After nearly four months of cross-training, lesson writing, development, and many idle hours, I have spent the past five days actually doing the job I was hired to do. Yes, friends, I have finally gotten to teach. Real students, who do not speak English as a first language. Rambunctious boys and giggly girls, all obsessed with one goal: to get another STICKER!!!
A month or so ago, I switched a shift this week with another teacher, so that he could go on a long vacation with his wife, and in return he will work a day for me in January (allowing me to go on a vacation of my own!). I didn't know that this would be our first week with students. The timing was unfortunate, since now not only do I have students, but I get to work 11 days with only one day off in the middle. Exhausting? Indeed. Informative? VERY. And to my surprise, I find myself not quite as burned out as I thought I would be, although I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow with great anticipation.
The real work started on Saturday, with a weekend program. They arrived around 2 in the afternoon, had classes until 9 PM, and then started back up Sunday morning at 9, until finally finishing around 3:00. They were quite bright, which generally means they are a little extra energetic and hard to control. Thankfully, my weekend supervisor was kind enough to pair me with experienced teachers, so I could begin to see how classes are run. The classes were also mercifully small, 10 students per teacher, two classes in the same room. So between myself and one other teacher, we managed 20 kids. This sounds incredibly cushy compared to a normal schoolteaching environment, but this place is set up more like a summer camp then a classroom, so you often need an extra teacher just for crowd control, or to help keep the energy and enthusiasm high.
We met the students at the front gate, gave them their 'passports,' and showed them to their hotels (small dorm buildings at the back of campus). It was strangely nervewracking, I really didn't know how to behave or what to say. Looking back, I'm amused at myself for being so nervous! We started our program with an opening ceremony, went over the rules, then began classes. The weekend lessons are fun: we had a science lesson that talked about gravity and about different shapes, and then the students got to do an egg drop. Your egg didn't break? STICKERS! Then there was some game time, where we learned Deathball - also a little tricky to do on the fly, but we figured it out. Next, we did a cooking class where they got to make cupcakes, with FOUR classes in the same room. Utter madness, the cupcakes finished baking late, and we had to bring them to the students in their hotels. There was also a glitch about where they were supposed to be sleeping, and in the midst of rearranging, we thought we lost one girl. (Turns out she hadn't come to EV, and the hotel list was wrong, but *whew* scary.) I went back to my room and totally collapsed!
Sunday didn't go very smoothly, but I learned quickly that it's not the end of the world. I taught two sessions of advertising class, where students learn about brand names, products, slogans, and adjectives and then get to make their own commercial. Both times we ran out of time to finish making the commercials, partly because I didn't know how to use the software so the other teacher ran around like a maniac helping all the groups. We were going to try and finish after lunch, but time was a factor then, and the students didnt even seem to notice. We took them to the show that is currently playing this season, then went to outprocessing and closing ceremony and sent them on their way!
Despite the fact that nothing really went quite right or smoothly, I learned some useful tricks about how to elicit answers from students, figured out the process of getting them where they need to go (teachers, students, and classrooms shuffle after each class, so sending them to the right place AND having your new classroom ready to go takes some effort), got shamelessly flattered by students in pursuit of stickers, and generally got a lot more comfortable in the role of...whatever it is I'm supposed to be here.
Monday I didn't work until 1 PM, so I took an early morning grocery store trip with Meg and Eugene. Too early, in fact: the store didn't open for 45 minutes. They let us sit inside in the customer service area, and it was almost worth the wasted time to see the store's opening ceremony: all the greeters and employees line up at the main entrance, a bell chimes, and in unison they say something along the lines of 'welcome and happy shopping' while executing a perfectly synchronized bow.
Monday afternoon was hectic, indeed: all the lessons are brand new, so no one has any experience with them. This whole week has been like that, actually, but Monday kicked it all off. We have 350 girls from a middle school program, of widely varying ability levels. I was scheduled in content areas that I had never even trained in, since I was busy training the ones I had written, but I jumped in wherever I could. The first two classes were about sending messages, and gearing up the students to record their own statement ("Hello, my name is Min Jin Kim, and I am a cute girl who likes soccer. I would like to talk to you about school uniforms..." etc.) It was hard to tell if we had adequately prepared them, since the classes build upon each other, but the teachers change midway through. After two of those lessons, I had to run to drama, where I taught with the woman who had developed the drama lessons. THAT was awesome, the class ran smoothly and the students had a blast acting out dialogues with voice actors reading the lines, and silent actors doing the gestures. From there, I had to monitor dinner in the cafeteria and then run the helium stick game during Go-Go. (three rooms host three different games, and 3 groups of students rotate through to play each game.) Helium stick is fun: the object is to lower a stick to the ground, but each member of the team has to continually touch it with one finger. The combined force of each finger is greater than gravity, so the stick ends up rising instead of lowering, despite all the screaming of "LOWER LOWER LOWER!!!!" It was a challenge to run the game in a way that kept everyone interested, and we had to do a few trial runs to properly explain the rules, but eventually we hit a good stride. Games are a little lower pressure, but much higher energy, so by 9:00 I was thoroughly wiped out.
Tuesday I got to teach the lessons I had actually written, and I was very nervous; I was selected to write because I had no experience with the way EV has worked so far, and they wanted a fresh perspective...but I wasn't sure I had made them actually teachable for ESL students. I had good coteachers and a high level class, and for the most part things went all right, barring plenty of technical difficulties (whiteboard was too small, classroom was too small, nowhere to hang the charts I'd made, etc). The activities I had designed were fairly open ended, but I found ways to make them work, and added some impromptu material as needed. That night I was scheduled to MC a game called Quiz Buffet, which I've never seen, so I gratefully traded with Arienne, who wanted out of helium stick. (Second time was the charm - it went very well.)
Today! Since I covered Keith's shift, I worked the morning instead of evening shift. Again, I wasn't trained in any of the lessons, but we figured them out and made them work. We did a session on the library, and on using the words "lend' and "borrow," then a class on airport language, then a writing class about surveys...where we never even got around to writing the survey! Still had fun and got them talking a lot, though, which is what counts. I have 3 more classes this afternoon, one of which I am not even scheduled for, but I felt bad: I had 3 periods off, while my closest friend here was going to run a game by herself with two classes, so I offered to help out. Other classes include class 3 of the other lessons I wrote, but it's only baking cupcakes so it shouldn't be too involved...and then I take 2 classes to have dinner at one of the restaurants on campus and then to go shopping at EV Mart for candy and cheap toys. And then...I collapse! Thursday I am off, and Friday the students leave first thing, so we have a laid-back day of development and meetings for Christmas. (I still can't believe we don't get the holiday off. Unless we want to use a vacation day, that is. GAH.)
Overall, I feel so much more at ease around the kids, and while I still prefer not to lead the class, I am more than purely ornamental. If I had to lead, I feel like I could; I did, yesterday, and it went ok, although I still don't think my lessons are right for this environment. (That's a whole different issue that I won't get into, but we were told to develop in a style that doesn't really work here. How was I to know?) I've definitely had less training time than most people get, but I'm not totally thrown in the deep end either. I'm not freaked at the idea of this upcoming weekend program, or about next week. I definitely psyched myself out about how hard this was going to be. Once my body adapts to this new schedule, I'll do fine.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
oh wait!
Actually, I DO have some things worth mentioning! They were well documented on facebook, but I should do them proper justice here. The stories are a tad old, but they were fantastically fun.
-Experienced my first norae-bang. This is a uniquely Korean custom: it's a small, private karaoke room. You pay to enter for 60-90 minutes, usually about $3 per person. There is a video screen and console, a table, some couches/benches, a book full of karaoke songs, two microphones, and some tambourines. You and your friends punch in your own numbers and sing whatever you want, with no inhibitions, to your heart's content. The selection is not great, but there's no one to make you self-conscious, so go ahead and sing Journey or Aerosmith or Evanescence! I know I did! Also, on the screen that displays the lyrics, there is a constantly changing wallpaper of completely irrelevant pictures. Flowers blowing in the breeze, perhaps, or farm workers picking soybeans. This may be the best part of norae-bang. That, and the fact that I frequently have no voice the next day, because I scream with such ruthless abandon. Last time, we wrapped up with an all-girl rendition of "Barbie Girl." I also cannot get away from Pat Benetar, Cyndi Lauper, and Spice Girls. It's shameful, but ever so much fun!
-Saw a Fish Doctor. More accurately, Dr. Fish. This phenomenon has found its way to the US, but it costs a LOT more. Here, you pay less than $2 for 20 minutes, although you are also obliged to buy a beverage, for Dr Fish resides in a coffee shop. Let me back up, if you're confused: there's no actual doctor. This is just the name for putting your feet into a tub of, essentially, polite pirahnas that are only interested in eating dead skin. From your feet. For 2o minutes. This is one of the strangest sensations I have ever felt. Yes, they only eat the dead skin, but you still feel the nibbles and tugs, and it tickles immensely. Some of the larger ones can nip quite hard. You just sit on cushions and put your feet in the tub, and the fish come to you! It was really hard to watch, for me, and also really hard to hold still. If you flinch or kick, the fish will swim away, but they always come back. Afterwards, my feet felt very very soft! Another entertaining element: you request this service while ordering your beverage. I think it's the only time in my life I will order "a vanilla latte, plus fish."
-Experienced a DVD-bang. ("bang" just means room, if you were wondering.) This is generally a place for Korean teens to make out, but the concept is cool: you can rent a movie for a couple hours, at any hour of the day or night, and watch it on large comfy couches that you can stretch out and lie down upon. It's a little pricey ($7-8 per person) but it beats taking a cab home, should you finish clubbing before the subways start running. I went to one of these with some new friends after we got done with the goth club around 3 AM (subways start at 5:30). DVD-bangs and noraebangs are allllll over, by the way. We rented "Angels and Demons" and I promptly fell asleep. Cheaper than a hotel!
I've also had lots of good food, including Korean interpretations of Indian, Chinese, and Mexican cuisines. Not too shabby overall, but I confess: I'd gnaw off my own hand for some good sushi or Ethiopian or Middle Eastern food. I need to get to Japan soon, when I have money to burn!
-Experienced my first norae-bang. This is a uniquely Korean custom: it's a small, private karaoke room. You pay to enter for 60-90 minutes, usually about $3 per person. There is a video screen and console, a table, some couches/benches, a book full of karaoke songs, two microphones, and some tambourines. You and your friends punch in your own numbers and sing whatever you want, with no inhibitions, to your heart's content. The selection is not great, but there's no one to make you self-conscious, so go ahead and sing Journey or Aerosmith or Evanescence! I know I did! Also, on the screen that displays the lyrics, there is a constantly changing wallpaper of completely irrelevant pictures. Flowers blowing in the breeze, perhaps, or farm workers picking soybeans. This may be the best part of norae-bang. That, and the fact that I frequently have no voice the next day, because I scream with such ruthless abandon. Last time, we wrapped up with an all-girl rendition of "Barbie Girl." I also cannot get away from Pat Benetar, Cyndi Lauper, and Spice Girls. It's shameful, but ever so much fun!
-Saw a Fish Doctor. More accurately, Dr. Fish. This phenomenon has found its way to the US, but it costs a LOT more. Here, you pay less than $2 for 20 minutes, although you are also obliged to buy a beverage, for Dr Fish resides in a coffee shop. Let me back up, if you're confused: there's no actual doctor. This is just the name for putting your feet into a tub of, essentially, polite pirahnas that are only interested in eating dead skin. From your feet. For 2o minutes. This is one of the strangest sensations I have ever felt. Yes, they only eat the dead skin, but you still feel the nibbles and tugs, and it tickles immensely. Some of the larger ones can nip quite hard. You just sit on cushions and put your feet in the tub, and the fish come to you! It was really hard to watch, for me, and also really hard to hold still. If you flinch or kick, the fish will swim away, but they always come back. Afterwards, my feet felt very very soft! Another entertaining element: you request this service while ordering your beverage. I think it's the only time in my life I will order "a vanilla latte, plus fish."
