Korea Trippin'

Advice on Working for CDI Busan

2010-05-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

Part 2 of a series: Chung Dahm Institute!!

I want to preface this by saying two things: First, just something to keep in mind, CDI Busan is not CDI Seoul. In fact, it's a company called Injoon Education; the point is, don't expect them to be exactly the same. Second, I'm sure there are many negative posts about CDI and CDI Busan online that you can find. I find that many people that post these may have other problems that lead them to theses views. (Let's leave it nice and general like that!) While I'm not beholden to them or completely in love with all that they do, I am on a whole happy with my time with them and what they have done for me. The posts below are meant as a precaution; consider me to be cautiously optimistic about working for them.

Working for CDI

-First, it is true that you make good money with them; on a whole, the amount is more than other hagwons. But there is a flip side: people that work with CDI have to work more, not on prep work but in actual classroom time. Don't expect to get any public holidays off, only your week of vacation and that's about it.

-That said, you only really work 6 hours a day, so you have the mornings and most of the afternoon to do things on your own if you are so motivated. The hours are later, but that's sort of a benefit depending on your personal schedules.

-CDI expects more professionalism from its teachers than other schools. Don't expect to walk in in flip flops and a t-shirt and sing "Kumbaya" with the kids and that's it. There is a dress code. You are expected to work. I don't mean this in a frightening way; I would rather be at a place that takes itself seriously and does what it says it does. CDI teaches English and does it pretty well, so expect to have to teach yourself. As a seemingly unnecessary addendum, watch your social networking sites, and don't write anything dumb.

-Teaching materials are provided for you. The curriculum is very structured, which has two sides to it. It is very comforting, since most people that come to CDI are not teachers by profession. But it can also be a bit stifling to people that want more freedom planning their classes. There is room to breathe and do your own thing, but it is less than other schools might allow.

-Talk to your fellow teachers at your branch. They are a great resource on the local atmosphere. Before you come, get in contact with your Head Instructor (HI). Ask them specific questions regarding your branch.

-Your living arrangements are taken care of by one Admin person at your branch. Sometimes, that person does not speak the best of English, so find someone to help you translate or speak to your HI. Just make sure everything is clear and understood; ask twice to be sure!

-Apartments: Get pictures of your place. Confirm the price (often, you will have to pay more than the housing stipend, which is currently 350,000 Won). Ask when you can move in. Ask other teachers for stuff, or check out the Korea Bridge website's postings for cheap stuff from foreigners.

-Read before you sign! Ask as many specific questions as you can!

-Clear things with your Branch Manager, then with HR. Don't assume anything will just be "ok" for you to do. This means vacation, contract specifics, whatever!

-Try to get things in writing. This is not a common practice in Korea, but if you are persistent, they will do it, and it's just a good idea to cover yourself.

-Training is a bitch. It's long and strenuous, especially when you just get to a new country. But in the end, you are waaaay overprepared for your classes and should feel confident walking into a classroom.

-Prepare for your classes. Get your books early, do the leg work. Don't walk in with nothing, cuz your classes will bomb big time. Prepare fun examples for the kids, think of additional information that you want to share, add what you personally can. The structure is a skeleton to build on, but you provide the meat, and it's your job to spark the kids' interests.

-Improve as a teacher. Talk to other teachers, watch their classes, experiment with new ideas, look for stuff online. Many teachers can stagnate because they try to do the same thing from their first term; remember that you should grow as a teacher, and really, that makes it more fun and interesting for you.

-CDI levels, from lowest to highest, are:
English Chip (EC) 1
EC2
EC3
EC4

Memory (ME) Mega
ME Giga
ME Tera

Bridge English (BE)

Interactive English (IE) Par
IE Birdie
IE Eagle
IE Albatross (and Alba Plus)

Masters

iBT TOEFL 1
iBT 2
iBT 3

Try out multiple levels to keep things interesting and new. The most fun tend to be elementary school EC classes and upper levels (Par to Alba), but everyone finds their niche in different places.

-CDI has a certain methodology to their teaching. If you are only a lower-level teacher, you might not see what they are building up to. Look into the methodology; if you understand why they do things, it might help you more as a teacher.

-And just generally be positive about the experience! Have fun with the kids and classes, don't hate too much on the company. CDI workers sometimes have a reputation of complaining about work a lot. It's really just like any job; you get as much or as little as you want to put into it.

But make sure that you enjoy your time in Korea as well; don't forget your Trippin'!

Advice on Livng in Korea

2010-05-29T18:12:00.001-07:00

So I sometimes get emails on people wanting advice on teaching and living in Korea. Consider this my generic post to answer those; I would really love it if people would post their own helpful hints, maybe after you read this and move to Korea, you could come back and write your own ideas! Next up is advice on teaching with CDI!

Living in Korea

-Try walking. I used to walk to work every day, and I really got to know that route and the restaurants and stops along the way. It's the best way to acquaint yourself with an unfamiliar area.

-Make an effort to learn the language. Reading Korean is easy to learn. (Even though I never did, oops! Kick myself for it too!)

-Make Korean friends. This can be at your workplace or outside; lots of times, people literally will walk up to you and ask to be your friend! You learn about all the cool little places and things and just plain culture from locals.

-Try ALL the food. You'll find places near you that you'll like, but don't just eat the same thing every time (*cough* donkassu!). Generally, each restaurant specializes in one food, so move around and try new places. Ask around, find the good places, and try some street food!!!

-It's easy to get into the routine of going out until the wee hours drinking, but try to limit your nights out to the weekends. At CDI, we have the whole day to do things, but if you're out late or hungover, you squander that time.

-Learn public transport. Cabs may seem cheap when you get here (and they are often cheaper than public transport if you bring lots of people and aren't going far), but those fares add up. Also, buses can often get you places faster than subways; ask which ones take you places and try them out. (Just hold on if you're standing!!)

-If you live in the city, get out to the countryside a bit or some smaller towns. Those places can offer you a whole different side of Korea. If you're daunted by the idea of going as a non-Korean, then look into a tour company like Adventure Korea; I took a really cool rafting trip that went up to the northeast near the North Korean border. We stayed in a family's house and ate homemade food at the town hall, hiked the trails surrounding the city, and it was amazing!

-Visit places early in your stay. You always say that you will go somewhere or do something later on, but later on you get into your routine and just never get around to it.

-Places to go (and a short opinion about them):
Busan (Obvious, right? 2nd biggest city, it's got the beaches for summertime! The city is pretty spread out, but there are lots of different places to go. A very foreigner-friendly city as well, and a good alternative to the overwhelming Seoul.)

Seoul (Massive and metropolitan, a much more international city. Can be a little much to conquer; just don't get stuck in Itaewon the whole time or you'll miss out!)

DMZ (There's no place really like it in the world. You get an eerie feeling being here; it's definitely worth coming to say you went, though don't expect anything too crazy to happen.)

Daegu (The fashion capital of Korea, apparently, and the 3rd biggest city. It's a fun place to visit: good food and shopping, the hiking and outdoorsy sports are big on the outskirts. Lots of military nearby, which means whatever you want it to mean.)

Kyeongju (The ancient capital of the Silla dynasty, you can get your history lessons here. It's a smaller place, and a lot to walk around and manage in one day. I enjoyed visiting, but I can understand if others are bored by it. Also, the Bulguksa temple is an awesome one to visit!)

Green Tea Fields- Boseong (Gorgeous hiking and countryside, especially in the Fall when I went, but I can imagine it being beautiful in the spring and summer as well. Remember, kids: Korea has four seasons!)

Andong Folk Village (Interesting and full of traditional dwellings and works, but kind of underwhelming. But we went in the beginning of the spring, so it was still pretty brown and dull, though the cherry blossoms were out! The Jimdok [potato and chicken stew with glass noodles] in the city of Andong is supposedly famous too.)

Cherry Blossom Festival- Jinhae (I honestly never went, but I've heard it's fun and worth the day trip. Cherry blossom time is a great time overall to be walking around in Korea; the weather is generally great, so walk to work if you can!)

-Be polite! Having a little humility when you try to set up a bank account or buy a bus ticket can go a long way. If possible, when you do those things, you can predict in advance and have a Korean friend write a quick note (i.e. when you go to the pharmacy and need a certain type of medicine or if you have trouble with your cell phone and need to go to the store).

-Remember your place as a visitor, even if you're planning on being here for a year or so. It's easy to point out differences and problems you have with Korean society when you're immersed in it, but that kind of negativity just distances yourself further from things around you.

2010-03-31T19:56:00.001-07:00

Wow, it's been over a year since my last post; kind of crazy to think it's been that long. I'm still in Korea, just finishing up my second year soon. It's kind of funny when people ask you how Korea is; there's never a good answer. I mean, it's like asking people back home, "How's the US?" Generally, you talk about the weather or something political that just recently came up. But how do you really sum up a whole place and culture and experience? It's been good, that's about it.

I've been hearing from some random people that have made the trip over that they have seen my blog, so I wanted to at least touch back and try and give a few more updates before the whole wild ride is finished. After this, my girlfriend (whom I met last summer here in Korea, a foreigner from Iowa) and I will be traveling for a bit, then stopping off at home for our sisters' babies to be delivered, and after that, it looks like we've gotten a job in Shanghai (China Trippin'? Dum, dum, duuuuuuuum!).

I wanted to set up an open invitation for anyone that happens by the blog in the next few months; if you want to post any questions, get any more specific information, or even get some photos or such, drop me a comment and I'll get back to you.

One quick note, since I did mention the weather: it be crazy this year! Snowfall in Seoul all winter, and some even got down to Busan. Now it's pretty rainy and dreary; we've had bouts of warm weather, but it invariably drops back down and we break out the winter gear for another week. Spring is coming, but winter's kicking and screaming all the while. The Yellow Dust also made a brief appearance. In case I haven't mentioned it, the dust blown off of the Gobi Desert over in China gets sent as far as Korea. You can see this haze that settles over the city, and it's holy murder on your breathing. One teacher was out most of a week due to a bronchial infection and a severe asthma attack, and my girlfriend caught some nasty cold with a lingering cough that she can't quite shake. I even resorted to buying us a couple of those ever-so-stylish masks that they sell at the pharmacy particularly to stop particulate.

What you miss in Korea

2008-12-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

I just got an amazing package from my mother today full of a plethora of goodies. As a foreigner, you come to find out very quickly what sorts of things you miss here in Korea. Now, I'm mainly a Californian (read: spoiled when it comes to food), so my tastes tend to run a bit different from others. But here's a quick laundry list of what she send, so you get some idea of what sorts of things you might miss out on.

2 bags Cheez-its, one regular and one white cheddar
6 instant soups (minestrone, split pea, and hearty bean)
1 summer sausage
1 bag mexican chili pods
1 of each of the following cheeses: super-sharp cheddar, mont blanchard, gouda, chili chive onion gouda, smoked swiss and cheddar
1 package mulling spices
2 pounds of coffee (the stuff here tends to be freeze dried)

And I like to cook a good amount, so a variety of spices: cinnamon sticks, Vietnamese cinnamon, lemongrass, creole, chipotle tofu scramble, smoky bbq rub, Seattle salmon rub, and jerk rub

Truly, she is a goddess. There are a lot of other things a Westerner misses in terms of diet. Some of the other things we constantly mull over:

-Good gum (the stuff here is terrible)
-Avocados (expensive here, hard to find, and very green)
-Limes (hard to find and very expensive!)
-Cottage cheese (not a big fan, but some are)
-Cheese in general (usually processed here, and expensive when not. Some types are just impossible to find)
-Good sandwich meat (usually just processed ham)
-Sandwiches (trust me, the ones you can find are awful)
-Decent gin, tequila, bourbon, vodka (when you enter and leave the country, duty-free is a must)
-Sour cream
-Wheat bread (not as readily available, but certain bakeries are good for it)

And I'm sure I'll think of more later. I'll ask around and see what other people miss. Baking goods tend to be hard to find since most places don't have an oven, but there are a couple of decent stores in Nampo-dong. For Thanksgiving, we wanted to make pies, so I made a trip out there to find various ingredients, including shortening for crust. I ended up at a wholesale shop that would only sell me a box of it weighing 4.5 kilos. Needless to say, we've been making plenty of pies and quiche, which I will not complain about!

