메리 크리스마스 Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Korea is missing something... Christmas trees, Christmas lights, wreaths, eggnog, presents, candy canes, gingerbread houses, and anything else that will remind you of Christmas. I guess you really can't expect all that from a country that isn't Christian. Neither one of my schools had a single Christmas decoration up. A lot of students would walk around saying "Merry Christmas," and even some of their English lessons were Christmas related. When I asked who had a Christmas tree at their house, none said yes. This was kind of depressing. No spirit at all. Village life without a doubt! I went up to Seoul the weekend before Christmas. I saw quite a bit of lights and decorations around. It was a nice change.

This Christmas was actually very good. I spent it with a good group of people and so many parts of the weekend reminded me of Christmas back at home. Our buddy Ben was able to get a cabin in Deogyusan National Park [Muju Resort] for the weekend. The cabin was pretty sick. It was a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom place with a small kitchen, living room and a loft upstairs. Plenty of room for all 10 or 11 of us.

Our weekend activities included a gift exchange, flaming shots of 151, a Christmas morning hike in below freezing temperatures, an occasional power outage, drinking games, and of course... tons of alcohol. Definitely made for a memorable time.

Happy Holidays from Korea, to the world!

오픈 클래스 --> Open Class

I was informed that I would have to do an "Open Class" at the beginning of the month. The school actually allowed me to pick what date I wanted to do it on. Of course I asked for the very last day of the month! I figured this would give me the most time to prepare for my class. Whoever knows me from my college days, might have already guessed that I indeed put all my planning on hold until the very last minute. I've been out of school for quite some time now, and I still have that tendency to procrastinate like crazy!

So the shelling from North Korea in Yeonpyeong Island earlier in the week was not about to stop me from trying to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. This is one of my favorite holidays, and I had to find a way to make the best of it in Korea. On Thursday I went out with the Parks and a couple of the teachers to eat oysters, live octopus, and beer. It was delicious, but all I could think about was grandma's amazing Thanksgiving meal. I was hella missing the flavors of American food along with some Honduran food on this holiday. On Friday, I decided to visit Jomel in his village. Two buses, one train, one high-speed train, one taxi, and 5 hours later, I finally made it to his place. His friends at the 'English Village' had prepared a great meal. I got there just in time for the late meal and the night's festivities! It was great to celebrate Thanksgiving with other foreigners. We were all just reminiscing on our Thanksgiving traditions and what not.

On Saturday we made our way to Daejeon to party it up once again. For some reason, I enjoy Daejeon a lot more than Seoul. Maybe because there is less to choose from as far as bars go. I don't mind this at all, because you know you're bound to find a lot of people where ever you decide to party at. Also, love motels and drinks tend to be a lot cheaper here. We started the night at VIP's. I think it's a Korean version of a Western-style salad and steakhouse. Dinner there was pretty good, but not good enough to convince me to buy a $45 steak.... especially when it's damn tiny. After VIP's we moved on to the Shisha House... a pretty cool hookah bar that just reopened. I don't care for hookah, but they have good beer there that they brew it themselves! The rest of the night led us to Yellow Taxi, and then to Sponge, where we partied until 6am. So far Daejeon has never let me down on a party weekend.

Once I got back to the village, I began to work on materials for my open class like crazy! I felt like I was under pressure... and like all other procrastinators out there, I felt like I was working under the best circumstances. Sure enough, I began to get tired at around 9pm. That's when I decided to call it quits. I was not about lose sleep over an open class.... well, at least not my first one! Monday comes, and I find out that my class has been moved to Tuesday! Nice-uh. This is typical Korean planning. They change everything at the last minute... and the Native English teacher is always the last one to find out. This time I was not complaining. It gave me a day, after a good night's sleep, to add any finishing touches to my materials.

The day of my open class, I started feeling a little nervous. I've had plenty of experience doing presentations in front of different groups/clubs and classes in college. I think a lot of it had to do with the way they set up my small classroom and because of the people that were going to attend. By 3pm, everyone was already in the classroom; Nakdong principal, vice-principal, head teacher, English co-teacher, 2nd grade teacher, Cheonbuk principal, and English co-teacher. Oh, and I also felt nervous because they set up a camera to record me. I did a lesson titled, "This is our house." I handed out some worksheets, went over new vocab using power point, did an activity where the students had so present in front of the class, and played a couple games. All in all, I think it went pretty well. I got quite a few laughs from my observers, and the students did great! After the 40 minute class, we had a 40 minute debrief session. They were all just talking back and forth and writing stuff down on their notepads and all over my worksheets and lesson plan. Every once in a while, one of my co-teachers would turn to me and translate a few things. The debrief was not as bad as I thought it would be... this is probably because I didn't understand most of it. After our session, we went out for a celebratory dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant that specialized in 아귀, angler fish. I had no idea what this was. They tried describing it to me, but I just couldn't imagine it. The fish was prepared in a very hearty soup. I t made me sweat. After a few bottles of soju on a school night, we called it quits and I got a ride home. The first thing I did was google 'angler fish.' Then I didn't know if this was a celebratory dinner, or more of a punishment. Whatever it was, it was a free dinner!!

Excitement

Looks like there is a bit of excitement going on. I was in class when two of my 5th graders ran into my classroom to tell me that NK was attacking. I had a little trouble understanding them at first, until they decided to draw on the white board what they were trying to say. It surprised me so much that they wanted to watch the news instead of finishing Madagascar 2.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index.html?hpt=T1

The Parks - My adopted Korean family

A couple of weeks after I started working at Cheonbuk Elementary, one of the student's mothers came up to my classroom and asked if I was interested in tutoring her son, Jeong-min. Being the kind person that I am, I agreed. From then on, my time here in the village has been nothing but a blessing! Mr. Park and Mrs. Kim [not sure why their lasts names are different if they're married] only have one child, Jeong-min. He is in the 3rd grade. He's actually pretty cool and a good student.

So this tutoring 'job' did not go the traditional way. In fact, it's anything but a job. I find myself spending about 4 days a week with the Parks. We do anything from going out to dinner to shopping at HomePlus to hiking on the weekends. This family has welcomed me and now takes great care of me. I love home cooked Korean meals at their house. Mrs. Kim is always sending me home with tubs of kimchi, roasted seaweed, myulchi [fried dried anchovies], and other Korean side dishes. We also tend to eat out about 2 or 3 times per week. Whenever we go to the store, they'll pay for any item I place in the shopping cart. It's pretty crazy. Mrs. Kim works part time at Cheonbuk school. I'm not too sure what exactly she does, because she only works like 2 or 3 hours three days per week. She usually just comes to my classroom and sits there and then chit-chats with me when my classes are over. She brings Jeong-min and I snack all the time. When I work at Nakdong school, she goes and picks me up that way I don't have to ride the bus.

It's gone as far as me going with them to visit other family; aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents... everyone! Sometimes when we're riding in the car, I stop and take a minute to think about what's actually happening.... Mr. Park is driving, Mrs. Kim is singing and doing her make up in the front seat, and Jeong-min and I are in the back seat playing on the DS or watching a movie. That's when I'm like, DAMNNN.... I do feel like I'm part of this family LOL! Mrs. Kim calls me her adopted son. I really enjoy spending time with the Parks. I have a feeling I'm going to grow very attached to them, which will make my departure from Korea a bit harder than I ever imagined.

Update, Update!

Once again I have gotten pretty damn lazy with this blog thing. I don't know why I have a hard time keeping up. It's all for my benefit too... that way in a year from now I'll be able to still remember what it was that I did while I was in Korea. I have such a crappy memory, that I have already forgotten what happened last month. Here are some things I remember pretty well.

