5-Day Weekend (or, Chuseok It To Me: Round One)

Wonder why it's been so long since I updated and why I haven't been responding to emails? Well, it seems that around mid-September the nation of Korea shuts down for a festival somewhat equivalent to Thanksgiving. And when I say 'shuts down', I mean everything: restaurants, grocery stores, and bars. And, strangely enough, it seems the holdiay also shut down the three wireless internet signals we had been stealing from our apartment... so, we were pretty unconnected. So now comes a (too) long round-up of our many adventures over Chuseok.

FRIDAY - Wild Duck Chase
Getting off from work early, and having a bit of relatively rare 'free time' (Alicia was at the dentist), I met up with my friend Isaac and travelled off to get a new set of tuning pegs for the broken old acoustic guitar I managed to get here. I have as of one week later still not replaced said part, not having a screwdriver or any sorts of tools to speak of, but knowing that I could fix it and learn to play guitar anytime I wanted makes me unexplainably complacent, like I actually believe that tomorrow I'll wake up and do it... and that will be the reason I probably will fail at my goal of learning guitar.

That night, after Alicia returned, our friends invited us out to dinner at a restaurant allegedly located in the far-but-not-too-far away Shin Jeju (New Jeju). Instead of actually being located in the city, we instead took a cab for 45 minutes into the dark dead countryside, arriving at a duck shabu-shabu restaurant (thin strips of raw duck cooked in a hotpot). Now, whether it was in fact too close to the closing time of the restaurant, or if instead the group of 14 foreigners was simply too intimidating, we were turned away, and left to making our long and hungry way back to the city, ultimately eating some cheap bar food- spicy chicken soup and some sketchy cheese sausages.

The night took an incredibly positive turn thereafter, as we met the aforementioned Isaac at a bar called Led Zeppelin, duly decked out in it's namesake's paraphenalia. The bar is one a few of it's sort in Jeju, having a collection of roughly 3,000 vinyl LPs of classic rock, as well as numerous CD's, DVD's and even 8-tracks of all manner of other music, which is requested and played on demand for the bar's clientelle. If the owner can't find a song in the stacks, he will download it. All in all, one of my favorite bars in the world, and incredibly close to our house. Nine beers later, and I made the short trip back up the hill to prepare for the long tomorrow ahead of me.

SATURDAY - Seogwipo: Scenery, Sickness, and Seafood
I was amazed to find myself perfectly fine the next morning when we woke up at around 9 am. Alicia's co-teacher (well, one of the many she has, being at four schools) was taking us out to see the island, an opportunity that we, the car-less, couldn't refuse. Seogwipo is the resort town which comprises the lower half of the island, and is often compared to Hawaii, having similar scenery, greenery, and such. It was about 45 minutes into our trip to this tropical paradise that my hangover hit. In reality, I later learned that it was probably the bar-food sausages that made me sick (a friend was ill as well). Regardless, I felt like an iron hand was crushing my stomach. If my body's goal was to teach me not to eat strange sausage, this feeling last much longer than it needed to to drive that point home. It was in such a state, clutching my gut and hobbling behind the group, that we came to our first destination.

Jeongbang Falls
A beautiful sight despite the overcast sky, the waterfall was quite impressive, though Alicia, apparently having run out of wonderment and awe in South America, found them to be nothing new or special in comparison to the falls she had seen in Brazil. We had to descend a steep cliff-side stair and hop across the volcanic rock to get close to it. At the bottom, near the cliff face, I saw the haenyo for the first time. These old women dive in the ocean for up to 2 minutes at a time without any sort of gear and collect sea life to sell as food to those visiting the seashore. Despite my curiosity, the thought of eating abalone or sea urchins made the nausea I'd been fighting all morning so much worse that I had to leave.

Yakcheonsa Temple

A beautiful Buddhist temple, and certainly the biggest I have ever seen. Apparently it is the oldest on the island. It looks out over the ocean, and has soft chanting and music piped in through speakers hidden all over the temple grounds. It really was an amazing place which for all to brief of a moment made me forget my stomach cramps. The ceiling was covered with small prayer sheets, and many monks still walked around the temple, going about their daily lives looking for enlightenment. We only were able to explore the inside of the temple, and not so much the grounds, because it started raining, so I will definitely need to go back. Here are some photos:





Now, the only way to top the serenity of a Buddhist Temple is with a:

Teddy Bear Museum
Seriously, this was one of the silliest things I've ever seen. And I don't really like to use the word 'silly' very often, but I don't feel as if I have a choice in this case. With a space about a third the size of the MoMA in New York, this gallery of ursine plushes was divided into three sections: History, Art, and Outdoor Bear Wonderland.

