The first semester is over; summer break is here for the students. They get a nice vacation, July 21 – August 30, during which they can play outside or relax or study at various private academies that specialize in different subjects. Some students even sign up for English camps, but there will be another post on those later.
So for now, I have to show up to school for “work days,” also known as "desk warming." Thing is, I’ve finished all my work. Summer English camps are planned. Lessons for next semester are already filed neatly in three-ring binders with digital copies saved in a folder labeled “John” on my computer desktop. That means I’m here and there’s not a whole lot to do. Here’s a rundown of my day.
8:00. Arrive at school.
8:00 – 9:15. Check email, read the news, IM Beth on Facebook, listen to my iPod.
9:15 – 9:20. Listen to my iPod. Look out the window.
9:20 – 9:25. Stare at the wall. Also, listen to my iPod.
9:25 – 9:40. Watch some music videos and live performances on Pitchfork.tv.
9:40 – 9:42. While I’m looking for the principal to sign off on the sick leave I took Monday, one of the office workers asks what I’m doing here.
9:42 – 9:50. Daydream about vacation.
9:50 – 10:30. IM some more with different people on Facebook. Decide to listen to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago all the way through. On my iPod.
10:30 – 11:30. More surfing the Internet and playing flash games. Order Chinese for lunch.
11:30 – 12:00. Read American Gods.
12:00 – 1:10. Lunch. Fried rice, dumplings and ice cream.
1:10 – 2:30. Nap.
2:30 – 4:20. Read American Gods.
4:20 – 4:30. Check email, surf the Internet, post this blog, pack up.
4:30. Leave school.
The semester ended yesterday. Today’s Wednesday and I have two more days of this. Don’t get me wrong; it’s kind of nice to have a bit of a break and be left to myself, but this is what a “work day” entails. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be more productive.
Found this video today. It pretty much sums up the desk-warming experience:
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Vote For Pedro
Sorry this is kinda old but at the beginning of June Korea had elections. For what positions, we have no idea, we couldn't understand what they said, but we had to post about the campaigning.It started about April, with large billboards that covered entire buildings (see the picture below), but nothing too out of the ordinary. Then in the mornings we noticed men in suits on the side of the streets waving/bowing, next to one or two people with brightly colored shirts on (I liked candidate #7 cause the hot pink shirts). By the end of May, it was a full-blown disaster.
The last weeks leading up to the election brought on the trucks riding around the city, with loud speakers saying to vote for soandso (think Mayor "Red" Thomas's 1955 campaign in Back To The Future), but with really loud, annoying Korean pop music. There are obviously no noise ordinances in Korea. We woke up several times to these trucks riding through our apartment complex. The downtown intersection where the bus drops us off was out of control. There were trucks blasting music and politicians on every corner with about 10-15 supporters in the brightly colored matching outfits dancing, bowing and waving. Derek would stand right next to me and we couldn't even hear each other. At first it was funny, but after a week of it, we were ready for election day. My description doesn't do it justice, so I had to take a video to prove how bad it was. And this was on a good day, only two trucks with music, imagine it with four!
On the plus side, voting day is a national holiday so we didn't have to work. And, since we are foreigners the politicians never gave us the time of day! Anyways, next time you're complaining about the campaigning back home, just play this video and think, "It could be worse!"
This cartoon is from a blog we like that deals with foreign teachers living in Korea. It pretty much sums up the whole post. Check out the blog here.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Fighting Korea!
By now you've probably seen the pictures Beth posted from our rain-soaked trip to Seoul City Hall to watch Korea's opening World Cup match against Greece.
Beth and I got to Seoul earlier that afternoon to meet some friends and sightsee, but it was raining a lot so we just went to a Western bar near City Hall and ate nachos and drank Filipino beer and waited for the rain to slack up.
