that I would let him go, but end the suffering of his wriggling body. He looked at me and fluttered his wings. Fearing a resurgence, I grabbed a notebook, stood above my adversary, and crushed him once and for all. As his body fell away from this world, I heard a faint whisper of "the colors" before silence befell the Dongbu English Village once again.

I never asked for the battle. After all, whoever asks for violence and bloodshed? But this is my English Village, and I will do everything to protect it. It is the nature of men and beasts that we will breed war. Whether provoked by one side or the other...it is bound to happen.

War never ends.

And war--war never changes.

Youngnam

2009-05-08T14:55:00.001+09:00

As promised, here is my post about Youngnam Elementary School.

In contrast to Dongbu, there are a lot of things that I wish were different about my situation at Youngnam Elementary. Since the school is six times the size of Dongbu, their entire building is understandably more busy. But since I only go there on Tuesdays, it's hard for me to settle in. I have so far only been to Youngnam twice. When we got here I started work on Tuesday and as a result was at Dongbu for the day. I was at Youngnam for the next two weeks, but then I got sick and missed the week after that. Since then they have had a picnic that I was told to stay home for and a holiday. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever really fit in there.

The good news is that the students and staff are every bit as excited as the Dongbu peeps when I'm there. Everyone is helpful and interested, so I never feel too left behind, though I do frequently feel very out of the loop. In fact, sometimes it would be nice to have a minute to myself, since I teach six classes there.

I am in charge of teaching English to 3rd and 4th graders at Youngnam. They have three sections of each grade, so I teach three 3rd grade classes and three 4th grade classes. This means I only have to prepare 2 lessons for the day. The major issue, though, is that I don't get to talk very much with the teachers. So even if I prepare a lesson, I might be told that I can't use it because they have a different lesson. Sometimes they want me to teach their lesson (which they have prepared largely in Korean) and sometimes I am reduced to a "talking parrot" as we say in Korea. That means I'm there to say words and have the students repeat me.

Of course, I can't complain too much because this job is wonderful. Even at its low points it's better than a lot of other jobs.

Either tomorrow or in two weeks (I don't know which yet) Sara and I will start teaching a Saturday English camp (after school English-language course) at Youngnam. My hope is that the English camp will give me a chance to get to know the staff and students there, so that maybe Tuesday will no longer be the day of the week that I dread.

Until then, I guess I'll suck it up. Afterall, I could be working at some university writing center or something... ;-)

Thoughts On a Month of Teaching

2009-05-05T17:45:00.001+09:00

A new job can be scary for anyone. A new teaching job can be terrifying. A new job teaching in a foreign country where only a handful of people speak your language is downright enough to stop your heart. But here I am, over a month into this new gig, and my heart is still pumping hard. What I've realized now after starting a small handful of new jobs in my life is that there are always people there to help you, and they always understand just how scared you might be. If you get the right group, they will even find ways of harnessing your anxiety into positive energy. At Dongbu Elementary, that's exactly what the students and teachers have done for me.

You might say I got lucky here. I'm at a school with only 150 students, so I have ample opportunity to get to know each and every one of them. I may not know their names, but I recognize them all, and I feel like I've built some lasting bonds with some of the kids already. It's easy to fall in love with a school when the students seem so eager to learn and the staff are so excited by everything I do. If I bring in a chocolate bar from America or show the kids some pictures of my university, everyone is ecstatic. Literally everything I do is a learning experience because I'm so foreign to these kids. And the teachers are so excited to have me that I sometimes think I can do no wrong. Of course, that just motivates me to continue giving them a high caliber of results. I want to impress people every day, and am driven to show my students (and the staff for that matter) that I am excited on a daily basis because of that.

(Unfortunately, lately that has been hard to do. Because of my lingering bronchitis from being sick a few weeks back, the teachers all think I'm very sick and weak. I'm not, but that's hard to explain in a culture where your health is valued above almost everything else. Because I have a raspy voice and nagging cough, the teachers want to give me time to rest. They will sometimes take over more of the class or cut class short. Anyway this is a tangent, let me get back to teaching...)

