Christmas is coming!

It has been a while since I last posted a blog, but that is because life has been pretty much the same as always. Things have started to calm down quite a bit since the weather turned cold. No more mountain climbing or other outdoor activities for a while... The stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas has been a long one with no days off in between and many hours of overtime, but it's almost over!

We had the first snowfall of the season in Korea last night. It came out of nowhere. I had finished dinner with some friends and we went to someone's apartment to play some drinking games before going out for the night. We were inside for only 2 hours and there was no snow on the ground, but by the time we came out it was a winter wonderland and traffic was at a standstill. So we promptly had a snowball fight since we haven't been able to do that for quite some time.

I recently picked up some private tutoring lessons (illegal in Korea but very lucrative). Because of this, I have decided to go to Thailand for my Christmas vacation. I will leave December 30 and stay for 3 days in Bangkok, the capital. Then I will fly to the island of Phuket for the next 4 nights before returning to Korea on Janaury 7th. For the Christmas weekend, I will be going to Muju ski resort with some friends. We rented out a chalet so that should be fun. I am excited to try the Korean ski hills.

My kitty, KaeGogi, has been a challenge lately. As I write this, he knocked over a pile of things, breaking a light and making a big mess. He also is not litter trained, due in part to a medical condition, so he often leaves me lots of cleaning up to do after a long day of him by himself in my apartment. I hope he will change his ways as he grows because it is quite frustrating having to clean up after him after a long day of work.

That's about all for now... I can't wait to finally have some days off. After I return from Thailand, I will have surpassed the half way mark of the contract with my school... 6 months already. I can't believe it!

Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy the holidays!

November Recap

It has been a while since I have been able to find the time to sit down and write a blog, but better late than never. I have 3 topics to discuss today: Teaching in Korea, Foreigners (and things we do) in Korea, and Kitty!

First, Teaching in Korea:

Teaching at my school up to this point has gone relatively seemless and without incident. It is surprising even to me to think that I have been teaching at my school for 5 months in 2 weeks. It wasn't until this month that a few issues final arose. Rather than getting into details, there was a miscalculation in my pay for the month and the secretary swore that she was right. It ended with me refusing to work anymore overtime unless I got the money I demanded. After a long drawn out battle, I was awarded the money, although in retrospect I kind of wish I didn't get it.
Shortly after my confrontation with our secretary, one of our foreign teacher needed to go back to Canada because of an emergency situation. This has left us one teacher short, which means: much overtime for me. I am working very long days now (and for the foreseeable future) in order to cover the extra classes. This leaves me with very little time for fun during the week. On top of that, there doesn't appear to be a teacher on the way anytime soon. In fact, I have been put in charging of leading the search. Why? I don't know.. I have only been here for 5 months. Perhaps, it is because I am the one that suffers the most being short one teacher so my need and drive to find a new teacher is the highest. I do enjoy getting paid overtime, but sometimes the money isn't worth the free time you are forced to give up.
I am hoping that we will find a new teacher soon because there is no break in sight. Our winter vacation does not start until the first week of January... an eternity from now! I am still trying to decide where to go for the vacation. If anyone knows some good places in South East Asia, I am open to ideas.

Foreigners (and things we do) in Korea:
The foreigner community in my city is really good. We have a website dedicated to events for foreigners, a homestyle breakfast (rare in Korea) every Sunday at the local foreigner bar and even a monthly quiz night to show off your useless knowledge. I also play on a recently formed foreigner soccer team here. Our uniforms will arrive this week and we will have our first (official) game against a Korean team on Saturday. It is even on a grass field! There aren't many of those here. We have been practicing and playing other teams every Saturday, so we are hoping we will be able to make quick work of our first opponent.

I have recently started taking Korean lessons at a school every other Saturday morning for 2 hours. Saturday morning.. I must be dedicated. We even have a text book and it is written all in Korean. I take it with only 2 other foreigners, but it seems like we will have a good class together. I just hope I can wake up that early on Saturdays.

Going out with foreigner friends is always a good time. It seems that every Saturday night is a huge spectacle. For more weeks than I can remember, we end up at this one bar with 20-30 foreigners sitting along a big, long table. To add a foreigner twist to things, we end up playing the 'flip cup'. For those that don't know what it is, it is a game that is a race between two teams of equal players. All players must drink their beer and then 'flip' it over to the side of the cup. The person beside you cannot start drinking until you have successfully 'flipped' your cup. Our games have gotten crazy big with teams of 15 shouting the "Ole" song at the beginning (as is tradition).

