Teaching English in Korea

The New Blog

2010-07-11T16:02:00.007+09:00

I can't go on blogging about my travels under the heading "Teaching English in Korea," so I've started up a new blog for my travels afterward. The plan right now is to see more of Asia, head to America to visit with my friends and family, go to Burning Man, then meet up with Tanya to head to South America, where we will do odd jobs and volunteer in places, learn Spanish, and see as much of South America as we can. I have no plans to stay there or leave there, just going to play it by ear. I very much want to become fluent in Spanish, so I'm going to stay as long as that takes (or as long as I can afford!)

So the new blog is here: http://dessellaviajera.blogspot.com/

Thanks for enjoying my journey with me so far, I really have appreciated all the comments and support from my friends and family. It means a lot to me!

notes from students

2010-06-29T18:53:00.005+09:00

Students are so funny! I had a notebook that I always brought to class to keep notes on my classes in, and in the back I wrote down some of the funny things the kids said. For example, when one of my third graders stole my board marker and wrote "Heather Teacher is an Australopithicoos." So cute!

As I'm leaving, I have been getting notes and gifts from the kids (usually little notebooks and fans). Anyways, the notes are adorable, so here they are:

I also had a couple snack parties with the kids in the end and took some pictures then:

Goodbye Korea!

2010-06-20T12:22:00.004+09:00

I've got twelve more days until I'm gone. It's been a stressful last month, trying to organize travel plans, get my finances in order, pack, and work. I'm really excited to go (as everyone here knows). I'm entirely done with this tiny little town and looking forward to cities, new people, and new food!

Next stop is Sri Lanka! I leave here July 2nd and will land on Saturday the 3rd. If all goes as planned, I'll be road-tripping across the country with my friends Ruvi and Shereen and their family. I'm very lucky to be coming at the time that I am because they want to show their daughter around the country and I get to tag along. We're going to work our way across the country seeing the sights, including this one, Sigiriya Rock:

We also will go to the east side of the island to lounge on the beaches. It's going to be great!

Even though I'm very ready to leave Korea, there are a few things I'll miss. The food, even though right now I'm pretty much sick of it, is pretty good. I love ssambap, bibimbap, pajeon...guess I'll have to try and make them back in the States. I'll also miss the incredibly cheap soju and being able to drink on the streets. Can't complain about that (until the next morning)! I'll also miss the funny Korean people, they can be such a hoot.

Anyonghi kyeseyo Tehanminguk!

Shoulda lived in Seoul...

2010-05-27T20:06:00.004+09:00

I went to Seoul this past weekend (and also two weekends ago). Every time I go up there I kick myself for choosing to go live in Yeosu. I really only wanted to come to Yeosu because there was someone I knew and because of the beaches. I've been to the beaches a handful of times and the person I knew didn't turn out to be that awesome. I really should have thought harder about the size of the city I was moving to!
Yeosu has a fairly large foreigner community if you compare it to the surrounding villages. But really, there are only about 100 of us here teaching English. You would think (I did) that out of 100 people I would find a cool group to hang out with. I came here expecting to. But really, I don't fit in here that well at all. I usually feel like I'm a little too "out there" for many of the people here, even though they're my age.
A couple weeks ago I hit an all-time low. I felt like I didn't want to see anybody or try at all. It dawned on me though that I'd been spreading myself too thin, expecting everybody to like me (and me to like everybody), and expecting Korea to be less like Korea. I realized I have been hanging out with people I don't even really like that much just to have someone to hang out with. That doesn't really work. So I've just been sticking around the few I do like. It may mean less social gatherings, but I don't want to be where I don't enjoy myself anyway. These realizations have made me feel much better and enjoy myself more around people I really like.
Also, realizing I need to get out and talk to other people made me do my first couchsurfing.com activities. First, I met a girl in Seoul who is a Korean American named Sharon. We met and hung out at the Seoul World DJ Fest. She was really nice and I wanted to couch surf at her place last weekend, but she wasn't in town. So instead of staying in a hotel, I found two other girls from couchsurfing.com and stayed at their place (with my co-worker Heather). They were also awesome and we had a great time! In Seoul, we saw a small show (some kickass Korean rock bands) and we went out dancing in a few clubs. It was just what I needed - a reminder that there is a whole other world outside of Yeosu and my future is going to rock!
I can't wait to get out of here and see more of the world and see my friends and family again. I feel like I've been dulled down by this little town and I am about to burst. Next stop: Sri Lanka, to see some of the most wonderful people I've ever met. Then I get to explore more of Thailand with one of the coolest girls in the world. After that, I get to see a guy I met nearly nine years ago and fell hard for, whom I haven't seen in seven years. Then finally I get to see my mother, father, stepfather, stepmother, and most of the rest of my gigantic family in Minnesota and Iowa (including my strong, beautiful grandmothers). After that is the BURN and South America with Tanya. That's three continents in about three months. What an insane summer I am looking forward to!!!

Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

2010-04-11T22:54:00.018+09:00

This weekend I went to the cherry blossom festival in Jinhae, another port town. I went with my co-worker, Heather, and we met Tara and went back with her to Busan for the night. The festival was very crowded, but it was fun to see the trees and the many other foreigners (not just English teachers!) who came to see the festival. We had a ton of fun goofing off!

The Countdown!

2010-04-06T23:42:00.006+09:00

Today at school, I was talking with a co-worker and we came up with a fun way to countdown my last days in Korea. I cut strips of colored paper to make a chain with, and every day I will take one link of the chain down until I have none left and I go home. The fun part is that I had my co-workers and students write on them - every day the link I take down will tell me one thing I have to do that day. I haven't read them, though I did accidentally see one or two. One said "Picnin" (yeah, picnic is a new word we learned in class - gotta work on the spelling heh), and another said "Don't go to America!" I think that one will be easy unless it's the last one I take down! I'm at 89 days today. Tomorrow I'll get a few more links written on and finish the chain, then the next day I'll kick it off by taking a link down and doing whatever it says.

A Korean Wedding

2010-03-14T16:38:00.017+09:00

The other weekend, my coworker Sunny got married. Sunny's actually no longer my coworker as of this school year (which started March 2nd), because she's moving in with her new husband in his town.

We got our official wedding invitations only a few days ago. No RSVP needed! All the teachers piled into one of our school buses and travelled for about an hour and a half to Namwon for the wedding. We stopped in front of a big wedding hall called Green Wedding Town (English words written in Korean on the sign, odd). It was buzzing with people; men in shiny suits and women in skirts and dresses. Some of the newlyweds' female family members wore traditional Korean dresses called hanbok. Inside the hall was a large open hall with rooms all over the outside. Some of the rooms were small and elegantly simple, with a bride sitting in the middle of the room taking pictures with friends and family. Other rooms were the larger wedding rooms, which had rows of white covered chairs on each side of a raised aisle with colored lights and flowers everywhere. It's not so different from what our weddings look like, but just a little off. It's very white and shiny, highly decorated as is the Korean style.

There were many weddings going on at once. People were walking (or shoving) around the place, talking as weddings were happening all around. Out in the hall before the ceremony, the couples' parents stood near a desk with envelopes on it. There you could give money to the couple as a wedding gift. We didn't because we all chipped in to buy Sunny an oven f or her new house. We met her parents and her husband and his parents here. Her new husband was very friendly to us foreigners, good sign.

When the wedding was about to start, we had to quickly get in the hall to get seats as there weren't enough for everyone. First, both mothers walked down the aisle in their hanbok and we clapped. Then came the groom, who strode quickly down the aisle while the colored lights flashed and pop music played! That was pretty funny. Then came Sunny. The ceremony was all in Korean and had a few songs sang by people up in the front. It took maybe 40 minutes, then as they were finished the colored lights flashed some more and Sunny and her new husband took a walk down the aisle together. After the ceremony we stayed for pictures with them and for the bouquet toss - which Tara got by accident. Sunny meant to throw it to our coworker Carrie, but she missed! So much for Carrie getting very dressed up that day, whoops!