Yes, I am stuck to the same boring and occasionally downright pitiful curriculum that is provided for all English education here. And yes, sometimes its hard to motivate students when the material is dull or doesn't make as much sense as it should. But finding ways to make that material fun or interesting is the best part of this job. For example, last week after the 5th graders had learned the prepositions on, under, above, inside, between, and next to (after 3 classes), I took the opportunity to teach them parts of speech. What good will random phrases do these kids if they don't understand how English works? So, with a lot of help from my brilliant co-teacher Mr. Choi, we talked about nouns, verbs, and prepositions. Now this week I am devising games to help them understand why they need to know parts of speech.

But none of it would be any fun, or productive in any way, if the students weren't so excited about learning so much of the time. I click most with the 5th and 6th graders, only because they can communicate the most with me. But I still love the 3rd and 4th grade students and their enthusiasm for learning even a new word or two to say to me in the hallways. In particular, there are a few 6th grade students who will come to my classroom between breaks or after class is done for the day just to point at things in the room and ask me what they are. Or arrange letters on my Velcro board to show me words they can spell. They also take the time to teach me a little Korean, though I make it clear that my classroom is an English only zone. These are the kids that send me home with a smile every day.

And so there you have it--any job is wonderful if you are surrounded by the right people. And at my job, I am surrounded by the perfect group of mentors, co-workers, dedicated students, and friends. I couldn't ask for a better situation.

Youngnam, on the other hand, is a completely different story--a story that I will tell you in the coming days.

Sara's Korean Drink

2009-05-04T14:40:00.001+09:00

Here's a video from when Sara and I first got to Andong and got our new apartment. It needs no introduction.

Kids Climbing Mountains

2009-05-03T19:31:00.001+09:00

Here is a video of my students climbing Youngnam Mountain last week. This is more of a test to see if I've got the video thing down than anything, but at least you can see some of my students! This is the 6th grade class at Dongbu Elementary School.

Illinois Workforce Development System

2009-04-29T10:12:00.002+09:00

During my period of unemployment, I was required to register with my state's job bank in order to receive benefit payments. The entire system is basically a giant, online database of job seekers and employers. But for month after month, no job matches ever came around for me. I constantly added more skills to my profile and broadened my job requirement criteria, but still no jobs "fit" my skills set.

Until now.

I just received an email from a gentleman named Scott Kim who found my information through the Illinois Workforce Development System. He wanted to tell me that he has a great opportunity for me to teach English in South Korea, which is one of the most up-and-coming places in the world for English teachers.

I can't decide if this is the ultimate example of how lethargic the American unemployment system is right now, or just the funniest damn thing that's happened to me in a long time. Or maybe it's a resounding victory for the unemployment system, since they found me the very job I'm already doing, thereby proving that their job seeker-employer matching system is PERFECT, if a little slow.

In any case, I emailed the guy back, thanked him for his interest in me and told him the humor in the whole scenario. I hope he finds it as funny as I did.

Apologies

2009-04-22T08:58:00.001+09:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Since Saturday afternoon I have been completely incapacitated with some unknown illness. I actually had to take off 2 days of work (a fact of which I am not proud since I've only been here 3 weeks), but I am happy to announce that I am back today (Wednesday) at about half-steam. I still feel rather poor, but since I only have one class on Wednesdays, I figured I could brave it rather than use up another sick day.

The whole debacle started after mountain climbing with my students on Youngnam Mountain on Saturday. I woke up with a bit of a headache and a slight fever, but nothing was deterring me from hiking with the kids. I had been excited for days about going up that mountain with those kids. And I must admit, it was a blast. I was amazed watching 1st-6th graders climb up the side of a mountain at some inclines that made me scared, with footing as narrow as 10-14 inches sometimes and no handrails. The kids loved it. What I loved was that this kind of a trip would never fly in America. Too much liability, too many kids would complain because it's too hard, too many parents up in arms because it's just too dangerous. But every one of those students made it up and down that mountain without a bit of complaint. No one got hurt because everyone watched out for everyone else. It was really fun.