History included bears made in the likeness of historical figures, or reenacting various historical episodes, including landing on the moon, the Titanic, the discovery of the terra-cotta (or, as we quipped in the first of many puns, beara-cotta) warriors. Perhaps most disturbing was the fully armed teddy bears storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. But my favorite is shown in the video below.


[In trying to caption this video, I came up with: "The Bear-lin Wall", or "Mr. Gorbearchev, bear down this wall!". I couldn't decide which to go with, so here's both]

And (because I just found out how fast YouTube can upload videos) here's another:

[B-Day]

The Art section consisted of famous paintings and sculptures fastidiously recreated in bear form, some of which are shown below. The Van Gogh-Bear was one of my favorites. The outdoor bear garden was full of fiberglass bears having this or that kind of fun- fishing, having a picnic, happily rolling around. In some ways, it seems as if it would give a young, impressionable child the idea that bears are friendly, when they most certainly are not. Ask Timothy Treadwell.

Here's a smattering of bears to give you an idea:






To Be Continued
The Teddy Bear Museum was only the beginning of our day, yet it's all too much for one post. As indicated by the Seogwipo subheadline, I have eaten some of the strangest seafood, or any food for that matter, over the last few days. Many of those photos and videos are on my phone, so I will have to wait until I leave how to upload this media to my computer. Hope to do so this weekend. Live octopus, anyone?

And, yes, we did visit Loveland. But that's a whole 'nother story all together. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's how it is... Love isn't always on time.

Go Go Gogi

The first three days of my week were saturated in pig fat.

Perhaps it was the need of the residents of Jeju Island to forget the tragedies of the previous weekend that led to their desire to eat plate after plate of pork cuts, or maybe it was simply a continuation of that same bad karma that stuck me in the middle of that storm. In the end, the fact remains the same: I consumed somewhere around 3 pounds of pure, solid pork insulation over the course of three days. I want to blame something besides myself for this occurance, maybe the 5th grade teachers who insisted I came out to lunch with them or the mandatory all-staff dinner I attended... but I know that it's nobody's fault but my own.

I have spoken before about samgyeopsal, the pork cut with three layers of fat on it. Well, this week, I was introduced to o-gyeopsal, with an absurd 5 layers of fat on it. It was, however, but one of many new cuts of meat I tried this week. You see, I have know for a while that the Korean word gogi means meat... but I didn't fathom that one could walk into a restaurant and simply say "Gogi!" to recieve a platter of meat as wide and high as a deep-dish extra-large pizza. I had two experiences with this 'gogi' this week, the first being when the school's cafeteria was closed on Monday, having lost either electricity or running water as a result of the storm, and I was thus invited out to lunch with the fifth grade teachers. It was delicious, though as one might expect, the o-gyeopsal's overabundance of fat was a bit overwhelming. In a single cut, it was as much fat as it was pork.

I went home feeling rather unhealthy, though quite full and satisfied. The real problem with such meals is that it isn't just a bunch of fatty pork-- no, there is so much more. Recalling the list of foods that promote stomach problems, I believe we have them all: garlic is roasted on the top of the metal slab, with greasy, popping slabs of meat resting just below. The bottom is lined with kimchi, the pickled and spicy national cabbage of Korea, which catches and absorbs the fat running down the board. As I said before, the Koreans love their fat, and seem to want to make sure that none of it escapes being consumed. The drink of choice for meals like this? Soju. I believe I have written about soju before, but I have just learned a new fact (one which explains the headaches):

(from Wikipedia)
From 1965 until 1991, in order to alleviate rice shortages, the Korean government prohibited the traditional methods of distilling soju from pure grain. Soju was then made primarily through dilution by mixing pure ethanol with water and flavoring. The vast majority of inexpensive soju available today is produced in this manner.

What better way to chase down such a meal than with grain alcohol cut with sugar and water? I will say, I have grown to like soju, as it is cheap and, in my opinion, better tasting than vodka or tequila and such. It's much worse for you, however, and is drank straight up and not mixed.

