The ramblings of Chester

In the last month, I've been asking my 9 to 11 year old students to complete a writing task on a range of different issues every week.  Up until now their writing tasks in class have consisted of answering  questions in pretty basic, single sentences. And for the most part, they're pretty good at it.  Given their skills in these previous writing tasks, I was intrigued to see what they would produce when asked to write a paragraph or short essay... and then I received this little diddy from a boy called Chester...

 Let me explain Chester a little first.  Chester is adorable.  He often wears matching outfits... which look remarkably like pajamas.  Last week, for example, he was wearing a light blue terry-toweling cookie monster tracksuit... he's 11.  Chester has a little crush on me and always manages to maneuver his chair to the point where he's sitting flush against me... he constantly 'drops' things so he can lean over me to pick them up and sometimes he just flat out tries to play footsies with me or hold my hand.  Chester is my number one offender when it comes to 'Konglish' (Korean-English)...  if he were to read the sentence "I like going to the movies"  he would say it like "I-uh like-uh to-uh going-uh to-uh the-uh movie-uh".  Chester is a smart kid who has been learning English for YEARS, but just can't seem to grasp the grammatical structure of the language in the same way his class mates (or my 6 year old kinder kids) can.

The topic this week was: "Write about times when you were sick or you had health problems.  Give some ideas on how to keep healthy."  Here is what Chester came up with...

"The nosebleed, don't lean back and two fingers on nose and a sunburn, Put some lotion on it, and Don't your hot going. a sore shoulder, Put hot towel and Don't fix the hands.  an insect bite, Don't scratch it and going hospital.  I'm ideas is nosebleed spoon on your nose and sunburn idea in your paper is not sunburn and insect bite idea you put the rad color paper bees is don't like rad."  

Riiiiigggghhhht....

So... It's been a while

Yes, it's been forever - but you can't blame a girl for having fun and neglecting her blog... right??  Time continues to fly past me at the speed of light - can you believe that next week marks my 10 month anniversary with Korea?!? (Me and Korea, we're thinking of buying matching T-shirts and phone accessories to mark the occasion... maybe well get a few sticker photos made too...)  

Anyway, I thought rather than spend years trying to make a million posts to get things up to date, I'd just add some links to my facebook photo albums... after that's done I promise to make a concerted effort to blog more often - which should be a little more manageable now that the weather is distinctly more winter-like.

Not surprisingly, my blogging slackness coincided with two things; 1) Claire arrived in Korea and 2) the weather warmed up to a point where weekends away upped in frequency, so first up I'll start with some links to albums from said weekends away.  

I guess the best place to start is way back in... well actually, I can't remember if it was May or June.... but we'll kick off with an impromptu weekend away in Yeoju with Claire, James and John.  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124774&l=9bd90&id=892645136

Next up, was one of my favourite weekends to date - The Boreyong Mud Festival where group of 10 of us spent a crazy July weekend at Daechon beach covering ourselves with 'therapeutic' mud and generally just running amok... who knew mud could be so much fun?? http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151128&l=75c8c&id=892645136

A week or two after the mud festival I was lucky enough to get a week long visit form my lovely sister Cathy and her Gyles.  It was SO awesome to see them and equally as cool to be able to share my life here with someone from home - at least now someone will know who/what/where I'm talking about when I get back, plus now they won't be able to tease me and say I was really in a mental asylum for a year or something... 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158540&l=55e6b&id=892645136

The day after Cath'n'Gyles left Korea, my summer holidays started (typical right?)... oh and by vacation, I mean 4 days and a weekend off work... bullshit excuse for the word 'holiday' if you ask me, but something was definitely better than nothing, and Claire and I took the opportunity to beach-bum on the north of the east coast of Korea in a great little place called Sokcho.  The beach rest was welcomed with open arms, and when the weather turned on us (as it is known to do in the middle of rainy season), we took the opportunity to check out the beautiful Mt. Serok - we didn't actually see much from the top due to some crazy cloud cover, but it was pretty all the same...  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=160153&l=b1446&id=892645136

