You can always count on change in Korea

If I can't count on anything in Korea, I can always count on things to change, usually at the last minute and unexpectedly. I think a major problem is simply that I don't know anything that's being said around me, so if I could, then I probably would hear rumors of stuff so maybe everything wouldn't be such a surprise. Anyway, like I said, the semester/school year has ended. The new school year will begin March second. Let the changes begin...

So I've learned that public school teachers in Korea are required to change schools every four to five years. I don't know what teacher turnover is like in America, but I seem to remember getting new teachers/losing teachers being a big deal. At my second school, the sixth grade and kindergarten teachers are both leaving, and at my main school one of the kindergarten teachers is moving to my second school, and the vice principal is leaving to become the principal at a different school. However, most notable is that Mr. Kim, my main school coteacher, will also be leaving. He said that my new coteacher will "probably" be the current third grade teacher. Mr. Kim is moving to a school in Nonsan, about thirty minutes from Buyeo. I asked him if he will be an English teacher there and he didn't know. He said probably a homeroom teacher, but he doesn't know which grade. I find it a little crazy how Korean schools simply shuffle teachers around to different grades and subjects.

So I just took a short walk to the bank on my lunch break to pay some bills, and I ran into several of my students. Say what you like about all the last minute things in Korean schooling, but one thing is undeniable - these kids work ALL the time. They're officially on vacation, but instead of you know, playing with their friends, sleeping in, watching cartoons, etc. they're at their private academies every day. My fourth grade girls told me they're at an English/math academy, and my first graders are learning piano. They go every day.

Speaking of graduations, I graduated on Wednesday from Korean class. We all got certificates and everything. Our final thing was a role play we had to write and perform for the class. Everyone definitely failed on the memorization part and had to hold scripts. Our group of five people did ours based on "What will we do today? Let's go to the waterpark!" Here were my lines:
오래간마니에요! (Long time no see!)
오늘은 날씨가 더워요. (The weather is hot today.)
오늘 무엇을하세요? (What do we do today?)
같이 가요! (Come with me!)
어디? (Where?)

The Korean woman holding up the peace sign in the front is Kim Seoyoung, our teacher. The man on the far right is Supervisor Yoon, he arranged the lessons for us.

I had a bad morning on Wednesday. First, I missed my bus by mere seconds. A Korean woman who is sometimes at my stop works at a local high school, so we talk sometimes. We were talking and missed the walk sign, so I didn't cross the street and missed the bus. She reassured me there were lots of buses going to Shibjaga, the place I was headed. We crossed the street and had to run to catch the bus, so I couldn't read the front of the bus to see where it was going, but I figured surely she wouldn't let me get on the wrong bus. Yeah, I should have checked it myself because sure enough she got off, then the bus started heading in some random direction. Great. I couldn't believe I had successfully gotten the bus almost every day for nearly six months only to screw up now that I can actually read Korean. Unbelievable. Anyway, I got it taken care of and was only ten minutes late. I was happy because a few months ago this probably would have reduced me to teary-eyed frustration, but instead I was merely irritated that I hadn't bothered to check where the bus was going.

The second thing is going to cause me a lot more trouble. I've worn out my black dress flats! It snowed here the other day and I couldn't figure out why my feet were so cold - I assumed that it was because snow had gotten into my shoes. Turns out I was right, but it also turns out I've worn out the soles of my shoes! This is particularly troublesome because I have yet to find any shoes in Korea that fit me, and I wear these dress shoes all the time. Currently I'm thinking I could hot glue the soles back together. They're made of several layers, so I think it could work until I find a more permanent solution (i.e. new shoes).

Graduation and the end of semester

So we've finally reached the end of the semester. I still don't really understand the Korean school calendar. I tried researching it, and turns out Koreans go to school about 100 days more per year than Americans. However, I have found that some of these days appear to be both bizarre and utterly pointless. Take, for example, the past few days I've been back in school. The kids came back last Wednesday, Feb. 9th. However, the textbooks and final exams are all finished, so what did we do? Just random, busy work-type things. I went to my second school Thursday-Friday and taught about five classes (normally I have 12). Additionally, no one was able to tell me what the schedule was going to be like, so I was underprepared for one class and overprepared for another (i.e. they just didn't show and I had a lesson planned). I discussed this with my Korean teacher, and she said that they'll be changing this system next year because apparently no one knows why it's like this.



