Subways and Superheroes

I've been a bit surprisingly sentimental a few times since arriving in Korea - not for the reason you might expect though. I simply can't allow myself to think too much or there would be a certain downward spiral and it would get ugly. I know this about myself.
A couple of times though I have let myself be affected by weird moments - both of them involving music and I thought I'd share and, you know... be all vulnerable and stuff.

The first moment happened a couple of weeks ago, and it involved the subway. There are many interesting things that happen on the subway - sometimes, a husband and wife team masquerade as a blind couple, wandering the cars and begging for change, only to emerge into the light a few stops later to open their eyes and count the change at street level. They give the legitimate pan-handlers a bad name, and there are legitimate (and truly unfortunate) ones here - believe me. Sometimes, someone will pray for the entire carload of communters as shown in the photo from my last entry. Sometimes, someone will get onto your subway car selling all manner of goods - umbrellas, laser-pointers - what have you.
On one particular day a couple of weeks ago, Steph and I were on the subway and a gentleman came on with a cart full of children's CDs. I should have bought one. He was playing a song on a portable player - loud enough to advertise his goods without being intrusive. The song was "Puff the Magic Dragon" and I think I might have been seconds away from welling-up with tears before he got off at the next station and moved to another car. I don't think I have heard or thought about that song since the third grade. It brought me back, and every sentimental thought about childhood that could have possibly entered my head at that moment - well, did.

That's the sad side of me, but a permanent one I fear.
The second moment came a few days later when I tried a new class activity with one of my Junior classes. The exercise involves playing an English song for the class and handing them a sheet with the lyrics - only some of the lyrics are missing and they have to listen closely to the song a couple of times in an attempt to fill in the words - it's much harder than it sounds. It's also much harder than it sounds when the voice you are listening to belong to none other than Mr. Brad Roberts - lead singer of the Crash Test Dummies. It's pretty low, you see, and fairly difficult to decipher at times - especially for an ESL class.
So I found myself in the middle of a Korean classroom, surrounded by kids who were quiet (a rare thing) and intent on listening carefully to a song I had always enjoyed and admired the craft of... and then the lyrics struck me. The situation struck me. Looking at my Superman poster hanging in the classroom, I thought how infinitely cool it was to hear this Canadian band from back in the day, singing this song for the first time to these young and foreign ears. What was even more cool was hearing them discuss what the song meant afterwards - what it means to decide not to do what you had the strength to do, and even what it means to despair: "And sometimes I despair the world will never see another man like him..."

After getting my emotional ass kicked in the last days prior to my leaving, I had tried really hard to not get all affected by anything that even bordered on sentimentality. But I reveled in this moment - even more than I did the subway song. What allowed me to do so was being able to walk between aisles of children listening closely to a sad song with their heads down and their ears open.
I was proud to have my sentimental mojo back. And I was encouraged to write about it after reading the writing of a friend from back home. Thanks, Collins.

Hello?

To anyone out there who is still reading this, I must apologize for my lack of posting lately. You see, I've been catching-up on sleep, site-seeing and eating, but mostly just catching-up on report cards and essay marking and only able to write about sleep. In fact, writing report card comments is what I should be doing now. I am actually enjoying the process of commenting on my kids' individual attributes, though I wish it were easier to do in a technical sense. I am dreaming of the days of the red pen and paper style of marking.
So, faithful reader(s?), I leave you with a promise that I will post again soon, and I will tell you all about the last week when we walked around a fortress, saw some new and crazy stuff in Seoul, ate our food "Korean Style" with Sunny the zany Campbell''s Soup lady, but mostly just marked essays, wrote report cards and wondered why these two things are somehow infinitely more difficult to do over the internet. I have a few more report cards to write by tomorrow morning, when I will head to the PC Room and copy and paste the comments into the actual report card templete. Pray for me, just like this guy was doing on the subway on Sunday night. I wonder if he knows something I don't...

Dream Blog #4

Though I can't even count myself among his reluctant fans (If I want to listen to Michael Jackson in his prime, I'll listen to "ABC" or "I want you back"), I have to respect the Lake. He's good at what he does, even if it's not really my bag. He has a cool sense of self-depricating humour, as evidenced by his SNL spoof from last Christmas, and he can take a brave shot at post break-up Britney through a thinly veiled "real life" video story that portrays him as a thoroughly unlikeable, obsessive jackass. I must admit, I'm a complete sucker for "Cry Me a River."
So, the other night, I had a dream that I was watching the Lake perform in a mall to a group of about 50 mildly interested passers-by. People didn't stop to listen for too long. In my dream, the Lake was a good friend of mine, and even though his mall performance was not well received, I was there afterall to support a friend and I told him as his people were packing-up that he should keep his chin up, because things are going to turn around for him yet. Poor JT.

A Dire Warning to Diminutive Grade School Boys Everywhere

One of the cutest little dudes that I have had the pleasure of teaching so far is named Harry - this is of course his chosen English name. He's great to have in class - very well-mannered and easy to engage in the day's activities or readings. Harry also happens to be one of the smallest boys I have seen in his age group in this or any other country. Just a cute and cool little guy.
After reading a segment on trickster tales however, young Harry shared a story with me through the writing of an essay that illuminated some of the struggles he faces in his everyday life. The topic - to tell me about a time that he played a trick on someone, and whether or not he thought that playing tricks was a good idea.
This, minus my corrections, is what Harry wrote...

"I just kidding girls when I was eleven term one.

I kid girls because they first bother me. They first kid me 'Shorty' because I am really short in term one. Then, I'm very angry so, I'd hit them and they hit me. Last, I kid them 'Fool' and they hit me. Girls are strong and strange.

I hit very fast and ran away. But there are so many girls that I can't escape from them away. When I do this, I hit from girls that they give me very strong punch and kick.

I return a very strong punch and kick to girls, but by then, girls peach on to the teacher so ..... you know what happen?A moment later, teacher frienghtened me. vexatious all night that day.

I think its not good idea to trick someone, I think.Do not trick anyone."

I think I might have pissed myself. "Vexatious" - sometimes, the swift, accurate and extreme use of a thesaurus is just the ticket.

A Legend Comes to Seoul

A few weeks ago I opened a copy of The Korea Times while I was sitting in the teacher's lounge at work. It was my first time checking-out an English Language newspaper here and while it may leave a lot to be desired in the responsible journalism department (there was a front page editorial yesterday telling people to not take global warming too seriously), it is still valuable to hear about Seoul weather and some major news that is important to us Seoul area locals.

Much to my surprise, world-reknowned Italian film composer Ennio Morricone will be coming to Seoul on October 2nd and 3rd to conduct an orchestra of over 100 musicians and 100 vocalists. It will be Morricone's first visit to Seoul, and potentially his last (he is 79 years old and aging fast).
Just this past Saturday, I asked one of the Korean staff at our school to help us purchase tickets online and she was a huge help. I couldn't find any websites in English and I wasn't able to use a foreign credit card to purchase tickets. She offered to pay for the tickets on her card and I ran across to a bank to get her money so that I could pay her back right away.

Apparently, it is a common thing for the Korean staff at our school to arrange such things. Crazy. After a couple of weeks of thinking about it, finally, I know we are going. We are also lucky that October 3rd (a Wednesday) is also a holiday in Korea ("Foundation Day") which means we won't be teaching that night. It seems the stars aligned for this.
I feel very fortunate to be living so close to one of the largest cities in the world, not because the shopping's good - but because I get to see one of the best film composers who ever lived, conduct a huge choir and orchestra in a concert venue in Olympic Park. I can't wait. Tickets ranged from 60,000 wan to 180,000 wan and even though we opted for the less expensive side of things, it is still a substantial purchase for us considering we won't get paid until 7 days later. Still - it's well worth it. I know I'd be kicking myself if I missed ths opportunity.