After the wedding our group went to a nearby restaurant for lunch (yes, we sat on the floor in our nice clothes). That was the reception - lunch on Sunny. The couple didn't come - they were off to bow to their parents and then go to a resort for the night. There are also rooms in the hall made for this. There are flowers and treats on a low table surrounded by pillows. Also on the table, as you can see, there are two wooden ducks. The couple will keep these in their new home in plain sight. One represents the wife, the other, the husband. If the couple are doing well and feeling love, they turn the ducks to face each other. If one of them are angry or upset, they'll turn their duck away.

Yeosu Winter

2010-02-21T21:49:00.014+09:00

I've been doing my best to keep busy this winter. I hate winter. Not being able to wear flip flops makes me sad. I haven't had to deal with winter in about five years. It's especially hard here because there's not much to do and it can get lonely. So I have been using all this free time to study Korean, ASL, and a little bit of Spanish (maybe in preparation for a new country?). Weekly soccer's been postponed because many teachers are travelling during their winter breaks. I'm very ready for spring.

The weather in Yeosu is mild, being on the southern coast of the country. It has gotten as low as freezing here, but not much colder. It has only snowed a few times, and none has stuck. The heat comes in waves. This last week the high was about 40, but this coming week it should get up to 60. I check the weather often and excitedly, waiting for spring to officially start. One thing that is great about Yeosu winters (as opposed to Minnesota), is that it's very sunny. That helps curb the winter blues quite a bit!

On the weekends I've been hiking the mountains around my neighborhood. Just walking out the front door of my building I can see two or three mountains. Even when it's 45 degrees out, I don't have to wear a jacket - a welcome change. The views are amazing. I'm not sure my camera does this place justice, but I tried anyway. Yeosu is surrounded in mountains and islands, and nestled in its valleys are dense city dongs (neighborhoods). I love the view! I heard that the trails were originally made so Korean people could come visit their relatives' graves. Korean graves are often on mountain sides, and they are big bumps of earth with some grave markers on the sides (depending on how much money the family has). Koreans traditionally visit the graves on holidays like Seollal, the Korean New Year and Chuseok, their harvest holiday.

About the video: My friend Aaron and I were up on this mountain and we caught this Korean lady stretching in a really silly way, so I took a little video hehe!

Thailand Trip

2010-01-15T00:31:00.017+09:00

For the holiday season, my school gave us Christmas Day (Friday) and the next 5 workdays off. Dan was on holiday before me, so he went on an Indonesian adventure and planned to meet me in Thailand. My four other American co-workers and I all wanted about the same type of vacation - warm with lots of beach time - so we all decided to go to Thailand together.

We left on Christmas Day and froze our buns off in Seoul, not wanting to carry out winter coats with us while in Thailand. Travelling was long and wearing. We first took a 6-hour train to Seoul, hopped a few subway trains to get to the airport, which is almost an hour outside of Seoul, then took a 6-hour flight to Bangkok. Then the next day we took another hour-long plane ride to Phuket, a large island on the west coast of Thailand. It felt like it took forever to get there! We met Dan there, and while in Phuket we lounged on the beach and took day trips to other islands to see other beaches and to go snorkelling.

One of the days we took a trip to Koh Phi Phi, which is a gorgeous island chain where part of the movie "The Beach" was filmed. The trip was very exciting, but the stops were a big touristy. Besides being crowded, the stops weren't that great. We stopped at "Monkey Beach" for a few minutes to see these monkeys, and all the tour boats give their passengers bananas to feed the monkeys. Since it was high season, the beach was covered in old bananas, crawling with bugs. It was disgusting. The beach from the movie was beautiful, but crowded. We spent little time actually on Koh Phi Phi, then we were off to another random island with very little shade and a crappy beach that hurt to walk on because it was all corals. Dan and I got bit by fish there, probably because everybody was feeding the fish. It was pretty funny though, us standing in a few feet of water, shrieking about the fish biting us because we weren't sure what was biting, and unable to get back to shore because we couldn't run on the corals. We got a few confused stares needless to say.

The next day we took a much nicer tour to the Surin Islands, which have good snorkelling. The tour guides were much more eco-friendly, reminding all of us not to feed the fish or trash the place. The tiny islands were beautiful and the snorkelling was really nice. I'd hoped to see a shark or octopus, but wasn't lucky. I did see a giant blowfish though, and I found Nemo.

After about four days the group (minus Dan) went back to Bangkok for two days to tour that city and celebrate the new year. We stayed around Khaosan Road, the backpacker area. There were so many foreigners from all over the world, it was awesome! I talked to people from many countries and I really enjoyed that. Oh and the food! The food was amazing! It was even cheaper than Phuket - maybe a dollar for a pad thai meal, and about a quarter for a bottle of water. Wow. Oh and I got a half hour massage for about 5 bucks. We did a lot of shopping there, because unlike in Korea, Thailand has a lot of beautiful dresses and purses and things to buy. Bangkok was a great time.

On New Year's Day, Heather, Wendy and I went to see the Grand Palace. Because it is considered good luck to go there on New Year's Day (to assure good fortune for the year), it was not the best time to go see it. It was incredibly crowded and very hot. On top of that, we had to wear long pants and long sleeves inside to be respectful. I peeled the layers off when we were barely out! It was really neat though - the buildings are just crusted with glittering colored metals and glass pieces. The people-watching was good there too.

I didn't want to go home, although I was ready for some alone time back in my home. I'll miss the food and cheapness of Thailand for sure, although Korea is quite cheap as well. Korea's got nothing on Thai food though. It was nice to have vegetarian options again, and I could eat curry every day. I think the best parts of the trip were the speed boat trips on the sea (which were bumpy and fun), the Thai people (who are friendly and fun to joke with), and the constantly beautiful weather.

Swine Flu

2009-12-10T23:37:00.007+09:00

Flu season has come! Koreans are reacting in many interesting ways, especially considering that both the regular flu and suicide are more common causes of death. Even though swine flu isn't airborne, people are commonly seen walking down the streets with masks on. People are really worried. Every little cold that a person gets is considered possibly swine flu so people rush to the doctor to make sure (even if the symptoms don't match). The tough thing about prevention here in Korea is the the culture includes lots of touching and germ sharing. It's very common for Korean friends to feed each other their food during mealtimes or eat out of the same dishes with their dirty chopsticks. It's just how they do things. There's also a fair amount of hand-holding between platonic, same-sex friends of any age. That stuff allows for quite a bit of exposure every day.

We had been told that if anyone at my school got swine flu, we would have to shut down for a week or so. When we did finally get a case (one of the morning kindergarteners), nobody was told, we all just came to school as normal and found no kids there. Our boss kept us there to talk about it for a bit, and then took the time to have a general teacher's meeting. Afternoon lessons went on as usual and we didn't miss another day. That makes sense, considering we can't just shut down for a week every time a kid gets the flu (often from a source outside the academy). More kids did get swine flu, but it seems obvious that it wasn't going around inside school considering the numbers and patterns of kids in different classes. Some healthy kids missed a week or even a month because their parents took them out for fear of the flu.

Flu prevention started a few months ago. First, the kids had to bring their own hand towels. In the bathrooms, we don't have paper towel dispensers, but regular cloth towels. We took them out and brought our own. Then it was water bottles. There are water dispensers on each floor of the school with plastic cups nearby - that the kids all share! So now each kid has a water bottle in their backpack that they regularly open during class and spill all over the place. I love it. Now we have those things plus the masks.