I went to both of my schools' graduations, Wednesday and Thursday. They were decently long (an hour and a half or so), and once we got past the accepting of diplomas I was kind of bored. It was cute to see them go up on stage to get their certificate because they had a picture of each kid with what they wanted to be when they grow up. Naturally it was in Korean, but during rehearsal the special ed teacher translated some for me. I now know that I had many future makeup artists, a soccer player, two comedians (boy and girl), a scientist, a doctor, and an interpreter in my class. There was also a slideshow of pictures going back to kindergarten or so, which was nice. But I lost interest during the (many) speeches that were made, seeing as how I could only pick out about three words per speech, and they were typically useless like, "and," "thank you," and "congratulations."



I made cards and stuffed the envelopes with candy for the kids. They were all in English, of course, and I don't imagine most of the kids would know the pre-written well wishes, but I wrote "Congratulations! Good luck next year!" on all of them, as well as a few more personal notes on the ones for the kids I knew better. My future interpreter, Sang-Deok, was my only student for two lessons every afternoon during my first winter camp, so I wrote him a note thanking him for all his hard work.



One of my girls at my second school gave me the rose she got for graduation. It was very sweet. I felt kind of bad taking it, but I don't want to reject stuff the kids give me because I don't want them to think I don't like it or whatever. I've noticed that the students are extremely giving when it comes to sharing things with their teachers. Anything they have, especially food, is almost always offered to me. I got several chocolate bars and some candy from my main school kids on Valentine's Day, as well as a Korean pancake with a fortune in it (Mr. Kim translated it as, "Take a sweet rest!" or something along those lines as Jinkyeong was only able to tell me, "Eat, eat! [the pancake]" and threw up her hands in frustration when she tried to read me the fortune).



I think the kids are becoming more comfortable with me. My second school fifth graders, my class with the biggest "personalities," are always trying to talk to me. I knew I was in trouble when I rocked up to school Thursday morning to find a crowd of fifth grade boys with snowballs in hand... I told them, "Don't even think about it!" But I definitely took a couple to the shoulder when I blocked my face. Then after graduation I was challenged to a few arm-wrestling competitions with two fifth grade boys and one girl... Yeah, I won. Decisively.

Almost halfway there

So I arrived here in late August, which means that as of now mid-February, I've been here about five and a half months. During lunch, I was thinking about the Koreanisms I've adopted, which I'd like to share with you.



1. Hair

If any of you are my Facebook friends or have Skyped with me recently, you know I've cut my hair Korean-style, that is, I've gotten bangs. I love my Korean bangs! When I walk around town I really do feel like I fit in a little bit better, although I'm probably deluding myself.


2. Clothes

I've had an easier time finding clothes here than I would have thought. Of course, I can't find t-shirts, comfy pants, or shoes to save my life, but I've lucked out in one important way... well, two important ways. One - Korean fashion tends toward big, baggy sweaters/tops, which means of course that they fit me! Two - Koreans love leggings and tights, and I have been converted. Especially thermal leggings! Did you know you can buy leggings with fleecy insides? Because I like them even better than jeans. They're really comfortable and so warm. Although I have to be careful because sometimes leggings that are meant to fit Koreans like to only go down slightly below my knees as opposed to my ankles. However, this can be solved with smart shopping.



3. My newfound love for rice

I love rice. I eat rice literally every day. If I don't eat rice, I feel weird and will crave rice. It's so much better than the rice at home. This stuff is sticky and therefore very easy to eat with chopsticks. At school I get white rice, purplish rice (with beans or something), rice with sweet potatoes, and more kinds that I can't even describe. Rice goes with everything! You can dip it in soup, eat it with kimchi, mix it with tuna, put a sunnyside up egg on it... you name it, you can put rice with it.


