The End of Steve, the Rise of an Elk

So, it's finally over. I can longer rightfully use this blog. Thus, I have moved my ramblings to a new one. Enjoy!

Elk in Disguise

The 40 hour Tuesday

I'm back!

I have been for almost 5 days now.

Life in Saskatchewan is pretty good. Laura's family has made me feel exceedingly comfortable. Ten more days and we're off to Calgary to visit my people. Right now, we're just trying to figure out how to relax again. You don't realize how much you just go-go-go in Korea until you suddenly find yourself in a small town in Saskatchewan (Langham, to be precise). So far, we've slept quite a bit, made a few ventures into Saskatoon, and basically tried to re-acquaint ourselves with a lack of tension. I think we're doing pretty well.

Now to catch you all up with the trip back and the days leading up to it.

We headed to Busan on Saturday for a couple of nights as a sort of vacation before flying home on Tuesday. The first night, we stayed at rather shabby hotel right next to the train station. We quickly realized that if we were to have a decent vacation, we needed better lodgings. So, we splurged, basically for the first time since coming to Korea. We stayed at the Commodore Hotel, a so-called "Super-Deluxe" hotel. It lived up to its designation. It was designed to look like a traditional Korean building, but came with all the trappings of a fancy hotel, including highly overpriced restaurants and room service, both of which we took advantage of (or perhaps were taken advantage of by...). Anyway, we luxuriated. We also spent our time wandering Busan, doing some last minute shopping and enjoying our last Korean weekend.

On Monday, I met up with the owner of my school at the Busan Immigration Office. There, he gave me my plane ticket and the rest of my money. Also, we went up to the counter and got myself an "Exit Order." So, yes, I was ordered out of the country. Fun stuff! Leave it my school, or perhaps Korea in general, to leave everything until the last possible moment ("Oh! You're leaving the country on Tuesday? We'll give you your plane ticket and final pay on Monday, then.").

The day of the flight was really long. Literally. In fact, I think Tuesday (from 12:00 am to 11:59pm) worked out to be about 40 hours long due to time zone changes. Laura's flight to Seoul was at 7:00am, so we were up at 4:30 to get ready and be at the airport on time. We made it no problem. And we both got to wait forever after that, me in Busan for my flight to Osaka (4 hours) and Laura at Incheon for her flight to Vancouver (9 hours). The Busan International Airport is terrible. There is absolutely nothing there. Seriously. Just a crappy duty free shop and an absolutely terrible snack bar. It was a loooooong 4 hours. Speaking of long, I finally got to the Osaka airport. Trying to find my transfer gate and ticket counter was basically me walking down an infinite grey hallway. To my left were the giant windows overlooking the tarmac and to my right was a wall. A really long, grey wall. I swear I walked for half an hour until finally finding my gate. Then I got to wait, again. Osaka, at least, has stuff. I had a coffee, browsed the magazines and still got bored after an hour. So, I sat myself down and read for a few hours until the plane left.

The flight to Vancouver didn't actually seem very long. There was a huge Russian man as our flight attendant, who was somehow chosen as the appropriate person to wander the aisles with the perfume catalog. I slept for a good portion of the flight, after finishing the book I had started in Osaka. Customs in Vancouver was remarkably quick, the only snag being when asked if I had brought anything with me and I replied, "no." She gave me a funny look and said, "You were in Korea for 14 months and didn't bring anything back?" I amended my statement and proceeded through to get my baggage. It was there that I waited forever. My regular bag came through, but I had to wait at the fragile baggage area for quite some time for my guitar to come through. They seemed to only bring one or two things at a time, mostly golf clubs by the looks of it. Finally it came and I got myself through to the Air Canada counter to get to Saskatoon. Now it was time to wait for Laura to arrive.

Of course, her flight was delayed. A storm near Japan, which strangely had no effect on my flight, caused hers to take a longer route. When she finally arrived, there was a massive line at customs. With about 30 minutes until the flight to Saskatoon left, she emerged and we quickly got her flight changed to the same as mine (she was originally slated to go through Calgary first) and her money converted and made our way to the domestic terminal and our gate to Saskatoon. We were startled by Dan before going through. He just kind of materialized from behind a pillar to greet us. It would have been great to hang out and chat, but we had to rush. We'll be back in Vancouver soon enough, so it will just have to wait.

The flight to Saskatoon was short, but cold. We were greeted at the airport by Laura's family, who immediately took us to Tim Hortons's for coffee (how Canadian...). Thus, here we are, marginally settled, with clean laundry, comfortable surroundings and time to relax.

However, the drama for us didn't end there. The day after arriving, we found out that the apartment we had paid our deposit and first months rent for, as well as having signed a lease on, had been sold and we would no longer have the chance to live there. Despite screwing us over, they are still trying to help us find alternative lodgings and have found some places in the same area that are similar. Hopefully, it will all turn out well. I'll let you know.

Guy

And so begins the last two days of work. I'm sitting at the school office, the world's largest fan pointed at me (I swear is actually an airplane propeller), attempting to cool off. The air is thick with sun and moisture. Summer in Korea is easily the least pleasant time to be here. We've actually only had about one week of it now. The rainy season ended last week at about this time. It was great! Basically three weeks of non-stop water. The air was cool and fresh, the streets were washed clean, the clouds scudded across the mountains beautifully. Now it is all sun and humidity-induced haze. It wouldn't be so bad if one could lounge about in it on a beach, beer in hand. But no, Laura and I have been packing and carting boxes to the post office and getting apartments ready for departure. Also, there is work to deal with, still. Luckily, the schools have air conditioning.

So, I think this may be my last blog typed while in Korea. I may not have time after this. That's a bit sad. I think I'll probably have to open a new blog once I get home as I can no longer rightfully consider anything done in Canada a part of "The Great Korean Adventure," can I? I'll let you know if and when I switch over.

Well, that's about it for right now. My teaching day must start. I'll do my best to get another post up before I go, but there are no guarantees.

I leave you with this picture of kimchi. Enjoy!

Korean hospitality...

... kicks ass.

It was Laura's school's treat tonight. Korean BBQ and norae-bang (karaoke room) all the way. I've been plied with beer and soju and meat this evening. Actually, it's no longer evening at all. It's 1:47 am. I think we may actually have another similar night to look forward to with my school. I don't know for sure, as my school has no money, but I would imagine they will take me out for something before the week is out. It's all good stuff, despite the high potential of debilitating hangovers.

Anyway... Pohang was great. Had a good time with Mark his buddies. The bus ride into Pohang left quite a bit to be desired. In fact, we decided to take the train home simply because the bus ride in was so awful.

Well, by this time next week, we'll be in Saskatchewan. Yay!

I've registered for classes at SFU. Latin American Studies, Spanish, Latin American Colonial History, and Intro Sociology. Fun stuff, indeed.

Um, yeah. That's it.

Guy

Going back to Japan...

... for a couple of hours as a lay-over on MY FLIGHT HOME! Yes, you read that right, I'm officially coming home. Laura and I, as expected, were not able to get ourselves on the same plane, but we will at least both leave and arrive on the same day (July 26), leave and arrive from/at the same places (Busan/Saskatoon). Here's my itinerary, for anyone who may be interested:

Busan to Osaka (Korean Air KE 731) 11:00-12:20
Osaka to Vancouver (Air Canada AC 36) 16:30-10:00
Vancouver to Saskatoon (Air Canada AC 8576) 13:05-16:07

So, I actually arrive in Saskatoon a good 23 minutes before I leave Osaka. Hurray for the International date Line! I also arrive there a good 2.5 hours before Laura. However, we may be able to meet up in Vancouver and get her ticket changed to the same direct flight I have instead of the one that stops in Calgary for no reason.

We'll stay in Saskatoon/Langham for two weeks then fly to Calgary on August 10. Calgary will also be a two week stay and we fly out to Vancouver on August 24.


Anyway, that's my news for now. Laura and I are off to Pohang to meet up with Mark. This will be our final new city on our Korean adventure. It will also be the first time we've taken a bus to another city in Korea. Here's a random bus picture for you to accompany that news. I'll let you know how it went whence we return.

Guy

Why Koreans hate cats: a poorly researched theory

Ok, Koreans, as a general rule, hate cats. Also, they tend to hate the Japanese. I believe the two are connected.

I have been told by a number of my students that cats are considered to be thieves. They raid garbages and stored food, etc. This is main reason given for the Korean dislike of cats.

Koreans dislike the Japanese for more tangible and historically recorded reasons (repeated invasions, a brutal period of occupation and forced assimilation in the early 1900's, a recent and ongoing attempt to claim a couple of rocky islands between the two countries, etc.).

Now to connect the two:

In Japanese Shinto religion, there is a god that is sacred to shop-owners because it brings in customers and their money. This god, Maneki Neko, is depicted as a cat whose left paw raises and descends repeatedly, drawing in people. Almost every Japanese store or restaurant has a small figurine of Maneki Neko, with moving left paw, in a conspicuous place in their place of business.

The Korean mistrust of Japan, bred from centuries of invasions, has transfered itself into a distrust of cats through this god. The god takes money from customers to the profit of Japanese businesses. The left paw can, if you are in the proper mind-set to see it, the appearance of pick-pocketing hand.

Thus, the Japanese have always been trying to steal from the Koreans. The Japanese cat god, Maneki Neko, is known for taking the money of the unwary shopper and takes the form of a cat. So, to Koreans, the Japanese are epitomized by their thieving cat-god. Cats in general are disliked for being thieves by association.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it (unless someone gives me some evidence to prove otherwise).

Chantal and Martin

Here's another blog link!

A couple who, at one point, were going to come to Miryang, have just recently landed in Gwangju. Laura and I had been exchanging emails with them for a while and it's nice to know they have arrived and appear to be in a good school, aside from the scary kindergarten kids.

Chantal and Martin

Whitening Sauce

Well, in truth, it's "Whitening Source," but the word for "sauce" and "source" in Korean characters is apparently the same (소스). "Whitening Sauce" is funnier to me, so that's what I call it. Anyway, the stuff bothers me, as do the commercials for it. It's this goo that Koreans, both men and women, spread over their faces to make themselves whiter. The commercials, and there are quite a few of them, are awful. They generally consist of a younger woman staring at herself in the mirror with a look of vapid self-satisfaction or an older women in luxurious surroundings babbling on about how great her life is because she makes herself whiter (ok, I actually have no clue what she is saying, but that's the feeling I get from her tone and body language). The commercials for men are fewer, but they are just as bad. Usually it's just some overly pretty guy wandering around through a sanitized and heavily manicured "wilderness."

At this point you may say to yourself (or to me), "You are watching too much TV. Get a life." That is beside the point. Try to focus on the blog, please.

As irritating as the commercials are, the thing that bothers me most is this obsession with being white. Now, I know this is just TV advertising and not necessarily an example of the thinking of the average Korean person, but there is something to this and it's not just in Korea. I saw the same thing while in Mexico where ads were filled with people that looked more American than Mexican. I just don't understand the lust to be pale and pasty. Likely it's just due to that disease of affectation that everyone gets now and then; the desire to have/be what you have/are not. Ask almost anyone with naturally curly hair and they'll tell you they wish their hair were straight. So maybe this wanting to be white is just that, seeing the greener (whiter?) side of the hill. It's true in Canada and the U.S., as well (tanning salon, anyone?).

At times here, though, it appears that this desire to be more like America is, pardon the horrible pun, more than skin deep. For example, this is a country of extremely narrow roads, high gasoline prices, and no real deep wilderness to speak of, yet the sheer number of SUV's on the road is astounding. As well, this is a country with an interesting musical tradition and history, yet all one hears on the radio is American-style pop crap. It bothers me that a country with such national pride appears to be selling themselves so eagerly into the "American Dream."

I realize this isn't the case for the entire population. In fact, it seems to be restricted to people under 40, but that's a huge demographic. Again, though, not everyone is buying into it. Korea has its share of environmentalists, anti-Americans, recluses, minimalists, etc. That said, I defy you to find a Korean between the ages of 16 and 35 who doesn't have a cell phone.

In truth, I'm not really sure where this rant is going. I don't feel any anger or bitterness towards Korea. I just sometimes wonder whether the country has any sort of direction. I think Korea needs to start concentrating on just being Korea and stop looking at other countries and attempting to emulate them. Maybe I'm reading this all wrong and this desire to be something else isn't really there, but it's certainly the impression I will come away from here with.

Guy

One step closer

We've now completed the final "deep cleaning" of our time in Korea. We spent all of yesterday discussing it and half of today doing it, but Laura's apartment has now been stripped of all but the essentials for our last three weeks here. Yup, only three more weeks. 15 work days. I generally don't like countdowns, but I'm finding it unavoidable. As much fun as I've had here, coming home will be awesome. Still no plane ticket, though...

On the topic of home, a group of us went out for drinks on Friday and ended up at the Norae-bang (pronounced no-ray-bahng, means "song room," and is basically a private karaoke room for you and your friends). This one played the typical pastoral and dramatic natural vistas on its screens for the most part but threw in, for good measure, some cityscapes. Surprisingly enough, at one point we found ourselves watching the C-train go by followed by a portion of the Stampede rodeo. This was followed by the Lion's Gate Bridge and Stanley Park. Yup, Vancouver and Calgary were amply featured on the video screen of a karaoke room in Miryang, South Korea.

Other than that, the past few days have been fairly laid back. We did witness a rather odd scene (which may still be going on as I type this). We were crossing the bridge into my school's part of town and couldn't help but notice that the river was a good 2-3 feet lower than usual. This, in itself, was odd seeeing as it has been raining rather heavily over the last week, but was made all the more odd by the people who had ventured across the newly formed beaches and into the water to dig for/collect things out of the river. We have no idea what it was they were searching for and, apparently, finding in copious amounts. We only know that they have been doing it all day and there are at least 20-25 people out there at any given time. I'm guessing they're digging up some sort of freshwater shellfish. Either that or the change they accidentally dropped into the river over the past year or so.

Guy

The Rubber Apple

I think today was the first time in my thirteen months of teaching that I truly felt like one of the teachers I remember from my days as an elementary/junior high student. I was running around making copies, marking/making tests, "helping" confused students in my spare moments between classes, and all around had no time for myself at all. I felt for the first time like one of those ultra-kinetic, frazzled, and always-a-little-behind teachers I'm sure everyone has had. To top it all off, I had a student leave an apple on my desk for me, which I liked so much I've decided to share with you all. Granted, it's actually a balloon made to look like an apple, but it still highlighted a rather stereo-typically teacher-like day. The day has left me very tired and needing to relax, further reinforcing that teaching is not the job for me, at least not right now. Perhaps at another point in my life, in another part of the world, teaching a different subject to a different age group. We'll see.

Hurray for Canada!

We've done something good. Somehow, our corrupt and inept government, despite its bumbling and swindling, has managed to do something great. Equality for all, not just the religious few. Good job.

A cool wet sack

Actually, not so cool at all.

In fact, today I feel like a pair of pants that was pulled out of the dryer too soon. Kinda warm and uncomfortably damp. I'm not really complaining, though. The torrential rain today has been pretty nice after last week's overwhelming sun and humidity. Things are certainly better off with only one of the two.

Guy

Links for all!

I've decided that it is time to put the word out about some of my favourite blogs and other links. Most of these are also listed in my side-bar (look to the left), so they can be checked out from there at any time. Anyway, on to the show!

My Friends:

The Fabulous Laurms
This is Laura's blog. While it is infrequently updated, it does have a different perspective on life here and has some great pictures to highlight it (something my blog is sorely lacking). Laura rocks, so go look. Also look at her deviantART gallery. Coming soon is Laura's online art portfolio, which is currently a work in progress but is Laura's top project and likely will be ready within a few weeks.

Bogdan the Magnificent
Jon, aka Bogdan, is Laura's brother. He updates his blog rather regularly. He's usually got something to say every day, either about his own life or the outside world. Jon is an opinionated smart ass. Jon lives in Saskatchewan (at least for the time being). Jon does NOT have a kangaroo.

Tropical Pants
This is Dan. He only has one entry, but it is sheer brilliance. The slideshow is the most profound event you will ever experience. Prepare to be deeply moved.

Debb's deviantART Gallery
Debb's photography and other arty goodness. Also a blog of sorts, what with the journal and all. She has some great stuff up there and, though cryptic at times, keeps you updated on her goings-on.

Bryan's deviantART Gallery
Bryan is one of my heros. He probably doesn't know it, but he is. He mostly uses this as a persoanl blog now and really does an excellent job of keeping us all updated on his life. He also has some great photography and digital art here, though only sporadically posts anything (like I can talk, though...).

Andy and James vs. the Marathon
This is Andy and his brother James discussing their various preparations for a marathon they will be running in Monte Carlo. So far, so good, despite some well-documented setbacks.

Dave and Gunhye
This is the blog of my friend Dave and his wife, Gunhye. Dave had lived in Korea for about four years and just recently has headed back home to Canada. He hasn't updated in a little while, but his last entry has some pretty sweet pictures from a recent trip to China.

Mike
I have been friends with Mike for a looooong time. He is full of opinions and ideas and never shies away from expressing them. He is extremely prolific in his entries. Mike and I haven't always agreed on every topic, but he is always open to discussion. Read and comment. He loves it.

Kendra
Kendra has been in the Netherlands for about two years now and keeps you posted on life in the Low Countries and her travels around Europe.

Korea Stuff:
This section is for anyone seeking general information on life in Korea. This is hardly a comprehesive list, but there are some good sites here.

Footprints Recruiting
These are the people that got me here. The site is filled with information about Korea, among other countries and about how to go about setting yourself up before and after arriving, etc.

EFL Law
This site is extremely useful. It gives the lowdown on legal matters (i.e., taxes, immigration, contracts, etc.). This is a great site to check out periodically both before and after coming. I highly recommend it.

The following Korea links are foreigner guides to life in certain cities, some of them better than others:

Seoul
Pusan
Daegu
Daejeon
Ulsan
Gwangju

Random Fun Links:

Rick Mercer
You have no idea how excited I was to find out that Rick Mercer has a blog. It's brand new, as well (I think it's only been up for a week or so). It's chock-full of Mercer goodness.

Fark
Everyone's source for odd news.

Zolaman
Korean kids love it. I do, too, despite not understanding at all what is going on. In fact, I like it so much I bought a cheap knock-off bag featuring him and his misspelled name (Zolman).

Mashimaro
More Korean cartoony goodness. Pronounced similar to "marshmallow". Plungers have never been so entertaining. Laura has a Mashimaro bag matching my "Zolman" one, but on hers the name is spelled properly.

Shameless Self-Promotion:

The Great Korean Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
Many of you have already done this, but if you haven't, you should. And remember, I love to get comments on things, so please tell me what you think.

Money and Banking in Korea
The first of two articles written by me for the Footprints site. It is as advertised.

Money in Korea
A more specific article, the second of the two for Footprints. This one features some sensual photos of Korean cash, as taken by Laura.

My deviantART Gallery
A collection of my photos and poetry.


That's about all I can come up with right now. If anyone out there feels neglected and has a blog or link they think should be here, let me know.

Outside of that stuff, not much in the way of updates. I got the rest of my May/June pay and a solemn promise to be paid on time come July 7, which is relieving. I stilll have no plane ticket home, but I am assured that will be no problem. Laura and I spent the day in Pusan yesterday. It was a good time and Laura now has some great new clothes.

The rainy season has begun here, as well. It happpened pretty suddenly. Yesterday was hot and sunny, today is hot and rainy. The forecast calls for more of the smae (hot and rainy) for much of, if not all of, the foreseeable future. Good thing I like rain. Thunderstorms are supposed to be common, which kicks ass. I don't remember all that much actual rain last year, just a constant, heavy humidity, so rain this time around is extremely welcome.

And that about covers us. Home soon. Yay!

Guy

Comin' home...

... eventually.

In truth, I'm still not sure about the date. Laura will be back in Canada on July 26, though. We thought I would be coming with her, but my school was unable to get my plane ticket from the travel agent by the deadline, so it now appears we will be flying separately. But, not only did my school fail to purchase that particular plane ticket, they still haven't purchase a ticket of any kind, as yet. So, despite having booked and paid for plane tickets to take us from Saskatoon to Calgary on August 10 and then from Calgary to Vancouver on August 24, it is yet to be seen whether I will actually make it back to Canada at all. I'm rather frustrated by the whole deal, especially as my school has also neglected to pay me in full this month. I was barely able to get my student loan payment in on time due to my school's tardiness in getting me even a partial payment for my services. All in all, I'm getting kind of nervous about what is going to happen in the next month or so. They owe me quite a bit and don't seem to be able to (willing to?) get it to me. I can only hope it all comes together.

Outside of the above mentioned frustration, things are all right. The weather is getting increasingly hot and humid and apparently the rainy season begins this week. The days are hazy and thick with dampness. Aside from the weather, Korea is still as it has been for the whole time I've been here; an enigma of sorts. TV programming is still mostly incomprehensible and seemingly random. I think the randomness was highlighted nicely last night as Laura and I flipped through the channels. We paused on some game shows, disturbingly graphic bidet infomercials, a Korean comedy troupe, among other standard Korean fare. However, what stood out most was the Argos vs. the Ti-cats. Yes, the CFL has apparently come to Korea, and during prime-time, no less. This country never fails to surprise me.

Guy

Gettin' naked with the locals

I think I spent the last half of last week as clean as one could ever ask to be. As usual, I took my regular daily showers. However, on top of those, Han Tae brought me along to the public baths on Thursday and then, two days later during a trip to Gyeongju with a family (of whom I teach the woman), I again was brought to the baths. Public baths are hugely popular here. I'm told that people generally go every weekend. They are separated by gender and nothing whatsoever is hidden. By that, I mean that not only are you fully naked with a group of Koreans, but you scrub yourself down, washing every crevice on your body rather thoroughly without even a divider between shower stalls. After that, you go to the various tubs of water (hot, warm, cold, green tea (which is also hot)), soak for a while in each, perhaps visit the sauna, then scrub yourself down once again before drying off and getting dressed. While it is not an activity for someone who is leery of being naked around total strangers, once one gets past that fact, it's actually a rather invigorating experience. The thing I didn't like was the rough cloth you are supposed to use to basically scrape a layer of skin off. I really don't see how healthy that could be for you. Also, despite my assertion that it is invigorating, that really only lasts a short while and then a nap becomes a very nice idea. I suggest going on a day when a nap is a feasible option.

I should probably mention, though, that this wasn't my first experience with the public baths. Han Tae took me to one back in September or October, but for some reason I neglected to write about them at the time. Better late than never, I guess.

Anyway, enough about public nudity. The weekend was good time, for the most part. As I mentioned, Laura and I were invited to go to Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty, for a quick tour with a family I know. We saw the sites/sights, took some pictures, ate the food and had a good, if tiring, time. It was marred somewhat by one incident, as relayed here by Laura, but other than that was a pleasant trip. Gyeongju is a beautiful and very old place, dating back almost, or maybe even more than, 2000 years. We weren't there long enough to see it all, but we did go to the Gyeongju National Museum, Bulguksa temple, and even got to make our own piece of pottery, which we will hopefully retrieve in a few weeks when it's ready.

Other than that, my news revolves around the attempt to get home soon. So far, Laura and I have our flights booked (hers is paid for, mine... not yet). We'll be back in Canada on July 26, passing quickly through Vancouver and possibly Calgary to start our Western Canadian Tour in Saskatoon/Langham. As yet, we haven't confirmed the dates for stay there but it will be around a week and a half, followed by another week and a half in Calgary and then on to Vancouver. As for Vancouver, it seems we are making some good progress on the apartment hunt. In fact, we may be pretty close to confirming the acquisition of a rather sweet place. I'll let you know more once it's all settled.

And, yeah, that's about it. We're mostly just cruising through time here, trying to enjoy the weekends and get through the work days. I have recently developed a new skill, that of ordering food for delivery. We have managed to train the staff at a local chicken place to know basically what we want and where to send it just by calling and saying, "Hello." It has worked out rather well.

Guy

The Great Korean Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

It's been a long time since my last entry and I know I promised to tell you about the festival but I do have an excuse. I've been working on a project to mark the end of one year in Korea, and event which passed by on the weekend. The project is now complete, only a few days late, and it is now ready for your perusal. It is The Great Korean Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. Just CLICK HERE to get to it.

And now, as promised, stories from the Miryang Festival, as well some other things that have happened in the past couple of weeks:

The festival was a really good time. The best parts were the people in their brightly coloured, traditional clothes (hanbok), the traditional music, and the bustle of activity the city became. As well, the bungee cord/trampoline thing was fun, too.