Goodbye, Janelle!!!

2008-11-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

This week marks the last time that Janelle will be with us. She finished up last Friday, and Anthony so kindly offered his apartment for a going away party on Saturday. We'll all miss her a lot, and no doubt Mulkoki, Kokiri will be lessened by her absence. Good luck, Janelle, wherever you end up!

Jef "voiced" all our sentiments on Saturday by providing this heartfelt tribute to our lost sister. (Coincidentally, he also left our branch on Friday, though he's just changing schools and not leaving. Still, our breakroom is going to feel very empty now!)

A Day in the Life

2008-11-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

WHAAA?!?! DOUBLE POST?
That's right, I'm goin there! Something I've been planning on doing for a bit, for all you non-Koreans. Here's a pictorial journey through a somewhat typical day in the life of a foreigner living in Busan. Share and enjoy!

Wakey wakey, no eggs and bacey (Koreans aren't so big into breakfast foods :(

Current state of the apartment. I cleaned it later that day, I swear!

Locking up and heading out.

Walking down the street towards Seomyeon. Yes, Korean dogs are always that hideous. This one wouldn't stop barking at me from half a block away.

Corner stores are a staple here. The best is Family Mart, as they tend to have the most extensive and delicious ice cream selection (including one called "Black Boy". You know you want one).

A Korean back alley.

NeoSpa is my gym/spa (jinjaebang). Jinjaebangs are just those big communal bathhouses where you hang out in pools and saunas of various heats. It's nice and relaxing if you can get over being surrounded by naked people chilling next to you, though I've heard the ladies have it worse since some get gawked at something awkward. They also have this service where you can pay to get THOROUGHLY scrubbed down, though I have yet to try that out (I like my skin, thank you very much!). Membership's about $52 a month since I got a 6 month contract.

Don't forget to take off your shoes and change into your workout shoes and clothes!

Walking into Seomyeon area.

Lotte Department Store (this is the back) is the big landmark in Seomyeon. It's floors and floors of department store goodness and sooo much more! There're some pretty decent, though expensive, restaurants towards the top, a theater, and the bottom floor has a small, select grocery store along w/ a couple of bakeries, a wine shop, and a variety of quick eating stops. The last is what I'm going for (my salad lady wouldn't let me take a picture of her).

Walking around Seomyeon proper.

To get around some streets, you have to duck down into the underground shopping area. These are all connected around Seomyeon to the subway also, so you can stroll around shopping and pop up pretty much anywhere provided you know the exit number. One of my first nights here, I walked down here at night and was engulfed in a sea of people, shoulder to shoulder. I tend to avoid shopping on Fridays and Saturdays now.

Bookstore. Their English section (that's all of it) is only slightly smaller than most that you find.

Over to my favorite cafe, Mulkoki Kokiri (which apparently means "Fish Elephant"). Randomly ran into Jef and Miranda there (and Janelle joined later). I love this place; the guy in the last picture always laughs at me when I come in and says, "See you tomorrow!" when I go. And he's usually right.

Walking around here can be murder, it's probably the only thing I really hate here. Imagine every annoying thing people do to you while walking in crowded areas; then apply that to pretty much every person you walk around. Also, this is the subway area, they're pretty easy to figure out and convenient. But I tend to walk everywhere.

Kimbop! A staple here in Korea, it's an odd sushi roll that has egg and spam and a few random veggies in it. This is a tiny place that is one of the few that's noticeably different from the rest. When you want a quick Korean version of a sandwich, just look for the orange sign!

Ajuma gang!

Home Plus is like Target or Walmart: everything in one place. It's also the principle supermarket for us. They've got everything you need for your Korean experience!
Kimchi
Rice
and Soju and Mikju (beer).

A short interlude later (where I cleaned and updated my blog, along w/ other boring miscellany), and I'm off to work!

Busan really comes alive when night falls. Seriously, the city never sleeps; at all hours you will find people stumbling around the streets. And I realized when I was taking these that it's really at night that you start to feel how foreign this place can be.

Wheeee!

Massagey? Just look for the double poles!

This is the infamous CDI Busanjin! Paul's manning the front desk (with other staff ducking out of the picture). And lastly, the break room with Anthony, Janelle, and Jef (everyone else had first class off, as did I). Oh, the stories that are told here...

My class tonight is middle school Par Listening/Speaking. In the back is Kevin, who's sitting to since he's training to teach the same thing next term. He's taking the rest of pictures. Aren't those kids so enthusiastic?!?! They're one of my favorite classes this term, and this was my last class with them.

A short bus ride later (not pictured, since you really don't want to try and do anything on a bus here but hold on and pray), and we're over at the kimbop place again! Yes, it's the same one as before; we get off work at 10:10, which means you're stuck eating a very small variety of foods that are still open. There are some 24 kimbop places, which is very nice, but not a whole lot else stays open late besides fried chicken places. That's Janelle with all of our side dishes. And our food from my plate clockwise is cheesu donkatsu (fried pork cutlet w/ cheese, mmmm!), chamche dolkbop (spicy tuna and cabbage and such with rice), and a random, previously unseen noodle dish.

Lotte Hotel (next to Lotte Department Store. Also, that's where the Casino is), done up for Christmas!

A little of Seomyeon by night. The orange tents are these little drinking areas where they also serve terrible drunk food. Haven't been to many, and I doubt I will be with the weather change.

And here's our favorite haunt, Bar Guri (which means something obscene, I forget what at the moment). That's Adrienne, one of the April teachers, drinking with me tonight, though she wasn't keen on the whole photo thing. And the last picture is with Pon, the awesomest bartender in Busan (nay, South Korea!), who also happened to be drunk when we got there.

Aaaand that about does it for the day! We'll do a bit more traveling sometimes, but it's a weekday, cut me some slack! Anyways, that's a bit of what life's like for me.

Fall Comes To Busan

2008-11-18T22:59:00.000-08:00

The Autumn season has dropped on us here like a ton of bricks. Literally overnight, the temperature has fallen drastically, prompting a quick change into coats and gloves and knit caps. It wouldn't feel so cold if not for the damn wind, which blasts through Seomyeon like some anti-demon and cuts right through whatever pitiful protection you may possess (that's called alliteration, kiddies!). But this all comes without complaint (ok, maybe just the usual), because the surrounding area has become gorgeously picturesque! Luckily, in the past weeks, I've been able to get out on a few trips to see the countryside. Sadly, we're losing a couple more teachers as the term comes to an end this week (Jef is moving to another branch, but Janelle is going home for good. Or so she says/thinks...), but we've been trying to take in the sights a little more. So here are a few words, though I think I'll let the pictures speak more for themselves (mainly because then I can be lazy!)

First up were the green tea fields in Boseong. We took a jaunty jaunt out there on Sunday morning, waking up bright and early at 5:30 to catch the bus, which ended up taking about 3 1/2 hours(?). We mostly slept the way out; I bought an eye mask shortly before because it gets so damn bright in my apartment, which came in handy. It's a silly lil number that has a red raccoon on it and says "Do you like me?" Pretty standard fare here in Korea. Anyways, we get out there and take the bus out to the fields, which were beautiful! Rows and rows of these green bushes with a background of just-turning trees on the hillside! When we saw our first red and yellow trees, I think there was audible squealing.
(Photos courtesy of Janelle Berghoff, since Erick was an idiot and forgot his camera)

As a side note, there's a trend in Korea where couples will wear matching clothes in some bizarre mating ritual that, I assume, displays heightened affection and marks the territory of those involved. A normal foreigner game is to treat it like Slug Bug, where when you see people dressed like that, you called out "Couple Shirt!" and punch the nearest person. Well, Dan and I decided to up the ante a bit. When you see couples with one matching piece of clothing, you get a punch; with two, a knee/kick; with three or more (the Holy Grail of couple shirts), you get to slap someone in the face! Everyone else gleefully joined in, no doubt hoping to spot the first 3-fer, but no one could find one when others were around. UNTIL THIS WEEKEND! Not 10 minutes after I explain the new rules, Noemi, a teacher at another branch, spots a couple with FOUR matching pieces. She calls it and, without warning, slaps me clear across the face. She did pull back a bit, but I had met her maybe 3 times before, so I was just shocked. And my respect for her grew instantly. Guys are weird.

Anyways, the trip back took about 5 1/2 hours because of some ridonkulous traffic, and we all got off the bus vowing never to take a trip on a Sunday night again.

The next Sunday, I jumped on a bus with most of my branch and our April (little little kiddies) branch for another trip out of the city. I can't remember the exact place we went to (I'll look into it and get back to you, maybe), but it was a really pretty and quaint coastal area. We rode up there (2 1/2 hours) and took some time walking around a bit before heading over to a little restaurant on the water where we had some mussels and seafood noodles. Then we jumped on bikes and rode down the coast for a bit, playing around and skipping rocks and other grabassery. Anthony, our new HI, got shown up by some random little kid who wouldn't even acknowledge him as he skipped his stones about 20 times. I call for a blood test.

After we go up to a hill to watch a beautiful sunset over the water and the surrounding islands, we jump on the bus for what would be the most torturous bus experience of my life! Seriously, it took us 7 1/2 hours to get back, 5 hours longer than it took us to get to the damn place! I tried to sleep, but the ease and comfort of Korean stop-and-go prevented that, so we entertained ourselves as best we could. At one point, we jumped out of the bus and walked along the road to get some air and stretch. We figured, "Hey, when the bus catches up, we'll just jump back on!" But the bus never caught up. We walked for about 20 minutes before we stopped and waited the same amount of time for the bus to catch up. We also stopped for dinner to let the traffic give up a bit, then started the drinking. After that experience, one of the April teachers Adrienne and I beelined for the bar and had a few stiff drinks.

Finally, last Friday a few of us went out to Beomosa, which is the big temple just in Busan. I'd been up there before with Dan and Mac (see issue #235. And give God a high five if you get that reference!), but this time around, the Fall change was in full effect. I won't write much here, but enjoy the pics! Peace out!

2008-10-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

The other day we had a company wide sports day, which meant all the branches got together at a spot and spent the day doing all sorts of activities. The draw that I heard repeatedly was that the company had spent a million won ($1000, for you dirty Americans) on meat along. With a bill like that, how could you pass up?

I love my branch. Our head instructor spent the night buying me shots and encouraging us to go out clubbing only to text us at 9 in the morning to "remind" us to show up on time! Also, we were given these lime green collared shirts with the implication that all the other branches would be wearing similar uniforms. Of course, we showed up and were the only ones. We tend to be a group that stands out already, and proudly so. We don't really need the assistance most of the time.

The day started out with all the groups breaking up into teams and participating in a variety of sport goodnesses. A good portion of us showed up late (for obvious reasons) and so we jumped on the nearest team and started playing/cheering/recovering. With great pride, our team took first in dodgeball (huzzah!), then got combined with another, lesser team (awww), only to be lead on to glory by Busanjin's own Jef (huzzah, redux!). We took the lead with such invigorating and Olympic-worthy events as Pass-the-People-Along-On-the-Tarp(?), Blow-Up-the-Balloons, Pop-Said-Balloons, and Bounce-the-Enormous-Ball-On-the-Tarp. It was a tarpy, balloony kinda time. Needless to say, I feel confident in declaring us the winners, though on a day like that, how could you be a loser?

I have to admit, I really do enjoy stuff like that. I met up with a lot of people that I haven't had near as much contact with. It's easy to get insular here, since your work routine combines with your foreigner routine to shut you off from a lot of others. Sometimes you're tired, sometimes you don't want to put the effort in required of somebody in a different country and want to hole yourself in a wall. I realize I've slowed down a bit since I came here; every weekend I was in a new place before and saw new things every day. You need stuff to keep you invigorated or else you fall in the trap. I guess that's the same anywhere you go, but I don't want to squander my time here since it's already limited enough.