We all are supposed to wear masks at school all day, although, when we forget, we don't get yelled at or anything. It has relaxed a bit in the past month. It was not easy at first, trying to help children with their pronunciation while muffled by a surgical mask. So I would wear it to class, then pull it down when I had to talk to kids. Not the best way to prevent the spread of germs, but seeing a teacher's mouth helps incredibly when learning how to say a new word. I'm just not sure how else to do it. The masks aren't fun for many reasons. They rub on your face and are generally not comfortable. The kindergarteners can't help but play with them. They spin them around on their fingers then fling them across the room onto the floor. Then they put the masks back on their face! It's almost worse than not wearing them at all! Little cotton germ incubators is what they are when misused like this. Of course, you try to control what the kids are doing, but they are little miniature monsters with minds of their own!

Swine flu has also taken a toll on what we teachers get to do. In my school, we have cancelled the last three monthly field trips because of it. In the public schools, teachers are having some trouble going out of the country on vacation because the principals think they will come back with the flu. I've seen a few teachers have to stay home from work for a week without pay after coming home. One was even fired for leaving. Luckily, I have a more understanding and lenient boss who will be letting me use every one of my six days off this holiday season to go to Thailand. I'm sure he will remind us all to wear our masks on the plane though!

Halloween in Yeosu

2009-11-18T17:17:00.021+09:00

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Because my school is all-English and we focus on both Western and Korean customs, we celebrated Halloween all day! With the kindergarteners, we played games, carved jack-o-lanterns, and sang Halloween songs. In the photo, my jack-o-lantern is the one on the far right with the creepy grin. When the older kids came in the afternoon, they rotated classrooms where the teachers put on games and some of the teachers turned one classroom into a haunted house. Some of the little kids cried though, it was a bit scary for them. At school, I dressed up as the devil, since I'd brought some horns and a tail. The kids were devils, angels, princesses, and superheroes, just like when I was a kid. It was really cute. One teacher, Tara, from the US, dressed up as kimbap, a traditional Korean food which is veggies and meat wrapped in rice and seaweed, kind of like sushi (see photo).

Saturday, the actual day of Halloween, we had the Yeosu Halloween party. It's put on by foreigners and mostly attended by foreigners, but many Korean people came too. Koreans really don't celebrate Halloween and the kids don't go trick-or-treating. The party was pretty fun, there was a costume contest and a raffle, in which I won a copy of The Iliad (we all brought the prizes to avoid a cover charge). People got really creative with the costumes. I wore my devil costume, but with a white shirt with a yellow circle of felt on it - I was deviled eggs. Pretty silly, but it was more fun than being a plain ol' devil. Below is me, Dan as a backwards man, Ed as Quail Man with Rich the registered alien, Sean as Snow White Trash (complete with his skirt stuck in his underpants), Sang Jun as a ballerina, Brad as some kind of gangster with Carrie the cat, Geoff who is women's gift from god, and Jen the solar system with her husband Quail Man (from the cartoon Doug).

Fall in Yeosu

2009-10-29T19:37:00.007+09:00

This fall has been a bit chilly so far. The weather went from warm and wonderful to chilly really fast! It's really cold riding the scooter around. At least I get to wear the awesome peacoat I got for Christmas last year (in Arizona it would hang in my closet most of the season).

The weekends have still been quite busy. They fill up so fast! After Beijing, I went to see my first soccer game - a Korean pro game in Gwangyang. Dan and I rode up with our friends Ed and Jen, a married couple from the states. That was really fun because my friend Joelle switched from teaching in Yeosu to Gwangyang and I got to hang out with her a bit. That was nice. Joelle is very energetic and we always have a blast.

Another weekend Dan went to Seoul to meet up with friends of his from America who are also traveling, so I went with about 15 girls to Gwangju for a girl's night to celebrate my friend Meghan's birthday. It was very cool! We shopped a little too much, slept a little too little, and drank just the right amount! =]

This weekend is Halloween. All week at school we've been doing tests, snack parties and lots of fun Halloween activities. Tomorrow I'll head some games, carve a pumpkin for my kindergarten class, and just play all day in the haunted house at school! I'll be dressing up as a devil. Another foreign teacher, Tara, is going to be kimbap! Kimbap is a Korean food that is kind of like a sushi roll, but generally the meat is cooked and it's got both warm and cold rice and veggies in it. The taste is quite different from sushi. Anyway, it should be hilarious! Saturday night is the huge foreigner Halloween party. Dan's dressing up as backwards man and I'll be deviled eggs - my devil costume plus some felt fried eggs. It's going to be a blast.

I still am having some pretty lonely feelings, but things are getting better. I've been hanging out with people from work a little more, there are more people showing up who I have been hanging out with, and I've been keeping busy. But going to work doesn't excite me in the least, and I tend to spend as much time away from work as I can. It's a good thing I don't have to get up early to go to work, or I might have a really hard time getting there on time. I have classes I like more than others, but in general, English is not very fun to teach. I like it when the subject matter is about science, but the students are almost never interested. The kindergarteners are generally the most interested in speaking English, but the stuff we teach them is pretty basic and boring. I'm learning so much though, about kids, the English language, the Korean language, and about lots of other subjects. I just taught about the Iditarod and learned all about that history, for instance. I hope my classes get better. I feel like I could be a teacher if the students gave a crap about learning and if the subject matter was fun to talk about. But this is just boring.

Beijing

2009-10-18T22:08:00.023+09:00

In October, Koreans celebrate their harvest holiday, Chusok. It's a three-day holiday that depends on the lunar calendar, and this year it fell on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. What poor luck! If it were on three weekdays, we would have a very long weekend! Luckily, the boss decided to make it a four-day weekend to make up for the unfairly short holiday. So I went to visit Tanya in Beijing!

The traveling was awful. First, I had to take a five and a half hour train ride to Seoul Thursday night. Beforehand, I was in my apartment, getting ready to leave and hanging out with Dan, when I decided to double-check my train ticket. I realized that I had only 20 minutes to get to the train station, which is about a 10-15 minute cab ride away! Whoops! So Dan and I scurried around frantically, he got me into a cab in the rain, and I searched my Korean dictionary for the words "Step on it!" I failed at that, so I just showed the driver my train ticket and he started running red lights for me. Got there with only minutes to spare, thank god! Times like this I wish Koreans accepted tips, because he surely deserved it! When I got to Seoul, I had to navigate the subway system to figure out how to get to the airport. I ended up accidentally on the wrong train (going to Incheon and not Incheon AIRPORT!), but a friendly and half drunk Korean guy on the subway helped me out. It took a few hours to get to the airport, which is normally a 45-minute bus ride. Whoops! Luckily I had about 7 hours to waste before my flight.

I got to Beijing in the afternoon on Friday, met Tanya, and went to get some awesome Chinese food for dinner. That night we went to a KTX, which is the Chinese version of a karaoke room (here in Korea they are called noraebangs). There were maybe 20 of Tanya's friends there, and we had a great time. I liked hanging out with them a lot! Really felt like I was free to be my goofy self, something that I have trouble with in Korea.

On Saturday we went and saw an aerial view of the Forbidden City from a nearby hilltop temple (see first picture - behind me). Tanya said the tour is pretty boring and long, so we skipped it. Apparently they emptied out the buildings, so people just walk through and don't really see anything. We saw some beautiful buildings and art around the area though. Beijing really spruced up the city for the Olympics, so much of what I saw was brand new, but of course there were many ancient structures as well. That night we went out for dinner and a show (a friend of Tanya's is a singer). The bars in Beijing are incredibly smoky! We actually left the show early because we could hardly stand the smoke - my eyes were stinging terribly.