태풍 곤파스 ~ Typhoon Kompasu
This was my first experience with a typhoon and I hope it was also my last. I had no clue there was a typhoon on its way. None of my coworkers even mentioned it to me. At about 2am [Sept. 2nd] I woke up because the winds seemed to get a lot stronger than usual. It annoyed me because it was way past my bed time of 10pm. Being wide awake, I had nothing better to do than to go online and check my email/fb. I was talking to a couple friends online when all of a sudden the power went out.

The winds got stronger and stronger and I began to get pretty scared. I could hear aluminum roofs flying down the street. The windows in my houses were shaking so much. At around 4am I decided to make a video of what was going on. I was just walking around my house with my camera and a flashlight, trying to document what was going on. It was pretty damn loud, so I decided to close all the windows in the house. After a while, I realized that might not have been the best idea... the windows were rattling so much from all the wind hitting them. I sat in the corner of my bed, covering myself with my blanket, and thinking that the glass from the windows was going to shatter at any moment. Pretty crazy thought, if you can imagine it. I decided to open the windows again and just let all the wind go straight through the house.

With all the commotion, it was impossible to fall asleep. The strong winds did not stop until about 6am. At around 8am I got ready for work. I was a walking zombie. I showed up at the school and everyone was asking me if I felt the typhoon. OF COURSE I FELT IT! I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO THIS SCHOOL! Since we still had no power, they decided to let the students go home right before lunch. We drove 40 minutes to the nearest city with power to have lunch. On our way there, all I could see was destruction. Tons of crops ruined, rice patties flattened, and debris all over. One of our student's farm lost 2,000 chickens. The barn right across the street from my house fell. There was a chunk of siding from an exterior wall at my school that flew away. The covered eating area at the restaurant across the street from my house fell over. A large portion of the shingles on my roof also flew away. And I had 1 window that cracked.

This typhoon was pretty exciting. But hopefully it will be the only one I'll have to g o through. Apparently, it was the biggest typhoon to hit South Korea in 15 years. I'm ad ding this to the "Korea Hates Me" file.

Welcome to Korea, Ana:
Ana finally made it out to Korea!! I have been heading up to Seoul a lot recently to go hang out with Ana. Our first time meeting up was actually a bit tragic. I took a huge suitcase with me, because I was trying to pick up some stuff that I had left at my friend's place in Seoul right before I moved to the village. When I got to Yonsei, Ana's university, we immediately decided to go look for a hotel nearby. From my experience in Korea, I know that where eve r th ere is a bar/club area, a hotel area shou ld be just around the corner. Well, as we tried to find a hotel right by the university... we took the wrong turn.. and wrong it was! We ended up walking around Seoul in search of a damn hotel for about 3 hours. Yes, 3 damn hours in th e rain and in the dark. And the part that pissed me off was the we eventually found a hotel... about 3 blocks from whe re we initially began our journey. We were exhausted, but decided to celebrate our reunion by having a nice Korean meal at what might have been 2 in the morning.

The next day I got to play tour guide and we did about 9 hours of touring around some of the city. We covered a good amount, but no where near finished. Once again, tons of walking. That night we got ready to go out... all dressed up, hair did, cologne, and all... Ana got her make up and all... While I was looking up clubs to hit up, Ana decided to take a power nap. About 15 mins later I decided to join as well. Little did we know this was going to be the extent of our 'crazy' party night. That's right, we got ready just to hit the sack!

Since then, we've met up quite a few times and have actually enjoyed ourselves pretty well. Our most recent adventure was a trip to Jeju Island... the Hawaii of Korea! I'll post about that later.

"Alex 선생님" aka "Alex Teacher"
Alright, I think I should let you all know that I'm actually loving the job. There is one school [Nakdong] that I like more than the other [Cheonbuk]. But in the end, I like what I do at both schools. The students are fun. Sometimes I can get annoyed, but it's cool because all I have to do is get through a 40 minute class with that particular class, then on to the next class. I feel pretty busy most of the time, I am teaching 32 hours a week and so only 8 hours to 'lesson plan.' But I still manage to get it done. Sometimes I just think of stuff to do right on the spot. At times, I wish my class would be longer than just 40 minutes. I feel very fortunate to say that I'm loving this job. Probably the first time I can say that about any job I've had [with the exception of being a desk attendant at Bhood].
The picture on the left are my 3rd/4th graders at Cheonbuk. The picture on the right is of some of my 5th/6th graders at Nakdong! Awesome kids.

3 Things...

These are a few things I've been meaning to write about that make me chuckle a bit...

1. Facial Lotion

A few months ago, on Teacher's Day, I received some facial lotion from one of my students in Seoul. I've been using it regularly along with other facial lotion I already have. One of my new coworkers came over to my house last week to see how the move-in was going. I had all the bathroom products spread out right outside the door because I had been deep cleaning the bathroom. My coworker had this puzzled look to her face and she grabbed this lotion. Then she asked me why I was using a 'bleaching cream.' My first reaction was, "WTF Jienie!!" [the student who I received the gift from]. So I think this explains why I've noticed that I'm more pale than usual. Here I sat thinking it was because I had not gone on a tropical vacation this summer. I don't know if I should be mad at Jienie and her parents for trying to make me 'white' or if I should just think of it as a nice gesture. In Korea, 'lighter skin is better.'

2. "This area is famous for..."

One of my coworkers speaks English alright. She has been trying to show me around and explain the daily routine here. She has trouble expressing herself sometimes. She'll usually start on a thought, then I come in and try and finish what she was trying to say. She tends to use the phrase, "This area is famous for...." quite a bit. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense at all. But I just nod politely to let her know I understand. There were two instances when I kinda couldn't help it but to laugh when she used this phrase. The first time was when we were having lunch and a crap load of flies attacked our table. She instantly used the phrase and said, "This area is famous for flies." I didn't know how to really think of this quote. I know she didn't mean it in a way where please from all over the world come here just to be attacked by flies while trying to enjoy lunch. I'm pretty sure she meant to say something more along the lines of, "damn, so many flies in this joint." The second time she used this phrase and made me laugh was a day she came over to my house to check up on me. It was a hot/windy day and had just rained. The smell of manure from the cows across the street was pretty strong. I saw my coworker make a face of disgust followed by, "This are is famous for cows." I lulzed because I KNEW she wanted to say something like, "Damn it hella smells like shit!" Oh that Kim Hae-ran teacher is pretty funny.

3. Name Change
On my first day at Cheonbuk, I was pretty surprised to see how much power the principal actually had. Not gonna lie, just talking to him kinda intimidated me from the get go. He didn't seem like such a nice/caring person. But whatever, I just wanted to make a good first impression... I even wore my "Republic of Korea" t-shirt! As soon as I introduced myself, he said, "What??" I wasn't mad or anything and so I went ahead and introduced myself again. Apparently he still didn't get it. He said it would be too hard for the students to pronounce. I was like, WTF >__< So then I suggested he called me by my middle name. The conversation went like this...

ME: Hmmm. Ok, you can call me Alexander.
PRINCIPAL: Ehhh...Uhhh Allle??
ME: ALEXANDER! My name is Alexander.
PRINCIPAL: Alex-uh, ahhh yeh yehhh Alex-uh. OkOk yehhh. Alex-uh.
ME: *sigh* Hmm, yeah.... hello my name is Alex-uh.

The smell of manure lingers through my new home in the village.

New Location:Nakdong-ri, Boryeong-si, Chungcheongnam-do 355-810, South Korea <--- Google Map it!

So I've been living at my new location for a week and a half now. This place really is a village. It's nothing more than a farming community. Everywhere you look, there are rice patties and corn fields. And I know there are lots of cows around as well, even though I haven't seen them. No one can deny the existence of the unique smell of manure that seems to carelessly flow through the thick and humid air.

