Life and Times in Korea

Annyong Cunados!

Photos first...

Ji Sung Park runs Korea. World Cup is gonna be crazy here.

Alley market in Seoul. Quick snack of sea cucumber. Mmmm...

Daegu's scene.

Seoul mornings.

Santa Barbarians? Papa Gorilla Bar in Seoul.

Hotel in Daegu. This is what I always heard about Korea.

Me and Gandolf in Seoul. This is how I could find my hostel in this zoo!

Wow, times seems to be flying by. I've been leading a pretty busy life out here in Yeong-hae. School has been moving along great and I'm really enjoying my time teaching. In addition to my regular teaching hours these past couple of weeks I've been given a bunch of extra overtime classes that I'm excited about. Mondays through Wednesday mornings I teach an english class at Yeong-hae Middle School before school starts. After school on Tuesdays I lead a 3 hour course for teachers about American culture. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays nights I'm teaching extra high school classes. I'll be teaching these classes regularly the rest of the year which is great as I'll pocket a nice extra chunk of change. With all of these classes I've had to start digging deeper for fresh lesson plan ideas. For example, my teacher course this week included topics such as who is Lady GaGa (they love Lady GaGa), a news clip and debate about the safety of a new beer called Tactical Nuclear Beer (google it), and an extensive brainstorm session and discussion on various crimes and potential alibis (Koreans, it turns out can be pretty crafty). For my regularly scheduled classes this week I taught the story "Tortoise and the Hare" and had kids acting out the story. Really fun. Sort of read this story now 15 times and it is only Wednesday, so I think I have the moral of the story down pretty good.

I've enjoyed some great nights out with my teachers here in Yeong-hae these past couple of weeks. The most memorable to me was a crab dinner they set up. Crab here is ridiculously delicious. We went to a random house out on the coast near the next little town called Chuksan. The lady cooking brought out huge and I mean huge tubs filled with whole steamed crabs. I ate crabs till I thought I'd be sick. Literally mountains of crab debris in front of me. Some of the crab shells were saved and made into a bamboo crab shell type of soup which was eaten with some delicious fried rice. I have to figure out how to arrange this meal again. Of course, following the meal things, as they do in Korea, got a little ridiculous. All of the women teachers were sent home and all of the men remained. Odd, yes. Then the soju came out. I learned that when the women go home and the soju comes out the only thing that can follow in Korea is an arm wrestling competition. Yup, an arm wrestling competition. I came in as the heavy favorite being a foot taller and weighing easily 40 pounds than many competitors. Still, in this strange soju infused environment arm wrestling Koreans was a fun time and I took home the gold over the school P.E. teacher.

Outside of school I've not slowed down a step. After my trip to Busan, I made the long haul up to Seoul to finally see the big city. Most visitors to Korea don't really venture out of Seoul. I felt it was time for me to see what it was all about. Of course it was a blast. I stayed at a cool hostel run by a Korean named Mr. Bong. It had an awesome little bar attached and was off the subway which is connected to everything. I saw lots of Seoul during the day, checked out the electronics markets which took up a whole neighborhood, and generally wandered around the city trying lots of food stalls. Nighttime in Seoul is unreal! I made friends with a bunch of students from the University of Seoul and they showed me around. I spent almost an entire Saturday night at a place called Club Hip Hop. I was one of two non-Koreans in this club the size of Wildcat (SB people know what I'm talkin' about) but packed with 2,000 people. My knowledge of Pitbull, Lil Wayne, and 2pac led to a lot of fun. Every dance move I did was closely watched and then copied. Everybody in this place was loving us! Too fun. Met lots of people that night. Went with new friends for an awesome 6 AM dinner. Leaving Seoul was interesting. I thought I'd try a new route and took a train to Andong. Ended up being the slow train and I got to Andong in about 5 hours. Then waited in Andong for 2 hours for a bus. The bus to Yeongdeok ended up taking another 2 hours. Needless to say, I'm sticking to the 5 hour direct bus ride next time.

These past two weekends I spent my time in Daegu. The first trip I tried to catch a Samsung Lions baseball game but it ended up being a high school baseball tournament. I figured might as well take in a couple of innings, so I grabbed some mekjus and a gigantic bucket of chicken and went on in. Fans and players were stoked there were foreigners treating it like a Lions game. Lots of fun!