Kitty:

I have adopted a kitty. A student at my school found a young kitten abandoned without his mother and needed to give it a home. After much internal debate, I decided to rescue the kitty. Perhaps it is good that the kitten has fallen into my hands because due to its malnourishment, it has needed various medicines and surgery and even a 4 day long hospital stay. Needless to say, it has been expensive. But now he is home resting and recovering. The name of the cat now is (Korean pronunciation) Kay-Go-gi, which means Dog meat. Although I may soon change it to gong-dung ja-goom (means kitty in Korean), although it is quite long and difficult to say for something that means 'Kitty'. The kitten is quite small due to his malnourishment. Although he is two months old, he can still stand in the palm of my hand and he is black in color. I will try to take and post some pictures of him as soon as he recovers (and gets his stitches removed).

That is everything that I wanted to discuss today. Random things to mention: I still have my motorcycle, getting colder, but its still the best way to get around town. I bought my first Korean clothing the other day (a sweater) because of the falling temperatures. And lastly, I really want to see the Borat movie. That catches you up on life in Korea... until next time.

End Note: Please leave comments. I enjoy reading what you have to say and telling me what's new back home but the comments have been declining in recent posts. Keep me informed!

Halloween in Korea

Unbeknownst to me, halloween is a largely North American custom. The popularity and even knowledge of the holiday belongs to only a small percentage of the Korean population, mainly the foreigners. My school does an annual haunted house for the students as well as the public in order to show Koreans what halloween is all about. While it was fun, it did cut into more of my free time than I would have liked, especially when on the Saturday I had a halloween party to get to but was stuck cleaning up until 11pm. Needless to say, I am glad its over now. My costume was Batman. Quite a strange costume to find here I thought so I had to buy it.

On my way to the big party...

At the halloween party, I did something I was quite proud of. I came in 2nd place in a limbo contest! I never thought I would be able to do that since I am on the taller side, but I think the Batman costume helped a little. I should also mention who I lost to: a five foot tall Korean gymnast. Enough said...

A few friends and I decided to hit up a Korean bar after the costume party decided to get a little scarce. Remember... halloween is basically non-existant in Korea, so they were very surprised when Batman suddenly showed up at their bar. I wish I was joking when I say that they really thought I was Batman, but I'm not.

All and all a fun halloween weekend in Korea. This is the first halloween I can remember in a long while that I could actually go out for because I didn't have crazy amounts of essays and/or exams to worry about. It's a fun time!

Next up: A recap on teaching in Korea after 4 months.

Finally Time to Write A Blog!

I have been pretty busy for a person who works for 26 works a week lately. If not teaching, I have been trying to run everyday as I prepare to run (hopefully) a marathon in Seoul in March. As of now, I can run for about 12 km in a little over an hour, but I have much work to do in the next 5 months. Also, my school celebrates halloween by creating a haunted house for the students, which has taken much time and effort from all of the teacher's at my school and is now finally over! With the exception of my school and a few other English schools, halloween does not exist in Korea, so it is nice to bring a holiday to children who have never seen it before.

As for what I have been doing over the past few weeks, it has been the usual for life in Korea. Enjoying riding around on the motorcycle, getting out for some good dinners and drinks with friends and finally playing in a soccer game! This past Saturday some friends and I finally had a chance to play in a game. At first, we played against a Korean team at field down by the University. We just showed up and were lucky enough to find an open field and a team that wanted to play. Most fields in Korea are dirt, and this was no exception. It was quite different from the usual grass surface I was used to, but we quickly learned. Our North American and European skill was no match for the Koreans as we found the net four times for a 4-0 victory. We also played in another game, but this time we had to split the foreigners onto both teams since there were so many Koreans. It was more of an informal game, but it was good just to kick the ball around. We must have played for two and a half hours by the time it was all over.

Now to get to some pictures from back in the beginning of October. this is from Sunchung (I think) Mountain. It is about one hour from my city by car and offers breathtaking scenary and challenging hiking. It is a perfect way to spend a Saturday morning/afternoon.



This is a view from the top of one of the mountains that we climbed. I did not know that we were going to be doing some hardcore hiking, so I was only in sandals. Needless to say, my feet were a little painful after. The buildings you see are for a Buddhist Temple and there are monks that live in the buildings as well as a giant golden Buddha. There are also remants from the Korean War there as there is an old statue that has been damages from bullets.

This is me at the top. I had to take a picture to prove that I was there. Also, I am doing the traditional Korean "V" as it is quite common for Koreans to do while taking pictures.

Another view from the top. It looks like much more than an hour's drive from this direction.

This is at the bottom of the mountain. A very cool waterfall!

More views from the top...

No, I am not talking about how big the fish I caught yesterday was. There are just so many mountains around!

Another waterfall. You have to take pictures of waterfalls, right? No further explanation needed.