I live in this little place called Cheonbuk. As the recruiters were driving me here, all I could think about was, "What the hellllll?" While interviewing for this position, I was asked by 3 different people if I was ok with a 'rural area.' Of course I said yes for a couple reasons; 1 - I had been living at Jomel's place for 2 weeks... a rural town, but I thought it wasn't bad. It had multiple roads, community center, bus terminal, river, markets, etc. 2 - I needed a job, and really wanted this position because it was public school job. As we're driving, all of a sudden I accidentally blurted out what was on my mind, "Oh...myyyy..Goddd!!" Then I proceeded into an uncontrollable nervous laugh attack.

I'm pretty sure the two recruiters driving me were thinking the exact same thing, because immediately after they started laughing a lot. Of course they tried, in their broken English, reassuring me that everything would be alright in Cheonbuk.

I've got to admit, I really don't mind the incredibly small village feel. I'm slowly becoming a celebrity around here, being the only foreigner for miles. The people are pretty friendly once they know who I am and what I'm doing here. I have gotten good treatment at most of the restaurants I've been to in the area. In fact, one of the places across the street from my house always gives me more food/drink than what I order.

My coworker described the location of my house as "downtown" Cheonbuk. I chuckled a bit. I would say this so called downtown is made up of about 3 blocks worth of suff. There are a few restaurants, post office, bank, market [no vegetables], police station, clinic, and some other things which I don't know what they are. The nearest actual small town [lacks malls, movie theaters, etc.] is a 20-25 minute bus ride away. It's called Gwancheong. It has a farmer's market like place that sells lots of veggies and other miscelaneous crap. There is also a train station there that goes to Seoul.

One cool thing about this location in my proximity to the sea. One of the teachers drove me out the beach the other day. It is actually very nice. I could smell the salt in the air. Reminded me a lot of Seattle, minus the overly developed skyline. The beach itself is not sandy... it's actually made up of milllions of shells. Went to a seafood restaurant... oh man, so good! Everything was practically alive and there was a huge variety of stuff as well! I guess the village has it's ups and downs.

New House:

My new place is a huge upgrade from my small closet back in Seoul. I was given a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom house. The living room area is also very spacious. There is a large kitchen together with a dining area included. The house also has a separate laundry area. It's cool to have such a big place after that tiny whole-in-the-wall I used to have. I actually don't even know what to do with so much space. I think I spent my first 4 or 5 days at the house just cleaning the place... tackling one room at a time until I as satisfied with how clean it was.

I got internet installed [$30/month] and now cable tv [$120/year]. I really didn't need cable, but it's kinda cool since I get some English channels I really like [CNN, Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, etc]. Man, I WISH I could get Univision hahahaha. The only thing that my house is missing now is some food in the kitchen. I really don't have much other than cereal, milk, yogurt, eggs, and some peaches.

My house is on the second floor of some unoccupied offices. And I don't have neighbors right next to me. This is great because I can turn up the volume on the music as high as I like. A lot of people in the village already know where I live. Some of my students will actually wait for me to come out of my house in the morning so we can all walk [150 steps] to school together.

New Job:

The new job is teaching English at two different elementary schools. One of the schools, like I mentioned, is only about 150 steps from my house. The second school is a 5 min bus ride away. Both schools seem to have really nice staff members. The principal at Nakdong is very motherly. She's always making sure I eat, have tea/coffee, and to keep the A/C on for me. She's hella nice. Right now it's summer vacation. We've been doing English Camp for the 5th and 6th graders. Last week and this week I just teach from about 9:30am-12:00pm, then it's lunch time! Usually we go out to some restaurant and the school pays, so I really like that part. Next week classes begin again in a normal school schedule. I haven't received my timetable yet, but all I know is I'll be teaching 1st-6th grade. I'm pretty excited about it. The kids I've worked with these two weeks are pretty nice and they bow to me hahaa. Their English level is a lot lower than the kindergarten kids I had back in Seoul. But I like this age group better... they don't require as much energy. I have yet to put a kid in time-out.

Eviction Notice!

I think the two times that the landlord and the building owner walked into my apt with a possible new tenant should have been a good warning...

After I got home from chillin at the park earlier this evening, the landlord came to visit me. He served me with a nice eviction notice. Surprising, the notice was written with very good English. And it was very clear; Christine had not been paying rent since March and they knew the school closed down so they needed me out! I was given until Tuesday, according to the notice. That's exactly two days. I used my Korean skills to beg and let me stay until Thursday and he agreed.

I immediately called my Korean coworker and she tried calling the landlord to extend the time until the end of the month, but he actually ended up yelling at her hahahaa. Good try, Clare. Looks like I will be moving to Muju with Jomes for a while. My friend Grace is also trying to help me set up a courier service so I can send my suitcases with a moving company instead of me trying to take them all the way to Muju by subway and bus.

I'll be leaving some of my less important/needed items at my friends' homes in Seoul for the time being. I am trying to get a new job ASAP so that way I can get a new apartment and settle down again. This is a bit of a crazy/stressful experience, and even though I'm in dire need of a new job, I don't want to sign the first contract that I'm offered.

Tomorrow morning I'll be meeting with all the teachers from my school. We have a lawyer now, and we'll be submitting all our documentation for our joint lawsuit to him. The teachers really want to help Joel [other foreign teacher] and I, so I wanna take advantage of that. They said it might take 3-6 months before we even see any of the money we're all owed.

So as of now I'm unemployed, broke, homeless, stranded, and have illegal status in Korea!! I hope things pick up from here.

Now back to packing....

Bits Closed

About an hour after getting home from work on Monday evening I received a text from Christine, the school director.

"I'm sorry. Is before closing. No more classes. -Christine"

This was her way, in broken English, of saying that our school is now officially closed. Later on my Korean coworker called to confirm this was true.

Today my coworker and I had our appointment at the Ministry of Labor for unpaid wages. I was kinda bummed to find out that I can't claim unpaid wages in the current pay period because I'm technically still contracted by Bits.

Just like I suspected, Christine did not show up to the meeting. We all tried calling her, and no answer. The phone at Bits has been disconnected. She's hiding from everyone. Oh man, worst boss ever.

I just need to get my diploma back and signed release letter from the contract that way I can start working somewhere else. She's making this crap a bit difficult. I don't even know how long I can stay at my current apartment before I get kicked out. She pays for the rent... but who knows how many months behind she is.

Now it's time to get in contact with my recruiter and find a new position asap.

Thursday, July 15 - Update.

Today there was a meeting at Bits with all the parents and teachers. If it wasn't for Clare [Korean teacher], I would have not even known about this meeting. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I ran over to the school... yeah, I really did run!

When I got to the school, all I could describe what I saw and hear as would be COMPLETE CHAOS! My classroom had been torn apart! I am pretty damn organized and neat. The parents had turned my classroom upside down, trying to find books, pencil cases, class work, and anything else that belonged to their kids.

Parents were yelling back and forth, little kids crying and screaming, and the teachers were just walking around restlessly. It was not a pretty sight. Christine was crying a lot and I actually felt really bad for her. Obviously her bad business decisions got her to this point, but I'm sure she never imagined it would be this bad. My coworker was translating a lot of what was going on. Apparently, the parents are all going to file one big joint suit. They want their tuition money back. A lot of the parents pay for 3-6 months as a lump sum. Christine has no money. Her house and cars have been taken away by creditors and she's now living with her mother.

As the parents were leaving, I got a bit sad. This was the last time I was gonna see my kids. I didn't realize how attached I had gotten to my students. A lot of the parents thanked me and told me their kids would talk a lot about me at home... especially how I'd try to speak Korean to them LOL.