That is me, careening through the air, trying to accommodate all the people telling me to do a flip. All photos, the links and the bungee one, were taken by the fabulous Laura.

Since the festival, the only really notable thing that has happened has been the barbecue which was organized by Andy the director of his school, Kim. We all piled into their school's van (we being me, Laura, Andy, Kim, Matt, Catherine - a fellow teacher of Matt and Laura - and Han Tae) and found a relatively isolated spot, grilled some meat, drank some beer (or wine, or single malt whiskey), played some ball, and had a great time. Laura plans to have some pictures of said barbecue up on her blog sometime soon.

Speaking of Laura, in my last entry I mentioned that she was still waiting on acceptance into SFU. Well, the wait ended rather quickly. She is in. In fact, she was in at the time I wrote my last entry, but SFU just neglected to mention it to her until the following week. Jerks.

That is all of my news. Remember to keep an eye on Laura's blog, she's been looking to do more with it lately. And also, don't forget to check out The Great Korean Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.

Guy

The explosion of a small city

...and Milyang has gone crazy. It's festival time and, suddenly, the city is full of people and the streets are lined with a wide variety of vendors, from people selling corn on the cob and steamed crab out the back of a truck to others selling things that can't readily be identified (in fact, there was on stall selling something that Laura and I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be eaten or hung up for decoration). This usually quiet little city is now loud and boisterous, with music groups and fireworks at night, with cultural events both new and old, and with food, food, everywhere. I've walked through the thick of it a few times now, but haven't spent any real time exploring it. Luckily, it only started last night. Tomorrow, Saturday, a group of us foreigners will descend upon this seething throng of festivities and partake in all its glory.

In other news, my school has both a new director and a new Korean teacher. The director, Bryan, has, in just two short weeks, made things far more organized and easy to deal with. I feel far more comfortable bringing things up with him than I did with the owner. So, now, I'm hoping things will shape up financially there. I'm waiting on my next few pay periods to see if things have truly turned around. If, as usual, I get some of my pay on pay day and the rest a week later, then I will know that things still have a long way to go. Bryan claims that he can boost our enrollment from 20 students to 100 students in one month. We'll see. As for the Korean teacher, her name is Ellen (or Song Min-jeong). She teaches at Click school as well (the other school owned by Mr. Chang, across the street from ELC), and she's been around ELC for a month or so now but took over for Cathy this week after Cathy quit to prepare for graduate school. She's easy to work with, very friendly and the kids seem to like her. I'll miss working with Cathy, though. She was all of the above, as well.

Other than that, my past two weeks in Milyang haven't been much of anything. However, the weekends have been really good. Two weeks ago, Laura and I went to Jinju, a city about 3 times the size of Milyang and about 2 hours away by train. It's a really nice place and easily the cleanest Korean city we've seen yet. We saw some great temples, rode in some duck paddle boats (Ori boat, as the Koreans say), saw the end of a wedding between a Korean woman and a foreign man (they were wearing Korean traditional clothing, which was neat to see), enoyed the nature and the city itself and all in all had a great day. Last weekend we went to Haeundae beach in Busan and met up with Mark and Dave for some Indian food and beer on Saturday night. A good time was had by all. On the next day, Laura and I wandered about the beach. Laura got some great pictures, and yet another great day was enjoyed.

This weekend, it is definitely all about the festival. I'll be sure to update on that once it's done. The festival actually lasts a full week, but it's likely that we won't be much involved outside of the weekend.

And now, the news that is most exciting and important to me...

I got accepted to SFU. I'm quite thrilled about that. Anthropology department, here I come! The one thing tempering the excitement right now is the paper hoops they're making Laura jump through to get in. We're pretty certain she's basically been accepted, but they want her to get her past institutions to send in detailed descriptions of all her courses, presumably for transfer credit consideration, but they won't offer her admittance until those are in. It's a pain, for sure, but it's all in the works now and we'll know soon enough.

We're slowly getting things set up for our return to Canada, of which we are getting more and more excited about. We've been thinking of things we need to get here and send home, places we want to see here before we go, and all of that. As well, we've been looking into apartments and thinking about employment upon our return. It's going to be a rather busy 3 months or so, followed by another really busy month at home. It should be rather interesting. I've made my arrangements with my school to stay the extra two months, and they are starting to process the extension on my work visa. I had to sign a second contract, but they are well aware that I will be leaving after two months of it. I've put the idea in their heads as well that Laura and I would be truly happy if we could somehow end up on the same flight together. We'll see if that pans out. It would require the two schools, competitors in a tight market, to work together in setting that up. Despite that, I feel pretty confident about it.

Anyway, I think that catches us up.

Guy

Hurray for spring!

The flowers bloom, the trees are a-blossom.

Clearly, spring is here. I was expecting it a little while ago, but it is here now and I am glad. The days are pleasantly warm, the cherry trees add colourful pink splashes on the streets and in the hills. It's as if spring is nature's way of making up for the horridness of winter.

However, with the warmer weather come the insects, although they have yet to cause a problem. In fact, the bees in the cherry trees were rather interesting to watch and listen to earlier today as Laura and wandered down by the river. There were just so many of them and they were surprisingly loud.

Speaking of loud, spring also brings along an aspect of Korea that winter caused me to forget. There's something uniquely Korean (well, maybe, I haven't been everywhere, yet) about being woken up at 7:30 am to the sound of a man in a truck bellowing about vegetables and/or politics through loud-speakers. The difference between hearing it now and hearing it when I arrived is that now I can almost guess what they're bellowing about and it no longer seems like the cool cultural experience it was at first. Now, it's just irritating.

But, the days make up for it. So far, my allergies haven't been bad, but I'm sure they'll step things up in the next week or two. I've got my pseudoephedrine to get me by. Hopefully my supplies last it out, although I'm sure I can find some at the pharmacy should they not.

Anyway, that's about all for this entry. Still haven't heard from SFU, still am staying until July, the band still only vaguely exists. I miss home, but I am finding things here increasingly pleasant. Life is good, past, present and future.

Guy

From Russia with love

The following happened last Wednesday:

I was at school, in the middle of a class, teaching a small group of small children about colours. Things were going as usual when, all of a sudden, a Caucasian woman in her early 20's walks into my classroom. I had never seen her before in my life. I said, "Hello," in a rather surprised tone of voice while thoughts such as, "Have we inexplicable hired a second foreign teacher?" and "Can things get any stranger?" went through my head. She smiled, but said nothing and walked to the front of the classroom, where I was. Once reaching me, she showed me a laminated card with a paragraph written in Korean on it. I indicated that I don't know Korean. She nodded and then explained to me, in broken English, that she is Russian and that she was traveling here and trying to save some money. Then she opened a case she was carrying with her and asked if I wanted to buy any Russian items. She had necklaces and nesting dolls among other things. I told her that I was in the middle of a class, but to wait ten minutes or so until I was finished so I could take a closer look. She nodded, and left. She must not have understood fully or perhaps she was on some sort of strict trinket selling schedule because she was gone when I finished my class. She apparently was seen in the ECC parking lot a day or two later. It was really rather odd.

Otherwise, last week was a bit of a wash. I felt a bit despondent about coming back after the holiday in Japan and really didn't enjoy teaching in the least. I'm better now. It helps that tomorrow is a Korean holiday so I get an extra day off this week. The weather is great and is supposed to stay that way so I think Laura and will have a picnic or some such thing tomorrow.

That is all.

Guy

Days Three and Four, Nara/Kobe and Returning to Korea

And once again, we woke up really early and hopped on a train, this time stopping for coffee and pastries at a cafe at the train station.

The agenda for this day was a morning and lunch in Nara and the afternoon in Kobe.

The scenery on the way to Nara from Osaka was far more flat and open than I expected. I guess I've gotten really used to Korea where the mountain press in everywhere. In Japan, they're ever present, but not always so close.

Nara itself is a pretty little city mostly known for being Japan's first real capital. It apparently only lasted about 75 years before being moved to Kyoto, but it still counts. On the east side of the city is a huge park area filled with pagodas, temples and shrines, all of which are beautiful (not to say we saw them all, but those we did were pretty sweet). In particular, I loved the five story pagoda. The park is also populated by a large herd of tame deer. You can buy deer biscuits from vendors then just stand there as you are mobbed by a herd of greedy deer trying to get at the biscuits before you've even unwrapped them. I feared for my fingers.

In the park, we finallly saw the beginnings of the cherry blossoms. I think we arrived about a week too soon to see them in their full glory (we barely saw any in Kyoto), but they were still all pretty and pink and white.

After a few hours in the park, we made our way back to town for lunch. We found a great tempura place, thanks to the Lonely Planet. We had shrimp, scallop, yam, potato, pepper, mushroom, crab, squid, fish, and baby corn, all battered and fried into light and crispy perfection. As well, the meal set we ordered came with a bowl of cold soba noodles which were great dipped in a sauce of tempura soy, wasabi, shredded daikon, and green onion. So good.

When lunch was over, it was off to Kobe, via Osaka. We had excellent timing for the trains and got there rather quickly. The scenery between Osaka and Kobe was exactly as expected, nothing but city.

Kobe is a nice city. There didn't seem to be anything particularly special about it, but I can see it being a nice place to live. We stopped at the HMV where we all went a little nuts trying to find some Japanese-only releases with bonus tracks and such. We all did rather well. I ended up with the new Beck, Guero (which has three extra tracks on it including one called "Clap Hands" on the cover and "Crap Hands" on the Japanese insert), the Matthew Sweet album he released only in Japan (I realize he is releasing it in North America with another album, maybe already has, but buying the actual Japanese release was pretty cool), and a Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her album with songs I've never heard before. I could have purchased some other Japanese bands like Buck Tick Romance (which I think I may have inadvertantly experienced for free in the park in Nara), Chicken Garlic Steak, or the ever popular Bump of Chicken, but I decided to pass on them.

After the music shopping we did some book shopping. Jon got himself a manga book. I considered doing the same but came to the realization that comic books/manga art/futuristic sci-fi have never really appealed to me so I refrained.

Following that we had a tired and frustrating time finding a pub that ended up not being worth finding. Then we went back to Osaka to hunt out some dinner.

The search for food was extremely difficult as we were all so exhausted and incapable of deciding on anything. We did, however, eventually end up at a really good Mexican restaurant in Minami. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't had decent Mexican food in a almost, or possibly more than, a year, but this was great stuff. It seemed pretty authentic and even came with a selection of Mexican beers (well, not "came with" as in free, they were 700 yen each). We were all satisfied and content with our meal.

After dinner we went back to the hotel with the thought of going out for one last Asahi before going to bed. Alas, it was not to be as the place near the hotel was closed and we were all too tired and grumpy to try elsewhere. It's probbably for the best that we just went to bed.

And so that brings us to today. We got up, cruised to the train station and, after a short worry about times and transfers, got ourselves on the express to the airport. It ended up being a rather expensive ride as our rail passes had expired and there was an extra fee for the express train (total cost, nearly 1800 yen), but we got to the airport in plenty of time.

The flight was remarkably uneventful, as was the train back to Miryang.

Being back in Korea makes me realize just how different the two countries are. Japan is generally quieter, tidier, and more subdued than Korea. People even seem to wear fewer bright colours in Japan. It obviously goes much deeper than that, and I did only have three days in Japan so there's a lot I've missed. If ten months in Korea can go by and I still can't say I've figured things out that much, a weekend in Japan isn't going to enlighten me that much at all. One thing, though, it is nice to back in a place where I can read the signs and order food. I had forgotten how difficult that could be. That said, I will go back to Japan. I need to see more.

Guy

Japan: Day Two, Kyoto

We woke up nice and early again, excited about visiting Kyoto. We made our way to the hotel restaurant where we were to have a free "American Breakfast." It consisted of teriyaki meatballs, some sort of fried fish cakes, an assortment of unidentifiable vegetables, a dinner roll, and some chicken/turnip stew. Thankfully, it also came with coffee and grapefruit juice. American breakfasts are a little different from how I remember them.

After breakfast, we went straight to Osaka Station to catch a train to Kyoto. We ended up on a local line that stopped everywhere and eventually just plain stopped, well before Kyoto. No problem, though, as we just hopped on the next train that came by and it sped us nicely into town.

Kyoto is a terrible place, horribly ugly and quite smelly. Clearly, I am lying as Kyoto could very well be the most attractive city I have ever visited. We started our wander through Kyoto in the Gion district, famous for its Geishas. We were quite pleased to even get to see a Geisha being taxied somewhere in a rickshaw (Laura got pictures of this, and basically all the other things I've mentioned so far and will mention later, so keep an eye on her blog as I'm sure she'll get some pictures up there).

After Gion, we went for a long walk past numerous old temples and shrines and such, ending up at an udon shop for lunch. This was the best udon ever. We had buckwheat udon, each getting a different flavour (beef, chicken, shrimp) and it was all so immensely tasty. Japanese food rocks.

After lunch, we went to Nanzen-ji, a very old shrine, and then to Heian-ji. These are the two places featured in "Lost in Translation" when Charlotte goes to Kyoto. The highlight was the garden at Heian-ji. It was breathtakinglly beautiful. I don't think I can even begin to describe it. Watch the movie and wait for the part where she's walking across some stepping stones in a pond for an idea, and that's only part of it. On a side note, the ponds have fish that swam up to us when we approached the pool, clearly looking for some sort of meal. They were rather insistent and actually a little creepy, but not enough to make me feel bad about the place at all

After a day of wandering Kyoto and being awestruck, we were exhausted, yet still wanting to do more so we looked into a shopping area. The highlight of this was eating. Automatic sushi, which I mentioned in the last post, is the best way to eat ever invented. Brilliant. They certainly aren't a new thing (I've had it in Calgary, in fact), but that doesn't detract from the joy I got of it. I ended up with a rather large stack of plates and a nicely full belly.

Well, following food and some rather fruitless shoppping (well, Laura did get a rather cool table-covering thing with apples and elephants on it that says something about "cram cream," whatever that it), we went back to Osaka where we headed directly for the Giant Ferris Wheel, or as the sign proclaimed, "World's Largest Giant Wheel," down by the harbour. It was big, 112.5m high, and pretty cool. You could see quite a bit of Osaka bay, and the city at night is rather pretty.

After that, Laura again was exhausted but Jon and I decided to go out for a beer. We decided to try the Kita district as it looked rather promising. The quest, while technically successful, was greatly disappointing. We went to a foreigner bar called Canopy after trying in vain to find the Pig and Whistle. The Asahi they had on tap paled in comparison to the places we went to the day before (they must have some sort of 'foreigner bar' setting or something) and the bar itself lacked in most regards. I must learn not to go to places the Lonely Planet lists as being "foreigner hangouts." They tend to greatly disappoint me.

Well, that sums up day two pretty well. Sadly, only one more in Japan. It's a stunning country, and I must return to explore it more thoroughly at some point.

Guy

Japan: Leaving Korea and Day One, Osaka

Work ended and I flew out the door. Taxis were abundant, thankfully, and I arrived at the train station in plenty of time. Laura and Jon had the tickets ready and the train quickly sped us to Gupo, the suburb of Busan closest to the airport. Upon our arrival there we immediately procured hotel rooms and dropped off our bags. The rooms were nice enough, in a Korean love motel kind of way and the beds were slighty bigger than Laura's apartment (the blankets, however, were considerably smaller).

After a cold and fruitless wander in search of food, we decided to just get some chicken fingers from the nearby burger place and bring it back to the motel. Then we slept.

We woke up at 6:21 and proceeded to get ready to go to the airport. All went smoothly. Even what could have been a terrible snag turned out fine when we discovered that Laura didn't have a re-entry permit for Korea. Immigration took care of that problem quite swiftly and we were ready to take off.

Customs in Korea was a complete breeze and we went out to board the plane. At the gate they put everyone on a bus to get to the plane. The plane was only about 30m away, but I guess the bus was necessary for some reason. Next time I expect piggy-back rides from the pilots to and from the plane. That's about the only way to top a 30m bus ride.

Upon arrival in Japan (Kansai Airport, near Osaka, to be exact) we again zipped through customs and immigration then obtained our Japan Rail Kansai Pass which would give us rail access to the whole Kansai region. Then we were off to attempt to figure out the Japanese train system and find our hotel.

It was all too easy. We showed the attendant our passes and went through the gate, down the escalator and onto the waiting train. We were sure we were forgetting something important, but no, it's just that easy and we were on our way to Osaka.

After the train ride came a short subway ride, which was also frighteningly easy to figure out, followed by a brief period of confusion as we exited the subway station and tried to figure out where exactly we were and what direction we were facing in order to find our hotel. Luckiliy, there was a map at the top of the stairs. We soon realized that all maps are oriented so that the direction you are facing is at the top. For some reason, it took contorting ourselves so that north was up to navigate the map properly, but once that was done, we found our hotel on the map and made our way over to it.

We arrived an hour early for check-in, so we gave them our bags and went to get some lunch. Nearby was a relatively cheap restaurant (by "relatively cheap" I mean it was cheap for Japan, expensive everywhere else). We sat down at a table and were immediately corrected on this assumption. Apparently, our first task was to look at our food choices on a coin operated vending machine, put in our money, make our selection from the pictured choices, obtain our meal tickets, and then sit down. We randomly chose a few appetizing looking things, sat down, let the server take our tickets from us, and waited for their arrival. It turned out well as we ended up with a sort of tonkatsu (breaded and fried pork) with what I think was a teriyaki style sauce. The coleslaw and tartar sauce was odd, but it all tasted good.

After lunch we cruised the stationery store to kill some time then went up to the hotel rooms for a brief rest before setting out to explore the city.

The rooms were quite small, but that was to be expected. They weren't capsule rooms, by any means, but still small. The bathtubs were deep and short, more like glorified buckets, and the bathroom itself was reminiscent of a bathroom in a motorhome, but it all worked and was clean and comfortable so there were no complaints.

Exploring Osaka was awfully cold. It was great, for sure, but cold. The wind blew pretty strongly the whole time and the sun peeked through the clouds only intermittently. The day would have been much more pleasant if the weather had cooperated, but it was still a good time.

Osaka Castle (Osaka-jo) was really cool, from the outside, anyway. The grounds around it were gorgeous. I loved the dual moats and the huge stone walls rising out of them. The castle itself looked really impressive. Japanese castles are really tall and basically built like fortified pagodas. Unfortunately, it's a rather new, concrete reconstruction of the 16th century castle, but it looked good. The museum inside was pretty, but as it was all in Japanese, it was informationally useless to us. At the top, the observation deck gave us some great city views, but I'm not sure if it was all worth the 600 yen (about $6) entry fee. The park grounds and exterior viewing were all free, so all we paid for was a museum we couldn't understand and some pretty views. Oh well, I've spent $6 in worse ways before, so no harm was done.

After the castle we made our way to the Minami district of Osaka in the hopes of getting some automatic sushi (sushi made by the chef in the middle of a conveyor belt loop where the customers sit on bar seating and grab what they like as it goes by, paying according to the number of plates you finish with - more on this later). We searched and searched in the cold wind, but found nothing. We ended up at a small place serving a variety of things we couldn't read but where the staff was extremely friendly and helpful (the waitress even went so far as to imitate a chicken for us so we knew what we were ordering). We ended up having skewered chicken wings (yakitori) and the best sashimi I have ever tasted. The wasabi was obviousy freshly made and the fish was just perfect. As well, I ordered a beer, a draught Asahi. It was great. I've had Asahi before, from a bottle, and was never that impressed, but on tap it's rich and creamy and oh-so-tasty. Yum. We ended up paying about 3000 yen ($30) for a what basically amounted to a light snack then went off on a quest for more sustenance as our hunger lingered.

During our search, we stumbled into the Apple store in Minami and witnessed a live "Glitch" music performance. This was basically some guy with computers (Macs, obviously) hooked up to a PA system making computery blips and bleeps into a sort of arty electronic music type thing. It went from intriguing to mildly irritating to fascinating to slightly dull, all in about a half hour. Then we left.

We ended up on the Dotonbori Arcade which is the busiest, mostly brightly and crazily lit street I've seen yet. It was absolutely full of people and was basically walls of light and glitter. It was quite overwhelming. After a short wander through there, looking slack-jawed and over-awed, we made our way underground, found a cafe and had another snack, then went back to the hotel.

At this point, I would like to point out how much cleaner Japan is than Korea. There are no giant empty lots filled with trash, and streetside litter is minimal. Even the really busy areas and side alleys are exeedingly clean. The air even smells and tastes cleaner. It's a good way to be.

Anyhow, Laura was still feeling a little sick (mostly just quick to tire) so she decided to stick around the hotel after our venture through the craziness. Jon and I felt we needed another Asahi, so we went off in search of a bar near the hotel. We were successful in our search, finding a small, cozy place with Asahi on tap. On the way there, we found a vending machine on the side of the road that dispensed a wide variety of beer and other liquors (including Suntory Whiskey, among other brands). I have been searching for just such a vending machine all over Korea, feeling certain one must exist. So far, nothing in Korea, but there one was, in Japan, just outside our hotel (we later found one in the hotel lobby, too). Anyway, the Asahi was just as good as at the other place (but twice as expensive) and we were satisfied.

We stopped at 7-11 on the way back and marveled at the unidentifiable things, some sponge-like, some string-like, some like no other thing seen before, floating in water at the counter. They were all translucent and completely hideous to look at, never mind imagine eating. Blech. Other notable things at the 7-11 were the bowls of noodles topped with what looked to be raw bacon, an unrefrigerated shelf full of chili dogs, and Pringles with such flavours as "Cheese Fondue" and "French Consommee." Asia continues to surprise in the snack food department.

That's about all for day one in Osaka. One last observation is how quiet things are in Japan. Traffic is virtually noisless, people seem to shout less, and there are no random vegetable trucks or politicians with loudspeakers roving around, at least from what I could hear. The shopping areas certainly have their product hawkers, but all in all, it's a rather peaceful kind of place.

Guy

The quest for good sushi begins

Well, the time has come. In an hour and a half I will finish my last class of the day then begin the trek to Japan. I'm pretty excited about it. This is mostly just a quick post to express that excitement. Wheeeee!!!

As for the last post, I yet again ended up not performing with the band. I was attacked by a virus and had a really terrible week. I had no energy whatsoever and just felt flat-out awful. I was made to come in to work each day, although I did get to go home after an hour and a half on Wednesday when it became abundantly clear that I was incapable of teaching. Thursday and Friday were two of the worst days of work ever. Damn this fate of being the only foreign teacher!

Anyway, it looks like the band has yet another show. Tomorrow. When I'l be in Japan. I have basically given up on ever performing with them.

Well, that's all. I have a short amount of time then I'm free for a few days, released upon the unsuspecting Japanese. I'll be sure to post a rather comprehensive update upon my return, hopefully with pictures, although those may well be reserved to Laura's blog as she is the one with the camera. The trip should be a blast, despite the fact that both Laura and I have colds.

Guy

The Visit

Well, it's been a busy last little while, and it looks to remain so for the foreseeable future.

After getting over the bout of food poisoning, Laura and I began our preparations for the arrival of her brother, Jon. These preparations included the scrubbing down of Sean's (Laura's former co-worker who went home at the end of February) apartment. The apartment was graciously lent out by ECC for Jon's use while he is here (three weeks). It was, however, a filthy, disgusting mess in sore need of a thorough spray down with bleach (and if you are reading this, Sean, I hope you feel a rather large amount shame for leaving your place in that horrid condition). So, that is exactly what it got, along with a solid scraping and airing out. As it is now, it is still only habitable, but that's all it really needs to be.

Jon arrived on Saturday evening and so far seems to be enjoying himself and appears quite willing to throw himself into all things Korean, which is good because there's not much else here. The three of us will be heading for Japan on Friday of next week for a few days. We've paid for and picked up our plane tickets, rail passes, and hotel voucher and now we play the waiting. Seeing as we only will have a grand total of 3 days, we decided to spend it all in the Kyoto/Osaka area. There's quite a bit of history there, along with an apparently wild night-life in Osaka itself. Should be a good time. As for right now, we're letting Jon get adjusted and casually explore the city while we go to work. Perhaps we'll head up to Daegu or Pohang on the weekend to meet up with Mark.

In other news, I've been told that the band has a show this Thursday. I guess I'll be spending my evenings at practice for the next couple of nights. It appears to be in town and in the evening, so I should be able to join my bandmates on stage this time. We'll be doing three songs, so it will be rather quick and hopefully painless (even more hopefully, fun).

And finally, spring is most certainly here. I was taking a close look at the trees and bushes behind the school a few minutes ago and they all appear to have new buds on them, and as the forecast is calling for rain the next few days, I expect the country to be in bloom by the weekend or early next week at the latest. This makes me quite happy, except for my sinuses, which are currently recoiling in horror. Thankfully, I have my pseudoephedrine. Hurray for antihistamines!