So after leaving lunch on Monday, I went home to try to rest for a while. Soon thereafter, Alicia came home and told me we had been invited to dinner by some of our friends. Though I was incredibly full, the prospect of waiting a few hours and eating Lotteria (Korean McDonalds) by myself was much more unappealing. So, we walked down the hill, and towards the samgyeopsal restaurants. I panicked.

Now, there is an entire alley full of grill-your-own-meat restaurants in the back streets of City Hall. The fierce competition between them has led them all to employ a man simply to stand in the street outside their establishment and loudly extol their quality cuts. We have traditionally chosen to avoid these places and instead go to the unannounced yet completely packed restaurant near the middle of the alley. Despite often having to wait for a table, it is the clear choice. And they have free soda.

Despite promising myself I would take it easy, I ate another full meal, and finished it with something wholly unexpected: the remaining pork and kimchi was mixed with rice, chili paste, a fried egg, and CHEESE! It is such a rare occurance to find cheese in Korean cuisine that I felt obligated to soldier on and eat my portion.

Wednesday came, and I arrived at school to learn that class was cancelled, at least for me, since my third co-teacher with whom I was to teach class that day was entertaining the district supervisor as he toured the school. I was told that the entire teaching staff would be going out for dinner... and I can't say I was suprised to find out that we would be again eating the gogi platter. Now, there was a certain feeling of obligation for each table to finish the entire plate, which might have been a cultural thing, and sitting at a table with three women, one of who was on a diet, made that task very hard. But I did, and I soon regretted it.

I went out with the sixth grade teachers afterwards, and we finally were able to talk to each other... a bar is a better environment than the teachers' lounge at 9 am for breaking the ice. I guess I more or less had my introduction into the world of Korean social outings. I went home around 11pm, but they apparently stayed out and sang at a karaoke bar until 1 or 2 in the morning... and were visibly affected the next day in school. There is a microwave ramen type of thing that is supposed to help hangovers, and they had a full pallet in the lounge the next morning.

Chuseok is coming this next week, so I'm looking at a five-day weekend, which means I get to do a lot of the things I've been reading about since long before I came here. Looking forward to sannakji, Seogwipo, the beaches (I hope they weren't washed away), and...

Jeju Loveland.

Nari By Nature (or, Obligatory Scorpions Reference)

Before departing from work last Friday, the last thing I did was to write Brian Rod and gloatingly wish him a happy Hurricane Humberto. I was at the time sitting near a window, enjoying the cool, windy, and otherwise wonderful weather here on Jeju Island. And though I would not call myself a believer of karma... I am one step closer now.

After a fun (yet expensive) Friday night visit to the local microbrewery, followed by a some-what disappointly tame Saturday night, I awoke Sunday morning around 10:30am to a rather violent storm. The screen outside our window was clattering angrily, and the building itself was swaying just a little in the wind. We could see the rain being whipped around the corner in huge sheets, and found this interesting enough to break out our camcorder for the first time and get some of the tropical rainstorm on film, or at least what we could before the batteries ran out. It turns out we shot too soon, so to speak.

Now, not knowing Korean has many disadvantages. You can not speak to anyone but other foreigners, travelling in cabs or by bus is difficult, and ordering food is a nightmare- for example, I went out alone the other day to eat, and thinking that I had found a nice chicken breast dish, instead got incredibly spicy chicken feet which I couldn't eat at all. Arguably the worst disadvantage, however, is that it is well beyond our reach to listen to the radio or watch the news. Had we been able to, we would have known that a Category 2 typhoon (same as a hurricane, but it instead forms in the Pacific) was bearing down on poor little Jeju Island. It was called Nari, which is pronounced 'nah-ree', but every Korean I heard pronounced it 'nah-dee", so I referred to it incorrectly as Typhoon Naughty for quite some time.

Though we didn't realize it at the time, our room was on the far side of the building from where the storm was hitting, which is why it was pretty surprising when Doug, an Australian who has been a resident of our building for six months, came by and asked if we needed help with flooding. I told him we were fine, and followed him as he continued on his way up to the roof. The roof is essentially a shallow basin encasing some pipes, and I saw that it was quite flooded, and the winds were incredibly strong. It was only going to get worse, though.