After the parents left, we continued the meeting. The bus drivers were yelling so much at Christine. All of a sudden, the once-per-week taekwondo teacher showed up to also yell and put in his two cents. I didn't understand what they were saying, but I used this time to try and pick up some of the vocab I had learned LOL. When it was finally my turn to say anything I needed to, I simply asked for my release letter from my contract and for my diploma. Christine did not even look at me in the eye when she spoke. Her husband then started talking to me, but I didn't understand anything. He apparently was 'begging' me and my Canadian coworker [not present] to drop the claim we had filed at the Ministry of Labor. I guess he is not able to work while the claim is in progress. Christine once again 'promised' that she would pay us everything she owed. But I simply don't trust her promises anymore. I feel bad for her situation, but I think I will stick to my claim. Otherwise I might end up losing out on all that money owed. I advised her to actually show up to the meetings and not hide from the Ministry of Labor. The Korean teachers said that she will probably not show up to any of the meetings, which I can see happening.

So it was just like that how my first job in South Korea ended. Not the happiest of endings nor the easiest. I found out I have until the end of the month to get out of this apartment. So now I must hurry and find a new position fast!

Seoul Grand Park!

This weekend I met up with my friend Grace from WWU! It was nice to see a familiar face. We had a pretty damn adventurous day on Sunday. We went to Seoul Grand Park, an enormous place which consists of a museum of modern art, a rose garden, an amusement park, and a zoo. We were set on going to the zoo. I really wanted to go because last time I was there with my school, we only spent about 20 mins at the place. We saw 3 or 4 animals very fast, then the teachers decided it was time to go home. I was pretty mad, not gonna lie.

We got to see every single animal they house at the zoo. We even made it to the feeding/presentations of the tigers, lions, and elephants. I laughed a lot at the dolphin show. Most of the time I was thinking of my friend who told me she wanted to be a dolphin trainer after getting her psychology degree. We were also very brave and held a damn snake! I was pretty scared, not gonna lie. It reminded me of the time I did it in Miami. This snake was a lot smaller... but I was just as scared. As we were leaving the zoo, there was a live performance from an African group. The music was very upbeat and and the dancing was wild. I really enjoyed it.

We had some delicious lamb BBQ for dinner. I think I could eat lamb over beef or pork any day! I was also feeling very adventurous and so we ordered 똥 집, which literally translates to 'poop house.' According to everyone, it's the chicken's butthole. It didn't have any real flavor... more than anything it was just a weird texture.

My proudest teaching moment, thus far...

I have a rule in my classroom, put your pencil cases in your cubbies or I will throw them in the trash. I think it's pretty clear and simple to follow. I don't like having a messy classroom and I get annoyed when I find 15 Hello Kitty pencil cases laying around. I waste too much time trynna figure out whose pencil case is whose. Not gonna lie, my rule is more like a threat... I still have not thrown any pencil cases in the trash... but I've really wanted to.

Harry was the last one out of the class today. As he was running out the door, I stopped him and asked him to put away his pencil case. He went back to the desk, picked it up, and told told me it was Amy's.

I asked him to put it in her cubbie then he replied, "No teacher. Trash!" He walked over to the trash can, threw the pencil case in it, and walked out of the classroom.

I laughed about it for a couple minutes, then realized how much my words and actions actually influence these kids. I've never been more proud of any of my students, good job Harry!

4 Months and the Ministry of Labor!

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone):
A few weeks ago I went to the DMZ with a tour of like 45 people. It was quite interesting. Learned a lot of history and some fun facts. I was a bit annoyed because it was the first time it rained in about 3 weeks.... and it wasn't normal rain, it was like a damn monsoon!! Our tour took us to several locations; Imjingak, tunnel 3, tunnel 2, Cheorwon, and White Horse Hill. This pic is from Imjingak. The sign reads, "Do not come close or take pictures." No one really saw it until after we had walked passed it and taken several pictures of what we believed was the virtually unknown, North Korea. It was not until later that we found tout we were just looking at a road that simply leads to and crosses the actual DMZ and eventually into North Korea. The rain really made this experience not as awesome as it is supposed to be. We went into a couple tunnels that were supposedly built by the North Koreas in attempts to invade the South. The stories are really good.

Korea vs Uruguay:
World Cup fever is pretty intense in Korea. The fans are pretty crazy and they truly show how much they love their national team. I finally met up with my buddy Mikie and some of his friends at city hall. It was around 8pm when we met and there were already hundreds of people gathered. Everyone was dressed in red tshirts and wearing devil horns..."Korea Fighting!" The day had been nice, but sure enough it began pouring down while at city hall. Everyone busted out their umbrellas and plastic ponchos. But this didn't stop the party. People continued drinking, screaming, and dancing around. There were quite a few kpop performers on the stage. The whole time I was hoping that Big Bang would show up and perform my favorite of the numerous 'official world cup songs' that Korea has, The Shouts of Reds. 오~대한민국 승리의 함성 - Oh Republic of Korea, shouts of victory! I had been listening to that song on repeat for the past week or so. I would constantly play it on the CD player in my classroom and made my students sing along to it. I dare you to say it's not an awesome song! So after 3 straight hours of rain and partying, the game finally began. It definitely wasn't the outcome that South Korea was looking for; Uruguay 2 - Red Devils 1. This was sad for two reasons; 1 - this meant it was the end of the parties at city hall. 2 - I was looking forward to a game between South Korea and USA at the quarter finals. After city hall, we headed over to Itaewon to catch the USA vs Ghana game at a foreigner bar. It was another party and another let down. But great times overall!

Korean Class:
I have finished my first quarter of Korean class at Sookmyung University. I am very surprised that in a 10 week course [3 times/week; 2 hrs each], I only skipped once! This is by far my best attendance record ever, and I'm quite proud of it. I wish I could have had this type of attendance record at WWU. I learned lots of stuff in that class. First of all, I'm no longer ignorant to the fact that Korean, better known as Hangul, is nothing more than a form of tic-tac-toe. In fact, Koreans don't play tic-tac-toe because of the way Hangul is put together. I've learned how to read Hangul, however that doesn't mean I know what I'm reading. And I've also learned a few phrases that will help me in everyday life while living in Korea. I managed to get a B+ in the course and a sweet certificate!

Bits Language School:
So I've been having some troubles with this damn school. First of all, in Korea we only get paid once a month. That's not so bad if you know how to manage your money. I feel like I'm good at this. But it's not so good when I get paid late. The first month I was paid on time and in full. The second month, I was paid 6 days late and was $300 short. The third month.... well, this is when it started to get serious, it was 32 days late and $600 short. And this month, my salary is already 2 weeks late. The other foreign teacher and I had a meeting with our school director, Christine. She pretty much fed us lies and a sob story. Recently we found out that the school might be closing down. Christine is in lots of debt and has pretty bad business practices. She owes everyone money... 7 teachers, the cook, the bus drivers, the specialty teachers (taekwondo/ballet), even the custodian. This past Thursday we were told to go home an hour early and not to come in on Friday. Things definitely not looking good if they decided to close the school at the last minute. Apparently Christine is to meet with the parents on Saturday to decide the fate of the school. My coworker and I used our Friday to go to the Ministry of Labor and submit a complaint for unpaid wages. As of now, Christine owes me over $3K. The people from the MoL told us that it can take about a month for the whole process to go through. We'll see what happens. In the mean time, my recruiter is already starting to look for other teaching jobs. I've also contemplated moving to Taiwan!

3 and a half months!!

Alright, I've gotten lazy with the blog... not gonna lie. But I better start writing because I'll regret not being able to remember the stories behind some of the events that have occurred during the past month. By no means do I want this post to turn into another novel.. but we'll see where it ends up...

Lotte World:
"Lotte World is a major recreation complex in Seoul, South Korea. It consists of the world's largest indoor theme park that set a Guinness World Record open all year around, an outdoor amusement park called "Magic Island", an artificial island inside a lake linked by monorail, shopping malls, a luxury hotel, a Korean folk museum, sports facilities, and movie theaters all in one place. Opened on July 12, 1989, Lotte World receives over 8 million visitors each year." - Wikipedia

This place was awesome! I've never been to such a huge theme park in my life. Aside from the 1 hour and 20 minute wait for a ride, it was a great place! We didn't show up until the late afternoon, but it was perfect because you receive a discount on admission if you go later in the day. We only paid 14,000W for admission which includes unlimited rides. There were a few 'extreme' rides which I enjoyed a lot. I would definitely go back to Lotte World, but never again on a weekend. Too busy.