For those of you not familiar with Morricone's work, he is the composer of over 480 film and television scores. Some you might know include "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", "A Fistful of Dollars", "Once Upon a Time in the West", "The Untouchables", "Bugsy" and "Cinema Paradiso" - one of my favourite films.
I first heard about Morricone through my music-loving sister, Sandy, who asked for the soundtrack to "The Mission" one year for Christmas. Next to Cinema Paradiso, The Mission is my favourite score from Morricone, and I can't believe that in just over two weeks I'm going to be hearing him conduct 100 voices singing "Vita Nostra". It's going to be sublime. I will be sure to take as many pictures as I can and tell you all about it.

If you think you're not familiar with Morricone's work, check him out on itunes and I'm sure you will recognize some of his stuff. I can't wait - a treat at the end of an extremely busy time. Thank you: Sandy, for introducing me to his music, and thanks to my Aunt Marilyn and Cousin Ernie for the extra financial boost before I left Calgary - I couldn't have afforded this night out without your generosity :)

An essay from an angry girl

I thought I would take the opportunity to post what is perhaps the most interesting essay I have received back from one of my older students at school. As most people are aware, there is a long, shabby history of warfare and soul-crushing occupation of the Korean peopl by the Japanese. There are many people alive who lived through it in their day and there is still a lot of residual bitterness and anger, even a couple of generations later on.
I wanted to get a sense of exactly how strong this feeling can be with some of my middle-school students, so the first essay I asked of them was to tell me what life would be like if Korea formed a modern day empire. I know, hot-button and all, but I think these kids were practically begging for a chance to express themselves with something they feel strongly about. They have a right to.
So, after reading all about the Romans and Byzantines, the assignment was to tell me if an Empire is a good thing or not, though the eyes of Korea being the one doing the Imperialistic dance.
Many of the kids have expressed anger at having to deal with Japanese ideas at all. But this really gave them a chance to let loose and tell me which countries Korea would occupy, what Korea would take from them, and what Korea would give to those countries as well. I'll let the essay itself pass without comment, only to suggest that you notice how this girl refused to capitalise "Japan". I'll let the essay stand without any corrections for your reading...

topic- A korean Empire?
What would happen if south korea formed an Empire?

When we formed an Empire, korean people will happy. because this mean, we almost have power, so Other countires can't get on our nerves. when we go to other country, they can't slight us. and we can protest about bad thing strongly.

when we formed an Empire, we will attack japan, first. because, 100years ago, korea was japan's colony. They put to horrible torture people who said korea's independence, took away our crops, muscular young men in korean were hunted for forced labor and they made many korean girls to comfort girls etc. but now they aren't apologize properly. so I want revenge on them.

We will take robot technology, fishig ground and hot spring from japan. because, These are global things and they took away many things from korea in old times. (this is a kind of vengeance) but later, we will return to them.

We will give fertile rice to them. because korea's rice is better than japan's. so long times ago, japan wanted get our rice. We have more better things than japan's. but I don't want give more thing.

When korea have power and colonies, this is very good situation! but it's only good at korea. I think freedom is most important thing and great power is not most important thing. when we make anycountry to colony, people in colony will show hostility to korea, cleary. and their descendants, too. so, I want there will be no colonies from now.

Dream Blog #3

Before I relate my dream, I thought I'd first relate the fact that a major typhoon rampaged through South Korea on the weekend killing at least 100 people and turning more than a handdful of cities near the south coast into the Korean equivalent of post-Katrina New Orleans, albeit with a lower death toll. Let's see how long it take for the South Korean government to act on this one and rebuilt essential infrastructure. I'm guessing that it will take significantly less time for them to act than it did for Dubya and his good friend "Your doin' a heck of a job" Brownie. Just a guess. The story from BBC News can be read here...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2230215.stm
While buying a pizza last night, we were silently watching a news channel showing footage of the storm. It was truly harrowing. I then remembered telling our School Managaer on Friday that we were planning a trip to Seoul on Saturday. He looked at me like I had Canadian Bacon for brians and then told me about the typhoon. But when the weather was fine the next day, we went in anyway. Of course, the typhoon took a completely different path and the worst we felt up here was a little bit of rain. My most sincere thoughts go out to all those affected by the storm.
I consequently decided that I really needed to start checking the news more. One doesn't really hear local news on the radio here (there may be a way, though I haven't found it yet) and we have very little time to read the newspaper at school. After reading this morning about a discount flight that crashed in Thailand, killing nearly everyone on board, well... I guess I'm a little less haappy, a little more informed. I beginning to understand the island or peninsular mentality of isolationism.

Which brings me to my dream: all I remember clearly was that I was walking through a mostly dying forest with some kind of Jabberwock type thing following at a pace close enough for me to sense, but not to see. Maybe it was The Predator. Anyway, I remember in a more vague sense that whatever it was started speaking to me and it somehow, wordlessly instructed me to weave a large basket from the branches I found on the forest floor around me. I did this quite quickly and then it told me that I would have to be quick. A young tree that was no more than a couple of feet high flew at me and I caught it in my basket like a Lacrosse player. The tree started dying, and then whatever was in the woods started chanting in a single, solitary voice: "Stop walking, stop talking... start creeping, start weeping". I woke up and wrote this phrase down so I know that at least this bit was accurate.
But, looking out the window, we have blue skies today...

Seoul... and a bit about God

Saturday was another day of firsts for us in Seoul. It was our first trip up Namsan tower at night, our first trip to Coex Mall, and our first time see Seoul's version of the Exorcist stairs. However, it was far from our first time seeing rather unique religious phenomena. I'm not talking about the vague image of Jesus on a piece of toast. I'm talking about people like this guy...

We saw him at Suwon Station. He is one of many people we've seen here who take the hard-line approach to Christianity - who seem intent to warn us of the dangers of our ways by showing us artistic renditions of Jesus on the cross, non-believers burning in eternal hell fire, and by broadcasting their thoughts on megaphones as the masses pass.

Now worried about our sinful ways, Steph, our friends Amy and Roger and I, climbed the steps of Suwon Station ready for a trip to the largest underground mall in Asia - probably the closest we'll come to eternal hell fire, at least here on earth. But we wouldn't be done with fire and brimstone for the day... stay tuned.
Our trip to Seoul began with a nice surprise - while we waited for our subway, Steph spotted a vending machine on the platform and it didn't sell snacks or drinks - it sold books! What a cool idea. She was very sweet and bought me a copy of The Little Prince in Korean. What could be better motivation for me to learn the language?

As the weather network had forcasted rain in Seoul, we decided to hit-up Coex Mall - as I mentioned, the larget underground mall in Asia. It has a world-class aquarium in it and it is pretty freaking large, so we thought it would be worth a trip since our regular site-seeing plan was headed for a rain-check.
Well, as it turns out, it was really just a big freaking mall. We decided not to check out the aquarium, but save it for another day. We did see a couple of cool Christmas present-type stuff to potentially buy, but we'll wait a while for that. It took us only about an hour or so to decide that a mall was not where we wanted to be, and we left as soon as we could find our way out.

We did run into a few cool things on our trip through the mall though. We saw a fantastic place called a boardgame cafe, which apparently is a common thing here in Korea. I peered through the window and saw dudes playing chess as well as families playing Monopoly and The Game of Life together. It really made me long for Settlers of Catan, and I'm hoping that if Mom reads this, she can maybe send it to me in a Christmas package ;)

There were some other cool things too, like a bookstore that was about the size of two Chapters stores put-together. They had a HUGE English section with a great selection of all sorts of books. I think I'll be making a few stops there in upcoming weeks. I did buy my first Learning Korean book (which was recommended to me by a nearby English teacher who has been there for a few months) and I'm looking forward to cracking into it so that I can start feeling like I can at least begin to read some signs soon. I think it'll actually be a lot of fun to have some homework that is not school related.

