Seoul Weekend Update

The eventful weekend in Seoul came to a dramatic close with announcement of the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jeong Il. Many people back home have been asking me what the South Korean response has been and, from what I have seen, there isn't much response. In general, the South Korean people are just tired of the ridiculousness that is their northern counterpart. There is a general fear that things will get worse, but little hope that things will get better of their own accord. There aren't parties or military parades. When asked, many students are glad he's dead but worried about the future. It's interesting. Because of the nature of their relationship with the North, the middle schoolers I teach are the most politically aware teenagers I have encountered. It's likely they are just parroting what they hear their parents, teachers or guardians say, but it is impressive nonetheless. I've noticed many South Korean students here like Busan, but have problems with Korea. They want to leave and study in England or the U.S. They do not agree with the signing of the FTA and they can provide reasons why, often. It's interesting.

Philly Cheesesteak or silkworm larvae...decisions, decisions...

Before the big news, we had a very eventful weekend. The company I work for, Avalon, had a huge end of year party where teachers and staff from all over South Korea came. We took group pictures, some teachers performed in a talent show and got cash prizes. The most surprising point of the show was when a Korean performer came on stage and busted out 'Rock 'n' Roll' by Led Zeppelin. I was pretty shocked, it was impressive! Come to find out it was a woman too! She had short hair and glasses and wasn't wearing dresses like most Korean women do. The Ceos and important people in the company gave speeches. It was a beautiful venue. The bus trip up was almost 7 hours long and we took three rest stops on the way.

Fun times but reaaaaalllly long.

After the event ended, we met up with a couple of people who had attended the orientation in Seoul with our teachers and now live there. They took us out on the town to see the sights. While Seoul was a great place to visit ful of interesting places to go and eat, I have to say I'm glad I live in Busan. Seoul seems like it'd take a while to get used to. I think it may be comparable to nicer parts of New York City but the people are quieter and less pushy. The cab drivers are still insane.

After we ate, I had my first kareoke experience in Korea. I can say it was actually really fun! Unlike in kareoke bars in the U.S. in Korea you pay for a room for an hour and it's just you and your friends with a Kareoke system. So you and people you are comfortable with are just screaming along to ridiculous songs. Oh and I played the tamborine. So my father's dream of me becoming the tamborinist in a band is semi-actualized. We stayed out very late, visiting many places because it was so cheap. We didn't get to where we were staying until 8am! At that point after walking around in the cold and lugging our bags around Seoul, it was really nice to curl up on a blanket on the heated floor and sleep. We all stayed with this guy Gary who was a hero and made us coffee in the morning and then went with us to help us get the KTX back to Busan. While the bus ride up was free, the KTX took less than half the time and cost 48,000KRW which isn't bad. At some points the train was going 300 Kilometers per hour. It was such a whirlwind of activity I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked and discovered too late that it's easy to take video with my iPod...But lesson learned and hopefully it's easy to upload video on here.

Hope everyone back home is well. I'm working on compiling a gift box for my family, but it's likely to get there almost a month from now...sorry. My classes are fun so far, but the biggest problem I'm having is figuring out how to make the students happy by making the classes fun and interesting, while still completing the work in the workbooks to make the administration and the parents happy. It's a difficult balancing act. We shall see.

XOXOXOXO

Bukkoos Good-byes and a Snowball Fight (sort of).

After a long week of teaching, Friday rolled around and one of the old foreign teachers (Aaron) was celebrating his last day in Korea so, of course, we went to Smiley's for Korean BBQ. The name of the place is not actually Smiley's but it's called that because the owner is forever smiling.

He's aptly named.

Once we were all seated on the floor we proved ourselves mature adults by proceeding to start a "snowball fight" between the two tables by chucking our washcloths at each other. There is still controversy over who threw the first punch. The owners were good natured about our rambunctiousness luckily...We enjoyed a lovely, albeit somewhat silly dinner.

He makes this face...a lot.

I was at a table with Aaron's father and brother, Aaron, his girlfriend Namyoung, and Jay. We were definitely the cool table.

Making peace signs in pictures is cool.

After much meat and side dishes, we went to the local foreign bar HQ and talked and listened to music. I was sleepy so I went back earlier than everyone else who apparently stayed out until 5am. Such party people!