This is a suspension bridge, the "Sky bridge" as they call it. It joins two mountains. Walking over it is an awesome experience., It bounces up and down quite drastically as you cross and you would certainly plummet to your death if you fell.

I was trying to feed this nice squirrel... why wouldnt anyone tell me it was fake until after they took a picture?

That's it. Next up: Halloween in Korea.

A picture of "The Beast"

Here is a picture of my new ride around town, a Daelim Magma VS125. Not a bad piece of machinery for about $300. It even comes with a dual exhaust.

I never thought it would happen, but some people don't like Canadians..

The past week took FOREVER to come to a close it seemed. I had payday on Friday as well as only 2 days of work the following week to look forward to. Finally it is all over and done with. I had a very quiet week until Friday since I was trying to stretch my last dollars, so there was no eating out or entertainment expenses.

After work Friday, I went out for Sushi with the Korean teachers at school. I was the only foreigner among them. This was my first serious sushi experience. I can't remember the names of a lot of the sushi, but I can describe what it was like. I sampled some octopus. The tenticles were the prized part of it, but I was surprised as I reached with my chop sticks to pick up a tenticle. Suddenly it squirmed out of the way trying to avoid my chopsticks as if it knew its fate if they were able to grab hold. That's right, this stuff was so fresh, it was still moving. That wasn't the only food that was like that either. Needless to say, I tried everything at least once and I think I impressed the Koreans with my handling of the sushi. Some of them even said, "Even I wouldn't eat that!"

Without doing much drinking Friday, I was able to wake up early Saturday. I had to do so for a purpose: to buy my motorcycle! A foreigner friend was leaving Saturday and he was looking to get rid of his bike so I was able to pick it up for a decent price. For only 275,000 won I purchased a Daelim Magma VS125. Quite a nice machine if I don't mind saying. I have been having fun touring the countryside and through the mountains. Although I hadn't ridden a motorcycle before, it came to me relatively easily. I attribute it to being able to drive a manual car. I was shown the dangers of having a bike today while I was driving around. I came to an intersection and although the light was green there was traffic. I soon discovered it was because something was blocking a lane, a bike and its rider who was face down in the pavement. It had just happened as I approached because people were still on their cell phones and there was no ambulance. I am no doctor, but it didn't look good. By the time I turned around to find out more, the ambulance had arrived and quickly thrown him in the back and was on the way to the hospital. I would not be surprised if I found out later that he had died.

My plan for Saturday afternoon was to head to Osan where a US air force base is situated. It is a favorite place of my co-worker Betsy as it gives a little taste of home without going too far. It was about 2 hours by car. Speaking of which, I drove in Korea! My friend Lindsay was driving when she wanted a break so I drove the rest of the way. It is a little different than back home, but still manageable as long as you know how Koreans drive. At first, Osan seemed to be a very cool place. Many foreigners and talking in English. Our hotel was very nice. In each room a big screen TV, and bathrooms with jacuzzi tubs and of course it was very clean. Much cleaner than my hotel room in Seoul. Things quickly turned negative in Osan however. First, the place was crawling with US air force personnel. I have met some very good people in the armed forces, but generally speaking I think it is fair to say that there is something different about them. For one, they are much more loud, billigerant, rude and swear too much. I don't disagree that there are exceptions, but this was the case in Osan by and large. Next stop in negative town, was when trying to enter a bar in the town. I showed the doorman my alien registration card (which proves that I am allowed to live in Korea and includes my nationality). When it was discovered I was Canadian, I was quickly swept aside with the door man only saying, "No Canadians." After a lengthy argument, the owner of the bar was called to the door. He told me, "No Canadians are allowed inside this bar." I responded by asking, "Why?" He told me "Canadians are bad." After this, the military police came by and encouraged me to move on to another bar. So that was the end of that fight unless I wanted to get involved with US military police, which I didn't. I plan on contacting the Canadian, Korean and American governments to tell them of this practice. I should mention that the owner was a Korean, not American. Although we found another bar, I was deeply disturbed by the discrimination I encountered earlier and my night was not too enjoyable.

There was a good side to Osan that I discovered the next morning, the shopping! I found some very good pirated DVDs (I bought Click and the Gridiron Gang). I also found a Buffalo Bills jersey sporting the name of Mr. Willis McGahee, which i bought for 20,000 won. I was happily surprised to find it, because Buffalo is not one of the big market teams and their jerseys often do not make it all the way to Korea.