We also saw a couple of bizarre mall and restaurant mascots as well as a great shop that sold classic western foods - like Campbells Soup! It reminded me of the British-themed shops that used to be in Eau Claire market - the ones that sold zany English chocolates and the like, only here it was Snickers bars and instant mushroom soup mix. We indulged a little bit - just to have some comfort food at the ready.

I also saw a shop full of wacky character toys that Lonni and Tim would love, and a couple of great toy shops for Christian and Brandon, but perhaps the most wacky-ass thing we saw was a jewelry store called The Kiss. It caters solely to couples who want to buy that special something for their sweetie-pie so they can wear matching "I love you" rings, bracelets, necklaces and other glittery stuff.
I have to admit though, they have perhaps the worst translation I've seen here on a major advertisement so far.

If you can't read the photo, just trust me when I tell you it reads: "The Kiss is a Phenomenon that Happens to Lovers at the Precious Moment of Coming so much" I think I want to buy a ring that says just that. I know that this sounds terrible (especially coming from someone who has yet to learn more than five words in the native tongue), but I am constantly amazed at how much mis-translation goes on with major advertisements from large companies, or even with official World
Heritage merchandise or travel brochures.

I don't mention this intending to sound condescending, but I am simply amazed that some Korean speaking English, or English-speaking Korean person hasn't become a millionaire translator for exactly this type of purpose. Just a little something I thought I'd mention and if I ever find more mistranslation that puts a smile on my face, I will be certain to post it for you. I will also be happy to post future moments of me trying to say something in Korean, only to mistakenly ask some vendor for a t-shirt that is a more tomato size, or something equally unintelligible.
Before leaving the mall, I was handed this brochure - as I said, fire and brimstone was the order of the day. I must have looked a little bit downcast after spending so much time in a green mall.

We then headed back to the subway towards Gangnam where we had some dinner and after re-fueling, decided that we wanted to make the trip to Myeong-Dong which was right next to Namsan Tower - in case we wanted to make a night visit for a nice twi-lghit view of Seoul. We wandered around the shopping district for a while and we ran into this guy...
Apparently not content to simply let the pictures of Hades stand on the ground like his Suwon Station brethren, this dude was packing heat! He unsheathed his own brand of God-fearing like a modern-day archangel would his wings and was able to move freely among the Myeong-Dong revelers while he tried to warn us about the approaching rapture with a more mobile approach.

After checking out the night time madness, we opened our map to find a way to get to the Namsan Tower cable car station. I pretty much guessed, but apparently guessed correctly as we were heading up some bizarre side-street that honestly looked more like someone's personal driveway, we finally saw this sign.

But to get there, we had to climb more than a few flights of stairs and some of us were beginning to be a little bit cross. I was excited though, and I was mostly excited that we had found what looked to be like the most backward way to a major tourist attraction. After a bit of a wait, we were herded into a waiting area that looked a lot like a Higgins Landing Craft from WWII and we made our way up Namsan Mountain in a cable car.

It was beautiful. The view of Seoul north of Namsan Mountain was stunning and the nightime view from the tower's base view point was also worth the ride up. Here are a couple of shots to give you an idea of what it was like, but it's honestly impossible to decsribe the view. You just have to see it for yourself. Seoul looked almost larger at night time - the edges of the city seem to disappear into the night time mist as opposed to ending abruptly - it gives the effect of a limitless city.



After a trip back down the mountain on the cable car, we were ready for a long ride back to Suwon on the subway. But first - those stairs. It's always a lot easier on the way back down, but I ask you - how much do these stairs look like The Exorcist stairs? A lot, I think. It was admittedly a little bit creepy to take the trip down. There was even a windowed apartment to the right. Hmmmm...

All in all, it was another good trip into the city, though I must admit that I am more looking forward to checking-out a few more palaces and temples, a few parks by the river, and a few cool landmarks (Olympic and World Cup Stadiums to name a few). So much to see outside of Seoul, but so much to see inside of Seoul too. We slept well on Saturday.
Today has been another relaxing Sunday and tomorrow begins another week of teaching. It's been fun marking essays so far and I look forward to reading more as well as posting a few of my favourite excerpts here soon.
As far as the God blog goes, I like the sense of spirituality that exists here in places. Being someone who is more agnostic than anything else you can throw a label at, I find it interesting, not off-putting or inticing, to see people respond to religion or promote their religion in often extreme and public ways, but I prefer the quit ways. I don't know enough about the culture here to comment on it with anything besides the odd snide remark, so please pardon my insensitivity if it offends you. I do wonder though why it exists here in this way. Something to think about, when I'm not thinking about cute little Coby, Cocco and Connie - the idols of consumerism and official mascots of Coex Mall, or the fact that a quiet Korean temple seems so much more appealing than an angry (and likely afraid) man walking with pictures of violent death strapped to his back.
I am looking forward to being in the company of children again tomorrow. Despite the rowdiness and sudden sleepiness that comes to young students in night school, their relative innocence will be a welcome reprieve.

A Message To You, Shandi...

My friend Dee is a vegan, an active member of PETA and an unabashed animal-lover. I love her for it. Though she would not do too well in Korea with all of the animal eating that goes on here. So it is mainly for her that I post this blog entry - to show her that not all Koreans are blood-thirsty animal masticators.

Take for instance young Jenny - a girl in one of my senior classes who decided to present early this week about her endagered animal - the Harp Seal. She spoke with passion about her project and she really seemed to want everybody in the room to know how she felt about animals - specifically, those cute little Harp Seal pups. When I reminded her that I come from Canada - the country where most of the Harp Seal hunting takes place, she looked at me in stunned disbelief, and then glared at me as though she had devloped a deep and immediate loathing. I had to act quickly to tell her that I don't personally hunt them and that I too am against the clubbing of baby seals. I think she's forgiven me, but I made her project the "Project of the Month" as insurance.

Then, not to be bested, was young Jane. Jane decided to present on not just one animal, but a number of them. She even added a little flip chart to her poster so that she could talk about more animals that she loves and worries about because they are endangered. Some of these kids are really passionate about animals and it has been cool to read their thoughts about the little critters.

In my younger senior class today, we were reading about Trickster Tales and we started looking at The Tortoise and the Hare - albeit a very different one that actually has a surprise ending. One of the other teachers, Sabrina, has purchased a rabbit and she brings it to class from time to time. I was lucky enough to get to borrow the bunny today and my kids just lit-up. They were pretty-much giddy about the little guy and kept commenting throughout the lesson: "Teacher - look! Ahhhh... so cute!" It was pretty great. I wish this blog had audio. So, yes - there are many Octopi that don't feel the love here on the Korean peninsula, but there are plenty of bunnies, Harp Seals and Bengal Tigers that get almost enough love to make up for that fact.

I think Dee may have melted during these presentations and since she couldn't be there, I do hope she zooms in on these photos so that she can feel the love too :)

My First Korean Film Review!

And after seeing the complete debacle that was D-War and deciding that it really was nothing to write home about, I decided to write home about it anyway. Check out my review of the worst film of the year so far - a completely irony-free movie about Dragons a damsel in distress. This ain't no King Kong, or Godzilla for that matter. Read my review at:
http://www.thatmoviesite.com
...while you're there - check out the other movie reviews that you'll see. It's a pretty cool site that a friend of mine has been running for a while now.
Apparently it opens in Calgary and across North America this weekend. Don't say I didn't warn you...

These new-fangled things...

