Dinner

Posting this several weeks after the fact, but I found a Korean cookbook written in English and have begun experimenting with some actual Korean cooking at home. My first attempt was gimbap, which is much like a sushi roll except that it is filled with cooked meats and vegetables instead of raw fish. Really tasty, and packs well for lunch or hiking :) I made mine with canned tuna and it was really tasty! :D

English Town (my second school)

Gotta love the touch-screens for the kids games! ... oh, and the fuzzy blue monster mask is mine :)

Seong Dong Chaddon Hakkyo

Classes

I realized that I keep posting about my weekend travels, but not showing anything about my schools here. I love my classes (almost always) and have been having a lot of fun figuring out new ways to keep them interested in speaking in class. This week I was teaching them about Halloween so we made monster masks, learned about haunted houses, and watched videos of Halloween songs on youtube... I even showed my 4th graders at English Town a scary story online, not sure they really understood it though. Mostly the kids just like learning about monsters and getting to trick-or-treat at the end of class. On normal weeks I try to think of games and activities that will go along with whatever they're learning in their other English classes. So far the hits have been chain stories, making up and drawing their own superheroes, and vocabulary battleship :)
This week was strange because my classes kept being moved around for some standardized testing that the teachers had forgotten they had to do- they have a LOT of standardized testing here... I think this is my third set or so in the two months I've been here. And today a number of the schools in our town are closed because of fears of H1N1- including mine. Hopefully I'll have classes back by Monday.

Chang Deok Gung Palace

Second trip to Seoul

Last weekend was my second trip to Seoul since arriving here in Korea. Dan and I caught an early bus up and met Tom and Bernard at Seoul Station early afternoon. There was a protest going on at the station that day- looked pretty peaceful to me, but they had police units out in full riot gear just in case :) The "police" looked about 18 years old, so we're thinking that they might have been military... all the boys here do a few years in the military after high school. We decided to head straight over to where the palaces are and took a tour of the second palace (there are 5 in Seoul) Chang Deok Gung palace. It was gorgeous! The largest remaining of all the palaces, it took about an hour to do the walking tour through the grounds. I love the old architectural styles here in Korea and all the lovely statues and painted details. It's the height of fall here as well, so the leaves changing in all the garden areas made it even more beautiful. I'll post a few pictures here, but there are lots more on my facebook page for anyone who wants to see. After the palace tour, we walked through Insadong, a popular neighborhood for tourists in Seoul that is full of cafes and little shopping areas as well as a number of galleries for local artists. We stopped into a couple of the galleries on our walk, sampled some traditional candy that they make from strings made of glutinous rice and honey with sugared nuts inside, and actually ate some of the boiled silkworm larvae that they sell in street carts throughout Korea. Yeah... can't say that the silkworms were my favorite, we definitely didn't finish what we were given, but really they weren't quite as bad as I was expecting either. After the silkworms we decided to stop at a little Indian cafe nearby where I had hot chai, the guys tried some fruit lassis and teas and we all shared one of the hookah pipes with cherry flavored tobacco. It was really quite good, had a very refreshing fruity flavor and made for a nice relaxing afternoon people watching from the cafe windows. Then we met up with Matt, one of Bernard's friends, and headed over to the Hongdae area near Hongik University where we had reservations at a guest house to stay for the night. Being near the university, Hongdae is famous for it's clubs and nightlife, but we actually had a pretty mellow evening having dinner at a nice little restaurant and then going to a couple of the quieter bars. It was Bernard's birthday this weekend which is why we'd all come to Seoul together. We got back to the guest house by midnight or so as we were all tired from our day of hiking around the city and had a good night in our tiny room full of bunk beds :) Sunday morning we had breakfast at the 3-story Dunkin Donuts there in Hongdae, then spent the rest of the morning shopping for warm clothes for the coming months. We ended up in Myeongdong, another shopping district, where we finally found some warm sweaters and shoes that would fit us (sizes here being awfully small) and had lunch at a nice little Vietnamese restaurant before heading back to our towns to get some sleep before our weeks classes started again. A very nice weekend and I was very very glad to have some warmer clothes this week. Looking forward to the packages from Mom with more sweaters and blankets!!! :D

Fireworks Festival in Pusan

Busy October!