We went down the stairs and visited some of the EPIK teachers we knew whose rooms were on the side of the building facing the storm. Opening the first door, we were yelled at to close it right away, as the open door created a vacuum, and water literally gushed through the seams of their windows. Nearly everyone on this side of the building had a lake in their room, while one girl in particular had a stream of water coming from here ceiling. We found out soon thereafter that the apartment above her own was vacant, and with no one to stop the torrent from coming in, the entire place was flooded, with water running under the door out into the hall.

Now, during this time, another resident named Isaac and I decided to go 30 feet down the street to the store. We ran out into the horizontal rain, came to the now-locked doors of the store, and ran back as fast as we could- it was much worse than we thought. But neither of us had food in our apartment, so it was decided that Isaac, who had a car of his own, and had lived and driven regularly in Fairbanks Alaska in weather much worse, would drive the two of us down to the local supermarket, Woori Mart. On the way, we missed a turn, and needed to take the main road down. In doing so, we ended up in a traffic jam and were thus committed to crossing a three-foot deep stream of runoff water raging across the street, and as we were in a small and low budget car, we just barely made it. We couldn't find the way to Woori Mart, and not understanding why all the streets leading there were flooded, we drove around for another 15 minutes, until we realized that not only was there no way to the Woori Mart, but there was no way home. Parking his car on a hill, we set off on foot to make it home and out of the now-peaking typhoon. I was only wearing my swimsuit and a sleeveless shirt, which is by no means the 'ideal' hurricane attire; it is hard to believe how bad rain can hurt at 110 mph.

As we made our way home, we faced the inevitable river, the seemingly omnipresent flood that made it impossible to drive home. Fording through 3 feet of brown rushing water, I struggled to keep my footing, and worried about all the possible diseases swimming around my knees. This river was the first place we saw the destruction this storm was causing, with a line of cars all piled on each other, washed down into a convenience store by the storm.

Running through the tempest for nearly 15 minutes, we finally reached the base of our hill, but decided that having come so far, we may as well go and see if the Woori Mart was opened. Descending the stairs from the base of the hill (which now looked like a waterfall), we saw that the Woori Mart was very, very much closed, and realized why no roads leading to it were opened: the entire street, including the store, were under four feet of water. Cars were drifting alonglike boats in the current, and the shopkeepers who were outside were frozen in dismay, unable to stop the rising tide.

Soon after going home to report what we had seen, a group of the other guys wanted to go out and see the Woori Mart River and the 12 car pile up we had passed on our way home. The storm had just come to it's eye, and though still a strong storm, it was nowhere near as rough of a journey. While walking down the stream again, now slightly shallower, we passed a Buddhist temple whose wall had collapsed when two cars, a taxi and a minivan, had been swept into it. The monk told us, as far as we could gather, to go home because the storm was about to come back in full force. The orange grove on the way up the hill, tucked away in a low area between two major roads, was utterly under water, and all the trees had been levelled.

We headed home, and finding that, conveniently enough, the store 30 feet from our apartment building had opened it's doors again, we bought the rice, ramen, and beer we needed, and having thus finally completed our errand, went inside and waited for the storm to die down.

It was only after several hours had passed that we were able to take our cameras out into the city, the rain having since stopped. At first I felt bad for taking photos, especially as a foreigner, but many of the Koreans were doing the same, and very few of the shop or car owners were on the scene yet, so we discreetly documented the moment. The river had absorbed into Jeju's porous volcanic terrain, and though it was far less dangerous and frightening than our first visit, the destruction was still very visible. These photos are mostly from the Woori Mart stream, post-flood, though some are from elsewhere, and will be thus noted.







These next three are of the Buddhist Temple:




A store owner draining out his shop:


More car-nage (sorry, I know it's sort of an insensitive pun):



An underground car garage. Every car, including one of our friend's motorcycles, was completely underwater:


By far the strangest state of an automobile we saw. I can't imagine how this happened:


The ground was soaked with oil and gasoline:


Pile-ups:




I believe this house was already on it's way out when the storm hit:


The flooded orange grove:


The former site of the 3-foot deep river we walked through on foot:


Just so this whole thing isn't a downer, here's some ice cream we had the other night... and yes, that is corn:


Despite having record-breaking rainfall, the schools on Jeju were not closed, so I still had work today. And while I was at work today, I was warned that another typhoon is on its way. So... we'll just have to see how this all works out, I guess.