Korean thanksgiving (Chuseok) fell early in September this year, and Claire, Jeff and I decided to take advantage of the one public holiday where the whole of Korea WASN'T heading to Jeju Island, by heading to... yup - Jeju Island!  Jeju has been likened to a lot of places ranging from Hawaii, Australia, Disney Land and just straight up Paradise... I think that the last two give the most apt description of Jeju -(you may understand the Disney Land part when you look at the first few photos... at times it was a bit bizarro). It was a great long weekend - even if the rain did spoil our hopes of another 4 days of beach bumming.  Instead of tanning we went to the circus, rode funny bikes, looked at waterfalls and bypassed security so that we could climb Mt. Halla in flip-flops (it's Korea's tallest mountain I'll have you know)... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=165125&l=a4603&id=892645136   

The most recent and last long weekend before Christmas was at the start of October - our lovely school gave us 4 days while everyone else got 3 (whoot whoot!) so my travel buddy, Claire, and I decided to check another few places off our list of things to see.  This time we headed South East to the country's 3rd largest city, Daegu.  There we perused the traditional herbal medicine market, and some other smelly markets and hung out with old men and random wild animals in a community park.  Then we made our way to the ancient Silla era city of Gyeongju.  This place is stunning and should be on every must-see list in Korea... we spent days strolling around ancient tombs, serene ponds and beautiful temples. Check out the photos to see for yourselves. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173477&l=6ea73&id=892645136

That wraps up the weekends away - and if you weren't already starting to get the picture as to why it's been so long between entries... well you just should be.  I'll leave you with another few links to a few other facebook albums I put up (Mama, Pa and Dad, I hope you know this link business is almost entirely for your benefit as you are just about the only people I know that don't have a facebook account...) Anyway, here is a link to some pics of the kiddies at school - little angel-faced monsters that they are... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158536&l=7e900&id=892645136

This one showcases the latest installments in the world of EngRish...  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171567&l=92b1e&id=892645136

And last but not least, the extravaganza that was Halloween - first for the kids, then for the grown-ups (if you can't figure out what Claire and I went as, we are dressed as our kindergarten children - complete with our school backpacks and all)... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=179533&l=49c19&id=892645136

Well, that brings me pretty much up-to-date with life in the dong of Youngtong... I'll try and keep on top of things a little better from now on... but just remember that I said try and not promise. xx

Way back in Busan.

In what seems to be my somewhat unsuccessful and never-ending quest to keep this blog updated, I'm rewinding back to May when a few mates and I  decided to spend a long-weekend in the south-eastern city of Busan.  Busan is the second biggest city in Korea and is strikingly different to what I have seen Seoul and it's surrounds.  For starters, it's on the coast (but sadly,  it was much too cold to swim that weekend - booo), and it is not nearly as modern or affluent as most of Seoul appears to be.  The people in Busan are renown for being incredibly friendly - and certainly lived up to that reputation when we were there... anyway, the point is that Busan and Seoul are totally different- and very fun.

In our mighty wisdom, we decided to take a night bus from our local inter-city bus terminal in Suwon... and in even mightier wisdom, we thought it was a good idea to include alcohol in this plan.... so we met at the Now bar for a few pre-drinks, then headed to the bus station armed with bottles of soju for our 1.30 am departure.  Note to self and anyone who cares to listen - don't liquor up before a 5 hour  bus ride... particularly when the bus doesn't have a toilet.

After a sleepless bus ride (due to mild motion/alcohol seedy-ness and an extreme exercise in bladder control) we arrived in Busan around 6 am.... What does one do in Busan at 6 am when one is hung-over and severely sleep deprived?? Yes, one goes to the fish market... 

Among an array of interesting sea creatures, we found these... I have no idea what they are, but I know what the look like!!  Worse still,  they squirm around in the buckets - gross, gross, gross.

A street of dried fish stalls - if only you could capture the smell in photos...

After our little tour of ye-olde-stinky-fish-market we headed to Gwangalli beach to find a hotel for the weekend.  After walking around attempting to secure a cheap room (and consequently discovering that our combined Korean skills were incredibly poor), we settle on this little number....

Yah, it's what's known as a 'Love' motel... not quite as dodgy as it sounds (although I do believe it is possible to rent rooms by the hour), but a good option for a cheap, secure and relatively comfy hotel option in Korea.  The above picture features Claire, sporting the 'Hers' bathrobe on the frightfully fluffy pink bed we were to share for the weekend....