It's been a couple weeks now since the conference at Gyeongju. The conference itself was quite nice... similar topics to what we discussed at orientation but it was new for our Korean co-teachers and teachers that have been here a little longer so it was nice to practice lesson planning and such all together. I think the highlight for most of us was really just being together again and having the chance to go out for the night with a large group of people who all understood what you were saying :) We headed back to Sangju right after the conference which was good since we were all so tired, but I wish I could have seen more of the Gyeongju area. The Silla Dynasty had their palace there and there are many cultural and historical sites in the area as a result. Perhaps I'll take a weekend and go back to see the temples and palace and all when I get a chance again. Back in Sangju we were all ready for a good night's sleep, but Dan and I decided to leave Saturday morning to head down to Pusan for their annual fireworks festival. We were able to get tickets on the KTX, but sadly for the slow portion of the track so I am still awaiting my first voyage on a bullet train here. It was around 3 when we arrived in Pusan, and we were able to meet up with some other friends that we'd met at orientation. Took a "30 minute" walk (in the Gilligan's Island sense... it actually took somewhere in the vicinity of 2 hours) to a park atop a mountain near one of their universities where we were able to find a seat to watch the fireworks display out over the ocean. Stopped along the way for sodas and chicken skewers from a street cart that were very good and arrived at our seats only about half an hour or so before the show began. Beautiful fireworks. I'll post some pics when I can, but my favorites were the ones that made shapes in the air... all colors of geometrical designs, pink hearts, and flowers :) After fireworks we were all starving, so we went to one of the restaurants where you can cook for yourself at the table and grilled thick cut bacon that you eat wrapped in lettuce with marinated onions, grilled cloves of garlic, and spicy chili paste. One of my favorite meals here in Korea! Then off for a couple long hours of Noryeabang (Korean karaoke) in which I sang a lot but managed to avoid ever once touching the microphone! (and so, a success in noryeabang terms!) Then headed to a bar for a "couple" drinks. I have learned now to distrust temporal estimations from our friends in Pusan! Our couple drinks turned into many hours of sitting in a bar (and dancing, watching movies, playing fooseball, and talking a lot) because it turns out that the subways stop running at midnight and it is cheaper here to drink all night (literally) in the bar than to take a taxi across the very large and spread out city to get home. Thus we stayed at the bar until 5:30 the next morning when the subways began running again at which point Dan and I decided to head back to our hometown instead of sleeping on someone's floor as we had originally planned. So, a whirlwind tour of Pusan I have to say- and a 24 hour voyage without sleep, showers, or even changing clothes while hiking around the city carrying large heavy backpacks! But a very fun weekend nonetheless. I don't have many pictures of the bar or karaoke because I was too tired to take them at that point, but I will post pictures of dinner and the fireworks when I can. Looking forward to another trip & maybe actually seeing their famous beaches next time! :D

pictures of Sangju

there are more pictures posted on facebook for anyone interested :)