On Sunday we went to the Great Wall. It was amazing! I just couldn't believe how huge it really is. You can see it snaking off on top of the mountains like a ribbon that just fell on the land. I really loved seeing it and recommend that everyone goes to see it sometime in their lives. That evening we went to an open mic night that Tanya and her friends go to on most Sunday nights. Tanya is a pianist and many of her friends were also musicians, so I got to hear some awesome tunes (see the video below).

Getting home was also a bit of a nightmare because Tanya's alarm clock somehow didn't go off at 6:30, but at 7:15, and my flight was at 8:40! I packed and got ready all in about 5 minutes, crying and freaking out that I wasn't going to make my flight and meet Dan in Seoul! I got in a cab who sped me to the airport, which was maybe 20 minutes or more away, and in the airport I was so confused I started to cry again! I had to rush around to maybe four windows before figuring out how to get to my flight. It was not a normal airport to me because there aren't ticketing counters at first, but a long row of window with people behind glass. I didn't have my boarding pass, so I was totally lost. I finally got to my terminal just as we were boarding and let out a HUGE sigh when I got into my seat. I then proceeded to sleep through the whole flight.

Back in Seoul, my boyfriend Dan had gone up to take care of paperwork at the embassy, so we met up and got Mexican food, then took the train home together. As much fun as China was, I was happy to get back to a country where I at least knew how to say more than just "hi" and "thank you." China made me appreciate Korea a bit more. The people seem to be a little friendlier here and the language is easier to learn. I will miss the cool people I met though, and the food! Chinese food trumps Korean food by far! Also, in China, even a city as large as Beijing doesn't smell bad, and Seoul smells pretty nasty sometimes.

September update

2009-09-27T19:47:00.013+09:00

This last week has been rather exciting. October 2-4 is one of the biggest Korean holidays, the harvest holiday, Chusok. Nice to get some time off, but unfortunately it fell on a weekend this year. It's governed by the lunar calendar, so it's at a different time every year. If it was during the week, we could have gotten a 5-day weekend or maybe more! I had considered going to Beijing for the holiday, but when I found out we only got Friday off, I reconsidered.

Then about a week ago my boss announced that we'd also get Monday off, since many children would be out of school anyway and he thought the holiday was too short. So I got my butt in gear and went to a travel agent to get my Chinese visa as quickly as possible. All tourists need visas to get into China, and because America screwed China in trade agreements somewhere in the recent past, China made it so that visas are really expensive only for Americans. Anyway, at least the plane tickets were cheap. I sent off my passport and bought plane tickets all for a fair price. Only thing is, I leave for Seoul (where I'll fly out of) on October 1st and I am supposed to get the visa on September 30th! I am really hoping there are no complications in the processing and shipping!

Last weekend was amazing and exciting as well. I had been planning to go camping with other teachers on an island nearby, but two days before I found out that my favorite electronic duo was going to be playing in Seoul that weekend! My friend Sean emailed me right when he found out and we started making plans to take the train up there and see them, Royksopp, as well as MSTRKRFT and Underworld, two other huge names in electronic music. Three other awesome friends came with and we had a blast! It was a bit pricey, but worth every cent.

Other than that, things here are alright. School is gradually becoming less stressful, and things are going well with Dan, the guy I'm dating. Dan is another English teacher here (of course), who went to school to be a teacher and is from California. He's very sweet and we have a lot of laughs together.

I can't say I'm not homesick and lonely though. I miss having girlfriends to hang out with. There are some fun people here for sure, but I haven't had that many close connections yet. Plus people just keep coming and going so much and we're all pretty busy, so it can be hard to get close to people. I'm sure things will get better though, just have to wait it out.

Tanya comes to visit: Part II

2009-09-22T09:49:00.015+09:00

This one has taken a little while to post, sorry, here goes. Tanya came one weekend, went to Jeju Island for the week while I worked, and then came back for the next weekend before flying back to Beijing.

All that week, back in the States, my favorite art festival (Burning Man) was going on. In honor of the event and because I was sad I was missing it, I spent the week building my own version of the effigy of a man that they burn at the festival. The event consists of a week of camping and having fun, checking out very progressive art, then a burning of a large wooden man on Saturday night (see photo below). So the plan was to build the man and burn him Saturday night. This was also important because in 2007, Tanya helped make some of the art for that year's festival. She and some other burners in Beijing gathered white plastic trash and made leaves out of it, then sent them to San Francisco where burners there welded some trees and put the leaves on them for an environmental piece. Apparently there's a good amount of litter in China. Tanya was in Beijing though and was unable to go. I'm very much hoping I can get her to come with me in 2010!

We spent Friday night out at the foreigner bar I like to frequent, just hanging out and talking with friends. Saturday we went to the beach in the daytime and then that night it was a double-birthday party at another bar. One was a friend named Lou, and the other was the guy I am dating, Dan. It was such a good time! I'm not sure I've seen so many foreigners out in Yeosu at once! We partied like crazy until 2 or 3am, worked our way to a place to get some food, then left our friends at a noraebong (karaoke room) while we went off to burn the man with Dan and his friend Matt.

Only problem was that the man was made of wood that was too thin and spread out to ignite well and we forgot to get some gas to pour on him! I also couldn't track down fireworks, which is probably my favorite part of the real burn night at Burning Man. It was really fun anyway and I learned a bit about what it takes to burn the man. Tanya put in her help by not only helping me with glueing, but she made a heart and a hand for him, complete with his pinkie in the air, a tribute to our APB friends in the US!

Sunday was spent sleeping, recovering, and cleaning up from an awesome weekend. I saw Tanya off that evening, swearing to try and make it to Beijing to visit. It was so nice to see a familiar face over here, especially one as cool as hers!

Tanya Comes to Visit: Part I

2009-08-31T10:51:00.010+09:00

The lovely Tanya arrived Saturday morning, so Dan and I rode our bikes to pick her up at the airport. It was about 9:30 in the morning, and we went straight to our friends Sean and Juliette's place to meet everyone to go tubing. There were four motorcycles and one car - eleven people in total. I rode on Jim's bike since Dan's doesn't fit two well. We had to take a long route since bikes aren't allowed on the freeways here, so it took us about three hours to get to the river! Most of us expected two, so it was a bit long, but we made it, sore-assed and ready for the water.

We soon realized that the tubing we had been expecting was actually river rafting, with oars and rowing and a guide. None of us really wanted to do that, we wanted to laze about on the water. So we went to a shop and bought tubes and just hopped in the river! The water was very very slow, so we didn't go far from the cars, which was okay with us. There were some rapids and that was really fun! Unfortunately we came out with a few bruises and our friend Steve hurt his tailbone pretty good, but it could've been much worse! It was a great time.

That night we stumbled to a nearby minbak (hotel) which looked like a group of mushrooms! They were so cute! The guys went out and bought food to grill while the chicas showered, and we all grilled out that night and drank soju and beer. That was really fun too.
In the morning we got up and had breakfast before heading back. This time I rode in the car, luckily there was room for one more. When we got home, Tanya and I had a crazy adventure trying to find food in Sean and Juliette's small part of town. The lady we were talking to, who knew a tiny bit of English, kept asking about where we were from, but we were so hungry we didn't want to talk about it at all! We zipped out of there and got some cookies at a shop (food fail!). When we got back to my part of town we had some awesome grilled shellfish, then headed to the jimjilbang (sauna/bath house) with my friend Justin. That was very relaxing and we felt much better after beating up our bodies over the weekend with all the tubing and alcohol.
Now Tanya is off to Jeju Island to explore while I work this week. She'll come back on Friday for more fun this weekend! I'm hoping for a beach day with our friends and Dan's birthday is Saturday, so I'm sure it will be a great time.

Why Korea is Weird, Part II

2009-08-25T17:50:00.002+09:00

12. Koreans wear clothing to the beach to go swimming, but go fully nude in the bath house. I once saw a girl wearing a cardigan swimming in the ocean, no joke.