When we first got here, we were more than a little overwhelmed by everything that was new and all we needed to do to get accustomed to our new surroundings, buy groceries, and use transit without ending-up on Kim Jung-Il's doorstep. So far, so good.
One thing that we didn't have right away though was internet at our apartment - not the end of the world, but once you become accustomed to methods of communication, it's hard to shake the habit - escpecially when the habit allows you to keep in touch with people far-away in a way you never could before.
Also, it seems that the wirelss capabilities at the school were a little bit more than lacking. Steph and others were in perpetual pout mode trying to sign-on to send an email to friends, or to access helpful websites for classes. There was indeed a pall of general sadness lingering in the air.

But now, with internet at our place, we can stop-by New York coffee and pick-up two steaming-hot cups of joe, and even be inspired by the encouragement printed on the carrying case as we blissfully write to our friends and do our best to keep up with our blogs.

But perhaps the best thing about having internet here at the apartment is the fact that we can use Skype - a sassy little internet calling feature that allows people to speak in real time through their computers for free. To call a landline through Skype is also cheap, but free sounds even better. We tried calling my sister yesterday and it was great t be able to hear her voice, hear the dog barking, and hear my little nephews giggling and breathing into the microphone in turn. Christian was very excited to tell us both about his trip to the Calgary Zoo the see the new baby elephant and then Sandy sent me an email with the some photos of the little guy. Technology can be pretty cool when you're far away.

I would invite the rest of you to get Skype (www.skype.com) and feel free to search for me as a contact - give me a ring. We are usually in the partment until around noonish, Seoul time, so give us a call after dinner Calgary time and you never know what'll happen. It would be grand to hear from you! Oh... and remember to "enjoy the relax!"

That Second Saturday in Seoul...

As promised, here is a much more brief account of our trip into Seoul last weekend (September 8th). Because I've received a little bit of feedback that my blogs have been too long lately, and because I am pretty fargin' tired right now, I am going to make this one much more quick (maybe) and just fill it full of photos. So, enjoy...

I woke up Saturday morning a little bit (okay, a lot) later than I had hoped to. I know we're here for a year, and I know we have lots of time for cool stuff, but to me, for my sensibilities, I would much rather spend my free Saturday morning seeing more of my amazing surroundings as opposed to recovering from a hang-over I couldn't afford from the night before. Yeah, I'm sure there will some fun nights ahead for me at the bar, but right now, I'm all about getting up early on Saturday to get my ass into Seoul or elswhere to see as much as I can.
So, we got up much later than we had hoped and got on the bus at 12:30 PM. That's a bit of a problem because at that time of day, the bus is FULL and we are forced to stand in the aisle for a 45 minute busride from hell. It's like Star Tours or Body Wars without the Disney-esque touch. Just holding onto a greasy handrail while some sleeping, drooling clown spills out from his seat to lean on you for the duration of the trip. Usually, I wouldn't complain about standing, but when the bus stops and jerks in an extreme way every 30 seconds, you begin to get a bit tired, and more than a bit motion-sick. Steph is usually the one to feel spewish, but even I was feeling it by this point. What really made me bitter was knowing that there was a better way had we only gotten up earlier. Don't worry though - I got over it quick :)

We got dropped-off in Gangnam. though when we got off of the bus, we really had no idea where the hell we were. Thankfully, in Seoul, a subway stop is never really far away. We made it to the subway and after a quick transfer and a few stops, we made it to Deoksu-gung Palace to watch the changing of the guard. It was very cool, if a little bit touristy (but hey - we ARE tourists still) and then we headed across to City Hall just to see what was going on. This was really our first time in a new section of Seoul without a true itinerary. It was actually really exciting to just kind of go with the flow and see whatever we saw on our way to wherever.


We decided to head towards Namdaemun market - a place we remembered from our last trip in, and on our way there we were fortunate enough to spot the South gate to the old city. A huge building from the 14th century, it now stands almost in a traffic circle right across the entrance to Namdaemun market. But I prefer to call it by its more impressive name: "The Gate of Exhalted Decorum". It just sounds more cool.



After checking-out the gate, we headed into Namdaemun where we each bought our first litte trinket. Like a big cheeseball, I opted for the Korean knock-off side and bought an LA Dodgers toque for only 4,000 wan ($4 Canadian) while Steph bought a little shining cherry pin for her sweater. Saddness decended however when we emerged from the market to take pictures of a nearby fountain and Steph lost her little pin.


All was not lost though. After looking for her pin for a few minutes - back-tracking and staring at the ground, we began to walk away. And then I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne, or more accurately, remembered my sister, Sandy's story about looking for her husband's wedding ring at a construction site in the middle of the night. Turns out Jason lost his ring on the job during the day, but armed with flashlights, they headed back to the site at night and Sandy simply knew where to look. She used her divinity to point the light at the precise spot in this huge, dark construction site where the ring was partially covered in dirt.
I know my story is not as cool, but I was inspired by Sandy's story and I just had a feeling of where it was. After we walked away a few feet and asked steph to hold-up and I walked directly to a metal grate surrounding a newly-planted tree, and there it was - her little cherry pin. Was she a happy girl! I thought it was pretty cool.

Anyway, on from there we took a quick bite to eat at Shinsegae Mall - a ridiculous shopping centre full of high-end brand names and even a Tiffany's boutique on the main level. After that, it was on to Myeong-Dong, perhaps the busiest place I've ever been in my life. It is probably 20 solid blocks of side streets and main streets, all filled with people and predominently western brand-name clothes. Major League Baseball is huge here and there was an MLB store so full that they had a staff member permanently perched on a ladder by the fitted hat area so that he could deal with the mob of people trying to find their right size. Gong show.

We walked straight to the end and saw a few things worth mentioning:

A holy Christian monument on top of a convenience store and in the same complex as a beer and hard liquor shop...

A few posters for Korean versions of major, recent broadway musicals and plays coming to Seoul in the next while...


And, a huge Catholic church under rennovation. Myeong-Dong Catholic Church is on a hill over-looking the mass consumerism below. There was also a garden with an idol of Mary and a place to light a candle. I decided to light one for my mom. Neither of us are Catholic, but I know my mom would have appreciated it and so I did it. Safe journey to Ma and Pa as they make there way to the East coast of Canada this week.



After our dizzying trip through Myeong-Dong, we headed back towards Sanbon to meet our friends, Ian and Bonnie for dinner and a movie.

It was great to see them - only our second time seeing them since being here - and it was also good to be able to spend some time with them without us being all jet-lagged. We headed to a really nice Vietnamese restaurant where we paid for dinner and a movie ($26 for the two of us) and then we went upstairs for the movie. Tarantino's re-packaged Grindhouse segment: Deathproof was on the menu and though I had already seen it, it was certainly worth seeing again. I'm not entirely sure that the Korean audience really "got" the nods to Grindhouse cinema (grainy film-stock, blurred images, repeating dialogue etc.) but it was great to see one guy stand-up, arms in the air in protest, as the movie came to its surprise sudden ending and the credits rolled. Classic.

What was even more classic that than was the "Love Combo" - a large popcorn, and two drinks for only $6. Not bad at all. Then it was goodbye to our friends, and hello to the subway back home. We actually missed our last bus after chasing after it for about 20 seconds. But after watching Steph sit sadly and forlornly at the bus stop, we decided to cab it afterall. A tiring day - but a memorable one.

This Saturday, we will be heading into Seoul with some of the new teachers and I'm sure there will be lots of photos to show you then too.
Okay, that was a long one too, but if these first entries seem a bit like a chronological journal entry, it's because I want to remember what we did. I'm not keeping a regular journal here. This is a way for me too share my memory, and hopefully hold onto it at the same time. It's also almost theraputic knowing that someone, somewhere is reading this. A little Korean pick-me-up in the morning. I would promise that one day these entries will be shorter, but that might not happen for a while.