And then--on the way down--I started to think that maybe ignoring my early warning signs for illness was a bad idea. I played it cool so the students didn't worry, but I started to get dizzy about halfway down. When we got to the bottom, I felt ready to pass out. Of course, I had been hiding all of these symptoms, so Sara thought that when I asked if we could go home, it was merely a suggestion. She wanted to get something to eat, and I didn't want to stop her. So we got some fried chicken (KFC actually) and headed for home. When we got home, I hit the bed like Jim Thome hits a low fastball.

Skip forward to about 10:30--my fever is spiking at around 103, and I can't stop coughing. We got to the hospital by our apartment. No ER. A nice Korean man finds us a cab and sends us to the right place. We get there, struggle to communicate. I feel stupid because if I go to a Korean hospital I should know how to tell them what's wrong. I'm in the ER. I have a chest x-ray. Some doctors listen to my chest. There's a nice doctor there who speaks good English. I am relieved, except they don't know what the problem is. "It's not pneumonia," he says. "Whew, that's good," I think. I never even thought of pneumonia. Another 10 minutes and I'm behind a curtain being asked to drop my pants by a Korean nurse with a needle. She gives me a shot for the muscle aches and pains. They send us back to the front desk, I get 3 days worth of medication, and pay 19,800 won. (That's about $16US) I get in a cab and go back home.

They told me to come back in a few days if they symptoms don't go away. Well, it's been 4 days and they're still here. Sara is sick now too, so we'll be going back tonight. Except this time I'm not at all nervous about the conditions.

At any rate, I don't think Sara and I will be going mountain climbing again too soon.

Technology

2009-04-17T12:13:00.001+09:00

Since Friday is slow, and since the time difference worked out in my favor, I just finished watching the White Sox beat the Rays 3-2 LIVE on my 85" touchscreen blackboard in sparkling HD. Technology is a wonderful thing.

By the way, if you'd ever like to skype with me, feel free to drop me an email and I'll tell you my skype name. I would post it here, but this is a public blog, and I'd rather not have some guy from Montana calling me at 3am.

Cause Sara Did It

2009-04-17T11:52:00.002+09:00

Ok...I suppose I'll tell you all about MY teaching experiences thus far.

I was not lucky enough to be given the 2 week grace period to observe and get my feet wet. I was instead given 1 week and then had to dive in head first. It took awhile at my primary school (Dongbu Elementary) to fully understand my role since only one of my co-teachers speaks any conversational English. As nice as the other two are, it's very difficult for us to talk, much less lesson plan. And so, I end up being a talking parrot for 3rd and 4th grades. My schedule looks like this:

M: 6th grade--5th grade--3rd grade--2 hour English camp
T: 3 3rd grade classes--3 4th grade classes--2 hour teacher course
W: 4th grade (I like Wednesday)
Th: 5th grade--4th grade--2 hour English camp--2 hour teaching course
F: 6th grade--1 hour English camp (Friday's nice too)

I was told that they wanted me teaching the teacher training course on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I was the most qualified foreigner to teach a college level course. (Pat on the back) As nice as that is, though, it also makes Tuesday and Thursday an absolute nightmare.

Anyway, back to the kids. I teach 6th and 5th grade with Hyeun Bum, my main co-teacher who speaks nearly fluent English. We have a lot of fun, use a lot of activities outside of the textbook, and I really believe we get through to those kids every time.

4th grade is taught alongside Mrs. Lee, who is a joy to watch, even if she doesn't speak much English. I've never seen a group of students respect their teacher more--anywhere. Recently, Mrs. Lee worked out that on Wednesday we would teach the textbook lesson and on Thursday I could do whatever I wanted. (SWEET)

3rd grade is cute, but the kids just plain don't know much. I am there basically so they can hear a native speaker of English. It's hard to teach them much, but they're just so darn cute that I love the class anyway.