We decided to skip a much needed nap in our new digs and headed to the Busan Aquarium instead (it was raining on and off all day - plus we were apparently really into fish that day...) After a wild ride on the aquarium's 3D extravaganza, we check out the famous Haeundae beach - which proved to be bitterly cold and windy so we headed back to the motel to freshen up before heading out for dinner and a night on the town... the next morning when we made it back to our motel again it was 8am - marking 48 hours without a wink of sleep.... shouldda been a barocca ad if you ask me.

Day #2 we dragged our weary bodies up the Busan tower - the views were purdy.  We also checked out the infamous Texas street (home to hookers, hustlers, dodgy folk and sexy-bars aplenty) and then onto dinner before stumbling across a soju hof (a soju bar of sorts).  This place was awesome!  It was huge an we were the only foreigners in the whole place - which made us quite the novelty  for the local patrons.  

Over the course of the night we were lucky enough to witness 3 or 4 Korean birthday parties with the special twist that only this particular soju hof seems to offer... basically it goes like this; birthday girl is presented with a cake. bartenders perform some impressive bottle-twirling with the grand finale involving a heavily shaken bottle of champagne.  Bottle is opened and champagne goes everywhere.  Girl is instructed to down a glass of champagne - if she does, she is given the bottle to drink at her leisure, if she refuses, the entire bottle is poured on her head.  Sheer hilarity (particularly as the Korean girls are incredibly, erm, attentive to their appearance).

Arriving back at Gwangalli beach about half an hour early for sun-rise, we killed some time with a few little pieces of merchandise we purchased from the fire-works stalls set up along the beach (yes - legal and yes - street vendors at 5 am... it's just the Korean way).

Matchy-matchy... my love for trying to capture couple's outfits will never cease.

Our last day was taken up with hung-over attempts to find an adequately greasy breakfast before heading back to the bus station to catch our toilet-less bus home.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering who 'we' was... this is us - Claire, me, Jesse and Dean - "The Busan 4".

Great weekend away.

Santa is my best friend

In my never-ending quest to perfect my teaching style (or at least to stop the kids from jumping on the desks during my classes), I've been running a series of tests in behavioural control techniques.  Recent trials include "cross teacher face" (often coupled with "hands on hips stance"), "everybody hands on heads", "clap, clap, clap", "pencils DOWN!" the old "threeeee.... twooo.... oooone", "silent treatment", sticker bribes, "the baby chair" and just flat out yelling.  

The success-failure rate of these techniques vary greatly due to a high number of random variables (time of day, weather, sugar intake, severity of teachers hangover etc etc).  The temporary nature of success yielded from the above trials left me searching for more effective techniques, so I decided that it was time to get creative (and maybe even a little bit mean). I am pleased to announce the discovery of one technique with a much higher success rate than previous attempts... it goes a little something like this:  Kids are being bad.  After unsuccessfully trying to quiet them, leave the room.  Return with mobile phone.  Pretend to dial a number- this usually distracts at least one or two of the rascals from their naughtiness.... but this is all you need for the trick to be effective. When the one or two are watching you, say loudly into the phone "Hello?  Police? Hi, this is Amy Teacher. Yes, Erin/Lewis/Nick (insert name) is being very naughty in class today..." To this the kids generally shit themselves and stop the bad behaviour instantly.  

This worked in my favour for a few weeks, but then I had to mix it up a bit to keep them on their toes... my new phone conversation starts like this: "Hello?  Santa?...."  You've never seen kids sit down and shut up so quickly - it's brilliant.  The kids now believe that Santa is my good friend - I told them that we met in Australia a few years back while he was taking a much needed beach holiday post-christmas present deliveries.  We hung out on the beach and I showed him around Melbourne.  We've been great friends ever since.  Santa has also allowed me to put little video cameras in the fire-sprinkler system in our classrooms so he can always see who is being naughty and who is being nice.  Santa is my best friend.

Anyway, I figured it was time for an update on school life... 

Mr. Lee (the owner/director of my school) and Bunny (my supervisor). 

With bosses like these, it's little wonder why the kids are so crazy... 

My Korean co-workers and all 'round great bunch-o-gals: Cindy, Winnie, Receptionist (no one seems to know her name but the kids call her 'the desk teacher'), Reina, Lailla and Janice.

FIELD TRIPS WITH THE KINDY KIDS 

Candy and the coolest shades to hit Youngtong, en route to the Seoul Grand Park Zoo.

Kenny, demonstrating the ever popular Korean min-love heart symbol, at the zoo (full size heart symbol involves arms over your head...much like the 'M' of YMCA dance). 