I even eat rice for breakfast, that is how Korean I am. Yes, if I am too lazy to make eggs I just heat up rice and eat it with seaweed. And chopsticks. With my morning coffee.


4. My newfound love for seaweed

Earlier this year, for Chuseok back in November, my principal gave me a box of seaweed as a present. That box sat untouched in my pantry for about a month before I finally decided to try it. Let me tell you, SEAWEED IS AWESOME. This particular seaweed is toasted and salted and perfect with rice and some soy sauce. I sprinkle soy sauce into my rice, pick up a chunk with my chopsticks, and then wrap it up in seaweed. I eat this for breakfast and dinner all the time. I'm still not crazy about seaweed soup, but this stuff is fantastic. My principal just popped in to wish me a happy New Year (lunar New Year is coming up) and give me... wait for it... SEVEN packages of seaweed! I'm completely stoked. This is what living in Korea has done to me. Luckily, I googled it and apparently seaweed is really good for you and full of trace minerals and stuff. The salt can't be so great, but it's basically salty, toasted vegetables!


5. I miss Korean food

When I go away on the weekends or on a trip, I miss Korean food. If I eat Western food all weekend, I can't wait to get back and get some kimbap or something. (Kimbap is like Korean sushi.) I love kimbap so much, and it's so cheap it's ridiculous.


6. The way I eat food

Even the way I eat food is more Korean. I'm typically a pretty picky eater, especially with meat. Koreans are seriously less fastidious about preparing their food than Westerns. What I mean by this is that they don't care about deboning things or cutting off the fat. Every time I get fish it's basically just the whole fish, minus scales, plopped on my plate or in my soup. You have to use your chopsticks and dig through organs, spines, bones, the works. You even eat the fish skin! In seafood soup there's often these miniature shrimp that you eat whole. Yes, you just pop the whole thing in your mouth... eyes, feelers, crunchy shell and all. I tend to avoid those though, they're not tasty. Today at lunch we had seafood soup, and there were crab legs and body parts all in it, and it was the first time I could bring myself to eat it like the Koreans do: you just put the leg in your mouth and attempt to suck out the meat by gnawing on the leg like a drumstick, sort of. Next time you eat crab, try it. Just grab a leg and chomp down. Also try eating a whole fish with only chopsticks, yet managing to not swallow fish bones.


Korean barbeque is delicious, but like I said, cutting the fat off meat isn't high on a Korean's list of priorities. When we go out for meals it's really nice because the other teachers will put pieces of meat onto my plate, but this means that I have to eat them or be rude. Often the pieces are 50% meat, 50% pure fat. Sometimes even pieces of gristle. I kind of just choke them down in the name of politeness. Back in the States I would literally never eat such fatty meat, but here it's just so typical that I don't even notice it.

7. It doesn't seem weird to not have a separate shower

Korean bathrooms don't have a separate room for the shower. The shower nozzle is attached near the sink, and you just shower right there. I'm actually a pretty big fan of this setup because it means cleaning the bathroom is easier since everything can be hosed down with the shower nozzle. A negative is when the nozzle gets out of hand and your toilet paper gets soaked.

8. I don't expect toilet paper in any bathrooms

In the West I'd be deeply irritated if I went to use a public restroom and there wasn't any toilet paper, but in Asia they maintain a firm BYOTP policy. I'm genuinely pleased when I pop into a restroom to find toilet paper in the stall, and I consider it my lucky day if that particular stall contains both a Western toilet AND toilet paper.

9. Giving and accepting items with two hands is second nature

In Korea it's rude to accept or give something with only one hand (especially the left hand). Even when my students take scissors or a piece of paper from me, they always do it with both hands, sometimes even with small head bow as well. The bow is usually reserved for actual gifts though, like if I give them candy or something. I think it's very cute and interesting that even my most badly behaved students still are very respectful of anything I give them. You can tell that it's a deep-seated cultural thing.

10. You can (and will) find anything and everything on your pizza

Corn, sweet potato, spaghetti, honey mustard... you name it, it's been on a pizza I've had in Korea. Corn especially is the worst culprit. I'm of the opinion that a lot of Korean restaurants just don't really understand Western food. They understand the individual components, but then they choose to put these components together in any which way. As a Westerner, sweet potatoes and pizza do not go together, but Koreans find this in no way unusual.