Youngnam Elementary on Tuesdays is both a blessing and absolute hell. Since I'm only there one day a week, the rockstar image will be hard to shed. I am followed everywhere by a gaggle of girls who all but sit on my lap when I'm at the computer. It's nice to be such a spectacle, but a moment's peace away from the screaming 9-year-olds would be nice. Plus, 6 straight classes is a little taxing.

The students are all at different levels, like Sara has said, but most of them can answer basic questions. At Youngnam last week, I was asking a 35+ student class how they felt that day. I asked a few students in the front row and got responses of "I'm fine," "Ok," and "vely good-uh." At the end of the row was a tiny, squirrely looking girl who I assumed didn't know what was going on. In my attempt to teach EVERY student at least something, I wanted to ask her. So I walked over to her, squatted down next to her desk and said, "How are you today?"

She looked at me for a moment before quietly squeaking out in perfect English, "I'm alright, but I have a cold."

It's times like that when I know it's all worth it.

Engrish in the Classroom

2009-04-15T13:47:00.001+09:00

This is an actual picture from my classroom. I haven't said anything, because I figure it probably won't ever come up in classes, but I think it's funny.
I'd like my stake extra pointy please!

Getting on Our Feet

2009-04-13T11:25:00.001+09:00

Enter week 3 of our lives in the Republic of Korea.

It feels more like 3 months, yet we're just now starting to settle in. We have been given a computer and microwave, our internet is connected (and lightening fast!), we have cell phones, we know our home address, we've met several foreign and Korean friends, lesson planning is becoming routine, and we are starting to feel comfortable going into restaurants alone.

Still, there's so much left to learn here. All of my Korean friends tell me that my accent is great, which makes me happy, but it's also a burden. I say something to a Korean, who then assumes that I speak fluent Korean because my pronunciation is good and begins chattering away at me. I then have to interupt them and tell them that I speak very little Korean. Pronunciation don't mean squat when you only know 20 words.

Luckily, the Korean people are friendly and welcoming. Sara and I don't feel afraid or embarassed about trying to adventure out. On Saturday, we took a cab to the Andong Dam where we took pictures and searched (ironically) for some water to drink. We scaled a small mountain at a slope of about 65 degrees in tennis shoes. We also went over the Wolyeonggyo Bridge, which is the longest foot bridge in Korea. It's named for the view one can see from it during the night of the moonlight reflecting on the river. We were there during the day, but will be sure to go back at night for the full experience.

On Saturday we went to Akdong, the "new downtown" here in Andong. New downtown is right. This neighborhood is bigger in every way than old downtown Andong. Wider streets, bigger buildings, more restaurants and bars (or hofs), and a movie theater that we will be frequenting. The night ended with Sara and I having a late dinner and some drinks with 2 foreign friends and 2 Korean friends.

And so now begins another week of teaching. Today is light, with only 2 classes and an English camp (voluntary after-school English lessons). Tomorrow will be heavy, going to Youngnam for 6 straight classes, then to Andong Elementary for the class I am now painfully aware that I will be teaching until June. The rest of the week unfolds as always, and I'm sure there will be new challenges to face and more things to discover.

But as I sit in my room, listening to children chanting in Korean outside my window, I try to absorb it all and convince myself that this isn't a vacation or overseas internship. I'm not here on some sort of retreat, and no one is coming to get me. I don't have a return ticket, and people back in America are all going on with their daily lives without me there as a regular part. And that's just fine.

This is my job. And this is my life.

At least for now.

The Plot Thickens

2009-04-10T15:29:00.001+09:00

So Hyun Bum found a document about the teaching class at Andong Elementary that I had no idea I was teaching. It was sitting around the staff room and has a date stamped on it from before HE even arrived at the school. It says I am to teach a 3 month teacher training course every Tuesday and Thursday from 5:30-7:10. What's more, it says nothing about any kind of payment for the course, except that Andong Elementary will get 300,000 won for hosting it.