That is all.

Guy

Ugh

Yesterday was, to put it simply, horrid.

I believe the blame falls on food poisoning, and more specifically, McDonald's. There's a chance it was the truck chicken we had the night before, but seeing as we didn't feel sick until about an hour after Big Mac's, I fully place the blame there. I won't get into specifics, nobody wants to read that, but it was easily one of the worst days I have ever had. Thankfully, Laura and I both feel way better today. It also helped that yesterday was a mid-week holiday (Korean Independence Movement), so we didn't have to work. Today was a bit of a struggle towards the end, but I got through my classes basically unscathed. Still waiting to see if Laura's doing alright. We'll be having bland soup and plain rice when she gets here. Hurray for intestinal discomfort!

I guess it works out for the best, really, that I wasn't allowed to go to Jirisan for the gig, as I would be preparing myself right now for going on stage instead of sitting here trying to get over yesterday. I get the feeling it would have been horribly painful to perform tonight.

In happier news, it appears spring is in the process of arriving. The weather has been progressively warmer in the last little while and the forecast looks even better for next week. I'm pretty tired of winter (I've been tired of it since it began, but that's hardly a new thing for me) and anxiously look forward to sun and warm (not hot and humid, though, but that's later). I love how the seasons here are so distinct and change so suddenly. There are three things about spring I am not particularly looking forward to, though. One, my allergies. They always act up. I have my antihistamines, so I'll get by like I always do, but it's still no fun. Two, the onslaught of the dreaded Chinese Dust season. This apparently happpens every year, usually in early April. The poor farming practices in northern China (Manchuria) combined with a southerly wind bring all sorts of noxious dust to all parts of Korea. With the dust comes such great things as lead and mercury among other nasty things. I have been advised to obtain a mask during that period. It sounds dreadful. Three, the return of mosquitoes and wasps. I hate those little bastards. However, the lack of a cold Siberian wind and the prettiness of the cherry blossoms as well as the return of outdoor festivals and the like more than make up for the three things mentioned above.

Anyway, I'll sign off with a welcome to Mark who very recently arrived in Pohang. Hope it's all good,man. As well, I would like to apologize once again to Myza for the mix-up in meeting in Seoul and I hope everything is ok.

Guy

So much for that...

Well, the gig is a no-go. I talked to the school owner today and he said that taking March 2 off is "impossible." His reason was that it was the beginning of the month and there would be new students coming. Fair enough. I'm a bit disappointed that I will miss my first, and possibly only, opportunity to play in front of a live audience (the dead audience has been a bit of a let down, really), but I'm also a bit relieved. I didn't feel all that ready to do this and I was feeling pretty nervous about the whole thing.

Actually, today has been one of the most anti-climactic days I've ever had. I went into it expecting to teach my full day of classes, begin a new class afterwards, and practice with the band in preparation of our upcoming show, and I expected this to be my pattern for the rest of the week. Only the first of those things happened. The regular work day went as planned. I talked to the owner and, despite his smashing my hopes of playing in the show, I still fully expected to practice tonight. However, Han Tae called almost immediately after I finished talking to the owner and said practice tonight was cancelled because he was too sick to sing. Then, after my extra class at Oxford academy, I was expecting to start a brand new class with the Oxford director and another of the Oxford teachers, but when I went to the desk to ask about it, the director just smiled and told me "good-bye." On top of all that, I found out that after this week, my Oxford class is no more. So now, instead of preparing myself for what was supposed to be me at my busiest since my time at "the Farm," I'm now sitting here at the computer, looking at what should be a rather free week. I swear, every time I think I have a handle on things, it turns out that there is no handle and the "things" I thought I had a handle on are really just formless masses that sometimes only seem to go in the direction I steer them but really just ooze along in their own bizarre and meandering way. I should just learn to sit back into the ooze, let it contour itself to my shape and take me where it will. At least the class with the doctors starts up again tomorrow.

Anyway, in other news, I was so inspired by the case of canned ham I received a few weeks ago, I wrote a haiku about it. As well, Laura has now posted those Seoul pictures I was referring to, so check them out. And finally, one of Laura's friends sent out this brilliant work of digital art.

That is all.

Guy

Surprised, once again...

After weeks of inactivity and practices that never happened, the band finally got together last night and played some music. As well, new information regarding our upcoming show (March 2) came to light. It seems the show isn't in Milyang at all. In fact, it's at a festival of some sort at Jirisan Mountain, which is quite a ways away. On top of that, it was revealed that we would be adding two new songs to our list bringing the total to six. Oh yeah, we also seem to be the headlining band. Well, sort of. We are the last band on for the entire day. Han Tae tells me there should be close to a thousand people there.

You'd figure I'd have learned by this point that plans here can change abruptly and dramatically and to expect all things unexpected. Well, apparently, I haven't.

So, in a little over a week, I have to learn to play two new songs, master playing all six songs while standing up, something I have never done before, and figure out how to get the day off at work (March 2 is a Wednesday). I'm fairly nervous about the whole thing. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to go. Laura is pretty certain she won't be able to, which changes the one song she was going to sing and eliminates the chance of having her take pictures. We'll be practicing every night until the day of the show, thus I'll likely not be posting much nor replying to many emails in that time, but I will catch up afterwards.

Oh yeah, Laura will be posting some of the pictures she took in Seoul soon, so keep an eye on her blog for those.

Guy

Fun in the chilly north...

Well, Seoul was a blast. The three of us (Laura, Andy, and I) managed to fit, into a span of three days and two nights, a visit to Deoksugung (a palace from the 17th century), a trip to the World Cup Stadium where we attempted to obtain tickets to the match between Korea and Kuwait that was to take place the next night (we failed), two nights out drinking in Itaewon (the designated "foreigner district" in Seoul), a long and memorable journey through the Seoul Contemporary Art Museum where there was an exhibit of digital art and its ubiquitous presence in the world (especially Korea) and how that effects the way people think, look, feel, etc. (it was pretty great), meeting up with some of Andy's friends as well as my friend Dave, shopping for clothing and gadgets, numerous subway trips, a trip up Seoul Tower (Laura and I did that, Andy went off on his own having done that before), and just an all around good time. Many pictures were taken by Andy and Laura (a few by me, but nothing all that memorable). Laura is busily sorting out the good ones and will likely post some up here soon enough. I'll send a notice when she does so that those of you interested can take a peek. My one regret is that we weren't able to meet up with my other friend, Myza, despite repeated attempts. Worst of all was that we had arranged to meet at Seoul Station for dinner before we hopped on our train home but somehow didn't see each other. I'm not exactly sure what happened and haven't heard from her since, but I hope all is well and that we'll be able to meet up in the future.

Hmm, that paragraph contains what may be the longest sentence I have ever written. Hurray for bad grammar!

Anyway, now it's time to concentrate on the arrival of Jon, Laura's brother, and our subsequent trip to Japan. As well, we're still waiting on notice from SFU whether we are in or not.

That's about all from me today. Oh yeah, just so you know, blogger has made it a bit easier to comment on stuff now, so please feel free to do so. The comment posting window now is a pop-up, so for those of you who block those, be aware.

Guy

I am attentively pink.

The best wrong answer ever.

This is a sentence given to me by a student on a test where I had her and her classmate write sentences using specific words. The word in this case was "attentively." I'm not sure what "attentively pink" means exactly (and I guess she isn't either), but I like the way it sounds.

In another interesting English malfunction, Han Tae and Yong came into class yesterday and immediately asked me to give them English names. I've known them for months now and found it strange that this was the first time they have asked for this. I wasn't sure what kind of names they wanted and told them that if they were concerned about English speakers not being able to pronounce their names then they should just spell their Korean names using the Roman alphabet. They agreed with this but immediately informed me that Yong had already come up with a name for himself and wanted to ask me my opinion of it. The name he had chosen: "Cock Wild." I'm not sure where he got it from or why exactly he wanted to be called that, but wow, did I ever have a good time explaining to him exactly why it wasn't such a great name to have.

An interesting side note to this naming business, Han Tae and Yong told me about a common Korean name that always catches foreigners off guard. The name is 박규 (pronounced "Pak Kyu"). Just say aloud, "Hi, my name is Pahk Kyu," once or twice, you'll understand.

And finally, one last bit of strangeness to to end this entry. I mentioned last time that next week is the Lunar New Year. Koreans treat it much like we treat Krissmuss; days off, travelling to see family, and gift giving. Well, I got a gift. It was a very nice gesture by the owner of the school to get me something and I appreciate it. I'm just a little confused and, frankly, extremely amused in his choice of gifts. I took a picture of it because I don't think describing it quite does it enough justice (plus, I just LOVE using Laura's new camera and any excuse to do so is fully utilized).



Yes, you see that correctly. I was given a case of canned ham. Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! I hope you, too, get ham.

Guy

The new colony is progressing nicely...

So, my life in the world of education has gone full circle from my days as an elementary school student. I am now teaching nuns. They arrived in my final class of the day yesterday. They were shown into the classroom by the director and immediately dove into their work. I was slightly startled at their sudden appearance, dressed in full habits (brown ones, if you were curious), but managed to continue on with my class without interruption. I think that I would be able to establish a successful colony now with my students, preferably on a tropical island as it's horribly cold here right now. My students are of varying ages from young children to adults, and all are fairly evenly distributed between male and female. I have doctors, Laura and I are educators (of sorts), and now I have nuns. (Un)fortunately, it's not the 17th century anymore and no one is shipping out boatloads of people to colonize the "uncivilized" parts of the world. Nope. It's planeloads now and we're here to spread the word of Angle-land. The Mormons, etc. have their own agenda.

In other news, Laura, Andy and I will be heading up to Seoul next week for the Lunar New Year (Sollal). For those of you unsure what that is, it is otherwise known as Chinese New Year, but keep in mind that when I said that to one of my doctor students, he seemed a bit offended and rather clearly stated that it is celebrated in Korea and Japan as well. Thus, I will just stick to calling it the Lunar New Year. Apparently, on the day of Lunar New Year, we can go to the Han River in Seoul and watch the kite fights. Not sure exactly what that will entail, but it sounds entertaining, regardless.

For those of you asking for news about the band I'm in, Junior Panthers, well, not much is going on. We're supposed to have a show on Feb. 20, but we can't seem to get together to practice very often and when we do, half the time we don't actually do anything. It shouldn't be too much of a problem as we're only doing four songs for the show and we all know them pretty well, but it can be a little frustrating to sit around a cold practice room, not practicing, while listening to the other three band members talk to each other in Korean. I'm sure we'll pull it all together in time, though.

Well, gotta go eat. I think pizza sounds good. Hopefully it tastes good, too.

Guy

Saturday Night Fever and the 8 Month Itch

I've come to the realization that I've become bored with teaching. Everyday, I see the same students, do the same things, teach the same words/phrases. When the kids are working in their workbooks my mind wanders. I doodle on the board, pace about the classsroom, or stare blankly at the wall until pulled out of my reverie by a questioning and/or rowdy student. I don't feel any excitement for teaching. Don't get me wrong, there are some classes I enjoy, especially the one with the doctors but that's because it's less like teaching and more like hanging out and talking with friends. I've really come to the conclusion that teaching children is not something I want to do for any extended period of time. 14 months will be plenty, thank you. This has been a rather gradual realization that I've probably hinted at previously, but only now feel it to be completely true. I like the kids (most of the time). I don't hate my job. I just don't want to do it for any longer than necessary. After 8 months of this, I am itching to move on. Thus, my decision to go back to school in the fall. Laura and I have managed to get everything set up so far and are just waiting for the transcripts to arrive at SFU. We should know soon-ish, I think, whether we're accepted or not. We're fairly confident that we will be.

Aside from teaching, though, I'm having a blast lately. Last Saturday was a great example of that. Our group (Me, Laura, Andy, Matt, and Ji Yeon) all went out for drinks. Ji Yeon's brother joined us, as well as another ECC teacher, Peter, bringing the Foreigner:Korean ratio almost into balance (we still slightly outnumbered them 4:3). It was a rather typical night out, featuring tasty food (eel and chicken), drinks (beer and flavoured soju), and singing. None of us felt overly intoxicated as the night progressed but I think the fact that Laura, Andy and I attempted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody to close the evening out and afterwards thought we did pretty well indicates that we were drunker than we thought (and I must note that we were goaded into singing something by Queen by the owner of the bar who decided that I look like Freddie Mercury. I can't say as I agree, but then again I don't access to his wardrobe, so we may never know for sure). Tonight, it's back out for more fun and this time Andy says he's bringing someone along. I think this picture of Matt and Ji Yeon fairly well describes the fun that was had:

For other pictures from last Saturday night, look here.

Well, to finish up here, I feel the need to qualify some of the things I said in my last entry. First of all, it should be known that Koreans make many other great foods that don't feature chicken. Just thought I should reinforce that. On the flip side, I may have given the impression that when a Korean cooks chicken, it is always an unqualified success. That is most definitely not the case.

Guy

I know my chicken...

... you got to know your chicken.

Koreans do. If there is one thing in specific that Koreans do well, food-wise, it's make a tasty, tasty chicken.

Recently, I've discovered this truck. It roves about the city, almost randomly, and out of the back of it one can obtain THE BEST ROAST CHICKEN EVER!!! It's called barbeque chicken here, and it's cooked six-to-a-skewer, rotisserie-style. I know what you're thinking, "Chicken out of the back of a truck? Um, sure... sounds safe." However, Laura and I have had it twice now without any ill effects. It is sooooooooooo good. They spice it just right, the skin is perfectly crispy and it comes with a tasty mustard sauce and a bit of seasoned salt. Drool. I hope the truck is my area tonight because I want some again.

Truck chicken isn't the only type of chicken Koreans prepare well, though. They make some damned good fried chicken, the best being yang-nyum chicken which is drenched in a sticky red sauce and sprinkled with peanut bits. A soup made with a whole chicken stuffed with rice (samga-tang, which I think I've mentioned previously) is also immensely good. Add to that the chicken cooked with a hair dryer and smothered in spicy sauce (dalk dori-tang (dalk is chicken), which isn't always cooked with a hair dryer, only one place does that), and the uber-spicy chicken chunks that go oh-so-well with beer and I think I can honestly say that there is no other country in the world that knows it's chicken quite like Korea does. I know this because I've been to every country. Yes.

***

Onto other topics, Laura and I have completed our applications for Simon Fraser University. It's just a matter of waiting for the transcripts to get there and for them to review it all before we start applying for student loans and such. We're rather excited, if a little scared. We both want to take honours degrees, I also want to add a minor. Laura is looking at sociology and I am looking to enhance my archaeology degree with anthropology (minor in Latin American studies). With the way the SFU departments work, that would actually put is in the same department (the Anthropology and Sociology Department, if you weren't sure), which is rather great if you ask me.

We're both pretty excited about coming home in the summer, seeing everyone, and getting set up in Vancouver, but as that's so far off, we're mostly concentrating on enjoying the rest of our time here. We're planning a trip to Seoul in the next few weeks and I would like to go to Pohang to greet Mark when he arrives. As well, Laura's brother, Jon, is coming for three weeks in March/April and the three of us are going to make a trip to Japan. After that (or hopefully, during), the weather should turn pretty nice and short trips to various other Korean places will be in order. Making this even more fun is the fact that Laura should be getting her brand new digital camera today or tomorrow (a Nikon 8700, but you can read her blog to find out more), so some picture taking fun will be inevitable.

All in all, things seem pretty exciting for us right now, which is good because December and early January weren't a whole lot of fun, what with various sicknesses and being all around busy the whole time. We're all smiles now, which can look a little odd as smiles aren't overly natural on body parts other than the mouth and maybe the eyes.

That's all.

Guy

Frozen Hair Tail, made in China

Well, yet again it's taken me forever to type up an update, but fear not, they always come eventually.

I'll start this one by welcoming my friend Myza to the country. I hope Seoul is working out for her so far and I'll be up to visit in a few weeks. As well, I have another friend, Mark, who will be coming to Pohang in a month or so. So, suddenly I'm about to have a good number of friends scattered about the country. Sweet!

I'm also very happy to say that my friends Sarah and Dave are ok. Sarah is in Thailand but wasn't in the part hit by the tsunami and Dave had his vacation to Thailand postponed by the airline. He was to have gone there right before the disaster. Needless to say, I'm relieved they're fine.

On other topics, winter in Korea is cold. Not as cold as Calgary, mind you, but cold nonetheless. It snowed yesterday, too. This is the first significant snow we've had here (about 2-3 inches). It's kinda cool actually. Everybody seems to get all excited about the snow here, I guess because it happens so infrequently. The world is now populated by an army of snowmen.

Laura and I just got back from a short trip to Masan. It's a rather pretty city on the south coast. We liked it muchly, but didn't get much time to explore. We intend on going back in the spring when the weather is more congenial and when we might possibly have more time.

Laura and I are doing well. We have basically made the decision to not stay for an extra year and instead to come home and go back to university in the fall. We'll likely be leaving Korea and heading for Saskatoon in late July then making our way through Calgary to Vancouver over the next few weeks where we intend to set ourselves up for the upcoming school year(s). We're looking seriously at SFU for our studies. Plans may change, as that is still a long way off and we still haven't applied to SFU (althought we plan to that this week), but we're fairly sure this is what we want to do.

Speaking of Laura, it seems our relationship is an object of amusement to my students. I walked into a class and saw written on the board "Steve + ECC" surrounded by a heart. I thought it was rather humorous that they knew where she worked but not her name and yet still thought they should write something. Kids are funny.

Hmm, I guess, despite it having been so long, I don't really have much going on. I'm really enjoying myself out here now, but am also eager to get home. I suppose those two things bode well for me as far as the rest of my time here and going back. Good times shall prevail!

Guy

Oh yeah, the title for this entry is taken from a discarded box I saw on the side of the road. I have no idea what frozen hair tails are, but I do know they come from China. If anyone can fill me in a little more, please do.

An invitation to craziness...

Well, things appear to be changing once again.

It seems the director of my school is leaving at the end of the month. She's apparently got another job lined up at a bigger school in Ulsan and wants to take Cathy and me with her. This offer, of course, is pending the continuance of late payments of salary that the school has steadily supplied for us. It would take a lot to dislodge me before my contract is up, though. While the late payments and poor accomodations suck, I'm pretty fond of Milyang and moreso of Laura. So to pull me off to another city, even though it is only an hour bus ride away, would take a guarantee of equal or better pay that would arrive on time, all the time, a much nicer apartment, and a contract that would end at the same time as Laura's at the end of July. Likely, this is not to be and I'll struggle through my contract here, but it is good to know there are options out there should the late-pay situation get worse and become a no-pay situation. I'm not sure who's going to be our new director, likely the owner will take over. I'm also not sure what will happen with Cathy. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she left for Ulsan seeing as she hasn't been paid in two months. I seriously would be completely incapable of teaching everyone by myself, so the hiring of another teacher would be essential for the school to survive, but how can you hire people when you already can't afford to pay the employees you have? And here I thought things were stabilizing...

Other school things are changing as well. I will begin taking a bus out to Bugok three days a week to teach the doctors. This is because my director has been driving me there and, well, she's leaving. This really isn't that big a deal other than the fact that at the bus station in Bugok, when we stopped to investigate the bus times, we were accosted by a rather angry man who seemed to hate me on sight. Actually, accosted is a pretty mild term to describe the encounter. This man, who by the looks of it hangs out at the bus station frequently, immediately started yelling things at me as we entered the building. He got right up to us, kept yelling, took a full on swing at me while completely ignoring my director who had interposed her slight five-foot-nothing frame between us. I had no idea what to do. My director seemed only mildly concerned by this guy and led me across the room to check the schedule. He followed, his white robe and long hair flowing behind him (seriously), and proceeded to whack me across the back of the head with a roll of paper, all the while yellling more. Having seen the bus times, we left. He didn't follow us outside. I am more than a little concerned that he will be there again every time I show up at the Bugok station. Not such a great welcoming committee they have there.

And now, the final change... I turn 30 on Sunday. I hereby am inviting you all to join me in celebrating this with bowling and drinking on Saturday night (keep in mind that Saturday night here is early Saturday morning in Canada). I realize it's short notice, but I will cover your food and accomodations (spare room or heated floor). Airfare not included, but you should be able to find some good last minute deals to Seoul, I'm sure. I expect you all to be there. I'll give you more specific directions by email when you let me know what time your flight arrives.

See you all soon!

Guy

Six months, time to take stock...

Well, it's been a little over six months in Korea now and to mark the occasion, I've decided to make a couple of lists. The first, all the things that irritate me about being here. The second, all the things I love about being here. So, here they are (and the lists themselves are in no particular order):

The Bothersome

1) The dreadful missing of my friends and family. Random talks on messenger and occasional emails just aren't enough. I need to be able to sit in a room with my people. This is easily the hardest part about being here.

2) Inconsistent working conditions. I really would like to have a job where my daily schedule isn't randomly shifted on me at the last second as well as a job where I get paid in full and on time. So far, they haven't missed giving out any actual money, but I've only been paid on time once, and that was the first time. And what's with taking away our photocopier? How can a school survive without a photocopier? I just don't get it.

3) Smart-ass students who refuse to put in any effort. I realize this has nothing specifically to do with Korea, it is a general teachers lament, but I include it here because I doubt I would be teaching if I were not in Korea.

4) Bizarre text books that have me teach the students such interesting sentences as, "Fasten your pants," or, "Take off your pants." I find the pants obsession a little concerning. Some other examples of strange things I am forced to teach are an entire chapter dedicated to the proper usage of the word "mustn't," a unit that has the students tell me detailed instructions on finishing a level in a video game, and various words such as "cardiogram," and "filet mignon." That last one isn't even English! Grr. I could go on and on about the text books, really, but I'll stop there.

5) The inability to walk around town without some random person, usually a middle/high school boy, yelling "Hello!" to me. At first it seems kind of funny, but after six months of it, it gets quite irritating. I suggest that everyone at home yell, "Anyeong haseyo!" to every Korean they see. Those of you in Vancouver could be a little busy.

6) The food, while good, can get a little redundant after a while. This would probably be less of a problem if I were in a bigger city with better access to food from elsewhere, but I'm in Miryang and all that is available is Korean food, pizza (which pales in comparison to what is available at home) and McDonald's (which is the same everywhere, except that here, they don't have breakfast). I would love to have a good caesar salad (or any salad that doesn't consist of shredded cabbage topped with thousand island dressing and ketchup), or a falafel, or good Mexican food, or Indian food, or a turkey dinner, or...

7) The beer sucks. It's weak (4.5%), it doesn't taste all that great, and it's not all that cheap in comparison to beer at home. That said, I still drink it.

8) The unavailability of certain products such as deodorant and my brand of shampoo (well, not so much my brand, Head & Shoulders, but the specific kind I use which has selenium, not zinc). I'm told that deodorant is available in the bigger cities, but that it is prohibitively expensive and I highly doubt my brand (Tom's of Maine, calendula or scentless) will be among those shipped in. Decent toothpaste is also nonexistent (why would anyone use pine flavoured toothpaste?). I brought supplies of each of these, but they are starting to dwindle. I may request a care package soon...

9) My apartment still sucks. Laura and I cleaned it on the weekend, making it livable for the first time since sometime before I arrived, but the computer room is simply an awful place to be (too hot in the summer, frozen in the fall/winter), the kitchen still features a toilet, and the walls are still covered in water stains and full of bugs. It is not a pleasant place at all.

10) Korean music is terrible. I've explained it all before in previous posts, though, so I won't elaborate further.

I'm sure I could come up with all sorts of other things if I really wanted to, but I think these ten items cover the major irritations I have with being here. Now, onto the good stuff:

Things That Make Me Happy

1) Meeting Laura. Sure, she's from Canada, too, but I doubt I would have met her there. Since we met, my time here has become far more enjoyable, so much so that we're both thinking of staying for another year. She has made what some might have considered a questionable journey worthwhile and more.

2) I'm making decent money here and don't have to pay rent which makes it actually possible to pay back my student loans. If I were at home, I don't think it would have been possible.

3) The food is good and cheap. I know, I complained about it in the above list, but I do like Korean food and it is so very, very cheap.

4) The textbooks, while being mostly stupid, do offer up some amusing bits. My personal favourites are the sentences that sound like euphemisms. Last week I got to teach the sentence, "He eats the big sandwich." I want to work that into a conversation somehow. Here are some samples of how I may try to do so: "Hey, do you know Tony?" "Tony? Pfft. That guy eats the big sandwich." Or, "Hey, did you hear what happened to Tony?" "Yeah, I heard he ate the big sandwich last night. So sad." Or lastly, "That Tony guy, wow, he sure eats the big sandwich, if you know what I mean..."