Heartbreaker (or, The Cruel Injustice Of British Rock Reunions)

Would I pay $2,000 to fly to London to see the one-off reunion performance of a forty-year-old band whose members are either well passed their prime or dead? The answer of this absurd question would usually be a resounding no, but in this case, I feel like I will always regret missing Led Zeppelin's first show in 22 years. This is of course despite the fact that I have about a 1 in 500,000 chance of winning the privilege to purchase the tickets, as they are being raffled off in an online drawing, and that I have far less than the ridiculous amount of money needed for such a venture. Having been in nearby Spain when Pink Floyd reunited for Live 8, this is not the first time I've missed out on Britain's seemingly endless string of "not to be missed" London-only concerts. Just this last summer, I had to view Spinal Tap on a tiny little browser window, while a stadium of indifferent limeys half-heartedly watched them live. Enough is enough, England. This time you've gone to far.

...Anyhow, despite such saddening news, things are going well here in Korea. Earlier this week, I taught a series of 9 fifth grade classes, giving the same powerpoint presentation about myself, and mostly expecting a dramatically lower level of both proficiency in English and general interest in learning. I was wrong on both counts; the fifth graders were far more enthusiastic, easier to control, and much easier to impress (you would not believe how much the kids love barbeque, though I don't know where on the island they would have tried it). My co-teacher in fifth grade speaks English well, and it was an easy process sharing the class with her. Next week, I have been told to prepare a presentation on Thanksgiving, as the Korean version, Chusok, is coming a week later. I need to come up with Thanksgiving games as well, but short of drawing hand-turkeys, I am stumped.

Third graders, of whom there are mercifully only two classes per week, are nice enough but their level of English is tragically lower; after showing them my powerpoint (necessarily toned down to their level) I answered questions for around 25 minutes, all of which were in the format of "Do you like ...?" (they just learned this). There are 8 third grade classes, and since I have only 2 per week, I'll be repeating this experience for the next month. I'm not one to complain about easy work... so I won't. I was just hoping to be done with that damn powerpoint by now.

There is a delicate balance between eating healthy and saving money, one which was often a problem for me back at home, but has become much more pronounced here in Korea. Everywhere there are snack shops with fried everything- fried chicken, fried pork, fried rice rolls, fried quail eggs... just about anything that can fit on a skewer. And they are, like most fried street goods, very very cheap. On the other hand, anything that is remotely healthy is pretty costly, and comparatively rare. I have found myself going out on a particular night, eating a healthy but pricey meal, and thinking "wow, this is great, I'm gonna lose so much weight!". Then the next morning, I wake up and look in my wallet and, despairing, think, "It looks like I'll be eating fried dumplings and ramen tonight". Maybe this will subside when I get paid, and am not watching my stack of 10,000 Won notes shrink down to nothing. Just one more week, I guess.

I've got to go teach class now (my first two were moved to later this afternoon because of class elections, though no one told me). I'll write more later, see ya!

Out Of The City (or, Jeju sans Si)

Following my first week (or half-week) of teaching, I finally had my first free weekend in far too long, and was able to go out and explore a bit more of the island. It was the first time I was able to leave Jeju City proper, and I found out that the areas outside of the metropolitan area are very beautiful, even if it often smells like a farm. The EPIK teachers who were unlucky enough to end up living 20 minutes out of the city at the rural Foreign Language High School dorms threw a party on Saturday night, on their roof. Despite providing us with an opportunity to meet up with some of our friends from orientation, there were certainly a number of drawbacks to a country rooftop party. First, it was incredibly dark outside, this being quite dangerous, when combined with beer and soju, due to the lack of a railing on the ledge and a fifty foot drop to a thorny lawn below. But even worse was the wildlife, the insects drawn to the lonely light coming out of the trapdoor we crawled up through. They were relentless in their swarming, and seemed to really want to sample whatever food or drink we had in our hands. Here is one of the bigger moths, and though I know this picture provides little scale, trust me when I say that it looked like a little bird.


We did see an amazing thing up in the sky- and I call it a "thing" because I don't know the name for it- which somewhat resembled the Northern Lights. A bunch of vertical lights stretched out across the sky, like little candles. It was all at once that the partygoers seemed to notice them, and everyone stood quiet for a minute looking up at the unusual phenomenon. Of course, it was impossible to photograph.