One of those dream blogs...

I have had a few dreams since being here in Korea. This first one I remember having happened only a couple of days into our time here. It was something to do with my Dad getting into the passenger seat of a small bus that I was driving, opening the glove compartment, finding a small frog in it and proceeding to bite the head off of the frog, eventually finishing it off like a snickers bar. This he did while I drove maniacally through narrow streets, knocking-off my rearview mirrors on light standards and other cars. I think this one can be easily enough explained through recognition of our new environment, the crazy, opportunistic driving, and the new food. Still - a pretty crazy dream.

Last night's dream involved Harry Connick Junior coming to live in Calgary (where I was living at the time of my dream). He decided to come knock on my door because he heard I was a big fan. He also had heard that I could show him where he could stay so that he could remain incognito while in Calgary. I told him that the King Eddy Hotel (a historic Jazz join in the now delapitated East Village in Calgary) would be just his ticket. He started living there even though it's boarded-up and condemned. I would check in on him from time to time, just to see how he was doing, and one day, I saw him pushing a shopping cart full of recyclable bottles down by the river. He looked really shabby and when I confronted him about why he was in such rough shape, he told me that he had become "addicted". Assuming drugs and thinking about rehab, I asked what he had become addicted to and he told me: "bottles, man! I'm addicted to recycling bottles!"
That was pretty much the end of the dream.

Two Saturdays in Seoul

How cool is this? Steph and I are both writing from our apartment tonight - in fact, we can both write at the same time thanks to the wireless router we picked-up from Home Plus yesterday. While Steph went to the gym this morning and I, well... didn't, a nice man come to hook-us up with internet. I guess this means no more trips to the PC Bang near our school. I'm okay with that, though I will miss reading the bizarre poetry they have written on their walls.

We got home from school and buying a quick pizza about 45 minutes ago and we've both been blogging since then - or, checking email and stuff. It's nice to know that we can catch-up with more time to ourselves instead of having to listen to young Korean boys kill each other in various PC games back at good ol' Cyber Blue Cafe.
My apologies to anyone who was waiting to see photos from our trip into Seoul last weekend. I had meant to post about it, but our first week of school really got in the way ;) So, today, I offer you two shortish travelogues to recount our adventures during the last two Saturdays that Steph and I spent in Seoul...


Saturday, September 1st
Steph and I decided to take a city bus from a stop near our apartment and school to get us to Suwon station - a fairly huge subway and Korean Rail station in our city. We could cab it for about 7,000 wan (roughly $7 Canadian) or we could take the bus for much less - so, we opted for the bus. We could save a little cash and maybe see a little bit of the city on our way to the station. Little did we know that we would soon be embarking on a marathon tour of what surely must have been the entirety of Suwon itself. After a 45 minute bus ride, we were at Suwon Station and ready to get on the subway.
After our little jaunt into Seoul with Bonnie and Ian the previous week, we were pretty sure that we would be able to figure things out for ourselves, but we got a bit confused over track numbers and line numbers and panicked a bit before finally choosing the right track. Once you're on the subway, you can really just check the next stop to know that you're going the right way, if not, get off and wait for the next one - you won't really be charged until you try to leave. While on the subway, we thought we'd take a look through my Moon Handbook of South Korea - a truly useful gift so far (thank you, Dee!).
We decided that a palace tour was in order, as was a bit of shopping - or window shopping since we're a little low on funds until the 10th of October.
The Palaces all have extremely cool names here and the translations are even more fun for us, so I drove Steph a little bit nuts with my excitement for places like the "Palace of Shining Happiness", the "Palace of Virtuous Longevity" and the "Hall of Government by Restraint". How can you not completely dig those names?!!!

We were actually on our way to a couple of spots that happened to be withing walking distance of the same subway station. We started at Changdeok-gung, or as I prefer to call it - the "Gate of Mighty Transformation". We got off of the subway after meeting with a couple of more seasoned travellers and went straight for an information booth where we picked-up a map and headed for our Gate of Destiny. I have seen Korean gates before - on other blogs and elsewhere in books and on the internet, but let me tell you, seeing your first one up close is pretty damn cool - especially if it's relatively quiet and there's a soft rain falling. I think I may have messed my pants.

For only 3,000 wan each, Steph and I were hoping to join an English tour. Unfortunately, it had left 15 minutes prior to us arriving so we were faced with either coming back another day, or joining a Korean tour and just doing our best to look around, hopefully being able to read about it all later. We chose the latter and we were glad we did. The tour lasted about an hour and half. I won't go into detail too much about what we saw, but when I get around to loading all of my photos on flickr, I will do me best to describe them all on there. What I will say is that the palace grounds are huge - once through the "Gate of Mighty Transformation", we were lead through a series of houses and residences that were originally constructed beginning in 1405. These building are beautiful and ornate and have been preserved after various partial reconstructions that have been necessary after centuries of warfare with Japan. Should you want to read more about it, follow the link to the wikipedia site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changdeokgung
I could try to discuss each photo with some semblance of educational intent, but that would make this blog REALLY long. So, you'll just have to check out some pictures instead.
I will tell you though that perhaps the most impressive moment was when we rounded the corner to see the "Palace of Illustrious Virtue" - an immense building with a truly cool throne room. We could look inside, but obviously we couldn't enter. It was truly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

Behind the main palace buildings is "The Secret Garden" of Biwon - a place I had read about in the Moon Handbook and a destination that really sent us on our way that day. It is a huge 78-acre greenspace that is mostly covered in trees. Garden paths lead through stone gates to various lotus ponds where you can see guest houses and places where the members of the royal Joseon Dynasty would have sat and contemplated life. There is even a building called the "Retreat of Joy and Goodness". I don't know about you, but I am sold on it. There's even a place where the King would lay on a rock above a waterfall and write poetry while he and his guests floted their glasses of wine around a U-shaped carving in the rock where the water ran in a circle. Sounded pretty cool, but it wasn't on the tour. I asked about it, and I was told that I could only see that space on a "special tour". I suddenly had an image of a massage with a "happy ending" - or "full release" enter my mind, but it was a fleeting thing. Perhaps the special tour will be in store for us one day in the fall or Spring.

After the tour of the palace, we headed West to find a place to eat. That's when I encountered perhaps the most low-brow attempt at Christianity on our trip so far. An inflatable advertisement pointing the way upstairs to a local missionary. After walking around a palace that was so peaceful and Confucian in nature and make-up - a true sanctuary of peace in the middle of a huge, sprawling metropolis, seeing this for some reason made my skin crawl just a little bit. In the words of Ally Fox - "I didn't know that Jesus was franchising in the area". But, if Burger King, the US military and Nike are setting-up shop in Itaewon, then why not the son of God?

I know that sounds a bit callous, but it does seem a bit odd to me still to see the further "westernization" of one of the most western of religions on full display here in the East. What's even more odd is to see it bobbing-along in all of its inflatable glory right next to restaurant signage and adds for the newest version of Warcraft now available at your local PC room. I know that Christianity has had a foothold here for sometime, but it is still a bit jarring.

After a quick meal at a local Chinese restaurant, Steph and I headed to Insa-Dong - a very cool marketplace that reminded me mostly of Kensington in Calgary, only much larger, with streets much more narrow, and with many more shops to choose from. It was raining and there were unbrellas everywhere, which made it even more difficult to move around without taking your eye out, but it was worth it. Steph got excited by the bling, and I got excited for her :) It is definitely a place we will come back to when we have some more cash and it'll be a good place to shop for some cool Korean gifts to send home for the holidays.