-Experienced a DVD-bang. ("bang" just means room, if you were wondering.) This is generally a place for Korean teens to make out, but the concept is cool: you can rent a movie for a couple hours, at any hour of the day or night, and watch it on large comfy couches that you can stretch out and lie down upon. It's a little pricey ($7-8 per person) but it beats taking a cab home, should you finish clubbing before the subways start running. I went to one of these with some new friends after we got done with the goth club around 3 AM (subways start at 5:30). DVD-bangs and noraebangs are allllll over, by the way. We rented "Angels and Demons" and I promptly fell asleep. Cheaper than a hotel!
I've also had lots of good food, including Korean interpretations of Indian, Chinese, and Mexican cuisines. Not too shabby overall, but I confess: I'd gnaw off my own hand for some good sushi or Ethiopian or Middle Eastern food. I need to get to Japan soon, when I have money to burn!
Absolutely Nothing
Hello faithful readers, I'm sure you've all wandered away in boredom, after so many fruitless days spent waiting for my updates. I don't know if you will forgive me for my silence if I say there has been literally nothing worth writing about. I still have not taught a single class, nor have I explored much more of Korea. I've made some friends and I see them frequently, and sometimes we make our way to museums or other notable historic sites, but mostly I surf the web and chat with friends. My life is actually quite boring right now. I'm more or less entertaining myself, but right now it is not quite the international experience I had envisioned.
Items worth noting: in February I will likely be visiting either Thailand or Vietnam: both cheap destinations full of tasty food. We get a week off for lunar new year, and there is a chance I will actually have some teaching experience by then. Hurray I say!
I've written a couple of cool units for our upcoming Intensive Winter Program, and I might even get to teach them. I've learned a few more words of Korean, and engaged in some entertaining pantomimes to get my point across. I found a goth club (!!!!) which was a highly entertaining experience, and I'm pretty comfortable finding my way around Seoul. I made a friend in the army, so I've gotten to see what life on base is like, and I get a few American goodies now and then. Otherwise, I sort of feel like I'm just passing the time. No doubt things will get more interesting once I start teaching, but I do still worry that it might never happen: if the program goes under before my year is up, I may resign at another school in order to get a more complete cultural experience. I'm not sure I want to be here for another full year, though.
It's hard to write an update blog when there's not much to update! I promise, if I have something cool to say, I will say it.
Items worth noting: in February I will likely be visiting either Thailand or Vietnam: both cheap destinations full of tasty food. We get a week off for lunar new year, and there is a chance I will actually have some teaching experience by then. Hurray I say!
I've written a couple of cool units for our upcoming Intensive Winter Program, and I might even get to teach them. I've learned a few more words of Korean, and engaged in some entertaining pantomimes to get my point across. I found a goth club (!!!!) which was a highly entertaining experience, and I'm pretty comfortable finding my way around Seoul. I made a friend in the army, so I've gotten to see what life on base is like, and I get a few American goodies now and then. Otherwise, I sort of feel like I'm just passing the time. No doubt things will get more interesting once I start teaching, but I do still worry that it might never happen: if the program goes under before my year is up, I may resign at another school in order to get a more complete cultural experience. I'm not sure I want to be here for another full year, though.
It's hard to write an update blog when there's not much to update! I promise, if I have something cool to say, I will say it.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
week of exploration
Let's see if I can remember everything I did in the past week.
After three weeks of doing nothing, last week was the Cheusok holiday, and I was off all week. Shameful negligence in blogging followed. I like to think it was because I was too busy doing stuff, but really I was just lazy.
Thursday: karaoke insanity! Our pub on campus is closing soon, so the owner is getting as much mileage as possible out of her karaoke machine. She advertised another night of singing, but almost no one showed up, so Erin and I just shrugged and jumped in. We were joined shortly by a huge group of Korean navy men who were on campus for English classes, all of whom had an incredible enthusiasm for karaoke! They asked us very politely if they could sing Korean songs, and we conceded the machine, eager to see what they'd do. Immediately a high energy performance ensued, with one petite man in bright pink dancing most lewdly! Others sang with great expression and passion, and Mr Pink just kept on wiggling his butt and pelvic thrusting throughout the night. He even tried to show me how to do his dance in pantomime: grab the front of your pants, and the back of your pants, and yank your pelvis back and forth piston-style. ....it worked for him...
Friday: I taught my first lesson, albeit to the rest of the staff, and on the last period of the last day before vacation. It was a farce. How am I supposed to teach 25 English teachers how to tell a doctor they have a headache or stomachache? We finished in maybe 20 minutes and dismissed. After work I went to a little bar about a mile away with Erin and Laura, we got strawberry soju. It's a frozen slushie style drink of blended fruit, ice, and soju (Korean equivalent of vodka). We got a pitcher but it's served in little shot glasses, so it's kind of hard to keep track of how much you're drinking, and it creeps up on you! Very tasty though. We had the sense to stop after pitcher #2. Walked home through interesting little backstreets; we live in such a quiet area!
Saturday: I met up with some people from an online community I joined, for Westerners working in Korea. Only had talked with the one girl by email previously, but she said it was a good group of people. The weirdest thing was that over half the people there had lived in Philly, and one guy's sisters had actually gone to Phil-Mont!!!! (For those who don't know, it's my teeeeeeny Christian high school. There were maybe 55 people in my graduating class. This same person, Johnny, also works quite near EV, coaching soccer. We definitely are going to hang out more and swap more stories about our bizarre shared backgrounds. We all ended up at a bar called Beer O'Clock for beer and pizza, tucked back in the Hongdae/Sinchon area of Seoul. Great to meet so many cool Westerners!
Sunday: Meg was meeting up with a friend she'd only met once before, and was worried it might be awkward, so I went along for moral support. While we waited, we got approached TWICE by men who apparently thought we were prostitutes, since we were perched on the street corner, and Meg looks sort of Russian, with her short blond hair. (Russian=hooker here.) The one pair were Nigerian, I think, and spoke fairly good English, but the Korean guys could barely communicate with us, besides to ask if we were Russian and to ask us to get a drink with them. We declined, so they went into the corner store and brought beers out to us! I think Meg needs to cultivate a better city demeanor and not make eye contact and/or smile at strangers. We finally found her friend and went out for barbeque, which I'm enjoying more and more. I need to practice ordering my favorite kinds of meat...
Monday was a dead day: sleeping in, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, watching Harry Potter. I always think I want a vacation full of lazy days, and I always hate myself at the end of them for having done nothing interesting. Vowed not to let it happen again.
Tuesday: Meg, Erin, Laura, and I had lunch and tried to plan our week. Didn't come up with much concrete. We were thinking of arranging a trip to Busan, which is on the coast and is a decent sized city of it's own right, but no one's finances or pet-sitting responsibilities quite allowed it. We seemed ready to part ways without doing anything further, so I announced I was going into Seoul to do WHATEVER, and Laura decided to join me. We settled on going to COEX, a huge mall complex that also has an aquarium. It took a pretty long time to get there, but it was worth it. The aquarium was fascinating: so much of it seemed to be dedicated to the weirdest fish tanks you could imagine, and not so much about the fish themselves. I'll upload pictures shortly of fish in phone booths, traffic lights, fire extinguishers, and much more! Finally we did move through to the more interesting aquatic life. There was a tank of huge moray eels, along with cleaner fish who eat the dead flesh off the eels' skin and teeth. Seeing that sort of symbiotic relationship is kind of staggering, even though you read about it all the time! There were also some adorable otters, a two-headed turtle (!) some seals who were being lazy, and a penguin tank. Two of them were watching penguin cartoons on TV while snuggling quite amorously! The coolest part, though, was the shark tank with a glass walkway through it, with the Jaws theme music piped in! Ever had a live shark swim directly at your face while shark attack music plays?? It's an experience, to be sure. After the aquarium, we shopped around the COEX Mall for a bit, it is incredibly huge. Had a comfort dinner of KFC (did you know Koreans love fried chicken?) and headed home.
Wednesday I planned ahead a little more, and decided to do something interesting and historical. Settled on Jogyesa Shrine, the largest Buddhist shrine in Seoul. Laura came along again...I love how I defaulted to tourguide because I'm comfortable on the subways. We got off at Insadong and were promptly bewildered, because there's LOTS of stuff going on there, and its not clearly marked from the subway station. Eventually got pointed in the right direction, and found the shrine. Right away we were a little taken aback: the shrine did NOT look like a tourist destination, it seemed like an actual place of worship...which it is. Laura was especially neurotic because she's an atheist, but I'm curious enough to not feel disrespectful. We checked in the "Foreign Information Center" and they said we could go around, take pictures, etc, and that we should just be respectful and not disrupt the worshipers. Laura was still nervous to actually enter, but I kicked my shoes off and went right on in. There were three enormous gold buddhas at the front, and the room was full of worshippers on mats, either counting rosary beads or doing some sort of bowing ritual. I pulled out a mat, knelt down, and took a few discreet pictures, and got ready to leave, when an older woman pulled up a mat next to me and said "first time?" I said yes, and she told me "stand up. I am your teacher." Nonplused, I followed her instructions and stood. "Now kneel. Hands on floor. Head down. Palms up to honor them. Touch head. Head up. Now stand, palms together. Again." She took me through the entire ritual 3 times, and then wanted to know who I had lost. I realized then that it was close to a holiday that honors dead ancestors, although I believe that the same bowing ritual can be used at any time. I mumbled something polite about wanting to learn and made my exit. Laura was waiting curiously outside, and I spent the next few hours feeling strangely exalted. I really do need to find out more about religions in other countries, especially the kind that you can explore without the "all or nothing" mindset. After the Temple, we wandered the car-less streets of Insadong, got some tea, found the Knife Gallery (mentioned in my guidebook, it was a little basement room full of strange swords and blades) and went on a quest for a place for lunch. The last few times she and I have had bad luck with just picking a place at random, so we found a restaurant in the guidebook that sounded good: it serves mandu soup with huge oversize dumplings. The weird thing about Insadong, though, is that it's full of -gil, teeny little sidestreets. They're numbered, but there were TWO "Insadong-gil 5" so it took us a while to find the place. It can be a challenge to read the restaurant names in Korean, too. We eventually found it, and the servings were massive. We didn't come close to finishing, especially since we ordered a house specialty at the waitress's suggestion (some sort of Korean pancake) which was tasty, but also massive! We called it a day after that meal and staggered home.
Thursday was Tamara's birthday, and Meg and Erin had been craving ice skating, so we all went out to Lotteworld, an amusement park in Seoul with an indoor skating rink. Laura and I opted out of ice skating, and checked out the various rides instead, while Meg, Erin, and Tamara skated. The park was pretty cool; lots of the rides and displays were indoors, although there was an outside island-style part reminiscent of Disneyland. Unfortunately, we picked a day when all the schools had a half day, so the park was swarming with school kids by the afternoon. We waited an hour to ride the indoor roller coaster, which was pretty awesome! But it was also quite a long subway ride back to our bus stop, so we left after that....because Thursday is also PUNK NIGHT in Ilsan! We got home in time to eat, rest a bit, and change. Only Meg and I went to Punk Night, but it turned out to be a very entertaining evening. There were a lot of people out for one guy's goodbye party, and Dave, the DJ, was taking requests. Met lots of interesting people, saw some that I'd met the last time I was at that bar. Good times! Somewhere around 3 or 4, we stumbled home.
Friday I pried myself out of bed to meet up with a couple I'd met the previous weekend. We had sushi for lunch (conveyor belt style!) then went to Suwon, a small city outside Seoul that is walled from when it was a fortress town. We explored some of the historical buildings and did some shopping, and walked along the path at the top of the wall. Lovely view from up there! We were going to do some hiking, but the paths we meant to take were gated off for some reason, so we headed back to their apartment in Songtan instead. There's an air force base there, so there's lots of Western shops and culture. We had dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant, complete with live music, then hung out at their apartment for a while, chatting and drinking wine. Even after only knowing them a week, it felt like we'd been friends forever. It would have taken me about 3 hours to get home, so I stayed in their spare room, and the next morning some friends of theirs joined us for lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria (all you can eat meat!)...it felt like a very multi-cultural weekend! I went home not long after that, and it did in fact take me 3 hours to get home. I'm definitely already irritated that I live in the suburbs.