It did after a while and we realized we were near Myeongdong, so Beth decided she wanted to check out Myeongdong Cathedral, something she's been dying to see since we got here. It's a beautiful church, but it was starting to rain again, so Beth went into the cathedral to take pictures, but when she did, she realized there was a wedding going on. She snapped some anyways and we left, agreeing that we'd like to come back on a nicer day, when we could look around a lot more.
We got a call from some friends saying they were in Itaewon eating Mexican food, so we met them and had more nachos and drank margaritas before heading to a Canadian tavern.
We made our way back to City Hall after a while and when we got there it was still raining and very crowded. A lot of people had umbrellas but common courtesy says you don't hold them up when a crowd is trying to watch a game on a giant TV. So people traded their umbrellas for red ponchos. There were guys coming through the crowd selling beer and people were already chanting and singing.
Throughout the game, we learned all kinds of new chants. "Dae Hamingook!" was the most-used one, which just means "Republic of Korea." There was also another chant that sounded like, "This is Korea!" When Korea scored a goal, fireworks went off and the crowd erupted with them.
It rained most of the game and we were soaked even with our ponchos. But we had a lot of fun and we made lots of new friends. When their team wins a big game (Korea beat Greece 2-0), Koreans don't riot and beat people up and break things like animals, they just want to hug everyone and share drinks with you and talk to you. People kept coming up to us and happily shaking our hands and hugging us and telling us we looked like various celebrities. The rest of the night we heard groups of people cheering and singing, all through the streets and in the subways and on the buses. No one got in a fight, no cars got turned over or lit on fire. It was just a merry celebration, and I'm glad we were a part of it.
Korea lost to Argentina 0 - 4, but they beat Nigeria so they advance to the next round. I hope we get to see a lot more games and celebrate at least a few more wins.
Pics coming soon, if you haven't already seen them on Facebook.
Beth and I got to Seoul earlier that afternoon to meet some friends and sightsee, but it was raining a lot so we just went to a Western bar near City Hall and ate nachos and drank Filipino beer and waited for the rain to slack up.
It did after a while and we realized we were near Myeongdong, so Beth decided she wanted to check out Myeongdong Cathedral, something she's been dying to see since we got here. It's a beautiful church, but it was starting to rain again, so Beth went into the cathedral to take pictures, but when she did, she realized there was a wedding going on. She snapped some anyways and we left, agreeing that we'd like to come back on a nicer day, when we could look around a lot more.
We got a call from some friends saying they were in Itaewon eating Mexican food, so we met them and had more nachos and drank margaritas before heading to a Canadian tavern.
We made our way back to City Hall after a while and when we got there it was still raining and very crowded. A lot of people had umbrellas but common courtesy says you don't hold them up when a crowd is trying to watch a game on a giant TV. So people traded their umbrellas for red ponchos. There were guys coming through the crowd selling beer and people were already chanting and singing.
Throughout the game, we learned all kinds of new chants. "Dae Hamingook!" was the most-used one, which just means "Republic of Korea." There was also another chant that sounded like, "This is Korea!" When Korea scored a goal, fireworks went off and the crowd erupted with them.
It rained most of the game and we were soaked even with our ponchos. But we had a lot of fun and we made lots of new friends. When their team wins a big game (Korea beat Greece 2-0), Koreans don't riot and beat people up and break things like animals, they just want to hug everyone and share drinks with you and talk to you. People kept coming up to us and happily shaking our hands and hugging us and telling us we looked like various celebrities. The rest of the night we heard groups of people cheering and singing, all through the streets and in the subways and on the buses. No one got in a fight, no cars got turned over or lit on fire. It was just a merry celebration, and I'm glad we were a part of it.
Korea lost to Argentina 0 - 4, but they beat Nigeria so they advance to the next round. I hope we get to see a lot more games and celebrate at least a few more wins.
Pics coming soon, if you haven't already seen them on Facebook.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Delivery Man
I've pretty much mastered the fine art of ordering food for delivery here. Beth's co-teacher a while back gave us a booklet filled with menus of delivery and takeout food, from pizza to fried chicken to Chinese to bibimbap. At first, I was kind of apprehensive about using it, but my laziness and unwillingness to actually leave the apartment to get food outweighed my hesitancy to learn how to grunt out over the phone what I want and where to bring it.