The sun had set during our little stroll through Insa-Dong and it was time for us to head back to Suwon to meet-up with some friends for a movie at Suwon Station. We hopped back onto the subway and headed south and actually made it out of Seoul all by ourselves for the first time. We only got confused once or twice and the nice thing about Korean subways stations so far is that people simply know that we need help and they do their best to guide us along. It's very reassuring to know that we won't get too lost as long as there are concerened public wating over our ignorant foreign selves.

Arriving at Suwon Station much later than we had anticipated, we were sad to hear that our fellow teachers had gome home thinking that we weren't going to show. Without a cell phone here, it can be a little bit of a challenge to plan your day. Still, Steph and I forged ahead and went out to see our first Korean movie here. Sadly, after such cinematic treats as Oldboy and The Host, it has taken us over a week of Kimchi and Bibimbap, not to mention rinsing our mouths out with a little Quentin Tarantino to rid our pallets of the lasting viscous stech-ridden taste that was D-War - an awful Korean film shot in the States that is more of an embarassment to this country than the film-maker certainly planned for. It is so bad, it hurt me. Korean film can be briliant, but this was like watching a 10 year-old boy make his first movie with a 35 million dollar budget, F-grade washed-up Hollywood actors and an ass-load of poor-man's Lord of the Rings inspired CGI. Just BAD. But laughter-inducing nevertheless. Look for my review on thatmoviesite withing the next couple of days.
At least the popcorn was good. I do hope to be able to see a few Korean films here too, though seeing them with English subtitles might not be too likely. I'm crossing my fingers that there will be a few decent illegally-reproduced titles on the street next time I'm in Seoul.

On the library front, look what I came across in the suwon Station bookstore! These Koreans love them some Chris Van Allsburg! So do I! I'm pretty excited that there are a lot of familiar translations here, though I do find myself wishing fairly frequently that I could choose from a few of my favourites from my days at CPL - where's a good story when you need it?
Well, that was a longer blog than I had intended. It looks like this past Saturday's tale will have to wait until tomorrow. I do promise that these will get shorter soon, but I've got some catching-up to do still. By the weekend, you might actually be able to read one of these entries in one sitting. Until then...

Internet tomorrow!

We have finally been able to arrange an internet connection at our apartment sometime tomorrow morning between 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM. We're both excited to be able to check out resources online, mark our essays online, and catch-up with people through Skype, facebook, emails and of course blogging much more often. I do apologize for the length of my last blog - but, hey, I've got lots to say. Hopefully by the end of the week, all of my photos will be up on Flickr and my blog entries will be much shorter and much more frequent too. Lots to talk about! I'll see you all on here soon!

School So Far...

Today – Thursday, September 6th marks our second week in Korea and our 6th full day of teaching at our school. Said school shall remain nameless (though it is likely to slip into this blog from time to time) for the purpose of preventing internet detectives from “researching” it as a potential school should they consider teaching in Korea one day. This is a personal blog, and not a professional critique of a school, so feel free to read my opinion of things as they unfold, but understand that if something bothers me, I may write about it and if something amazes me in a positive way, I will write about that too. But things in life are never really that consistently amazing, and hopefully, the same holds true for the down times. In the words of our good sports radio friend, Rob Kerr, from The Fan 960 in Calgary, “somewhere in the middle lies the truth”…

Our school, as I mentioned in previous entries is what is known as a “Hagwon”, or “Private English Academy”. But get those visions of Hogwarts out of your head and don’t let the big name fool you – the school is actually quite small, but like most everything else here in Korea – it’s also just the right size for what it is. The office at our location is a large room where prospective parents and children can come to speak with the Korean counseling staff about signing up for classes etc. There is a number of Korean staff that work at our campus and they have all been amazing so far. Their role, from what I understand it to be, is to recruit students, help to create the curriculum, and deal with parent/child/teacher issues as they come along. I’m sure they are busy with much more than that as well because they are in at the school from at least 10:00 am until 10:00 pm when classes are over for the day – and I can assure you that they are not perusing facebook during that time.

Tanya is the counselor assigned to Stephanie and I so she will be the one to assist us with issues regarding our students and the curriculum. She is very nice and supportive and she has been very encouraging to me so far. Mr. Kim is one of the other counselors who is not assigned to us, but since he speaks English is so well, he has been responsible for the majority of our training and he seems to be acting as some sort of “head-counselor” at this point as well. I really am not entirely sure of the hierarchy, but the point is, all of them are very approachable and very dedicated to their jobs – if you want something, they take care of it for you now. It’s reassuring to know that someone is on top of things for us, because the learning curve has been huge and as it is with many large organizations (cough… CPL…cough) the dedication of the staff isn’t always represented by the amount of times little things go awry.

Things like new additions of books that don’t get passed-on to teachers, changes in the syllabus that go un-noticed and specific duties of staff are not always related as soon as you wish they would be, but that is also a big part of the learning process here and it serves as a reminder that as teachers, we are going to have to take initiative and fend for ourselves from time to time. I do have the feeling though that the staff won’t let us fall too far, and that is a good thing.
Our campus also has 14 teachers on staff. 6 of us are brand new to the school and of us six, only one has a teaching degree; Shannon also taught in Africa for a time so she was a little bit more prepared to deal with “challenging classroom situations” than most of us were. The other staff members consist of Canadians and Americans and our one Australian, Amy, who joined the staff, along with Steph and I, a couple of weeks ago. They have all been a very supportive group so far and they have been able to help us out when possible. It’s nice to know that there are people here who months ago went through what we’re going through now. If we need someone to tell us the quickest bus route to Seoul, a teacher will help us. When we want to set-up our bank accounts, a teacher will help us. I’m pretty sure we can handle flushing the toilet ourselves, but you get the idea. What looks extremely difficult on the surface is often very easy and it takes someone who’s lived it before to remind us of that.

The teachers have also been very friendly and though they have been an established social group for some time, they do take the time to make us feel at home, to invite us out to the bar, and even to help celebrate Stephanie’s birthday on her first day of teaching last week. Being part of many groups back home, theatre and otherwise, it’s easy to forget how challenging it can be to crack into a new group that’s been tight and established for some time. There is one teacher that has been at our campus for nearly three years and I wonder what her approach must be like to the people who arrive, stay for a year, and then leave. It must be difficult to embrace people only to watch them all go after a short time. Kind of like owning a hamster – maybe not.

So far, it’s been great though. Steph and I are very lucky to have each other – we always have someone to do something with. Should we want to venture into Seoul, we always have a partner. I also know that the day will come when we venture to places on our own, but that will also only come with time and comfort.

We are also the only couple at our school and it does feel a bit odd sometimes to be often referred to as “the couple”. It is odd to come from home where people knew us as a couple, yes, but also as individuals before and during our relationship. Here, at least so far, we are “the couple”, and I know it will take a while before people get to know us as not solely “Dave and Stephanie” but also as Dave, and as Stephanie. It’s a little humbling sometimes to feel like the only smaller social grouping in the middle of a larger one that assumes that we’re more, as a pair, independent than we are simply because we arrived as a “package deal”. We hope to head into Seoul or maybe out to a movie soon with more people from our school. “Coupling” is an odd idea sometimes, and it’s funny how a couple can sometimes feel like the third wheel. I say bring on the 5th, 6th and 7th wheels – the more the merrier – but I also know that there will be lots of time when we want or need to be just the two of us, and it’s good to know that option is almost always there.