13. Koreans seriously think that if you leave your fan on at night, you will die. It's called "electric fan death." Some say it's because the fan sucks the oxygen out of the room (if the door is closed), and some say the fan blade chop up the air molecules. When someone dies in their sleep, guess what they try to blame it on.

14. Koreans think that if you eat kimchi, you are safe from certain health problems, like AIDS.

15. Korean women who are unmarried still live at home. Some even have curfew, no matter how old they are.

16. Some juices have fruit in them. Weird, but very yummy!

17. Scooters and motorcycles get to drive and park on side walks. I like this one!

18. A "friend" (chin-gu) can only be someone who is my exact same (Korean) age. If someone is a friend and they are younger, I would call them my younger brother or sister (dongsang), likewise if they are older they are my older brother or sister.

Summertime

2009-08-24T00:00:00.006+09:00

Yeosu's been getting more and more fun lately. This last weekend I went to the beach, met some more friends, celebrated two birthdays and two people going back home, and started doing yoga! I was busy!

Some of us have been going to the Canadian's bar, LSG, and using their youtube to queue up songs for dancing. It's the best when there are just a few of us and we're all dancing. When they tried to do it last Wednesday night (cheap Guinness night), it didn't work so well with all the people there (I hate it when people just stand and watch!) We like to put on old cheesy 80s and 90s tunes and have flashbacks to when we were little. I met a couple of really cool girls named Shannon and Joelle (see photo), but unfortunately both are already gone! Such is life here.

Saturday at the beach was really nice. The scooter ride through the green hills to get there was just as nice; I almost wish the beach was farther away! I tried out one of my friends' Korean hats for the shade, like it?

That night we partied at another bar, Elle Lui, where foreigners often go. We all know the bartender, Crow (see photo), who spins and breathes fire and also juggles the bottles. Always entertaining! This particular night there were break dancers there too, which was neat. Break dancing is huge in Korea lately.

Tonight (Sunday) I went to the jimjilbong (sauna/bath house) with my friend Justin. First we went in this little hut that was super hot. It was so hot, the tiles hurt my feet to walk on. We sat in there and chatted, staring at the walls. Weird? No! The walls were patterns of rocks. Not just rocks though, I'm talking amethysts and colorful agate and other beautiful stones. Amazing! When we were good and hot (soaked in sweat), we went upstairs to a darkened room where some people were sleeping on mats (this jimjilbong is 24 hrs). We pulled a couple of mats out and Justin started teaching me yoga. I want to start doing yoga regularly. I feel like it will help my posture and flexibility, and also my anger and frustration. Maybe I can get to a point with my teaching where I don't get so frustrated with the kids when they are bouncing off the walls! The yoga lesson was quite difficult, but I'm okay with that.

My girl Tanya (below) is coming Saturday morning from Beijing. She is a Welsh girl who has been teaching music there for several years. I met her at Coachella this last April, and if you read my first blog, you'll learn how she helped free my mind from the Portland move and realize how I wanted to travel. She is amazing and I cannot wait for her to come! I just hope that she'll like it here. I very much would like to hit up Beijing sometime too.

Vacation on Jeju Island

2009-07-31T14:40:00.041+09:00

This past week was the first of our 2 one-week-long vacations from work. The next one will be over Christmas (plus a holiday or two in the fall). Out of low cost and good rumors about Jeju Island, my friend Jim and I decided to go there for five days. Jeju is less than an hour's plane ride south of here and is still part of South Korea, though it has its own history, climate, and geography. It was made thousands of years ago by volcanoes, so the entire island is made up of lava rock. It's everywhere! It also has the tallest peak in Korea, Mt. Halla, or in Korean, Hallasan.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and checked out the black sand beach, Samyang. It was pretty neat, but the sand isn't really black, its more of a chocolate color. The picture below is me on the beach near someone's awesome drawing. The sand there is lighter because other blond sand mixed with it, but the rest of the beach was dark. During our drive to my first Buddhist temple, we had to make a quick right into this strange overgrown garden with statues in it. They were so weird! We made faces with them. There was also an abandoned mini golf course stuck right in there with the statues, and you could hardly see it through all the weeds. The temple was beautiful, with many statues of Buddha and awesome painted buildings. There was also this ampitheater of Buddhas all surrounding one large one (see the pic of me sitting in them).

The next day we hiked Hallasan. On the way, we got distracted by a sign for ATVs, so we stopped and rode some quads for a bit. On the way to the hiking trail, we got distracted again and stopped to see another Buddhist temple. They are so beautiful! This one seemed much newer though, and many of them are rebuilds because the Japanese burnt so much of Korea down not too long ago.

The trail was very nice too. The first half hour we were under the canopy, going over mountain streams and checking out flowers and shrub bamboo. Then we got to a steep part where you can look out and see all these weird, tall natural stones that stand upright on the mountain. They are part of some legend where 500 sons were tricked into eating their mother's ashes in their food, so they walked around the mountain mourning until they died, still standing. After the steep part, very abruptly the trail flattens out to a field of wild flowers, grass, and more shrub bamboo. It's a flat part that surrounds the summit of the mountain. Our trail didn't lead us to the top, but we were okay with that, since it would have taken a few more kilometers of steep climbing! On the way back down, some Koreans near me figured out that the valley echoes really loudly. That was pretty funny.

Later that day we went to see the Cheonjiyeon waterfall, which was this big stream with a few waterfalls (one really big one), an old bridge and a temple. There I got my first taste of Jeju chocolate, which was SO good I bought $35 worth to bring home! The waterfall was really pretty, but the woody sides had a lot of scary spiders!

That night we got to Jungmun beach on the south end of the island. We ate some amazing seafood, then checked out the beach. It was cloudy and we didn't expect to swim, but when we got there, we were just drawn in. We rented a tube and played in the big waves for a while, then camped there that night.

Tuesday was not the best. We checked out this other beach that a tourism pamphlet said had a beach festival, but when we got there, it was just a sad and pathetic beach with nothing really going on, and then it started raining. From there we went to see the sex museum, which was very funny, but almost everything was in Korean, so it was not very informative. Jim wanted a massage, so we tried to get to this spa to do that. The tourism book totally took us to the wrong place and we almost ran out of gas! Over an hour later, we finally found the place. We had called earlier about how busy they were (they said today was good), but when we got there, they said they were all full! Guess we were supposed to have made an appointment. That was a huge bummer. We went and found another hotel and tried to figure something else to do. We'd spotted a Korean bath house earlier, so we went out to try and find it again, but it was pouring so heavily by that time and it was very scary to drive! I really wanted to go though, so I could relax and read my book in peace. We finally found it and it was going to close in 45 minutes, but we didn't care and went anyway. It was fabulous! The men's and women's areas were identical, but separate. There was a locker room in which you would undress, then go into this hot tub room which was very warm and steamy, but less hot than a sauna (sauna was in the next room). The room had two hot tubs with different temperatures, and also a long cold pool. It was nice to read in the hot tub, then cool down in the pool. There were also these buttons on the walls you could press and a high pressure shower would rain down on your head. It was so relaxing!

On Wednesday, we happily woke to the first sunshine we'd seen since we arrived! We went to a beach on the East side of the island and finally found some snorkel gear to rent. We'd been keeping our eyes out for gear to buy or rent, but with very little luck. I was really hoping to get scuba certified that week, but it was high season and the scuba instructors were busy doing day trips. We went to this beach in a small bay and saw puffer fish, yellow and black striped fish, shrimp, and some other small fish. It wasn't a reef, just a rocky area, but it was neat anyway. I love sea life!