Pirate's Restaurant:
After Lotte World we went to Gangnam, a district south of the Han River in Seoul. This place is very popular among the foreigners. It has an endless amount of bars, pubs, clubs, and restaurants. This is also one of the most expensive areas in Seoul. The nightlife in Gangnam is tons of fun! This night we decided to have dinner at a restaurant called Pirate's. I can truly say it was some of the best food I've had in Seoul. They specialized in shellfish. The place did not seem to fit in with the rest of the bars/restaurants in the area. They had very low tables and plastic stools. Did not appear to be an upscale Gangnam dining establishment at all. The staff there was awesome, they were very loud and fun people, making the dining experience a lot more lively. The shellfish was delicious. They brought out clams, oysters, gooey duck, and other shellfish and just placed it on the grill. They were topped off with some fresh vegetables and different sauces. The owner of the place liked us a lot and kept on bringing more and more food out. He even started playing some hip hop and turned on the neon lights hahahaa!

Seoul World Cup Stadium:
"The Seoul World Cup Stadium, also known as Sangam Stadium, is located in Seongsan, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea and has been home of K-League club FC Seoul since 2004. The stadium opened in 2001. It has a capacity of 68,476. It was built for the 2002 FIFA World Cup." - Wikipedia
May 5th was Children's Day in Korea! Nothing better than having a midweek break from work. To celebrate, my buddy and I went to watch a soccer game. The ticket for general admission was only 8,000W. FC Seoul played against Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma, the the most successful K-League club in terms of Championship victories (7). This day, the stadium had a record attendance of just over 66,400 fans. The FC Seoul fans are crazy!! They stand up and shout and chant for almost the entire game. Seems like they have endless energy. FC Seoul played a great game, 4-0. I really enjoyed watching an action packed game with wild fans while kicking back and having a few beers.... and unknowingly, this is how I celebrated Cinco de Mayo!


Dos Tacos:
After a long day at the stadium, we decided to go find some dinner. We headed to Gangnam (50 minutes away by subway) in search of the famous Dos Tacos. As of this day, I had not yet found decent Mexican food. But I had heard from many people that Dos Tacos had the best Mexican food! I was pretty excited about this. I had really been missing the taste of frijolitos, carne asada, cilantro, aguacate and all those delicious flavors of Latin cuisine. After walking around for a while, we finally found the place. It was kind of hidden, so you can easily miss it if you're not paying attention. When we arrived, the place was packed! I think about 70% of the people there were foreigners. The decor definitely said 'taqueria' to me. We waited about 20 minutes for a table. The menu had lots of delicious stuff including nachos WITH SOUR CREAM, enchiladas, burritos, tacos, and chimichangas. They even had horchata, but at $4 a glass. I will definitely be going back to Dos Tacos!


Daejeon:
One of my goals while in Korea is to explore as much of the country as possible. In efforts to do so, Jomes and I decided to head over to Daejeon. Daejeon is in central South Korea. It is the 5th largest city in Korea. We showed up with no itinerary and no real idea of what to expect. We ended up finding some of the attractions that are listed in Wikipedia. To our surprise, we came upon another amusement park. We walked right in without paying attention to whether or not there was an admission fee. There were not a lot of rides, but it was something to do! A group of high school kids found us and we instantly became famous. Like always, they asked the same questions; What's your name? How old are you? Where are you from? What are you doing in Korea? Can you speak Korean? Etc. After walking around the amusement park, we got on a bus to downtown. Of course we ended up catching the bus on the wrong side of the road so it took a lot longer. Once we saw a lot of buildings with tons of neon lights, we decided to get off the bus. We figured this was probably downtown. After grabbing some dinner, we decided to go find a bar. The easiest way to know you're in the bar area is to look for the million flyers on the ground. It's the best indicator that you're in the heart of the nightlife area. We ended up making a 친구 [chingu--> friend] here and there. There were quite a bit of foreigners at the first bar we went to. After that bar I really don't remember much. I know we were at some restaurant eating with a couple friends we had just made. I also recall a couple who were finishing their meal at the table next to ours. As the guy was getting up to leave, the girl decided to stay and she joined our table. After that all I remember is drinking the night away. Before I knew it, it was 7am or so. No need for a hotel room when you're up all night. I went directly to the bus terminal, got a ticket to Seoul and passed out for 2.5 hours. That right there was my first trip to Daejeon!

COEX Aquarium:
If there is one thing I like about Bits Language School, it's the fact that they take us on quite a bit of field trips. We went to the COEX Aquarium which is located Samseong-dong. The place is huge and pretty fun... especially cus it was free! What I hate about the field trips is that they always seem to be rushed. We didn't get to thoroughly explore all the different displays because they're always trying to get us back to school in time fore lunch. No clue why the lunch lady doesn't just make 40 sandwiches and send us off with some food to eat during the field trip. Then after thinking about it... We've never had sandwiches for lunch. It's always rice, soup, kimchi, and some 'main course.' Anyway, back to the aquarium, it's pretty dope and need to return so I can go through it slowly... but as I was walking in I saw the adult price was 17,000W. I dono how I feel about that.

Busan:
After so long, I finally got the opportunity to head over to Busan. I took advantage of the long Buddha's Birthday weekend to check out this great city. Busan is South Korea's second largest city with a population of nearly 4 million people! It's the country's largest port city, and the 5th largest port city in the world. It is home to the world's largest department store, Shinsegae Centum City... bigger than the Macy's in NYC. The Lotte World Tower is currently under construction [should finish by 2013] and will become the world's 3rd tallest building. Being Buddha's Birthday weekend, I had a feeling that getting to Busan would be a bit tricky. I was right. The KTX [super fast bullet train] was sold out. It can get you from Seoul to Busan in under 3 hours, whereas the bus will take anywhere from 4 and a half to 5 hours depending on traffic. Since Jomes was going as well, I decided to head over to Daejeon where we'd meet up and grab another bus from there to Busan. The normal trip to Deajeon takes 2.5 hours. The damn traffic was horrible. I felt like I could walk faster than what the bus was moving. It took me 5 hours and 15 min to get to Deajeon, just to hop on another bus for an additional 3 hours. After arriving in Busan, we caught the subway to Haeundae. "Haeundae is now an affluent, beach front community that attracts tens of thousands of Korean tourists and foreigners to what many consider to be Korea's best beach. It has been subject to considerable commercial development." - Wikipedia.

We walked directly to the beach to check it out. Since it was pretty late and dark, we couldn't really see much, but I could tell it was legit. There were tons of people out on the streets. We saw a lot of foreigners, more than likely English teachers as well. The downtown part of Haeundae had tons of hotels, bars, and restaurants. Seemed like your typical beach hangout. We decided find a hotel before hitting the town. We probably walked around for an hour and a half circling the town trying to find some vacancy. I used the little broken Korean I know to ask at every hotel if they had a room and how much. Most hotels had no rooms available and the ones that did have rooms were quite pricey, $150-$200. Hella out of our budget. We found some crappy looking hotel and the ajuma [older Korean lady] said $90 for the night. We took our chances and kept looking. When we had no choice, but to return to the same hotel about an hour later, she had raised the price to $100. The room was pretty disgusting. We were pretty pissed we had just paid that much for a trashy room. Motel6 in America is not only cheaper, but also has higher standards. This place even had a condom vending machine and a coin operated hair dryer hahaha. We decided to go hit the town and find some food. Since we spent so much on the room we wanted to get some cheap food. We got some Korean BBQ, soju, and beer. It started getting late and we were both pretty tired so we decided to try and find our way back to our hotel. On the way, we spotted a bar called Miami. For some reason, I forgot bout being tired and I felt like this was a sign. We decided to go in and check it out. The place was pretty legit. And just our luck, we made some friends. I don't recall their names at all, but it was a recently married couple who wanted us to chill with them. They had ordered bottle service, which is pretty damn pricey. They had a bottle of Skyy Vodka, which tasted pretty good after just drinking soju for the last 3 months. We played some darts, felt like the more intoxicated I got, the better I got at the game... leading to a victory! We made plans to meet up with our new friends the following day for lunch.