As I write this now, it is Thursday and the beginning of Korean thanksgiving. I received some presents from some students yesterday for Chusok (Korean thanksgiving). My gifts include a movie gift certificate, a Korean hankerchief (with Korean writing on it), and ginseng scented socks (not the best scent for socks in my opinion). I have today and tomorrow off as well as the weekend. Although I do not have any big plans, I look forward to the time away from school and being able to recharge a little bit. We also had Tuesday off for some reason (but not Wednesday), so I spent the day touring the mountains with my biker friend Chris. It was good to give the new bike a test in the mountains, it did pretty good! I hadn't studied Korean for a while, so I headed to a coffee shop with my Korean book and tried to study a little bit. I got frustrated after about 30 minutes and decided to give it up. Hopefully I will get back to it again soon. That's all folks.

It's been a while... time to catch up

The end of the month always ends up being a busy time for me work-wise. There are certain things that we must do outside of our regular routines by the end of the month in order to get paid. One of those things includes calling every one of my students to talk English. I think the school does it hoping the parents are listening to their kids on the phone so they will think, "Wow, they know how to talk in English on the phone!". The process is quite time consuming as I have upwards of 80 students in all my classes. But now that is done and I have been paid!

Last weekend was another great weekend. It began by going to the Sori Festival at the performing arts center at my city. It is a musical festival with bands from all over the world. The performance we saw Friday night was a French band that had a reggae feel to it. We arrived slightly late to the show so we were granted admission for free. Bonus! The only bad thing was that they ran out of beer. Do you remember that Heineken commercial where those guys stick their hands in the ice water searching for the last beer? That is what Fraser and I did for about 5 minutes. Once we felt numb, we realized we had probably tapped all of the resources. Early Saturday morning I headed out to Mount Chongchan, which is about a one hour drive from Jeonju. I went with my co-worker Sandra and our Korean friend Sujin. It was a really cool place. We walked across a skybridge, which is a suspension bridge connecting two mountains. Pretty scary to walk across! I just had to jump in the middle to see what would happen. It was safe! I was able to reach the summit of the mountain after a steep, rocky climb. I also did it in sandals... probably not the best idea. It took about 3 hours to get all the way up.

After our mountain adventure we had some Conjahtan. It is a small chicken stuffed with rice with ginseng and other treats in a broth. It is supposed to give you energy and stamina, which was exactly what we needed after our climb. The Jeonbuk Hyundai soccer team had another game at the World Cup Stadium so we had to check that out again. It seems that the homeside loses everytime I am there. I am getting the feeling there are not that good... but it was still a really good game. Drinks were needed after the devastating loss so we headed to the infamous Soju tent. This is basically a bar that consumes a giant area and falls under a tent. The lack of interior makes for cheap drinks so it is worth it. The drink of the night was yogurt soju. It sounds exactly how the name is. It is the soju rice liqour mixed with yogurt. A very tasty combination in my opinion! Too much soju makes you think you can sing better than you can. So we had to go to the norebong (kareoke room) after. We sang our hearts out yet again to a solid crowd of 8 foreigners (plus a Korean that we were talking to on the street and then dragged in with us). It has been a while since I have played soccer, but I am happy to report that after leaving the kareoke room, we had a run in with some Koreans who were quite confident in their skills. There are often these soccer ball kicking machines on the streets that you kick and it registers how hard you kick via a number on the screen. After consuming an overabundance of soju and still wearing the sandals, I am happy to report that I put the Koreans in their place by scoring the higher score. They certainly walked away with their tails between their legs. It was a small victory for foreigners everywhere in the country. Needless to say, Sunday was a day of rest after the crazy busy Friday and Saturday so there is not much to report.

That was a lot of typing.. I will attempt to recap the last week soon. Hope all is well with everyone at home. I will try to post more regularly again.

Everybody's workin' for the weekend

First some more pictures that I forgot from last weekend:

The typical Seoul subway. No personal space in Korea!

This is a building at one of the palace in Seoul. It is famous because it is featured on the 10,000 won bill or manwon's at we call them. Unfortunately, it was under renovation at the time, but you get the idea.

Much like our lovely neigbor from the south, you can buy beer at your local convinience stores. Take a hint Canada!

This is a shot of the dingy hotel room we stayed in the first night. I wish I could have taken a better shot but my back was against the wall so there wasn't much room to work with in there!

This is me at Seoul tower with the city in the background. As you can see there is a mountain in the middle of the city, which adds some nice scenary to an otherwise greenless city.

As for the weekend... the week went by pretty quickly with no major events at school (which is probably a good thing because that could mean a bad event). And all of a sudden it was Friday! It was our korean english teacher, Christine's birthday. So I went with the SLP (my school) crew down to the Jukebox night club where we partied until 5am. While that is a late night, we were aiming for 10am but came up short in our attempt. A good time was had anyway.