This last weekend I attended an actual Lions game which was crazy. The stadium isn't all that big and seats maybe 5,000 or so. But, man the fans are awesome. Cheerleaders dance on the dugout and people eat squid burgers. The game went to 12 innings with the Lions coming back to win. I stayed that night at a ridiculous hotel that for about 60 bucks had a huge waterfall shower, a movie theatre room in-room, a noraebang in-room, disco lights, a fog machine, and so on! Had no idea this was coming but it was pretty rad. I spent the next day figuring out a visa to China. I'm looking at starting in Beijing, doing a trek along the Great Wall for a few days, eating lots of food, and maybe an overnight train down to Shanghai. Ended up getting everything squared away for a trip at the start of May. Originally I thought I had school holiday from May 5th through the 9th. But, I found out our school has midterms on the 10th, 11th, and 12th as well. This being so, I may have these days off as well! If so, I may postpone a trip to China for a week to the nearby Philippines to enjoy some surf and sun (check out Zambales in the China Sea)! Flights there are short and cheap. Plus the Philippines has been described to me as the Mexico of SE Asia. Sounds pretty great! Regardless, I'll be heading somewhere at the start of May for some exploration and fun.

No plans yet this weekend, but I'm sure I'll find something fun to get into. Hope everything is going great for all of you around the world reading this thing. Always fun to hear about what's going on with everybody. Anybody that's up for a trip to the Philippines or China at the start of May call me up!

Bueno Suerte,

John

Annyong Compadres!

First a few photos.

That's whale meat in the middle. Not too awesome.

I wake up and ask myself, "where am I?" Oh, yeah Korea.

Snow Day! Well, not really. Still had class. But, pretty fun!

Basement of the Busan Mall.

Haeundae Beach, Busan.

Another couple of weeks have blown on by and I've been up to more fun stuff. Two weekends ago, I made a trip south to Busan to check out the city and hang out with some new friends. Busan was an impressive city and at 2.5 hours south by bus, pretty accessible. I went on a pub crawl that was lined up for some of the people from my program to a few spots around the city. All and all pretty cool scene. Hung out with a bunch of South Africans mostly for the weekend which was a good time. Saturday it really warmed up down there (talkin' t-shirts!) and I spent some time down at the beach hanging out. The markets in Busan are pretty busy and were a great place to stop in for some spicy seafood ramen. Also checked out the world's largest mall (so to claim) aptly called Busan Mall. This place was hectic! Most people I've ever scene in a mall. Endless escalators leading to endless arrays of the designer clothes Koreans seem to obsess over. I decided to spend my money on a cool little sushi restaurant buried somewhere deep inside of this place. Sushi was served on an endless conveyor belt with different colored plates signifying different prices. The sushi was amazing. Soft shell crab. Eel. Salmon sashimi. Best oysters I've had in a long time. It was surprising that having sushi was a welcomed break from Korean food (there is a difference!).

St. Paddy's Day was a real event here in Yeonghae! Nope, not really, but it was still pretty fun. For my teacher course I spent some time telling the Koreans about St. Patrick's Day and what it is all about in the US. This involved some pretty great pictures including the Chicago River dyed green, funny Guinness advertisements, pictures of Santa Barbara events past think Ian Anderson, Peter Burks, V-Town, and Dan Man. Needless to say, my teachers thought it looked pretty fun. So, next day at school (March 17th here) we all wore green. Pretty fun! Some of the westerners here and I went out for traditional Irish drinks like Hite beer and soju.

This past Friday I decided I would spend this weekend here in Yeong-hae. Friday night I was wandering around the fish/fruit market in the middle of town when I ran into the principal of the high school and two new high school teachers that used western names Julie and Alice for my sake. The three of them had been hitting the soju and were ready to head home until they saw me. They grabbed me, dragged me around the market, and asked me things like, "have you ever tried these?"(pointing at a barrel of peanuts). Same thing for bananas. Same thing for oranges. Then they started to move towards larvae (which I have tried here), unknown dried thing #1, unknown gelatinous item #1, and so on until they arrived at a bag of apples. I said I had not tried apples and they proceeded to buy a bag for me. Nice! Then they took me back to the same stall they had been hanging out at and ordered the same thing they had just had so I could try it. We had a sort of blood sausage casing stuffed with rice that was really good. Included was a side dish of liver that was pretty good and lungs which definitely are not my favorite. But hey, with the two new bottles of soju we were passing around everything was pretty great! The high school principal cannot speak much english at all, but I think this old dude is pretty hilarious. The only english he ever says to me is, "You, Chuck Norris. Kombe (cheers/salud)!" Julie spent a year in Vancouver and translated a ridiculous conversation for me. Pretty fun. I call the principal Elvis Presley and he does the hound dog walk. Fun hangin' out with this crew and we plan to hang out again this week.