When we got up on Saturday morning, we headed back to the downtown area again. Sure enough, it was pouring down rain. Our whole idea to go chill by the beach was gone. We went and checked out the beach and saw many people standing around with their umbrellas. This was very disappointing. Our new Busan friends texted us saying that they would not be able to meet up for lunch, apparently they had a bit too much to drink the night before. We decided to head over to Jagalchi.

"The Jagalchi Market is Korea's largest seafood market. After the Korean War the market solidified itself as a fish market. Most of the people who sell fish are women, so the women who sell here are called 'Jagalchi Ajumma,' 'ajumma' meaning middle-aged or married women. This market represents Busan and is famous throughout the country. If you visit you can eat fresh raw fish right at the market. Even these days you can see women selling mackerel, sea squirts (ascidians) and whale meat on wooden boxes along the road. Every year in October the Jagalchi Cultural Tourism Festival is held, and it is easy to visit because of the convenient transportation provided by the subway. The Jagalchi Market is where you can see the lifestyle of the indigenous Busan natives." - Korean Ministry of Tourism.

We walked around the market for quite a while. They had some interesting seafood there that I had never seen before. The place was full of people. There was both and inside and an outside part of the market. With so much rain, everyone was walking around with an umbrella. The walking paths between all the seafood were very tight and it was no surprise to get poked by the million umbrellas. After a while, I started to get annoyed. People did not even say "sorry," they just kept on poking me with the damn umbrellas. Just about every seafood stand had its own restaurant. After much contemplating, we found a place we wanted to eat at. We had flounder and some other type of fish. We also had some haejangguk, an ox blood soup with vegetables made to cure hangovers. Not gonna lie, it was pretty tasty!

After lunch, we checked out the marina and then decided to head back to Heundae. The rain continued and I finally gave in and bought an umbrella. We went in search of a new hotel. We were actually lucky and found a hella nice place for only $50. This made me pretty angry! The place was clean, bigger, niiice, and had a good view. After a nice nap we decided to head out to town and grab some dinner. After dinner and a couple drinks we went in search of a bar. We stopped at place called Fuzzy Navel. The music was good and it was blaring. The place was pretty full. Lots of foreigners and locals. The prices were not as good. As we walked back to our hotel, we decided to stop at Miami for a beer. We were really tired and not really in the party mood. After being at the bar for a while, our friend walked in. We chilled with him and then headed out to a norebang [karaoke room]. Another late night. In the morning I caught the bus back to Seoul. It was a long trip, but slept through most of it. If I did a second year in Korea, I would definitely want to live in Busan.


Seoul Grand Park:
Went on yet another field trip with my students. This time we headed over to Seoul Grand Park. This place is HUGE! It houses hills and hiking trails, Seoul Grand Zoo, Children's Zoo, a rose garden, Seoul Land amusement park, and the Seoul Museum of Modern Art. I was responsible for 5 students during the field trip. I had to yell so much to try and keep my kids together. I wished I had a leash for every single one my kids to keep them in my sight. It was a weekday and the place was full of people. As soon as we got there we went to the Rose Garden. It was a really hot day and the kids were getting tired of walking around. After wasting our time in the garden we walked over to the zoo. I was really excited... maybe more excited than the kids haha. We only saw about 4 different animals before the Korean teachers decided it was time to go back to the school. I was annoyed because I really wanted to see all the animals. I guess I'll have to go back on my own to check out the zoo.

LG Twins/FC Seoul:
I went with my buddy Alex to see my first baseball game in Korea. It was another hot day and it was perfect for chilling at the stadium watching baseball and drinking a couple of cold beers. The Jamsil Baseball Stadium was built back in the early 80s, but it's very nice and well maintained. We watched the LG Twins vs the SK Wyverns. The following day, we went back to the Seoul World Cup Stadium to watch a soccer game. This time we watched FC Seoul vs Jeju United. I have found this a very cheap and fun way to spend a weekend. The tickets only cost about $8 [cheap seats, of course] and the beers are about $3. But the best part of the stadiums is that you can bring as much outside food and beer as you want! I wish we were able to do this in Seattle. And I'm always surprised at how great the fans are in Korea. They know all the dances, cheers, and chants! There's lots of great energy, which makes the game a lot more exciting.

Week 9 - Two Months!!

This week marked my 2 month anniversary here in Korea. I've learned quite a bit in just two months about Korean culture; from it's history to its customs to its language. It's been fun and challenging adapting to a culture that is so different than my own.

Korean class is going well. I'm learning a lot, but now I just need to really practice.

This weekend I went on a couple MeetUps. It's set up through www.meetup.com, a social networking site where people make groups by interests and location. I joined the Seoul Travel and Culture group and Seoul Village, a Spanish speaking group. The first group is actually well organized. The leader sets up tours throughout South Korea. They go on many trips which include things like hiking, biking, sightseeing, temple stays, etc. This Saturday I met up with them for a walking tour of some palaces and a prison.

We started off by going to the Jongmyo Shrine. Jongmyo is a Confucian shrine built in 1394 and was dedicated to the memorial services for the deceased kings and queens of the Korean Joseon Dynasty. After that we visited Changgyeong Gung Palace and Chang Duk Gung Palace. Call me ignorant if you must, but I feel like after seeing one palace, you have seen them all. They all have their own special history and meaning... but the architecture seems to be very similar. After the palaces we took a short taxi ride over to the Seodaemun Prison. It was constructed beginning in 1907 while Korea was considered a protectorate of Japan.

The prison was used during the Japanese rule of Korea to house anti-colonial activists, and could accommodate around 500 people. After the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, the prison was used by the South Korean government until 1987, when it was replaced by a facility in Uiwang City, Gyeonggi Province. In 1992, the site was dedicated as the Seodaemun Prison History Hall, part of Independence Park. Seven of the prison complex's original fifteen buildings are preserved as historical monuments.

During this MeetUp I randomly ran into Ms. Purcell, a former staff member of Tracyton Elementary... my elementary school. What are the odds of finding someone from Bremerton in the chaos of created by the 12,000,000 people of Seoul? It was pretty crazy! The MeetUp ran from 9am until 4pm. I tried getting home as fast as possible in order to take a little nap before meeting up with the Seoul Village group at 6pm. Walking around Seoul for so long really takes it out of you. But it's fun and you do learn a lot.

The Seoul Village group is a bunch of English teachers and Korean who are trying to improve their Spanish speaking skills. There were about 20 people or so at the MeetUp. We all conversed in Spanish for about 3 hours. Met a lot of west coast people. Also made plans to go find legit Mexican food in Seoul... apparently there is an actual taqueria nearby!! We also made plans to go salsa dancing. Oh man, I'm starting to really like Seoul! This group is led by a Korean guy who grew up in Chile. He speaks Korean, English, and Spanish perfectly well. His accent is tight. His buddy, another Korean guy, lived in Mexico City for many years. He speaks with a Mexican accent. It's almost weird hearing them speak perfect Spanish with the accent from the region they were in, but having Korean features. This group meets monthly, but everyone decided they'd want to get together more often!