It's probably not the best for our health, the fact that I now know how to have a guy come on a scooter with a bucket of fried chicken and literally place said bucket at my feet in our apartment. (Delivery men won't ever cross the shoe/no-shoe threshold, so they just put the food on the floor to handle the money transaction.)
It's probably not the best for our health, the fact that I now know how to have a guy come on a scooter with a bucket of fried chicken and literally place said bucket at my feet in our apartment. (Delivery men won't ever cross the shoe/no-shoe threshold, so they just put the food on the floor to handle the money transaction.)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
In Flight
Flights for summer vacation are booked. Incheon --> Manila --> Puerto Princesa --> Manila --> Hong Kong --> Incheon.
We'll be gone July 27 - August 8, eight days in the Philippines and five in Hong Kong.
That's about the only interesting news right now. We heard some explosions the other night, but we read that the US and South Korean navies were doing a military exercise in the Yellow Sea near here, so we assumed that's what it was.
The World Cup starts this weekend, and Korea plays Greece Saturday night, so we're going to spend Saturday night watching the match at Seoul City Hall with a million or so screaming Koreans.
We'll be gone July 27 - August 8, eight days in the Philippines and five in Hong Kong.
That's about the only interesting news right now. We heard some explosions the other night, but we read that the US and South Korean navies were doing a military exercise in the Yellow Sea near here, so we assumed that's what it was.
The World Cup starts this weekend, and Korea plays Greece Saturday night, so we're going to spend Saturday night watching the match at Seoul City Hall with a million or so screaming Koreans.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tea For Two
We had Friday the 21st off for Buddha’s Birthday. Since we had a long weekend we decided to get out of the city and travel to Jeollanam-do, a province in the Southern part of Korea. We met our friends in Seoul Thursday night and boarded the midnight train to Jeollanam (you’re singing now aren’t you?). We took the standard train and arrived in Gwangju city at about 3:45 in the morning.
We really weren’t sure what to do at this point. We wanted to go to Boseong to see the Green Tea fields but it was still early. We decided to just take a cab to the fields anyways and rest somewhere close by. The cabbie drove over a hundred miles per hour and we arrived about 45 minutes later by the grace of God. There were already around 30 people there in hiking gear unloading bags, cameras, and tripods. We followed them into the park and realized we could catch the sunrise over the fields then find a place to sleep. We climbed the fields (which was quite hard at five in the morning without any sleep) and stopped about 3/4 of the way up. We had an amazing view of the Green Tea Fields and the sunrise over the mountains. It was beautiful and we were actually glad we didn’t find a place to sleep and came straight here.
After sunrise we slowly made it down the hill and found a pagoda to sleep under. We slept for several hours, then had another walk through the fields, and had green tea ice cream. We grabbed a quick brunch of bibimbap and ramen and hopped on bus to Yulpo Beach to try out the Green Tea Baths. It was only about a 15 minute bus ride and the baths were great and relaxing and the perfect way to relax after being up for almost 36 hours.
After the baths we got another bus and headed to Yeosu, where we would be staying for the remainder of the weekend. The relaxing bath, and lack of sleep finally caught up with us and we all slept on the two hour bus ride to Yeosu.
We found a cheap hotel for only 25 bucks a night, Ondul flooring, unfortunately, but for the price we couldn’t complain. One couple splurged (40 bucks) and actually got a room with a bed and it had a balcony with a great view of the city. We had a nice seafood dinner (it actually wasn’t too bad for me) and then called it an early night since we hadn’t slept in almost two days.
The next day (Saturday I think) we woke up to a gloomy morning. We stopped and got coffee and umbrellas and made our way to a temple in Yeosu. Jinnamgwan is the oldest existing single-story wooden building in Korea. We stayed for about 30 minutes taking pictures and looking at the small museum about the temple. We wanted to take a ferry to some islands off the coast but with the gloomy and rainy day we decided to go to Hyangiram hermitage which is a huge temple built into the side of a mountain overlooking the coast.