As soon as everyone realized that going out on the town was a lot more fun that spending a few more hours on a roof in the middle of nowhere, we departed for the primary foreigner bar in the city, the Blue Agave. Despite being Korean-run, they had some of the best quesadillas I have ever had, and the beer was inexpensive and varied. It is a rather surreal experience to be in a bar surrounded by Westerners but knowing that just outside there is a bustling Korean city. It feels a bit like home until you look out the window.

On Sunday we finally made it to Hamdeok, one of Jeju's highly praised beaches, only to find it deserted. Apparently, Koreans come to the beach in droves during a so-called "beach season", and once it has concluded they stop coming altogether. The deserted beach was beautiful nonetheless, though the water springing out of the volcanic rock into the ocean was absolutely freezing. The sky was overcast in the morning, and unfortunately it only cleared up 5 minutes after our camera ran out of batteries... so here are some photos which despite being slightly less impressive than the beach later appeared should still provide an idea of what it looked like (Click to make them bigger):



This last one is of the swarms of "beach roaches" (not actually roaches, but looked a lot like them) that covered all the lower-level volcanic rock. Our friend left his black bag near the rock, and they quickly migrated over to it. They left our white plastic sacks alone, seeming to only like dark colored objects, to stay camoflauged.

We had our first non-Korean meal in quite some time last night, going to a Chinese restaurant instead. Now, the last time I ate Chinese food overseas, I ended up in the hospital being rehydrated intravenously. This time I had better luck; the food was some of the best I've had here. There is something distinct about the way Chinese food smells, much different than Korean food, and much more familiar to me and probably most Westerners. They have a fixed price menu that includes abalone and shark fin, which though it is quite expensive at $60 per person, I hope to have the chance to try it before I leave. Other than that, I have still been branching out culinarily, and have found the wonder that is galbi- simple, marinated grilled meat- and it is definitely one of my favorite foods.

I am about to go get my alien registration card, which will allow me to open a bank account, get a phone, and otherwise enable me to live a more normal life. I will try to write more when I get a chance. Bye for now!

Rooney Love

Walking around the school, I am consistantly mobbed by children screaming 'Hello, I love you' and 'You are handsome!', both of which are probably exaggerations, but it's certainly going to my head regardless. They also continue to call me Rooney, who I have since learned is Wayne Rooney, a soccer star for Manchester United. This is him (me?):

I don't know how to respond, so I just say thanks.

Well, I have now completed my first two days of classes with the 6th graders, which in actuality consisted of eight classes of exactly the same material- the powerpoint presentation about myself, and the subsequent question and answer session following it. I was quick to learn that each class is a unique organism, and depending on this 'personality' the Q&A sessions ranged from enthusiastic excitement to tedious teeth-pulling. The trick I resorted to was to call out a number, as all students were numbered within a class, and the unlucky kid would have to stand up and ask me a question. These coerced responses were often something simple, like "what is your favorite color?". The questions which were most eagerly asked were often the strangest. They included:

"How much money do you make?"
"What blood type are you?"
"But why is green your favorite color?"
"How did you get so tall?"
"Do you think I am a handsome boy?"
"Who do you think is the stupidest student in this class?"
And... "Teacher, why are you so fat?"

The last one was kind of my fault, because in estimating my weight in kilograms, I guessed 125 kg... which is about 20 lbs too high.... but really, it took me by surprise. I told him is was because I ate a lot.

And on that note, here comes the requisite post about food. Last night, we had samgyeopsal, which is pork belly that looks like thick pieces of bacon which are cooked on a tilted metal grill, with tofu, garlic, and a layer of kimchi at the bottom to catch the grease (the best kimchi ever). The 'sam' in the name means '3', refering to the 3 layers of fat on the pork pieces. This fat doesn't really cook away completely, so it is a very chewy, though delicious, meal. It is also one of the most dangerous dinners I've ever had, with the continuous threat of splattering airborne pork fat hitting me in the face. Apparently there is a similar dish that has five layers of fat, and is much more expensive. Koreans really love their fat, it seems. The night before, Alicia and I split a large sushi plate at a rather Americanizd Japanese restaurant. It is very similar, though the salmon is much better and the halibut sucks. I have yet to experience the famous Jeju seafood, but I hope to do so this weekend.