Needless to say I didn't sleep much Friday night before it was time to catch a bus that was taking us to a tour of the Hite brewery at 3pm just on the outskirts of town. The parts of the brewery we saw were quite nice and very modern. We watched a video about the beer that was basically a 10 minute dose of propaganda. It was so strong at times that we just had to laugh. It stressed three important pillars of the company: purity, passion and something else that I can't remember. It also featured people consuming vast quantities of beer at odd times. Such as this guy that was apparently auditioning as a dancer who at first fell and was quite clumsy, but he turned it around! And as he left the theatre, he downed a big can of Hite!

On Saturday night I saw the movie the Sentinel with Jack Bauer errr I mean Keifer Sutherland. I didn't realize that movie was about 5 months old in North America. I wasn't exactly impressed with it, but I was happy as always to see a North American movie and to see Keifer on the big screen.

Today I enjoyed a nice western breakfast at the foreign bar here. The special was a breakfast burrito, which was delicious. They will be making the breakfast every Sunday, so that will be something to look forward to every week. I met my friend Chris at breakfast and we decided to venture on our scooters to the outskirts of town and do some scenic mountain cruising. The mountains surrounding the city are surprisingly high and you can see very far from the top of it. The only downside about our adventure was that there was a continual rain all day so we got a little wet and it wasn't exactly great for pictures. But we plan on making the trip again sometime soon. It will look really good especially when the leaves begin to change color. That just about catches everything up at this point.

One last thing... This should solve the confusion as to how to call me from Canada. My home number is 011-82-63-273-0515 and my cell is 011-82-10-2314-6985. Please let me know if those don't work. Time to start another week...

More pictures

This a view of Seoul from the North Seoul tower. It was a little cloudy and rainy so the view isn't great but you can see the river the seperates the northern and southern parts of the city.

At the norebong after a few drinks.. I thought I was Eminem. The best party about the kareoke rooms is actually being able to hear North American music.

This is a view inside one of the buildings in the palace. The big red thing is where the king sat and where a lot of business was conducted.

This time the ladies are at it. Not seen is the tamborine which often accompanies the singing. This place was great, but we had to pass by a transvestite bar on the way down to the norebong.

Seoul Pictures

This is Sam and I standing next to one of the Korean Palace Guards. I think they are similar to the British ones as you aren't allowed to touch them and they don't move. I noticed up close that their beards were glued on though.














This is the King's chambers in Deoksugung Palace. Many of Korean's foreign policies were made in that structure back in the day.





















This is Seoul Tower. Its rests atop a mountain in in the middle of the city. It boasts a height of 225m, but I think that may be including the mountain because the tower didn't seem that big although it did reveal a good view of the city. It was a little rainy on the day we were there so it wasn't great but you must be able to see a lot more when it is clear.

















Another picture from inside Deoksugung Palace. It is like a tiny, old village inside a big modern city. These are buildings that the king's helpers used to live in. Nice architecture in the buildings, although they have been restored since the Japanese destroyed most of the original buildings. Oh.. those Japanese...

More coming.

Weekend in Seoul

I spent the last weekend in the capital of Korea, Seoul. It is about 2 and a half hours north of my city by express bus. Riding a bus is incredibly cheap costing only 10,000 won ($11) one-way. We decided to stay in a part of town that has a large foreigner population (a welcome break from 2 months of essentially no foreigners). The area was called Itaewon. The reason it has so many foreigners is due to the close proximity of the US army base which houses approximately 10,000 soldiers and their families. A bonus to staying in the foreigner area is being able to enjoy a Western-style breakfast (eggs, bacon), which was expensive but well worth it.

The first night we stayed in the dive of all dive's in the world of hotel rooms. I think each room cost 30,000 won. In the spirit of keeping this blog for general audiences I will forego the details, you will just have to take my word for it. Although I will try to post a picture of it. We were able to see a live band for the first time since arriving in Korea at this bar called Woodstock on Friday night. The band rocked pretty good playing some AC/DC, Bryan Adams, etc. On Saturday, the first thing we did was change hotel rooms. After that, we did the Seoul city bus tour, which took us to some interesting sights while seeing a lot of the city out of the bus windows on the way. Stops included the North Seoul Tower (good view of the city), Deoksugung Palace, the Yongsang electronics market (this place is unimaginably huge and has floors dedicated to such things as hard drives or speakers).

At night we returned to Itaewon and ate some foreign food (aka Western style). I had a cheeseburger and fries and it was delicious! Afterward we headed to a Middle Eastern restaurant to meet with some people. I was forced to abstain from the food since I had just eaten, but it looked good. I would like to try it when I go back. The name of the place was Ali Baba's. I did participate in the post-meal shee-sa (not sure if I spelt that right) smoking. It is this weird gummy tobacco heated by charcoil that is filtered by this very large bong. It was a really cool thing to try. After that restaurant it was off to the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a Canadian bar! That place was hopping. I ran into these nice people from Daegu (a city close to Jeonju), who had been in Jeonju one night and ended up going out with me and some friends. Quite a coincidence.

