Three months later.

Well, I guess there are three months of events and things to recap....blerg! Where to begin? I have been in Korea for nine months, who would have thought I would last this long? I didn't on some days.. Because of the awesome economic climate and the fact that I just don't have enough cashola saved yet for my backpacking trip I am going to be in here until Nov. 2009. Right now I struggle with this decision daily, because I am ready to come home, however I truly believe that the end WILL justify the means!!! Or at least I hope so!

The good part of the deal is that I got a small raise and the school is paying for a roundtrip flight to Malaysia. Woohooo, my friend Lauren and I are going to be escaping to Malaysia and Indonesia for two weeks! I couldn't be more excited, I started this whole adventure to see the world, and world here I come. I am hoping that this taste of the backpacking life will keep me hooked to CDI until I can get away for the long haul. So far the plan is to start in Kuala Lumpur and then move onto Bali and Lombok. Lombok is considered surfer's paradise and with the right travel insurance we may indulge, maybe.... you have to be practical when you are well, me! Then we will make our way north to the island of Sumatra to drink soooooo muuuuuuch coffee and lay on the beach and try to find my long lost tan...

Okay, so what I have been up to in Korea? September was interesting. I went to a Buddhist temple for a 48 hour temple stay, and that was about 40 hours too long. Being a buddhist is not all love and peace.....well, it is, a little... It really is a lot of silence, being talked to sternly in korean and bowing.....oh so much bowing. Try going from standing up to crouched down with your forehead touching a mat 108 times. I did and I now have a pretty necklace to prove it. I know the 108 means something, but for me the meaning was lost in translation and probably earns a Wiki search at some point. Other joys of the trip were eating bland vegetarian food in silence....Buddhist don't believe in strong tasting food and it was apparent to everyone as we struggled to eat all we took. We also had some tea with offical monks and then played jump rope....That being said the second we were off the bus we headed for curry and beer, about the furthest thing we could get from our soon-to-be abandoned Buddhist lifestyle.




Drum ceremony at dusk


buddha buddha



A few weeks later we went to the 38th parallel, better known as the DMZ. The demilitarized zone is the area between North and South Korea. It is an interesting place with lots of rules and few smiles. There are tons of gestures towards peace.. the train tracks that will run at sometime.. the subway station that will soon service the north. It was interesting to see what the museum at the center had to say, because both sides had to sign off on the content and both sides of the story and opinions were displayed. Since the cease fire signing North Korea has tried three separate times to tunnel into South Korea, eeek! We walked down one of the tunnels and hit our heads a bunch while getting oddly wet. The last stop on the tour was an observation deck where you could view a propoganda city that was put in place to make people believe that N. Korea is an industrious country. I wish I would have got some good pictures, BUT the picture line we had to stand behind made it damn near impossible. On the bus trip home our group starting discussing joining a tour of North Korea tour this summer, I was very against this idea when I first got here, but I think it is more and more interesting to me now.


Train tracks to North Korea


North Korea


Our DMZ crew

The next big event was my mom's visit. We did a ton of shopping, took a trip to Busan, visited a palace, visited a really interesting museum, and much much more..I am sure that mom has given most of you the run down, so I won't go too in depth. I really enjoyed her being here and would love more visitors! For enticement, the won is complete shite, so your dollar is worth a lot right now!!!!


Mom and I exhausted on the subway


Anyone need $500 of Ginseng?


Changdeok-gung Palace


Suwon Folk Village


Performance at the folk village


Lunchtime in Busan


Can you say adorable.


pepper proprietor


Yummy!


Beomeo-sa Temple


The rest of October was spent being sick and putzing around Seoul. I am feeling a little remorseful because the weather just got super bad and the so-so weather we had before is looking ideal for sight seeing....oh, well....its winter here now. Which means it's FREEZING!

63 Building and ICE BAR!!!!

Hello allllll! I am getting better at this, its only been a few weeks since I have written! To tell you the truth much of the last month has been spent working. We had intensives during the month of August. So, during their one month break many of the kids came in for EXTRA English classess. I tried my best to make them as interesting as I could. In my opinion these hard little workers could us a month of playing outside in the sun, video games and doing whatever else their little heart desires.

Once that craziness was over we started our THIRD term. It's amazing how the time flies. The benefits of rounding the halfway point are that we are reteaching some of the same classes we taught the first term we were here, so that means less out of class work and I have an idea of what I am doing in class each day. Also, with the coming of a new term three of the good friends I have made in Korea will be leaving in 13 weeks. So, we are planning all sorts of chaos. It looks like a weekend stay at a Buddhist temple, a trip to Tokyo and a TON of shopping is in our future.

A few weekends ago I went to the 63 building in Seoul. I honestly thought it was going to be more interesting, but it was another high rise view of Seoul with a Hello Kitty museum at the top, are you really surprised?!? I took some pictures and saw the sights, there was an elevator tour but it was a recording in like 4 languages so it wasn't too in depth and I don' think there were any bad elevator jokes like the ones they use at the Space Needle.....


The 63 Building


HELLO KITTY


My new favorite place in the world, the baggie drink place!