5) The students who laugh and ask questions and want to show you the things they made at their real schools and who just seem happy to learn stuff. To me, they are the lone redeeming quality to teaching. I would like to have more of them, or have at least one in every class. Sadly, that is not the case.

6) The ease of traveling across the country. Train or bus will get you anywhere in South Korea cheaply and within 8 hours at the most. Can't say that for home, can you? It makes exploring so much easier and completely possible on weekends and for those of us without a car. Even within the cities, it is easy to get around. Buses are common and fairly simple to use (if you have a guide book, anyway) and taxis are extremely plentiful and quite cheap.

7) The people are generally quite friendly and they want to make you happy. Makes for good hospitality.

8) The scenery, when not being bulldozed, is quite beautiful. The mountains are steep and the valleys are narrow. Not much flat land here. It can be quite beautiful.

9) I'm in a band! I have attempted this at home before, but nothing ever came of it. It actually is a functioning band here. It is so much fun and my guitar playing has improved immensely since joining. Wheeee!!!

10) The experience in general is great. I love just being able to experience a different culture, try to figure out how to interact, see all the interesting things, hear the stories and histories, and learn the language (which is coming slowly, but I have mastered the alphabet and am able to read things with increasing quickness. Now, if only I could understand what I'm reading... I also don't understand spoken Korean in the least. I can pick out a word or two here and there, but I'm a long way from being able to carry on even a halting conversation).

So, those are my lists. The urge to come home battles constantly with the urge to stay for another year. Right now, I'm leaning towards staying. I will be home in the summer though, August by the looks of it. I wanted to come in the winter at some time, but I haven't been able to save any money due to my excessive student loan payments. Laura and I want to make good long visits with everyone and I really want everyone to meet her (and she wants to meet everyone, too). Anyway, that's all for now. Onto the next six months...

Guy

To the bat cave!

Ah, what a good weekend.

As mentioned last time, Laura and I decided to go to place called Donghae (which, literally translated, means East Sea), up on the northeast coast. It was actually a random choice of places. We originally wanted to go to Gwangju, which is on the complete opposite end of the country, but were advised that if we wanted to see the north part of the country, this would likely be the last time it would be pleasant to do so before spring, so Donghae it was.

It started with a lovely seven hour train ride overnight from Milyang. For some reason, they decided to crank the heat on the train making for a rather uncomfortable ride. We survived despite the havoc it wreaked with Laura's cold. The other unfortunate thing about the train ride was that it was taken at night, thus denying us the opportunity to gawk at the scenery. The night travel was a good thing in theory, though, as supposedly we could sleep while traveling. The sleep on the train sucked, but the train did get us there for 6am giving us plenty of time to check the place out.

At first, checking the place out consisted of wandering around, cold, hungry and tired, from motel to motel trying to find one that had someone behind the counter to give us a room. After about an hour of this, we finally succeeded. Our room was, well, kind of icky, but seeing as we just planned on using it as a base to explore, it would do.

After a quick nap, it was time for some food then some exploring. We found a cheap and tasty place nearby the motel. We had some tasty chol-myun (cold noodles with veggies and a spicy sauce, really tasty) and pizza mandu (mandu are dumplings and these were fried dumplings with pizza sauce and cheese on them). Then we were off... to the bat cave.

The bat cave was very interesting. Actually, everything from its unpronounceable name (Cheongokcheonyeondonggul, as listed in the Lonely Planet) to the fact that it was in the middle of the city made it appealing to us. It turned out to be bat-less, at least as far as we could tell, but it did have strings of colourful light along the railings and on certain bits of jutting rock that one might otherwise crack one's head on and these lights more than made up for our disappointment in the lack of bats. The cave itself was pretty cool. Stalactites and stalagmites, weird bacon-like formations, and one rather phallic bit of stone that everyone seemed to want a picture of (well, ok, it was one lady, but she seemed to make an extra effort to get that picture). The signs labeling certain things thought to be of extra interest were pretty interesting themselves. According to the signs, nearly half of everything in the cave was "Mysterious," and one thing was actually described as being "bacon-like," despite the fact that it clearly wasn't. The bacon-like formations were elsewhere. The exit from the cave was lined with glass cases containing a variety of geodes which fairly likely had nothing to with the cave, but were pretty stones nonetheless.

After our cave adventure, we decided to venture down to the water. The waterfront in Donghae is very pretty. We found this cliff-lined beach with fishermen and playing children on it. As well, there was the pretty little restaurant/coffee chop that looked like it could have been transported directly out of Nova Scotia. We sat up on the third floor, drinking our bad and overpriced coffee (something one just gets used to here), and looking out at the fishing boats on the East Sea (or, Sea of Japan as anyone outside of Korea would know it). It was really quite pleasant.

Due to our lack of sleep and the fact that we both had, to differing degrees, colds, we were pretty tired by this point so we made our way back to the motel for another quick nap.

A few hours later, we emerged refreshed and made our way back into town for dinner and some beer. We found a nice seafood restaurant and had eel and salmon rice hotpots. Tasty! Afterwards we went to the 11th floor of a building to a place called Sky Beer. It was full of well dressed young Koreans. It seemed to be everyone's birthday that night as at numerous times the lights would dim, birthday music would blare out of the speakers, strobe lights would come on and a cake would be delivered to a table accompanied full of happy people detonating those loud popping streamer things. Laura and I just sat at our slightly isolated table and observed it all, enjoying the spectacle and attempting to converse over the din. Just as we were figuring on leaving, our pitcher of beer done and our feeling of exhaustion returning, we mysteriously found that a second pitcher of beer had been delivered to our table. We didn't order it. We didn't want it. And we didn't want to pay for it. When the waitress returned to add it to our bill, we used various hand motions, grunts and head shakings to indicate that this beer was not ours and we wanted to leave. She seemed to understand as it was not added to our bill. Why the beer came to our table is still a mystery.

We slept well that night and got up mid-morning. Our train back to Milyang didn't leave until 2-ish so we casually got some food (pizza don-gas - pork cutlet with pizza sauce and cheese, and more chol-myun) then wandered about the area around the train station in search of snacks for the ride. We found those and discovered we still had a few hours so continued our wandering. We ended up at the Mukho fish market (Mukho is the slightly smaller town just north of Donghae - they may as well be the same city) which was really cool and was just asking to have pictures taken of it. Still don't have a digital camera or a scanner, so it will be a while before I can show anything from these, assuming they turn out at all, but it was a cool place with buckets of live squid swimming around and row upon row of all sorts of fish of various sizes, shapes and colours.

Well, that pretty much took care of the rest of our time and we were off to catch our train. The ride back was long and uneventful, but the scenery was really pretty, at least those parts that weren't being bulldozed to make a new expressway (I really think this country just wants to become one giant, thousand lane highway).

So, in a week I will have been here for six months. Half way through my contract and currently debating whether I want to sign on for another. If I do, it likely will not be with this same school or likely even in Milyang. I have lots of time to decide on that though. Regardless of that decision, I will be back in Canada at the end of my year here, at the very least for an extended visit before coming back. We'll see how things go the rest of the way. I'll be sure to keep you all updated.

Guy

Peppero Day

Well, yesterday was Nov. 11. A special day here in Korea: Peppero Day. Those of unfamiliar with Korea may be asking yourself, "What is this Peppero of which he speaks?" Well, it may be familiar to those of you in the know about Asian snack food in general because at home (and in Japan), it is known as Pocky. If you are not in the know about Pocky, I will now explain: Pocky is a thin stick of dry cookie, coated in a chocolatey substance or some other tasty confection.

Yes, an entire day has been dedicated to them here. The sheer marketing genius behind this astounds me. I believe the brainstorming session may have been a little like this (only, in Korean):

"Peppero sales have been slipping, especially during November. What can we do about this?"
thoughtful pause
"We could try putting them in fancier packages..."
"We've done that, didn't help."
more thoughtful pausing
"Well... the sticks kinda look like 1's... um, maybe, it being November, you know, the eleventh month, we could make it Peppero month or something..."
"I like your thinking, but a whole month is probably too much. Maybe just a day. I know! 11/11! Yes! We'll make millions!"

And that is the story of Peppero Day, as interpreted by me. I was given many sticks of Peppero by my students. Pure choco-stick fun!

In other news, it appears that I am gaining another class outside my institute. It starts on Monday and involves students from middle school to adults. Not sure what to expect, really.

Laura and I are going to a small city called Donghae for a few days. It's on the NE coast of the country. Hopefully, it will be good. We figured that this might be our last chance to travel before winter comes along. The weather here is still quite nice (it's mid-November and we still have mosquitoes) and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that (not the mosquitoes; they take advantage of me, though - I feel so used).

Well, that's about all today. I may still try to type up the full stories of the hike, the trip to Andong, etc. Time is lacking lately though, but I will try.

Guy

Laura, Doogie, and Ethan

Well, it's been far too long and far too much has happened in that time for me to get into any real details, but a quick glossing over is certainly in order here.

First and foremost, it should be known that Debb and I have decided to part ways. We both have found others to be with and the distance/time factor certainly has played a role. However, we plan on remaining close and so far, we're keeping true to that. My new "other" is a girl from Saskatchewan by the name of Laura. She's quick, with an abstract and sometimes silly wit, she's an excellent photographer and has a degree in graphic art, she enjoys eating strange food and drinking beer, she has a strange obsession with monkeys (no, wait a minute, that's me), she's tall, pretty, has cute freckles across her nose and cheeks, and really wants to meet all my friends and family. She's been in Milyang for almost 4 months now and we've been seeing each other basically since the last time I posted on here. Things are still new with her but it all feels pretty good right now. My description doesn't really do her justice, so if anyone has any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Other than spending basically all of my free time with Laura, my past month has consisted of me climbing an 1189m mountain on a day that got progressively colder, wetter and windier as it went along making for a rather uncomfortable and brief stay at the top, going to the city of Andong and the nearby Korean traditional folk village, another visit to Pusan this time with Laura (we went to get her alien registration card) instead of by myself, the progression of the band I'm in from disorganized and unproductive to disorganized and surprisingly good at our selected songs (Laura has joined the band as a keyboard/tambourine player and singer, as well), taking on a new class teaching doctors (one of whom calls himself 'Doogie') at a psychiatric hospital in a nearby hotsprings resort town, meeting up with Matt, Sean, and the new guy in town, Andy (he's from Liverpool), and pondering the inexplicable appearance of a framed picture of Ethan Hawke, taken directly out of Reality Bites, in my stairwell.

Hmm, that really is a quick glossing over. Perhaps I'll get into more details about all of the above items later, but right now I'm too hungry and tired to say much more. I promise to do better next time, and next time will come much sooner, too.

...and yet more adventures from Busan.

Last night was pure confusion, but before I get into that I should let you all know that I'm no longer sick. The cold has subsided and I think I must give credit to my Korean acquaintances who supplied me with a non-stop barrage of remedies such as bottles of vitamin C drink, chicken-ginseng soup (samga-tang), and a vile tasting murky brown/green liquid that I think was devised to eliminate any psychosomatic illnesses (if being sick means having to drink this, no one will pretend - Buckley's has nothing on this stuff). Regardless, it seemed to work, so I thank them.

So yes, the confusion...

I had intended originally on spending my five day Chusok holiday (I've heard it referred to as Korean Christmas as well as Korean Thanksgiving, but I'll just call it Chusok) just relaxing, not going anywhere at all. This was partly due to being sick last week, partly due to a lack of funds to go anywhere. This plan was forestalled by Han Tae and the rest of the band (Yong and Dong Un). They insisted we go to Busan to see live bands. Yong has a car, they would pay for food and we would drink little to nothing. Inexpensive and convenient. They made it clear I had no real choice in the matter, plus it sounded fine to me.

So, we all met up at about 5:30 last evening and made our way to Busan. One of the first things they told me was that they'd never driven to Busan before and weren't exactly sure how to get there. I didn't think much of that as I was fairly certain the highway would be easy to find and road signs would be fairly helpful. For the most part, that assumption turned out to be true. We got a bit lost once we entered Busan, but finding Busan itself was no problem.

There was confusion once we arrived in the city as we didn't know exactly how to get to the university area. I was no help at first. I only knew the train and subway. However, once we finally did encounter the subway line, I became the guide. It is a strange experience to be a Canadian guiding three Koreans around a Korean city. I managed to get us where we wanted to be and after some parking issues, which will have a role to play later in the story, found us a place to eat.

I had eaten at this place before. I had scallops and noodles there the night I met all those new people from a couple of postings ago. My Korean friends did the ordering, as was expected. The food was not what I expected. It was Korean BBQ, but along with the regular pork were thick slabs of pig skin and bits of cow intestine. I turned off the part of my mind that screamed, "Good lord! You're not eating that, are you?!" and ate it. Both were remarkably flavourless. The textures were odd. The skin was softish while the intestines were quite chewy.

Anyway, after dinner we made our way to Soultrane and found out there was a big thing going on involving three bars and a whole lot of bands. We bought the passes and made our way inside. It was a completely different crowd than usual and I saw none of the people I know there other than those who work at the bar. We watched a bit of one band there who covered the likes of Good Charlotte and Blink182 and got bored fairly quickly.

Next up was Moo Monk. I had been there once before on my first trip to Busan. We walked in during a set of a woman fronted rock band. It was the first time I had seen a female in a band here. The drummer was also female. They were pretty good. They did an almost dead on version of You Oughta Know. We left after their set and made our way to the third of the three bars we had passes to get into.

I had never been to this place before. It's called Queen. We were greeted by the sound of creepy organ music. This very quickly changed into full on head banging speed goth metal. It was great. The guitarists and singer all did the whole twirling of their long, straight hair thing. The drummer was amazing. Everybody but the keyboardist was extremely active in their headbanging. She just passively stood there and played her music with an intent look on her face. It made for a good contrast. Unfortunately, I was the only one of the four of us who enjoyed it, the other three just found it humorous and quickly wanted to leave.

We went back to Soultrane where we watched another band that covered some bland pseudo-punk and at midnight my bandmates wanted to call it a night and go home.

At this point, we had to find the car. At first, we had parked right next to the subway station, but when we got to the restaurant we were told that the car would likely be towed if it were left there. So, Yong and Dong Un went to go move the car. They came back shortly and it was forgotten about. But now we had to find it again, and they weren't sure where it was. We wandered around the general subway station area, stopped for some food and some coffee and after making many wrong turns and doubling back frequently, we finally found the car.

This doubling back thing turned out to be a theme for the rest of the night. I can't count the number of times we pulled a u-turn because nobody was sure where to go to get back home. All I know is that we were at various points in construction sites, on barren, narrow country roads, and we ended up at the same toll booth about five times. Eventually we got ourselves on the main highway and made our way towards Miryang. However, we missed some turn offs along the way, apparently, as we suddenly found ourselves in the province to the north of the one we usually find ourselves in. We passed through Gyeongju and eventually turned around in Daegu and found the highway that would take us to Miryang.

All in all, a trip that costs 3000\ (approximately $3) by train and takes 45 minutes ended up taking 4 hours and likely costing a hell of a lot more in gas money. But hey, it was an adventure for sure.

I slept late today, obviously. Have spent all of it just lounging around, other than getting some groceries. I still have 3 days off. Not sure what I'm going to do. I have literally no money left and don't get paid until next weekend (or possibly even next Monday), which seriously curtails my possible activity. I'm sure I'll come up with something, though.

Guy

Waiting for the drugs to kick in...

Well, I'm sick. This is my first, non-alcohol or head smashing induced illness in Korea. It's not fun. I'm completely stuffed up, but hopefully the incessant sneezing will take care of that soon. The director of my school brought me some medicine at the end of the day. I have no idea what it is. Two capsules of some sort and a pouch of something. The stuff in the pouch looked like food for miniature rabbits but tasted oddly like tea. As I said, I have no idea what it was, but I apologize in advance if this update becomes painfully incoherent as it starts to take effect.

The illness actually started on Friday night, a slight scratchiness in my throat. I went out with my fellow aliens that night, again had a great time. Leave it a guy who's been here for five years (Matt) to find to places in the city that have a good atmosphere. This time it was a very nice BBQ restaurant. The food was tasty, the side dishes were plentiful and varied and it was pretty cheap. After that we migrated to Blue Moon and ordered giant armour-plated jug of beer after giant armour-plated jug of beer. It was fun. After a few hours of merriment there, we still felt like enjoying ourselves and made our way down the block to a late night restaurant. It was there that I finally tried the infamous silkworm larvae of Korea. Mmm-mm, was it nasty, but I can now add silkworm larvae to the list that was started in Mexico with grasshoppers. After that, it was pretty late and everyone dispersed. I hung out with Laura, sitting around talking for a few more hours, finally got to bed by 4:30 am.

On Saturday, I felt awful. I slept late, my throat was worse (gee, I wonder how that happened, what with all the drinking and bar talking and staying up late). I decided early that I wasn't going to make it to Busan that night. I was wrong, but I'll get into that later. I hung out with Laura for a while, but we both were feeling pretty rotten so it didn't last long.

At 8:00 that night I decided that I needed to do something and I decided that I wasn't too late to make it down to Busan to see Astroboy's final show. I knew it was a bad idea, having already cancelled on Han Tae and informed my friends in Busan that I wouldn't be there as well as being very tired and increasingly sick, but I did it anyway. It proved to be an even stupider decision than originally estimated. When I got to Soultrane, I was quickly ignored by the friends that were there. Feeling a little odd and realizing that I still had a half hour or so before the show started, I went over to Crossroads. Again, I was mightily ignored by those I knew, with the exception of the people behind the bar, including Hyuk, the guitarist/singer for Astroboy. But he was busy getting ready and didn't have much time to talk. I had a beer, and made my way back to Soultrane for the show. The show was great. It's sad that it was the last.

Right before the show, Jonathan showed up and he was his usual friendly self. After the show he seemed to take in the situation of me being ignored and offered to take me to a different club where he was DJ-ing that night. I went. I did not have a good time. It was a typical dance club scene, which is not what I'm into. The only person I knew was very busy putting on the music. I got irritated quickly and fled after about an hour.

Fleeing was a strange decision as I was in a part of the city I didn't know at about 3:00 in the morning. The busses/subway weren't running and I had no more money for a room or a taxi to the train station. Being me, I used my map studying skills and walked to the train station. It took two hours. That was fine as it got me there right on time to catch the first train home.

I slept very deeply on Sunday. I still got up by noon and ended up spending the day with Laura and Alex. I finally got to see the places where other foreigners live in Milyang and I am very jealous. Laura's place is tiny, yes, but its clean, bug free, the ceiling doesn't leak and it has actual cupboards and drawers as well as laundry facilities. Alex's place is amazing. At home, her place might be considered slightly small, but it's not really. It was extremely nice. The colours chosen are soft and soothing, it has an air conditioner and private laundry facilities. It was a dream apartment, and by that I mean I would kill for it at home, not just here. Anyway, Sunday ended up as another very late night.

Monday was a long day. I started off feeling ill, but strangely got better as the day progressed. Tuesday was perfectly fine, health-wise. My throat was still a little sore, but seemed to be getting better. Han Tae took me out for lunch, a yummy bowl of dolsot bibimbap, and I also had spicy-ish chicken that was cooked with a combination of a grill and a hair dryer with Laura that night. It was good.

I slept great Tuesday night and woke up feeling wonderful today. Han Tae came by for lunch and brought along Yong, the other guitarist for our fledgling band, which we have decided to call Junior Panthers. Don't know if that name will stick, but we'll see. Anyway, all was going relatively well until I got to work. Gradually, I descended into this current state of abject illness.

Speaking of which, I am starting to feel the drugs coming on. I'm a bit loopy and can feel myself starting to float a bit. I should stop typing now.

Guy

We're not alone out here... I've been discovered by aliens.

Since making my last posting, where I predicted that this week would likely progress in a remarkably similar fashion to last week, things have changed significantly.

It turns out that I am not the only foreigner who lives in Milyang. In fact, there appear to be quite a few. I met four of them last night. One of them, Matt, has lived here for 5 years. He was randomly looking around for Milyang related stuff online and stumbled across this blog. In turn, he invited me to join him and his co-workers for beer last night.

It was a great time. He works with a guy named Sean, whom I had met once before at a bar (yet strangley neglected to mention it), and a girl named Laura who has been here about 6 weeks. As well, another lady by the name of Alex joined us, she's been here about six weeks as well. She works at a different school altogether. Matt's girlfriend, Ji Yeon, also came along. I am still a bit amazed that I haven't run into these people before, with the exception of Sean whom I had run into once.

Anyway, we all met at a place called Hof Village. I'd been there once before with James a while back. It has a big sign outside proclaiming it be a "Western Bar." We sat around, getting to know one another for a while, ordered some food, drank some beer. The food was fairly typical, but one part is worth mentioning. The menu called it turkey. Matt and Ji Yeon called it turkey. All of my senses called it ham. It looked like ham, it smelled like ham, it felt like ham, it even sounded like ham, but most importantly, it tasted like ham. Laura, Sean, Alex and I were assured that it was turkey. It came with a bone. A large leg bone. I really wish I could have taken it home and looked more closely at it to determine whether it was turkey or pig. You'd think it should be blantanly obvious, and well, it probably should be for a guy that took a faunal remains analysis course (which I have), but it wasn't. They took the bone away before I could grab it, so that opportunity was lost. Regardless, it tasted good with mustard.

After the Western Bar, we made our way to a place that is about a 30 second walk from my apartment. This place, called Sor, is absolutely amazing. It is so retro 60's-70's and in a very classy lounge kind of way. I love it. The booths are like little rooms with beaded curtain entrances. The lighting and walls give it the perfect atmosphere. In fact, I think it may be the first place I've been to in Korea with a real atmosphere to it. The owner, an interesting Korean guy who used to play guitar and now plays the drums due to a hand injury, has a rather large wall full of old records. He played us specially selected songs all night and sat at the table with us for long periods of time. We drank beer and lemon flavoured soju (very tasty) and talked about work, speaking Korean, music and many, many other things.

All in all, last night was probably the most comfortable I've felt in this city yet. Thank you Matt for contacting me. This isn't to say I haven't enjoyed my time with Edward or HanTae or James or Cathy, but this was the most comfortable yet. Everyone was so great.

I'll stop gushing now.

As said before, I'll be backin Busan again on Saturday to watch Astroboy's final show. Laura said she'd like to come along and Han Tae said he would, too, so it should be a blast.

That's all.

Guy

When exactly does night become morning?

Well, as promised, I went to Busan. I've actually been twice since I last posted. That sangria party I mentioned last time was actually this past weekend, not the one before as I previously thought, but no matter (I'm really not sure what it was all about, actually, as nobody was drinking sangria from what I could see and it just seemed like a rather typical Saturday night at the bar, but I'll talk about it more later). Fun was had on both trips, regardless.

The first of the two weekends was quite a lot of fun. Until I hit the bar on Saturday night, I had a bit of a running commentary going on in my notebook, so I'm going to just copy it here (it's so much easier that way) with maybe a few slight edits for the sake of grammar and the children (won't anybody think of the children!!!). Anyway, here it is (it will be followed by a report of this past weekends shenanigans):

Milyang Station

Everyone here looks so damned young. How old are those two girls? They could be 12. They could be 23. I have yet to guess anyones age right here. I think I'll just give up. Train will be here soon. Yay! Food when I get to Busan. Food makes me smile.

At a coffee shop near Pusan University

I really wish I lived here. There's so much going on. This area in particular is great. So many shops, restaurants, bars, and the people watching is absolutely fantastic. I also like how here, while I'm still considered a bit of a freak, the reaction is more subdued. It's more a sort of "Oh, look, another one" kind of attitude as opposed to the "Oh my god! Look at the Alien!!!" reaction I still get in Milyang, even after three months.

All I can think of to write about is girls right now. I like to think its just an interest of mine, along the same lines as my interests in music, beer, food, books, and art. I'm not even really looking at them in a lustful way, although I suppose it is always there, at least in the background. But I would consider myself more of an appreciator of beauty in its many forms than I would consider myself just some horndog guy looking for hot chicks, however I could just be putting a nicer sounding phrase on the same thing. But in a way, it is true. It's not like I feel the need to possess all these girls, just like I don't need to possess every nice piece of art I see. That said, I could sure use a good painting or two in my apartment to make it more appealing to live in. I'll just let that topic go for now. Miss you Debb!