Thailand

So I recently went on vacation to Thailand, and it was great. The weather there was really nice, about 80-85 degrees (I think). I stayed in Bangkok Saturday night-Monday afternoon, then went to Koh Phi Phi, an island on the southwest side of the country, then back to Bangkok Saturday to fly back to Korea.

Bangkok was a very cool place. It's literally lousy with temples... they're just everywhere! And they're absolutely beautiful. I've been to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, which is my favorite church ever (well, possibly the Sacre-Coeur in Paris for a tie), but Asian temples are just so very different from Western churches. They're just all covered in mosaics and gold and mirrors, and they're incredibly intricate. Bangkok itself though, I was glad I wasn't there for too long. I felt like every single Thai person I met was trying to hustle me one way or the other, and it got really tiring having to be on my guard all the time. The cab drivers were the worst - sometimes they'd refuse to turn on the meter so I had to argue with them until they'd finally turn it on, and often we would just negotiate a flat fee before getting in, and then I'd find out later we got ripped off. The good thing is that getting ripped on in Thailand is kind of a joke since everything's so inexpensive, but it just got old. For example, the security guard at our hotel called us a cab, and he told us how much it would cost to get from the hotel to the temple we wanted to visit, and so we got in the cab and drove for like five minutes, then the cabbie pulled over and was like, Oh sorry the car's out of gas. Huh? Then magically another cab pulls up in front of us and our driver was like, Oh you can go take that one. Well thanks, cab driver, now we have to pay you to get here and pay a whole new starting fee. Scammed much? It could have been legitimate, but it seemed very fishy to me. I think if I lived in Thailand I would figure out how to keep from getting hustled all the time, but just being there for a short period of time made it hard. Also Thai cab drivers are even crazier than Korean cab drivers.

The hotel we stayed at had this deal where you could take one free tour, so my friend and I decided we'd go on the gondola tour. I had heard that Bangkok was called the "Venice of the East" because it used to rely primarily on waterways just like Venice, although they had moved away from that system. Anyway, we went out on a longboat ("Just like in James Bond, the Man with the Golden Gun!" our tour guide assured us). It was cool to go out on the boat and see houses and such. The tour group had picked us up from our hotel and was supposed to drop us off as well. So we were done with the tour and headed back to the van, and once we were inside the tour guide told us that we were going to head to a gem factory to learn all about Thai gems, etc. then they would drop us off wherever we wanted to go. We go to the gem place, watched a seven minute movie on Thailand and gems, and then were invited to walk into the stonecutting room, which actually was interesting. However, immediately I knew why we got a free tour - they wanted us to buy jewelry! As soon as we stepped into the stonecutting room a woman working there was like, Oh come look at the finished pieces! We went into the next room, and it was absolutely crammed with foreigners and jewelry. Like I said, everything in Bangkok is some kind of scam. If you can't trust your hotel staff, who can you trust? My friend and I just said we were too poor to afford anything, so could we just head out? So our tour guide showed us where to get a ride back.

Anyway, Bangkok was a really interesting place to visit. On Monday we took the overnight train south to get to Koh Phi Phi. In the long run this turned out to be a massive mistake. Take my advice - the overnight train itself is fine, but if you're short on time, don't take it to Phuket or Koh Phi Phi or basically anywhere on the west coast. If you're staying on the east coast on Koh Samui or Koh Phangan you'll be fine, but getting to the west coast was a nightmare. First of all the overnight train was really full so we could only get one sleeper seat and one sitting seat. I volunteered to sit in the sitting seat first with the idea that my friend and I would switch about midway through the ride (which was about 11 hours). So I sat in this rickety old train car, no AC (but it wasn't that hot), in this dingy old seat. I did manage to get seated next to the only other foreign girl in my car though. She was English and very pleasant. It was handy because she watched my luggage when I went to the bathroom or to go check on my friend. Anyway, it was unlucky for me because they locked the sleeping cars, presumably to stop the sitting people from swiping empty sleeping bunks or from robbing those who were sleeping or whatever. So I ended up having to spend the night in my sitting chair, which reclined farther than airplane seats but not much.