We also celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday with a potluck dinner at the coworker's place. Gotta say, I couldn't name a single Canadian holiday before I got here and now I'm jumping at the chance to join everything from Canadian Independence Day to Canadian Kwanzaa (please, let that exist...). Also, I miss cooking since it's so cheap here to eat out and I'm a lazy bastard. So if anyone has some new recipes/cooking ideas, send them my way. I only have a stove, no oven (baking ain't so big here), no microwave or anything really, no space for much. So if you have ideas on delicious meals using only a range and the sweat o' my brow (maybe not actually IN the food), post em up! Otherwise, later all! I'll have more actual Korean culture soon, I swear!

P.S. No, I probably won't.

DMZ, Seoul, and Film Festival! UPDATED!

2008-09-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Added photos from the trip. Reminder: they were taken with a disposable, so they're pretty bad and at a slight tilt, which makes me queasy to look at. Also, apparently my thumb is huge and impossible to get out of the way.

God, I love long weekends! Once a term, a magical time comes where the older kids have midterm exams, which means they cancel their supplementary classes only to spend time on their actual classes for about two weeks. While not every class gets canceled, you still end up with situations like mine, where my Saturday and Monday classes were gone and I had a nice extended mini-vacation to play with. Sounds like time for a trip! Another coworker, John, also had the same time off, so we spent the weekend up in Seoul. We got there Saturday night and stayed until Monday afternoon, which was plenty of time for sightseeing and frivolity. Met up with some friends that I hadn't seen for a while, even since training! We checked out some areas in Seoul that I never got to see during my week of hellish training, went to some cool bars and a club or two. Seoul's a cool place to visit, but I'm glad I don't live up there; it's a bit too much all the time. There's tons to do, but I enjoy a more laid back Busan atmosphere. I could also just be a loser. Hmmm...

Anyways, we went up there mainly to go check out the DMZ, or for you non-cultured people the Demilitarized Zone. It's the border between North and South Korea where there is a fenced off 2 km area where neither country can really enter or bring military forces. Now, some people might ask the pertinent question, "Why?" to which I respond most intelligently, "Cuz!" It's a big attraction for tourists, with buses going up with people by the hundreds. And it's also a really interesting look at foreign relations outside of that peaceful, idyllic image that some of us keep in our heads. I personally found it very interesting to listen to all the rhetoric being thrown about on the South Korean side, with little comments being thrown in showing the North Koreans in such a terrible light and pushing all the blame squarely on their shoulders. South Korea can definitely be guilty of painting different historical and current events in a light that's far too favorable for themselves (Dokdo, anybody?), which I guess is the case for anybody, looking back on all those years of American history in grade school. I need to read up on more history between the two now...

So anyways, the tour consisted of a few different stops along the way. First, we stopped at a little park area called Imjingak with a silly amusement park called Peace Land! The great thing about all the stuff we saw along the way was it all had names like "Unification Village" and "Freedom Bridge". By the end, we were calling everything by those names: "Man, I'm hungry. Let's grab some Unification Ice Cream at the Freedom Mart." But yeah, there was a Peace Bell and a Bridge of Freedom where over 12,000 POWs were exchanged after the war and a bunch of other monuments to peace and unification. And souvenirs! We then went up past the military blockades to the main area where they showed us an epindary movie about the DMZ that included rockin 80s music, super dramatic shots of some little girl crying/frolicking around the DMZ, and a mystical butterfly that heals wounds and restores good will and peace. We were laughing the whole time, but I don't think the other people there appreciated it so much. We then walked down to the 3rd tunnel, which is a place where those dirty commies tried to dig through to the other side and invade our way of life, only to be halted by the forces of righteousness. And butterflies. It was a grueling walk for two reasons: 1) Korea doesn't believe in making inclines/declines easy by including luxuries like switchbacks or stairs, so we enjoyed a brisk walk down and a ridiculously difficult and long walk back up, and 2) the NoKo's apparently didn't have 6'2" American tourists in mind, as I was hunched over the entire time and cursing genetics. Finally, we got to the observatory that looked out over the DMZ, and you couldn't take pictures past a certain point in case you were suspected of spying or something. On the North Korean side there was a fake village that was set up to apparently fool everyone that everything was a-ok over there, no doubt also hiding untold numbers of NBC's strapped to little puppies. Those crafty bastards. Another highlight of that area was a sign for the military forces there that said "N1CE". We took a few pics doing thumbs up there. I forgot my digital camera, but bought a disposable and am having them developed AS WE SPEAK!

All in all, a good weekend. Got a little time to do more sightseeing and went to one of Seoul's palaces, Gyeongbokgung, which was a cool look at some historical Korea. I love touristy shit sometimes. Side note: older Korean buildings and historical sites are some of the ugliest in Asia, for one specific reason. While the outsides look cool and different and interesting, the insides are always painted in the most godawful gaudy colors, like pinks and neon greens and whatnot. If some aspiring historical architecture expert (achem) wants to see if that's really the original colors they used, I'd like to know as I seriously doubt it. Also went to the bookstore, Kyobo, of course, which is fabulous in Seoul as they have a massive foreign section. Only bought one book, Bonk, which is done by the same author as Stiff, an amusing book about cadavers that I bought a little while back. This one's about the science and history of sex and sounds amusing.

Finally, next weekend is the Pusan International Film Festival, which is a huge event down here that people have been mentioning for some time. I could regurgitate what I read from Wikipedia, but I'm lazy, so here are some excerpts:

"Pusan International Film Festival held annually in Busan, South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festival, held from September 13 to September 21, 1996, was also the first international film festival in Korea. The focus of the PIFF is introducing new films and first-time directors, especially those from Third World countries. Another notable feature is the appeal of the festival to young people, both in terms of the large youthful audience it attracts and through its efforts to develop and promote young talent."

I've got a good amount of tickets and I'm totally stoked! Here's a list of the movies I'm checking out, to give you an idea of what there is. Unfortunately, a lot of the really big ones were almost immediately sold out, and these ones were still somewhat hard to get ahold of as a lot of other things that I was looking at were also sold out. Enjoy, and catch yall later!

Bottle Shock United States 2007 108min Randall Miller
Winemaking perfectionist Jim and his free-spirited son are trying to make the perfect California chardonnay when a British wine snob chooses their wine to take part in a tasting in France. That sets the stage for a drama that will shake the worlds of both Jim and of wine.

Mental Japan, United States 2008 135min Kazuhiro Soda
MENTAL observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers. The film captures the candid lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, poverty, a sense of shame, apprehension, and fear of society.

Another Planet Hungary 2008 95min Ferenc Moldoványi
Shot on four continents and spoken in five languages, this docu-drama studies the problems facing Earth today. Looking at rampant ecological, political, and social unrest and injustice, Moldoványi’s two-year survey of where we are and where we seem to be going is an illuminating look at contemporary human experience.

The Vanished Empire Russia 2008 105min Karen Shakhnazarov
Moscow of the 1970s, and the Soviet Empire’s zenith is also the beginning of its end. Three university students wrapped up in their own romantic dilemma fail to see their home’s downward spiral into non-existence, not recognizing the passing of a defining era—both personal and political.

Empty Chair Iran 2008 100min Saman ESTEREKI
A series of directors are making each other’s movies, blurring the lines between actor and director. In the end, who is the one who ends up yelling “cut” from the “empty chair”?

Terribly Happy Denmark 2008 95min Henrik Ruben Genz
Robert Hansen is a cop transferred to a remote village in Denmark. His usual days there are not much. One day, a woman comes to see him telling him that she has been abused by her husband. But as he is trying to help her, he falls in love with her getting himself into a big trouble.

Button Man Hong Kong, China, Taiwan 2008 80min Jen Hao Chien
Wei is the “button man”, an expert cleaner for the gang, a man who comes after a murder scene, takes care of the victim, disposing the body and leaving no evidence behind. Who would have thought that one day, he would become a target of their list….

Nightmare Detective 2 Japan 2008 102min Shinya Tsukamoto
The whole thing started out as a prank. Yukie and her friends lock their classmate, Kikukawa in an equipment room in the gym, to scare her. Though they let her out in the end, Kikukawa stopped coming to school the following day. Yukie began to have nightmares about Kikukawa

Seoul-der

Japan Trippin!

2008-09-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Man, I suck at this updating thing. A week after my trip and I'm finally getting around to posting something. Ok, well, here goes:

So last weekend was the Chuseok holiday in Korea, basically one of the two biggest in the country. In honor of such a momentous holiday, I, along with 3 of my fellow teachers, decided to celebrate by getting the hell out of this country! We jumped a plane to Tokyo, and wacky adventures ensued. These are their stories.

Unfortunately, us Saturday class people still had to teach. That's right, we teach classes on Saturday! But luckily, we pushed them to earlier in the day; the downside was that we had to teach at 9 in the morning. But afterwards, we jumped into a cab and shot right on over to the airport! A short flight overseas (2 hours, about), and Japan met us in all our glory. Well, not Tokyo though; the airport is an hour and a half train ride outside of the city, so we took a little while to get there. But Japan had to be eased into our glory.

Now, for unknown reasons to me today, the decision was made not to have a hotel room the first night. We had an area that we wanted to stay in (Shinjuku, western part of the city), but somehow we ended up without specific accommodations. That was ok, though; we got off the train and made our way to one of the two hotels we narrowed it down to. Wait, the hotel rooms are like $150 more than the online prices?!? Forget that! We had two choices: bite the bullet and pay extra or find a new hotel. Or wait, maybe we had a third: stay up all night! Yep, that's right, we reserved our hotels for the rest of the time there, then dropped off our bags and hit the streets for what would soon be the most painful night of our lives. We went out to a club/bar area in Rappungi, which was full of foreigners, and checked out a few places. Eventually, by the early morning hours, we decided it would be a solid idea to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market so we could eat sushi as soon as it opened at 5. So we walked about half the length of the city to get there. Now, we all got up early, but the others essentially stayed up all the night before as well, and I'm a wuss when it comes to sleep deprivation. So we got to the market with time to spare and found a diner to sit in and rest (and, for some, sleep). Turns out, the fish market was closed on Sundays, and it was a holiday weekend besides, so no market for us, though we did still eat sushi there. We then headed over the the Imperial Palace, which was nice from afar, though that's as far as we got since we couldn't get past the gate to see it. We then attempted (unsuccessfully) to find places to sleep until our hotel rooms opened up, settling finally on the hotel lobby.

A lot of the time there was spent just walking around people-watching and checking everything out. Tokyo has a cool vibe; it's a huge city with lots of flashy lights. Our general rule was to go towards the shiniest areas, which worked out pretty well. Everything feels more relaxed there than Korea. The people there are different from Korea as well; everyone's so fashionable and has their own individual style versus here where they all kinda dress the same. And people are so polite in comparison! Walking down the street, you don't have to duck and dodge people, shouldering old ladies out of the way. It was also oddly quiet in comparison, even though it was tons busier in parts. I have to say, I kind of wish I went to Japan for the atmosphere alone, but Korea for the actual work is more worthwhile: better pay, more jobs, etc. And the food! Oh lordy, we had some good food: sushi every day, all fresh and not that frozen tuna crap. Tonkatsu, yakiudon, we even went to a really nice dim sum place and splurged a bit. Good times.

We also did a fair bit of shopping. Dan and I are of course huge nerds, so we hit up the manga places and arcades. He had been looking to play Street Fighter 4 since it's only in Japan, so naturally that was one of the first things we did. They had all kinds of fun, goofy games to play there and I spent many a yen. The manga places were overwhelming and I really didn't know where to start, but ended up buying a few odd things here and there. And of course lots of little toys; I love the Japanese capsule machines for all the cutsy and just plain awesome things you can get out of them, including a bunch of manga-looking Marvel superheroes! As a side note, in Japan 100 and 500 yen (about $1 and $5) are in coin form, so you don't really keep track of them quite as well as you probably should. But also, since it was so fashionable and such, I even went out to a few clothing places and picked up some stuff. I am a consumer whore!