Chuseok & more

So, last weekend was Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving... so we had a 4-day holiday from school that was very nice :) On Thursday night I was able to go out to dinner with some of the teachers in town that I don't get to see very often- Sarah and Scott, a couple from the Boston area, and Jessica and Julian, a couple from South Africa. We went to a new restaurant for me and had lots of fun sitting and talking til late in the night! I'll try to post pictures of them if they post to facebook... Then Friday, my neighbor Dan and I went to dinner at a restaurant our co-teachers had told us about that supposedly serves both Western and Korean foods. It's in a really cool looking old-style mud and timber building that reminds me of the very old buildings in Mexico or the Southwest... Once we were seated we realized that their menus were entirely in Korean- no English and no pictures- and since neither of us knows much Korean we were only able to ask the waiter to bring us "what's good" :) We ended up with chicken wings and mustard sauce... apparently our waiter's favorite- and it was quite good. I suppose we were lucky that his favorite wasn't pig intestine soup or some such thing! We went for coffee afterwards at the favorite coffee shop of all our local expats- a little place with big soft couches (not easy to find here in Asia!), great coffee, and good music, usually old time jazz but sometimes more modern things too, that night it was Nirvana and assorted 90's music :) A very fun and mellow night! Saturday we decided not too be quite so lazy and went hiking here in town. E-Mart is our local version of target- about a ten minute walk from our apartment building- and behind it there's a quite spectacular little mountain with trails for hiking and mountain biking. It takes about an hour to get up to the top and an hour back down (maybe a little less for people in better shape than I am!) It was a gorgeous day in the woods and since it was a holiday weekend, there were lots of families out hiking and picnicking along the trails. We made it all the way to the top where there are spectacular views of our whole little town and a couple neighboring towns as well, along with the nearby mountains and our little river that winds through the rice paddies. We got back down to the bottom just in time as it was starting to get dark, went home for showers and new clothes, then out to dinner again- 3 nights in a row for me! We decided to stop into a little place we had seen on our walk back to the apartment that looked nice and served beef and pork dishes (you can tell by the signs on each restaurant of big smiling animals- whatever their specialty is there.) It turned out be one of my favorite places so far! We were smart this time and brought a phrasebook with us, but still decided to ask the waitresses helping us what their favorite was. They brought us a huge plate of very thickly sliced bacon and sliced mushrooms that we were able to grill ourselves on our little tabletop griddle along with whole cloves of garlic and sliced onions and, being Korea, about 20 little side dishes with vegetables, sauces, salads, and the like. Once the bacon was cooked, we cut it into bite size pieces with the scissors they gave us and dipped it in a sweet sesame sauce, then wrapped it with the mushrooms, garlic, onions, and red chili paste in leaves of lettuce or sesame- sort of taco style. It was a lot like the pork ribs I had eaten with my co-teachers, very tasty! After dinner we went to one of our favorite bars (which really means one of the only bars we've been to in town!) for a couple beers and to listen to the live music that the owner plays. All Korean this time- sometimes he plays English or American rock music- but very beautiful. Another very nice evening. Sunday I decided to be lazy again, but did make it back down to E-Mart to get some shopping done. Then Monday I spent a few hours wandering around town taking pictures and that night Kelsey, Dan, Sarah, and I all went to yoga at a studio here in town. Kelsey has been going for a while (she got here about 6 months before the rest of us) and Dan had been before, but it was the first time for Sarah and I. We joined for the month and are trying to go together about three times a week. We all went Monday and Tuesday, then Dan and Sarah went Wednesday, and Kelsey and I went Thursday. I was very proud of us (and only a little sore!) It's a little more intense than the yoga classes I've been to in the states- at one point she had us leaning on our shoulders and necks with our backs arched up in the air and said okay, I'll be back in 15 minutes :) Right now I'm just one of the clumsy foreigners, but we're all hoping to get better over time! :D School's still going great as well. I'm still trying to get a feel for which lesson plans work really well and which ones get the kids too excited to concentrate, but for the most part it seems to depend on their moods at the time! English Town switched over to new lessons for October, so no more pizza snacks Thursday mornings but I get to teach Halloween games now and make masks with the kids! Very fun! We'll see how quickly I get tired of the Monster Mash song after an entire month of it! :) I stayed home from the Film Festival this weekend since I'm sick- finally caught that cold that's been circling through all the teachers at school the last few weeks. So instead of artsy movies and famous celebrities I got to learn how to ask for medicine at the pharmacy and sleep in layers of warm clothing... equally exciting, I'm sure :) It's turned out to be a nice and relaxing weekend. This coming week I'll only be teaching 3 days... I have my lessons planned to make my 6th graders tell each others fortunes (they're learning future tense) and my 5th graders learn how to play vocabulary battleship! Should be fun :) Then I'm off to Gyeongju with my co-teacher and nearly all the foreign English teachers in our region for 2 days of teacher training with EPIK. It will be nice to be able to see everyone all together again. Haven't decided yet what I'll do with my weekend... maybe hang out an extra day in Gyeongju to see the local historical sites, maybe head down to Pusan to catch the end of the film festival since I missed it this weekend, or maybe head back home depending on what other people are doing. Should be a nice relaxing week in any case, which will be good while I'm getting over my cold. I'll post pictures of our hiking adventure and there are more on facebook too.