Sunday I spent completely solo, which was kind of a relief. Sitting alone in my room is boring, but too much time spent around people is exhausting! I went back to Itaewon to get some clothes, and I found some cool Halloweeny decorations as well. The one store I like had some cute jeans, but they were too long, so she offered to hem them for me, for free. I said I'd come back Tuesday, but when she heard where I lived she was aghast and said "no, no! Too far! I send! Address?" I love this woman, she is so sweet and helpful! I headed back *almost* ready to go back to work on Monday...
All in all, I could have seen more of Korea if I'd tried, but at least I'm pretty comfortable with Seoul in general now. It feels a little more like 'home' or at least more familiar. It's good to be confident in where I'm going, even though the language will always be a barrier. I definitely meant to study Korean a lot more during this week off!
After three weeks of doing nothing, last week was the Cheusok holiday, and I was off all week. Shameful negligence in blogging followed. I like to think it was because I was too busy doing stuff, but really I was just lazy.
Thursday: karaoke insanity! Our pub on campus is closing soon, so the owner is getting as much mileage as possible out of her karaoke machine. She advertised another night of singing, but almost no one showed up, so Erin and I just shrugged and jumped in. We were joined shortly by a huge group of Korean navy men who were on campus for English classes, all of whom had an incredible enthusiasm for karaoke! They asked us very politely if they could sing Korean songs, and we conceded the machine, eager to see what they'd do. Immediately a high energy performance ensued, with one petite man in bright pink dancing most lewdly! Others sang with great expression and passion, and Mr Pink just kept on wiggling his butt and pelvic thrusting throughout the night. He even tried to show me how to do his dance in pantomime: grab the front of your pants, and the back of your pants, and yank your pelvis back and forth piston-style. ....it worked for him...
Friday: I taught my first lesson, albeit to the rest of the staff, and on the last period of the last day before vacation. It was a farce. How am I supposed to teach 25 English teachers how to tell a doctor they have a headache or stomachache? We finished in maybe 20 minutes and dismissed. After work I went to a little bar about a mile away with Erin and Laura, we got strawberry soju. It's a frozen slushie style drink of blended fruit, ice, and soju (Korean equivalent of vodka). We got a pitcher but it's served in little shot glasses, so it's kind of hard to keep track of how much you're drinking, and it creeps up on you! Very tasty though. We had the sense to stop after pitcher #2. Walked home through interesting little backstreets; we live in such a quiet area!
Saturday: I met up with some people from an online community I joined, for Westerners working in Korea. Only had talked with the one girl by email previously, but she said it was a good group of people. The weirdest thing was that over half the people there had lived in Philly, and one guy's sisters had actually gone to Phil-Mont!!!! (For those who don't know, it's my teeeeeeny Christian high school. There were maybe 55 people in my graduating class. This same person, Johnny, also works quite near EV, coaching soccer. We definitely are going to hang out more and swap more stories about our bizarre shared backgrounds. We all ended up at a bar called Beer O'Clock for beer and pizza, tucked back in the Hongdae/Sinchon area of Seoul. Great to meet so many cool Westerners!
Sunday: Meg was meeting up with a friend she'd only met once before, and was worried it might be awkward, so I went along for moral support. While we waited, we got approached TWICE by men who apparently thought we were prostitutes, since we were perched on the street corner, and Meg looks sort of Russian, with her short blond hair. (Russian=hooker here.) The one pair were Nigerian, I think, and spoke fairly good English, but the Korean guys could barely communicate with us, besides to ask if we were Russian and to ask us to get a drink with them. We declined, so they went into the corner store and brought beers out to us! I think Meg needs to cultivate a better city demeanor and not make eye contact and/or smile at strangers. We finally found her friend and went out for barbeque, which I'm enjoying more and more. I need to practice ordering my favorite kinds of meat...
Monday was a dead day: sleeping in, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, watching Harry Potter. I always think I want a vacation full of lazy days, and I always hate myself at the end of them for having done nothing interesting. Vowed not to let it happen again.
Tuesday: Meg, Erin, Laura, and I had lunch and tried to plan our week. Didn't come up with much concrete. We were thinking of arranging a trip to Busan, which is on the coast and is a decent sized city of it's own right, but no one's finances or pet-sitting responsibilities quite allowed it. We seemed ready to part ways without doing anything further, so I announced I was going into Seoul to do WHATEVER, and Laura decided to join me. We settled on going to COEX, a huge mall complex that also has an aquarium. It took a pretty long time to get there, but it was worth it. The aquarium was fascinating: so much of it seemed to be dedicated to the weirdest fish tanks you could imagine, and not so much about the fish themselves. I'll upload pictures shortly of fish in phone booths, traffic lights, fire extinguishers, and much more! Finally we did move through to the more interesting aquatic life. There was a tank of huge moray eels, along with cleaner fish who eat the dead flesh off the eels' skin and teeth. Seeing that sort of symbiotic relationship is kind of staggering, even though you read about it all the time! There were also some adorable otters, a two-headed turtle (!) some seals who were being lazy, and a penguin tank. Two of them were watching penguin cartoons on TV while snuggling quite amorously! The coolest part, though, was the shark tank with a glass walkway through it, with the Jaws theme music piped in! Ever had a live shark swim directly at your face while shark attack music plays?? It's an experience, to be sure. After the aquarium, we shopped around the COEX Mall for a bit, it is incredibly huge. Had a comfort dinner of KFC (did you know Koreans love fried chicken?) and headed home.
Wednesday I planned ahead a little more, and decided to do something interesting and historical. Settled on Jogyesa Shrine, the largest Buddhist shrine in Seoul. Laura came along again...I love how I defaulted to tourguide because I'm comfortable on the subways. We got off at Insadong and were promptly bewildered, because there's LOTS of stuff going on there, and its not clearly marked from the subway station. Eventually got pointed in the right direction, and found the shrine. Right away we were a little taken aback: the shrine did NOT look like a tourist destination, it seemed like an actual place of worship...which it is. Laura was especially neurotic because she's an atheist, but I'm curious enough to not feel disrespectful. We checked in the "Foreign Information Center" and they said we could go around, take pictures, etc, and that we should just be respectful and not disrupt the worshipers. Laura was still nervous to actually enter, but I kicked my shoes off and went right on in. There were three enormous gold buddhas at the front, and the room was full of worshippers on mats, either counting rosary beads or doing some sort of bowing ritual. I pulled out a mat, knelt down, and took a few discreet pictures, and got ready to leave, when an older woman pulled up a mat next to me and said "first time?" I said yes, and she told me "stand up. I am your teacher." Nonplused, I followed her instructions and stood. "Now kneel. Hands on floor. Head down. Palms up to honor them. Touch head. Head up. Now stand, palms together. Again." She took me through the entire ritual 3 times, and then wanted to know who I had lost. I realized then that it was close to a holiday that honors dead ancestors, although I believe that the same bowing ritual can be used at any time. I mumbled something polite about wanting to learn and made my exit. Laura was waiting curiously outside, and I spent the next few hours feeling strangely exalted. I really do need to find out more about religions in other countries, especially the kind that you can explore without the "all or nothing" mindset. After the Temple, we wandered the car-less streets of Insadong, got some tea, found the Knife Gallery (mentioned in my guidebook, it was a little basement room full of strange swords and blades) and went on a quest for a place for lunch. The last few times she and I have had bad luck with just picking a place at random, so we found a restaurant in the guidebook that sounded good: it serves mandu soup with huge oversize dumplings. The weird thing about Insadong, though, is that it's full of -gil, teeny little sidestreets. They're numbered, but there were TWO "Insadong-gil 5" so it took us a while to find the place. It can be a challenge to read the restaurant names in Korean, too. We eventually found it, and the servings were massive. We didn't come close to finishing, especially since we ordered a house specialty at the waitress's suggestion (some sort of Korean pancake) which was tasty, but also massive! We called it a day after that meal and staggered home.
Thursday was Tamara's birthday, and Meg and Erin had been craving ice skating, so we all went out to Lotteworld, an amusement park in Seoul with an indoor skating rink. Laura and I opted out of ice skating, and checked out the various rides instead, while Meg, Erin, and Tamara skated. The park was pretty cool; lots of the rides and displays were indoors, although there was an outside island-style part reminiscent of Disneyland. Unfortunately, we picked a day when all the schools had a half day, so the park was swarming with school kids by the afternoon. We waited an hour to ride the indoor roller coaster, which was pretty awesome! But it was also quite a long subway ride back to our bus stop, so we left after that....because Thursday is also PUNK NIGHT in Ilsan! We got home in time to eat, rest a bit, and change. Only Meg and I went to Punk Night, but it turned out to be a very entertaining evening. There were a lot of people out for one guy's goodbye party, and Dave, the DJ, was taking requests. Met lots of interesting people, saw some that I'd met the last time I was at that bar. Good times! Somewhere around 3 or 4, we stumbled home.
Friday I pried myself out of bed to meet up with a couple I'd met the previous weekend. We had sushi for lunch (conveyor belt style!) then went to Suwon, a small city outside Seoul that is walled from when it was a fortress town. We explored some of the historical buildings and did some shopping, and walked along the path at the top of the wall. Lovely view from up there! We were going to do some hiking, but the paths we meant to take were gated off for some reason, so we headed back to their apartment in Songtan instead. There's an air force base there, so there's lots of Western shops and culture. We had dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant, complete with live music, then hung out at their apartment for a while, chatting and drinking wine. Even after only knowing them a week, it felt like we'd been friends forever. It would have taken me about 3 hours to get home, so I stayed in their spare room, and the next morning some friends of theirs joined us for lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria (all you can eat meat!)...it felt like a very multi-cultural weekend! I went home not long after that, and it did in fact take me 3 hours to get home. I'm definitely already irritated that I live in the suburbs.
Sunday I spent completely solo, which was kind of a relief. Sitting alone in my room is boring, but too much time spent around people is exhausting! I went back to Itaewon to get some clothes, and I found some cool Halloweeny decorations as well. The one store I like had some cute jeans, but they were too long, so she offered to hem them for me, for free. I said I'd come back Tuesday, but when she heard where I lived she was aghast and said "no, no! Too far! I send! Address?" I love this woman, she is so sweet and helpful! I headed back *almost* ready to go back to work on Monday...
All in all, I could have seen more of Korea if I'd tried, but at least I'm pretty comfortable with Seoul in general now. It feels a little more like 'home' or at least more familiar. It's good to be confident in where I'm going, even though the language will always be a barrier. I definitely meant to study Korean a lot more during this week off!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
lazy time
I just had an entire week off. I did lots and lots of interesting things, and of course the thought of writing all of them down is exhausting. So instead, here's a few little things that make me smile about Korea.
-There's coffee machines everywhere. For anywhere between 10-70 cents, you can push a button and get a little cup of hot coffee, cappuccino, cocoa, or tea. This entertains me greatly!
-Ordinary cheddar cheese is in the 'gourmet' section of the supermarket.
-Spam is eaten frequently, and it comes in gift boxes for holidays. I know I'd be staggering with joy if I were presented with a gift-wrapped, elegantly displayed box of assorted Spam...
-Water fountains are practically nonexistent. Instead, there's water coolers with little paper envelopes that you drink from.
-There are gas masks in the subway stations. Just in case.
-Koreans hate the idea of drinking on an empty stomach, so every bar will have a little dish of pretzels, popcorn, or some munchy thing, free of charge.
-Also in the subway stations, reasonably clean public bathrooms. They are carefully marked with little male/female figures on signs that tell you which way to go, and exactly how many meters further you have.
-Men and women frequently wear matching t-shirts!
Ok, so many of my delights are public-transit based, but that's the most of everyday Korean culture i've experienced. Now off to help Erin walk a very tiny dog!
-There's coffee machines everywhere. For anywhere between 10-70 cents, you can push a button and get a little cup of hot coffee, cappuccino, cocoa, or tea. This entertains me greatly!
-Ordinary cheddar cheese is in the 'gourmet' section of the supermarket.