Of this seafood, there is one that has really captured my interest- sannakji. I don't want to ruin the surprise, because I feel like it will be one of the first videos that I post up on this blog. Go ahead and look it up, if you want, or rent the movie Oldboy. I'm really excited, and now I know where to find it. I will have to go to Seogwipo (other side of the island), but I will probably be there anyway for Chusok (the 'thanksgiving' at the end of September).

I am feeling a bit less nervous about teaching now. I think it helps to have at least an idea of what I'll be doing, instead of being wholly in the dark. I will be teaching 5th graders on Monday and Tuesday, which makes me nervous, but I think I've got this powerpoint presentation thing pretty much nailed down. I now know what the kids find interesting (cowboys, space ships, and barbecue) and what I should just skip over (I still don't know why I put a picture of the Alamo on the Texas slide...). Still, the thing that got them most interested was the fact that the WWE wrestler Undertaker went to my school- they went CRAZY! Maybe he needs his own slide in the show.

Ahop to Daseot

My first day of teaching wasn't so much of a "first day of teaching" after all. Instead, I have been, and will continue to be, constructing a powerpoint to introduce myself to my classes. This seems simple enough, but then again...



So, I guess I don't know Powerpoint by heart, and besides importing images, there is little I can do. So plain white background it is, I guess... And it may be of interest to some of you that you will be appearing in the slideshow, being ooh and aahed at by roughly 250 Korean youth. And for those of you who didn't make the cut, try taking a photogragh without having a drink in your hand. It took far to long to find 4 pictures of my friends when they were not holding a bottle or pint glass.

*(And for those of you who may have noticed that I said Houston had "many rivers"... whatever, I don't care. I'm not going to explain what a bayou is to the kids)

We have met a few more foreigners, and went out for shabu-shabu last night, a dish less exotic than pig spine and far better tasting. Brass hotpots with boiling broth are used to cook paper-thin slices of, um, I think it was maybe pork or beef? It's reminiscent of Vietnamese pho, but much more of a production. The whole "sitting cross-legged on the floor under really short tables" thing is killing me. I'm not really made for such abuse, and it's hard to walk when we finally stand up to leave.

This is only one of the issues my size has created. At the university, I regularly hit my head on the bunkbeds and other overhanging furniture. I finally found a pair of shorts (by that way, yeah, I forgot to pack any shorts...), but they are seersucker and a few inches too small, so I have to safety-pin them together. And as far as buying the indoor slippers I need for my school, apparently my foot is at least 5 centimeters bigger than the maximum shoe size here. So I've been cramming my feet into tiny little guest sandals and tottering around the school trying not to fall.

The kids seem to like me; I will walk pass a classroom and they will all turn and wave their arms and shout "HELLO!", and I've had a few run up to me and introduce themselves. They seem really excited, and that in turn makes me feel more enthusiastic about all of this. I had to address an assembly of more than 2,000 kids yesterday, not knowing if what I was saying was being understood in the least, but in the end they clapped for me, perhaps genuinely, perhaps out of curtious pity.

The teacher's lounge, my temporary office and where I am currently typing up this entry, is a bit strange to work in. Every hour, for at least fifteen minutes, a group of thirty-year-old Korean women come in and fill up the room. They are nice and everything, but it is a bit strange to sit in the midst of a conversation and understand not a bit of it. A few of them speak English, but not really knowing what to talk about with someone from such a different type of life all together, I usually just sit sheepishly, waiting for the hour to fall and the crowd to disperse back to their classes. I begin teaching on Thursday, and maybe I will have more common ground to discuss once I begin.

Hope everything is going well at home. From the sound of it, Joe has been trying to take over the house, though he needs to be a bit more... vigilant, maybe, so that the kids who come over for parties don't inrevocably wreck up the place. See you later!

The Other Side Of The World

It was as good a time as any to start this blog right now, having been kicked out of our apartment for two hours by our landlady and a cleaning lady as they got rid of the traces of the previous inhabitants. Neither spoke English, though both seemed to have trouble grasping that we understood absolutely none of the Korean they were speaking, and so after 30 minutes of frustrating (and ultimately failed) phrasebook communication, they simply kicked us out.