In other Korean news, yellow dust has set upon northern Asia. Check out this write up in the Korea Times http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/03/117_62750.html. The air looks pretty clear out here, but pretty wild nonetheless. When I cruised into work this morning, my co-teacher Eun-sil asked me if I spent time outside this weekend because I was coughing and my nose is pouring snot (sorry). My words to her were, "yup, I cruised around outside a bunch on Saturday." Eun-sil's response, "oh, John, we don't go outside...yellow dust we mustn't go out." So, I saw some stuff on TV about air quality being poor this weekend, but down here it looks pretty great. Plus, on Saturday morning it was really nice and I was cruising around in flip-flops. I definitely spent Saturday afternoon sleeping as well as Sunday trying to stave off this strange illness. Yellow dust or not (I think not), pretty crazy.

Wondering with all these going-ons whether I'm going to school? I am, really I am. So, I teach at three Korean middle schools. Whoa. Ridiculous? Yes, it is. I've been having a lot of fun. I taught a lesson about what will be important to you in life when you are 16, 25, 40, and 60. Student had to write "I want to..., I will..., I would like to..., I hope to..., etc." Then, the students had to draw a picture. Now, I got some pretty typical responses (for Koreans) like the following: At 16 I like to talk to my friends. At 25, I want to get married. At 40, I would like to have a family. At 60, I hope to have grandchildren. Sounds straight forward (think lots of d's that are p's and backwards r's), but pretty good. One kid's blew my mind though. I wish I had saved his paper. Oh, so good. This kid wrote at 16 I want to fight people (kid punching people). At 25, I want to drink beer and smoke cigarettes when I ride horses (what the hell?). At 40, I die (draws self really fat being stabbed). At 60, I am a ghost (strange Korean ghost drawing). All of the girls around this kid said he was crazy. He asked me what I thought. I slapped him on the back and told him it was pretty rad. Great job! Creative right? Probably not to far from what some kids see anyways.

Well that's it for now. Gotta prepare a new teacher lesson for tomorrow about California (how do you start that?). Hope everybody is doin' great. Too bad the Gauchos couldn't put down the Buckeyes (look at UNI and St. Mary's!). Enjoy your lives!

Paz!

John

Korea Semana Tres

Annyong Amigos!

First off, here are a few photos from my last couple of weeks.

Pretty rad fortress I stumbled upon.

Drink in a bag in Daegu's GOGO Party GOGO Vinyl

Traditional drummers doing their thing. Check out those hats! Pretty jazzy huh?

View from my apartment of the surrounding village.

Sorry for not posting to this blog more regularly. I don't have internet setup at my apartment yet as I have not received my Alien Registration Card, which is required for things such as internet and a cell phone. As such, internet is spotty and my blogs tend to crash before I get it posted, so I tried to get a lot in this one since the internet I'm using is working pretty great at the moment.

Anyways, I've had a busy couple of weeks teaching my many many many new students. I'm teaching at three middle schools around my county. I'm based at one near my apartment for the first three days of the week and the other two Thursdays and Fridays. You may be asking yourself, "How does one teach english to a bunch of koreans when they don't speak english and you don't speak korean?" Well, this is what I'm trying to figure out too. It's actually been pretty easy and a whole lot of fun. My first week of school I spent hanging out at school for the most part and put some lesson plans together without having to actually teach a class. This week was the first week I got to teach my classes and it was great fun. I've been surprised by the level of english some of my students have. Some students are practically fluent and others barely know the english alphabet. But such is the case when you teach in the countryside.

What's great is I teach basically the same lesson for all of my 18 classes, so you get pretty good quick at knowing what works and what doesn't. I talked a lot about where I'm from, my family (some great pics of Kristen and Sarah, Mom and Dad, and Grandma), and what I like to do for fun. They really enjoyed seeing pictures of Santa Barbara, said Sarah, Kristen, and Mom were very beautiful (sorry Dad no comments on your beauty, but I did teach them DEEEEEAN), snowboarding, surfing, and of course Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers. Then I asked them about their names (some awesome names), families, and what they like to do for fun. I've played Simon Says now 18 times with students aged 14 to 16 and they love it! Needless to say, I'm enjoying my new line of work.