-Spam is eaten frequently, and it comes in gift boxes for holidays. I know I'd be staggering with joy if I were presented with a gift-wrapped, elegantly displayed box of assorted Spam...
-Water fountains are practically nonexistent. Instead, there's water coolers with little paper envelopes that you drink from.
-There are gas masks in the subway stations. Just in case.
-Koreans hate the idea of drinking on an empty stomach, so every bar will have a little dish of pretzels, popcorn, or some munchy thing, free of charge.
-Also in the subway stations, reasonably clean public bathrooms. They are carefully marked with little male/female figures on signs that tell you which way to go, and exactly how many meters further you have.
-Men and women frequently wear matching t-shirts!
Ok, so many of my delights are public-transit based, but that's the most of everyday Korean culture i've experienced. Now off to help Erin walk a very tiny dog!
Monday, September 28, 2009
lots to catch up on
Well, as predicted I'm getting lazy about updating. Part of that is that there's STILL nothing worth writing about regarding work. It's been an agonizing three weeks of professional development and cross training between content areas, and no teaching at all. I feel like I shouldn't be complaining about sitting around all day and getting paid for it, but it is seriously bad for my self esteem. I do not have enough on my mind to keep it busy, I get bogged down in negative thoughts, and I'm not producing anything. Nor do I have the freedom to explore my new home. So this week, FINALLY, is a week long holiday that I get to spend exploring. But let me back up to a few entertaining moments that have slipped past!
Last Friday:
The pub on campus hosted a karaoke night. There were many of us who drank a lot. I surprised myself by readily singing any song that I knew, rather than holding out for songs I felt I could sing well. Lots of people did very entertaining renditions of well known songs; this one guy Harry from Zimbabwe sang R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and prefaced it with "this is my coming out song!" The bartender, Kay, adores karaoke, so she was egging everyone on shamelessly. her English is quite good, but she still stumbles a lot when reading it off a karaoke screen! (Factoid of the day: Koreans love karaoke, it's called nori-bong and there's places to sing allllll over.) So Kay kept jumping up and singing along whenever she good: she backed me up on "Brown Eyed Girl" and jumped around delightedly as Erin and I sang The Killers "Somebody Told Me." SO cute. The evening eventually deteriorated into Kamikaze Karaoke, when names and songs were just pulled out of a hat and then the individual was ordered up to sing. We eventually got shut down by Heyri Art Village across the street because we were so loud!!
Saturday:
Feeling a little worse for the wear, I pried myself out of bed with the intention of going to Geumchon and maybe Seoul, depending on whether or not my drunken plans to see Underworld ended up happening. (They did not, and it was just as well, I would have zero won left today if I had gone.) My friend Laura joined me, although we waited for 40 minutes and the bus to Geumchon never came, so we hopped on the 2200 to Seoul. Neither of us had ever gone into the city alone before, so we were all set to explore and figure things out. We were looking for food, but neither of us is any good at ordering in Korean, so eventually we picked a place at random. The waiter immediately got that "deer in the headlights" look at the sight of two foreigners. He read us the menu, and I thought I heard "chicken" so I ordered that, and Laura followed suit. Turns out he said "chi-ge" (not sure how to spell the Konglish there) which means soup or stew, so we ended up with a spicy vegetable and tofu soup. Laura was very disappointed: "I think it's totally vegetarian!" --and then I fished a mussel, still in its shell, from the bottom. Yay seafood!
Over lunch we looked through her Lonely Planet to get some ideas of where to explore, and settled on Gyeongbokgung, an ancient palace and the accompanying museum. This meant taking the subway, so I blithely looked over the map, figured out which train to take and where to transfer, and we were on our way. Laura tried to convince me we were on the wrong platform, based on her past experience, but I was pretty confident, even though it was my first subway trip. And I was right! I'm now the subway expert among my friends. Dealing with SEPTA all my life gives me SOME advantages! I find Seoul subways really really easy, and beautifully clean. There's lots of little amenities, like tv screens and a lit map showing your progress. When you're waiting at the station, there's a litle animated train on the screen showing how close it is, and a chiming noise alerts you that it's almost there. Sliding glass doors on the platforms at a lot of stations, mostly to prevent suicides. (The pressure on students here is enormous, and jumping in front of a train is one way to end it.)
We arrived at the Gyeongbokgung stop, and the museum was immediately outside the station. (See my facebook pictures for the great subway decorations!) It had gotten late enough in the day that I didn't want to waste much time, so we went straight into the museum. Turns out we actually missed the palace itself, and lots of cool outdoor art. There's a folk art museum too. A trip for another day! Lots of cool stuff in the museum, including Korean gargoyles!! Those pix are all on my facebook page as well. One of the most interesting artifacts was a water clock. Water gradually flows through this elaborate machine, turning gears and eventually weighting down mechanisms enough to trigger levers that hit chimes. We joked that it's a lot simpler to build a sundial...but an audible reminder of the time was apparently very important in the palace. Other weird things that stuck in my head: there is enormous importance placed on placenta preservation. They had numerous jars for the placentas of the various imperial dynasty, and a whole shrine to store them. Something to do with how sacred the lineage is, and that every step of it is important. After the palace we headed back to Ilsan, ran into Erin unexpectedly, and got some barbeque and went to the bar for a while.
Sunday!
Erin, Meg, Laura, and I went down to Itaewon, the major Engish shopping corridor. They have lots of "plus size" clothing shops, which is to say, larger than size 8. Lots of tailors and places for alterations, a lot of shoe stores that carry larger than a woman's size 6 (I'm still almost impossible to fit though!) and all sorts of other stores and restaurants. There's a big English bookstore, and a foreign foods grocery store, and generally the shop-owners and vendors speak fairly good English. Lot of military guys hang out there. I saw a tourist in a Covenant shirt, which made my day!! We bought some clothes and wandered around window shopping and people watching, then stopped in a bar for some food and drink. They had ham and cheese sandwiches on the menu, which suddenly sounded fantastic, so we all ordered one except Laura, who got nachos. Her nachos came out: a big pile of nacho-cheese flavored tortilla chips, some unflavored ones, with nuts on top. And a bowl of salsa on the side. Weirdest nachos I've ever seen. Our sandwiches turned out to be a slice of deli ham and a slice of bright orange american cheese on white bread, pressed in one of those little sandwich griddles, but there were 4 halves per plate! (proper cheese is really hard to get here, or else it's quite expensive.) We couldn't even finish it all. After the food, we browed Etude House, a little girly makeup shop, and then headed towards What the Book because I've been dying for fresh reading material. At this point, Erin realized she'd left her bag of clothes somewhere along our shopping spree. The cool thing about Korea? It was still there. No one would think of taking something that's not theirs. We got some books and then headed home. It can be draining running around town like that.
I think that might be enough data for this entry. Another one coming soon, prepare to hear all about the weird coincidences and indecent proposals of the past two days!!
Last Friday:
The pub on campus hosted a karaoke night. There were many of us who drank a lot. I surprised myself by readily singing any song that I knew, rather than holding out for songs I felt I could sing well. Lots of people did very entertaining renditions of well known songs; this one guy Harry from Zimbabwe sang R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and prefaced it with "this is my coming out song!" The bartender, Kay, adores karaoke, so she was egging everyone on shamelessly. her English is quite good, but she still stumbles a lot when reading it off a karaoke screen! (Factoid of the day: Koreans love karaoke, it's called nori-bong and there's places to sing allllll over.) So Kay kept jumping up and singing along whenever she good: she backed me up on "Brown Eyed Girl" and jumped around delightedly as Erin and I sang The Killers "Somebody Told Me." SO cute. The evening eventually deteriorated into Kamikaze Karaoke, when names and songs were just pulled out of a hat and then the individual was ordered up to sing. We eventually got shut down by Heyri Art Village across the street because we were so loud!!
Saturday:
Feeling a little worse for the wear, I pried myself out of bed with the intention of going to Geumchon and maybe Seoul, depending on whether or not my drunken plans to see Underworld ended up happening. (They did not, and it was just as well, I would have zero won left today if I had gone.) My friend Laura joined me, although we waited for 40 minutes and the bus to Geumchon never came, so we hopped on the 2200 to Seoul. Neither of us had ever gone into the city alone before, so we were all set to explore and figure things out. We were looking for food, but neither of us is any good at ordering in Korean, so eventually we picked a place at random. The waiter immediately got that "deer in the headlights" look at the sight of two foreigners. He read us the menu, and I thought I heard "chicken" so I ordered that, and Laura followed suit. Turns out he said "chi-ge" (not sure how to spell the Konglish there) which means soup or stew, so we ended up with a spicy vegetable and tofu soup. Laura was very disappointed: "I think it's totally vegetarian!" --and then I fished a mussel, still in its shell, from the bottom. Yay seafood!
Over lunch we looked through her Lonely Planet to get some ideas of where to explore, and settled on Gyeongbokgung, an ancient palace and the accompanying museum. This meant taking the subway, so I blithely looked over the map, figured out which train to take and where to transfer, and we were on our way. Laura tried to convince me we were on the wrong platform, based on her past experience, but I was pretty confident, even though it was my first subway trip. And I was right! I'm now the subway expert among my friends. Dealing with SEPTA all my life gives me SOME advantages! I find Seoul subways really really easy, and beautifully clean. There's lots of little amenities, like tv screens and a lit map showing your progress. When you're waiting at the station, there's a litle animated train on the screen showing how close it is, and a chiming noise alerts you that it's almost there. Sliding glass doors on the platforms at a lot of stations, mostly to prevent suicides. (The pressure on students here is enormous, and jumping in front of a train is one way to end it.)
We arrived at the Gyeongbokgung stop, and the museum was immediately outside the station. (See my facebook pictures for the great subway decorations!) It had gotten late enough in the day that I didn't want to waste much time, so we went straight into the museum. Turns out we actually missed the palace itself, and lots of cool outdoor art. There's a folk art museum too. A trip for another day! Lots of cool stuff in the museum, including Korean gargoyles!! Those pix are all on my facebook page as well. One of the most interesting artifacts was a water clock. Water gradually flows through this elaborate machine, turning gears and eventually weighting down mechanisms enough to trigger levers that hit chimes. We joked that it's a lot simpler to build a sundial...but an audible reminder of the time was apparently very important in the palace. Other weird things that stuck in my head: there is enormous importance placed on placenta preservation. They had numerous jars for the placentas of the various imperial dynasty, and a whole shrine to store them. Something to do with how sacred the lineage is, and that every step of it is important. After the palace we headed back to Ilsan, ran into Erin unexpectedly, and got some barbeque and went to the bar for a while.
Sunday!
Erin, Meg, Laura, and I went down to Itaewon, the major Engish shopping corridor. They have lots of "plus size" clothing shops, which is to say, larger than size 8. Lots of tailors and places for alterations, a lot of shoe stores that carry larger than a woman's size 6 (I'm still almost impossible to fit though!) and all sorts of other stores and restaurants. There's a big English bookstore, and a foreign foods grocery store, and generally the shop-owners and vendors speak fairly good English. Lot of military guys hang out there. I saw a tourist in a Covenant shirt, which made my day!! We bought some clothes and wandered around window shopping and people watching, then stopped in a bar for some food and drink. They had ham and cheese sandwiches on the menu, which suddenly sounded fantastic, so we all ordered one except Laura, who got nachos. Her nachos came out: a big pile of nacho-cheese flavored tortilla chips, some unflavored ones, with nuts on top. And a bowl of salsa on the side. Weirdest nachos I've ever seen. Our sandwiches turned out to be a slice of deli ham and a slice of bright orange american cheese on white bread, pressed in one of those little sandwich griddles, but there were 4 halves per plate! (proper cheese is really hard to get here, or else it's quite expensive.) We couldn't even finish it all. After the food, we browed Etude House, a little girly makeup shop, and then headed towards What the Book because I've been dying for fresh reading material. At this point, Erin realized she'd left her bag of clothes somewhere along our shopping spree. The cool thing about Korea? It was still there. No one would think of taking something that's not theirs. We got some books and then headed home. It can be draining running around town like that.
I think that might be enough data for this entry. Another one coming soon, prepare to hear all about the weird coincidences and indecent proposals of the past two days!!