Later that night I went for a drink at a Jazz bar in Sillim, a nearby neighborhood. There was a Korea girl singing English songs while playing the piano. She was sooo good, but didn't want us taking pictures of her. My Jack n Coke was $10 though... and I swear, every time I get a cocktail it tastes like it's been watered down... with water!

On Sunday Evan and I and his friend, Alex, went to Yongsan Electronics market. I've been wanting to go here for a long time. I've heard so many stories of how it's an electronics heaven. Walking around, asking from booth to booth the price of things, I noticed that there really isn't any good deals at this huge market. I've been wanting to get a 5th Gen iPod nano 16GB. In the states it's $176. The cheapest I've found it here is at $250. Not quite a good deal.

We headed over to the War Museum of Korea which is also in Yongsan. This is probably the best museum I've ever been to! First of all, it was FREE99 and oh man, I love FREEE!! The place is huge with various displays of the various wars in which Korea was involved. The museum houses six exhibition rooms displaying over 13,000 items under different themes, including an outside exhibition area consisting of numerous military equipment. The outside exhibition area was by far my favorite. I felt like a little kid playing around and just being in awe by all the airplanes, helicopters, and tanks! This is definitely a great place to hit up on a sunny weekend!

From Yongsan we walked over to Itaewon in efforts to find a cellphone... there was a shop with an Indian guy who I think was trying to scam me. I did not like his offer at all so I ditched the area. We must have walked about 10 miles today.. er at least it felt like it. After walking through Itaewon we headed over to Dongdaemun... this are was very cool. Finally found a legit deal for a phone. Almost toooo good to be true. I walked in and out of the store with a free phone, 1 year contract, no deposit, and ony $13/month in less than 10 minutes. After being outside the store for 2 minutes, I ran back in to get a copy of my contract. Like I said, it just seems too good to be true. After walking around Dongdaemun we headed towards Myeongdong by following this awesome artificial stream that runs east to west in a straight line through Seoul. "Myeongdong is one of Seoul's main shopping districts featuring mid- to high-price retail stores and international brand outlets. It is a particularly popular area for young people as a center for fashion and nightlife. Myeongdong is the ninth most expensive shopping street in the world in terms of floorspace rents."

Definitely another great weekend in Seoul!

Week 8

I've completed my second week of Korean Class. I think I'm getting better at it. I definitely need to practice. I usually use the first 5 minutes in all my classes to practice with my students. They love the fact that I even try speaking. I've caught my self "Koreanizing" English words just like the other Korean teachers do. Instead of saying 'page' they say 'page-ee' it's very annoying... and now I'm doing it.

Friday night after my Korean class I met up with Evan at Seoul Station. Jomes was coming up to Seoul and was supposed to have arrived by 7:30. By 11:00pm and no word from that fool, we decided to head to Gangnam. Jomel finally got a hold of us and for some reason he was also in that area.

He told us to go to the bar that was behind Krispy Kremes. This was my first time out in Gangnam... the place is full of bars/restaurants and there are a lot of foreigners there too. It's like a smaller version of Hongdae or Itaewon. There was no way we'd know which bar Jomes was talking about, so we decided to go to whatever bar until he would call. As I ordered some beer and a chicken quesadilla, that fool called us so we decided to cancel our order. We were walking out of the bar and the guy hosting stopped us and said he couldn't let us leave because the cook was already making our side dishes. LOL!! First time I had ever experienced anything like that.

We went to King's Tap to meet up with Jomes and his Muju crew. The bar was full of foreigners and it was all hiphop music. After a few pitchers of San Miguel we made our way to a different spot where we got more drinks, then decided to hit up the somek! The rest of the night was pretty hazy. I don't remember if we stayed here... or made it to another bar as well. I just know we tried to talk to a table with 3 Korean girls with our broken Korean... but it was expressed in a universal way that we were being shut down LOL. At one point we tried to order some chicken to chow down... but we accidentally ordered fish. Not gonna lie, it tasted sooo good. We were like savages eating that... ate everything from the crispy fins to the eyes. Here is the proof. We ended up making it back home at around 6am.

In the morning we went to Seoul National University station in search of pho. Not gonna lie, but I was pretty satisfied with my pho. It was a great way to cure my somek hangover. After re-energizing, we took the subway north to Nam San Tower. The walk up the mountain made me break a sweat. The view from the top was amazing. I consider it the #2 best view of Seoul after the 63 Building. There were lots of people making their way up and down the mountain. We decided not to pay the fee to go up to the tower since the visibility was not all that great. We left Nam San and headed towards Nandaemun Market. As soon as we got there, my attention was caught by one of the food stands serving something I've always wanted to try, sannakji. Sannakji is live octopus that has been cut into small pieces and served immediately. The nakji pieces are usually still squirming on the plate. The lady kept on telling us how delicious it is... regardless of the taste, I already knew I wanted to try it. She pulled a small octopus out of a tank and then took a sharp knife and just started chopping it up. Threw all the pieces in a plate and served it to us with some sesame oil and some red chili dipping sauce. It was crazy! The small tentacles were moving so much and it was had to keep them on your chopsticks. The active suction cups can cause swallowed pieces of arm to stick to the mouth or throat... it is a strange feeling. We also had some chicken liver kabobs. After eating exotic foods and walking around the market, we went and checked out City Hall and then headed to Gwanghwamun Square. We learned a bit about King Sejong at a museum dedicated to his life [It's underground and right below his huge statue in Gwanghwamun]. This day was very long and tiring... and we didn't even make it out to the bars.

On Sunday Jomes and I went and checked out cellphone plans in Sillim, one subway stop away from mine. It is a lot more lively with tons of bars, restaurants, 3 malls, movie theaters, etc. We decided to have some 'American' food for lunch... McDonald's. Not gonna lie, it was actually pretty good. The only thing that did not taste normal was the ketchup. Oh man, the french fries were sooo good.

Week Seven

This week I started my Korean class. I go M/W/F from 7-9pm. there are only 7 people in my class, which sucks because I was hoping to meet new people. I am also the youngest person in my class. There are 3 stay at home wives [two Chinese and 1 Mongolian], a business man [Austria], an English teacher [Florida], a college student [Latvia], and my coworker. This week I learned the Hangeul alphabet. I can read, but very slowly... that doesn't mean I know what I'm reading though. This is only the first of 10 weeks to go, so I do hope to learn quite a bit.


On Saturday morning I headed out to Muju to meet up with Jomel. The bus ride was about 3 hours long. From the highway, you can see all of Muju. It is a very small town surrounded with mountains. The terminal is pretty small and sketch. The has a 'countryside' feel to it. When I met with Jomel, we walked around exploring the town... didn't take long before we had seen it all. That's when he explained that we were still about a 20 minute bus ride to his actual town. We walked around some more and then decided to hit up a restaurant for Samgyupsal. I was actually able to use my Korean skills to find us a restaurant. When we walked in, there was what appeared to be an American girl just sitting on a table staring us down. We said hello and she just sat there looking at us. Not one word came out of her mouth, then she got up and went to a different room. That was pretty awkward. We started going up to the restaurant area, when all of a sudden Jomel and the Korean lady who worked there started screaming. I was like, WTF?!! I didn't realize it was a traditional Korean restaurant where you sit on the floor... and I forgot to take off my shoes. The food was pretty good considering that I hadn't eaten all day. We decided to get some somek [mixing soju and beer together].

By the time we were heading back to the Muju bus terminal, we were pretty tips. Jomes and I were talking in the bus, then this old man started talking to us. Jomes and him became good friends. Jomes cracke me up cus 1, he was drunk at 3pm and 2, he was talkin hella slow and loud so the guy could understand... but the guy's english was pretty good so there was no need for Jomel to talk to him the same way he talks to his students, slow and omitting words. I guess the guy is from Seoul and he's traveled all over the world. He learned to speak English while in the middle east. He told us about a classical music concert that was happening that evening and invited us to it. Jomel said yes. LOL.