That afternoon we made it to the Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak). This is the part of the island on the east side where a volcanic eruption created a large bowl shaped mountain, and it's famous for being the best place to watch the sunrise. I believe they are actually campaigning to make it one of the new seven wonders of the world. We hadn't really made plans to see it, but we went there anyway and climbed up. It was very pretty! And at the base, there was a black sand and rock beach where the women divers work. They are these women whose jobs are to dive deep into the water and pick up abalone and other seafood. Very cool. They had a little restaurant on the water there with raw abalone to eat and live ones you could touch. We skipped the raw stuff though and got some cooked abalone later on.

We spent the night in the little town that sits at the base of the mountain. At the store that night, while picking up drinks and snacks, the lady at the mart used an abacus to count money! That was so crazy I had to take a picture! In the morning, we woke up at 4 to climb up the volcano and watch the sunrise. That was so cool! Many people came for this, and everyone was snapping pictures. It was all red and gorgeous.

That day it was nice out again so we went to Gimnyeong Beach on the north side. We had fun climbing on the rocks checking out all the little crabs and cockroach-looking critters. The waves weren't as great as at Jungmun, but there was a neat sandbar we went out to. Later we checked out the lava tubes, these awesome huge tunnels that the lava made thousands of years ago. They were very neat! It was cold in there, and since it rained previously, the ceiling was raining on us. You could see where rocks had fallen into cooling lava and stayed there, and the floor was made of cooled lava flows that looked sort of like cow pies. At the end of the tube we were in was the largest known lava column, where lava had flowed down from the ceiling and hardened upright in a huge column. So cool! Coming out of the tunnel we actually ran into a couple kids from Yeosu, which was an awesome coincidence.

We stayed our last night in a touristy area, camping on Hamdyok Beach. We bought fireworks and joined the many other Koreans who were lighting them off on the beach. We ate more mackerel that night and drank more Soju, a staple of our vacation. Also at this meal I had my first raw crab. You stick a part of the crab in your mouth (shell and all) and chew on it while the meat just falls off and you swallow it, then spit out the shell. It's slimy and absolutely disgusting. The broiled mackerel was my favorite dish of the vacation, and twice we were lucky enough to get a side of tiny crabs that you eat whole, and the shell just dissolves in your mouth as you chew, yum!!! Gotta be careful though because you can poke your gums and cheeks with their sharp pointy legs. In Korea, you get little side dishes with every meal and they will refill them for you if one runs out. You never really know what you'll get, but kimchi will always be one. It was nice, but I was ready to head home the next day!

23rd Birthday!

2009-07-25T11:42:00.005+09:00

This week did not start out so great. I'm battling homesickness and loneliness along with a hectic school day. The kids are crazy and I have to just learn to understand that and not get too upset when they climb the walls and throw pencils in the garbage can. Also, I've met some cool people here, but I went from a happening, busy Tempe full of awesome friends to a less busy city with much fewer friends and English speakers in general. It's a bit hard.

On Thursday we went on a field trip to this Temple, but we didn't actually go to the Temple - we just stopped in the parking lot and walked over to this stream with a cool old bridge and went swimming in it with the kindergarteners. I was not in the mood for fun. Almost everyone I'd talked to about going out for my birthday said they were heading out for vacation that night, so I was bumming about the shitty birthday I was going to have. Not a good day at all.

I had forgotten that that night Jim and I had plans to go out for my birthday with Sean and Juliette, a couple friends of Jims that I've hung out with a couple times. Jim and I went out to a bar and waited for them, and they were late because of a class party Juliette had. I was a little concerned and not at all prepared for the awesomeness that happened when they came. They brought me a cake, homemade red velvet cupcakes with Korean birthday candles in them, a gift, and this neat heart balloon (check the pic). I really did not expect any of it! I think I teared up a little too. It was really sweet.

The next day at school my first class was busy making birthday cards for me when I walked into the room! They were drawings of hearts and of me and birthday cakes that said things like "Happy Bithdaw Hather Teacher, I love you!" So cute! The school day was fun and easy, we didn't do much actual work. The other teachers got me a card, gift, and birthday cake which was really nice too.

After work I went to get a haircut, which was really interesting since the only English the stylists knew were the words "long" and "short" and maybe "cut." But we drew a few pictures in my little notebook and got it all figured out. And they gave me a really good haircut, complete with shampoo and head massages, all for under ten bucks. Hell yeah!

That night we went out again, to a bar called Longlife to meet a few friends, then to Elle Lui for others. We went around to a few other places too (including my first Korean karaoke). It was an awesome night, with many more friends than I'd expected. I'm feeling quite a bit better now, hopefully the feeling doesn't wear off too fast.

Oh also - I'm 23 now, but in Korean age, I'm 25! Crazy!

Livin' life

2009-07-18T09:38:00.004+09:00

This week's been pretty cool. I'm a tad lonely and homesick, but I've had worse. I just wish that I could make friends faster because hanging out with the same person all the time gets old (well, when they aren't your boyfriend).

It's the rainy season here, so sometimes I can't escape my apartment. And it's monster humid! My skin doesn't like it much, but on the bright side, I haven't really had to use lotion like I used to. There was a badass thunderstorm the other night. I didn't know it until lightening struck RIGHT outside the apartment on the side where my windows are, causing me to bolt awake sitting upright in my bed, wide-eyed and heart-pounding. I was scared out of my mind for about 2 seconds. After that I couldn't get back to sleep for hours because I was so rattled!

I planted seeds last week. I took an egg carton and planted it with loofah, mixed lettuce, spinach, and basil. In about three days I had seedlings, and now, a few days later, the loofah is over 3 inches! The humidity and my bright windowsill are pretty perfect for them. Gotta find someone to babysit them while I'm in Jeju next week though.

Last night was cool. Jim and I went out to a place where you really can't go by yourself and he had been wanting to go. We sat around a round table with a grill in the middle of it, similar to the Korean BBQ we had last week, but smaller scale. We picked the place by checking out the tanks of sea creatures out front. We got the house special, being various shellfish and snails. The lady who was also our server came out with various dips and sides, including whole peaches, and set up our grill. Then she came out with a tray of fresh clams and put them on the grill in their shells and cooked it for us. It was really yummy and an awesome break from all these restaurants that serve beef and ham in every damn dish.

After dinner we went to a going-away party at a bar called Elle Lui in Yochun. There was a large population of foreign English teachers there, mainly around our age. Met a few new cats and talked with ones I'd already met. It was a good time. The bartender there had a fire spinning and bottle juggling routine that was pretty sick, even for burner standards! He also set up a little stack of glassware with alcohol all over it, breathed fire at it and set it on fire. That was neat. Only thing is, he always does the same routine every time, and ALWAYS to the song It's Raining Men. Pretty funny =]

Teaching

2009-07-16T19:11:00.003+09:00

I've been teaching for four days now. My first students of the day are 5- and 6-year old kindergarteners, and my oldest kids, near the end of the day, go up to about 15. The 7-year-olds are the best at English by far. Many of them have already had two years of all-English kindergarten, so they do quite well. The older they get though, the worse they are at English and the less enthusiasm they have for it. Then again, the younger they are, the harder it is to keep them in their seats! Today this child in my first class was on the floor under his desk, butt in the air and head on the floor when I called on him to answer a question. He's like the Blob how he moves around all over his table and chair constantly.

It's difficult not to yell at the kids. I'm fairly quick to yell at them, but then again, I'm quick to praise as well. I really want them to do well and I want to tell them how great they are at English, but it's hard to praise a child when another child is standing up on his seat spouting gibberish and giggling.

I don't remember kids acting like this when I was that young, so it makes me want to be more strict. The problem is that the school is an academy - not public school. You can't be too harsh that the kid hates it and their parents pull them out of the school. And I don't really want to be harsh, I just want them to learn. I think many of them are just so comfortable in the place that they don't understand when I make them actually do work. In a class today I told them that if we got through our work and if they were good, we would play a game at the end. They proceded to be amazingly disruptive, so I told them they'd blown it. The rest of the class was spent reading and writing and they whined about playing a game the whole time! I think the girl before me let them play games way too often and spoiled them.