The next day we decided to have a movie night at one of my coworker's apartment. I woke up late and was starving so I went to a Vietnamese place that just opened up. It was a nice change of pace and a very trendy looking place. Maybe I'll have to visit 'nam sometime afterall.

Jess is thuper exthited for the Pho.

After a week long debate as to which movie we were going to watch, we finally settled for Robinhood Men in Tights as something on which we could all agree.

The boys are less excited about the Cary Elwes action.

We ordered pizza (not kimchi for once!) and enjoyed laughing at, and in the case of the females drooling over Cary Elwes, the movie. The next night we went to a dinner party at one of the ladies who works at HQ apartment. She made us homecooked Korean food which was amazing and we talked and watched Law and Order. It was a relaxing conclusion to a pretty busy weekend and week.

This coming weekend we are all taking a bus (possibly a train) up to the capitol city Seoul for the year-end company shindig. We are planning to stay there a night and travel back to Busan separately so that we can visit friends in Seoul (I know some people from my highschool in Vienna, Austria who live there!) and chill out with other foreign teachers in South Korea. I'm really excited to get out of Busan and see more of South Korea. In the future, we are planning on taking a ferry to Japan (or maybe the plane) and plans to visit other countries around South Korea are in the works. It's an exciting time to be alive. :)

Much love and good wishes for everyone back home <3

Xoxoxoxo

We went with a huge group of people including

Happy Barf-day to me. :oP

So last week was a whirlwind of action, good food, new places, goodbyes and, unfortunately, new relationships with the porcelian throne. On the first I was able to move out of the 'Love Motel' and into my new apartment. I'm trying to look on the bright side, but let me just say it's a good thing I have experience living in Third World conditions. Haha. Besides needing to be drenched in Clorox and vigorously elbow-greased, the apartment is very nice and the previous owners have left many items which can, at times, be confusing- tamborine anyone!? But the location is great, less than three minutes walk from where I work and literally on top of a convenience store that offers everything a Wawa would except for the hoagies (and the day-old meatballs).

Pictures of my new home. Where's Waldo?

For most of the week we newbies were thrown into teaching so we were busy during the day preparing for that and the evenings were spent trying to figure out how to get our clothes out of the Korean washers which are all in Hangul and will only let you have access to your clothing when IT wants you to. I'm on the fourteenth floor and if need be I can repel down this fire escape shoot thing that is built into the wall Batman-style....oooohhhhhh yeeeeaaaaah.

...I never liked her anyway. (Jean shop in a local mall).

The night before my birthday was great. I hung out with the other teachers at this great Korean Barbeque place and had a ball talking about our classes. After dinner we went over to one of the teacher's apartments and hung out until wee hours of the morning. Later that day, I woke up feeling a little under the weather, but well enough to greet the maintainance guy and have a conversation with him. Just as he left my health took a turn for the worst. I had been drinking Gatorade that for some reason was GINGER flavored thinking it'd help my health and that I was just dehydrated or something.

I didn't feel the need to hurl, however, until one of my fellow foreign teachers came knocking on my door asking if I wanted to come walk around with her in town because it was nice and sunny. In the middle of her sentence, I pushed past her into the bathroom, closed the door and lost the contents of my stomach. It was only seconds later that I realized that I had just closed myself in the bathroom with the light off and was standing in the dark. After a couple beats there was a tentative knock with a quiet 'are you okay?' coming from the other side of the door. 'Yeah,' I managed to splutter. She eventually said that she'd come see how I was doing later and quietly left. For the next day and a half I got to know my new toilet VERY WELL. The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that I had several good books to read in between puke sessions.

I woke up this morning exhausted but stable and made my way to the immigration office to apply for my Alien Registration Card. So, you know, I won't be deported or anything. I have slowly been feeling better and was able to eat solid food for the first time it what seems ages. As we were finishing up our meal at our favorite cheap place to eat near school, everyone started to get all shifty, but I was still tired and out of it. I didn't see the cake with candles coming until they burst out singing and it was plopped in front of me. The owner of the restaurant came over and gave me a hug. I was bright red and the cake had four (I turned 24) candles and a cute chocolate coffee cup on the top. It was heart-shaped and lovely. I was pretty touched, I nearly cried in my kimchi. The rest of the day was great. I had two gregarious classes that made it easy to teach, except this time I refrained from throwing fart putty at the kids because it sent some of the girls into hysterics.

All in all, life is good. :)

Surprise! That cake was soooooo good and cute! So nice of my new friends.