Monday, September 14, 2009
First weekend out. Liberation!
This past weekend was my first real free time! I absolutely made the most of it.
Friday night was the EV ball, we met in the staff lounge and rooftop deck, dressed up, danced, drank. It was all my usual coworkers, plus people in programs I don't usually encounter, like the One Day Program and the Edutainers. Danced a lot, had some great conversations, and felt a lot more comfortable socially here than I had before. I won't go into more detail because it's less about travelling and more about me partying with a bunch of Westerners!
SATURDAY was when the fun began! I was planning to meet up with Tim's friend Joey, who I only knew through the 'net so far, and go into Seoul. There's a shuttle that goes from EV to his town, Ilsan, so I was planning to take that...but turns out they don't run as often on Saturdays, so I got on a bus instead. A little unnerving to be on a route without being sure where to get off, and not speaking any of the language...but luckily I recognized the Daehwa subway stop and got off. Cab to Joey's, but they dropped me at the wrong building about a block away, and without a cell phone it took me a while to figure it out. A parking attendant ended up letting me use his phone!
So Joey and I got on a bus into Seoul. Took a little under an hour, I think. The view where we got off was amazing...the tall buildings of the city just sort of opened into this gap, framing a towering mountain with a temple on top of it. We walked a little ways and ended up in Insa-dong, a foot-traffic-only street full of shops and vendors. Admittedly it's rather touristy, but lots of cool stuff to see. There's stands in the street where people can do pottery or paint tiles, and food vendors and tables to sit and eat. As it happened, the day we went there was some sort of makgeoli festival happening! Makgeoli is a Korean rice wine, it's a little sweet and lightly carbonated. I had seen a documentary on its history and how you make it, so I'd been eager to try it. There were maybe 8 or 10 stands giving out samples of all the different brands, and selling bottles as well. After 3-4 samples (they poured generously) I was rather buzzed! After we finished shopping, we bought a bottle of one of the better varieties (w1,000!! that's less than a dollar, if you've forgotten the exchange rate!) and got some street food (sausages on a stick, and this hot sweet fried dough with cinnamon filling, OMG) and sat in the park for a bit, watching local couples take pictures of each other, and tourists take pictures of everything else.
We met up with another friend of Joe's, guy by the name of Khristoff (he's Australian) for dinner, had Indian food and shared a hookah. Apparently Indian food is very popular in Korea! (I have like 10 kinds of heat-n-eat curry in my cabinet right now!) Little odd, though, you had to actually ask for rice. After dinner we headed back to Ilsan and went out to some bars around La Festa/Meat Street. This is the same approximate neighborhood that my girls and I went shopping on Thursday. It's got an incredibly active nightlife. Went to one bar that specialized in its vinyl record collection, but it was pretty dead so we moved on to the Don't Go, another bar with lots of music to request. It was like Tattooed Mom's, but in a room the size of Fiume. I felt instantly at home! Met some awesome people there, other expats, the one guy made my night by the sheer fact of his septum piercing! Had some wonderful conversations, and I will totally be going back there. The bartender/owner, Kim Han, is a real character who will look up any music you'd like to hear on YouTube, if he doesn't have the cd. I made him play Lazy Town and Lil John's mashup. :) The drinks are also quite cheap.
The bars in Korea don't really close until the last person leaves, but somewhere around 2 AM we got hungry, so 5 or 6 of us went for galbi (Korean BBQ). Those also are open until all hours of the night! Masses of food, beer, and 2-3 bottles of soju (Korean rice liquor, comparable to vodka, maybe not quite as strong) cost us maybe w10,000 each. We stuffed our faces on many kinds of meat, did shots, and told all of the most offensive jokes we could think of! It was a great end to the night. Crashed on Joe's futon, and woke up feeling fine, believe it or not!
Sunday I wandered around Ilsan for a little bit before taking a cab back to the bus/subway stop at Daehwa. There's so much to see. I passed a seafood restaurant that looked like the freakin' Baltimore aquarium out front, there were 30-40 tanks of live fish and other animals. Lobsters, squid, octopi, crabs, anemone, and these nasty tapeworm-looking things, all swimming around. There was also a restaurant called "Oh My Chicken" which cracked me up. I had just found my way to the station and figured out where to get the bus back to EV, when one of the other teachers pulled up alongside me and offered me a lift back!
Spent the rest of Sunday doing maintenance stuff....shower, laundry, grocery shopping. Out of those activities, only showering is as easy as it sounds though! I have no dryer, so laundry all has to be hung up on a drying rack, and it's been about 26 hours and some of it is still a bit damp. The wash cycle takes almost 2 hours, although I did just learn that there's a "quick wash" button...it sounds like apathetic monkeys are listlessly stirring my clothes. Did I mention all the settings are in Hangul? Grocery shopping was a trip too, even though a lot of packages are in both Hangul and English, it's hard to find what you need...and you can't even be sure that they have what you want. I could not for the life of me find butter or margarine, even though i KNOW they sell it. But I have enough food now to last me maybe a month, besides stuff like milk, and I'm starting to get furnished better as well. I need to get some more clothes, though, and THAT may be tricky, since Korean women are TINY. At the very least, I should be able to get a hoodie in a men's size...it's starting to get cold already and I only brought a heavy jacket.
Today after work I got invited to a restaurant I'd heard a lot of people talk about. It's less than a 10 minute drive, and apparently everyone at EV adores it. It's called shabu shabu, it's most easily defined as a hot pot...there's a heat source set into the table, and a pot of broth and vegetables goes on top. It gets heated to bubbling, and then you get a plate of very thin strips of meat (looks like bacon, all red and white marbled) and you drop them or hold them in the pot until they cook. You fill your bowl with the broth, vegetables, and meat, and once the meat is done, you add noodles to the pot, and then after that, the broth is drained out and you finish with a sort of fried rice, which you can add to the remaining broth in your bowl. It was all delicious, although the woman who runs it is a little scary. Apparently she hates everyone, although she did smile and laugh at Emily, the only vegetarian, as she motioned Emily to a separate table from the rest of us. Perhaps just glorying in her misery at being segregated?
I love that EV is not clique-y at all, at least not that I've experienced. You may have people you're closer to, but everyone is just very open and welcoming, and it seems that everyone mingles pretty freely. Tonight my friend Erin was along, as well as a guy Devin I've talked to quite a bit already, Greg who took me on my first E-Mart trip, and several other people I've talked to at work: JT, with whom I apparently had a long conversation at the Ball; Harry, a really cool guy from Zimbabwe; Becky from London, who was out with us on Thurs as well, and her husband David. People just sort of kept inviting people, and the whole outing of 12 of us just happened very naturally.
I also have to mention how psyched I am to have gotten out independently this weekend. Now that I've taken buses, spoken to cab drivers, done some shopping, and been to a couple different neighborhoods, I've broken through the initial qualms about not knowing what to do or where to go. I have a T-money card and always enough cab fare back to EV, and a subway map. I can say "does this bus go to ____?" There's nothing holding me back! I'm actually excited that Bali fell through because now I get a whole week to explore the country I live in! I can't wait.
I'm also learning a lot of phrases and I'm starting to teach myself Hangul. It's way easier than Japanese or Chinese, instead of each character representing an idea, it's a language you can actually sound out, with just 24 letters and some very concrete rules. After the training we've been doing these past weeks involving phonics and ELL, I'm starting to realize how hard English is. If Korean kids can learn all our screwy rules and pronunciations, Hangul should be a breeze! Anyway, once I can sound out words on signs, I will be able to get around much more easily. I'm also starting to adapt to the cultural niceties, like the little bow of the head, and the left hand on the elbow as you exchange an object with the right. Interesting stuff.
This has been a brutally long entry, but a lot happened since last time I wrote! I'm glad I didn't wait another day, who knows what new experiences will start to crowd in my memory. Tomorrow or Wednesday I hope to activate the cell phone my neighbor gave me, and to explore the neighboring art community across the street. Next weekend? A million possibilities!
Once again, I'm so glad I came.
Friday night was the EV ball, we met in the staff lounge and rooftop deck, dressed up, danced, drank. It was all my usual coworkers, plus people in programs I don't usually encounter, like the One Day Program and the Edutainers. Danced a lot, had some great conversations, and felt a lot more comfortable socially here than I had before. I won't go into more detail because it's less about travelling and more about me partying with a bunch of Westerners!
SATURDAY was when the fun began! I was planning to meet up with Tim's friend Joey, who I only knew through the 'net so far, and go into Seoul. There's a shuttle that goes from EV to his town, Ilsan, so I was planning to take that...but turns out they don't run as often on Saturdays, so I got on a bus instead. A little unnerving to be on a route without being sure where to get off, and not speaking any of the language...but luckily I recognized the Daehwa subway stop and got off. Cab to Joey's, but they dropped me at the wrong building about a block away, and without a cell phone it took me a while to figure it out. A parking attendant ended up letting me use his phone!
So Joey and I got on a bus into Seoul. Took a little under an hour, I think. The view where we got off was amazing...the tall buildings of the city just sort of opened into this gap, framing a towering mountain with a temple on top of it. We walked a little ways and ended up in Insa-dong, a foot-traffic-only street full of shops and vendors. Admittedly it's rather touristy, but lots of cool stuff to see. There's stands in the street where people can do pottery or paint tiles, and food vendors and tables to sit and eat. As it happened, the day we went there was some sort of makgeoli festival happening! Makgeoli is a Korean rice wine, it's a little sweet and lightly carbonated. I had seen a documentary on its history and how you make it, so I'd been eager to try it. There were maybe 8 or 10 stands giving out samples of all the different brands, and selling bottles as well. After 3-4 samples (they poured generously) I was rather buzzed! After we finished shopping, we bought a bottle of one of the better varieties (w1,000!! that's less than a dollar, if you've forgotten the exchange rate!) and got some street food (sausages on a stick, and this hot sweet fried dough with cinnamon filling, OMG) and sat in the park for a bit, watching local couples take pictures of each other, and tourists take pictures of everything else.
We met up with another friend of Joe's, guy by the name of Khristoff (he's Australian) for dinner, had Indian food and shared a hookah. Apparently Indian food is very popular in Korea! (I have like 10 kinds of heat-n-eat curry in my cabinet right now!) Little odd, though, you had to actually ask for rice. After dinner we headed back to Ilsan and went out to some bars around La Festa/Meat Street. This is the same approximate neighborhood that my girls and I went shopping on Thursday. It's got an incredibly active nightlife. Went to one bar that specialized in its vinyl record collection, but it was pretty dead so we moved on to the Don't Go, another bar with lots of music to request. It was like Tattooed Mom's, but in a room the size of Fiume. I felt instantly at home! Met some awesome people there, other expats, the one guy made my night by the sheer fact of his septum piercing! Had some wonderful conversations, and I will totally be going back there. The bartender/owner, Kim Han, is a real character who will look up any music you'd like to hear on YouTube, if he doesn't have the cd. I made him play Lazy Town and Lil John's mashup. :) The drinks are also quite cheap.
The bars in Korea don't really close until the last person leaves, but somewhere around 2 AM we got hungry, so 5 or 6 of us went for galbi (Korean BBQ). Those also are open until all hours of the night! Masses of food, beer, and 2-3 bottles of soju (Korean rice liquor, comparable to vodka, maybe not quite as strong) cost us maybe w10,000 each. We stuffed our faces on many kinds of meat, did shots, and told all of the most offensive jokes we could think of! It was a great end to the night. Crashed on Joe's futon, and woke up feeling fine, believe it or not!
Sunday I wandered around Ilsan for a little bit before taking a cab back to the bus/subway stop at Daehwa. There's so much to see. I passed a seafood restaurant that looked like the freakin' Baltimore aquarium out front, there were 30-40 tanks of live fish and other animals. Lobsters, squid, octopi, crabs, anemone, and these nasty tapeworm-looking things, all swimming around. There was also a restaurant called "Oh My Chicken" which cracked me up. I had just found my way to the station and figured out where to get the bus back to EV, when one of the other teachers pulled up alongside me and offered me a lift back!