Even with the rain, the temple was beautiful. After walking up way too many stairs, we reached the top. The temple consisted of several buildings of different sizes, shrines, memorials, and turtle sculptures everywhere. Apparently the temple caught on fire in November and many buildings were destroyed, but it was amazing. They had wishing stones, wells, walls, and rocks everywhere. The wishing wall was basically a stone wall that you made a wish in front of and then tried to stick a coin on the side of it. If it sticks, your wish will come true. Derek and I both made wishes that stuck, and no, we can't tell you what they were!
We made the long trek back down the mountain and stopped at a cute restaurant because it had a sign that said French Quarter New Orleans on the outside. Derek and I immediately start talking about how we wanted Po’Boys and thought it might have some western food since they had signs from New Orleans, New York, Vegas and some other U.S. cities. Of course, it was a traditional Koran restaurant but we were able to get steamed crab that was pretty good, along with Pajeon (Korean pancakes). Dinner was great and we eventually got the bus back to Yeosu.
By the time we got back to the city it was pouring rain so we went to our rooms dried off, then met up later for some flavored soju and a night on the town in Yeosu.
The next morning we woke up and took the 11:00 o’clock train back to Gwangju where we would spend the day, then take a train to Daejeon then take the KTX train to Seoul (confusing I know).
We arrived in Gwangju and went to a nice Arab restaurant in the downtown shopping district of the city. Derek and I were tired, so we opted out of going to see some monument to a massacre that occurred in the city in the 80s and had some coffee and walked around the city instead.
When we arrived in Daejeon, I was really excited about taking the KTX to Seoul. We rode first class on the train (only tickets we could get). We traveled at 300 kilometers per hour and we made the 100 mile trip in less than 50 minutes.
We finally arrived back on the island, after a long day of traveling and with a little confusion from a cabbie in Seoul, but at 12:45 we finally walked through the door and crashed. It was a great holiday with great friends, and we have to thank Buddha for the extra day off!
We really weren’t sure what to do at this point. We wanted to go to Boseong to see the Green Tea fields but it was still early. We decided to just take a cab to the fields anyways and rest somewhere close by. The cabbie drove over a hundred miles per hour and we arrived about 45 minutes later by the grace of God. There were already around 30 people there in hiking gear unloading bags, cameras, and tripods. We followed them into the park and realized we could catch the sunrise over the fields then find a place to sleep. We climbed the fields (which was quite hard at five in the morning without any sleep) and stopped about 3/4 of the way up. We had an amazing view of the Green Tea Fields and the sunrise over the mountains. It was beautiful and we were actually glad we didn’t find a place to sleep and came straight here.
After sunrise we slowly made it down the hill and found a pagoda to sleep under. We slept for several hours, then had another walk through the fields, and had green tea ice cream. We grabbed a quick brunch of bibimbap and ramen and hopped on bus to Yulpo Beach to try out the Green Tea Baths. It was only about a 15 minute bus ride and the baths were great and relaxing and the perfect way to relax after being up for almost 36 hours.
After the baths we got another bus and headed to Yeosu, where we would be staying for the remainder of the weekend. The relaxing bath, and lack of sleep finally caught up with us and we all slept on the two hour bus ride to Yeosu.
We found a cheap hotel for only 25 bucks a night, Ondul flooring, unfortunately, but for the price we couldn’t complain. One couple splurged (40 bucks) and actually got a room with a bed and it had a balcony with a great view of the city. We had a nice seafood dinner (it actually wasn’t too bad for me) and then called it an early night since we hadn’t slept in almost two days.