Shark Dive

2009-07-11T20:54:00.020+09:00

This weekend Jim and I took the bus to Busan to go scuba dive in a shark tank at the Busan Aquarium. A couple friends of Jims mentioned it the other night and I was all over it!
We got there around 11:30 and had a quick safety and procedure overview. Of the eight divers, four of us were certified, so that group went first. The rest of us went around the aquarium and checked out the other exhibits and the shark tank we'd be diving in soon (see pics and videos below).
At 3 we got suited up and took a short course in how to recognize hand signals, clear your mask of water, and take your regulator in and out. I had a little panic attack and I was shakin' in my shoes, but when I thought about not diving I realized I had to shake it off and just do it. It was much easier once we were in the bright shark tank than when we were in the dark lock floating belly down.
We waded off to the tank and lowered ourselves down a rope on top of an acrylic tube that the aquarium customers were walking through viewing the shark tank. We got in and walked around on the bottom, finding shark teeth and checking out the sharks, groupers, and sting rays swimming around us. There are normally green sea turtles in the tank, but they had to be locked off for our dive because they tend to bite.
That was absolutely amazing, but I'm looking forward to scuba diving in an actual ocean with more colorful fish. Jim and I are headed to Jeju Island in a couple weeks, so the instructor gave us the number to a guy there who will certify us and take us out to the best scuba spots in Korea. Hell yeah!

Korean BBQ

2009-07-10T09:38:00.006+09:00

Last night all the teachers went out for dinner to say goodbye to Lindsay and to welcome me. We went to a restaurant called "Meat Home," how perfectly fitting right? I never did Korean BBQ at home so this was entirely new to me, but you go through a buffet line of raw meat and veggies and sauces and then you take it all back to your table and cook it yourself. Only seafood they offered was octopus and squid, whole ones. They did have some other stuff, sushi, spring rolls, and french fries! I totally dug on the french fries, crinkle cut style yeah!

I also had my first Soju - Korean liquor that you shoot or mix, and it's really sweet with a bitter aftertaste. Kinda gets you drunk fast though, I didn't have much and I felt it quick.
Multiple people share one grill, so you have to wait your turn sometimes, but there's a lot of sharing going on, so it doesn't matter. Octopus and squid like to curl up and shrink when you cook them, check out the way the tentacles move in the video! Super cool lookin.

New city

2009-07-09T18:24:00.001+09:00

Korea is so weird!

2009-07-09T10:05:00.002+09:00

So this week I've been keeping myself pretty busy shopping for what I need in the apartment and meeting other English teachers here. I've met some pretty cool kids this week! I got an awesome welcoming at this new bar one of the Canadians opened up in Yeocheon-dong (dong=neighborhood). They just got Guiness (yay!), so the owner gave me a car bomb =]

So anyway, reasons Korea is weird:

1. You do not tip at restaurants or bars. That is an insult, as if to say the workers don't make enough money.

2. No showers or bathtubs! When you walk into my bathroom, it's a simple sink and toilet. The shower hose and nozzle are on the wall, connected to the sink, and you just stand in the middle of the bathroom and shower. Then you wipe things off after (or else you get mold - it's very humid here).

3. There's basically no cheese. No real cheese anyway, there is some fake stuff.

4. Cars honk about everything! Not in emergency situations, but to say, "Hey! I'm here! Just wanted you to know that!"

5. In clothing stores, there are just one or two of everything. Not a style with multiple sizes or colors. If it doesn't fit, too bad. And some stores don't let you try things on for various reasons (one lady said I would stretch it out if I tried on the dress I wanted).

6. People here eat Kimchi. And they like it.

7. You can't smile at people on the street and get a smile back. They are courteous in most situations, they just don't do this. But they will look at you. Weird.

8. Tanks of live eel or octopus are a normal thing to see walking down the street.

9. Left is right and right is left. Just kidding, but seriously.

10. If you go to a public restroom that has toilets, toilet paper, and soap at the sink, you're lucky.

11. At restaurants, there are menu items that you can't have, they don't actually have it.

First Day of Orientation

2009-07-06T17:19:00.000+09:00

This week my job is to sit in on classes with Lindsey Teacher. Lindsey is from Canada, and her year of teaching her is up this week, so I take over her classes. When I got to school, my schoolmaster, MC, showed me around. The kids heard from the other teachers that I was coming, so they all were bouncing off the walls yelling, "Heather Teacher!!!" and trying to hold my hand and hug me. It was awesome! They are super cute.

So in the mornings we teach kindergarteners, who spend all of their mornings here learning English. The afternoon kids are a little older, and they go to various private schools (math school, origami school, tae kwon do, etc.) before and after our school. Then in the evenings (school lasts until 7:30 here), we have even older kids, who are up to age 13 (or 14 in Korean age). School is 5 days a week, but sometimes I'll have to come in on Saturday mornings to work on school mini-dramas.

I'll use workbooks and textbooks and flashcards that are given to me to teach, but I get to make up my own games and activities for the kids to learn the material. So far it looks like a pretty easy job, but keeping the kids in their seats and quiet will be a challenge. They are so crazy! I think today might be an exception because I'm here, but yeah, they don't want to learn, they want to play!

The city is small, but very urban-feeling. It's very busy-looking, cars are everywhere and there's a lot of noise. People live in tall apartment buildings, not houses. Drivers are nuts - they regularly use their horns and reverse while driving. They also park on sidewalks and in lanes. Everyone drives a Hyundai or a Kia pretty much. Oh and there aren't really pickup trucks here, but there are these things called Bongos that are similar, but they look more like a van with the back hacked in half to make a truck bed. The city is loaded with signs! Stores are not just on bottom levels of buildings, but are in higher stories too, so there are signs all up the front of buildings.

My apartment is nice for a Korean apartment. It's a one bedroom studio, and my bedroom is big and came with a queen sized bed. The front door opens up to the kitchen, which is not big for American standards, but quite large for here. The bathroom is attached to the kitchen and the bedroom is through another doorway. The apartment was Lindsey's, so she left a bunch of very useful items for me (cleaning supplies, toiletries, a hair dryer, etc), and it was also fully furnished. I even have a tv and vcr, and internet was already hooked up. Quite nice! Oh the bathroom is funny - there is no shower. In this bathroom, as in most of their bathrooms, the floor is tiled and slopes down to a drain. There's a shower nozzle attachment on my faucet, and I turn a dial to start my shower. I shower standing up in the middle of the bathroom next to the sink. The whole place gets all wet! Koreans have bathroom shoes that are little plastic sandals, so when the bathroom is still wet, you use them so your feet don't get wet again (see photo). You also don't ever wear shoes in the house. There's a little shallow entry area that you walk into and leave your shoes when you come in. I was told to keep a pair of socks with me for if I go to someone else's house, because it's also not proper to have bare feet.

I also went grocery shopping today. That was a bit interesting. They have eggs, but they weren't in the cooler. They also had mochi like at Yogurtini! That was fun.

Time for bed, I'm entirely exhausted.

Just arrived!

2009-07-04T15:10:00.000+09:00

Got on a plane (Asiana Airlines) at 12:20 July 3rd, got off at 5am July 4th. Customs wasn't hard because everyone knows you're foreign and will just run up and help you. That is, the people who aren't cutting in front of you in line. Met up with Jim at around 6am and we went to the hotel in Seoul. We checked out and left for Gwangju, a city closer to Yeosu (home), where Jim has friends and knows the place a bit better. Seoul was cool though, we walked around a bit. Lots of stuff looks historic, but it's mostly rebuilt because of wars. There were lots of cute little shops to explore and tons of trash on the streets. Littering is the norm, and every day workers come and clean up the streets (sort of). And the city smells like garbage. We had fun sounding out Korean characters and eating strange snackfoods, trying to figure out what we were eating (some kind of sweet candied ginger, bread sticks with seaweed stuck to the sides...). We're in Gwangju now, about to go walk about and get some dinner. So far so good!