Nothing ends a night like a visit to a norebong (kareoke room). So we stopped at the 7/11 to pick up some beers and off to our private kareoke room we went. The time can really fly by in those places as we busted out some of our North American favourites. The next morning we did some street vendor shopping. There were endless amounts of designer rip offs, sunglasses, clothes, purses, etc. All in all a great weekend, and it wasn't too expensive despite two nights in a hotel room. I caught a little bit of a cold with the lack of sleep. Today a kid sneezed on me too... that probably didn't help. Oh well... now for pictures



This is Fraser and Emily singing in the kareoke song. No doubt belting out a classic.

This is a giant pond at Deoksugung Palace. This place is in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, so it was pretty cool to be so isolated.

This is me hitting the shee-saa at the Middle Eastern Restaurant. The tobacco had a nice apple flavour to it.

Again at Deoksugung Palace. These people stood in the same spot all day. I also noticed that they glued their beards on.

A typical Seoul subway. Notice the TVs about half way down the car. They stick TVs wherever there is free space in this country.

More pictures coming. I can only upload so many at a time. I will definately need to get back to Seoul. It is very big and there is much more to explore. Maybe next month!

Scooter picture!

Here is a picture of my sweet ride. Notice the hot purple color. It is the dominant color of the scooter in Jeonju. Of course I always wear my helmet when riding, for safety's sake. I also forgot to mention that I visited the Jeonju Paper Museum on Saturday. This picture was taken in the parking lot. It was an interesting museum... it made you believe that paper is the reason for modern civilization. Quite funny in parts. I will just say that it was a good thing is was free! We got to make our own paper which was pretty cool. It was done by using pulpy water and filtering through a screen and then drying it. If I had to do that everytime I needed a piece of paper, perhaps I wouldnt toss away a sheet as easily as I do now.

I own a scooter!

Another exciting week and weekend in Korea. The end of the month means pay day! I decided to treat myself by purchasing a motor scooter. It was the best 400,000 won I have ever spent. The best thing about living in Korea is that you don't need a license, insurance or anything. You are supposed to have all of that, but no one actually gets it. I have spent quite a bit of time cruising around town especially down by the river. While it is very fun, it is also a little dangerous! But don't worry, I have a helmet. The first night I had a bit of a theft scare. I had parked the scooter in front of my building and the next morning it wasn't where I put it. I eventually found it down my street. Good thing I had bought a lock for it because someone had tried to steal the scooter but the lock jammed up the rear tire so they ended up leaving it on the side of the road. No damage done. So needless to say, I bought an additional lock for the added security.

On Sunday, I took a bus to Cheongju to visit my friend Sam from university who has recently arrived in Korea. It was a good afternoon of exploring her city. It was a little tricky navigating the Korean bus system on my own, but now that I have done it, I feel like I can go anywhere in this country. I was happy to introduce Sam to her first traditional Korean meal with shoes off at the door and sitting on the floor. We had bugolgi (beef cooked over a Korean bbq) served with many other vegetables. At one point there was some miscommunication with the owner of the restaurant when he pointed to his dog that was outside and then pointed to our table. Eventually it came to be known that he meant, he owns the dog and it lives with them. It was good to know that we weren't eating dog unknowingly.

Next weekend I will be heading to Seoul with some friends. I've been here for 2 months, so I think its finally time I headed to the big city to see what all the hype is about. It sounds like there is so much to do there and this will be the first of many trips. So I look forward to what there is to see and do there.

It has been mentioned that I do not often speak of my job, which is the reason that I am here in Korea. That is because it seems like I am there for a very short time in a day, most of my time here is spent outside of the classroom. I teach for only 7 hours a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays for just 3 hours. But I can say already that I have learned many techniques for being an effective teacher. One of the most important from when I first arrived was to speak slower and use smaller words. Also, behavior altering is quite easy with the correct reward and punishment scheme. At first I would ask many times and sometimes have to yell for them to sit down or be quiet. But I have learned that rewards work much better than punishments. For example, giving stars for being quiet and doing work. When a student gets x amount of stars, they get a small candy. It doesn't seem like a big reward, but it works! So classes are pretty easy these days. Most kids are pretty good and are learning quite a bit at the same time. I even get them to teach me some Korean along the way. My last class of the day is with these 5 girls that are pretty fluent in English. We talk about social issues and read a pretty interesting book about it. I am learning a lot reading it even after 4 years in political science!