The train was supposed to leave at 7:30pm on Monday and arrive at 6:30am or so Tuesday morning. It left about 30-45 minutes late and arrived about an hour and 15 minutes late in Surat Thani, this town on the east coast. We had bought our bus tickets at the same time we got train tickets, and so we put our luggage on a coach bus and boarded. Whoops - turns out there wasn't enough room, and our luggage was already buried on the bus. The driver told us that another bus would show up to get us, so don't worry, our luggage is going to the same place. Well, we were nervous about this but fortunately a second, smaller bus showed up five minutes later. We drove to yet another station about 15 minutes away and phew, our luggage came too. So from there a midsize van comes, we load up, get on - whoops, AGAIN there isn't enough room for everyone. Of the four people in our group, only two of us fit. The woman in charge told us we had to go because the van needed to be full, but I was like, Lady you are crazy if you think I'm about to split our group in half, travel three hours across the country, and hope to find each other? So we hopped off, insisted we grab our luggage, then had to wait and hop on an open-air truck that took us 15 minutes back into town where we started. Then we got on a coach bus and rode three hours to Krabi, our next destination.

We arrive in Krabi and then buy ferry tickets. We had to wait for maybe an hour at this little gas station/bus station/dropoff point place until yet another open-air truck pulled up to take us to the ferry. We drove maybe five minutes and finally arrived at the ferry station. We got on the ferry, which took off about 45 minutes late, then the trip itself was an hour and 45 minutes. FINALLY we arrived on Phi Phi.

Phi Phi was gorgeous. Thai islands are absolutely amazing. However, I've never been to the tropics before - I've never been to Hawaii, Bermuda, the Bahamas, heck, even Mexico, so maybe I haven't seen that many beaches. Regardless, these were ridiculously nice beaches! I had read that the Thai islands had been "ruined" by tourism, but frankly I didn't think they were too bad. Was Phi Phi jammed full of tourist booths, restaurants, bars, shops, hotels, and spas? Yes, it was. However, I didn't think there was an insane amount of people, and honestly, what do you expect from a tropical paradise like that? That it will be secluded? I mean, it draws tourists, so I would think there would be a lot of people there visiting.

Thai food is delicious. I had a lot of curries and fried rice as well as fruit shakes. One of my favorite parts was how there was pineapple everywhere! You could buy half a pineapple for less than a dollar! I think I was having reverse scurvy because I definitely broke out in a minor rash on my face, which I think you can get from overdosing on vitamin C. Whatever, it was worth it. We went on two snorkeling tours. They were also super cheap - $1 is about 30 baht, so $3 is about 100 baht, and a half day snorkeling trip only cost 250 baht. They provided masks and snorkels, and they took you out in groups of maybe 8-12 on these longboats for a few hours. There were tons of fish as well, and it was such beautiful scenery and such clear water. We went to Maya Beach, which I guess is where Leonardo DiCaprio filmed the movie "The Beach," which I've never seen. Either way it was gorgeous.