Spent the rest of Sunday doing maintenance stuff....shower, laundry, grocery shopping. Out of those activities, only showering is as easy as it sounds though! I have no dryer, so laundry all has to be hung up on a drying rack, and it's been about 26 hours and some of it is still a bit damp. The wash cycle takes almost 2 hours, although I did just learn that there's a "quick wash" button...it sounds like apathetic monkeys are listlessly stirring my clothes. Did I mention all the settings are in Hangul? Grocery shopping was a trip too, even though a lot of packages are in both Hangul and English, it's hard to find what you need...and you can't even be sure that they have what you want. I could not for the life of me find butter or margarine, even though i KNOW they sell it. But I have enough food now to last me maybe a month, besides stuff like milk, and I'm starting to get furnished better as well. I need to get some more clothes, though, and THAT may be tricky, since Korean women are TINY. At the very least, I should be able to get a hoodie in a men's size...it's starting to get cold already and I only brought a heavy jacket.
Today after work I got invited to a restaurant I'd heard a lot of people talk about. It's less than a 10 minute drive, and apparently everyone at EV adores it. It's called shabu shabu, it's most easily defined as a hot pot...there's a heat source set into the table, and a pot of broth and vegetables goes on top. It gets heated to bubbling, and then you get a plate of very thin strips of meat (looks like bacon, all red and white marbled) and you drop them or hold them in the pot until they cook. You fill your bowl with the broth, vegetables, and meat, and once the meat is done, you add noodles to the pot, and then after that, the broth is drained out and you finish with a sort of fried rice, which you can add to the remaining broth in your bowl. It was all delicious, although the woman who runs it is a little scary. Apparently she hates everyone, although she did smile and laugh at Emily, the only vegetarian, as she motioned Emily to a separate table from the rest of us. Perhaps just glorying in her misery at being segregated?
I love that EV is not clique-y at all, at least not that I've experienced. You may have people you're closer to, but everyone is just very open and welcoming, and it seems that everyone mingles pretty freely. Tonight my friend Erin was along, as well as a guy Devin I've talked to quite a bit already, Greg who took me on my first E-Mart trip, and several other people I've talked to at work: JT, with whom I apparently had a long conversation at the Ball; Harry, a really cool guy from Zimbabwe; Becky from London, who was out with us on Thurs as well, and her husband David. People just sort of kept inviting people, and the whole outing of 12 of us just happened very naturally.
I also have to mention how psyched I am to have gotten out independently this weekend. Now that I've taken buses, spoken to cab drivers, done some shopping, and been to a couple different neighborhoods, I've broken through the initial qualms about not knowing what to do or where to go. I have a T-money card and always enough cab fare back to EV, and a subway map. I can say "does this bus go to ____?" There's nothing holding me back! I'm actually excited that Bali fell through because now I get a whole week to explore the country I live in! I can't wait.
I'm also learning a lot of phrases and I'm starting to teach myself Hangul. It's way easier than Japanese or Chinese, instead of each character representing an idea, it's a language you can actually sound out, with just 24 letters and some very concrete rules. After the training we've been doing these past weeks involving phonics and ELL, I'm starting to realize how hard English is. If Korean kids can learn all our screwy rules and pronunciations, Hangul should be a breeze! Anyway, once I can sound out words on signs, I will be able to get around much more easily. I'm also starting to adapt to the cultural niceties, like the little bow of the head, and the left hand on the elbow as you exchange an object with the right. Interesting stuff.
This has been a brutally long entry, but a lot happened since last time I wrote! I'm glad I didn't wait another day, who knows what new experiences will start to crowd in my memory. Tomorrow or Wednesday I hope to activate the cell phone my neighbor gave me, and to explore the neighboring art community across the street. Next weekend? A million possibilities!
Once again, I'm so glad I came.
Friday, September 11, 2009
week one, over and done
I landed in Seoul exactly one week ago as I write this. Weird week, since I haven't gotten around very much, and I've also been working, but not exactly the job I came here to do...so, eh, I don't know. Weird first week, I guess.
I've made some headway past the "meeting people" phase and I believe I have started to enter the actual "making friends" phase, which is GOOD. There's a few girls who seem to spend a lot of time together, although it sounds like almost everyone hangs out with everyone here...but anyway, these girls invited me to Ilsan last night for dinner and shopping, both of which were had in profusion!
Ilsan is the nearest urban area to my little community, I think it counts as a city by Korean standards. We took the shuttle from EV which drops the local workers at the nearest subway station, which happens to be in Ilsan, and then grabbed a few cabs to take us to the nearest shopping district, called La Festa. Just beyond that there's an area called Western Dome where I guess a lot of foreigners shop...although it still seemed to be primarily Koreans! They have familiar shops like Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, and LUSH!! but all with a Korean twist. They also have shoes large enough to fit the likes of us Western girls, which was one of the main reasons we ended up there. On our way through La Festa, we were accosted by the most delicious smell...and so we ended up in a Galbi restaurant. Buffet-style raw meat, marinating in a variety of sauces, that you take back to your table and grill. Eat as much as you want, there's sides and kimchi (of course) and vegetables and did I mention the all you can eat meat?? Oh it was delicious. All for w11,000 a person. We got a beer apiece, too, which is the most delicious drink possible with all that greasy meat. It's ok, though, because you wrap the meat in lettuce, and that makes it healthy. *Nods solemnly*
We noticed it was getting on the late side, so shopping commenced with full girly ferocity. I am still consumed with jealousy over the shoes Megan got, but I did pick up a few pairs myself. Supercute docs with black/white/red plaid fabric sides for w25,000? Yes please. Not that I need them for work. I did get a very cute pair of flats as well which will be useful. Couldn't find the ones I had at home when I was packing. I also succombed to Lush and got a hair mask, although it is significantly pricier here than back home. So there will be no Lush gluttony on this trip, just the essentials like face wash and MAYBE shampoo. Enough about that.
The whole area was full of neon flashy lights and signs in combinations of Korean and English, the English often being quite comical. "Pic Dic" was one shop that elicited snickers...apparently there's another one called "Make Yourself So F*cking Lovely" (asterisk inserted by me) but that I have not yet seen. I honestly felt like a small town girl in the big city for the first time, boggling at the bright lights and sounds and smells. One interesting tangent I started noticing more: affection between men and women is not generally displayed in public, but girls will walk around holding hands with each other, as will boys. This persists in registering in my brain as "oh look at the cute gay boys" before I remind myself that it's NOT.... it's just a cultural difference.
Tonight there is a Ball on campus for the staff, not that I really have dressy clothes but I'll put something together. Tomorrow I meet Joe for the first time, and then we take off for Seoul! It should be a great day of exploring, and I will be trying to learn the subway system as I go. For now, though, I need to get cleaned up and head to the ball!
I've made some headway past the "meeting people" phase and I believe I have started to enter the actual "making friends" phase, which is GOOD. There's a few girls who seem to spend a lot of time together, although it sounds like almost everyone hangs out with everyone here...but anyway, these girls invited me to Ilsan last night for dinner and shopping, both of which were had in profusion!
Ilsan is the nearest urban area to my little community, I think it counts as a city by Korean standards. We took the shuttle from EV which drops the local workers at the nearest subway station, which happens to be in Ilsan, and then grabbed a few cabs to take us to the nearest shopping district, called La Festa. Just beyond that there's an area called Western Dome where I guess a lot of foreigners shop...although it still seemed to be primarily Koreans! They have familiar shops like Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, and LUSH!! but all with a Korean twist. They also have shoes large enough to fit the likes of us Western girls, which was one of the main reasons we ended up there. On our way through La Festa, we were accosted by the most delicious smell...and so we ended up in a Galbi restaurant. Buffet-style raw meat, marinating in a variety of sauces, that you take back to your table and grill. Eat as much as you want, there's sides and kimchi (of course) and vegetables and did I mention the all you can eat meat?? Oh it was delicious. All for w11,000 a person. We got a beer apiece, too, which is the most delicious drink possible with all that greasy meat. It's ok, though, because you wrap the meat in lettuce, and that makes it healthy. *Nods solemnly*
We noticed it was getting on the late side, so shopping commenced with full girly ferocity. I am still consumed with jealousy over the shoes Megan got, but I did pick up a few pairs myself. Supercute docs with black/white/red plaid fabric sides for w25,000? Yes please. Not that I need them for work. I did get a very cute pair of flats as well which will be useful. Couldn't find the ones I had at home when I was packing. I also succombed to Lush and got a hair mask, although it is significantly pricier here than back home. So there will be no Lush gluttony on this trip, just the essentials like face wash and MAYBE shampoo. Enough about that.
The whole area was full of neon flashy lights and signs in combinations of Korean and English, the English often being quite comical. "Pic Dic" was one shop that elicited snickers...apparently there's another one called "Make Yourself So F*cking Lovely" (asterisk inserted by me) but that I have not yet seen. I honestly felt like a small town girl in the big city for the first time, boggling at the bright lights and sounds and smells. One interesting tangent I started noticing more: affection between men and women is not generally displayed in public, but girls will walk around holding hands with each other, as will boys. This persists in registering in my brain as "oh look at the cute gay boys" before I remind myself that it's NOT.... it's just a cultural difference.
Tonight there is a Ball on campus for the staff, not that I really have dressy clothes but I'll put something together. Tomorrow I meet Joe for the first time, and then we take off for Seoul! It should be a great day of exploring, and I will be trying to learn the subway system as I go. For now, though, I need to get cleaned up and head to the ball!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
first day on the job
Started work today. I use that phrase loosely. I'm in the OWP (One Week Program), and we're not getting campers right now. So all we're doing is basically professional development. We're learning the Wise method of teaching phonics in the mornings, and doing cross-training between departments in the afternoons, so a lot of this was bewildering, since I don't even know what MY department does yet! Looks like it's going to be a week or two of this, which is pretty boring but very low-stress, and then I'll be teamed with another teacher for all the other classes I teach. Lots of time to train, and I won't have to be the lead teacher until, like, DECEMBER. Win! It's almost too easy.
I'm going to be in the ABC department, which is Arts, Broadcasting, and Creativity. (They reeeeeeaally like acronyms here!) It's about what it sounds like: better English through crafts, short movie-making, and discussion about the above. You don't need any particular expertise to teach any area, so there's always the possibility I'll switch departments later. Again, this won't even start until October. There's also a week of mandatory vacation (5 of the 20 days I was promised...they didn't tell me that some of them were like Christmas and Easter break, and I have to take them at a certain time!) at the end of the month. But that's ok, because...
I am going to BALI! There's a whole group of people from EV that are going, but one of them can't make it, so I'm taking his ticket. It's quite cheap, for 8 days, and I'll be with 15 other people! I haven't been paid yet, but the guy is very laid back about when I can pay him back for it, since I'm brand-spankin' new. And if I weren't taking the ticket, he'd lose the money totally. So, win-win-win! Looks like it'll be a long day of travel, though, there's like an 8 hour layover in Osaka. I wonder if we'll be able to leave the airport...
Other things today: got my Korean bank card, applied for my ARC and for my flight reimbursement, got the full rundown on my contract and the rules here, and met approximately a million people!! There's a lot of people here from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and England, as well as from the US. I remembered early on that I suck at names, so I started using mneumonics and associative tricks like that, and so far it's worked like a charm. (You know...Laura is lanky, Wally is cute as a wallaby, etc.) I'm more and more pleased with being here every day!
Now I need to put some dinner together and research Bali some more!
I'm going to be in the ABC department, which is Arts, Broadcasting, and Creativity. (They reeeeeeaally like acronyms here!) It's about what it sounds like: better English through crafts, short movie-making, and discussion about the above. You don't need any particular expertise to teach any area, so there's always the possibility I'll switch departments later. Again, this won't even start until October. There's also a week of mandatory vacation (5 of the 20 days I was promised...they didn't tell me that some of them were like Christmas and Easter break, and I have to take them at a certain time!) at the end of the month. But that's ok, because...
I am going to BALI! There's a whole group of people from EV that are going, but one of them can't make it, so I'm taking his ticket. It's quite cheap, for 8 days, and I'll be with 15 other people! I haven't been paid yet, but the guy is very laid back about when I can pay him back for it, since I'm brand-spankin' new. And if I weren't taking the ticket, he'd lose the money totally. So, win-win-win! Looks like it'll be a long day of travel, though, there's like an 8 hour layover in Osaka. I wonder if we'll be able to leave the airport...