I think that is all I have to say for now... my blogs have become less frequent, so at I am trying to make up for it with a rather long one. I will try to post some pictures of the scooter as soon as some are taken. More adventures and stories to come...

A wild weekend...

Most Koreans (and foreigners living in Korea) work hard during the week and play hard on the weekends. This weekend was no exception. It is currently 7pm in Korea and I feel like I could still use another day to rest and recover from the events over the last few days. I began the weekend a little early on Thursday night going out with some foreigner friends for dinner. We had galbi (I think its called). It is some sort of meat cooked over hot coals like a bbq. They cook it right at your table which is pretty cool. After it's cooked, you put a variety of vegetables and sauce on the meat and wrap it in a leaf (yes that's right, just like the kind you find on trees) and eat it. It is a very big meal with many dishes and we of course we had to enjoy some drinks with it. Again, I am very impressed with the Korean cost of living as the whole meal including drinks cost 10,000 won (~$10) each.

I officially finished the workweek on Friday at 8pm. Shortly after that, it was off to the Deep In; one of the foreigner bars in Jeonju with my foreigner friend Frasor and my Korean co-worker Christine. While there, we were able to discuss the ups and downs of the past week with the other foreigners, most of whom are teachers as well.

Originally, we had planned to make it a short night in preparation for the following night. But when the bar decided to close at 330am, there was a small contingent of people who wanted to keep the good times rolling and I was among them. It was decided that we could go to a norebang (Kareoke room). So we left the DeepIn and as we walked to our new destination, made a pitstop at the local 7/11 to stock up on some more beverages. The norebong is much different than a typical North American kareoke room. It is a large area with many different rooms. So we rented out a room for a nominal fee and we were able to choose our own songs and sit on some very comfortable couches. It was a very cool kareoke experience since there was a room of 15-20 of all people you know.

I didn't look much at my watch for most of the night, but when the night came to an end I was surprised to see that it was already bright out. It turned out to be 7am by the time we left the norebong. So much for a short night...

After what felt like a very short sleep, it was time to get up and go to a BBQ at my coworker, Betsy's house. After getting lost due to miscommunication between the taxi driver and myself (that's all I am going to say about that as I am still angry about it), I arrived just in time to meet my friend Fraser and his girlfriend Emily to go to the Jeonju world cup stadium to watch some K-League soccer (the top league in Korea). The best seats were only 8,000 won (~$8). We saw our home province Jeonbuk Hyundai against Seoul. It was an exciting match that started with the homeside going up by one in the first half. But Seoul came back in the 2nd half with 2 consecutive goals. The end of the game was very exciting. Despite our team losing, they came very close.

This is a picture of the field from where we were sitting. I took it with my cell phone camera. It is a better quality picture than I expected. We were very close to the sideline. At one point, there was a yelling match close to us. If we could understand Korean, I'm sure we would have known what they were talking about.

It was a very fun experience at the game. Behind each goal were the hardcore fans of each team with drums, dances and chants. They were fun to watch. Another nice benefit to living in Korea is the difference in stadium food/drink prices. I was shocked to find out that one of those tall cans of beer was 2,000 won (~$2). So I had to take advantage of that.

When the game finished, we returned to Betsy's rooftop BBQ to tell of our soccer experience and enjoy some very good western BBQ food (hamburgers, hotdogs, etc.) We got into the soju (Korean rice liquor) again and things got a little crazy. We found some kind of metal chute up on the roof and decided to put it to use. So we would pour soju into one end and hold it up on an angle so it could be received by the other person at the lower end. I think the metal gave the soju a nice kick. After much more of the same it was yet another late night. Today is my recovery day as I haven't left nor plan to leave the house. I am happy to report that starting tomorrow, my overtime at work is done. As opposed to starting at 10am as I have been doing up to this point, I will start at 1130. I can't complain about that. It allows for a nice sleep in. Next weekend, I will be purchasing my scooter so that should make for a fun-filled weekend!

You know you are getting used to living in Korea WHEN...