The first day we just did the snorkeling tour, but the second day we went cliff jumping! They provided us with rubber shoes and gloves, which I quickly found out was because you had to scale a rock wall to get to the jump site. At first I was NOT okay with that because I am a terrible rock climber, plus there was no equipment or anything, so if you fell you'd basically just fall straight onto razor sharp rocks. Great. Anyway, it was actually much easier than it looked. The rocks were super sharp, yes, but they were really jagged and easy to grab. The hardest part was getting started because waves kept crashing around you and you had to be careful that you weren't thrown onto the rocks because you'd really get cut up. Just brushing against them gave me scrapes. So I got to the top and there were three jumps: 8 meters (26.3 feet), 10 meters (33 feet) and 20 meters (66 feet). I had planned just to go off 10 meters straightaway, mostly because I wasn't sure if I wanted to climb the rock face again. However, the tour guide wouldn't let me! This scrawny little Thai guy who looked younger than me was like, "Oh no miss, you have to go off the 8 meter." "Do I have to? I can't just go off the 10?" "No miss, 8 first, then 10." I was irritated because I'm positive it's because I'm a girl, since I was the only girl jumping and he didn't make the guys go off the 8 meter jump first. Whatever. So I jumped off and it actually wasn't that scary. Before I could chicken out I quickly swam back and started climbing up, all the while questioning what was I getting myself into. So I popped up at 10 meters and the guy gave me the go-ahead, though he did say I had to go to the boat after I jumped because we were leaving. I jumped off and swam to the boat. I wasn't happy though - even though I wasn't sure if I could handle the 20 meter jump, I would have liked to at least have the chance. Because I had to do 8m first, all the guys did 10 and then straight to 20. Plus they were up there for ages debating about jumping, and I definitely would have had time to climb back up. But I'm not going to kid myself, 66 feet is insanely high.

I was very nervous about traveling back to Bangkok, mostly because there were so many transfers we had to make and no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer on what to expect (remember how I bought my bus ticket in advance only to have the bus be full?). I was NOT going to miss my flight to Korea. We took the 9am ferry on Friday from Koh Phi Phi because there were only two ferries, one at 9am and one at 3pm or so.
Ferry ride - 9am to 10:45ish
Anxious milling around after the ferry, waiting for truck pick up
Open air truck to bus stop
More milling around at bus stop
Uncomfortable van ride from Krabi to Surat Thani town - 11:15-2:15pm
Open air truck from Surat Thani town to train station - 2:15pm-3pm
Milling around train station
Train - 7pm-6am Saturday (sleeper car this time though, thank goodness)
Taxi - 6:30am-6:50am
Flight - 11:55am-11:05pm (thanks, layover in Hong Kong plus time difference)

Phew. We left Koh Phi Phi at 9am Friday morning and I arrived back in Buyeo at like 2pm on Sunday. Like I said, a truly ridiculous amount of traveling. The only upside is that from now on, if I want to go home for a week, a 12 hour flight no longer seems like such a journey! Now that it's over, it really wasn't so bad - the majority of the stress came from just not knowing if it would work out. Would the bus really show up? Would there be enough room for us? Would the train be massively late? All that stuff is where stress comes into play.

What I've learned from my Thailand trip is a lot about traveling and planning and knowing how long it will take to get places. Thailand is an amazing place that I think everyone should go to - the food and sights are just incredible. I wish I would have had more time there. I really hope to go back, especially to the islands, but I also want to go to Chiang Mai in the north, plus there's so many other awesome Asian countries and so little time. Pictures to come soon - I'm currently deskwarming, so I'm at school and don't have access to my pictures to upload.

Christmas in K-town

The first of several outdated blog postings :-)


So as you may or may not know, this was my first Christmas away from my family. Sorry, by the way, because it's my fault that this is also the first Christmas that my family has ever not all been together. Luckily, we got together on Christmas Day (me) and Christmas Eve (my family) via skype. I opened some presents, and they made our traditional post-mass pizza and cheese and sausage. We even had a trans-hemisphere cheers! After talking to my family, I had to rush out the door to meet up with other people to go out of town. A group of perhaps 40 foreigners from Buyeo, Nonsan, and a handful of other places went to the nearby town of Boryeong to a "pension."


A pension in Korea is basically just a rented cabin. The pension was really nice - we had rented two on account of having so many people, and the cabins were located in this nice resort-type area. It even had a swimming pool and hot tubs, but due to the cold weather everything was closed. It started snowing just as we pulled up and proceeded to snow almost all night, giving us a wondeful white Christmas. Our gathering included Americans, Englishmen (and women), an Irishman, South Africans, New Zealanders, and Canadians. The Saffers and NZers were very excited for the snow because in SA and NZ Christmas is a summer event - lots of barbeques and pool parties, so they were all pumped for their first white Christmas.