Also, this past weekend was Lauren's birthday! To celebrate we headed to an Ice Bar in Seoul. It was a crazy sub-zero freezer where everything was ice including the cups your drinks came in. While they gave us parkas, booties and gloves we didn't dress smartly for the event and were practically ice cubes ourselves after an hour or so, but it was an experience. I am super intrigued to find out more information about the ice hotels in the nordic countries, it may have to be a mandatory stop on my travels someday!

Stay tuned for more pictures and details about the templestay and Tokyo. I bought a new digital camera and a camera that is just a film camera, but it takes pictures with a rounded lens, so the photos come out all distorted and look like a fish's view. I am super stoked because there are all sorts of things that you can do with film cameras that would take forever for me to figure out on photoshop like double exposures, etc, however the drawback of the camera is that you have to use an entire roll of film before you can see what you've done. Ah, how spoiled we have gotten by the digital age! But I am thinking since it is a new toy it shouldn't be more than a week before I get those developed.....so stay tuned!

Forever and a Year.....

So, wow, long time no posting......I was talking to another fellow teacher today about how we both set up blogs to tell of our adventures and have seem to have neglected to update them. He made a good point. While we have more opportunities to have crazy adventures a majority of our time is spent living life. So, if we were to update this a lot it would be filled with truly memorable experiences such as.....made a sandwich today and then watched Lost online. Tomorrow more of the same......So it may be to your benefit that I don't document my every day here.

I am coming up to the half way mark of my 1 year contract. At this point I am considering staying a wee bit longer, about six months to quantify it. I want to pay off some bills and save for a great adventure......Trying my hardest to do a proper gap year, or by my calculations.....a gap six months. So far the idea is three months in SE Asia and three months in Europe. We shall see as a lot remains in the air. Right now I am fighting a currency battle on many fronts that aim is to shrink my income out of Korealand, the economy in general and the fact that I would live out of a backpack for six months by myself in unknown lands. A lot to plan and consider before all is said and done.

Summer weather here is amazing.....not! Unfortunately Seoul is crazy polluted. That leaves the musky, hot, humid days packed with even more uncomfortableness. I actually had a kid answer a test question by explaining that he would want to visit New Zealand mostly because he could breathe easier, because there is no pollution, this was a kid in grade 4. They are well aware of the air pollution and yet there are more cars here than in any city I have ever seen! As we get further into August we see more of typhoon season. So, FLASH FLOODING happens quite often. I am looking forward to Fall!

If you get out of the city the summer is quite enjoyable. In July I went about three hours South, I think, to a beach for a mud festival. It was two days of being covered in mud, swimming in the ocean and laying of the beach. I came back a crazy shade of red and was made fun of by my students for many, many days. Koreans dislike tanning and carry umbrellas to shade themselves from the rays whenever possible, so the sight of me was quite the story!

Other than that I am work, work, working.....I work for the hagwon of no vacations. At first I was upset, now I embrace it. I am just planning for one massive vacation instead of a few days here and a few days there. Right now we are teaching intensive classes so I am teaching 39 hours a week and some of those are 12 hour days at school. Things will go back to normal in a week or so as we start a new term and I officially climb over the six month hump. They say that between three and six months is the hardest period of your contract. It is when the newness wears off and you can't see an end in sight. I can attest to that and look forward to the downswing, even though I am planning on staying a spell afterward......Here are a few adventures and pictures from the last few months.


Beginning of the second term brought two new teachers to my school. Nate was pretty enthusiastic and wanted to get out and see Incheon his first weekend. We took him to a local foreigner bar and made him some new friends. I think he is going to like Korea just fine.

Daejeon was a quick weekend trip for the Korean Family and I. We bused up north to visit some friends of Jamie, Lindsay and Matts from their training group. They showed us a good time and even tricked us into climbing a mountain. Yeah sure, 15 minutes to go. Uh-huh. Not falling for that one again!


Group lineup at the bottom of the mountain.


All smiles now, but two seconds later I fell on my ass. It was not graceful and super embarrassing. I am sure it will be a story told for years, if the next few days was any barometer.


All right boys. I concede the top was worth it and I can say I have done it. A picture with those that made it to the top.


Koreans are a fickle bunch. Some want to feed you, others want you to never eat again because you are a fat foreigner. Seems as though you can never win. I was reprimanded by our server for not assembling my bipimbap correctly. So, this is my all finished face, and surely not my I dumped all of mine into matt's bowl face. Bless boys with bottomless stomachs. Also, at this meal we were gifted a bottle of Korean rice wine. A welcome present any other day, but we rounded up enough brave souls to down this drink as to not offend our new Korean bff.


The wine


MudFest. In July


Not sure where any of the muddy pictures are at the moment.

Muiido. A weekend outing to a small island off the coast of Incheon was the destination of July. We "camped" korean style in these little huts by the beach. We had a grand family time drinking korean beer on the beach, dining beach side and of course racing quads!


Upon my arrival I found Jamie, Nate and Lauren dining on this awesome looking dinner. Starving as I was I didn't dive in. I don't like to eat things with fins still attached.


Nate's infamous tadpole impression. Still don't see it.