Seolcheon is much smaller than Muju. On our way to Jomel's place we stopped at the market to get some beer. This guy actually has a house! That right there is luxury compared to my tiny studio. Huge two bedroom one bathroom house all to himself. His bedroom is bigger than my entire studio. Not gonna, I'm a little jealous.. but I don't think I could live in the middle of the mountains. After a few drinks, we realized it was time to go back and catch the bus to meet up with this old man for dinner. Sure enough, we missed the bus. We chilled at the terminal and have a few more drinks until the bus came. When we arrived at our destination, the old man was right there waiting for us. We went to a Korean BBQ place and had some dinner and more somek! Once we finish, there was a car waiting for us outside. I didn't care that this experience could be leading to me missing some internal organs and having them sold in the black market... I was pretty intrigued with the VIP status that we were getting. The driver took us to the Muju Ski Resort. When we got there, I noticed that a lot of people would bow down to the old man. I guess he's a big deal in Seolcheon. Clearly Jomel and I were very under dressed in our jeans and tshirts while everyone wore nice suits and fancy dresses. We got our seats and the classical music performance began. I guess I'm not cultured enough to have an appreciation for this genre of music... I started getting bored right away and I noticed Jomel had knocked out. Andante was a buzz kill. Once the show was over, we went to the guy's condo... probably the nicest house I've seen while in Korea. It was definitely a baller status place. The conversation was awkward and we didn't have much to say... on top of that, we were pretty sober. So then Jomel asked if we could catch a cab home from there. The old man called us a cab and even paid the fare. I'm glad I'm still alive and able to tell this story. Who knows what could have happened if we had stayed there any longer... maybe there are some genuinely nice people in the world.

On Sunday I wanted to go check out Seolcheon. We walked through the whole town and stopped at the market to get some food in less than an hour. I had planned on taking the last bus out of Muju to Seoul. My 2.5 trip turned into a 7.5 trip home because I got on the wrong bus at Muju... the driver had parked on the 'To Seoul' platform in the terminal so I got on that bus without hesitation. It was not until about an hour and a half into the trip that the driver pulled over to collect the bus tickets. He started freaking out when he saw my ticket and I could see everyone staring at me thinking, "What a noob." Luckily there was a dude on there who could speak English and helped me out. He told me that we were heading to Jeonju, about 2 hours Southwest of Muju. The driver made me pay the fare to Jeonju [W8,600] in cash. My ticket to Seoul [W12,300] was just a waste of money. Once I got to Jeonju I went and got a ticket to Seoul [W17,000]. At least Jeonju was a big city and had a legit terminal. The bus was very nice too. It had reclining seats with leg rests that came up. A very comfortable ride home in deed. Once I got to Seoul, I was too tired and too lazy to get on the subway. I just wanted to go home and pass out. I stopped a cab. I knew something was different when I noticed that the meter started at W4,500 instead of the usual W2,400. Apparently I was on a 'luxury' taxi... there is NO difference in my opinion on the two taxis. They're still either Kias or Hyundais. That damn taxi home was W14,300. I should have just taken the subway for W1,000.

Week Six.

This week seemed to have flown by.

After work on Monday I went to Sookmyung Women's University in Yongsan-gu to sign up for their Korean Class program. http://e.sookmyung.ac.kr/ The campus is really nice and modern. And it appears as this is where all the cute Korean girls are hiding. They do look a bit high maintenance, which can be intimidating. The Korean Language program will cost W450,000 and it's a total of 60 hours (M/W/F 7-9pm). I will be honest, it's very possible that I will miss a couple Friday classes.

This was also my first day riding the city bus in Seoul. The buses have more standing room than seats. What sucks is that they are manual, so they jerk a lot when switching gears. This causes everyone to bounce around. I don't know if I can really see myself taking that bus that often. It's much harder to know where your stop is at. The subway seems to be a better system.

Tuesday was our monthly "Theme Day" at school. For the first half of the day, we played restaurant. The playroom was set up with tables and chairs and we were the waiters. They had memorized a script that I came up with. It included greetings, small talk, ordering food, sending stuff back, ordering dessert, asking for more, complaints, etc. I think the kids had a lot of fun. I was annoyed after a while cus they started taking advantage of us playing waiter. Every second they asked for something else. They had a big menu to choose from, including green salad or chicken salad for appetizer. The main course consisted of either chicken, pizza, or steak. They also had a lot to pick from for drinks and dessert. There was a ton of food and I was happy because I kept on eating steak for free!

I don't know if I mentioned this previously, but all our classrooms are set up with webcams that way parents can enter our school's site and see what their kids are doing. I don't really like this because I always have to remember to smile, even if I'm yelling at the kids. Today we had a number of parents calling in to complain that they weren't able to see their kid's face at the "restaurant" because they were sitting with their backs to the camera. Other parents complained that their kid was not getting enough attention. It got really annoying. But I guess we have to do what they ask for. The webcam is a big selling point with the hagwons.

I left school early to pick up my Alien Registration Card. I'm finally a legal resident of South Korea. Now I can open a bank account!

Thursday after work Joel [the other foreign teacher], Lauren [teacher who I replaced], and I went out for some Korean BBQ. I wish I could go to Korean BBQ alone... but I've never seen anyone go alone. I fucken love that stuff! Laurent and I shared 5 1.5L beers. It was a good way to finish the evening. After dinner we decided to do it Korean style, which meant the night was not over. We looked for a makgeolli bar. First time I had some Dongtongju. It was pretty tasty. I liked it a lot better than soju. It's served in a clay pot and you drink it out of small clay bowls. Tastes very milky and no chaser needed! This definitely topped the night.


Jomel and Sam both came to Seoul on Saturday. They each came with a friend. Not gonna lie, but it was good to see familiar faces once again. Jomes, Evan, and I decided to check out Itaewon and get some Mexican food for dinner. We went to Los Amigos. The place had good reviews online, and it apparently has been open since 1979. The atmosphere in the restaurant was very inviting and lively. The staff seemed happy to help and the place was pretty packed on that Saturday evening. We took a look at the menu and sure enough were appalled by the high prices. I was not going to let that get in the way. I saw a picture of a jumbo burrito with tons of melted cheddar cheese on top [choice of chicken or ground beef] accompanied by rice and beans on the side and adorned with fresh pico de gallo. Maybe $17 was very steep for that meal since in the states it would only run for about $10. But screw it, I'm in Korea and Mexican food is a hot commodity. My mouth began to water just by the thought that I was about to grub on some delicious food! I even ordered a nice cold beer to complement my soon to arrive meal. As the waitress placed the food on the table, I could not have been more disappointed. What I was mainly looking forward to, melted cheddar cheese, turned out to be nothing more than a cream cheese sauce with a semi spicy flavor and a faint yellow color. The huge burrito I saw depicted on the menu was actually two small flour tortillas stuffed with seasoned shredded chicken, then rolled. The beans were definitely not Latino style. They tasted like canned beans you would bring on a camping trip. If there is something I don't like, aside from cooked carrots, it's eating cold, sweet beans.

After a meal far from satisfying, we decided to head over to Hongdae where we met up with Sam and his friend. Hongdae is is an entertainment area and clubbing district in northwest Seoul. We began our night of bar hopping. We went to a few bars before we found one that we liked. We played numerous table drinking games that were all new to me. I wish I could remember even a couple because they were very entertaining. After the bars we decided to go clubbing. We met up with Amanda and her group of friends. From here on, the night got hazy. I just remember looking at my watch and seeing that it was nearly 6am so we decided to call it a night. On the way home, we got kebabs from a street vendor... very delicious when you are drunk that late/early in the day. Riding the subway home while drunk is always somewhat of an awkward situation.