Anyways, that's about it in a nutshell. We got to the airport and our plane ended up being delayed for 2 1/2 hours, which meant we were late for class, but ah well. After a weekend like that, class was the least of my worries. Got lots of fun souvenirs and trinkets for everyone, which will be sent out post haste-esque!

And now, the pics.

Holy Crap, He's Back!

2008-09-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, after a solid month of postlessness, I'm back in action! A little explanation is in order, I guess. Like I had said previously, the end of July and beginning of August marked a joyful period of time known as intensives. Before intensives started, my head teacher John had mentioned that they were planning on doing a new class based on an interview that the kids had to do to get into the international schools here in Korea. It was a class only our branch had planned on doing, so there were no materials for the class and it would have to be entirely made up. Stupid me, I thought, "Awesome, a chance for a little creativity and chance to experiment with all this teacherliness!" So I jumped at the chance, not thinking what was in store for me. When about the 3rd week set in, I was getting so exhausted at the end of the week that death sounded like sweet release. But anyways, I made it through, and after a couple of weeks of recovery time, I feel much more like normal Erick, whatever that might entail.

Things are going well here; it's a new term, and though I definitely miss things about the last term quite a bit still, it's onward and upward! I'm teaching a new set of classes that I wasn't previously trained on, so it's been a learning experience, but apparently people think that I'm up for it, so I take that as some sort of good sign (right?). I'm working Saturdays now, which kinda sucks since I don't really have a solid couple of days off anymore, but it's one class and not something very unheard of here in Korea, so it's fine. I've got a gym membership and have been trying to get into a more healthy routine instead of staying up super late every night going out and waking up groggy and mopey.

We went to the beach yesterday, which was fun except for being there for 5 hours and getting a nice burn victim red on my skin. In Korea, there's a specific beach season that starts at some unknown (to me, at least) date somewhere towards the end of June and lasts through August. It finally ended this weekend completely, which is fantastic for a number of reasons. First of all, let's outline a typical beach visit, Korean-style: one first gets fully dressed, pants and hat and whatnot, and heads over with the fam. When one gets there (Haeundai is the nicest one, but there are a couple others that are not quite so bad/nice), he/she proceeds to swim through a veritable sea of people to the beach. How does one know where the beach is? Why, where the perfect row after row of umbrellas are, of course! Silly me, why would I want to see the sand? If one wants to jump in the water, one should grab a yellow intertube or just walk right in with the shoulder to shoulder wall of swimmers that crowd the shallow end. Why not go out deeper? Because there is a line about 15 feet out where no one can cross, under penalty of incessant whistling from one of the now-present lifeguards that never seem to leave the makeshift towers where they sit. And of course, don't think to have any fun while on the beach, as any kinda of ball or enjoyment is prohibited. So now that that's over, the beach is a much more pleasurable experience.

Lately, the other teachers at our branch have been hanging out altogether much more. Sadly, we lost two teachers after the end of this term, but then we just got two more. They're pretty cool guys, and we've gotten to bring them out and show them around more. We've also become known in the area for being a branch that sticks together, like a teacher gang except without the drugs and guns and murder (ok, maybe a little of each...). I've developed a few favorite haunts around the Busan area, so here's a list for yall.

Seomyeon area (where I live):
Dakgalbi restaurant (right across from the Lotte department store): One of the first places we ever went out to when we first got here, Dan and I love this place despite it being not very typical Korean food. Basically, it's fried rice and chicken that are made right in front of you at the table. But what really makes it is the cheese. That's right, they add cheese to the middle, and it's amazing! A favorite after-work haunt.

Mandu place (next door to the dakgalbi place): Mandu is Korean dumplings and you can find them all over the place, but this place is the best I've found yet. It's a typical Korean place; you go in and grab a table, and they feed you quick so you can be up and out of there with little time for pleasantries. Boiled and fried are the best, and the jajangmyung (brown noodles, Chinese-style) is pretty damn good too. Another favorite work place.

Yakisoba restaurant (near the big cross street, between a bakery and a bar called Girl and Beer): A relatively new find for us, this place has some delicious Japanese-style BBQ. Korea is also big on set meals, which means you pay a larger amount for a variety of food to share with everyone at the table. This place has some great sets, and they have Asahi on tap!

Guri bar (new place, hidden in the mean streets): The first bar I came to here in Busan, it just reopened at a new location. The place is pretty chill, and the owner knows us all, which is cool. Dan thinks it may be mob-owned because of how the other bartenders talk to the owner guy, but I dunno.

Gwangalli beach area:
Thursday party (ummm, on the beach? About halfway down): Somehow, we always seem to end up at this bar on the weekend. A lot of the foreigners in the area meet there, especially the teachers, so you see a lot of people you know. Also, it's right across the street from the beach, so you can play around on the sand and buy some fireworks for a nice Roman candle fight. Just try not to fire into the street; people don't seem to appreciate it.

Haeundai beach area:
OPS bakery (side street between the beach and subway stop): A delicious Western-style bakery that's a must when you're hanging out at the beach all day. They have nice sandwiches, amazing chocolate croissants, and fantastic raspberry smoothies. However, they only seem to have two cds that they play incessantly: Mariah Carey and Maroon 5.

Mexican place (down an alley off the OPS street): Supposedly the only decent Mexican place in the Busan area (sez everyone else, I haven't tested other places yet), the owner used to live in Southern California and has supplies shipped in to make pretty damn good burritos and tacos and whatnot. You only ever see foreigners there, but they can be lined up waiting outside. Another must for the beach, though word is that they're moving to Seomyeon and will be shutting down soon. So pack it in now!

That's about it for now. I'll be updating much more regularly again, so until then!

Apologies are in order...

2008-08-12T04:59:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I haven't updated in forevers! I apologize for all my loyal reader. Right now, I'm in the middle of intensives month for my school. When the kids get time off from school, some might think that means they take vacation. Not in Korea! Instead, the private companies stack on the extra classes, which means us teachers pick up the slack and teach extra hours. I was doubly stupid in that I decided to teach 2 classes, which means I teach an extra class every day of the week, whereas most everyone else does 2 or 3 days a week. That's 3 extra hours a day, but in the morning, then a 3 hour break which is barely enough to get home during, then back to class for 6 more hours in the evening. In other words, right now, leave the house around 9 every morning and get back after 10 pm.

It's not terrible, I'm not angry, but it is stressful and the sleep is lacking. So until this all abates, I probably won't be updating here. But expect something huge when I return! Legendary, even?

Mid-Class Post

2008-07-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I'm proctoring a test for my iBT students, which would be great, if not for the fact that I've been sitting here for 2 hours already with nothing to do except surf Wikipedia and check up on current events and comic news.

My classes tend to run the gammot, from 6-8 year olds up to middle schoolers. With the younger kids, we do a little of everything: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I like the little kids; they're young and energetic and it's easy to get caught up in their enthusiasm and to play off of it. I'm used to dealing with little kids, also, since that's where a lot of my teaching experience is, so the whole discipline thing has never been a problem. The kids here, most people say, tend to be more respectful and attentive to their teachers. I'm not sure I agree; I see the same issues as any of the kids I've dealt with in the states. Sure, they're not inner city tough or anything, but they definitely have that little kid selfishness that you need to keep in check, and some tend to show their privileged status from time to time in that they mouth off or initially refuse something. Also, when you're tired, it's holy murder to keep up with them, because after an elementary age class, you just feel drained. It's not easy work.

My later classes are all middle school age, and they tend to be as different as vodka and gin martinis: same name, but some are just clearly superior. They are broken down by skill level, with the lower level kids still being pushed further than is probably beneficial due to their age. And they know they're low level, so stack that on their burdgeoning self-consciousness and the embaressment of performing in front of their peers and you've got some classes where you're lucky if you can get one kid to answer in a 10 minute period. It's frustrating, more than any other class it is, but in a weird way it's also very invigorating. I walk out of those classes sometimes feeling more pumped up than I did starting the day. And the small victories that you accomplish feel much greater than the other classes. Yeah, I sound like an after school special, but fuck off, it's true!

The upper level kids are fun too, but they present their own challenges. They're much brighter and more advanced in their English than the other classes, so they tend to be able to speak more and about things that are more interesting and advanced. But the classes they're in are terrible, and I mean bamboo under the nails with lemon juice awful. They're all TOEFL focused, which means we're just drilling them on the test, but on top of that, the program structure is just so half-assed and convoluted sometimes that I want to scream. And the kids themselves tend to have a bit more personality, but that also means that a lot of them tend to be cocky. They've studied and lived abroad, they're hot stuff in the English teaching community, and more than enough of them know it. But I do tend to enjoy these classes the most out of any of them, so don't let me make it sound that bad.

That's the low down! Time's up! Later, taters

The Eternal Debate, and More!

2008-07-06T18:49:00.000-07:00

In one corner you've got the deceptively quiet country of maple syrup and hockey, and in the other you've got the six-shooting place that everyone loves to hate. They meet on a battlefield of soju and free maekju one week here in Korea. That's right, last week was Canada Day (July 1) and the American Independence Day (July 4th). How did the combatants measure up?

Canada Day:
Tuesday Night
Free Beer at the Rock n Roll Bar
Pretty good showing
Flip Cup (pro or con? you decide)
Super Enthusiastic Dude in a Canadian Flag
Free Fake Tattoos (ooo, so bad in Korea! That's like spitting in your parents' faces and then yelling "Psych!")
Lots of good ol American rock n roll (?)

Independence Day:
Friday Night
Free Beer that I didn't get to drink :(
A couple of huge house parties
The cops
Inflatable slides and Fireworks on the Beach
Free Breakfast at the Casino
Lots of dudes covered in magic marker w/ flags and "America, Fuck Yeah!" (that's just the cheap ass way of pissing off your parents, which would probably get you slapped)

I'll let you decide the winners there. If only I could've gotten to a KFC for a famous bowl...

So the rest of the weekend went swimmingly! On Saturday, I went to a Korean baseball game: the Lotte (big department store/hotel) Giants vs. the LG (cell phone company) Twins. I'd been hearing big things about games out here: how much the crowd gets into it and chants and whatnot. I've never been a big fan of baseball in the States, so I guess I probably didn't give it the greatest of chances, but I was a bit underwhelmed. The others said that it was a pretty tame game, so that may have been it, and I'm willing to give it another chance. I did start catching on to the cheers, especially for one of Lotte's players, Garcia, which went "Gah-Roo-Shee-Ah!" Also, apparently baseball equates to chicken in Korea, because that's basically all they had around there, chicken and beer. I kept thinking how many chickens must be harvested for each game. Need to get a piece of that sweet murderous action...

Yesterday, I got a call from one of our Korean staff, Mac, who mentioned going for a mountain hike. We got a nice little group together and made our way to Geumjeong Mountain. Man, that was a helluva hike; the weather was a sunny, balmy 81 degrees all the way up, which was UP since a Korean hike apparently means none of this silly switchback shit. It's amazing how fit some Koreans are, because it seems like for all the huffing and puffing I do going up (not to mention being drenched in sweat by the end,mmm), these older folks just go bounding up and down with no hesitation. But we made it up to the top (3 times, since Mac kept telling us we were there, even though we weren't, which was why his friend that came with called him the Lying Man for the rest of the day. I thought he was calling him the Flying Man, which I think would've been a much more interesting story), and we got a pretty rewarding view as a result. Wish I'd brought my camera, but if I can steal a pic or two off of the others, I'll post em. And on the way back down, we got serenaded by some older guy who was feeling pretty good and felt the need to express it. I'd hire him for my bar mitzvah.

After that, in true Korean style, we tucked in for an afternoon of soju and makgeolli. We also learned a couple of Korean drinking games, which mainly involve making up silly rules for people to break. The first one was a version of roshambo that used spoons to keep track of when the winners drink, and every round one of the winners got to make up a rule that everyone followed. The other one involved saying these Korean phrases, but where you were supposed to say "do", you had to clap instead. And then you got to make up rules. I don't know, it was fun, but I enjoy a simple game of Half Cup/Full Cup. Call me old fashioned. Afterwards, of course, we went to norebong and sang what was left of our hearts out.