Other things today: got my Korean bank card, applied for my ARC and for my flight reimbursement, got the full rundown on my contract and the rules here, and met approximately a million people!! There's a lot of people here from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and England, as well as from the US. I remembered early on that I suck at names, so I started using mneumonics and associative tricks like that, and so far it's worked like a charm. (You know...Laura is lanky, Wally is cute as a wallaby, etc.) I'm more and more pleased with being here every day!
Now I need to put some dinner together and research Bali some more!
Monday, September 7, 2009
out of the house!
I slept for 11 hours last night! Wide awake at 2 AM again, but I popped some melatonin, got a drink, and watched a little tv and was able to get back to sleep. It was actually hard to get up at 7:30! Why up so early? I wasnt sure when I'd be picked up for my checkup, so I wanted to be sure I was ready. Turns out he didn't come till almost noon!
My HR guy, Mike, came to get me and the other new girl, Emily. He drove us to the hospital for our medical screening, which involved a short questionaire about diseases, vision check, blood and urine samples, and a chest xray. Cost for all this without insurance? w60,000, or less than $60. Now that I'm cleared to work, if I had to get the same checkup, it would cost me maybe w12,000. They did all the lab work then and there, and gave us certificates to declare us ready to work!
After the checkup, we went for lunch to a little restaurant which has locations all over Korea, didn't manage to retain the name. We had a big bowl of be bim bop to share, which is rice with chili sauce, assorted vegetables like bean sprouts and soy beans, and a fried egg on top. Chop it all up, stir it around, and everyone eats from the same bowl. It was delicious! We also had some sushi-like rolls containing cooked tuna, pickled radish, lotus root, carrot, and egg, and some steamed meat dumplings. And, of course, kimchi. Total cost for 3 people? w11,000. (Not even $10! But it's easier to think of 1,000 won as one dollar, you come out ahead that way, so even with rounding up it was less than $4 a person.) Also, you cannot tip at restaurants, they take it as an insult. It's like you're saying "Your food is not very good, and I can see you'll struggle for customers. Here, have some extra money." We ate with metal chopsticks except for the rice dish, which they use spoons for. Metal chopsticks take some getting used to! I guess they're a little easier than the lacquered ones at Chinese restaurants though, and you have the added bonus of being able to use them as a crude knife, like to chop and stir up the egg in the be bim bop.
Learned a few new phrases, so I'm up to 4 total! Aside from "hello" and "thank you" I can now say igo jesayo, or "I want this." You can say this and point to a picture of food, or someone else's plate, to tell the waiter what you want. And yogi yo means "here, please!" you can summon a waiter that way, and maybe tell a taxi that you're at the right place to be dropped off. I'm not 100% sure about that one. Also learned some etiquette: use both hands when you hand something to someone, or else use the right hand, with your left hand at your elbow. The youngest person (or least senior, since a boss can feasibly be younger than you) at the table passes out utensils and makes sure everyone has water, while the eldest will probably pay. And never leave your chopsticks in a bowl of rice, it's only done at graves and is tantamount to summoning ghosts. Expect a little old lady at the next table to come over, yank them out, and start yelling at you! (No, this did not actually happen, because none of us committed that particular breach of etiquette.)
After lunch we went back to English Village and set up our bank accounts, there is a little makeshift office on campus who got us started, and can help us do things like convert money or wire it elsewhere. We also went to the main staff office to get our fingerprints scanned, but the guy wasn't there. Your timecard is your fingerprint here! How great is that?!
Other fun innovations: to ride public transit, you load a little device with T-Money (no, it's not a rapper, it's transportation funds) and just zap it on buses, subways, or taxis. This device can be card, a cell phone charm, a ring, or even contained in a watch or an MP3 player!! There are buses that go right from English Village to Seoul, or to Ilsan, the nearest urban center, or to Gimcheon, the nearest not-quite-urban center. There's also a shuttle to Ilsan for free, to the subway stop there. The subway looks comparable to Manhattan's!
We did a little more walking around the village, Mike told us about a few other things, like where we have full staff meetings, where other staff live, etc. Our one daily meal provided is, it turns out, not limited to the cafeteria like I assumed. Instead, we get w80,000 per month, or about $4 a day towards a meal, direct deposited into our accounts. So we can by a meal ticket for the cafeteria for all-u-can-eat Korean and "English" food (they really do try, Mike says...) or else buy a meal in one of the little restaurants around the village. There's pizza and pasta, Chinese "Fusion" (many, many things claim to be fusion, which basically means "with Korean food integrated), burgers and fried chicken, etc. Or we can just keep the money and eat in our own apartments, although sometimes it's cheaper just to eat out.
We parted ways around 2:45, Emily and I are getting a ride with a guy named Greg to E-Mart tonight, Korea's version of K-Mart I guess. I promptly went for a walk outside the village, wandered down the main street and picked a direction at random. There's not a whole lot on the streets, we're pretty suburban. But it's beautiful around here: there's mountains all across the horizon, lots of greenery, and North Korea off in the distance!
I got lots of other information today from Mike, but maybe I'll wait to post about it until I see it for myself. Now to enjoy the rest of my free day until shopping time!
My HR guy, Mike, came to get me and the other new girl, Emily. He drove us to the hospital for our medical screening, which involved a short questionaire about diseases, vision check, blood and urine samples, and a chest xray. Cost for all this without insurance? w60,000, or less than $60. Now that I'm cleared to work, if I had to get the same checkup, it would cost me maybe w12,000. They did all the lab work then and there, and gave us certificates to declare us ready to work!
After the checkup, we went for lunch to a little restaurant which has locations all over Korea, didn't manage to retain the name. We had a big bowl of be bim bop to share, which is rice with chili sauce, assorted vegetables like bean sprouts and soy beans, and a fried egg on top. Chop it all up, stir it around, and everyone eats from the same bowl. It was delicious! We also had some sushi-like rolls containing cooked tuna, pickled radish, lotus root, carrot, and egg, and some steamed meat dumplings. And, of course, kimchi. Total cost for 3 people? w11,000. (Not even $10! But it's easier to think of 1,000 won as one dollar, you come out ahead that way, so even with rounding up it was less than $4 a person.) Also, you cannot tip at restaurants, they take it as an insult. It's like you're saying "Your food is not very good, and I can see you'll struggle for customers. Here, have some extra money." We ate with metal chopsticks except for the rice dish, which they use spoons for. Metal chopsticks take some getting used to! I guess they're a little easier than the lacquered ones at Chinese restaurants though, and you have the added bonus of being able to use them as a crude knife, like to chop and stir up the egg in the be bim bop.
Learned a few new phrases, so I'm up to 4 total! Aside from "hello" and "thank you" I can now say igo jesayo, or "I want this." You can say this and point to a picture of food, or someone else's plate, to tell the waiter what you want. And yogi yo means "here, please!" you can summon a waiter that way, and maybe tell a taxi that you're at the right place to be dropped off. I'm not 100% sure about that one. Also learned some etiquette: use both hands when you hand something to someone, or else use the right hand, with your left hand at your elbow. The youngest person (or least senior, since a boss can feasibly be younger than you) at the table passes out utensils and makes sure everyone has water, while the eldest will probably pay. And never leave your chopsticks in a bowl of rice, it's only done at graves and is tantamount to summoning ghosts. Expect a little old lady at the next table to come over, yank them out, and start yelling at you! (No, this did not actually happen, because none of us committed that particular breach of etiquette.)
After lunch we went back to English Village and set up our bank accounts, there is a little makeshift office on campus who got us started, and can help us do things like convert money or wire it elsewhere. We also went to the main staff office to get our fingerprints scanned, but the guy wasn't there. Your timecard is your fingerprint here! How great is that?!
Other fun innovations: to ride public transit, you load a little device with T-Money (no, it's not a rapper, it's transportation funds) and just zap it on buses, subways, or taxis. This device can be card, a cell phone charm, a ring, or even contained in a watch or an MP3 player!! There are buses that go right from English Village to Seoul, or to Ilsan, the nearest urban center, or to Gimcheon, the nearest not-quite-urban center. There's also a shuttle to Ilsan for free, to the subway stop there. The subway looks comparable to Manhattan's!
We did a little more walking around the village, Mike told us about a few other things, like where we have full staff meetings, where other staff live, etc. Our one daily meal provided is, it turns out, not limited to the cafeteria like I assumed. Instead, we get w80,000 per month, or about $4 a day towards a meal, direct deposited into our accounts. So we can by a meal ticket for the cafeteria for all-u-can-eat Korean and "English" food (they really do try, Mike says...) or else buy a meal in one of the little restaurants around the village. There's pizza and pasta, Chinese "Fusion" (many, many things claim to be fusion, which basically means "with Korean food integrated), burgers and fried chicken, etc. Or we can just keep the money and eat in our own apartments, although sometimes it's cheaper just to eat out.
We parted ways around 2:45, Emily and I are getting a ride with a guy named Greg to E-Mart tonight, Korea's version of K-Mart I guess. I promptly went for a walk outside the village, wandered down the main street and picked a direction at random. There's not a whole lot on the streets, we're pretty suburban. But it's beautiful around here: there's mountains all across the horizon, lots of greenery, and North Korea off in the distance!
I got lots of other information today from Mike, but maybe I'll wait to post about it until I see it for myself. Now to enjoy the rest of my free day until shopping time!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
night one and day two
It's about 4 PM and I'm fighting the sleepies hard. I woke up well before dawn (which is at about 5:30 here) and couldn't get back to sleep. Even with sleep deprivation, I suppose my body knows that I'm usually in bed right about now.
So! I'm set up in my domicile for the next year. It's SUPER cute. One good sized room with kitchen stuff along one wall, and cabinetry and shelves along the other. I have the biggest sink I've ever seen, a microwave, a 2 burner plug-in hot plate, a little instant-hot-water pot, and a washing machine, all neatly tucked into about 5 feet of kitchen space. There's even a blender! Either the previous tenant or the welcoming committee (or both) left me almost everything I need: some basic groceries, cleaning supplies, a few plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, silverware. (I had curry and rice for lunch, all quite easy to prepare even though the packets AND the microwave are only in Korean!) There's a TV and DVD player, and basic cable. One of those fold-up into the wall college beds, but I'm not folding it up...don't need to. The space where it WOULD fold is allllll shelves and cupboards, and then there's one other closet with lots of shelves, plus a vacuum cleaner and ironing board. I have my own bathroom with a roomy standup shower, but oddly enough there is NO storage space in there, which is where I need it most! Oh well. I also have no dresser, but the closet is easy enough to neatly stack folded clothes, and there's a drawer or two in there too.
I want to go out and explore, but I'm not supposed to leave my room until I see a doctor to declare me swine flu-free. Argh. I guess I'll have time for everything, sooner or later. I did slip out and peek around the main street a little bit. I'm basically living in a theme park. There's a City Hall, and a main street thoroughfare with bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, a bar, and a convenience store, all within sight of my building. I'm in a quiet dorm, I met my neighbor Renee already when she brought me a welcome basket! Apparently there's a louder, party-prone dorm right behind my building, but that's easy enough to wander over to if I want to! It looks like nothing in English Village is more than a 5-10 minute walk away at most. There's a cafeteria, and a gym I can join for about $20/month. And everything is very pretty. The Village is actually built into the side of a mountain, so things are on oddly picturesque levels. There's a bit of a solar system motif, and my building is pretty far from the Town Hall (or "Sun"), so I live in Pluto! I'm not even a freakin' planet!
Turns out swine flu is actually a big deal right now, to the point where most of the schools that would visit us have delayed opening. This means I might not start actually teaching for several weeks, but I'm still officially on the job...so I guess lots of time to get oriented! In the meantime, I've completely unpacked, made myself a shopping list, set up a skype account (lauren.wingert), caught up completely on True Blood, and arranged my stuff pretty much as I like it.