Next week I will begin a course I will be leading for the rest of the year about American culture and conversational english for the teachers around my county. Should be lots of fun. I'm going to be sure to include the finer points of St. Patrick's Day in my first lesson as it will be the day before the 17th. If you've got any ideas of how in the world to explain the US please let me know, I'm all ears. Otherwise, the Koreans of Yeong-deok County will have my screwed up world view.

Working in a small town has been an interesting experience to say the least. Sometimes here I feel like a Beatle and sometimes I feel like a goldfish in a fish bowl. Everybody here greets me with a very happy hello and sometimes the conversation goes a bit further. Odd at times to be stared at, grabbed to see if you are real, and constantly watched to see how I do the smallest everyday things. For instance, lunch time at school involves me walking to the cafeteria with whatever teachers are around being jammed to the front of the line with a metal tray, served an extraordinary lunch by school lunch standards, but then being watched how I try to tackle the latest item on the menu. To be modest, they are impressed by my chopstick skills and ability to put down the spiciest kimchi.

The language has proven challenging but I'm beginning to make some small steps. With the help of a couple of other westerners around I'm beginning to grasp the alphabet. A teacher at my Thursday school is very interested in learning english and we spend an hour a day talking to each other in english and korean to help each other. Of course, soju and mekju are the best lubricants for conversations for koreans as well as myself to start speaking korean to each other. Definitely pointing and throwing out some grunts has worked too.

Outside of school life I haven't had much of a problem keeping myself entertained. Last weekend I went to Daegu with a bunch of other westerners (Canada, England, South Africa) from the surrounding area. Daegu is the third largest city in Korea at about 2.5 million people. It felt really good to be back in a big city. Lots of places there to explore. Great food (including a McDonalds stop which never tasted better after 3 weeks of rice). I ran into lots of other westerners I met at my orientation doing the same things that weekend. I even got danced to Pitbull (Calle Ocho ya Mason Street!) in a bar called GOGO Party, GOGO Vinyl where drinks are served to you in plastic bags. I sang in a noraebang again which is always too much fun to me! Stayed out until closing at 6 AM. Daegu was my kind of scene!

This coming weekend, if all goes according to plan, I will be traveling about 2.5 hours south by bus to Busan to meet up with westerners from my orientation for a pub crawl. A bus in Busan has been rented to take us to the city's hot spots. Should be fun if I can make it down there in time. After I get my first paycheck next week, I'm going to plan a trip to Fukuoka, Japan for April. Fukuoka is a 2.5 hour ferry from Busan. Taking a boat from Korea to Japan sounds too cool to pass up!

That's it for now. Hope everyone back home and around the world reading this ramble is doing well.

Hasta luego,

John

Annyong Korea!

Wow I've finally made it to Korea! These past two weeks have been a true whirlwind. I've been so busy since completing orientation for EPIK that this is the first chance I've been able to make the first update of this blog.

First, let me tell you finally w

here it is exactly that I'm located and what I'll be up to for the next year. I've been posted to a very small fishing village called Yeong-hae located along the East Sea in the Gyeonsangbuk-do province known for its excellent local spider crabs. My town is located about twenty minutes from a larger town called Yeong-deuk which has a population of about 100,000 people. Yeong-hae is a very small town with two main streets, a large fish market, and a surprising number of restaurants and even an excellent norebang (private karaoke room). The sea is quite beautiful as you can see but not much to offer in terms of surfing.

Yeong-hae is teaming with friendly locals. Everywhere I go people say hello and laugh and cover their faces when I respond with a cheerful annyehaseo. Yesterday was one of the biggest festivals of the year and the whole town was out celebrating the defeat of the Japanese invasion of this coastline. Kimchi and soju were flowing and being the new foreigner in town I was pulled in every direction to sample just about everything. Here, some new friends of mine were barbecuing up some tasty mackerel.

I'm thrilled to be in my new town and will be going to my first day of school tomorrow. This should make for a pretty exci-

ting day tomorrow. I won't begin instruction until next week and have the rest of the week to prepare lesson plans and meet the other teachers and administration. I've got lots of pictures and stories to share from the sites I've visited and people I've met in the past two weeks that I'll be sure to share in my next blog. I'll leave this one with a view of the main drag of the metropolis that is Yeong-hae.

Hasta luego,

John

Blog Uno

Doin' some bloggin'. Heading to Korea. Check out this scene.