So we walked down the street to a PC Bang, a small windowless room where adolescent Koreans play Counterstrike and Warcraft on superfast computers while sitting in padded recliner chairs. The door advertised a special rate for buying 10-hour blocks of time (only $7!), so it must be fairly common for kids to blow an entire day here. There's more smoke in here than any bar or nightclub I've ever been to, but the rates are really cheap, and we don't have an internet hookup in our flat yet.

Korea is by far the most "foreign" place I have ever been. We eased into it slowly, having a 7-day orientation at the rather isolated Korea University, sleeping in bunk beds and attending classes all day. A night, the entire mass of foreigners would descend the hill into the small and unsuspecting village below, swarming a bar or restaurant with a caucasian mob of around 100 people. The first major bar at the foot of the hill, K5, was actually closed on the first Saturday of our stay there (their grand opening was the following Monday), but the most charming members of our group convinced them to open their doors early, and K5 was cemented as the bar for EPIK teachers for the whole week. On Thursday, we ventured out into the nearby city, taking a fleet of around 20 taxis to the heart of downtown. We filled an entire city block, and jammed streets as we tried to find a bar owner who wasn't horrified by the number of us. Eventually, we found a noraebang (Korean karaoke), and divided into a few large rooms.

The list of songs was enormous, ranging from Meatloaf to Megadeth. We sang Sweet Caroline and Bohemian Rhapsody, and watched one kid struggle through Paint It Black. An hour later, we all took to the street again and found an unassuming chicken & pizza restaurant... which was much more of a family restaurant than a bar. So it was no surprise when we all were angrily kicked out an hour or two later by the owner. A group of the teachers had been extremely loud, refused to sit down, and one tried to steal beer out of the cooler. Our group of friends left as quickly as possible, having done nothing wrong and not wanting to be around if things got ugly. The owner looked like he may become violent if we didn't get out. The sad thing is that he will probably never let foreigners back in his business, which is a somewhat common attitude it seems- business owners and taxis will occasionally make an 'X' out of their arms and yell "No Foreigner!". I guess I understand why. Some foreigners are just assholes.

We finished our orientation, and spent a full 15-hour day in transit from KU to our placement. For those who didn't know, or have forgotten, we are on a small island province in the south of S. Korea called Jeju. Despite getting stuck with primary school (which seems easy enough, just frustratingly repetitive), our housing and schools are where we wanted to be, in the main city called Jeju Si. Our apartment is a bit small for two, and the bed is like a stone slab, but it is only a three-minute walk from the heart of the city, an area called City Hall (or whatever that is in Korean). We've met a couple teachers in our building already, and went out with an Australian and another newly arrived teacher from Wisconsin last night for dinner at a small house-restaurant off the main roads. We shared a dish that consisted mainly of pig spine and potatoes, which was surprisingly good. The couple who owned the house brewed some kind of moonshine rice wine, which had delightful cinnamon notes in the finish, but otherwise tasted like turpentine.

There seems to be a good community of ex-pats here, and we have already been introduced to the "foreigner bars" in our area. The food is good, with sushi being surprisingly cheap, and pizza costing around $20 for a small size. I have had some... um, trouble... adapting to the diet here, but I have heard that in a week or so I will be fully adapted. I just hope to avoid another "Ecuador-style" bout of illness before that point, though I have been avoiding food carts on the street and such to play it safe.

I start school tomorrow, and hope that everything works out. I was placed in a single primary school that is near to my apartment, and will be teaching for around 22 hours a week. My first assignment is to make a Powerpoint presentation about America, Texas, Houston, and me. So if anyone has any suggestions, I encourage you to help me out. I have met my co-teacher, the primary means of communication I have, and she is very nice. We spent 4 hours on Friday night getting my apartment set up, and she took us down to the E-Mart (a 5-story Walmart) to buy all of our necessities. Alicia's co-teacher and my own took us out to dinner at a Mexican food restaurant called El Paso... which was interesting, to say the least. And my pronounciation of "enchilada" and "quesadilla" was continuously corrected.

Anyway, I believe that the Korean women have probably left our apartment by now. I can only hope that didn't lock us out, because frankly if they did I wouldn't know who to call. Thanks for reading, and I hope to be able to post some photos of this place soon, as that is much more interesting than a big block of text. See you later!