All in all, I'm gonna have to say I'm liking the experience. The people, both foreign and Korean, seem to be the biggest adjustment, because people just live differently out here. I've met a lot of really cool people, but it's still a big city and can be very intimidating at times. Just getting out and meeting people is key, but I can't help but want to find a nice cozy bar and just chill there or to just go to someone's place and watch a movie or something. For all the fun that going out offers, it's just very stressful for me, and (I know, it's sappy, just skip it if you'd like) I really miss having my close friends around that I can just relax with and not have to worry about how I act around. I guess I'm a little homesick is all. Anyways, work approaches far too quickly, so until next time, keep a weather eye on the horizon!

Miscellany

2008-06-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

Howdy, all. A quick update so as not to keep my audience in suspense. The week was pretty fantastic in that I only had to work 3 hours a day due to finals for the middle school students that usually populate our later classes. I guess I should take the time to mention exactly how my school works, as I don't think everybody's clear on it. So in Korea, you can work in one of two places if you're teaching English: at the public schools or private institutions, called hagwans. I work for a branch of a pretty well-known and popular hagwan. Now, since these are not actual schools, our hours are a little different. We teach 2 classes a day normally, with one starting at 4:30 pm and the other at 7:30 pm, so we're very much night people after a while. I usually don't wake up till 10 in the morning at the earliest. Also, our classes are pretty structured, so we tend not to have a lot of freedom or breathing room in our curricula, but the fact that we don't have to spend a lot of time prepping for class kinda makes up for that.

Anyways, not much work this week means more time to play! I guess I'm getting a little nostalgic for last summer at Riverbend's Summer Camp, as I spent a good amount of time hiking and getting out of the city. On Friday, Dan and one of the Korean staff, Mac, and I visited Beomeosa, where the most popular temple in Busan is. It was really cool to finally get out and see something so specifically Korean; I can't help it, I love the touristy stuff sometimes! It was really nice to get out and walk around too, and you don't really notice how used to the city and all its terrible pollution you are until you get out for a while and remember how clean air feels in your lungs. We also went for a nice hike to the highest temple in the area, which means that we crawled up a terrible, steep face of the mountain to get to a place that wasn't really much different from the rest. But I begrudgingly admit that the view was great. One cool thing of note that Mac told us was that the statues of devils in my photo album are placed at the entrance to the temple. They're supposed to be devil kings of sorts, and when you pass by them, any evil spirits attached to you are instead pulled onto the statues.

That night, we had our welcome party for the branch, which meant we got fed and drunk on the company! And norebong! That's Korean karaoke, for you uncultured swine that weren't in the know. I also tagged along with John, one of the head teachers at my branch, for a Canada Day celebration last nite. I'm not exactly sure why, but there are a crapload of Canadians that ship out here to teach English, so I've heard that Canada Day is a fun time, but unfortunately, it was raining yesterday and that sort of put a damper on things. I guess I'll just have to grab my hockey stick and celebrate privately with a bottle of syrup and a Celine Dion concert.

So today, I decided to bring things down a bit. Once I got up and around, I grabbed my bag and headed to the hills. Elissa, the other head teacher at our school, mentioned that there were some nice trails just past the main city area, provided you don't mind hopping walls and dodging rabid dogs. As a side note, the dogs here are all small and yippy and terrible. Except in my belly! That's right, we went out last weekend and ate dog. Not bad, a little like pork, but very expensive. Oh, get over it, you damn hippy. Anyways, I went for a hike to see what I could find and ended up in this awesome park area that runs all up and down the mountain. I hiked there for a couple of hours and ended up with some gorgeous views of the city. It was just what the doctor ordered, too, since it was great exercise and very cathartic. I tried to get some good pics up there too, including one where you can almost see my home! No, I'm not telling you where I live, creepy stalker dude. After that, I met up with Dan and Mac and another Korean staff person at a cafe down the way. At the place, they had this thing that's popular around here called Doctor Fish. What it is is a big tub full of little bitty fishies. You put your feet inside and they swarm around and feast on your foot fungus and dead skin and whatnot. Weird, no? Well, it was pretty fun nonetheless, although we kinda just walked up without paying and jumped in. Yeah, I'm that guy, the big stupid foreigner.

So that's that. Not sure what else to lay on you, but my mind grapes are currently tapped out. I'll get something good for next time.

Good Times in Busan

P.S. My epic battle with Trash Man came to an end this week, since I walked down with my garbage perfectly sorted. He walked out expecting to throw down, but I impressed him and he tipped his hat and rode off into the sunset of his booth. Take that, Korea!

2008-06-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Alright, I was a little slow with this update (especially since I just got internets!), but I have a reason, which I'll get to in the end. But first off, this weekend I joined a group of folks to go to Fukuoka, Japan! And yes, it was rad. We left early Saturday morning (which meant staying up all of Friday night, though I did cheat and sneak in an hour nap) on a ferry from the Busan port. The trip was 3 hours across open ocean, which is bizarre for me as an American to think about, but I can't say much about the actual ride because we were all passed out. We got in and took our first steps onto foreign soil. Watch out, Japan!

The crew consisted of Dan my training buddy, Maya our friend from the same teaching branch, John that we met from another branch, and Swan who I only just met for the trip. John had been there before, but for the rest of us, it was our maiden voyage. We first walked most of the way up to the local to secure housing, but to our surprise (!) there was no room! So we reserved rooms for the next day and wandered around looking for another hotel to spend a night. We ended up getting 2 doubles and I snuck in so as not to have to buy another room. Of course, with 2 girls and 3 guys, that meant sharing a little tiny room between the biggest of the group. It worked out pretty well, as we walked around during the first day checking out temples and parks, then we ended up going out to a club until pretty late and passed out watching a shitty made-for-tv movie about a plane hijacking. The next day, we went shopping for a bit and found a cool Manga/Anime/Geek store with cool little toy vending machines for like a buck a pop with all sorts of silly Japanese things on them. Then we secured rooms at the hostel, which were singles and, thus, far superior, and spent a well-needed break drinking beers outside the hotel and chatting for a couple hours.

On Sunday night we decided to check out a bath house, since Fukuoka was well-known for them. We took the subway out towards the airport and ended up at this place called Manyou no yo, which is apparently one of the better known. Now, a few things to note on bath houses: First, in case you didn't know, they're big places with a bunch of heated pools and saunas and such, all communal and same sex, and of course you're in there naked. Second, Japanese culture at the same time accepts and despises tattoos, and when you're at a place with a bunch of people and you're naked, there isn't a whole lot you can do to hide them. So Dan and I both have tats, which we were assured by the guy at the front desk of the hostel that they would be fine, but as soon as we get there and get into the washing area, a couple of guys approach each of us and ask us to leave. One just tells me it's ok if I cover mine with a towel, and John manages to fast talk the other guy into letting Dan stay since it's his first time. Dan's tats are far more extensive than mine, and he's Korean to boot, so it's a much harder time for him. But we manage to stick around for a little while, jump around a few pools (including one that was ice cold!) and finally sit down in a sauna before another guy comes and says "You have to leave. People (or his boss, I wasn't exactly clear on it) are complaining". So that was that, we put on some robes and wandered around for a while before the girls met up with us and we took off. Not a terrible experience, but not one I was really hoping for. We spent the rest of the night at a couple of bars and ended up meeting a few foreigners and chatting and dancing till the wee hours of the morning. Then we got up at 7 am and headed down to the ferry to catch our ride home so we could teach later that day! Whoopie!

The food was pretty great. Our first meal while hotel shopping was at a little counter place with ramen, and it was far superior to any ramen I had ever had before. I usually hate the stuff, but it totally turned me around. We ate some sushi later that nite after a stop at an Irish pub, which was pretty bizarre in a totally foreign land. The sushi was fantastic, and we got huge servings of fish that put regular sushi back in the states to shame. We sat at the bar and got the chef's special, and he was a pretty cool guy and threw in some extra sashimi later on. He also put on a cool lil show and was pretty welcoming, especially when Maya started shouting along every time the chefs did. I think they asked her to come back and work with them. For desert, we walked over to a little bakery and had soft cream in little cups with fruit and green tea ice cream, and it was good. We had some tonkatsu at a shady little place in the shopping area that was pretty great as an early lunch on Sunday, and then some udon with tempura and all sorts of deliciousness for dinner before going to the bath house. It was pretty damn good for Japanese cuisine, and I even got to brush up on my extremely rusty speaking skills!

Now comes the bad part: The extreme lack of rest finally took its toll on me Monday night, when first my throat gave out and then the rest of my body followed. I came down with a nasty little bug that I'm just getting over now, but since I was told that getting a substitute was a bitch, I just went ahead and worked last night anyways (and ended up spending a little time at a birthday party. Yeah, I guess I reap what I sow). Ah well, all in all, it was totally worth it. And now, the pictures! Take care, all!

Fukuoka

Lookin Like A Long Day

2008-06-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

I was walking to work today, which I normally do. I live about 20 minutes walk from work, and it's nice to take my time, listen to some music or comedy, and enjoy the city. It's getting pretty warm at the moment, and apparently it's only gonna get worse. But as I was walking today, I passed another white dude. I look up, and there he is, and then he waves and says hi to me. I was thinking to myself, Dude, if we were anywhere else, you wouldn't even acknowledge my existence. But here we are, walking around Busan, and you immediately latch on to the nearest Caucasian. That's how the foreigner community is here, though. I'm guilty of talking mainly to Americans and Canadians, too, but at least I don't walk the streets only talking to the non-Koreans.

Anyways, I'm in a bit of a bad mood, since I got to bed at 7 this morning. We went to Heather's place to make dinner and hang out last night after work, pasta and garlic bread and mandu (dumplings). It was nice and relaxed, and I thought, Hey, it'll be nice to get to sleep early tonite. Then Dan gets a call from his friend Lee, who asks us to come hang out. We figure we'll just go make an appearance and head out an hour later, but then we get there and everyone is heading over to a norebong, which is Korean karaoke. I distinctly remember a couple of people saying "1 song, and we're gone in 15 minutes." About 4 or 5 hours and several horrible renditions of Bon Jovi, Oasis, and Huey Lewis songs later, we're stumbling out onto the sunlit streets of Seomyeon. At least we got to get breakfast at McDonald's! So today's gonna be a long day of classes, then early to bed and late to rise!

In other news, I got my Alien Registration Card! I'm now officially recognized as a person by the Korean government! Seriously, you need this damn card to do anything, and even then, there are certain things that are closed off to non-Koreans. But with my ARC, I also got back my passport, which is good because we're planning on going to Japan this weekend! More on that as it develops.

But I should have internet access at home as of tomorrow or the beginning of next week, so I'll be around to talk more soon! Until then.

Korea Rant #1

2008-06-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not an angry person, normally. The occasional blackout rage episode is healthy, I figure, but I usually don't kill more than one or two people/pets. And Korea's definitely treated me better than most, I'd say. Still, I can't help but get irked by a few things. So here it goes:

1) The only thing that has legitimately pissed me off since I've been here is the fucking garage attendant/trash man for my apartment. Sure, you might look at him and think he's harmless, but beneath that quiet exterior lies a malevolency second only to Beelzebub himself. First off, the trash situation in Korea is a little odd. While walking down the streets, you'll notice that there are NO public trash cans. And yet they hire sweepers that meticulously scour the sidewalks every morning, so it never looks dirty. Like anything, it's full of contradictions. Another thing is that they are fanatical about sorting their garbage. Any apartment complex will have 6 or 7 different trash areas at least, for sorting recyclables and whatnot. It's cool, I'll grant you, but I'm not going to all the trouble of sorting what sorts of plastic I'm pitching.