But back to school. Outside of the main office doors, there are two hallways that house 18-20 classrooms. The classrooms are small, but large enough to house the maximum the school allows per class (14). I must admit that I was a little bit bummed-out when I was assigned to my room because I did not get to be placed in a room with a window. After a few years of windowless, fluorescent-lit offices, I thought my day had come when I got to teach, but it wasn’t to be. Of the 14 teachers, I think only two of us teach in windowless classrooms, but we’re going to tough it out and I think we’ll be just fine. The thing is, since we teach from 4-10 PM every day, there won’t be a ton of daylight to warm me up anyway, and there will be less blinking neon to distract my students… that’s what I’ll tell myself anyway ;)

The truth is, I truly am okay with my classroom for now, and somebody has to be there, so it may as well be me. I have taken some time to re-arrange my wall decorations to suit me and I did add a couple of touches from home: 1. A Superman poster that Diana gave me (see, kids – even Superman likes to read!), 2. My Shatner Show postcards (to show the other teachers that I have a well-developed sense of irony and to show the kids that I like weird stuff that they don’t get), 3. My little cloud man (given to me by Michael Boyce), 4. My “Vote for Ralph Nader” 2000 bumper sticker (again with the irony thing), and 5. the one, the only… Gatto Squalo!

Yes, I have convinced some of the younger children that Gatto Squalo does indeed inhabit the greater and lesser Slave Lakes in northern Canada. I even have a couple of kids writing essays about it – we’ll see what develops next Monday.
It’s difficult to comment with any sense of authority on what teaching has been like so far. I do know for sure that it’s been very tiring. Steph and I so far are waking up every school day at 8 or 9 am – we look over the day’s lesson at home over breakfast before going into work at least three hours early (around 11ish). Work officially starts for us at 2:00 PM. 2-4 is prep time which we use to photo-copy quizzes, enter marks into the attendance sheet, look-up activities etc.

Our first class begins at 4:00 PM. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we have three classes that last for just under two hours each. Classes finish for the night at 9:55 so in that time, we have one 10 minute break at the end of our first class, and then a 15 minute “dinner break” at the end of our second class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have two classes that last for just under three hours each. The kids do get a 10 minute break in there so that they’re not dead by the time the bell rings. Us teachers get two ten minute breaks as well as a 15 minute dinner between classes. It’s enough time to rush and clean-up after one class, race to the teachers room, grab a bite to eat, sit and look at each other in stunned silence, and then race back to class to start the next one. Of course, it’s really only us new teachers who sit in stunned silence. We are the only ones still trying to get our bearings. It is comforting to know, through observing the other teachers, that things will get easier.

Part of what’s making being new such a challenge so far are all of the little things that are just inherent to the teachers who have been there for some time and, to us, tend to sound oddly like a foreign language: “We have to give our senior classes a grammar quiz AND a vocabulary quiz? But the teacher’s guide says we don’t.”
“Where do we get the quizzes from? Oh, the Junior quizzes are in the students’ book, but the Senior and H level ones we have to photo-copy… from the teacher’s edition, not the regular one. How do I mark online essays again? Which levels can I assign them to? I didn’t know this story had a workbook too!” $#&!*&%#@!!!!!

And that’s a bit of regular day for us new teachers here. It’s really a matter of survival and prioritizing. I know that every night I have nearly 6 solid hours of classes with little prep time between each and like most people here, I have a fairly high standard for myself. I also know that the school, students, and parents have a high standard so I am doing my best to be as “on” as possible and as organized as possible. Organized, so far, means getting up and working a near 12 hour day to feel like I am on top of things. Being “on” sometimes means standing in front of my class and rubbing my hair until it stands straight out in an attempt to demonstrate the meaning of the word “bushy” and having young Paul tell me, “teacher… I think you have a probrem.” That is not a derogatory phonetic relation, just a little something I like to hear everyday so that I know I’m on the right track.

Though I started-off like a bit of an uncharacteristic hard-ass, I have lightened-up this week – so far, it’s worked. Even my 8-10 or 7-10 PM classes that were extremely sleepy late last week… well, they are still sleepy now… only they now have a sleepy smile on their faces I can sometimes scare them into attention just by being, well… weird and unpredictable, and if rubbing my hair to look like a madman gets them to be a little bit more awake, I’ll keep doing it until it loses its potency and I need to find some new trick – like cracking my elbow, or maybe just a favourite story to tell.
The different levels we teach are Basic, Junior, Senior and H-Level – each having levels within (from 1-6 or 1-12). Kids who attend our campus are anywhere from grade 2 to grade 12, though my youngest so far has been grade 3 and my oldest has been grade 8. We teach mainly story-based units that involve reading aloud, discussing new vocabulary and then branching out into related ideas and themes. Older groups however begin to move towards essay writing, proper paragraph structure and more elaborate presentations, debates and other projects. It is interesting to note that for the H level classes (the oldest kids) we need to turn to the reading and study of English language science, geography and history texts in order to keep them engaged through the subject matter – clearly, the story of pookie the penguin will not jungle their bells anymore. I honestly never thought I would be standing in Korean classroom teaching a group of grade 7 & 8 students about Pepin and Charlemagne, the crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but – here I am. It makes sense to be teaching this stuff as an English tool- they are learning it in Korean school during the day, so why not apply that knowledge through another language at night? I think I’m learning a lot about Science and History too.
Anyway, it’s been incredibly fun, challenging, scary, frustrating and rewarding so far. I will be writing about my classes and my individual students as the weeks pass. I know that I will have some great stories to tell – I already do, but I will save them for another time. I can’t wait to read the essays about Gatto Squalo, but I’m even more excited to see what my H level students do with the topic “What would happen if South Korea tried to form a modern day empire?” Bring it on. I will write again soon. One more thing - kids here dig Superman. This is a Superman project from a previous class. I like what this kid thinks...

Where I Live...

Where I Live

Pretty much since I arrived here in Korea, I have been doing my best to put where I live into relative perspective with the place I’ve lived in all my life – Calgary, Alberta. It’s a difficult thing to do. Since arriving here last Thursday, I have seen the Incheon Airport, the road from the airport to Suwon as the sun was setting, our small little corner of Suwon, plus whatever I’ve been able to see on the bus around town. In Seoul, we’ve been to a couple of neighbourhoods downtown, an ancient palace, and to the top of Namsan Mountain to get an above view of the huge, sprawling city of 14 million people who are our new neighbours.

During the instructional video we watched at our school last week, the senior teacher was relating the experience of driving from the airport to his apartment for the first time. Being from London, he was very used to shorter buildings, and mostly buildings of a certain style of architecture. So, it made sense that he felt as though he had “entered the Matrix” upon arriving in Korea for the first time at night.

Our first few days here were incredibly hot by our usual cool mountain breeze Calgary standards. Even this past July in Calgary, as hot as it was some days, it was a dry heat and the humidity that existed was relatively easy to escape if you had a basement nearby. In Suwon for the first couple of days, the heat was like a steam bath following you around from point A to point B, and the only way to get rid of it was to turn on the air conditioning or dive into a pool, which we haven’t been able to find yet.

The heat also comes with some funky smells that I actually kind of like. Yes, there is a bit of pollution, but in Suwon, as I mentioned before, it really doesn’t seem any worse than downtown Calgary, though the humidity does seem to hold onto any aromas that are there more than thinner Calgary air does.
There are the smells of seafood from place to place, the smells of good spicy cooking from restaurants, Fresh pastries from the many bakeries, and the smells of things I don’t yet know. All in all though, I am detecting a bit of “Pirates of the Caribbean” smell (Sandy and Jay and the Disney folk will know that that means) – a kind of musty but flavourful scent that reminds me of exotic and fun times. That’s fitting because, so far, that also well describes our experiences here.