Aside from the fact that 3 months is a long time to teach a course when you've only been in the country for 2 weeks, this schedule prevents me from going to my Korean language course on Thursday nights, which makes me a might unhappy.

Luckily, since I have the best co-teacher that ever lived, HB is calling the POE for me to find out more details and if we can either shorten the class or get another native teacher to teach part of it.

Aside from this minor setback, things in Korea are going well. Today, Sara and I are getting cell phones and (hopefully) bedsheets. We also plan to go up to the Andong City Dam and see the sakura trees blossoming.

Woot!

My Classroom

2009-04-10T10:59:00.001+09:00

Since I'm a loser and can't figure out videos yet, here are some pictures of my classroom.

My new touchscreen blackboard and computer desk. BDCafe Dongbu

And the view from my room.So...not a bad life here in the Capital of the Korean Spirit. (That's Andong's slogan.)

Teaching Class

2009-04-08T09:27:00.001+09:00

I will spare you the gritty details, but after about a week of quiet chatter from different people about me possibly going to Andong Elementary School on Tuesday night for a teacher training course, I found myself in the Andong Elementary School courtyard completely unaware of where to go or my purpose there. I was told to go to the cafeteria. So I went to the cafeteria. I said hello and asked the man at the front door if anyone spoke English. He said, "No, no no," and turned me away. Baffled about this situation, I tried to go the school's main office, but since it was 5:30, the school was locked up and no one was there. So, a little pissed off and quite lost, I decided to wander around the parking lot to see if anyone looked like they might know something.

After 15 minutes, I was confronted by two very nice Korean English teachers. They asked me if I was an English teacher and told me that we were in the building behind the main building, which I didn't know existed. They also automatically knew what school I was from, so it was clear I was the only one without all the details.

Once I got inside the room, I was greeted by about 15 smiling Korean English teachers, none of whom seemed purturbed that I was late. I was then promptly sat down next to someone who began chattering in Korean for 10 minutes until I was asked to introduce myself. I did, and we went around the room doing introductions in English. Most of the other teachers introduced themselves directly to me, which I thought was strange, but figured it was because I was foreign and they were interested. The woman next to me continued to talk then for about another 5 minutes, turned to me, and said goodbye. The room was then silent for what seemed like 2 or 3 minutes.

Everyone was looking at me bewildered.

And it hits me.

I wasn't supposed to attend a teacher training course. I am supposed to TEACH a teacher training course.

Now, pardon my language, but all that went through my head at this point was "shit shit shit shit shit shit shit." I was sitting in a room with 15 Koreans, all waiting for me to "start," without a single clue what they want from me or what the topic for discussion is. Plus, I find out we are supposed to be there for 2 hours. Though I walked carefully through the next 20 minutes, I am quite sure I made a fumbling ass of myself as I apologized profusely and tried to figure out from a group of half-fluent English teachers what, exactly, they wanted from me.

Somehow, by about an hour and 15 minutes in, I had pulled it together and I was telling them strategies about how to run an English class entirely in English. We went over setting an agenda and how to take attendance in English. But for the most part, it was a total disaster.

The best part: I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

Thankfully, Sara will be going with me, and we WILL have a plan.

This whole "Dynamic Korea" thing went from quirky and amusing to dreadfully inappropriate last night, but after a brief conversation with Sara, my spirits returned, and today is another school day.

C'est la vie.

ps
I WILL have videos up later today. I am working on it right now.

Oh Happy Day

2009-04-07T16:00:00.001+09:00

I can get Dr. Pepper in Korea.

http://www.ezshopkorea.com/shop/step1.php?number=40956

Will I pay 20,000 won for it? You had better believe it.

SCORE!!!!!!!!!

Questions

2009-04-07T13:19:00.002+09:00

Probably the most common question I get, besides "What is your name?" and "Where are you from?" is "Do you like kimchi?" For those who don't know, kimchi is a fermented, spicy cabbage that is served with every Korean meal. To say it is popular is a vast understatement.