Seoul pics

Seoul & Chuseok

Seoul last weekend was awesome! I think mostly I was just impressed with how well we all did getting around and figuring things out without being able to communicate because we didn't actually do that much. :) Friday was payday, so Friday night after work I was able to walk to the bus station in our little town and buy a ticket to get to Seoul. It was a little tricky because all the schedules are written in Hangul and the people working that night didn't speak any English, but some very nice girls walking through heard me trying to explain what I wanted and offered to translate for me so I was able to get my ticket and feel fairly confidant that it would take me to the right place! So, bright and early Saturday morning I walked back to the bus station and took my first solo trip through Korea. My friends that I was meeting there were all coming different ways and at different times, so we were meeting across town from where I had arrived. I took the easy way out and paid for a taxi to take me to our meeting spot so I was sure I got to the right place in time. I'm getting spoiled, I think, by the taxis here... my taxi ride halfway across Seoul came to less than $10.00 US. Can you imagine that in L.A.?! Once we had met up with everyone that was able to arrive in the morning we shopped a little in Yongsan- where they have an enormous electronics mall- mostly cameras, cell phones, and mp3 players- and then all braved the subway system together and learned how to get to Itaewon (after, I think, 3 or 4 transfers.) :) Itaewon is the foreigner portion of the city filled with Western bars and restaurants and is where most of the American military personnel in Seoul spend their time, as well as the many Hagwon (private or after school) teachers that stay in Seoul. It's also rumored to be the only place in Korea where you can buy clothes and shoes big enough to fit a Western sized person so we were all excited to make it there after our first paycheck. Unfortunately, other than a couple hats, some backpacks, and shoes, no one found too much that they were looking for. We did however find a nice little foreigner run used bookstore called 'What the Book' that many foreigners flock to to trade in the books they brought with them for some that someone else was done with. The Korean bookstores here not having any English language books makes this little place our only option other than Amazon. And they very nicely deliver throughout the country. :) After we'd seen a bit of Itaewon we ended up taking the subway back to Yongsan to meet up with a couple more people who were coming on later trains and then went back to Itaewon so they could see it too. By this time it was afternoon and we'd been walking all morning, so we went to lunch- a nice little bibimbap restaurant- and then found a place where we could all stay for the night (after many many phone calls- must have been a busy weekend in Seoul!) We were all very glad to drop off our full backpacks that we'd been lugging around all day and felt better knowing we had a place to stay and wouldn't have to travel back home that night. Next we took a taxi over to Namsan where Seoul tower is. By this time there were enough of us that we had to take two taxis everywhere we went the rest of the weekend and Dan quickly took to hopping in the second cab, pointing dramatically and yelling out in his thick English accent 'follow that cab!' the rest of the weekend like we were on a perpetual car chase! It was pretty funny :) We had a nice long hike up the mountain to where the tower is (before discovering that there were cable cars that would have taken us up!) and then bought tickets to ride the elevator up the actual tower. I believe Seoul tower is the second tallest tower in Korea, but it's very famous for having amazing views of the city and has cities throughout the world painted on the windows so you can know which direction and how far away San Francisco or the South Pole is. (San Francisco is 9,040.09km away for anyone curious.) We looked at the incredible views for a little while, then took the cable cars back down the mountain and a taxi across the river to another little neighborhood that Frank remembered from his time when he was stationed in Seoul. Turns out he didn't remember it that well and we never found what he was looking for, but had wandered long enough that we decided to stop in a little Japanese restaurant for dinner. It was funny trying to order by picture and guess what we might end up with. Dan asked me what I was getting and I pointed to the picture and couldn't say- I was pretty sure it was either chicken or pork cutlet, turned out to be pork and was very tasty :) After dinner we headed back to Itaewon, spent some time at the bars there. It turns out Soju punch is never a good idea, but we had a lot of fun playing pool and hanging out together since (except for Dan and I who live in the same building) we are all in different towns most of the time and can only talk on facebook. We stayed out pretty late considering how early we'd all gotten up to catch buses and trains into the city, had a late night snack at one of the street stands, and headed back to our motel. The next morning was rough on everyone (again, Soju punch=liquid evil) so we slept in, walked around Itaewon a bit, then Frank went home, I stayed to try to find a sweater (no luck) and the rest went on to Insadong which I will have to see another time. I wanted to take an early bus home so I could get plenty of sleep and make sure my lessons were ready for the next morning.

This week at school was a crazy one. It was a short holiday week (this weekend is Chuseok- the Korean Thanksgiving) so the kids were all riled up, the Korean teachers were frazzled, and I was very very tired by the end- even being a short week. :) So, I changed my Chuseok plans, and instead of braving the very busy trains this weekend and heading to Daegu to visit friends, I decided to stay home, rest, and get ahead on my lesson plans. I was able to go out for dinner last night with some of the other EPIK teachers here in Sangju who I hadn't been able to spend much time with before. Jessica and Julian are a couple from South Africa who have been here a year already and are very nice (and informative!) and Scott and Sarah are another nice couple who I had met at orientation and then not run into again since we'd all moved here to Sangju. Turns out they live in the apartments across the street from me, so I think I'll be seeing much more of them now :) Dan has been going to yoga quite regularly with Kelsey (also in our building, she got here 6 months ahead of us and is a lot of fun to hang out with) and Sarah and I think we might start tagging along with them. And Sarah, Scott, and I might go hiking here in town this weekend since we've all decided to be lazy and stay here :D So, I think my 4-day weekend in my deserted town will turn out well after all.

Next weekend, I have plans to go to Pusan (a city in the South on the beach!) for their big International Film Festival. Still trying to pick through all the movies and see what looks good- and hoping tickets are still available. But we know enough people down there that we may be able to stay for free on someones floor, so I think that should be an exciting weekend. Then that next week I have a business trip to Gyeongju. Two days away from school and a sort of reunion of all of us EPIK teachers in the province, including many of the teachers that have been here longer than us. We're doing teacher training during the day, and it sounds like we'll be able to hang out at night which should be lots of fun. Gyeongju also has a number of cultural sites nearby, like the old silla palace and such so maybe we'll be able to site see some before coming back home or maybe I'll stay the weekend and take a train back.

All in all I'm keeping very busy, but having lots of fun. I miss everyone back home! And I'll try to post more pictures soon.