I’ve been trying, as I mentioned, to describe where we live by putting it into Calgary terms that not only would help any readers of this blog understand, but would help me wrap my head around our new surroundings as well. When I first got here, we were amazed at the difference of the place and really just focused on how different it felt from the way things are at home. The air makes a big difference, as does the jetlag, and the fact that nobody, it seems, either looks at all like you, or speaks the same language. As relatively inexperienced travelers, it’s easy to get intimidated by that at first, but what’s been most surprising about our trip so far is that we both are starting to feel like we have been here for a lot longer than we have. I don’t mean that to sound that we can’t stand it here and are counting the days – quite the opposite – but that we are feeling much more comfortable than we thought we would, in much less time than we thought it would take to do so. We’re looking at that as a positive thing.

But back to where we live…
Though I’ve only seen a city map of Suwon at Suwon Train Station and at the various bus stops around the city, I can tell that we are in the South Eastern-most area of the city of Suwon which is a city of 1.4 million people approximately 30 minutes south of Seoul. Though there are not too many more people living here than there are in Calgary, the density is very noticeable for a number of reasons. One reason is that there are no suburbs as we know suburbs to be in Calgary. Since South Korea is fairly small (roughly the size of Nova Scotia without Cape Breton), and there are ???? million people living here, urban sprawl simply isn’t an option. Apparently, only 30% of the land is inhabitable anyway (it’s extremely mountainous) so people have had to learn, in a fairly short amount of time, to build up.

Steph and I live and work in an area of Suwon called Yeongtong which is a fairly new neighbourhood in the city. I have been told that the entire neighbourhood was actually constructed in 2001. That’s kind of how Korea works – new neighbourhoods and even new satellite cities are springing-up in an attempt to make Seoul less crowded and make the country a little less centralized in its largest city.

Our neighborhood could be best described in Calgary terms as like a 17th Avenue (Red Mile) type of place, but it’s really like that everywhere in Suwon. There doesn’t seem to be a well-defined “downtown” area as there is in Calgary, but rather a bunch of neighbourhoods that are much like Yeongtong with their own shops and offices, entertainment districts and apartment-lined streets. Steph and I live on an arch-shaped street that faces a large wooded hill and which seems to mark the current boundary of the city. It’s quiet here which is nice at night time, though less than 10 minutes walk from our apartment is the entertainment hub of Yeongtong which can get a bit crazy on a Friday night.

To get to school, we round a bend on our street and head south, across a street and through a park with a fountain (the fountain actually turned-on the other day as we were walking past, as though we had signaled it to ☺) and through some red metal arches towards the “downtown” area of Yeongtong. Imagine if every neighbourhood in your city had a “downtown” and you have a better sense of it; instead of the Canyon Meadows strip mall with a 7-11, Shoppers Drug Mart and other stores, you have a few blocks of 10 storey buildings that house shops, restaurants, businesses, schools, and bars. We walk through one city block which is a pedestrian mall with some of the more popular bars lining it and then across another street towards our school which is on the 6th floor of one of the many 10 story buildings, and about a 10 minute walk from our place.
I really don’t know if our place is that representative of most of urban Korea or not. So far, it seems to be, though I would say that Yeongtong is perhaps a bit more nice, new, and clean than some others I’ve passed-through.

We are also fairly fortunate in that we live very close (about 12 minutes by foot) from a hug supermarket called Home Plus which I believe I’ve already blogged about. It’s very convenient to have a grocery store/department store so close to home and we have been able to visit enough by now to know our way around for the most part. Home Plus is a great place, but to anyone who’s ever felt like they work as part of a bizarre cult in their present place of employment, I offer this brief story and these photos to show you just how good you have it.

Every morning at Home Plus before 10 AM (the store has been opened since 9), the entire store staff gathers in such a way that each staff person can be visible to another from down the aisles. What I would imagine are supervisors lead their staff in an energetic stretching routine and song to some loud pumping techno music. Not only do your staff feel all limbered-up and ready to start their day, but they have also likely been reminded of the Home Plus credo, which is likely a very happy and encouraging thing ☺.
I couldn’t help but snap a couple of photos just to make sure that I could prove it really happened. I think I was stealthy enough this time.

As we walk back to our apartment each night, the buildings that were relatively colourful during the day really begin to come to life. Each level of an 8 or 10 story building is lit-up with advertisements in Neon for the dozen of businesses that exist in that block. If there is a lounge called the Audrey Bar (named after Audrey Hepburn) on the 6th floor of a building, then you would look up and find a huge sign amongst the many other signs advertising the place – makes sense, but in Canada, we are more used to most bars and restaurants being on ground level only, so street-level signage is really the norm. Here, it’s all signage all the time and at all levels imaginable. How the dude with the fish shop on the 10th floor expects you to see his sign, I have no idea, but then again I have no idea how he carries all his fish up 10 flights on a hot day.

Still, it’s pretty neat to see so many cool little spots hidden-away on the 6th floor of a building. You really feel like you’ve discovered something when you get there. One of the coolest places we’ve been so far has been Pavox – a cocktail bar that is on our way to school and literally stumbling distance from our apartment. There are 5 or 6 staff that work there every night and they are amongst the friendliest people we have met here yet. The bar is small, about the size of an average Canadian high school classroom, but it is very well laid out and has a really cool black interior with blue neon hi-lights on the floor and ceiling.

The staff there introduce themselves to everyone when they come in through the door and in addition to some very unique drinks that they serve, the staff are also incredibly skilled jugglers and cocktail spinners. If you think of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, multiply his skill by 25 and you have a good idea of what these guys can do.
Every couple of hours, the lights dim, the bell rings, and the show begins – they breathe fire, they spin 4 bottles at a time and they climb the walls to throw flaming bottles to each other and then they top it off by actually making a drink from the bottles they’ve been throwing around.

If you’d like to see a couple of videos, check-out my facebook page, although I will see what I can do about posting to this blog from youtube as well. Bottom line is it’s a really good show and anyone who visits Yeongtong should make a stop here. Pavox is one of the places that teachers from our school regularly hang out at, and it was the first bar we’ve been to since arriving in Korea. I think we’ll be back a few times in the future too.
There’s really too much to write about when I talk about “where we live”. There’s so much to see and writing about it can’t really begin to do it justice, though I will continue to post observations and opinions as they happen. I continue to marvel at the way our area lights-up at night and fills with people, only to be seemingly completely empty and tranquil on a Sunday morning – streets that were full of soju-drinking business men, young families out for a Friday night stroll at 11 PM, boyfriends trying to win their sweethearts a prize at one of the carnival-like games on the main street, or friends meeting for Korean BBQ on the first floor patio of a street side restaurant, are often quiet and seemingly abandoned the next morning.

I like living here so far. We are getting used to getting around, though I would love to be able to find a bus map in English as soon as possible – it seems that every bus we take gets us to where we need to go, but I’m sure there’s a more direct route waiting for us once we know which one to follow.
Lastly, there seem to be no houses here at all. I’m sure they exist in perhaps extremely affluent areas of Seoul and certainly in the countryside where farmers need a place to call home, but here in the city that I’ve seen, there are none. People don’t have yards, but the community has parks and carefully planned green spaces with fountains, benches, shaded areas and even public exercise equipment that is for everyone.

I like living in a house in Calgary, but here, the luxury of space isn’t an option. It seems that even though the countries really only been free to build with a strong economy for half a century, they’ve been going about it very smartly and as carefully as possible – making sure people can live in communities where walking and public transit are the best options. Seoul and surrounding area from what I’ve seen so far is far from perfect and I miss the open space that Calgary has, but living here is a change and it’s interesting, informing, and humbling to see how so many people share so little space with seemingly such success.


Later this week: Saturday’s Trip to Changdeokgung Palace and Insa-Dong...

It's coming tomorrow, I promise!

I've been writing a big blog again and it will be posted with photos tomorrow. We've had another very busy weekend and there's lots to show and tell. So Canadian readers - check in throughout the week if you want to see some zany shots of our latest trip to Seoul, our school, and the place where we live. I promise it will be be somewhat exciting :)