I tell the kids that kimchi is "so-so" while I wave my hand back and forth.

This is because I still don't know how to say, "It tastes like an old stewed foot" in Korean.

Youngnam

2009-04-07T13:10:00.001+09:00

I am currently in the middle of my first day at Youngnam Elementary School. At about six times the size of Dongbu, this is a more hectic day than the rest of my school days combined. It is 1:12pm here, and I have already taught 4 classes, with two more coming this afternoon. And as if that weren't enough, I am somewhat of a celebrity here. It's difficult to walk through the halls without being crowded like I'm Bono or Paul McCartney.

At lunch, which was supposed to be my "break time" I shook hands with so many children that I barely got to eat anything. During second hour, I signed about 35 autographs. I told the kids to hang onto the signaure--that it would be worth something some day. I don't think they understood, but I'm unclear as to whether that's because the language was lost on them, or because it already means a great deal to them now. When I walk around this building, girls swoon and boys try their hardest to be "America cool."

Even as I sit here writing this, in their brand new English lab (similar to, but larger than, Dongbu's), students are crowding the door for a glimpse of me. Some are even brave enough to push open the door to mutter a "nice to meet you!" They probably don't know I can hear them muttering in half Korean/half English outside my door while they discuss the most appropriate way to greet me.

I'm still not sure whether I want things to calm down next Tuesday or not.

Elementary School

2009-04-06T11:06:00.001+09:00

For those who might not know, I'm teaching elementary school here. I teach 4 days a week at Dongbu Elementary, grades 3-6. It is a small school (only about 120 students), but they are great kids. Each and every one is dedicated and friendly. Of course, they are children, and they do get out of line, but they are quick to fall back in and are laughing off their disobedience right away. Plus, they bring me chocolate. (score!) On Tuesdays, I will be going to Yeongnam Elementary. I haven't been there yet, so I'll post impressions when I do.

I just witnessed my first school assembly. I was asked to introduce myself, so I gave a short speech about where I'm from and why I'm here. It was translated by my main co-teacher Che Hyuen Bum. The students seemed mildy excited to see me, even though they have seen me many times before, but that isn't the reason for this post.

These kids are in the frickin' military! They stand, single-file, with as little movement as possible. Then, a lead student shouts commands at the students and they fall into a militaristic trance as they stand straight, salute their flag, and stand at ease. Hyuen Bum tells me that this is a tradition lasting from the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea in the early 20th century. Since that was not a very pleasant time for Korea, it shocks me that they still practice it. Perhaps as the older educators retire and young, Korean blood is brought into the schools, this is a tradition that will fade, and new traditions will arise.

Now, I must go, as my daily milk has arived, and I must enjoy it.

Facilities

2009-04-03T15:55:00.001+09:00

We were told to expect the worst in Korea in terms of facilities, both in the classroom and at home. Everyone told us that the schools were falling apart and the apartments were so small one person would barely fit. I must be living proof that it's a case-by-case situation. My classroom was finished 3 weeks ago. Although my school itself is 90 years old this year, my classroom overlooks downtown and the mountains. Inside, it is lined floor-to-ceiling with new oak paneling. On one side of the room is an 85" touchscreen blackboard with computer connectivity. On the otherside is a 50" LCD HDTV (likewise with computer connectivity). I also have a brand new computer, digital laser printer and all new furniture including computer desk and chair, podium, multi-colored leather stools, a huge map of the world (pacific-centered), and cabinets lined with plastic food which comprise a supermarket and restaurant. Did I mention the 3 brand new student computers, world clocks from London, New York, Seoul, Moskva, and Sydney and the PA system with wall-to-wall speakers?

Then there's our apartment. After all of the preparation of lowering our expectations for what we assumed would be a chicken coup with a squat toilet, we were taken to our apartment building which was completed in January. Keypad entry system, air conditioning, brand new appliances, huge bathroom, and a patio overlooking the river and downtown Andong. It does not come with a TV, but that's about the only drawback there is. It is also exactly halfway between Sara's school and mine. Wow. We got LUCKY. It is a studio, but a large studio, and Sara and I don't need much room. Even for being a studio, it is by far the largest apartment we've seen. And I'll take one huge room over 2 tiny ones any day.