Enter the trash man. I was initially unsure of where the trash area was, but after a little hunting, I found it next to the little attendant booth under the complex. I lug down a couple of bags of trash and throw them right in. Then, this guy comes literally running out of his booth to scold me in his smug, grating tone, no doubt calling me all sorts of names for stupid which I couldn't understand. He pulls all of my trash out and proceeds to show me where everything goes. Fine, that's nice, I can dig that. But then he shoves the rest of the trash that's unrecyclable back into my hands and refuses to let me throw it away. I pantomime that I don't understand why, and he points at the bags. Apparently, my bags wouldn't seal properly according to strict Korean standards. I bring my trash down the street and proceed to leave it on the side of the road with some other trash, then walk to work.

Yesterday, I attempted to throw away a styrofoam box that I kept my crab in from the weekend before, but knowing that anal-retentive trash man would be there, I preempted his strike by finding my sturdiest plastic bag and seal it up near watertight. He should have no complaints, right? WRONG! I throw it in the trash and walk away, quickly donning my Ipod in case he finds something wrong, so as to ignore his bleating. But the guy chases me down the street and drags me back, berating me more for my ignorance. He pulls the trash out, points at the bag, then points at another bag in the dumpster. Apparently, I needed an official Korean trash bag (trademarked) to throw away my fucking trash. I pointed at my bag, which was clearly more durable and superior and showed him my expert tying off of the top, but to no avail. So I walked down the street and dropped it on the side again, fuming at the pointlessness of it all. The problem is that the trash cans are right next to his booth, and he's ALWAYS there! So I guess from now on I dump my trash on the side of the road. Point, Korea!

2) A minor rant, but one that annoys me nonetheless. As some may have noted, there's not really a concept of personal space in Korea. When you walk down the street, get on the subway, go to a restaurant, everyone is crammed in there with you. It's not bad, and sometimes it's fun cuz you can totally take advantage of it and check people while walking down the street or shoulder your way to fronts of lines and you're just being more Korean!

But the really annoying part is that people are oblivious to others while walking around in public areas. And they can't walk in straight lines, either! So you're walking to work, say, and there's an elderly lady in front of you on a narrow stretch of sidewalk. You want to go past, so you make to go one way and she weaves in front of you. You feint the other way, but she just keeps ducking and weaving, like a drunken boxer. You're stuck walking at her painfully slow pace until the sidewalk opens up again. And she could give two shits about it. It's like walking etiquette is nonexistant here!

Grrr, argh.

Weekend Warriors!

2008-06-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

Hey all, back again! It was a good long weekend full of funnery, but I couldn't write until now and I can't post pictures because I still don't have the interwebs at home. I'm going to work on it this week and see if I can't Skype it up this weekend with yall. And by work on it, I mean bug Paul about it at the office. Paul is our branch's go-to guy; if we teachers need anything (beds, internets, a ride to the store, etc), Paul's our man. I feel bad about bugging him for shit because he's so clearly overworked. But he showed up to a little gathering I had on Friday and got wasted, so that was great! But I get ahead of myself.

So on Fridays, I get off early since I only teach one class that day. I decided to run home and cook up a big ol Mexican meal for everyone and invite them over. We had a decent gathering of 6 or 7 people, the food was good, and we relaxed and talked until like 2:30 in the morning. We also had plenty of alcohol: soju, mekju (beer), and a brand new friend of mine, Makgeolli. One of the girls at work, Maya, brought over like 6 bottles of the stuff, and it's like a sweeter, watered down sort of beer thing, but it's a bit higher in alcohol content and hits you much harder than you'd think. I ended up drinking the better part of two bottles during the night, which I paid for later. But the little party was fun, and it was good to see people outside of work a bit.

I guess I should point out some important facts about drinking here. First off, everyone drinks every night here, and when I say drink, I mean they get down to business time. Last week, Dan and I walked back from work every night and got some food, and without fail every night we saw at least a few people stumbling down the street just plastered. On Wednesday, we saw two dudes fighting each other, but they were so drunk they mostly just held each other up to keep from sprawling on the ground. And yet, without fail, every person wakes up bright and early to go to work in the morning. It's amazing, really.

Anyways, after everyone decided to take off, Maya asked us if we wanted to hang out for a while longer and go do or see some stuff. We figured we'd go to the beach, since it's one of the big places to go here in Busan. So we hopped in a cab and headed over. Now, the cab wasn't the best idea for me, being the only one drunk. I had also decided to finish the rest of a bottle of wine from home right before we left, so as not to let it go to waste. And taxi drivers aren't much better here than in the states; in fact, they're worse. So after I evacuated dinner, we grabbed some ice cream and went to the beach! There were people all up and down it selling and firing fireworks, so we naturally immediately bough some and fired away! It also happened to be one of our group of 4's birthday, and she really enjoyed it, so that was worth it. Afterwards, we watched the sun rise, then headed back to Somyeon for a breakfast of BBQ and seafood stew. Then we all went and crashed for a few hours.

The four of us woke up and met up in the early afternoon to head out again. We wanted to go to the fish market, another Busan landmark. So we hopped the subway over and fished it up! It was fantastic; just rows and rows of tanks of seafood, all alive and waiting to jump in your belly! There were tubs full of squid, gross red worms, crabs, flounder, clams and mussels, and of course octopi!! We ended up ordering an octopus up and having the lady chop it up for a delicious squirmy meal! It was especially fun to feel the little suckers latch onto your tongue. I also ended up buying a crab, which the birthday girl Heather named Cristobel. Needless to say, he was delicious last night.

The rest of the night, we went to a great big wholesale market type place and bought some odds and ends. It was great, you could find everything there and you bargained for all of it. We went out that night to a couple of bars called Fuzzy Navel, the second of which was a big foreigner spot. They also had fire shows, where the bartenders would do tricks w/ flaming bottles of booze. They weren't great, though, and constantly dropped them, but as long as they don't drop one on me, I'll forgive them. It was hilarious to see everyone get into it at the bars, though. Everyone was singing along w/ the songs and dancing in their chairs, and the bar staff would have these coordinated dances. We spent the rest of the night and the following day hanging out and playing Grand Theft Auto.

All in all, a solid weekend! And this coming weekend, it looks like we're gonna take a ferry to Jeju Island. Look it up and you'll be as excited as I am! Party on, Wayne.

First Class Approaching

2008-05-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I don't have internet access at my new apartment, so I won't be able to update except at work, which means this will have to be brief. I'm waiting for my first day of classes to start, which is in about a half hour. I'm a little nervous, but mainly I just want things to start. My first day consists of Memory English, a lower level course that mostly involves reading and interpretting stories, and Bridge English reading and writing, which is an intermediate class a step above the first. I feel pretty prepared, but it'll all become apparent once it's crunch time.

I've been in Busan for a weekend now. We were supposed to make a train 2 hours after training ended, which was near impossible when you factor in Seoul traffic. So, no surprise, we missed it and had to catch the next train, which was slower too, so we didn't arrive until after midnight. It also turned out that my apartment wasn't ready, so I was shacked up in a "love motel", which means pretty much exactly what you'd suspect. To top it off, we also had to get up semi-early to attend yet another training. So I'd say my first impression of Busan wasn't favorable.

Still, after that, it's all been uphill. We got a pretty great welcome from the center we're working at, and everyone's been super helpful. I say "we" because I came to my branch with another trainee that I met, Daniel, who can speak a smattering of Korean but is still pretty new to all this, so we've been hanging out alot and taking in the city and work together. I was able to get into my apartment on Sunday, and it's pretty damn nice! It's somewhat close to the school and even closer to the major city center, Somyeon. I'm slowly stocking the place so it's habitable, but since it's just me, I'm not too picky and should be able to make do with the bare essentials. It even has an exercise bike! So I guess now I have no excuses.

Some funny things I've encountered since last time:
1) At the fast food places, your cup is sealed and placed in a paper bag, which is also sealed. It's nice in case you can't carry a separate cup, I guess, but it's mainly a pain in the ass to open.
2) The train station bathroom had this odd sort of arm thing that swings back and forth over the sink with a bar of soap attached. Wish I'd gotten a picture.
3) People in Korea are very friendly with each other. Like VERY friendly by Western standards. It's not uncommon to see two guys walking down the street arm in arm or holding hands, even though being gay is still considered a huge taboo here.
4) The escalators here have motion sensors so they won't move unless you step onto them. Kind of common sense, right?
5) Apparently, becoming friends with English-speakers is desirable in some respect, even though foreigners are not exactly welcomed. Dan and I were both approached by a salesperson after we had left the store, and he told us, "If you want a friend, come see me." Then today, another guy told Dan the same thing. Kind of odd, right? But at the same time, easy way to make local friends!
6) I tend to be stared at pretty often in public. As a tall white dude, I stick out like a sore thumb since the Korean population is pretty homogenous, and it doesn't bother me much. But it's still amusing to look up and see people glance away quickly on the subway and such.

Erick. OUT!!

Training and Adventures

2008-05-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a helluva week, but with the end quickly approaching, I thought I'd hit a few highlights for yall. First off, we've had our hands full with instructor training here. At first, my roommate Paul and I were laughing because it seemed like we'd barely be training and it would be a short, easy jaunt where everyone was telling us, "It'll be the hardest week of your career with the company!" Turns out they may have been right, go figure. It probably doesn't help that I was unemployed and lazy as hell for 3 months prior to this, but the days are filled with lectures and mock teaching in front of small groups. As a teacher with some experience, you'd think this'd be no big deal, but standing in front of a group of peers and modeling an unfamiliar new style is still just as nerve wracking as when I first stepped into a classroom. Add a few hours of studying and prep every night, along with sleep deprivation, a drastic shift in time zones, and an unfamiliar environment, and the week has begun to take its toll. I'm feeling a little under the weather and plenty tired, even though I laid down for like a half hour and could get to sleep for the life of me. Luckily, tomorrow marks the end of this whole ordeal, and maybe I'll get a full night's sleep this weekend.

The people I've met here are definitely worth it, though. We've got people from all around the U.S. and Canada, so there's a great mix of personalities, with everyone being open to meeting new people and going new places. And what's more, we're going all over Korea, so we'll be able to keep in touch and visit each others' areas when possible. It's great to have an easy social network for this week, and it'll just expand across the country after that.

So now, about the city. Seoul is freakin huge! Sky scrapers everywhere, people just jam packed on every street, and there's no shortage of places to go. It's also a city that never sleeps, which I haven't really explored, but you can tell that everyone's up late into the night, and when it's time to party (which is every night) they will party hard. Every morning, we jump on a bus that takes us through Gungnam (just south of the Han river and downtown Seoul) up over the river and through the city to the training center. The bus driver's this older Korean dude that's always smiling and makes my morning. The drive is pretty crazy. Now, I've been to Latin America and seem some really insane driving, but the thing about this place is the sheer volume of cars, all super aggressive. Cars drive up and park on sidewalks, buses do U-Turns in the middle of the street, and the whole time you don't really see many accidents. It's well-orchestrated chaos.

The food has been pretty great so far. The first night I was here, we met up w/ a big group of trainees and ordered a ton of spicy pork rice and these basic noodles with a black sauce called jjajjamyung. Since then, I've been heading out for lunch and dinner every day, trying mostly new things. There's kimbop, which are these delicious sushi rolls that are packed with veggies, egg, and a bunch of stuff you can order like tuna, beef, kimchi, and so on. We found a dumpling (mandu) place that was similar to dimsum; you could get these simple rice paper wrapped pork dumplings or sticky buns filled with pork (or chicken? we actually weren't sure) or sweet bean. Another night, I had a spicy seafood ramen with squid and clams and these little shrimp that still had their shells. I paid for the spiciness the next day, tho, I promise you. And then there's bulgogi, which is only the most delicious of marinated beef. The amazing thing was that you can get your fill of any of those dishes for $3 or less! Truly, I am growing to love this country. I might have to take it behind the middle school...