So, how long should I stay here (the coffee shop, not Busan)? I'm not sure what else to do. It's still very early (mid afternoon) and I've decided that I have nothing I really need to do at all. If the music here was in any way decent I'd consider staying here for a few hours, but it's fucking terrible. Maybe I'll go looking for a good stationery store. They're always entertaining here and I need a few things anyway. Yeah, I'll go do that.

Comfy internet/coffee place, still near Pusan University

I like this place. The couches are really comfy and the internet is free. Sure the coffee is horrbly weak and highly overpriced, but it all balances out. If I can spend 3000\ on a bad cup of coffee but manage to stay here for a few hours, it's no waste. The stationery store was fruitful. I just can't enough of the great sayings and pictures on Korean notebooks. They're just so much fun. I had sushi for lunch. So good. I am satisfied and content right now. I've only been here a few hours and I can already call this trip a success. Next up is dinner and drinking. I found a Mexican restaurant I may go to for dinner, but I don't know if it will be worth it. I get the feeling Korean style Mexican food will leave something to be desired. Another option is Chinese. That spicy seafood soup Dave recommended to me sounds great. We'll see.

Mexican Restaurant

Well, here I am. It's expensive, that's for sure. The pictures on the menu look good, though, and the restaurant itself is very nice. A bit warm though. The music is interesting. I've now heard three songs: Flashdance, Ain't No Mountain, an a rather interesting 60's chamber pop song (and no, I actually have no idea what chamber pop is, but the phrase seems to fit so I'm keeping it). Oh... new song. The theme from Fame. Flashdance and Fame separated by two completely non-80's dance drama related songs. Interesting.

Ahh. It's much cooler by the window.

You know what? I'm really tired of eating alone. It's fairly rare that I take a meal with someone. Well, the nachos have arrived (cheapest thing on the menu). No company, though. I could ask the waiter to join me, but he seems otherwise occupied. As expected, fake cheese, but everything else looks good. There's even guacamole. Now the taste test... Hmm, not bad. The guac is decent and there are actual jalapenos. the salsa is a bit weak and I already mentioned the cheese.

Well, I thought the music mix couldn't get stranger, but it has. How does one follow Boney M and Donna Summer with Chris DeBerge? It's just not right. I have to get out of here. The nachos and the music are depressing me. Bar time.

So, the bar...

Well, I ended up staying at the bar for a good ten hours (actually, alternating between two, Crossroads and Soultrane, but they're across the street from each other and owned/staffed by the same people so they might as well be one place) . I drank, I talked about books and music, I danced until 5am. After that, I was pretty tired, so I caught a train home to Milyang and passed out.

The intervening week was pretty nondescript. The groupies have settled down a bit. They still gather about when they see me, but they seek me out less and are far quieter about it. As well as groupies though, I've discovered that one of the little girls in my kids class, Suzy, has a crush on me. Cathy said she thought so but I didn't believe her until I found a crayon picture on my desk of myself and Suzy surrounded by a heart (she labelled us both). She later made me put the picture in my daytimer. It's so cute.

Well, onto this most recent weekend, which was also a lot of fun. It started off inauspiciously, though. Everybody I was supposed to meet up with in Busan on Saturday cancelled on me (Han Tae cancelled earlier on Friday, Cathy cancelled that night, and Edward just didn't show up). None of my Busan friends were at the bar when I got there, either. I sat around by myself for a few hours, talking to the cute bartender girl (who's university major is German literature of all things), watching another bartender (who is also the bassist for Astroboy) do card tricks, and generally just doing nothing.

After a while of this, a very attractive Korean girl invited me to join her and her friends. I was startled, but quickly agreed. They were all very friendly and we all talked for a while. Her friends are very nice, and they were very drunk. After a bit, they decided they wanted to go for food and invited me along. We had tasty scallops and yummy soup and intoxicating soju. We talked a lot more, drank a whole bunch, then we finished the food and she and her friends left. I went back to Soultrane.

I was really drunk by this point and suddenly found myself alone again. I decided to dance away my frustration, but it was really crowded on the dance floor and nobody would let me actually dance with them (everyone turned their backs to me), so I just ended up more frustrated. I drank some more, then decided I needed some air.

I went outside, sat on the curb and put my head on my arms. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, really. Frustration and alcohol are never a good mix. Anyway, I was sitting like this for a while when I felt someone tap my head. I looked up and there was a girl, a fellow alien, standing there. She asks if I'm ok and I say I'm fine and she says ok and leaves. I figured that was the end of that and put my head back down. Moments later, though, she comes back with her friend and they ask me how to get to Crossroads. I take them there.

We get some beer, sit down, and chat. The girl who tapped my head is from Vancouver. Her name is Jocelyn. She's been here for almost exactly the same amount of time that I have. Her friend is from England and has been here for 9 months. Her name is Catherine. They're staying in Seoul and had come down to Busan for the weekend.

Catherine ended up leaving early (well, relatively as it was about 3:30am by this point). Jocelyn and I sat around drinking and talking, then this guy from New Zealand joins us. He's a little older than me, and has this intense, almost creepy way about him. He was nice enough though, a lot of fun to talk to. His name is Adam. We end up closing the bar down, but still wanted to go do stuff. The suggestion is made to find a karaoke room (nori-bang). Trying to figure out the controls at those places is difficult. We struggled mightily. After some fiddling and button pushing, a good time was eventually had by all.

It was light out when we emerged and I eventually stumbled back to Milyang for some much needed sleep.

Well, it's Monday night now. I'm going to assume that the rest of this week will go much the same as the others, but if not, I'll let you know. I'll most likely be back in Busan on the weekend as its Astroboy's final show (the singer/guitarist has to take his requisite 2 years in the army now). I don't want to miss that.

You'll hear from me soon, I'm sure.

Guy

I've got groupies. The doctor gave me an ointment, said it should clear up soon.

Well, first off, I'll apologize for taking so long to update stuff. My computer here has been fairly messed up for some time now and it finally died on the weekend. No one is quite sure why it died, but it did. However, they have quite generously replaced the dead one with a different, and much better computer. I am quite pleased, despite the loss of my files.

Keeping on the topic of computers, the ones from the school disappeared overnight (further increasing my gratitude towards them for putting a new one up in my room). It seems someone climbed in a window and took the two computer towers away, but nothing else. The printers, monitors, keyboards, a TV, Cathy's cellphone, and various other things of value were left untouched. Everybody is very confused. The police came by and everything.

Other than the computers disappearing, things school-wise have seemed to straighten themselves out. I have been absolutely guaranteed by the owner that the school will not close. As well, they have altered my pay schedule, telling me that this way they can promise to get me all my money on time, every time, which is good. They'll be adding the intervening days between when I was supposed to get paid and when I actually am to my total. To top off the good news about the school, I am very happy to be back to the regular schedule of starting at around 1:00 pm and finishing at 7:00 pm. The summer schedule was truly starting to wear on me (that and the extraordinary heat). The bad news concerning the school is that James quit about a week and a half ago, so its just me and Cathy running all the classes now. Strangely, though, things seem more organized than before.

In some entertaining news, I discovered on Monday that I seem to have developed groupies. I wouldn't say it if I wasn't absolutely certain about it. I'm not an ego type of guy, but these girls, all about 14-15 years old, are truly acting like groupies. When I go outside and they see me, they scream and run up to me to talk to me. As well, they hang around outside the school, looking in windows of classrooms I'm teaching in and waving to me. To top it all off, they actually squealed and yelled to me from across the street, "EEEEEEEEK! We love you Steve!" I am seriously not exaggerating any of this. They even bought me ice cream. I'm just not sure how to deal with this. Their numbers are growing, too. On Monday, there were just two of them. Yesterday, there were three. Today there was a whole pack of waving, giggling, and squealing teenage girls watching me teach. I am truly baffled by this phenomenon. It's distracting to say the least, but also pretty humorous. I'm sure they'll settle down soon enough. I'm no Beatle.

Speaking of which, I may be the first person ever to develop groupies, then start a band. Well, ok, I haven't truly started a band, but Han Tae (the only one of the guys from the TOEIC who still comes to class) and I have decided to start practicing songs together. He sings but plays no instrument, I play guitar but don't sing. Plus, we seem to have similar tastes in music, so it should all be good. I may even attempt to strengthen my ties to the people who run those bars I like in Pusan and eventually try to get us a gig there if we feel confident enough.

Speaking of Han Tae and the university class, I went out for beer with him and Chang Won on Sunday night. It was a lot of fun. They both want to meet all my friends and seem almost excited as I am that Debb will be coming out here this winter. As well, they want to come visit me in Canada next year sometime. On a slight side note regarding Han Tae, he gave me this packet of yellow powder the other day. It was apparently vitamin C, but really it was Fun Dip with out the candy stick. Healthy Fun Dip, how great is that? He also gave me a stick of nicotine gum, which I thought was very odd as he knows I don't smoke. But then again, chewing gum isn't smoking, is it?

So yes, it appears that since I mentioned feeling lonely and isolated on here, my social life has greatly improved. I've also been invited to a Sangria Party on Saturday in Pusan by the girl I had my great music talk with last time I was there, Remi (whose family name is Doh, which, when said in the proper Korean order of family name first, makes her name Do-Re-Mi, interestingly enough). I'm not sure what a Sangria Party entails other than drinking sangria, but I'm sure going to find out.

In more traditional Korean culture news, I watched some traditional dancing on Sunday. It was rather interesting, especially the audience participation. People, caught up in the drums and rhythm, would come out of the audience and join the dancers, sometimes taking their drum or horn away from them to play it themselves. There was also this tug-of-war type thing using a large rope ring with ropes extending off of it that people pulled in every direction, thus making the large ring not move. Eventually one side was declared the winner by a guy standing on the ring. Don't worry if you don't understand, I don't think I do either, and I watched it happen. Hopefully my pictures will turn out and I can help clarify it a bit for you
later.

Anyway, I'm doing a lot better since the last time I posted. I have started to get cravings for some home food, though. I still love Korean food, don't get me wrong, but a nice big slice of baked ham or a salmon steak or some real cheese or good beer that doesn't cost $6 a bottle or... ack, I should stop.

So yeah, I'll be in Pusan again on the weekend for that Sangria Party. I promise to post more often now that I have a computer again.

Guy

Aliens, Knights, Music Lovers, Love Motels, and Mormons

Right, Pusan. Ok.

Friday was not a good day. It started with some unexpected information that I won't get into here, but it did set the tone for the rest of the day. I got through my classes until noon, at which point a guy by the name of In Soh, who I had met only once before, came to meet me and accompany me to Pusan. In Soh is a good guy, about 20 years old, but not much fun to hang around with. He readily admitted to me that he wants to do things with me mostly to improve his English. That's fine, I guess, especially since he decided to pay for everything that day and was getting me a place to sleep that night. So, I spent a full day with him.

We got to Pusan and picked up my new ID card. I am now officially an alien according to Koreans. Let the probing begin. Anyway, after this In Soh had decided that a movie would be a good idea. That sounded alright. Unfortunately, the location was at a giant mall. I hate the mall, and this one was basically what you would get if you took Metrotown and stood it on end (tall, instead of long). I consoled myself with the thought that we were just there to see a movie, then we'd go somewhere else. How wrong I was. We went to get our movie tickets, only to discover that the only movie we could settle on to see, King Arthur (which I will discuss further), didn't start for another three hours. Meanwhile, In Soh's 13 year old cousin had joined us. We wandered around the mall for an hour or so, not really looking at anything, just wandering, then they decided they wanted to play video games. I did not. So, I found a seat in a corner and wrote/read stuff for an hour and a half. I realize that malls and consumerism are as much a part of Korean culture as ancient temples and soju, but I can experience it at home if I ever choose to. I didn't come across the ocean to go to the damned mall. I was starting to feel somewhat bitter when they found me and we prepared for the movie. By this I mean we purchased snacks (popcorn and soda, despite the availability of dried, roasted squid) and stood around for a while. We finally went in to the theatre itself about 10 minutes before the movie was to start.

King Arthur is a terrible movie. Extremely cheesy with bad acting and only a few moments of unintentional humour. It was really a brutally bad movie. The special effects were obvious, the story line attempted to incorporate new archaeological "facts" and failed, and it was too damned long.

Ok, I'm done that rant now.

We finally left the mall after the movie. I was exhausted and really hungry. Luckily, we were headed to In Soh's cousins house, where we would be staying. The family was extremely nice and made me feel very comfortable. They kept feeding me. First, a tasty meat dish with rice, which had me stuffed. Then, after popping in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a pizza arrived, specially ordered for the alien. I appreciated it, but was far too full. I managed to eat one piece, though, and smile graciously throughout. After the movie, the time came to pass out. Sleep came slowly though, and it was a short sleep as the entire household woke up and started moving loudly around at 6:00am.

Breakfast on Saturday was again provided by In Soh's Aunt. It was some sort of fried doughy substance sprinkled with cinnamon and dipped in honey. It was... chewy. After breakfast, In Soh's uncle dropped us off at Haeundae Beach, Korea's most popular beach. It was cloudy and threatening to rain, so it wasn't very populated that day. In Soh and I wandered back and forth along the beach for about two hours. We didn't say much, we didn't do much. It wasn't very exciting or very interesting. Then we decided to have lunch. I had my favourite, naeng-myun, which I seasoned well with tasty spicy things, much to In Soh's amazement and occasional protest. It was yummy. After lunch, In Soh went to the train station to go back to Milyang and I wandered about Pusan for a while.

I ended up back up by the university, where I spent most of my time on my last trip. I randomly looked around the area until I got hungry then found a place to eat. I looked at the menu, asked about a few things, and decided on a rice dish they recommended. It was simply bizarre. Not what I expected in the least. What it was was a pile of rice with a thick, dark brown sauce with chunks in it poured over top. It had a chocolatey taste and the chunks were potato and bits of pork. I was really hungry, so I ate it, but I won't be getting it again.

After that it was off to the bar. I hung around Soul Trane, one of the bars I went to last time, for a good while. Jonathan, one of the people I met last time, arrived and we talked for a bit then played some pool against a couple of ultra-competitive US army jerks. Jonathan and I, not very good at pool, managed to get them down to where we were battling for the 8 ball. They won, and were complete asses about it. More of them kept coming in, so we figured that it was time to change venues. We ended up at Crossroads, which I briefly visited before. I stayed much longer this time. I met a group of bitter English teachers who's only wish was to get home. They actually had countdowns to departure programmed into their cell phones so they could check how many months/days/hours/seconds until they got to go. I actually ended up sitting with them for some time. They weren't too bad, and they had their reasons for wanting to leave, I just thought it was a little excessive.

During my time with the bitter people, Jonathan had gone back to Soul Trane to meet some other people. As well, some bands played. They were fairly mediocre folksy stuff. Jonathan came back with his girlfriend and her best friend, Remi. Remi and got along really well and got into a really good music conversation. She got the bar to play some good, original Korean music, something I have been lamenting the lack of for some time.

It eventually came to light that I would not be able to sleep at Jonathan's place that night, as we had arranged earlier, due to the fact that it's a studio apartment and his girlfriend was coming over that night. Instead, he lent me some cash and set me up at a motel. This motel was completely unlike the one I stayed at last time. It was quite plainly a love motel. Right outside the elevator was a machine called the "Love Box" dispensing a variety of products. Inside the room there was red track lighting, a heart shaped headboard, strategically placed condoms, and the first channel the TV went to was porn. It was all rather humorous. I was pretty drunk, so I turned the TV back off and went to sleep.

The next morning, Sunday, I woke up, watched South Korea beat Mexico in Olympic soccer, then proceeded to get lost. I made the mistake of trusting my Lonely Planet map from three years ago and wandered far, far away from the subway. Thankfully, my general sense of direction helped me out and three hours later I found the subway again. I made my way to the fish market area and got myself some tasty sashimi done Korean style (meaning it was doused in hot stuff and mixed with rice and greens in a large bowl). I was satisfied with my food and my somewhat strange trip to Pusan. It was time to go back to Milyang.

Well, since then, not much has happened, other than my MP3 player breaking, which is actually pretty terrible. I need my music, but it will get fixed. It's Wednesday night now and I've spent the last three and a half days in a strange state of emotional flux. I'm up one hour or two and down the next. It's been weird. Actually, I've been like this more or less for the last two or three weeks, but its been more so this week. I think its a bit of homesickness, a sense of isolation, and knowing that a bigger, more entertaining city is out there with people I identify with, but I'm here and alone in this small city. I'm pretty sure I'll come to terms with things soon enough, plus I'll be doing more traveling soon, I hope. It'll all be good.

Oh yeah, I ran into Mormons today. They were hanging around outside the grocery store like kids at a 7-11. I was approached by one, and he asked me all the Heavenly Father questions. I expressed my lack of interest and he stopped bothering me. I really dislike the very idea of missionary work. Believe whatever you want, but don't try to tell people its the only way and that their way is wrong. It bugs me to no end. Such ignorant arrogance. I found it kind of interesting to run into them though, considering my last posting compared teaching English to missionary work.

That's all for now.

Guy

25: Converting the Masses

So, not much has happened in the past week and a half, thus the lack of updates. I've just been teaching my classes, which have been pretty uneventful, and going for walks or sitting at the computer. I sure know how to live it up!

I did go out on Saturday with Edward and a some new people he brought along. We had a tasty pork bone soup called gamja-tang and much soju. I think I've managed to adjust myself to soju as it didn't hit me very hard this time at all. Afterwards we all went out for beer and a good time was had by all.

My real reason for writing this today is that I got into a discussion today with Cathy about how we give all the Korean students English names. It's apparently a school rule to assign a new 'English-friendly' name to all students. I have been uneasy about this from the start as I know how attached to my own name I am (this despite the fact I am going by Steave here...). Anyway, my uneasiness about this has grown with the fact that many students are resistant to changing their names. I see this as not being a problem. We transcribe their proper Korean name into the Roman alphabet and I learn how to pronounce them, usually quite poorly. The discussion I had with Cathy was just that, a discussion, as we both agreed that changing someone's name against their will just isn't right. One student, who got named Fred, requested that I call him Dae Won from now on. I fully support him in that.

This discussion of name appropriation got me thinking even deeper on things, thoughts I'm sure have gone through almost every ESL teachers mind when abroad. Are we not just new missionaries spreading our words to the unconverted and thus, unknowledgeable? Is the Anglicisation of the world really an honourable goal? While it is true that many, maybe even most, Koreans seek out English, there are quite a few who only learn it because it is a required subject in school or because their parents force them to. As well, of those who seek it out, their primary motivation is to get a good paying job with a trading company. This would be logical if they traded mostly with English speaking companies but, quite rightly, Korea trades mostly with Japan and China. That said, Japanese and Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) are taught, but are not required learning or as actively sought out.

English here appears to be almost a national obsession. As I mentioned, it is required subject for all students, and most children and many adults seek outside schooling to reinforce those classes (thus, I have a job). I just wonder whether it is a symptom of the constant presence of American influence here since the Korean War or a true quest to gain knowledge of a foreign language. It's not so much that Koreans are so ardent in their pursuit of the English language, but that English seems to be the second or third language of choice worldwide while native English speakers are the least likely to bother learning another language. It just seems like arrogance to me, and its all nicely summed up in the "you should take on an English name because we don't want to try to learn how to pronounce your real one" attitude.

I am never one to criticize someone else for trying to gain more knowledge. I just am concerned that I may be an unintentional agent of cultural attack. I am one of those who believes that language plays a very integral role in cultural identity. From what I see of Korea, and admittedly it is not much yet, it is grasping very strongly onto American culture and quickly forgetting many things Korean. As of this point, the Korean language is still easily the most dominant, but with the huge number of active English language academies and the knowledge of English being demanded by schools, corporations and government, I kind of have to wonder how long things will remain this way.

Korean culture in no way appears to be weak, but the ubiquitous presence of Starbucks, McDonald's, English language academies and the fact that everyone here seems to have a brand new car and a cell phone leads me to wonder about later.

These really are just musings of an uninformed outsider, though. Most likely I am dead wrong and Koreans just grab what they like from western culture and ignore the rest, but at times it seems so pervasive that I can't help but think of myself as a new missionary, here to convert to "right" path.

***

Well, on a far less serious note, I just opened up a can of "Spicy Squids." I had bought it two weeks ago, but for some reason never opened it. They were tasty. I'll get them again. Really, how can one resist a label that says that?

That's all today. I go to Pusan again on Friday, so maybe more news this weekend.

Guy

24: Pusan

Pusan was so much fun. My train ride down was uneventful and quite quick. The scenery was pretty spectacular in spots. I can't wait to go on longer trips around the country! Once I arrived in Pusan, I very quickly took care of the ID card stuff I had to do there (still have to back in two weeks to pick it up), but then I was free to explore for as long as my money held out. Which wouldn't be long, really.

I set myself up for a night at a nice little hotel, or yeogwan as they're called here. It was cheap, clean and had air conditioning, a working TV, a private bathroom, a real shower with hot water, and appeared to be bug free. Thus, it was significantly more attractive than my apartment in Miryang which has none of the above amenities except cheapness and a private bathroom. I didn't spend much time in there, though, as I wanted to explore.

My first goal was to familiarize myself with the subway system. That was simple enough. What a great, clean, efficient system they have. It goes practically everywhere in city (which is huge), and is super cheap and easy to use. I especially like how certain stops have their own special song played as they announce the stop. I also liked how the subway cars were air conditioned. That's pretty sweet on a hot and humid day.

I took the subway to the Jagalchi/Nampo area in the south central area of town. It was full of stores and restaurants and such. Very much a shopping district. Also nearby was the Jagalchi fish market, which was, as the name implies, full of fish. I had decided upon leaving my hotel room that there was no way I could not look like a tourist, what with the Lonely Planet guide and camera, so I decided to go all out and be a tourist. I went up the Pusan Tower. It has a rather pretty park surrounding it and some ancient structure too, one of which contained the biggest bell I have ever seen. Anyway, the views from the tower were quite good and I got a really good idea of just how big this city is. I met a rather nice man named Peter, from Washington, DC, while up there. He was actually born in Korea, but his parents moved to the US when he was 6 or so. He speaks no Korean. He relayed to me how troublesome this can be. He looks Korean, so people assume he speaks it, and when he explains that he can't, they start to speak in Japanese to him. We talked for a good while about how we're enjoying it here and some of the little things that confuse of frustrate us, then he wandered off.

After this I hopped back on the subway and went up to the university area and wandered around there. That's a pretty hopping area. So much going on and so many people. I decided that it would be a good place to come back to that night for beer.

Before I did that though, I needed a nap. I was unbelievably tired. So, I made my way back to my room and passed out for 2-3 hours. I woke up hungry. I remembered seeing a sushi place up by the university, and that sounded good. Mmm, real sushi, with fish and such. I had been craving it for a good long time and now I would satisfy that craving. It was good. Not the best I've ever had, but certainly enough to dull the craving.

After that, it was time to search out a good place for beer. The Lonely Planet guided me to a place called Monk. It was a good place, and I happened to come in on a night where a band was playing. Sweet! They set up a few minutes after I arrived and as soon as the first chord was played I recognized it. Ends up they were an Alice in Chains cover band. They were really good. The singer managed to sound almost exactly like Layne Staley. I was impressed. Their set was pretty short though and the bar emptied out almost immediately afterwards. I had picked up an ad for a group of bars in the area though, and it had a map on the back. I decided to go to a place called Soul Trane. This was a good choice. As soon as I walked in I was welcomed by a pair of fellow North Americans, a girl from Toronto and a guy from Chicago. Their names are Tiffany and Jonathan, respectively. They were great. They introduced me to all their Korean friends, some of whom were in a punk cover band that would be playing later that night. Two bands in one night! Great! We sat and drank for a bit, Jonathan took me briefly over to another bar to meet some other people, then we came back to see the Astro Boys, as the punk band is called. They were amazing. They played a Ramones song, a bunch of Rancid, a Weezer song, and a Billy Joel song. Everything was done with great energy and the bass player was awesome.

I have criticized much of the music I've heard in Korea, and justifiably so. The stuff you hear everywhere is pure crap pop junk taken from the mould that American recording companies have created. But, after watching those two bands in Pusan, I see that there is hope for Korean music. Sure, they were cover bands, and yes they were still covering American music. But the energy they had and the skill with which they played their instruments and engaged the audience leads me to believe that it is only a matter of time before a true underground music scene develops here with original music being written and performed. For all I know, it already has and I haven't seen it yet. But I feel better about Korean music now.