So thank you, Korea, for proving so many people wrong. Pictures and vidoes to follow in the next few days!

PS

2009-03-31T14:26:00.001+09:00

Check out http://www.addongbu.es.kr

Sweeeeeet.

update April 3rd:

Make sure you have popups enabled for this site, otherwise, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

Orientation and Andong

2009-03-31T13:54:00.001+09:00

The last day of orientation was wonderful. We were taken to the National Museum of Korea, which is quite literally the largest building I think I've ever been in. (For such a small country, they sure like big stuff.) Then, we went to the oldest palace in Seoul, where the kings of the Joseon Dynasty ruled from inside guarded walls and with a venerable city around them inside the larger area. We then got to see a contemporary performance called Cookin' Nanta, where Sara was brought on stage to help the cooks prepare dumplings. She was pitted against someone from the other side of the theater, and lost, but it was certainly a photo finish. Plus, she got to keep the chef's hat. Bitchin'.

I could talk for ages about that last day, but only pictures can do much of it justice, and right now I'm more focused on what's going on now. Yesterday, Sara and I were shipped off to Andong. After a 3 hour bus ride (during which Sara thought she was going to wet herself for the last 2.8 hours), we met our co-teachers in Gumi. As expected, they were all wonderful people, even if Sara's spoke far more fluent English than mine. I will admit that I nearly had a heart attack when my teacher slammed on his brakes in the middle of the highway and started backing up into oncoming traffic, then later asked me if I "had any way of contacting your girlfriend." But my fears were put to rest when Sara showed up safe and sound at my school, from where we were taken out to a delicious dinner.

After dinner (for details, see http://anythingbutsquid.blogspot.com/) we were told our housing was not ready yet, and were instead taken to a swanky hotel in downtown Andong. Regardless of the hooker postcards by the elevator in the parking garage and the complimentary condoms by the bed (not to mention the glowing red light emanating from below and above our bed), the hotel was actually very nice.

And of course, I've seen even more White Sox hats. I'm not sure if they know who the White Sox are or if they just like the logo. Honestly, I don't really care. I'm breaking my Crede jersey out tomorrow. I'll be a superstar.

Come back later for impressions on my first day at school.

What the Crede?

2009-03-31T13:41:00.001+09:00

I have seen no fewer than 9 White Sox caps on the heads of full-blooded Koreans since I have been here .

I think I belong here.

note: I realize the irony in the entry heading here since Crede is now on the Twinkies.

Orientation

2009-03-29T06:38:00.001+09:00

ㅑ엏ㅅ허솟

That doesn't mean anything. I'm just using a Korean keyboard and thought it would be cool to use a few Hangeul sumbols. Aren't they neato?

Orientation has been fantastic. When we got here, even though I was ready to barf, I was shocked and happily surprised by how organized and friendly the orientation was. The process was smooth. After 20 minutes we had all of our orientation materials (including sandwich, bottled water, orientation guide, tourism guidebook, and free hoodie and embroidered towels!!!) and a quaint but clean room on the first floor of the dormitory. The next morning, we awoke to smells of scrambled eggs and fresh kimchi. Ok, there wasn't actually any kimchi at breakfast. But there is at every other meal. The food has been great, for the most part. I think I will survive here well, though I fear for Sara and her crusade against meat. Vegitarian food is rare and abnormal here.

As for preparing me to be am EFL teacher, I think they've done a fine job. We learned on the first day that the main reason for this program (besides English being a major economical language) is that people were having to send their children overseas to English schools in order to truly learn the language. Here they learned grammar and punctuation, but not pronounciation or communication skills. Koreans were devastated by this process of having their families torn apart in the pursuit of language learning. The solution? Tear the Westerners away from their families and bring them here!