The next day (Saturday I think) we woke up to a gloomy morning. We stopped and got coffee and umbrellas and made our way to a temple in Yeosu. Jinnamgwan is the oldest existing single-story wooden building in Korea. We stayed for about 30 minutes taking pictures and looking at the small museum about the temple. We wanted to take a ferry to some islands off the coast but with the gloomy and rainy day we decided to go to Hyangiram hermitage which is a huge temple built into the side of a mountain overlooking the coast.
Even with the rain, the temple was beautiful. After walking up way too many stairs, we reached the top. The temple consisted of several buildings of different sizes, shrines, memorials, and turtle sculptures everywhere. Apparently the temple caught on fire in November and many buildings were destroyed, but it was amazing. They had wishing stones, wells, walls, and rocks everywhere. The wishing wall was basically a stone wall that you made a wish in front of and then tried to stick a coin on the side of it. If it sticks, your wish will come true. Derek and I both made wishes that stuck, and no, we can't tell you what they were!
We made the long trek back down the mountain and stopped at a cute restaurant because it had a sign that said French Quarter New Orleans on the outside. Derek and I immediately start talking about how we wanted Po’Boys and thought it might have some western food since they had signs from New Orleans, New York, Vegas and some other U.S. cities. Of course, it was a traditional Koran restaurant but we were able to get steamed crab that was pretty good, along with Pajeon (Korean pancakes). Dinner was great and we eventually got the bus back to Yeosu.
By the time we got back to the city it was pouring rain so we went to our rooms dried off, then met up later for some flavored soju and a night on the town in Yeosu.
The next morning we woke up and took the 11:00 o’clock train back to Gwangju where we would spend the day, then take a train to Daejeon then take the KTX train to Seoul (confusing I know).
We arrived in Gwangju and went to a nice Arab restaurant in the downtown shopping district of the city. Derek and I were tired, so we opted out of going to see some monument to a massacre that occurred in the city in the 80s and had some coffee and walked around the city instead.
When we arrived in Daejeon, I was really excited about taking the KTX to Seoul. We rode first class on the train (only tickets we could get). We traveled at 300 kilometers per hour and we made the 100 mile trip in less than 50 minutes.
We finally arrived back on the island, after a long day of traveling and with a little confusion from a cabbie in Seoul, but at 12:45 we finally walked through the door and crashed. It was a great holiday with great friends, and we have to thank Buddha for the extra day off!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
This Little Light Of Mine
Buddha’s birthday was on the 21st and to start the celebration we attended the Lotus Lantern Festival May 15-16. The festival and parade was in the Insadong district of Seoul and there were thousands of lanterns and people dancing, eating and of course—drinking.
We got up somewhat early on Saturday and made our way into the city. We went to Itaewon (the foreigners district) again, because I found a Greek restaurant where I could actually get Hummus. It was good, but unfortunately you could only get it as a side, so I have decided I am going to have to suck it up and make my own. Later, we met up with our friends and went to Hongdae, so we could go to this special café.
It’s called the Bau Haus Dog Café. You can get a drink at the café and sit with twenty plus dogs roaming around. It smelled like a vet, but once you adjusted it wasn’t too bad. They had treats you could buy along with many toys, beds, shampoos, etc. We sat down and ordered a drink but were bummed no dogs came around to our table. After about 5 minutes we realized we needed to buy treats so the dogs would pay attention to us. That did the trick, but apparently we bought the kind the dogs didn’t like so only about 5 dogs came over to us, and that was with much coercing. One dog looked like Neil and I was so excited. I went and picked him up and he sat in my lap for 10 minutes eating and letting me pet him. I was so happy and kept calling him Neil, until a worker came up and said a family would like their dog back. Oops. They didn’t seem to mind, but quickly got their dog and left. We spent the rest of the day walking and shopping and had a great dinner of Mexican food that was similar to the Mexican restaurant I went to in Jeju. We will definitely go back.
Sunday, we woke up and went to city hall to meet our friends. We were early, so we walked around and discovered the Seoul Museum of Art, the U.S. Embassy and Gyeongbokgung Palace. We didn’t have much time, but we watched the changing of the guards, and I was able to take a couple of pictures from the outside. I definitely want to go back and actually tour the palace.