We made a Western dinner - my first mashed potatoes in months! Delicious! Also salad, macaroni and cheese, turkey, and vegetable kebobs. We also had a Western breakfast. I made bacon for about 40 people... never again. It was a really great time though. We did a secret Santa as well - I drew another girl from Buyeo, and I bought her fake Uggs to wear in school because she was always saying how cold it was in her school. I got, among other things, a pair of blue fleecy pants, a most excellent present.

Overall it was a good Christmas for my first time away from home.

The countdown

So I have a few backlogged posts that will be coming up soon, so this will not be chronological, but due to popular demand I'm trying to get a post up ASAP, so the other things that I haven't finished yet will just be a little look into what I've been up to the past month.

So this past weekend I went to Daegu again. As you may remember, my IU sorority friend lives there with her roommate, and they hosted an ugly Christmas sweater party. Saturday morning I went to Daejeon to meet up with friends, do some shopping, then head to Daegu. We ate lunch at this delicious bakery, then took the 3:15 train to Daegu. It was a good time - I didn't have a sweater, but I did have a Santa hat. A sort of funny story: I had recently bought a very Asian sweater (i.e. it has like anime characters on it and looks sort of like something a little girl would wear) that I really liked and decided to wear on Saturday. This is what happened during lunch:

My friend: What are you guys wearing tonight?
Me: *points to anime sweater* This.
My friend: Oh, okay. That's what I thought, but I didn't want to ask if that was your ugly sweater.

Hey, I like that sweater!!! Whatever, we'll just say he has no fashion sense.

Regardless, it was good to see my friends in Daegu again. Sunday we went to this place called the Holy Grill. It's a Western restaurant owned by Canadians, and they have some AMAZING macaroni and cheese. It's practically worth a trip to Daegu alone.

Sunday night was our Secret Santa gift exchange. My friend Piro made dinner for everyone, and it turned out we had drawn each other for secret Santa. He got me this awesome purple scarf, some hand lotion, and Belgian chocolates (obviously, he knows me well), and I got him two bow ties and this Korean hat/glove combo (if you knew Piro, you would know how much he appreciated it).

Everyone's been wanting to know about Christmas in Korea. Yes, they celebrate Christmas... there are a lot of Protestant/Catholic Koreans. However, Christmas just isn't as big of a deal here. Kids have school on Christmas Eve, and I don't even know if they'd get Christmas day off if it wasn't a Saturday. There are some decorations and some Christmas music, but it's just not very Korean. We got some heavy snow on Friday, but it melted really fast and wasn't very deep anyway. The weather here appears to be much milder than that at home, but people keep talking about how cold Korean winters are, so either the cold hasn't settled in yet or the Midwest is just that much colder than everywhere else.

However, as previously stated, I don't understand the pathological Korean need for fresh air. The temperature extremes are kind of hard to take. On one hand, when it was snowing last Friday, the doors to the outside were open, so venturing into the hallway was equivalent to stepping outside. Going to the bathroom is NOT FUN. On the other hand, I can't even wear my jacket in the teachers' lounge because it's so hot. There's cultural differences for you.

For my own personal Christmas, I'm going to Boryeong (nearby city to the west) with about 29 other people from Buyeo and Nonsan. We've booked a "pension," which appears to be some kind of retreat/camp/cabin-type deal. Basically we'll head out there, cook lots of food, play games, secret Santa, and just celebrate Christmas together. I'm pretty excited; it sounds like a lot of fun.

I really can't believe Christmas is so soon - I think because Koreans don't really do much for it, it doesn't seem real. I also can't believe that 2011 is so close! I still don't have plans for winter vacation. I wanted to go on a trip with one of my friends, but she and I have different vacations so it didn't work out. I'm trying to convince one of my Buyeo friends to go on a trip with me, but she's on the fence about what she wants to do, so we'll see. If I don't leave the country I think I'll finally make it up to Seoul to see one of my hometown friends, and hopefully see some more Korean culture.

I've been getting busier and busier. When I first got here, I had a lot of free time. It's not like I don't still have free time, but I'm realizing how tiring and time-consuming it is to have a social life! As my network of friends in Korea continues to expand and I try to keep in touch with friends and family back home, I think more about how easy it is to keep in contact with people through the Internet, yet that same ease kind of translates to more work because since it's so easy, you just find more and more people to talk to and keep in touch with. But I'm happy to be able to talk to my friends and family so readily.