What we've learned about the classroom themselves is encouraging. I won't be required to produce grades, nor am I put under an immense ammount of pressure. There are dozens of websites chocked full of EFL lesson plans that I can draw from, and I have 18 hours a week (minimum) of "free time" to lesson plan for the other 22. Since lesson planning can't possibly take 22 hours, many people end up on Facebook and Youtube for a large part of their day.

In addition, though I don't know how my specific school will be, many EPIK teachers are not required to come to school during the students' breaks (July/August and January/February). Essentially, this extends my vacation time to 4 months, assuming my school works under these rules. If not, I will be there diligently, on Facebook, every day.

Today we depart for downtown Seoul, the Korean National Museum, an old Korean palace, an internationally renowned Korean show called "Nanta Cooking" where chefs perform and cook for you, and a fabulous dinner at a seafood restaurant called Marisco. Then, we finally get an oppurtunity to walk around for a bit and experience the city. Of course, there are plenty of frat boys and sorority girls here who have been--ahem--"experiencing" the city nightly. I'm not sure how they got into this program, but I hope they act more like teachers when they get to their schools. Teachers have a wonderful reputation in Korea. I'd prefer it not be my countrymen who ruin that.

But I can't be too sour, because this place is magical so far (as is any new place), and I'd like my honeymoon with it to last as long as possible. I hope the charm doesn't wear off any time soon, but if it does, I want to remember these first weeks exactly as they were--fresh, exciting, foreign, and filled with new chances to explore the world and myself.

Now it's off for a quick shower and a healthy breakfast. Good morning to me and good afternoon to all of you. The sun is finally rising over the mountain tops that are mere city blocks from my window.

I think I'm really beginning to like it here.

Flying

2009-03-27T07:07:00.001+09:00

Yesterday I experienced sunlight for 21 straight hours. In case my point isn't obvious, that can really screw you up. I expected to be prepared for this journey because I'd been to Europe several times and had survived pretty well. But for anyone who might be in my same mindset, be aware that traveling to Asia is much much different.

Somewhere around hour 15 of daylight, my insomnia began to set in. I don't know if it's because I can't sleep in airplane seats, or because I just really wanted to see the thrilling conclusion to Eagle Eye on my seat-back entertainment center, or if it was the gentleman behind me who opened his window every 3 minutes, supposedly to check and see if the Pacific really was still out there, consequently flooding the entire cabin with blinding light. But whatever the cause, I think I gathered myself about one full half hour of sleep during the flight(s). By the time we got to Incheon International Airport, it was starting to seem to me that we had just gotten on that plane. Somehow, time had just bent itself and propped us right up in the future. I was definitely going a little stir crazy.

And then I saw the airport. And the people. And the mountains rising everywhere out of the giant panes of glass windows. I think it was finally the slogan on a restaurant called Kraze Burger in the airport that finally snapped me back into reality--"It's my burger more than a burger!" And somehow my weariness and hunger just faded away because I was finally here.

The ride to the University where our orientation is being held was not pretty since I was in a constant state of pre-barfing (my first ever motion sickness!), but after making it here with no major problems, with all of our luggage, I was finally consumed by this whole experience.

So I guess it was all worth it, and I guess this really was the right decision since I am finding it impossible to stifle my enthusiasm. I was actually up (and fully rested) at 6:30am Korean time today because I was so excited. Now here we go, Sara and I, into our first day of orientation in this new world. I'll tell you more about it as soon as I know.

The Beatles said it best:

I don't know why you say, "goodbye." I say, "annyonghaseyo."

Welcome everyone!

2009-03-24T10:59:00.000+09:00

Hello and welcome to my attempt at witty and interesting banter. This will be a spot for me to communicate about my travels and life with my friends and any strangers that find my blog on Google.

I won't bore you now with my uninteresting life in Crete, IL, but please check back around midday on Wednesday (Mar. 25th) for my impressions on leaving the US from O'Hare Intl Airport.

Cheers,
Scott G