I have been living in Korea for a month and a half now and have gotten somewhat used to some of the things I once found very strange and different. So here is my list:

You know you are getting used to living in Korea WHEN...
1) You eat at a restaurant, sitting in a chair is a bonus.
2) A meal without chopsticks just doesn't feel right.
3) When your food is served without the traditional kimchi side dish you question the integrity of the establishment.
4) you go out drinking and time is not a factor but sometimes you will leave the bar and it will be bright out, bringing you to the realization that is must be 6am or later.
5) Dodging cars driving on the sidewalk is a daily occurence.
6) even you stare at other foreigners that you don't know.
7) you pay more than 5000 won ($5) for a meal and then complain how expensive it was while trying to recall the last time you paid that.
8) You no longer notice your Korean illiteracy when trying to find a certain store on a street. Instead, you just open the door, have a look inside to see what they have and quickly move on until you find what you need.
9) you get really excited when you see a sign in English and you are tempted to go inside just to say hi.
10) The streets have no names and you don't wonder why.
11) The streets have no names but you can still tell taxi driver's where to go.
12) McDonald's doesn't serve breakfast until 10:30am. In fact, they do not serve it at all. (see # 13)
13) you accept the fact that in Korea there is no breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is just any kind of food, any time of day.
14) The amount of motorized scooters on the streets competes with the number of cars and trucks.
(15) you see someone run a red light, it isn't such a big deal. EVERYONE runs red lights.

That is all I can think of for now. It has been quite a journey so far. The end of this month will finally bring the purchase of my scooter! I am very excited to be able to boot around town and explore some more of the countryside on it. Also, my first trip to Seoul is coming up the first weekend in September (with my friend Sam from Western who will be arriving to teach at the end of the month and will be only an hour away). Oh, and I have a Korean cell phone! I feel like such a Korean now. The number is 010--2314-6985 (it doesnt cost extra to receive int'l calls, so give me a call!) It's been busy but fun so far. I even joined a gym and have some Korean friends there. We don't talk so much, but we do a lot of nodding to say hi and bye. Until next time...

The last of the Japan pictures!

Finally, this is the end of the Japan pictures and I can start talking about Korean life again. Here goes:

The entrance into Osaka Castle. The bridge crosses the first of two moats on the way to the castle.

A shot from on top of Osaka Castle. Always building something in Japan...

A view of the innermost moat from the top level of the castle. It was quite close to the castle itself, probably so whoever is crossing it can be attacked while in the water as they would be unable to fight back.

This guy was making a lot of noise, so I though it best to take a picture. I was a bit of a (safe) distance away so I couldn't see much of his face, but I prefered it that way. He kind of reminds me of Raydon in Mortal Kombat.

And this concludes my journey to Japan. Next: Back to life in Korea!

Osaka

These pictures are from my visit to Osaka Castle:

A view from the top of Osaka overlooking the rest of the city. The castle sits quite high above the city and is surrounding by many acres of lush greenland, which is quite rare in Japan especially in such a densely populated city such as Osaka (the 2nd largest in Japan).

Another view from a difference angle. Note the construction in the background. There always seems to be construction on huge skyscraper projects in Asian countries. Often more than one happening at the same time.

Another different view. The green surrounding the castle quickly turns into the bustling urban streets of Osaka.

A view looking up at the castle. It is actually 8 stories from bottom to top once you are inside.

Another view. That one building was pretty sleek. You can't see any lines in the glass reflection at all. It is a perfect reflection.

One of the two moats surrounding the castle. It was well protected! Quite a walk to get from the outside to the castle. Where this picture was taken was from an archer's post. The wall was carved out slightly at the bottom so the archer could rest his bow.

This is a picture of Kyoto. It is one of the walking streets with the old style paper lanterns. There is not much space between buildings. You can walk 2-3 people across, but that is all that will fit.

The castle itself was raised up off the ground from the hill it already rested on by another 20 feet so that if it was invaded, the intruders would be forced to enter through one entrance only since the walls surrounding the castle were unclimbable.

Another view of city/moat.
Check out this giant crab! You guessed it, its a seafood restaraunt. The still picture fails to capture the magnifience of this creature. Its limbs moved in an alluring manner drawing you inside (but it didnt work on me!).

More Tokyo Pictures

Some more... This is my hotel room in Tokyo. It went for about $50/night. As you can see, it is nothing more than a little fort. Kind of like sleeping in a coffin. There is a nice TV in there. What else can you ask for?

The tall buildings in Tokyo. Had to take the typical tourist picture of them. There are probably some taller buildings, but after only 12 hours in the city, this was the best I could find.. on the way to the subway station.

So this is the subway station by my capsule hotel. It was described to us by one of the locals as the busiest subway station in the world with more than 2 million people coming and going each day. I believe it.. just look at all those signs AND they are in Japanese. It was a challenge figuring out where I needed to go.

Another shot from inside my "capsule" aka fort or coffin. That is the radio/alarm clock. What can't they fit into these little boxes?? It even had air conditioning.

This is me in my capsule after a couple of pints. I was quite comfortable in there, but it was a bit of a challenge climbing up to my capsule.

The view from outside. A small, but comfortable pillow awaits inside and there actually was a blanket though you can't see it right now. To the left and right is a small kind of drape you pull down when you are sleeping. It keeps out the light pretty well, but not the noise!