So the Buyeo Office of Education has arranged Korean lessons for all the native teachers, which is really nice. They started last week and are every Tuesday and Thursday from 6-8 and will go until the end of February for a total of 40 hours. Koreans love banners and certificates, so they made up this fancy banner for the first class and told us if we attend all the classes and do our homework, etc. we'll get a graduation certificate. I've already noticed the Korean propensity for banners and certificates, and I kind of love it, especially the certificate part.

I'd forgotten how hard it is to pick up a foreign language from ground zero. I've been studying French for so long that now it's more a matter of improving it, but with Korean I'm studying the alphabet! I think it's going to be helpful on so many levels though... I will be able to communicate/get around easier and I'll be able to better help the students because I will know more why they do the things they do. For example, the dreaded "finishy" and "Englishy" and "lunchy." In Korean, each box of symbols (i.e. 네) is one syllable, and each syllable is made from a consonant + vowel or consonant + vowel + consonant, etc. Basically, there's no such thing as a syllable without a vowel (I think). So the single syllable word "lunch" is impossible in Korean, they think of it as 른치. ㄹ = l, ㅡ = uh, ㄴ = n, ㅊ = ch, and ㅣ= y. So you get "른" luhn "치" chy, luhn-chy. Lunchy. No such thing as "른ㅊ." Have to have the "ㅣ", can't just have the "ㅊ." I've tried writing this direct translation on the board then erasing the ㅣ but they just don't get it.

Regardless, I'm having difficulty remembering the Korean from my classes. We're still in the ABC Hi my name is ____ I am ___ years old, etc, but even that I can't always remember. Some stuff I know is very useful though. I like how some of my phrases can be used in almost every situation. For example, 없어요 (hmm, I think that's how you spell it). Anyway, it's pronounced obseoyo, and it means "It's/They're not there, I don't have it/them, etc." Know how I know this? Because my kids are always saying, "Oh Teacher, notebook obseoyo. Pencil obseoyo." It works for people too as far as I can tell, so if I can't find someone I ask if they're "obseoyo." The other day taking a taxi from the train to the bus station the cabbie asked if I had an umbrella because it was raining, so I was just like, "Obseoyo." Nice guy, he insisted on giving me one since I didn't have one. Other handy Korean words/phrases I know:

Molayo. I don't know.
Kanchanayo. It's okay/No problem.
Nun yeogi. Eyes up here.
Yah! Hey!
____ juseyo. ______, please.

I can also ask how much things cost, but since I don't know money, this question is fairly useless to me. I really need to learn this though as it will be super helpful. I only know two money number, 1,500 won and 10,000 won. 10,000 is man won, and 1,500 is chon obek won. Why do I know these? Because 10,000 is easy and 1,500 is my bus fare. I've been having problems on the bus recently. I take the same bus Mon-Wed and Fri, but Mon-Wed I pay 1,200 to get to my main school, and Friday I pay 1,500 to get to my second school. However, lately the bus drivers have been hassling me about not paying the correct amount. I think because they see me go the 1,200 route so often they think I don't realize my Friday stop is 1,500. So last Friday the driver actually wouldn't let me off the bus, I had to go up to where he was sitting so he could tell me "Chon obek won!" and I was like, "I know! I paid you your chon obek won! Why weren't you paying attention since this is kind of your job, and instead now you have to shout at me in Korean on this bus full of strangers?" So I just pulled out a handful of change and let him take three 100 won coins, which is how I've arrived at my 1,200 theory. I think next time I get on the Friday bus I'll show him the chon obek won before I put it in the money box.

I'm fine

If you've heard about North Korea firing on South Korea in the news, don't worry, I'm fine. From what I've seen online on CNN, etc. it looks like the North shot artillery of some kind into a South Korean island on the northwest coast. I don't really have anything else to say about it besides that I checked the US travel website and nothing's up yet. If I learn anything else I will let you know.