We came by ferry. Someone else brought their hovercraft.


Korean beach camping.


End of a great weekend. Ready to go home.


Then the monsoon came. Unhappy faces all around.

A month later....

Cherry Blossom festival in the Grand Park

So, I knew that I would be bad at posting, but a month is longer than I thought it would be before I wrote more...

I have been in Korea for about 3 months. It's hard to think that I am 25% done with my one year contract. The time has been flying by, well most of the time.

At school I am ending my first term which means tests, tests and more tests. In Korea much of the student's final grades are based on tests, and the kids are well aware of this. Today I will give my kids a 3 hour exam that will cover reading, writing, speaking and listening. While this is my first time administering the BIG test the other teachers tell stories of crying and frustration, it should be an interesting day.

Outside of work, I have made some great friends and our little Korean family, as we like to call ourselves, make a point each weekend to visit somewhere new. A few weeks ago we went to the Suwon Fortress and walked around a wall that used to protect the city. That proved to be an experience because Lauren and I got lost more than a few times, found out at later that we missed the best parts, and I left my cell phone and house keys on a public bus. On our way to pick up the keys the bus we were on was in an accident and at that point everything was just funny and there was nothing that couldn't happen. A few pics to recap the last month.

My friend Jamie had visitors from the states that live in Seattle. So along with Soju and nights out in Seoul, Lauren and I had fun talking west coast with these lovely people and hope to hook up at some point back home!

Ho Bar you ask? They don't sugar coat things here, or they don't know what it means....the jury is split on that one. There are like six of these in Hongdae alone and they are a common first stop for their 2,500 won tequila shots.

Note the enthusiastic Koreans in the background. If we had turned around and talked to them they most likely would have giggled and ran away, but this unnoticed hello suites them just fine.

We got our work out in Suwon hanging out with this taekwondo class that gave me flashbacks to volleyball stairs.

Best job ever!

This month we are taking a trip to Daejeon, a city that is a little outside of Seoul, to see what they have there and get out of the city. I am a city person but it takes a toll on a person to only packed streets for three months. It is still in the research phases but they have some beautiful hiking trails and temples to visit.

For the most part living in Korea isn't all that difficult. If you would have asked me the second week I was here I would have given you an earful of challenges, but now I am used to not understanding anyone or anything around me. I think it would be weird to go to the grocery store now and have the person checking me out understand what I am saying and try to converse with me.

In case you were curious. Here are some pictures of my spacious Korean digs. It is small, but livable....I hated it at first. It was cluttered with extra furniture and stuff, but today I was asked if I wanted to move and I decided to stay there....it may be small, but it is close to the grocery store and places to eat, a ten minute walk to the "town center" and super close to work which is super awesome.

This in the one and only room. I really wanted a couch so I wouldn't spend all my time sitting on my bed and this dandy piece of furniture was up for grabs.

This is were all the magic happens. It's a dinning room table, class prepping area, entertainment suite and crafting area. Note the stolen gossip poster on the wall.

The thing that has taken the most to get used to is this bathroom situation. It is so small that I can't even get a good picture of it. In one area with no divisions are the toilet, sink and shower. I have made some big changes to the getting ready process, so that my footsies aren't always getting wet putting on make-up and such. As long as the water stays hot and is never blue again.... I think I can make this work for the rest of my Korean career.

A Long Time Coming.....

I have been in Korea for about a month at this point and it seems appropriate to start my digital journal of the experience. I hope you enjoy my recaps of days spent teaching, eating, shopping and wandering.

I made it through a week of training that could be equated to boot camp. Long hours, sleep deprivation and tests, lots of tests were given to me and 150 of my peers. After graduation I hauled off to Incheon, a suburb of Seoul, to get settled and start my first official teaching gig.

At school I teach eight, three hour classes a week to kids ranging from 3rd to 10th grade at varying levels of English ability. The education system in Korea is rather intense and even with school being six days a week and year round, children attend after school academies to accelerate their studies. It is not uncommon for a Korean kid to attend four of more of these after school academies that come all with their own homework and demanding schedules. It's a bit insane to an American, but it's what they do.

As for the seeing the sights, I haven't been out to see as much as I would have liked. Last weekend my friend Lauren, who journeyed with me from WSU, and I went to the Namsan Tower (Seoul Tower). It's a lot like the Space Needle and I will have to go back during the day to really see the city. Next weekend we are going to a Philipino market that takes place every Sunday. We also have a trip to the night market in Dongdaemun on the calendar, where shopping can keep going until 4 or 5 in the morning! How can you not love a city like that?

The shopping here is pretty fantastic. There is nothing I have needed so far that I couldn't find with some determination. A simple trip to the grocery store can be overwhelming though. On a  busy Saturday you may have 10 sample girls competing for your attention and trying sell you their specific brand of tofu. It's nuts! Outside of the necessary apartment swag I scored a pair of shoes that fit (no one was as surprised as me), makeup and tights. Many pairs of tights.

As much as I would love to say more I am starting a new book in class tomorrow and would like to get a start on some of the reading. I hope to update this every week or so with pictures and what I have been up to. Now that I have internet at home it shouldn't be as difficult.