Also, before I forget, here is my mailing address:
Lauren Wingert
English Village, Pluto 203
1779 Beopheung-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju City
Gyeonggi Province, Republic of Korea, 413-780
What else...ah, the ride from the airport was really funny, as I mentioned to a few of you already. The driver had very limited English, and I had to fight the impulse to try and speak Spanish to him. Shows how much travel I've done! If someone doesn't speak English, the linguistic area of my brain assumes that Spanish is the only other language. Kind of embarrassing. We did manage to communicate through gesture and simple words... first time in Korea, the breeze feels good, that sort of thing. Then as I let out a loud jaw-splitting yawn, he turned to me and ROARED and exclaimed "MONSTER!" which startled me right out of the yawn and into a giggle fit. Thus encouraged, he periodically roared at me throughout the trip. I love how a sense of humor and general silliness transcends language barriers! He also pointed out North Korea to me, and the gun turrets, complete with machine-gun sound effects and exploding-torso pantomine! I really am within view of the DMZ.
My weird, weird tranquillity about this transition has persisted. So far nothing feels terrifyingly foreign. (I'm sure my first shopping trip will change that.) The only moment of shock was when we landed in Seoul, and the airport tower had no English, only a few Hongul characters, and I kind of gasped and cried for just a second, because the knowledge actually hit home that I am not home, that I am so far from home. And it will be a long time before I go back, although not so long in the course of a lifetime. But I am finding nothing to fear. Crime is practically nonexistent, people here not only leave their doors unlocked, but hanging open when they leave for a day or two...and I can be as sheltered as I want to be within this little community. But also, I'm feeling very secure in the knowledge that I can take care of myself.
I'm throwing out italics harder than Anne Shirley; perhaps it's time to conclude. Despite my boredom, I'm quite pleased to be here, and excited to find out more about my new home for the next year! Until next time...
So! I'm set up in my domicile for the next year. It's SUPER cute. One good sized room with kitchen stuff along one wall, and cabinetry and shelves along the other. I have the biggest sink I've ever seen, a microwave, a 2 burner plug-in hot plate, a little instant-hot-water pot, and a washing machine, all neatly tucked into about 5 feet of kitchen space. There's even a blender! Either the previous tenant or the welcoming committee (or both) left me almost everything I need: some basic groceries, cleaning supplies, a few plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, silverware. (I had curry and rice for lunch, all quite easy to prepare even though the packets AND the microwave are only in Korean!) There's a TV and DVD player, and basic cable. One of those fold-up into the wall college beds, but I'm not folding it up...don't need to. The space where it WOULD fold is allllll shelves and cupboards, and then there's one other closet with lots of shelves, plus a vacuum cleaner and ironing board. I have my own bathroom with a roomy standup shower, but oddly enough there is NO storage space in there, which is where I need it most! Oh well. I also have no dresser, but the closet is easy enough to neatly stack folded clothes, and there's a drawer or two in there too.
I want to go out and explore, but I'm not supposed to leave my room until I see a doctor to declare me swine flu-free. Argh. I guess I'll have time for everything, sooner or later. I did slip out and peek around the main street a little bit. I'm basically living in a theme park. There's a City Hall, and a main street thoroughfare with bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, a bar, and a convenience store, all within sight of my building. I'm in a quiet dorm, I met my neighbor Renee already when she brought me a welcome basket! Apparently there's a louder, party-prone dorm right behind my building, but that's easy enough to wander over to if I want to! It looks like nothing in English Village is more than a 5-10 minute walk away at most. There's a cafeteria, and a gym I can join for about $20/month. And everything is very pretty. The Village is actually built into the side of a mountain, so things are on oddly picturesque levels. There's a bit of a solar system motif, and my building is pretty far from the Town Hall (or "Sun"), so I live in Pluto! I'm not even a freakin' planet!
Turns out swine flu is actually a big deal right now, to the point where most of the schools that would visit us have delayed opening. This means I might not start actually teaching for several weeks, but I'm still officially on the job...so I guess lots of time to get oriented! In the meantime, I've completely unpacked, made myself a shopping list, set up a skype account (lauren.wingert), caught up completely on True Blood, and arranged my stuff pretty much as I like it.
Also, before I forget, here is my mailing address:
Lauren Wingert
English Village, Pluto 203
1779 Beopheung-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju City
Gyeonggi Province, Republic of Korea, 413-780
What else...ah, the ride from the airport was really funny, as I mentioned to a few of you already. The driver had very limited English, and I had to fight the impulse to try and speak Spanish to him. Shows how much travel I've done! If someone doesn't speak English, the linguistic area of my brain assumes that Spanish is the only other language. Kind of embarrassing. We did manage to communicate through gesture and simple words... first time in Korea, the breeze feels good, that sort of thing. Then as I let out a loud jaw-splitting yawn, he turned to me and ROARED and exclaimed "MONSTER!" which startled me right out of the yawn and into a giggle fit. Thus encouraged, he periodically roared at me throughout the trip. I love how a sense of humor and general silliness transcends language barriers! He also pointed out North Korea to me, and the gun turrets, complete with machine-gun sound effects and exploding-torso pantomine! I really am within view of the DMZ.
My weird, weird tranquillity about this transition has persisted. So far nothing feels terrifyingly foreign. (I'm sure my first shopping trip will change that.) The only moment of shock was when we landed in Seoul, and the airport tower had no English, only a few Hongul characters, and I kind of gasped and cried for just a second, because the knowledge actually hit home that I am not home, that I am so far from home. And it will be a long time before I go back, although not so long in the course of a lifetime. But I am finding nothing to fear. Crime is practically nonexistent, people here not only leave their doors unlocked, but hanging open when they leave for a day or two...and I can be as sheltered as I want to be within this little community. But also, I'm feeling very secure in the knowledge that I can take care of myself.
I'm throwing out italics harder than Anne Shirley; perhaps it's time to conclude. Despite my boredom, I'm quite pleased to be here, and excited to find out more about my new home for the next year! Until next time...
day one: in the air
I’ve been on this particular plane for maybe five hours. My watch is set now to Seoul time, so that I don’t get too hung up on what time it “really” is, or how long I’ve been awake…so all I know is that I got on this plane at 2:00 PM California time, and now it’s almost 11 AM Korea time. Unfortunately, even though it’s light out, I know that 11 AM in Korea means 10 PM back home, which means I’ve been bouncing around the globe for WAY too long. It would be easier if everyone else on this flight weren’t treating it like nighttime. Does everyone want to be just waking up for their day at 6:30 PM when we arrive? All the shades are down, most of the lights are out. The plane is dark and quiet, and the (extremely attractive) stewardesses are taking breaks in the back. There’s a bit of turbulence, nothing huge. And I am the only person in my row of 3 seats, so I am currently stretched out with my back to the window and my feet on the seat, laptop plugged in to the handy armrest outlet, taking a break from my fourth or fifth episode of True Blood in order to write this little update.
I’m getting a little nervous about what will happen when I get there, in terms of my employment and its expectations, but I’m also getting more excited about what I’ll get to do when I’m NOT working. A job is a job, and learning a new one is scary, but this is totally within what I can handle…and it’s only 40 hours a week. I’m looking forward to meeting the other people there, to looking up my cousin’s friend Joey who lives close by, to exploring Seoul and tracking down my favorite stores, and ferreting out cool places to eat! I can’t wait to get my room set up, and to furnish a little bit…I loved that part of college, moving into the dorms, and here I get to do it again! And, as I keep on needing to remind myself, to do all this in a totally new country. Why is it that no matter how many times I say that it never seems real?
Incidentally, the airline is very nearly as great as I talked it up to be. The seats are not hugely roomier than the ones I just vacated on US Airways (which DID seem bigger than other airlines I’ve flown recently…Continental and AirTran felt much more cramped), but having the whole row to myself cancels out any concerns of being cramped! There are movies and TV shows to be watched on the personal screens mounted above the tray tables, but I haven’t browsed yet because True Blood is so full of freaking cliffhangers that I just keep watching! The lovely stewardesses have been around with drinks 4 or 5 times, the food was VERY good and we got to choose our meal, we got hot towels and travel kits as soon as we sat down, and...even the alcoholic drinks are free! Pity I can’t show up stumbling drunk when I meet my new employers. :-P I’m about done drinking anyway. In US time it’s bedtime, but it’s not even noon in Korea yet, so it’s either too late or too early for wine.
Incidentally, I forget where I posted what information, but my airport experience this morning was easy as pie. Easier, because pies can be hard to make! It only took me 20 minutes from getting out of the car to plunking down at my gate…which meant I had 2 hours to kill, but oh well. I was worried they’d charge for my bags, since US Airways usually DOES… but apparently they keep the same policy as the connecting international flight, which is to say that 2 bags are allowed to be checked, free of charge, provided they’re 50 lbs or less each. Would you believe that my big suitcase weighed in at 50.0 lbs??? I sailed through security, got some coffee, found my gate, and was done. San Fran was a little harder, the terminals could have been better marked, I had to exit and re-enter security for the internatl terminal (although my checked bags went straight through, thankfully) and I stood in the wrong line for like 10 minutes before being told that I needed the OTHER side of the international terminal. Not well marked. Oh well. Still got to the gate about 40 minutes before boarding began, and had time for a sandwich and a glass of wine. Skipped food on the first flight because they very uncool-l y charge you. Given the choice between an airplane sandwich or salad for $7, or waiting until I arrive and having the whole airport to choose food from, for about the same cost? I think I made the right call. Caprese sandwich, yum.
Back to the sexay vampires now.
I’m getting a little nervous about what will happen when I get there, in terms of my employment and its expectations, but I’m also getting more excited about what I’ll get to do when I’m NOT working. A job is a job, and learning a new one is scary, but this is totally within what I can handle…and it’s only 40 hours a week. I’m looking forward to meeting the other people there, to looking up my cousin’s friend Joey who lives close by, to exploring Seoul and tracking down my favorite stores, and ferreting out cool places to eat! I can’t wait to get my room set up, and to furnish a little bit…I loved that part of college, moving into the dorms, and here I get to do it again! And, as I keep on needing to remind myself, to do all this in a totally new country. Why is it that no matter how many times I say that it never seems real?
Incidentally, the airline is very nearly as great as I talked it up to be. The seats are not hugely roomier than the ones I just vacated on US Airways (which DID seem bigger than other airlines I’ve flown recently…Continental and AirTran felt much more cramped), but having the whole row to myself cancels out any concerns of being cramped! There are movies and TV shows to be watched on the personal screens mounted above the tray tables, but I haven’t browsed yet because True Blood is so full of freaking cliffhangers that I just keep watching! The lovely stewardesses have been around with drinks 4 or 5 times, the food was VERY good and we got to choose our meal, we got hot towels and travel kits as soon as we sat down, and...even the alcoholic drinks are free! Pity I can’t show up stumbling drunk when I meet my new employers. :-P I’m about done drinking anyway. In US time it’s bedtime, but it’s not even noon in Korea yet, so it’s either too late or too early for wine.
Incidentally, I forget where I posted what information, but my airport experience this morning was easy as pie. Easier, because pies can be hard to make! It only took me 20 minutes from getting out of the car to plunking down at my gate…which meant I had 2 hours to kill, but oh well. I was worried they’d charge for my bags, since US Airways usually DOES… but apparently they keep the same policy as the connecting international flight, which is to say that 2 bags are allowed to be checked, free of charge, provided they’re 50 lbs or less each. Would you believe that my big suitcase weighed in at 50.0 lbs??? I sailed through security, got some coffee, found my gate, and was done. San Fran was a little harder, the terminals could have been better marked, I had to exit and re-enter security for the internatl terminal (although my checked bags went straight through, thankfully) and I stood in the wrong line for like 10 minutes before being told that I needed the OTHER side of the international terminal. Not well marked. Oh well. Still got to the gate about 40 minutes before boarding began, and had time for a sandwich and a glass of wine. Skipped food on the first flight because they very uncool-l y charge you. Given the choice between an airplane sandwich or salad for $7, or waiting until I arrive and having the whole airport to choose food from, for about the same cost? I think I made the right call. Caprese sandwich, yum.
Back to the sexay vampires now.
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