Anyway, after the show I went back to my hotel. I missed the last subway (why does it stop running before midnight?) and had to take a taxi. It was pricier than expected, but nothing too exorbitant. I slept later than expected and woke up more hungover than expected, leading me to tally up my beer total from the night before. Turns out the hangover was not out of line. So, with my beer drinking and cab taking, my money was getting perilously low. But I still had enough to eat, do a couple of things, and catch my train back to Miryang (oh yeah, I finally have established the proper way to pronounce Miryang; it's Milyahng and should be spelled that way for stupid foreigners like me).

So, what to do? Well, first, I needed to eat. I went out for some naengmyun, which is cold, thin noodles in a broth of ice water and spices. It is sooooo good, especially on a hot day. After that, I decided that some mountain climbing was in order. Right in the middle of Pusan is a place called Kumgang Park. Its a massive mountainous park that used to be a fortress. It's completely surrounded by the city. Now, when I say mountains, I don't mean some hills that people have attached the word mountain to. These are true mountains, the tallest rising over 800m from sea level (and remember that Pusan is a port city, so is at sea level). The first part of the climb up was done by cable car. Its a great way to climb a mountain, for sure. It takes you the first 540m up, basically to the top of the first peak. According to the pamphlet I received, the cable car was built in 1967 and "is still receiving much love from residents of the city."

At the top of the cable car ride was a rather nice forest park area, which I think the pamphlet describes better than I can:

"The thick forest of pine trees at the top of the Mt. Kumjeong is the best rest place to make residents of the city feel naturally clean and at the same time becomes a field of natural learning to children."

Not being a resident of the city, I was exempt from this natural cleanliness and proceeded to explore the area, shamed by my foreign filth.

To say the park and the views from it were spectacular does not begin to do it justice. The old fortress that was built up there is an amazing thing in that they built a stone wall 17km around the tops of these mountains and some rather beautiful gates. I took many pictures which I hope to post eventually. My hike up the other mountains was long and exhausting and I ended up with a pretty nice sunburn, but it was worth it. The weathered granite rock formations jutting out of the mountain sides and surrounded by trees were simply awesome. The breeze at the peaks was extremely invigorating and the views completely astonished me. I love this place. I was hiking for a good 4 hours before I decided to make my way back down for some food. I never made it the top of the highest peak. As a matter of fact, I only made it about halfway through the park.

I was extremely sore and tired and dirty when I got to the bottom of the mountains and back into town. I forget what I ate, but I know I ate something then made my way back to the train station for the trek back to Miryang.

I love Pusan. There is still so much there that I want to explore, plus there is the potential for a much more active social life and the watching of live music. I'll be going back as often as I can.

Steave

23: Banned, concussed, and tortured through song.

Well, many things have happened since I reported in last time. For one, I found out why I was unable to view my blog. I guess the government of South Korea had placed a nation wide block on blogs of various sorts, so no one in the country was able to access them. Apparently, they've lifted the ban. Not sure what the reasoning behind it was, but I guess all is well now.

Anyway, other than that, I went out with Edward on Saturday. Not a group thing this time. We just happened to run into each other earlier in the day and decided to go for food and beer later. The food was chicken and ginseng soup. It was alright, a little bland, though. This is a very traditional summer food here. When it gets hot out, ginseng soup is the food of choice for most Koreans. Edward told me that the ginseng gives your body strength and helps mediate the effects of heat. This was good to hear as the temperature has been brutal lately. I know, its summer and its hot, that's how it works so I should stop complaining, but when the temperature hovers around 39C with 95% humidity for over a week complaining just becomes a part of life. Well, after food came a change of location and beer, as per usual. I spent Sunday cleaning and doing laundry while hungover.

On Monday we started our new schedules at work. I'd be teaching seven classes from 9:30am to 4:10pm with three 30-50 minute breaks scattered about in there. Not a bad schedule, really.

However, I ended up only teaching the first two of those seven and I don't remember much from the second one. You see, my first half hour break comes right after my first class and I used that to go upstairs and grab some stuff I forgot. I went to pick something up which had fallen on the floor under the window in my living room (I don't remember what it was), and stood up rather quickly, forgetting that the window is inset into the slanted wall and above me was a solid concrete overhang. I whacked the back of my head really hard, but after the initial pain I felt alright.

I went back downstairs to get ready for my second class, which is with a little boy by the name of Michael. As that class progressed, I started to feel very dizzy, weak, and sick to my stomach. I realized pretty much right away I had hit my head harder than originally thought and now had a concussion. By the time class was over, I could barely stand and just wanted to lie down and vomit.

There was no way I could possibly teach vocabulary to seven year olds, which was coming up immediately. This was recognized quickly by Cathy who told the director. She went to get James, the best of the English speakers, to find out what happened. I told them. It was in a scattered and confused way, but I know I was emphatic about the fact that I had hit my head. They offered the diagnoses of 1) food poisoning, 2) alcohol poisoning, and 3) heat stroke. I continued to insist that no, I ate no bad food, had no alcohol since Saturday, have been sitting in an air conditioned room all morning, and that I HIT MY HEAD. I wasn't rude about it, but they didn't seem to think that hitting my head could cause these symptoms.

Regardless, they were all very concerned and insisted they take me to the hospital. It sounded like a good idea to me, so everyone except Cathy, who had to stay and teach all the classes on her own, piled into a car and we went to the hospital. When I say everyone, I mean the director, James, and some lady who was sitting in the office with the director. I think it was her sister or sister-in-law, but I can't be sure. Once at the hospital I was shuffled about a bit, like at any hospital, then ended up on a gurney in the corner of a large room populated with various groaning people. Time had become meaningless, but I was feeling less horrible when a doctor arrived. He waggled some fingers in front of my eyes, asked me what happened, first in Korean, then English. I told him. He said to me, and I quote, "you have, I think... ear disease." I explained to him once more that I had hit my head on concrete. He nodded, then told me he wanted me to have a CT scan and to stay in the hospital for a week.

Now, I'm not generally one to argue with doctors, nor one to mess around with my health, but I thought both of these measures were a little excessive. I discussed this with James, in a still rather scattered way, and he agreed. The nurse then handed us the potential invoice. That sealed the deal. I would go home, no CT scan, no extended hospital stay. The doctor walked by at that point and James told him our decision. He waved and said he was going golfing, apparently. So, we up and left. At no point did they see my ID or anything, so I don't think I'll get billed, and no one else seemed overly concerned about doing this, so I just went along.

The got me up to my room and I sat there. I just stare at nothing for an endless period of time. I could think pretty clearly at this point, but couldn't read or eat and didn't want to move around or sleep. So I stared and listened to music.

Some time later, one of my students pops up out of nowhere. I was still sitting and staring and didn't notice him until he tapped something on the floor. I look over and there is Tom, an 11 year old boy, kneeling outside my bedroom door with a pack of AA batteries in his hand. He slides them across the floor without a word and then leaves as silently and abruptly as he had arrived. I decided to wait until later to think about how weird that was.

I eventually was able to read and started to feel remarkably better. My queasiness had turned to hunger, so I decide to get up and make some food. I got up, stepped on a package of batteries, confirming that that was not a concussion induced hallucination. Even now, two days later, it makes no sense to me. Why did he think I needed new batteries? Oh well. I felt even better after eating and spent a peaceful night at home punctuated only by James bringing me Tylenol and the director from the other academy next door bringing me a strange milky/icy concoction with red beans and marshmallows. I politely ate it despite its overpowering sweetness. It was a rather nice gesture, I thought.

Tuesday morning I felt pretty good, but once I actually had to concentrate on teaching, I felt ill again. I managed to get through the day, but I did fall asleep at my desk during one of my breaks and ended up sleeping through a class (Tom's, incidentally, denying me the chance to ask about the batteries). My fellow teachers decided that they shouldn't wake me up. I made sure to tell them that if it happened again the next day to kick me awake. I made it through the rest of the day alright. I was a little off and slow, but I got through it.

On Wednesday, I was perfectly fine. The whole day, I felt completely normal (well, as normal as I can feel, anyway). Classes went well and two of the guys from my TOEIC class (Chang-wan and Han-tai) invited me to go to a folk festival that night to see a play called Heaven and Hell. They told me it was a musical about Zeus and Pluto, so I went in expecting a classical-type Greek/Roman play with song and dance and performed in Korean.

Well, I was partially correct. There was much song and dance. It was performed in Korean. Other than that, it was nothing at all like what I was expecting. The music was absolutely awful. It was basically a Korean version of 'nSync and Christina Aguilera. There were many points where I found myself wishing death for either them or myself. It was that bad.

However, when they weren't singing, it was actually rather entertaining. The actors worked very well together and with the audience (it was partially interactive) and despite the language barrier, I could figure out what was going on, for the most part. There was some good physical humour and a very heavy dose of sexual innuendo.

The basic scenario of the play was your typical violin-playing-boy makes fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl mad, girl leaves, boy searches for girl, girl joins gang of toughs who wear leather pants or camouflage and falls in love with leader, and boy challenges entire gang to dance competition which ends in a draw. At this point it got really bizarre and began to involve Zeus (which was pronounced more like Zaius, as in Dr.), Diana, Thera, Cupid, and some other gods I didn't get the names of. They danced provocatively with each other, then with the gang of toughs, then with the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl who had shed her fluffy pink dress in favour of tight jeans and a sparkly mid-riff revealing top (which I think was meant to signify her loss of innocence since joining the gang of toughs). At one point Zeus ends up dancing alone with Cupid while making buzzing noises. Cupid then rips his clothes off leaving him wearing a mesh shirt, wings, and a golden thong. He jumps and dances around the stage, Cupid leaves and the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl-who-lost-her-innocence-and-now- wears-tight-jeans-and-shows-off-her-belly-button comes back out to dance with him. There has been no sign of our violin-playing-boy for over an hour, but the gang of toughs comes back and challenges the gods to a dance competition. This also appears to end inconclusively. Finally, the violin-playing-boy returns. The girl has changed back into her fluffy pink dress and bids a fond farewell to the gang, especially her nemesis, a girl with an attitude and very tight leather pants. Everyone seems genuinely happy that the boy and girl are reunited, however the girl ends up wearing wings and on a ladder above everyone, which I took to signify that she was dead. However, everyone, including the violin-playing-boy, are still quite happy. The show ends with more insipid pop music. I left the show very confused.

My conclusions about the meaning of this performance are that girls who wear leather pants and boys who wear black and ride motorcycles are of the devil, but can be redeemed through bad pop music and the influence of girls in fluffy pink dresses. As well, to be good, you must wear either pink or white, but you can still dance all sexy-like. Oh yeah, and its ok to wear only a thong and wings. Zeus said so.

Aside from the show, I had a good time just hanging around Han-Tai, Chang-wan and their friends. I learned that they are in a band, and Chang-wan apparently has a fanclub, which may explain his propensity for pick up lines.

So, yeah, that's my past few days. Tomorrow morning I catch train to Pusan to get my residence permit card and explore a bit. I'll let you know how that went later.

Steave

22: What is it?

Well, the wet season continues. It doesn't rain very often at all, although when it does it's an absolute downpour. Still, all remains in a constantly damp state. This dampness is quite clearly a combination of extremely high humidity and excessive perspiration. It makes hanging ones clothes to dry a three day enterprise, despite the intense heat. My fan has been rendered useless as it now just blows hot, wet air at me. However, to look on the bright side of things, this weather appears to have two favourable aspects. For one, the mosquitoes appear to despise it more than I do and have failed to appear for a number of days. Now that I've said that, though, I'm sure they'll come back in force. The other benefit is that for about five to ten seconds after turning on the tap after getting home from work, I have hot water! Not that I want a hot shower or anything, but its nice to not have to boil water to wash the dishes. This discovery has led me to question the source of my water. I've deduced that the water storage is on the roof, thus the heating during the day and the large cistern sitting up there. So, is my water rain water? Or does it come from the water treatment plant I've heard so much about? I don't know. But it is at least pumped to the roof, if it does not fall there, where lately it gets well heated by this steaming country.

It was in this palpably hot, damp air that all of the kids (every class except the TOEIC class and the 15 year old girl) and teachers went out on a field trip today. We went down to the river, pretty much the same place I took the the TOEIC class last week. It was interesting in that it seemed an awful lot like they were taking me on a field trip as well as the other way around. They showed me things, told me what they were in Korean, and I told them what they were in English. All in all, I didn't serve that much of a real purpose on the trip as James and Cathy (who varies the spelling of her name between 'K' and 'C') translated the English words for them so they understood them more quickly, and then proceeded to help them with pronunciation too. I really felt more like a participant today, not a teacher. As for the heat, it is good to know that this heat is not normal, as everybody was uncomfortable and commenting on how hot it was, not just the weakling foreigner.

Before the field trip today, I had a rather entertaining TOEIC class. I think I mentioned before that I'm alternating every Friday between field trips and music study. Well, this week was music study. I had a request last time for something a little heavier (I played the Cure last time), and specifically for Skid Row. Now, I don't have any Skid Row on my mp3 player, nor do I ever intend to. But, I wanted to find something that would appeal to them. So, I thought about it and decided on Epic by Faith No More. Half the class liked the song, the other half didn't. Two of the guys only like lighter stuff and one guy wanted really heavy music. Next time, I play two songs, a soft-ish one by a band I haven't determined yet and one heavy song, maybe something by Kittie. Anyway, after we discussed what we thought of the song musically, we moved on to the lyrics. After explaining what slang was and definining such words/phrases as 'groovy', 'outta sight', and 'knock you off your feet' we began to discuss what the song meant. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so their homework assignment is to tell me in English their opinion of what the answer is to the question, "What is it?" And I stressed that "it's it" is not what I'm looking for. And to be fair, as those lyrics are so vague, I promised them I would come in with an interpretation as well.

My TOEIC class is so very easily my most entertaining. Just getting to sit around talking about stuff and have it called teaching is great. The week, up until today's class, was spent working on their skills in giving directions and describing people and places. I had them describe me, and was told by Chang-won that I have sexy lips. Obviously, I haven't broken him of his pick-up line habit yet. Still, they're my best class. I really like how they're willing to try to explain things to me even if they have no idea how. It makes classes go by so much better than those with my more reluctant students.

Well, on a completely different subject, I went on a bit of a walking adventure a few nights ago. I figured I'd spend the hour or so after work but before dark wandering around taking pictures. I ended up in a part of town I'd never been before, then I went around a corner and realized I was no longer actually in town at all. I walked along this farm road behind the hill that the temple in what I thought was the middle of town is on, knowing that it would lead me back in the general direction of home. It did just that, but once I'd gotten around the hill I noticed that the water level in the river had risen considerably and the road was washed out the rest of the way. It was really starting to get dark at this point and it was a long way back if I went around on the unlit road I had come in on which, incidentally, was also infested with rather large spiders. My only other option was to go over the hill. The hill is steep. The paths are narrow, windy and and at points slippery. Darkness was truly my enemy at this point. I decided that the quick route over the hill was the best route (really, any route that avoids large spiders is a good choice)in order to take advantage of the little bit of light left. I scrambled and slipped my way unscathed to the other side and got home with what I hope will be some good pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I do have some to share with you. The nature-ish ones are from my hike up to the Buddhist temple as recorded in Korean Dispatch #5. The social scenes are from 20: Can't come up with a clever title this time, sorry.

Well, here they are:


this is actually a house just across the street from the school


this is a Buddhist temple at the bottom of the mountain


and this is some bamboo part of the way up the mountain.

Debb did all the borders for these ones. It's kind of funny, really, to think that I had to take these pictures and develop them in Korea, but I sent them to Canada to be scanned in, then they got sent back to me in digital form to be posted here so people in Canada and elsewhere can see them.

These next shots were all taken by Edward at our last outing:


Cathy on the left, and two new people whose names I sadly don't remember. I do remember that the girl on the right is Cathy's friend from Pusan, though.


Me (with glowing redeye), Chu-Myun, Cathy and one of the two girls from the previous photo whose name I can't recall. She came in with Chu-Myun, though.


Peter on the right, and yet another person whose name eludes me. In my defence, I was introduced to many people that night and that was two weeks ago. Haven't seen any of them since (except Cathy, who I work with) to help drill their names into my head. You're lucky I remember the ones I do.


and this is me with the girls from the previous pictures.


at the Blue Moon bar, at the end of the evening. Note the elaborate fruit plate.

So, yes. You are now up to date, and have some pictures. As I get more pictures from Debb, I'll post them for you all. Have a lovely time.

Steave

21: Pick up lines, dragonflies, and a twist. And can I get that to go?

Hello all!
 
This past week has yet again been a quick one, but with an interesting twist at the end. I'll get to that in a bit.
 
My classes went fairly well. My favourite class is the TOEIC one with the university students. They actually seem like they want to be there for the most part, which is nice. They're picking up English phrases pretty quickly and I think they are now able to introduce themselves to people in English. My next goal is make those introductions not sound like a personals ad. Here's an example from earlier this week, "Hello, my name is Chang-wan. I'm 24 years old and I like walks along the river and hiking through the beautiful mountains." Actually, and this may just be my twisted mind, but I find that almost anything they say in an introduction sounds remarkably like some sort of pick up line. Another example, this time from the middle of an introductory conversation but again from Chang-wan, "Do you like to walk in the rain? I'd like you to visit my house." There are many examples of this, but I'll let it go for now. However, when they aren't sounding like they want to pick you up, they sound extremely formal, using phrases like, "Good evening, how do you do?" and "I would be honored for you to accept my invitation to dinner tomorrow evening." I really need to work on getting them to sound more casual, but I guess that will come with time.
 
The other classes all are sticking to their patterns of studious 11 year old boys, a reluctant 15 year old girl, and children bringing large, live insects to class. Things will change a bit next week though, as I'm told that every Friday will now be field trip day. I had my first field trip yesterday, and it was with the university students. We walked along the river, talked about hiking and music. It was fun. There were dragonflies everywhere. I've never seen so many of them.  But the field trips with that class will be every second Friday. Its the kids class I'll have to take out every Friday from now on. That has me very nervous as I often have a hard time controlling them in class. I can see them just wandering off or making me look like a complete ass somehow. I may in fact be a complete ass sometimes, but I don't actually want to look like one. One other schedule change is that I will be staying at the school until 7:30 each evening. They didn't tell what the reason was, just that I will be. So, anyone who was looking forward to talking to me on messenger in the wee hours of the morning (aka, Debb), you'll now have to stay up even later or just wait until the next day before I go to work.
 
So, that was my week for the most part. Now for the twist. After I was told about the schedule changes and field trips I was told another tidbit of information. Apparently if the school doesn't double its enrollment by the end of August, they're going to close it down. Now, before you get upset or worried, fear not, things are being taken care of. Should this school closure come to pass, I will simply (?) be placed at another school, likely in another city. This isn't that big a deal for me. I'm adaptable. Plus this will give me a greater exposure to Korea in general and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm fine with staying if the school stays open, but the thought of moving is pretty exciting to the truth. And starting anew somewhere else means I'll get my name back! Yay!
 
An now we are again caught up. Until next time,
 
Steave

20: Can't come up with a clever title this time, sorry

Hmm, well, it looks as though it has been a full week since I posted something, so I guess I'm due.

I've had a new class added to my schedule since we last talked. This one consists of college students looking to study for their TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication). From what I can gather, there are 3-5 people in this class. Now, as I've already taught this class three times, you might think I'd have a more clear idea as to the number of students but so far only two have been there for every class with the other three coming and going with no discernible pattern (perhaps three days is too early for trying to note patterns, however). Not yet have I had a full class of five, but haven't had less than three yet either. It's a three hour class, including a couple of breaks. I get the middle portion (about 50 minutes), and I'm to focus on situational conversational skills. Things have been hit and miss so far. I think they may be past their shyness and are certainly trying, but I may be trying material that's too advanced right now. Tomorrow I'll try something simpler. Don't know what yet, but something. This new class has also changed my schedule a bit so that I now have no break at all from 2-6. However, 4 hours without a break really isn't that bad, so I'm not complaining.

On the weekend, after a week layoff, Edward and I went out again. This time we had a whole bunch of other people join us. It was a good time. We went for more Korean BBQ. It was pointed out that we were eating pork cheeks this time. It was good, but I didn't notice that it was any different from other pork. I experienced a rather friendly Korean custom during dinner as I was fed by another person. She, a girl by the name of Chu-Myun, wrapped some pork in a leaf and popped it into my mouth. I felt obligated to reciprocate and this was encouraged by all. Later, this same girl and I had a bit of a hot pepper eating contest. The collective gasp at the table as I took a substantial bite of hot pepper dipped liberally in hot pepper paste was absolutely great. Does no one outside of North America believe that a North American can eat spicy food? It was my crowning glory for the evening. Afterwards, Chu-Myun and I toasted our pepper eating glory by linking elbows and downing a shot of soju. After the BBQ pork came some tasty Kimchi and mushroom soup.

After food, we headed to a bar called Blue Moon. This bar was easily the trendiest of the bars I've been to yet. Simple white brick walls with black wood trim and blue lighting with couches for seating. The customers themselves also seemed a bit trendier. We sat around, talking and drinking beer for a while, then the bartender came around and passed out bingo cards for us all. It was up to us to write down the numbers 1-30 on the paper, wherever we wanted, and whatever table got fives lines first won their choice of a bottle of whiskey or a gift certificate of some sort. We lost. But a fun time was had by all.

Not much else has gone on lately, thus the lack of postings. Fear not, I'll be sure to let you all know of anything of interest that happens, and probably a few things not that interesting, too.

Steave

*** update on a previous posting ***
it's been pointed out by my Korean friends that I had spelled Steave wrong in Korean (which I thought was funny as they had spelled it wrong in English, but its not my name anyway, so no matter). Instead of ㅅ팁 like I had before, its 스티브, which if you are familiar with the way Korean reads, turns a one syllable English name into a three syllable Korean name (seh-ti-beh, with the accent on the middle syllable, as they say it). So yeah, I sure wrote a lot for such a minor correction. But don't forget to mail me stuff!!!

19: Camping, Banking, and Aging

Have I mentioned before the similarities between my time in Korea and an extended camping trip? There are many.

I'm sure I've mentioned my exclusive cooking tool, the Sun Touch Portable Gas Range (aka camping stove). I get much use out of that. Plus everything I cook on it is done in my solitary pot. Very much like a camping trip with me where I forget to take something important like a frying pan.

But the similarities go beyond the camping stove. For one, there's the constant scent of mosquito coil smoke (aka camping incense). Without that blessed smoke, I'm sure we'd all be swollen, puffy masses of itch. I get pretty close regardless, and can only imagine how much worse it would be without those wonderful little coils.

But wait, there's more! Korean coffee is terrible. It's highly sweetened and milky instant junk (aka camping coffee). It's everywhere, too. Vending machines dispense it in little paper cups, or if you prefer, cold and in a can, and these machines can be found on practically every block. The vending machines are not all that camping like, but the coffee itself sure is.

As well, there are the cold showers I'm forced to take due to not wanting to spend the cash on heating oil right now. I'll take care of that come winter. Right now I'm willing to suffer, and really, on some days its pretty nice. Mostly, though, its not. It actually tends to make me shower less than my usual daily routine, which can make me on some days a bit smelly and greasy, and really, you don't get much more camping than that.

On top of these is the inconsistent weather which is stormy one day, hazy and humid another, or blazing hot on others. That is the epitome of any camping trip I've ever been on.

Add on to these the fact that I've been spending most of my spare time playing my guitar, and you've got a camping trip. Now, obviously not everything is like camping. I'm not sleeping in a tent (although, the roof leaks so I can't say as I'm truly out of the elements). I'm sitting at a computer, so that's not really camping-like, and I am in a city, thus have easy access to many things not available while camping. I also don't get to light bonfires and roast wieners in my living room. They frown on that here for some reason. And no one wants to be frowned upon.

In other observational news, I noticed that my bank also doubles as a small grocery store. In every respect except for that, it is an average looking bank. Then you look to the right and see a wall of shelving filled with huge bags of rice and beans, jars of jellies and pastes, and bottles of various juices. I'm told that my bank is the Korean Bank of Agriculture, so I guess it makes a little sense, but I still find it odd.

So, I had the age thing I was confused by before explained to me. I still have a hard time with it, but this is why I'm 31 here as opposed to 29 at home. First off, a persons age here is meant to include the time spent in the womb, but seeing as how it's extremely difficult, in most cases, to pinpoint the exact day of conception, they have decided that everybody will be considered a year older on January 1st. Now, what if you were born on that date, or on some other date early in the year? Well, that problem was solved by just adding a year. Thus, since I was born in 1974, my age is calculated as such: 2004-1974+1=31. Now, they certainly solved the problem of including the gestation time in age for people born early in the year, but this brings about an entirely different issue for people like me who were born late in the year. You see, by this method of age calculation, I was a year old months before even being conceived. As well, I turned two only thirteen days after being born. So, I just have to go with the fact that I'm a youthful 31 here and that I turn 32 thirteen days after I turn 30. In the past few years (I don't know how many, could be 20-30, could be 5) people here have been celebrating their "western birthdays" on the date of their birth. I think this is just to give them another reason to go out and party, but hey, that's fine by me. But there is one thing I do like about the January 1st thing. I makes for one hell of a birthday party on New Years Eve.