Oh and things are funny here! In the first hotel, there were bottles of men's cologne and lotion that were called "Intelligent and Tender" and at the bottom they said, "for mens." hehe!

Shopping in Gwangju - some hilarious mannquins.

Also in Gwangju - a water lily pond we visited - so cool!

Wrapping things up

2009-07-03T05:26:00.000+09:00

I board the plane in about seven hours. I just sold my car an hour ago, ran my last couple of errands (stocking up on hair products and vitamin C), and am now sitting at home sorting and packing. Mom called, she just got the ring that Justin and I got her for mother's day - a ring with both our birthstones and hers in the middle. She'd left a message when she got it and I could hear her start to cry toward the end, it was awesome! The best gifts are the ones that make you cry from happiness.

Saying goodbye to people has been strange. Sometimes I'll start to leave a place and say a quick "bye" to someone, and then realize it might be the last one, so I go back and give them a huge hug. It's always slightly awkward for some reason. I am happy to be going on my adventure, but I'll be really happy to see my friends/family again.

I'm not nervous anymore. I got nervous last week and had a day or two where I was emotionally exhausted and just sort of dazed from it. I think when the plane gets nearer to landing in Seoul I'll start to feel nervous again. I have to land, figure out how to get some money exchanged, and then call Jim's cell phone so we can meet up and get to the hotel. We're going to drop my stuff there and hang out in Seoul all day before getting on a train to Yeosu, my new home. Rekha and I as I was leaving home.

Learning Korean

2009-06-27T06:49:00.000+09:00

I got a little Korean pocket phrase book and I've been teaching myself Korea using it. It's tough because I can't hear the words, only try my hardest to figure out how to say them. Luckily, most sounds we make in English are the same sounds they make in Korean. You can basically translate words into Korean and write them because the written language is based on sounds and syllables. Unfortunately, they don't have a sound for "th" so I can't write my name in Korean =[

I've learned so far that their unlucky number is 4 (not 13) because the sound for four, "sa," is the same as the word for death (based in Chinese). So instead of putting a "4" for the 4th floor of a building, they might have a letter F instead.

Also, the book says you aren't supposed to touch people who are older than you on their head or shoulders. Nor should you hand things to people using your left hand, only use both or the right. So many little rules to learn!

Getting a Korean visa

2009-06-23T14:30:00.000+09:00

Getting a visa is a lot of tedious work! First, I had to get the employment contract from my employer, signed by both of us. Easy enough. I also had to gather up a bunch of other papers, including a sealed official ASU transcript, a copy of my passport, a couple of passport photos, a visa application filled out...and a couple other documents "apostiled." What the heck does that mean? It means I have to go to the secretary of state department downtown and have them copy and stamp them. Kinda like a notary, but fancier. Those documents were my college diploma (graduated in December, hell yeah!) and my criminal background check.

Getting the criminal background check was a lot of fun. First I called the Tempe police department. They gave me the phone number to the records department, which turned out to be just a recording, saying where the records department was. The records department is INSIDE the Tempe police dept. Wow, thanks. So I head down there and ask the guy at the door where to go. He directs me to a window. Lady at the window points me to a table with a form to fill out. Halfway through the form I realize it's for a police incident record. I ask her about it, she says, "Yeah, cross out this and put your name and birthdate here and yadda yadda." Okay, so I finish the form then I ask the lady in the window where it needs to go. She says, "You need to give it to the police department." I look around, a tad confused (I am in the police department?) She says, "That's us," with a very condescending look on her face. Wow. I ask her about getting my prints taken, because this is for a visa and does she know anything about that? Nope. So I give her my 5 bucks and she asks me to come back next week to pick up the background check. That just didn't seem right. So I ask another friend from Phoenix who now teaches in Seoul and he pointed me to the Phoenix record department. There, they take my prints! And they give me a real, live, criminal background check, notarized and everything! All within 30 minutes and for ten bucks. Lady still didn't know anything about visa requirements, but I guess it's too much to ask that workers in records departments know about police records.

Oh well, it all worked out fine, and I mailed all this paperwork via UPS for a whopping 80 bucks (not supposed to use USPS for this type of thing). About a week or so later, my new boss in Korea got me a visa issuance number from the immigration office over there. This I had to take along with my passport and another visa application to the Korean consulate in Korea-town...in Los Angeles. My brother Wasef and I road-tripped out there (and up to SF, Portland, and Seattle), so I could get this done (and so we could party our butts off). At the consulate, I knew to expect an interview. I went in, handed my paperwork to a nice Korean lady, and she sent me off to wait to speak to a suit. Looking at my application, he asked me questions that were already on it (So, you went to ASU...?) and it lasted all of about five minutes. Later in the day I picked up my passport, freshly stamped with an E-2 (English teacher's) visa. Awesome! That night we had champagne to celebrate with Wasef, Chris, and Bobby. It was wonderful. (The photo is Wasef and I on the beach in Malibu).

What happened to Portland?

2009-06-23T14:05:00.000+09:00

Over the past eight months, up until April, I'd been planning a move to Portland. I had been waiting most of my college career to graduate and move farther west. I like the ocean. I like many western cities (not so hot on Phoenix though). I picked Portland because it's artsy and inexpensive and pedestrian friendly (and maybe there was a cute boy there). Anyway, the move was scheduled for the end of March, but two days before the move, my boss at the welding shop I worked at talked me into staying another month to help him out. This was kind of perfect because I really hadn't saved enough money to move to a city where I didn't even have a job secured. Plus this way I would get to go to Coachella!

During Coachella (a 3-day music festival in Indio, CA), I figured out that things weren't working out so well with the cute boy in Portland, and I really didn't have much reason to move there. The first day of the show, I met Tanya, a Welsh girl who has lived in Beijing for several years (girl in photo). I was sitting by the lake we'd camped in front of, tears welling up in my eyes, thinking of how I would break the news to my boyfriend and how much I was going to hurt him, being this close to moving out to Portland to be with him after waiting for six months! Tanya walked up with another friend, Angelique, neither of whom I'd met yet, and we started talking about traveling. It hit me that what I really wanted to do was to travel! Duh! That's why I moved to Phoenix from Minnesota for school, and that's why I was leaving again!

I went home, broke my plans for the Portland move, broke up with my boyfriend there, and started researching all the possibilities for travel. I checked to see what Burners without Borders were up to, looked at volunteering in Peru, possibly joining Peace Corps...when I remembered my friend Jim in South Korea. I met Jim last summer when I was living in Seattle in my brother's apartment (see, I do like to travel!). He's a burner (n: one who goes to Burning Man) from there and was a great Seattle tour guide! Anyway, I started emailing him about teaching in Korea, and within about two or three weeks from Coachella, I was emailing back and forth with Jim's boss, "MC," and getting a 12-month contract to teach in his school!

I must post as an end-note a huge thanks to my adoptive family. When I decided to stay an extra month to work, I found myself without a home because I rented my room out to someone else. My friend Ruvi immediately offered up an extra room in his house, and I took him up on the offer (only expecting to stay a month!) When I returned from Coachella, completely lost, he and his amazing wife Shereen let me stay longer so that I could figure out my future without being completely stressed out about finding a place to live and all that. It has been the best living in their home! There's interesting conversation, much to learn, and lots of love! Shereen even made me fresh soup from scratch when I was sick! After a couple of negative encounters with other friends over the past year leaving me pretty low, I can't even begin to thank this family enough for their love and kindness.