Hilariously enough, we also went out on one of the first nights to a Hooters down the street. I can't make any excuses for myself except to say I followed the group, but the ladies definitely didn't fit the normal Hooters archetype. Also, it was by far the most expensive meal I've had here, like 7 times more than anything else! There are tons of chains around like that, and American food is pretty expensive to go out for. There are also a ton of coffee places (Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and even Dunkin Donuts), and they're usually pretty pricey too, even compared to the prices in the States. That's probably all for the best, since I prefer going out and trying all sorts of new stuff, and when I leave for Busan tomorrow, I'll have a whole new area to explore!

Anyways, here are some pics; I haven't taken many as I'm horrible at remembering, but you can get a sense of the city. The first ones were taken from the roof of the training center.

Take care all, and see you in Busan!

We're Gonna Make It After All!

2008-05-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

That's right, folks, I've made it to Korea! Woo hoo!!! :::streamers and balloons:::

Well, it wasn't all that fun, but I'll get to that. Before that, first impressions: Seoul is very wet. There's a lot of water around it and going through it, which makes sense, but you don't really understand it till you're driving in. Also, Korea's very mountainy, which is another no-brainer, but flying in I got a real sense of otherworldliness with these lush green hills all around. It was like Jurassic Park, except with less T-Rex and Samuel L. Jackson action. The people are also both super helpful (also to be outlined later) and incredibly hurried and oblivious. The city area I'm in is large and busy, very much like New York City, and I'm kind of excited to see what the rest of it is like, especially at night when it's all done up in neon and glamour.

I made a point to write out a minute to minute of the flight, but it kind of fell apart once I got on the second leg of my journey from Beijing to Incheon Airport, but I've got plenty to speak of for that. It's in Pacific California Time, in case you were confused. Here it goes:

1:38 AM: Seated aboard the plane. Anxious, excited, and just a little tired. Korea book is out and I plan on being productive this flight. Also, does something smell like piss? Pretty sure it's not me...

2:10 AM: Just started moving! No air jets on this plane; gonna be a sticky ride. Stewardess's English makes her sound like a robot; must investigate later.

2:19 AM: Just closing eyes as we take off.

3:10 AM: Abruptly woke to stewardess offering drinks they came 4 times in the next 30 minutes with food also. Eating shrimp fried rice, not quite sure if I woke up. Think I'll try some more sleep.

9:13 AM: Awake again, back to work!

11:30 AM: Lights on, hissss. Getting some reading done, gonna know something about this country, dammit!

2:09 PM: We've started our descent and the windows are open. Looking out, I can see a bright red sunrise, which we've been racing all the way here.

2:17 PM: Touchdown! The crowd goes wild!

So I clearly made it to my next flight after a sojourn through the Beijing airport, which was pretty cool and swanky, though there was some difficulty with communications and I ended up going through security again, sadly losing my water bottle in the process.

Upon touchdown in Incheon International Airport, I successfully navigated customs and baggage claim to the bus stop outside. There, I started to hit snaffus aplenty. First of all, I found out from my current roommate that there was supposed to be a shuttle to pick me up and take me directly to my hotel; I never received that email, so I instead opted for the bus. I went up and told the lady my destination (Gungnam, Please!), only to notice once I was lined up that it wasn't the right ticket. After a quick exchange, I got the right one and jumped on, having averted the only crisis for the trip, right?

WRONG-O!!! First indication: all that beautiful fog meant that it was actually raining in Seoul. Fine, I'll just take a cab to the hotel. I get off at my stop with my luggage (2 rolling suitcases, a carry on bag, and my laptop bag) and struggle across the street to find a cab and my bearings. The light's a little long to get across, but a lady with an umbrella silently walks next to me and covers me as well. Keen! I walk across and wait at the side of the road, now uncovered, and attempt to flag down taxi after taxi after taxi. I don't know if it was because I was clearly foreign, had luggage, it was raining, or they just thought it was a hilarious combination of all of the above, but every cab passed me by. I stand out in the rain for 15 minutes as it alternates between heavy and tropical downpour. Eventually fed up, I walk to another area, give up again, and take shelter near a jewelry store. I go in and ask if the ladies know where my hotel is, which they both don't and can't really communicate with me, but they do offer me a free umbrella! I walk out, dejected, only to meet a mother and daughter from California that offer to flag a cab for me. Eventually, the mom calls one up and I hop in after profusely thanking them, only to find out that my cab driver both doesn't know where my hotel is and can't really communicate with me either. We drive around, confused, for a good 30-40 minutes as the meter just ticks on and I get more and more suicidal. Then, by some miracle of God, we spot it! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I clambour out and to my room, soaked, tired, hungry, and a little dejected, though I had seen a glimmer of hope in humanity.

My roommate is a nice guy, though, and he's a little more Korea-experienced and has shared some helpful insights while offering to join me in a tour of the city this week. Also, our room has a bidet! Yay!

One More Day!

2008-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow night for Korea, folks, this is it! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive about the whole thing, but I think I'm decently prepared for the shift. I've also been waiting here in LA for long enough without anything to do, and when I'm not working or going to school, I tend to get very antsy and moody. What can I say, my momma taught me a solid work ethic!

I'm not sure if I fully outlined my arrival to Korea since I've been asked about it more than once, so here's the deal: I arrive in Seoul on Sunday around noon. My company has a hotel room reserved and paid for (sweet!), so I'll be zipping over there and most likely just sleeping for the rest of the day. The next day (Monday, the 19th), I start training in Seoul at the school's headquarters along with all the other new teachers. After 5 days of that, I'll leave on Friday the 23rd for Busan, where I'll meet up with a person from my school that will show me my new apartment. Then, after a weekend of getting situated, I start work on the 26th.

In preparation for the trip, I finally went out and picked up a travel guide, which I plan on reading fully on the trip over. I also contemplated picking up a book on etiquette, but instead sat and read it with a coffee. I love looking over all the little idiosyncrasies that each cultural has in regards to what is considers appropriate; it's something you never realize until you go to a foreign place. I also did it in homage to Jake for his dogged following of protocol; without him, I'd never have known that in parties of 6 or more, you aren't required to wait for everyone to get their food before you eat! Here are a few things I learned after reading up on Korean etiquette:

-When passing something to someone, you should never do so with your left hand.
-Never pour drinks for yourself, but instead everyone at the table should offer to pour drinks for everyone else.
-Always wait for the elderly to do things first: sit, eat, drink, etc.
-Don't jam your chopsticks into your rice bowl or place them parallel across the bowl.
-Avoid the number "4", since the word for "4" in Korean is similar to the word for "death".
-Something less common now, it used to be the case that people on buses that were sitting down would hold the bags of people standing as a courtesy.
-And, last but not least, NEVER PAT A KOREAN ON THE HEAD!! I heard from Jim's boss that this is because of the belief that spirits enter and/or leave from the top of the head, so you're not supposed to disrupt that. But I'm more curious about which culture does this normally enough that they felt the need to write it down. Or maybe that'll be my first impulse off the plane; good thing I know to stifle it! Thanks, book!

Seattle Trippin !!!

2008-05-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

Today marks the official one-week mark before I shove off to Korea! I also happen to be visiting my parents in Seattle, which is also coincidental since a) it's Mother's Day tomorrow, and b) the Emerald City Comic Con is this weekend! Happy Mother's Day! And I'm off to the nerd gathering.

It's been a pretty action-packed, rip-roaring time up here in the sleepless city. Here are the highlights:

Wednesday- After getting on an earlier flight (yay!), I ended up not only taking the wrong bus but also taking the slowest bus man has ever designed!! Needless to say, I was on the bus longer than my plane, and thus spent about 2 seconds in the city before zipping across the Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island. The 'rents live in Suquamish, with a disgustingly gorgeous view of the water surrounding the city from right out of their back porch!

Thursday- Mom and I went back to Seattle as Jim rested from a rather invasive medical procedure. We did a solid amount of the touristy crap, going to the Space Needle (terrifying!), Pike's Place Market (busy and exciting), and Pioneer Square (old timey, with lots of cool buildings and some fantastic bookshops), along with the Sci-Fi Museum and adjacent Experience Music Project (EMP). We also took the Monorail!! :::cue Simpsons song::: Topped the day off with dinner at Place Pigalle, a restaurant in the market that came recommended from Sir Carni; the food was pretty good, the view of the waterfront was fantastic, and the bartender knew her shit (the Pimm's Cup was a refreshing appertif!).

Friday- Both parents went into work, so I woke up early and took the ferry into the city for some exploration of my own. Walked around aimlessly, as nothing was open, until I saw a cool building off in the distance and found the St. James Cathedral. I then took a circuitous route through Pioneer Square again to the Public Library, which was all funky and hip. Decided against entering the art museum (too many whipper snappers!), and instead went back to Pike's Place to do a little shopping and grab a quick lunch and a couple pints. Feeling pretty good, I went down to the waterfront and the Seattle Aquarium! It was a little too kid-centric, but the otters more than made up for it! After that, I met up with my mom in Bainbridge (ferry!), and we went to her boss's for a bbq.

Saturday- Took our time getting up, we all eventually piled into the car and took off for a scenic drive around the Washington coast, during which I was asleep for about half the time. I can't help it; car rides just put me out! We ended up at Olympic National Park, a mountainous forest area. It was sadly a little too foggy and dreary for much mountain gazing, but we saw a good amount of snow up there! We drove over to Port Townsend, where we walked around a bit and had a seafood dinner. Spent the evening watching the water and sipping mint juleps. It's good to own land.

Some thoughts on the city: Seattle's a mix of East Coast city and San Francisco. It's hilly, a little chilly (hehe), the people are a bit friendlier, and it's a good mix of old and new. It's also a city that welcomes smokers, as I've seen plenty of them sauntering about. Speaking of vices, my coffee count is already in the double digits, which is funny considering I attempted to give up coffee a couple of months ago. The quality is definitely a bit higher here, as one would expect, but you can definitely still get a bad cuppa joe. People are definitely proud of their city and show it, which is, I guess, another more east coast characteristic. And finally, there's a weird obsession with teriyaki here, since there's a place proudly displaying the word in bold, often neon, letters on every freakin block! Is teriyaki a new fad? Why is Seattle just jumping on this? I need to know!

And now, the pics!

The city, from the ferry.

And from the Space Needle!

The Sci-Fi Museum and EMP

Pioneer Square (notice the building covered in ivy)

Pike's Place Market (Just behind the trucks: Rachel the Pig!!!)

And now for something completely different...

2008-05-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't have any new Korean updates, but that doesn't mean I've been sitting on my laurels, oh no!! A few fun new developments:

1) I got a new digital camera! Alisa and I both went to Best Buy and bought cameras, as I was told that I needed one before I left. It's a Panasonic Lumix, a tasteful silver color (as opposed to the horrid light blue one in the slightly more expensive model), tricked out w/ face recognition and image stabilization and whatnot. So prepare yourselves for my pictoral exploits! Wait, here's the inaugural picture now!

2) As you may notice from the picture, my finger's a lil screwy. The official story involves a hooker, a cat, and two tubes of toothpaste, while the unofficial story involves a bottle and 11 stitches. Draw your own conclusions.

3) I'm taking off tomorrow for Seattle, where I'll be visiting my parents for near a week. Perhaps a Seattle Trippin' update is in order? We shall see!

Oh, I need sleep, so until next time!

Update-a-roo!

2008-05-03T07:55:00.000-07:00

A few things to send word about. Firstly, after a few speed bumps, I have my plane ticket! I leave on May 17th at 1:something in the morning and arrive at noon THE FOLLOWING DAY! Sounds odd? Well, here's the math:

-A flight to Korea takes, at its shortest, 12 hours and 40 min.
-I, however, am flying with one stop in Beijing, which is a comparable length, but which adds another leg. Add a 3 and a half hour wait between flights aaaaand...
-another flight of 2 hours from Beijing (that's in China!) to Incheon International Airport, outside of Seoul.
-But wait, don't forget the time difference! Korean Standard time is 16 hours ahead of me currently in California (that's 9 hours ahead of UTC).

That comes out to a total of 34 hours and 10 minutes of my life spent on this flight. I damn well better get something free out of it. I figure the 16 hour difference is like an investment in the bank. When I return, I'll suddenly gain all this time and be able to run around and yell at people, "I'm from the FUTURE!!!" My return will be glorious, await it!