One more thing, I finally got around to looking into why using my real name wouldn't be appropriate here, and the results were not at all what I thought. I was expecting to find something terrible. Instead my name pronounced properly, you know the French Guy (기 in Korean) means 'flag.' The English pronunciation, guy (개), means 'dog,' so I can see the issue with that. The only other approximation of my name I could think of, gui (귀), means 'ear.' So, really, I'm not sure why I needed to change my name. I can deal with being Flag for a year. But it's too late now. I think I'm stuck with Steave.

And again, until next time,

Steave

18: Hot and Steamy

It was a hot and steamy Monday night, but most nights lately are. Well, they're hot and steamy. Monday still only comes once a week. Anyway, it was hot and steamy, and I was recovering from a mildly frustrating day of small children going wild and bigger children being unresponsive. I was up in my living room, playing my guitar, feeling much more relaxed than I had earlier, when suddenly James appears. He tells me that the director wants to talk to me. I was concerned, especially as I didn't feel that that day was anywhere near my most effective at work. Maybe it showed more than I thought. Thoughts such as these assailed me as I made my way down the dark stairway.

We entered the school, and like the stairway, all was dark. The only light appeared to be coming from a small lamp in the director's office, next to her computer. She sat silhouetted at the table, watching us approach. Or, at least I assumed she was watching. She was silhouetted, so it was hard to say for sure. We arrived in the office and she motioned for us to sit. As we sat she said something in Korean to James. It was short, and I'm assuming to the point, because afterwards there was silence. No translation. No speaking whatsoever. We sat there, looking at one another, and when that became too much, at other, random, things. The director said something to James, again. He nodded, then asked something. She turned around and pulled a thick envelope out of a drawer. She faced us again, tapping the envelope against her fingers, looking at me and smiling. I was thoroughly baffled, and slightly scared, at this point.

Then the phone rang. I jumped a bit. The director answered it, said a few quick things, then got up and left without saying another word to us, taking the envelope with her. I asked James what was going on. He said not to worry, that everything is being sorted out, but wouldn't elaborate further. I still didn't even know what needed to be sorted out.

The director returned. She strode rather purposefully into the office, resumed her seat and placed the envelope, which seemed to have gotten even thicker, on the table. She smiled at me and slid it across the table to me. I looked at her, then at James, then at the envelope, then at my shoe, then at her again, and shrugged. I took the envelope. The envelope stuffed to capacity with cash.

She said something to James, who prompted me to count, "to make sure its all there." I was still a bit confused, but it suddenly dawned on me. I was getting paid! I had figured that wasn't going to come for another week or so at the earliest. The whole Mafia payola scene still had me a little off balance, and I wasn't at all sure what was in need of sorting out ealier, but I went ahead and counted it. It was all there. A full months pay, in cash, in an envelope. A good way to end a moderately bad day.

The following day (today), I went to distribute that cash to those fine institutions that temporarily funded my education. It was either that or my first born son, and really Keegan, you don't want to live at the bank. No toys, and they frown upon arts and crafts with the currency. So they get my money instead. Getting it to them was a process, to be sure. I had to fill out transfer forms, try to remember the address of my bank (who remembers that stuff?), some running back and forth between the bank and my house for ID, bank addresses and such, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff like that. Thankfully, after a half hour or so that was over.

On to teach. Teaching today was much better than yesterday. One of my favorite things about student workbooks and textbooks is the use of names for people. I love it when somehow they happen to stumble across the name of someone I know. Now, I'm not talking about just a first name. That's nothing. But when a first and last name come together, it's pretty cool. Especially when it puts that person in a scenario they could never possibly be in. In this case, we have one Nocash Jones (not someoneI know, if anyone is curious) being interviewed by the police who are looking for his best friend, one Mary Cleaver. It seems she's on the lam in Australia for unknown crimes. How is old Nocash these days anyway, Mary? Hope you're enjoying Australia.

Well, back to that hot and steamy business mentioned earlier. I also mentioned that this was the rainy season in a previous update, right? Yeah, well, what I thought was the rainy season before was actually the tail end of a typhoon that apparently killed some people in the north part of South Korea and a couple of others in Japan. The rainy season itself arrived a few days later. I was a little suspect of how that storm didn't count as part of the rainy season, but I was assured that "the real rainy season" was starting a few days later, specifically on Thursday the 24th. It's nice to know the weather is so well scheduled here. Well, we're now nearly a week into the "real" rainy season and really, it should be called the cloudy and humid season. Or even more simply, the wet season. There has been very little rain, but one still ends up soaked right through when they go anywhere outside the 5m radius of a strongly blowing fan. Actual rain would be quite nice right about now.

So, once again we are up to date. One final thing though, I got a few responses about the email with the addresses in it. After discarding the ones that laughed at my feeble attempts to get entertaining packages in the mail, there were ones that pointed out that not everyone has Korean language settings on their computer, so that version of the address turned out rather strangely. I'm going to try again on this blog thing (those of you who don't view the blog will now get my addresses emailed to you a second time). Likely the same thing will happen, but it's worth a try, plus it gives my address more exposure and thus the higher likelihood of someone sending me something. So here they are again, my addresses in English and Korean:

Teacher Steave
c/o ELC Foreign Language Institute
Milyang City, Gyeongsangnam-do
Sammoondong 219-26 (4F)
South Korea
627-805

교사 스티브
배려의 E.L.C. 외국어학원
경남 밀양시 삼문동 219-26번지 (4F)
남한
627-805

And there you have it. Until next time...

Steave

Oh yeah. I mentioned something about troubles seeing the blog site. I haven't heard back from anyone saying they're having a problem, so I'll assume it's just me. I can still post, and that's good. But if anyone is putting up comments, I can't read them. That doesn't mean stop doing so, but maybe you could email them to me as well as post them? That'd be super. Thanks

*** edit ***
it's been pointed out by my Korean friends that I had spelled Steave wrong in Korean (which I thought was funny as they had spelled it wrong in English, but its not my name anyway, so no matter). Instead of ㅅ팁 like I had before, its 스티브, which if you are familiar with the way Korean reads, turns a one syllable English name into a three syllable Korean name (seh-ti-beh, with the accent on the middle syllable, as they say it). So yeah, I sure wrote a lot for such a minor correction. But don't forget to mail me stuff!!!

17: Singing and cleaning

Well, my weekend has come and gone. My place is actually clean for the first time since coming here. It feels pretty good. The showerhead system here makes for an easy time cleaning the bathroom. Just a quick wipe with cleaning product, then spray the whole room down. It's perfect.

As for actual fun stuff, I went out with Edward again on Friday night, forgoing our usual Saturday ritual. We went out again for Korean BBQ. It was good, but not as good as last time. We had the spiced pork last time, this time just plain pork. The sauce was different and less tasty, and there were less side dishes and such. Oh well. We were joined by a new person by the name of Pah Mi-Yung. I had gotten so used to people introducing themselves to me by their English names, plus it was very loud in there, that I thought she said Pamela. I was corrected very quickly. She doesn't have an English name, which I think is great, to tell the truth. She does have a nickname, though, which apparently means "I like to drink" in a mix of Japanese and Korean. It was true, as she easily out drank Edward and I in both soju and later, beer.

Along that topic, we followed food by going next door to the pub. We were joined by Ivy, from last week, whose Korean name is Mi-Dong. Later, another person joined us. I never got his name, but I did learn that he is 23 years old. Mi-Dong left early to do some studying and the nameless guy had to go do something, but the rest of us (me, Edward, and Mi-Yung) decided that some karaoke was a good idea.

Karaoke in Korea is slightly different than your typical karaoke at home, and much better if you ask me. Every group gets its own room to sing in. That way, you don't have to sing in front of the entire bar, just your friends. There are way more songs listed, too. However, sometimes certain songs won't work, such as the entire Beatles catalog except for Yesterday, due to copyright laws. It's interesting to see songs like Ms. Jackson and St. Anger on the karaoke list. We had some good drunken singing fun.

So yeah, yesterday was a recovery day, today was a cleaning day and that catches us up. Last week was so fast. A good one, though. Hopefully I'll have more like that.

Steave

16: I Want to Hug Everyone

And so again, I'm updating far earlier than I expected to. It's amazing how one has more to say when one does more stuff, isn't it?

Tuesday was a pretty nondescript day, so I'm not really going to get into it in detail. So, without detail, I woke up, sat around, went to teach, came home, ate, chatted on messenger, read, went to bed. The details of what I chatted about and what I read are of no importance to most, thus I'll keep them to myself.

Wednesday started out much the same. Classes were a bit more pleasant than Tuesdays (I've actually always had a problem with Tuesdays and Thursday, they grate on me for some reason), but for the most part the day was also pretty nondescript. After classes, though, a shift in the usual took place.

Edward showed up immediately upon my leaving my last afternoon class. He left work early for a dentist appointment and stopped by to say "hi" afterwards. A rather frustrating conversation, for me anyway, took place between Edward, James, Cathy (the other Korean teacher) and the director (who is no longer Cindy, but no one knows what she's decided on for an English name, and as she does not wish me to call her Mrs. Kim, she shall simply be the director). There were motions towards the power for the computer, my name, the miming of running, and laughter. When I asked what had been said, no explanation was offered and the topic was changed. I was baffled and a bit irritated to tell the truth. There wasn't much I could do though. Anyway, I had my evening class later, so I figured it would be a quick "hello" with Edward and he'd go home to dinner with his family, and I'd go upstairs to my noodles and tuna then prepare for class. This was not the case.

Instead, Edward invited me to go and have dinner with his family at his mother-in-laws house. I was a little intimidated by this, but readily agreed. It was all quite good. I don't know why I was intimidated. I should just know by now that the people here are friendly almost to a fault and that the food is awesome. I've decided that dried octopus in hot pepper paste is one of my favourite dishes. However, despite the warnings that almost everything is going to be very spicy, nothing ever really is. It all tastes quite good, but the warnings about spice seem a bit much. Every meal someone tells me, "oh, that's spicy, maybe have this instead" or some approximation of that, but so far nothing has even been remotely spicy. I blame Debb for this. Yes, Debb, you. You've ruined my taste buds forever.

Anyway, after dinner, Edward and I went for a walk along the river (if I didn't know otherwise, I'd think he was courting me). All along the path that circled my part of town there were speakers playing marching music. It was rather interesting. Certainly it kept us walking at good, steady pace. During this walk, Edward explained to me the reason that those trees I mentioned in an earlier update were fenced off with a path through them. Apparently the Korean pine tree is in need of protection, but people want to be able to walk or jog past them. Thus, a fenced off area with a path through the middle and around the outside. Later during the walk, Edward got a call on his cell phone from the director telling him that the evening class was no more. All the students had pulled out and I no longer was needed to be there at 9:00. This wasn't just for that night, this was the end of that class. For the time being, my evenings were now free. So, Edward and I decided that this news was deserving of going and having a beer. Seeing as I had no one to teach that night, a beer sounded good. Circular logic is so much fun.

So we went to a bar, had a couple of pints and talked politics. I explained Canadian politics to him, at least to the best of my ability, and he explained Korean politics to me. I told him what the dominant political parties in Canada were, their names and basic ideals. He gave me the names and ideals for the Korean ones. I'm pretty sure something was lost in the translation because the English names of the three main political parties in Korea, by his translation, are the Democratic Labor Party, the Grand National Party, and the We Want to Hug Everyone Party. Seriously. This is a direct quote. Apparently, the We Want to Hug Everyone Party is currently in power. I'd vote for them. They sound nice. We talked about our political points of view after that, me being a leftist, he being middle of the road, but leaning slightly right. We agreed that we each have our points, but we'll never agree completely. It's all good. Then we went to our respective homes.

So, that gets us to now. I'll be back out with Edward on Friday. It seems going out with Edward gives me some good stories, so expect more soon.

Steave

15: More Cultural Collisions

So, I realize it's only been a day since I last blogged, but I feel I have more to add, thus I'm back.

Music will one of two topics in today's update. The other will be the assumptions that go with Korean people dealing with me (and likely other North Americans), and vice versa.

First, the music. I was out grocery shopping today, and it was your typical music playing in the background. You know the stuff; forgettable, bland, generic, lite-pop junk, but with Korean words. Then comes this song. It's not unusual at all to start. Just another boring song. Then the chorus hits. It takes me a second to realize that it's a Korean version of Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop." It's absolutely note perfect. Then back to the unmemorable verses, followed by the chorus again. It's so unusual. Later, I went out to a pub on my own (I'll get more into that in a bit). The music was basically the same as that heard at the grocery store, minus the Cyndi Lauper rip. Instead, I hear this song that's a seamless blend of Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart," R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," and "Some Totally Forgettable Crap" by Boyz II Men, all sung in Korean with the occasional English line dealing with "the condition of my heart." All it told me was how easy it is to write such songs and make a lot of money. But I think I knew that before. Why I haven't cashed in yet is undetermined.

Now to topic two, which happened at the same time as part two of topic one. I went out to a pub by myself for the first time since arriving in Korea (I know, it's been a month, but it's a bit intimidating). I made the horrible mistake of leaving both my notebook and Lonely Planet guide at home. This would haunt me for my entire visit. I sit down, and am immediately asked, "How many here?" My answer is, "One," with appropriate index finger raised to ensure all is clear. Immediately after my answer I am asked if I speak Korean. My answer is, "Aniyo," or simply, "No." When the time comes to order, I get myself a big-ass glass of beer and randomly point at a menu item in my price range under "side orders." My big-ass beer arrives, and it really is quite large, along with some popcorn and some square-shaped pretzel-like things coated in sugar. I drink my beer and nibble on the nibblies while trying to find something to occupy my eyes. There's a TV, but it's under a populated table and I feel self-conscious looking that way. Next time, I get a window table and/or bring my notebook. Luckily, my food arrives quickly. It turns out that I just happened to point to the only thing on the menu that was printed in English, the pork cutlet. Strangely, I remember seeing it, but on a different page from that which I ordered from, thus I know that's not what I actually ordered. It was under "entrees" and I specifically ordered from the "side orders" portion of the menu. If I had managed to say something during my ordering, rather than just point, I would put it all down to a translation problem. But I pointed at an item. I'm fairly certain it wasn't a pork cutlet with sides of arrowhead-shaped chicken nuggets, mexi-fries, crinkle-cut fries, and a horrible looking coleslaw topped with what I can only guess was some sort of thousand island dressing and ketchup. I can only assume that they assumed that I would not want whatever it was I pointed at, being a foreigner and all, and gave me their most "western" meal. I only have myself to blame, really, for not bringing my trusty Lonely Planet guide with my for assistance. I'll remember it for next time, which is likely later this week. The beer was ordered successfully, though. Ah, the universal language of beer. Where would I be without it?

So, in conclusion, I have to say, you were right, Steph. Going out tonight did give me a decent story.

Steave

PS More great spell check fun, Cyndi Lauper was recommended to be cyanide lover. How nice.

14: The gills are coming in nicely, despite the itch

Since we last met, it's been raining. Not an occasional drizzle, but four straight days of downpour. Today the sun came out. That only made the moisture worse. Heavy humidity is never a pleasant thing. The river is suddenly running very high and very muddy. I was told the rainy season was coming. I didn't put much stock in it. I was told the same thing in Mexico, but it only really rained once (it was torrential, to be sure, but still only one night). I'm told it's supposed to rain fairly heavily for approximately a month. I know I can handle it, that's no problem. I do make Vancouver my home, after all. The rain here doesn't cool things off at all though. It remains very warm, and becomes very wet. It's uncomfortable. As well, it appears that the roof leaks in a few spots, most notably over what looks to be a fuse box. That's a little scary. Nothing bad has happened as yet and all people are aware that should be aware.

Related to the rain are the mosquitoes. No travel log would be complete without some mention of the local mosquitoes. Those here are not large. They're not that plentiful, either. But their bites result in bumps the size of a quarter, or bigger, which stand out from the skin a good half centimeter and itch something terrible. I recommend avoiding the mosquitoes here.

In other recent news, teaching is still plodding along. Friday was no fun. A kid cried again in my class (the same one as last time). He was throwing other kids pencil cases out the window and I made him stop. I don't like making kids cry. Sometimes, teaching is no fun.

Went on a quick hike up a mountain during a break in the rain on Saturday morning. I got some pictures, hopefully they'll turn out and I can get them onto this for you all to see. After that, I went out for dinner with Edward. We were joined by very nice lady by the name of Ivy. The food was a tasty seafood soup. Korea appears to be a seafood lovers dream come true as it is plentiful and cheap. They brought out the soju during the meal. I was far better prepared this time, which only means that I knew what was coming, not that I could avoid it.

I learned during conversations during the meal that in Korea, I would be considered 31 years old. I'm not completely sure how that works, but they assured me it's true. Since I was born in 1974, I'm 31, not 29 like I thought. I left Canada as 29 year old Guy. I'll return as 31 (or maybe even 32 by then) year old Steave. I knew coming to a different country was going to require some adjustments on my part, but I didn't think I'd end up 2 years older with a different name. Who knows, I may even look different when I get back.

Until next time,

Steave

13: My Oxymoron

Every time I start to think, "Hmm, yeah they speak a different language, but really things aren't that different from home," some small thing is seen or heard that causes me to realize that many things are very different at their root and just appear similar most of the time.
Good examples from past updates are pubs, traffic, and the kitchen/bathroom in my apartment. Along this line of thought, I want to relate a couple of other occurrences I have witnessed, two I have noticed throughout my stay, the other an event that happened in class.
The first has to do with school here. First of all, everybody wears uniforms from middle school through high school. It doesn't appear that elementary school children wear them. My experience with uniforms and school is the opposite. Only a select few (an unfortunate few, in my mind) are required to wear uniforms at Canadian schools. You all know that. Everybody does here. It has nothing to do with going to a private or religious school, it's just how things are done. As well, kids never stop going to school throughout the day. Once public school is over, kids go on to extra classes their parents signed them up for, be that English, Taekwondo, math, or anything else extra study is needed for. From early morning until midnight in some cases, kids are at school. They go to public school on Saturday for half a day, then on to extra classes. Sunday is the only day off of public school, but extra classes are there to take up that time, too. It's pretty scary. I'm sure not every child goes to school seven days a week, but there are many that do.
The second observation is that friends hold hands wherever they go. It is not uncommon to see two fifteen year old boys walking through town hand in hand. Same goes for girls, or friends of the opposite sex. How great! There's nothing more positive than seeing an open declaration of friendship. It's something not seen in Canada, at least not very often.
The third one was a bit odd. I went to class yesterday, the day was pretty normal. When I got to the class of kids, there was the sound of a bird chirping. I figured one of the kids brought some sort of bird toy. It was no toy (but ironically, the boy who had the bird decided the week before that his English name would be Toy). In a small plastic bag was a baby chick, wrapped in newspaper. In itself, this was not too strange. Kids like animals and sometimes will bring one to class. The fact that it was a baby chick and not a puppy, or some other more pet-like animal, was a little a bit odd to me, but not beyond my capacity to deal with. However, the fact that this bird was a bright hot pink really confused me. Is it normal for a baby bird, and I'm pretty sure it was a chicken, duck, or some other kind of future poultry, to be this colour? I suppressed my confusion, taught the kids the words "bird", "baby", and "pink" and got on with my alphabet lesson.

Anyway, despite the above things, or more accurately, regardless of them, this week has been my most comfortable one yet here. I feel far better about my classes and my ability to instruct. I am more comfortable with my surroundings, with the fact that I am going to stick out wherever I go and with the mutual lack of understanding when talking to people. As well, I am especially pleased with a small change in my teaching schedule. My night class (9:30-10:30) is now shared among three of us and we've set it up so that every third night one of us teaches it and the other two get the evening off. I like that. And the class itself is good, too. So teaching a full hour of it is no problem.

Ok, I've rambled long enough. You'll likely hear from me again on the weekend.
Steave

12: On Display

So, since my meaningless midweek posting last time, I've had some fun.
Thursday wasn't much, other than trying to survive a group of hyped up seven year olds intent on destroying my sanity. I got through it.
Friday's classes were basically the same. Those kids, yikes... How does one keep a rambunctious Korean child, or seven of them, in check?
After classes on Friday, James (aka Mr. Ahn, aka banana mayonnaise man) took me out for beer. I've come to realize that I can never keep up with the average Korean when it come to drinking. They just don't stop once started. This drinking trip, at a place called "Western Bar," was highlighted by the group of Koreans across the bar repeatedly lunging at each yelling "FUCK YOU" at the top of their lungs (and Keegan, if you're reading this, remember that saying that to anyone will get in a whole lot of trouble. No fun).
Early Saturday was spent being stupid to Debb online (sorry again about that, Debb). Edward came by and took me out for lunch. We had ramen noodles (which I've been living off of recently) and Korean sushi (Gimbap). Korean sushi is different than Japanese sushi in that instead of seafood it uses ham and fried egg. It was not at all what I expected.
Later, Edward and I went to get dinner, which is quickly becoming a Saturday ritual. We went to this wonderful restaurant which served seafood and a variety of mushrooms cooked right on your table, It was the best meal I've had yet, even beating out the Korean BBQ from last week.
After dinner we went for the requisite drinking. We went to two pubs, the second of which Edward tried valiantly to get a group of girls to let us join them. He was both extremely drunk and completely unsuccessful.
I noticed tonight some interesting things. Korean pub culture is not that far different from Canadian pub culture. There are some minor differences though. The food, for one, is odd. It seems one is required to order something to eat while they drink and this generally consists of a whole dried animal from the sea, an intricate fruit plate, or bits of canned fruit floating in a giant bowl of watery yogurt. Another difference is the ubiquitous use of scissors to cut all large food into smaller portions. There are more, but I can't remember them right now.
As well, I feel the need to point out that while I was wandering about with Edward today, I felt like I was on display. I am the only foreigner in town. Thus, everyone must either say hello to me, point and giggle at me, or feel extremely shy about even looking at me. It was almost like being a celebrity, but one that no one actually knows. It is strange.
And that catches us up to mow, with me sitting at my computer past midnight typing up a new update for you all. Enjoy!
Steve/Guy/Steave (as they seem to want to spell it here)

11: Stage Two of the Culture Shock Phenomenon

So, I really haven't done anything since the last posting except listen to the Flames lose, teach my classes, eat and sleep. I've definitely entered the reclusive stage of culture shock. This is a rather quick movement through the stages, really, so I expect to be fully adjusted in just another couple of weeks (I may, however, be entering the delusional idealistic stage instead). I also intend on remedying this reclusiveness by returning to wandering around. I bought some film for my camera, so I'll be able to take pictures. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how to post them on here, plus I have no known access to a scanner at present, so I won't be able to share them as yet. As well, I haven't taken any yet. I'll probably start tomorrow, though. We'll see.
Teaching is going well enough. I think my students might actually be learning something from me, which is good, as I was unsure about that last week. The classes keep getting switched up with missing teachers, new students, etc. It's a good thing I react well to change.
I have been invited out again for dinner on Saturday with Edward. He seems to like me and want to get me out to enjoy Korea. Ok, I'll go along with that. We're apparently going to a Korean mushroom and seafood restaurant. He has warned me that it is spicy. So far, everything that I have been warned of being spicy, hasn't really been, but I'm sure one of these times it will surprise me in a painful way. I'm looking forward to it. You'll likely hear about it in my next update.
Hmmm, this update was really short and pointless, wasn't it? Oh well, enjoy it anyway. Why? Because I said so.
Steve
PS I love spell check! It just prompted me to replace Korean with Kenny, and Hmmm with hammy.