We met up with our friends and we went to Insadong. We tried to have a BBQ, but it didn’t work out so well for us. We tried to grill in a park that turned out to be a sacred memorial and then we tried along the Cheonggyecheon Stream, but we got about 5 kabobs grilled when we were told to stop again, so instead we sat along the stream and enjoyed the nice day.
We made our way to the festival area and looked at the lanterns and festivities. The parade wasn’t starting till seven, but I wanted good pictures so we found a spot early and camped out for several hours. The parade was beautiful, with groups of 50-100 people holding lanterns of different colors, shapes and styles. They even had huge lanterns that looked like floats from Mardi Gras, but unfortunately they kept going down a different street. These huge lanterns varied from cartoon characters, to huge peacocks with moving wings and even a fire-breathing dragon. Since I was in the front, several people in the parade gave me lanterns and Derek and I ended up with about four lanterns that we are going to put up in the apartment. Tired from the long weekend, and not wanting to ruin our pretty lanterns we left before the parade was over to head back to the island.
I haven’t put up the lanterns yet, but will make sure to post pictures once they are up in the apartment. In the meantime, here are pictures from the weekend and festival…
We got up somewhat early on Saturday and made our way into the city. We went to Itaewon (the foreigners district) again, because I found a Greek restaurant where I could actually get Hummus. It was good, but unfortunately you could only get it as a side, so I have decided I am going to have to suck it up and make my own. Later, we met up with our friends and went to Hongdae, so we could go to this special café.
It’s called the Bau Haus Dog Café. You can get a drink at the café and sit with twenty plus dogs roaming around. It smelled like a vet, but once you adjusted it wasn’t too bad. They had treats you could buy along with many toys, beds, shampoos, etc. We sat down and ordered a drink but were bummed no dogs came around to our table. After about 5 minutes we realized we needed to buy treats so the dogs would pay attention to us. That did the trick, but apparently we bought the kind the dogs didn’t like so only about 5 dogs came over to us, and that was with much coercing. One dog looked like Neil and I was so excited. I went and picked him up and he sat in my lap for 10 minutes eating and letting me pet him. I was so happy and kept calling him Neil, until a worker came up and said a family would like their dog back. Oops. They didn’t seem to mind, but quickly got their dog and left. We spent the rest of the day walking and shopping and had a great dinner of Mexican food that was similar to the Mexican restaurant I went to in Jeju. We will definitely go back.
Sunday, we woke up and went to city hall to meet our friends. We were early, so we walked around and discovered the Seoul Museum of Art, the U.S. Embassy and Gyeongbokgung Palace. We didn’t have much time, but we watched the changing of the guards, and I was able to take a couple of pictures from the outside. I definitely want to go back and actually tour the palace.
We met up with our friends and we went to Insadong. We tried to have a BBQ, but it didn’t work out so well for us. We tried to grill in a park that turned out to be a sacred memorial and then we tried along the Cheonggyecheon Stream, but we got about 5 kabobs grilled when we were told to stop again, so instead we sat along the stream and enjoyed the nice day.
We made our way to the festival area and looked at the lanterns and festivities. The parade wasn’t starting till seven, but I wanted good pictures so we found a spot early and camped out for several hours. The parade was beautiful, with groups of 50-100 people holding lanterns of different colors, shapes and styles. They even had huge lanterns that looked like floats from Mardi Gras, but unfortunately they kept going down a different street. These huge lanterns varied from cartoon characters, to huge peacocks with moving wings and even a fire-breathing dragon. Since I was in the front, several people in the parade gave me lanterns and Derek and I ended up with about four lanterns that we are going to put up in the apartment. Tired from the long weekend, and not wanting to ruin our pretty lanterns we left before the parade was over to head back to the island.
I haven’t put up the lanterns yet, but will make sure to post pictures once they are up in the apartment. In the meantime, here are pictures from the weekend and festival…
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