Anyways, yesterday, besides watching Iron Man!!!!, Rachel and I headed out to BKJ, a Korean restaurant that she found off a list of reviewed Korean restaurants online. It was located in downtown L.A., specifically Koreatown, so you know it'll be the real deal. According to her, we were adorable non-Korean Americans, and the owner of the restaurant clearly wanted to adopt us, but I'm a little dubious. We walk in and the place clearly is not frequented often by non-Korean speaking folks such as ourselves, but cool and unphased, we took a seat and surveyed the menu. Luckily, there were short explanations in English under a few of the Korean names, so we weren't completely lost, but then a waitress comes and hands us the Dennys-style menus that are all in English with pictures. We decide on our foods (I get the yookgaejang, a beef stew with vegetables and noodles, and Rachel gets the hae-mul pajeong, a pancake with scallops and such. She doesn't eat pork and it was pretty much the only thing that didn't have any, since, hilariously, every dish seemed to include bacon!) and the waitress takes off.
But we can't stop there! What about the drinks? So we both awkwardly walk to the front where they have two refrigerators full of beverages. We look for a little while, until the waitress comes to the rescue. We order up some soju, which we later get several lessons on drinking. First, we're given shot glasses, simple enough: a nice, cool sipping beverage. Then one waitress asks if we want lemon, saying that it's better that way. Fair enough, bring it on! Then, some time into our meal, the owner comes out and says she'll make us a soju cocktail, claiming "this is how men drink it". She squeezes a whole lemon into a cup of ice and tops it off with a generous amount of soju and a splash of water, shakes it with a silly little dance, and serves it up. It was pretty tart, but also delicious and refreshing. As a side note, Rachel ended up sneaking the rest of the bottle into the movie theater, where she made a diet Mountain Dew/Soju drink that was actually pretty tasty.
The food was great, and luckily the place was next to empty so there weren't many to witnesses to our no doubt numerous follies in Korean dining. Needless to say, it was a pretty daunting experience and there aren't many times I felt that out of my element. I've been to places where things are written in Spanish, but even then, the letters are recognizable to me and I can sort out enough to get by. But this was a whole new level of foreign, which oddly enough makes me really interested to find out how I can get by in Korea proper. It was good encouragement to learn a bit more before I leave, and I definitely plan on hitting up a few more restaurants before I go (thanks, Rachel!). Also, in case you plan on hitting up a Korean restaurant soon, do yourself a favor and check out this article on dining etiquette. I certainly wish I had, since I was looking around during the whole meal, hoping to find someone to copy off of when I wasn't sure how to eat the side dishes or how to best eat my soup and rice.

Finally, I've been listening to some Korean language podcasts to bone up on some helpful words and phrases. Here's a list of pretty much all I know thus far:

Ahnyong ha seyo = hello
Joeun ahchimineyo = good morning (not used often)
yobosayo = hello (when answering the phone)
gamsahamnida = Thank you
gomapseumnida = Thanks
daedanhi gamsahamnida = Thank you very much.
cheonman-eyo = You're welcome (more literally, It's nothing)
ani-eyo = You're welcome (less formal, like No problem)

Interview with a Consulate

2008-04-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I overcame my final obstacle in getting into Korea. I know, it was a long and arduous journey, but after a series of Herculean tasks of mental, physical, and spiritual fortitude, I have it. Behold! The Visa!!!

(not sure what's sensitive information, so covered up a few important-looking things)

What final, death-defying hurdle did I overcome to receive such a fabled treasure? The INTERVIEW!!!

Essentially, the interview consisted of a person from the consulate reading my application form and then posing that which I had already written in the form of a question to myself, i.e. "So you're working for the Chung Dahm Institute?", to which I would reply, "Yes." Again, "Wow, so you went to school at Berkeley?" "Yes." "What did you study?" "Psychology." As it clearly states in the section marked Major. Again, I ask, What purpose does this serve? Maybe if I were an ill-prepared shape-shifting alien or a tripped-out serial killer in an Erick suit, this interview may have fulled me, and I stress may. But as it turned out, they were foolish enough to grant me entry into their country, and now I shall subjugate them all!!!!!
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Also, the other day my sister was watching a show about disgusting foods that other countries eat (because our foods are far less disgusting. I don't feel like crap after eating a drive-thru burger, oh no! anyways...), and it referred to the Korean way of eating octopus, called sannakji. If you haven't seen it, go check it out on YouTube, but essentially, what they do is take live octopi and pull them like taffy and chop them up. And since they're crazy cephalopods, they keep twitching for something like 2 or 3 hours after they are diced. A little grossed out, yeah, a lot intrigued, uh huh.

Almost there!

2008-04-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

The paperwork's done on their end, and I've got my visa pin number! Now I just need to submit some paperwork to the consulate here and get an interview. I wonder what sorts of questions they ask. "Do you plan on teaching well, or will you sabotage our kids' English-speaking abilities?" The answer is ALWAYS sabotage.

In other news, a Google News search turned up the following Korean news articles:
South Korea Lifts U.S. Beef Ban Apparently, this is a huge deal, as it's everywhere this morning.
Lee Promises U.S. a `Business Friendly' South Korea
South Korea fights worst birdflu in four years Awesome.
South Korea Says 'Critical' Nuclear Talks with North Should Resume Soon Double Awesome.
MySpace launches in South Korea
Korean astronaut set to return to earth
A royal flush: Toilets a big deal in South Korea
Cloned Sniffer Dogs Report for Training "'Toppy' is a compound name meaning 'tomorrow’s puppy'" 'Nuff Said!

Just the Facts

2008-04-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've started listening to some Korean language podcasts in the hopes of gleaning some morsel before being thrown to the wolves. I'm terrible at learning languages, so if I can know enough to order a coffee without starting an international incident, I'll be happy.

Spent the day doing some basic research on Korea. I'd rather not be one of those douchebag Americans that can't even tell where Korea is on a map or what language is spoken there (it's Korean!). So here are a few things that've come up:

-The currency, the Korean won, is worth .001021 U.S. dollars (as of 4/14/08).
-South Korea is 38,492 square miles, which is somewhat larger than Maine.
-The land is mostly mountainous, with lowlands only constituting 30% of the total area.
-There are approximately 49,044,790 people there, and it's the 12th densely populated country, although it has the lowest birthrate in the world.
-46.5% of the country claims no religious preference.
-South Korea's economy is the 12th largest in the world and the 3rd largest in Asia (it grew so quickly up through the 90s that it was known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Grrr).

The area I'll be in, Busan, is the second largest city in Korea, next to Seoul (it's the capital!), 3.65 million people strong, and it's located on the southeast coast of the country, right across from Japan. It's a port city, mainly known for freight and transportation, along with its beaches and seafood. It's divided into 15 gu (districts), and I'll be working in Busanjin-gu (or Jin-gu). It's known for an area called Seomyeon, which is a major business and shopping place. There's also a Free Economic Zone in the area, which sounds intriguing...

Anyways, that's the lowdown so far. Got plenty of time to continue the research, so sally forth!

Visa-a-go-go

2008-04-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

Grrr, I'm antsy to leave. A month is a long time to wait, especially with nothing else to do! Well, almost nothing. To get my working visa, I had to compile a few documents.

1) Your original diploma
2) Sealed transcripts from your university (1 copy minimum)
3) 2 passport photos
4) The front page of your passport (the pages with the picture)
5) The criminal records check with the Apostille notary
6) The attached medical/health statement signed & filled out

Now, some of these are pretty obvious; passport, photos, transcripts. But my original diploma? I mean, what is this going to prove that the transcripts can't? I mean, sure, it's got a shiny gold seal, but why not a copy? I guess I'm just bitter because it took forever to get my diploma and now I have to send it off.

And the criminal check, that was a serious pain. Here's the deal: so you first have to get fingerprinted for a criminal check, pretty standard. They do this fancy Livescan thing too, where you have your prints put directly into a computer and sent to Sacramento for processing. You're instantly put on the grid! So then, when you get your check in the mail, you're supposed to get this Apostille stamp on it, which sounds easy enough. It's a stamp, right? The person just needs to stamp it right on. At least, that's what I thought when I showed up at the Department of Justice in downtown LA. I get to the counter and the lady pretty much laughs in my face. Silly me! It turns out that it's not enough to get this goofy stamp to approve my official criminal record check; it first has to be notarized, then approved by the county clerk (I'm still not sure what that was about), THEN I could get this stamp. Three hours later and I've got a bright new document approving me for, what again?

Ah well, it's all been compiled and sent out, so I'm on my way! Did I mention it cost $80 to send it priority? Yay!

The Inaugural Post!

2008-04-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

Smash a bottle on this sucka, cuz it's ready to roll!

I guess a little explanation is in order here. I intend for this to be more of a journal/update center for friends and family, so it'll be treated as such. Still, for anybody not in the know, here's the story:

About a month and a half ago, I broke up with my long-time girlfriend. I know, tragic, kind of a bummer to start off this journal, but there you go. I had moved across the country with her the year before in an attempt to "try something new." See, after college, I knew that I wasn't ready to jump back into more school. I enjoyed the hell out of it, don't get me wrong; still, four years was plenty, and I was ready to get out and actually do something. So I took up various teaching jobs and tried my hand at something that I really enjoyed and thought I could find a career in. I worked at a charter school in the Philadelphia and at an after school program. During the summer, I worked at an environmental education camp (Riverbend represent!). After a year of living outside of Philly, we moved to State College, where she started grad school and I desperately searched for a job.

Now, I've always been a lucky bastard when it comes to finding work or school or whatever. I tend to fall into things quickly, which could be some reflection on my abilities, but I think it's more likely just good luck. So when I got to State College, it was the first time that I wasn't able to find something nigh instantly that I wanted to do. Still, a couple of months in, I ended up at an amazing job running an after school program. It was a rough start, but I found a purpose, and I made some fantastic friends there. Life was good. Then the other shoe dropped, and I won't dwell on that stuff too much. I feel like I've bled my friends' ears dry talking about all the shit that comes part and parcel with a major breakup. But it definitely rocked my world, and I decided instead of sitting around there moping in the middle of nothing-PA, I would pack up and move back to California.

About a week and a half ago, my mother came to visit my sister, who I moved in with here in LA, and me. It was great because we got out and did stuff, we went to all our favorite restaurants, took walks on the beach, and just enjoyed ourselves. We also got to talking about what had happened and what I was going to do. My mother can really irritate me sometimes when it comes to stuff like this, but talking to her then was revelatory. Somewhere along the line, she said to me, "Didn't you apply to some program after college to teach English in Japan? Why not do that?" And I thought to myself, yeah, why not? Just leave the country, spend a year somewhere else completely. I'm not attached to anything here at all, and when else am I going to do something that crazy and different? So that night, I looked up programs to teach English abroad. I sent out a few resumes to see what was what, and continued on with my normal job search. Literally the next day, I received four or five responses, and within three days, I had a job offer.

Like I said, sometimes I'm just damn lucky. I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and he mentions (more than a few times) that when you are searching for your personal goal, the whole universe conspires to help you. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's funny how things just work out for the best in spite of everything. The best of all possible worlds, eh? Anyways, here I am, set to leave the country less than a month after I moved back home, battered and confused. And I couldn't be happier with how things are working out!

So the breakdown is that I am off for South Korea. Specifically, it looks like I'll be in Busan, which is in the southeast, right across from Japan. The leave date is set for May 18th, barring any problems. Things I have to account for:

-housing is taken care of by the company I'll be working for
-salary has yet to be set, but should be around $2500/month U.S., which I've been told is more than enough to live off of comfortably
-travel arrangements have yet to be made, but the company offers reimbursement
-my stuff is already pretty much packed, since I just moved anyways, so that's at least a positive!
-according to my contract, I'll be there for a year from my start date

Oh, yeah, and I don't know a lick of Korean.

Wish me luck!

Erick