10: Creeping Death (aka Soju)

Friday was a good day. I listened to the Flames win in overtime then had a great day teaching despite a last minute change thrown at me. One of the Korean teachers couldn't come in, so I had to teach full classes instead of splitting them like we usually do. It went remarkably well. I taught the class of one boy to play Go Fish using flashcards and spent the hour with the other kids class playing with paper, scissors, glue and ribbons. It was fun. My evening class was pretty good, too. I wrote up some conversational scenarios with grammatical errors and got them to read them and fix the mistakes. A good day altogether.
Early Saturday was mostly uneventful. I was woken up again by city wide announcements, which I found out later were inducements to get people to vote in a local election (thus the politician in an earlier update. It's all coming together...). Then I sat at the computer for a while, attempted to go for a walk but it was just way too hot.
Edward came by later and we wandered around, then stopped at a place for Korean BBQ (or Bulgogi as it's called in Korean). It was so good. I think I want all my food cooked on a grill in the middle of the table and wrapped in a leaf. One leaf tasted a lot like mint. I was told it was called Getnib (or something similar). I found that intriguing as it sounded a lot like catnip, which is a kind of mint. Edward assured me it wasn't catnip. It was so tasty. While eating, we had some beer. Then shared a bottle of soju, which is a powerful little rice beverage, but acts all innocent. It tasted pretty good. We drank it fairly quickly. Then we had more beer. We finished dinner, and I was feeling a bit tipsy, but less so than I expected. We decided to go for more beer. We went back to "Loss Time" and had said beer. It had been a good 30-45 minutes since the food and soju, so I figured any effects would already be evident. I was wrong. Like a wave, drunkenness washed over me in an instant. I couldn't keep my head up. I couldn't make myself understood. I don't remember much after that.
I woke up this morning lying face down on top of the covers of my bed, still fully clothed, including shoes. I felt awful. I went to get some water and discovered a trail of bread crusts around my rooms. The rest of the loaf of bread was on a chair and very squished. I have no idea how this happened.
It's now a quarter to four, and I'm feeling much better, despite having listened to the Flames lose in overtime and hearing what sounded like a bomb alert siren. I still don't know what that was about.
In conclusion, I recommend extreme caution when drinking soju. It's insidious.
Until next time,
Steve

#9: Short, yet rambling

Well, for days two and three of teaching I felt much more at ease. There were no crying children, the shy people were less so and I just plain had more of an idea of what I was supposed to be doing.
Outside of teaching though, I have done absolutely nothing the past two days. Seriously. I bought some household supplies, I ate, slept, and talked to my computer people. I'll break out of that on the weekend I'm sure. I think it all has to do with this being my first week of teaching.
On a side note, I was woken up this morning by what sounded like a general announcement for the entire city. The only word I recognized was the one for the name of the province Miryang is in (Gyeongsangnam-do). So, something is happening in this province. I looked out the window. No one was running around screaming, crouching down low and covering their heads, heading for bomb shelters or otherwise panicking, so I can only assume the news was, if not good, at least harmless.
This is also a good time, seeing as this update is so short, to share my views on how people drive here. It's controlled chaos. Pedestrians seem to have the right of way. Drivers will stop for them. The roads, and sometimes even the sidewalks, are shared fairly equally by all. As for the car to car relationships, I'd have to say they're dominated by polite aggression. Do you want to turn left onto a busy road? Well, gradually creep out into the intersection until the oncoming traffic has to stop for you. It's different than Mexico, where its just plain chaos and lanes are ignored, people go at whatever speed they deem necessary, etc. Here people very politely make it known that they are going to do something, then do it. Also, very few intersections in Miryang have traffic lights, so the above applies to many major intersections. Cars just slow down, look around, then creep into the intersection. It's fun to watch, really.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I think I'm finally getting used to sitting in a room with people speaking Korean and referring to me, gesturing at me, etc., but never translating to me what they were talking about. I think it might be a little like being in a zoo.
Crocodile Steve

Log #8: Two teachers and an octopus walk into a bar...

So once again, immediately after uploading the last posting, my new buddy Edward arrived and took me out. This time, it was a pub called "Loss Time." On the inside, it was just like any pub I might find at home. I was immediately comfortable. Edward ordered us some beer and some munchie food. All Korean pub food is apparently some sort of dry appetizer type thing. Edward decided that the dried octopus would be good. That sounded interesting. I was expecting strips of octopus, possibly battered. Instead what arrived was basically a whole, small octopus, dried and slightly warm. We tore it into manageable strips, dipped them into mayonnaise or hot sauce and ate. It was chewy, but tasty. It was octopus jerky. We spent the evening drinking beer, talking about sports and girls. How male bonding.
The next day was my first day of teaching. First came listening to a rather frustrating hockey game, then came the anxiousness as to what I was going to do. When I got downstairs to meet the other teachers and plan for classes I discovered that another class had been added to the schedule. Just one student who needed his basics like the alphabet and greetings brushed up before moving on to the next level. So, I would now be teaching three classes of a half hour each right in a row. I needed to prepare.
The first class went ok. He was much further ahead than I had been led to believe and I quickly ran out of material to teach him. The last 10 minutes of that class were a struggle, but I got through. Now I know his level and can better prepare for today's class.
The second class was more difficult. It was again just one student, a 15 year old girl who was quite shy and had trouble looking at me without giggling. My goal was to assess her conversational English abilities so I asked her basic questions about herself some of which she understood others she didn't, and had her ask me questions too. She was very quiet and her answers were quite short so it was another very long half hour.
The third class was a group of 5 seven year olds and one 40 year old lady. There were some difficulties in communication, and one of the little boys ended up crying because he didn't understand, but all in all, the class went ok once he settled down.
After that intensive hour and a half I was really hungry and craving pizza. I went to one place and, despite being the only customer in the store, was completely ignored by the guy working there. So, I went to another place. The staff was quite nice and helpful. While sitting inside waiting for my pizza I was accosted by yet another middle aged drunk guy who insisted on talking aggressively to me despite the fact it was obvious I didn't know what he was saying. He was getting more and more agitated until the pizza place staff had to kick him out. I just wanted to back to my rooms and eat/hide for a while.
I had one class left, two late high school girls, but it was a breeze. We were giving them a preliminary English comprehension test to see what their level was. No teaching involved at all for that class, at least for that night.
And now it's Wednesday morning. I feel a little better prepared for classes today, at least mentally, I still have to decided what to bring and all that. I should go do that.
Steve

Message 7: Shaking Things Up a Bit

So, a couple of hours after posting the last update on Saturday, I was sitting around, reading my book, when the building starts to shake. I thought at first that maybe some heavy vehicle was going by, but it seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time to get past. The shaking wasn't much, but it was consistent and last about 30 seconds. I began to suspect an earthquake. I looked online for live earthquake trackers, but they came up with nothing for this area. I figured I was still checking too early, and left it until Sunday morning. Turns out, I was right. A shallow earthquake out in the Sea of the East (aka Sea of Japan), just off the South Korean coast, an earthquake of 5.3 on the Richter Scale occurred (considered a moderate quake). It was apparently felt throughout the country, but no damage or injuries occurred. I thought that was pretty cool. Click on the title of this posting for the link to the site that confirmed what the shaking builing told me.
Other than that experience, my weekend was extremely uneventful. I listened to the hockey game on Sunday morning, then went for lunch with Edward and his family. We went to a new nearby Japanese restaurant and had pork cutlets. They were tasty enough. Nothing spectacularly good, though. He also bought me a book to help me learn Korean. I thought that was awfully nice of him. I spent the rest of the day reading and looking at potential lesson plans for classes next week.
This morning (Monday) I again did very little. I looked at more lesson plans and chatted on the computer. In the afternoon I met up with my fellow teachers to discuss tomorrow's plans. Classes begin on Tuesday and it was time to prepare. There really wasn't much for us to do. We saw our schedules and I'll be teaching a well advanced 15 year old girl first, then a class of younger kids just starting out. My day starts at about 4:00pm. I'll also be teaching a class of high school students and adults who are also fairly well along in their English until about 10:30pm. And that is my schedule every night for next week and likely at least a little while after.
On a side note, I discovered that there is a stalactite forming in the stairwell leading up to my rooms. I've named it Roger.
I'll let you know how my first day of teaching went in my next posting.
Go Flames.
Crocodile Steve

Entry 6: Change and Power

I may have mentioned in a past update that plans change. The following provides some examples.

I left off last mentioning that we were going campaigning again and that I would be in Ulsan on Friday. This is all true. First, it was decided that I should be given a quick overview of the books we use in class before we went out campaigning. Ok, no big deal. I flip through the books, listen to some learning tapes (which are really quite irritating; you'd think they could choose some better music), I'm asked my opinion on which books are better, then we're off to campaign. This is a small example of a very minor and inconsequential way things change.
Campaigning this time took place outside the McDonald's, which is downtown. Koreans, possibly even more than the average North American, are drawn to this place. This was our shortest and most successful day of campaigning this week. We were able to dispose of all of the pamphlets and rulers in about 2 hours. By this time it was 4:45 and we headed back to the school where we spent another hour reviewing books and such.
The plan for the next day was set up that I would be taken to the Miryang bus depot by Mr. Ahn (aka James) around noon and I would be met at the Ulsan bus depot by Cindy. I would spend the day at the ELC in Ulsan observing the teachers and getting advice from them, as well as get my Korean ID. They would put me up at a hotel or with one of the other teachers for the night then I'd get a ride back into Miryang on Saturday with Cindy.
I left for the grocery store with that in mind, picked up supplies to make a tasty seafood/seaweed spicy soup with plans to get myself ready to go in the morning. All was well for most of the evening. At about 7:30, as I was preparing to make my soup, James comes in, says there's been a slight change in plans and that he'd be back after his class to tell me about it. He seemed fairly nonchalant about the whole thing so I figured that maybe we'd be taking an earlier bus or that I'd be coming back home on the bus tomorrow instead of staying the night.
I finished making my soup, which turned out remarkably well, and was getting ready to do the dishes when James appears and says, "Ok Steve, let's go. Cindy's waiting downstairs." And once again, almost exactly a week since I last had to do something similar, I hurriedly threw some stuff in a bag and went on a trip to a place I'd never been. I at least managed to also get my leftover soup into the fridge. It would have been a shame to waste it.
So, the new plan was that I'd be staying in Cindy's spare room on Thursday night, go to the school in Ulsan on Friday afternoon and take the bus home Friday night. There would be no Korean ID on this trip, nor the chance for a night out with like-minded people on Friday night.
Friday went exactly as plan two designated, other than a little bit of extra time I had while others were in meetings to go wander around Ulsan University and watch the tail end of a soccer match (the team in white won, if anyone is curious). I picked up some good pointers from the teachers, got to sit in on a couple of classes, I even was in charge of a class, reading about kangaroos and asking reading comprehension questions of the students for about ten minutes while the other teacher gave a test to a student who missed the previous class. That went really well. I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable, surprisingly. Afterwards, I was taken to the bus depot, and it was back to Miryang. My whirlwind tour of Ulsan was over.
The bus trip was pretty damned good, to tell the truth. I've been on many an intercity bus trip and this one was easily one of the most comfortable, attentive to schedule, clean, and most scenic I've been on. It had been raining all day and the clouds clinging to the mountains were really amazing. It reminded me of bussing through Chiapas in Mexico, only a much shorter ride.
When I got in, I met up with James and another teacher and they finished setting up the computer in my room, which I am now using.
This morning, I lounged around, met up with James and we went looking for a power converter so I could charge up my mp3 player and check out the prices of cell phones. The cell phones were too much, they're hunting out a deal for me now, but the power converter was an excellent price at about $25. It's a huge thing, but it appears to be doing the trick. I'll be leaving that here for whoever comes to replace me next year.
And that catches us up to the present. I'm sitting here, thinking about making up a stirfry and drinking some "Korean Traditional Glutinous Rice Wine" as the bottle says. It's got kick.
Crocodile Steve

Korean Dispatch #5: Buddha on the Mountain, Drunkard down Below

I took said walk along the river. Along the way I passed playgrounds, tennis courts and picnicking families. I also walked though a semi natural grove of trees, with fenced pathways and such. This was right between the river and an apartment complex (which, if I haven't explained previously, isn't just one large apartment building, but many). I wasn't sure what this grove of trees was for or why there were fenced, yet meandering paths through it and large straight paths on either side, but I chose to walk along the meandering path. It was pretty, in a sculptured-wilderness-in-an-urban-setting sort of way, and other than the proliferation of small flying bugs, it was quite nice.
After this, I reached what had once been a point where the river course split. This was still right inside the city. It no longer split, because it appears they are converting that section of what likely was the main body of the river into a large cement area. This is no small project. The entire area they are converting looks to be about 500m wide and a good 2-3km long. They have nowhere near completed it, but what they have is available for all to walk across, play on, or fish off of. I chose to walk across.
This lead me to the base of a small mountain with a steep face that fell into the river. Along the base of this steep face was a road lined with shops, and next to the river, a path where many people were spending their evening fishing. It was all quite pleasant. I followed the road around the mountain, and at its end was steep, winding path bordered by a chain fence that lead up the mountain. I couldn't resist, so up I went. The views along the way up were spectacular, overlooking the river valley to the south of the city and the farm land contained within. At the top was another, much more secluded and larger Buddhist temple. This one was populated, not by sightseers like the one mentioned before, but with families and couples come to honor Buddha on his birthday. I was invited in, but felt a little uncomfortable, not being a Buddhist, and my stay was short. I did greatly appreciate the invitation, however. I decided that I would make way back down the other side, along the way having various children yell "Hello!" to me and then run off.
At the bottom of the other side of the mountain was another Buddhist temple, this time with a giant, inflatable Buddha in its courtyard. People were bowing to it as they would a bronze statue in the temple proper. Also, the courtyard, as well as the path up the mountain, was decorated with many very pretty paper lanterns. I watched and admired for a short while, then decided to go home.
I was in a new area of town, across the train tracks and slightly unsure how to get back without going back up the mountain and down the other side, the way I came. So, I made my way to a road and aimed approximately for home. This was the wrong way. First, I was accosted by a very amiable, at least at first, man, who was obviously more than a little intoxicated. He attempted rather earnestly to have me go into a house and join him for a drink or two. I declined. He insisted. He also then showed me his money, then pointed at me, as if to ask if I had any. I said no. He continued to attempt to get me to drink with him while I continued to politely try to escape. He then began to point in the direction I was walking and mime the shooting of a machine gun. All I wanted to do was get home. A car came around the corner, he had to move, and I quickly bowed to him and made my escape.
I eventually found my way to the right side of the train tracks, picked up a little food on the way and went home, as it was just starting to get dark. Along the walk, I noticed that early evening appears to be the time when young adults roam the streets in packs.
That about accounts for last night. This morning was quite dull, actually. I sat around reading, took a trip to the grocery store and waited for someone, anyone, to show up at the school so I could find out what was going on. I now know. In a half hour or so, we'll be going out campaigning again. Wheeeeee!!!
I'm told that tomorrow I go to Ulsan (a big city about an hour to the east) to report in with my work visa and meet some of the teachers at the ELC there. Sounds like fun, but they haven't exactly told me how I'm to get there yet. I'll let you know what happens.
Crocodile Steve

Chapter 4: Roosters and Politicians

And so again, yesterday morning, I am awakened by a lightening sky and the sounds of roosters. This very early morning thing is not normal for me, but it doesn't appear to be killing me, so I'll just learn to deal with it. I very casually made some breakfast, showered (hurray! I have hot water!), read a little bit then went out for yet another morning walk. All in all, it was a very tame morning. Nothing truly exceptional happened at all.
The afternoon arrived, and with it the director, Cindy. She let me know that we'd be out doing more recruiting at about 2:00. So at five after one, everyone comes looking for me to tell me it's time to go. Things change, I guess. We get set up outside another apartment complex on the other side of town and wait. No one is around. No children, no parents. It's very hot. The occasional person straggles by and we launch ourselves at him or her and force pamphlets and rulers upon them. At around 4:00, we start getting kids coming home from school and taekwondo. Good, now we can do stuff. One child apparently called me a crocodile. No one is sure why. So, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to go by Crocodile Steve from now on. Or maybe not.
At 5:30 or so, we're taken home, and despite the lack of activity during the day, I was quite tired. However, I discovered that a computer had been moved into my room. All I needed to was hook it up. So, I did. However, not only was the internet not a possibility due to a lack the proper length of wire, but Windows didn't seem to want to open either. Oh well, the computer in the room is a luxury I wasn't expecting to begin with. I did explain the issue to the person who put the computer up there, the math teacher (I didn't catch his name), but everything got very confused and he ended up leaving me his key to the school so I could get in the following day to use the computer. That wasn't what I was after, but I thanked him profusely anyway and accepted it.
So, that leads to today.
Today, instead of being woken up by sunrise and roosters, it was sunrise and politicians. Well, one politician, really. He was just across the bridge (which is really close to the school), playing loud and happy techno music to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb, among other children's songs, all overlaid with glorious rhyming political propaganda. I discovered after getting dressed and going for a walk, that he was standing on the side of the road, bowing and waving to all passersby, except me. I guess I'm not part of his riding. The rest of my walk was pleasant, I spent it exploring the not-quite-open-yet central market. It's kind of interesting to watch everyone arrive and begin setting up their vegetables and fish. This walk was mostly to kill time until I went to the computer to listen to the hockey game. Yes, I listened to the game while in Korea. And I couldn't resist having a beer as well. Sure it was 9:00 in the morning, but it was game one of the finals. The game went well and many of you, I'm sure, know.
After this I went back out the market, had some really tasty fritter type things filled with cinnamon and sugar as well as some sort of doughy substance with various vegetables in it on a stick, then bought far more strawberries than I intended to (I only wanted a few, but she made me take the whole basket). This was followed by another trip to the hill with the Buddhist temple on it. This time, being the middle of the day as well as Buddha's birthday (a national holiday) everything was open. The old temple was gorgeous, the woodwork and painting was spectacular. I also went to the municipal museum, which was interesting, yet not very informative to me seeing as all the information was in Korean.
And that about catches us up. I'm going to go back out in a moment, hang out by the river until sunset. I'll let you know if anything interesting comes of it.
Crocodile Steve/Guy

Episode # 3: Hello, My Name is Steve

And so, immediately upon sending my last update, I am whisked away by another teacher (a Korean man known as Edward) and his family to a restaurant just outside of town. It is beautiful. It's inside a traditional house, well over a hundred years old, and is simply gorgeous. This was my first traditional setting and traditional Korean meal. We sat cross-legged on mats at a low table. They were far more at ease with this than I was, likely more so than I'll ever be (I lost feeling in my legs more than once and was a little wobbly when we left, people probably thought I was drunk). We were served some Kimchi (spicy-ish vegetables, sort of pickled/fermented, very good), which comes with all meals. Then we had Jeon, a pancake type food made with grated potato, also quite good dipped in soy sauce. This was all followed by Dolsot Bibimbap, which is a dish with various vegetable like bean sprouts, seaweed and other things I didn't quite recognize topped with a fried egg and rice that for some reason was purple. It was excellent, especially when mixed with hot pepper paste. A very tasty meal. I was quite happy, not to mention full.
After this, I was taken home, and decided that I should get some groceries to make up for the botched attempt earlier. I got some of that hot pepper paste, some real mustard, more beer, and some octopus tempura, tea, and some tomatoes. Not a great accomplishment, but I felt satisfied. I then proceeded to go home. I was expecting one of the teachers to come by, but I ended up passing out at around 4:00 in the afternoon. I didn't wake up until this morning, reeeeeeeeally early (slightly before sunrise). I casually made some eggs for breakfast, some tea, and then went for a good long walk to kill time until the banks opened and I could cash my traveler's cheques. I ended up climbing a hill (some might call it a small mountain, but no, it's a hill) with a Buddhist temple on it. It was amazing. I could see the whole valley, the temple was beautiful, and it was covered with people jogging. I still had time, so I wandered around the town after that, noticing that Koreans really seem to like fried chicken. I'll have to try some later. I was especially impressed with the types they advertised, such as "Donky Fried Chicken" and "Buchon: The Always Funny Chicken." They're tops on my list.
Eventually the banks opened, I got some money and an account and went home.
Then came the recruiting. Today we got to go out to an apartment complex and attempt to recruit students. It was weird to sit on the side of the road with a banner taped to a table and lure children over with rulers as bait. It seemed to work. The kids were all quite cute and entertaining. They mostly were very shy with me, saying hello, then running away, or just giggling incessantly whenever they looked at me. I enjoyed it, though. Made me realize just what a freak I am here.
During this, it was pointed out to me that my name was not a good one for Koreans to speak. It seems both pronunciations of Guy have Korean meanings that aren't overly flattering. They have decided to call me Steve. That's fine, it seems to be the way to go, as the other teachers go by an English name they wouldn't normally use, I might as well, too. The director, a Mrs. Kim, did not have an English name. She wanted me to give her one. She didn't want to go by Kim, which I assured her was a fine English name. Names that were suggested by others included Janet, Chrissy and Cindy. I found the Three's Company theme a little strange, but she decided on Cindy. Ok, I can deal with that, but now I will forever hear "Come and knock on our door..." whenever I see her.
And now you are up to date.
You'll hear from me again soon, I'm sure.
Steve

Update #2: Food and Other Things

Let's see, where did I leave off. Oh yes, a lack of money due to the inability to cash my traveler's cheques. This lead to questioning how I was going to eat. I posed my problem to my employers, and after a bit, they understood. First, I was taken to get some food as it was 2 in the afternoon and hadn't eaten yet. They must have figured that I would be craving "food from home" because they brought me to McDonald's. As you all know, that is never my first choice in foods, but I couldn't turn them down, it would be rude. So, I hungrily ate a McChicken, which was subtly different from a North American one, but I can't really describe how. After that, I was lent 40,000 won (approx. $40) to get some groceries. As well, they decided to check why I wasn't getting any hot water for showering/shaving. Turns out, the heater had run out of oil. I'll get to have hot water on Monday.
Anyway, I was taken to the grocery store by a Mr. Ahn, the most fluent of the English speaking Koreans due to having spent 27 years in, of all places, San Diego. He's been in Miryang for 2 months, but it appears that I know my way around the city better. That was a bit alarming. We got to the grocery store and he guided me around, intent on getting me "the food I would be most comfortable with." That ended up being the makings of a fried bologna sandwich. It was horrible, especially seeing as what he picked out as mustard ended up being banana flavored mayonnaise. If I didn't know he was truly sincere in trying to be helpful, I might think he was out to kill me. The only good thing that came from the grocery trip was that I could get beer at the grocery store, and it was dirt cheap. It ended up being a pretty poor excuse for beer, but it was good enough. Next time, I shop on my own. That pretty much gets us through yesterday.
Today has been uneventful. I got up really early, walked around a quiet and deserted city for a few hours. Ate some sushi like triangle things from the convenience store then went home and read.

Very likely, these updates will be less frequent as I get more used to my surroundings, but right now, I just feel like I have so much to relate.
Guy

The Arrival

So there I was, leisurely getting out of bed at 10:00 on a lovely Thursday morning in Vancouver. A quick shower and a phone call to find out what was happening with this Korea thing was the plan.
That plan went off with no problems and indeed, an answer to the question, "When am I going?" That answer was, 2:00 pm. Today. Being an international flight, I would need to be at the airport around noon. It was now close to 11:00. And the fun began.
There's really nothing like scrambling to gather up everything you might have missed for a year in Korea, console a shocked girlfriend, and try to get a hold of someone to give you a ride as well as people who deserve to know the new news. Somehow, it all came together and I managed to get on Singapore Airlines flight SQ017 to Seoul.
The flight was fantastic. Every seat has it's own TV, you get to choose what movie you want to watch and when, or you can play Nintendo games or watch Asian news or Friends episodes. The food was also quite good. You got a choice of a Western, Korean, or Indian meal, We got two meals so I went for one Korean and one Indian. And this was all in economy class! It made an 11 hour plane ride quite pleasant. I highly recommend flying through Singapore Airlines.
My first view of Asia came as we passed over the southern tip of Kamchatka. I thought that was pretty cool. Don't ask why, I just did.
We flew across Japan, but I didn't see much, it was quite cloudy.
The clouds over Korea were strange. As we approached Seoul, which is quite close to the border with North Korea, I noticed that the clouds over South Korea we puffy, while those over North Korea were very smooth. Can a different political climate change the physical climate conditions?
Probably not, but it was a little odd.
Once we landed in Seoul, I moved in a travelers daze through immigration and customs. They asked me what was in my trunk. I said various things. That was apparently good enough and I was passed through.
After that, I was accosted by a friendly, but pushy taxi driver. I ended up paying an exorbitant amount of money to get to the domestic airport to catch my flight to Ulsan. That flight was short and uneventful, but it got me closer.
I was picked up by the directors of the school and we drove to Miryang, stopping at a very cool restaurant with paper love notes all over the walls. The food was very tasty, but I was very tired.
I got into my new place and fell asleep.
I woke up this morning and wandered around my new home, both the apartment and the town. It's all very nice. I still need to change my traveler's cheques into real money, but other than that all is good.
I'll get you more updates later.
Guy