(FYI. I named Kenny after Kenny from the movie 'Kenny').

Lynne and Amy Teacher's "funny fish eye", at the zoo.

Learning about traffic safety at the Suwon Police Academy.  I was a little shocked that they let un-licensed  5 year olds operate this heavy machinery... they were un-attached cars that worked up a reasonable speed... there was an accelerator peddle and a kill-switch... no seat-belts or restraints to speak of.  Thankfully all limbs were saved.

E.C.C. OLYMPICS

Jongha - one of the naughtier, but more amusing kinder boys.  

One day Jongha came into the classroom and said to me: "Amy Teacher, you're a good catch!" "Erm... nice of you to say Jongha...", to which he replied by grabbing his chin and yelling "Ooooooh baby!" - one can only wonder where his father (who apparently taught him this) learnt English...

The power-house of Tug-o-war.

Sooo cute.

E.C.C. MARKET DAY

The courtyard outside our school was converted into a flea market for the afternoon.  The kids were given fake money (purchased with real money by their parents) and set free to buy a range of used toys, books and clothes donated by their families... Who could've known that balloons and hand-held wind-mills could be the cause of the 2008 Youngtong Kinder Riots??

RANDOM TID-BITS FROM AROUND SCHOOL

Erin (the little monster) in her special party dress... 

Erin is the clumsiest, most awkward child on the face of the planet... I love her. I find her resemblance to Princess Fiona from Shrek is also quite striking.  I may also mention that she was caught smuggling a book from the flea market book stall - the concept of exchanging goods for coupons was apparently too much to comprehend at the time... that or she was saving all her coupons for fairy-floss.

The boys of Moon Class... as you can see, the control I exert over these children is nothing short of amazing.

Ocean class hit the E.C.C. veggie patch.  Cherry tomatoes for EVERYONE!

P.S. The other day, mid-phonics lesson, one of the boys in Ocean class, Jacky, raised his hand to ask a question (a small blessing as they normally just scream "teacher teacher teacher teacher!!" at me when they want something).  Anyway, so a very serious faced little Jacky says "Teacher, I have a question"

"Yes, Jacky?"

"Are you a boy?"

"No, Jacky. I'm a girl."

I'm so glad that my gender has been unclear to this kid for the last 5 months...

Candy, Julie and Moon Young of Sun class... being their adorable little selves.

Sometimes I sing to them when they're colouring in - partly to teach them some songs and words... partly to keep them occupied so they don't run around the room screaming. Apparently there are some songs these little tykes really don't like (eg. 'In the jungle' and 'I'm a little tea-pot'), so when they're bad I bust out one of these numbers to annoy them.  Recently, however, they've started retaliating with a little singing of their own - or rather they stand up and chant "SING NO! SING NO! SING NO!" until I'm laughing so hard I have to stop singing.  Crafty little buggers.

This is my Sun Class boyfriend, Moon Young.  He has the most adorably squishy cheeks in the world.  He's been known to smuggle whole cherry tomatoes in his cheeks for up to 40 minutes before anyone noticed - which should give some indication of the amount of chub in those chops.

William and his Lion mask.  William is the newest member of Sun class and the crappest colour-inner I've ever seen.  He's adorable though - even if his displays of affection do involve very hard pinches and squeezes.

Me 'n' the Sun Class Lions. Rrrroooaaarrr.

 Three of my favourite afternoon class girls, Lina, Sally and Amy, sitting on the air conditioning vents to make their dresses puff up like princesses... then complain that their legs are cold for a solid 10 minutes after.  They do look cute though.

Finally, I wanted to show you a sight I see on a regular basis:

You may be thinking "what does this have to do with kids?".  My answer to this, is nothing, however, it is a position that most of my students will undoubtedly be very familiar with by the time they're 25....  The Korean penchant for passing out on stairs really is baffling.

Until next time.

Recently Local... (I'll tell you about the weekends away some other time)

Recent blog slackness is once again duly noted... my lovely sister has even created a facebook group called "Amy should update her blog" (of which I am now a member), in an attempt to give me a swift kick out of cyber-laziness and back into bloggy-diligence.  Given that I'm not one to turn my back on a good cause, here's one of what I hope to be a few updates on life in Happy Suwon... I've opted for photo-board style once again as it's the only way I can begin to cover what's been going on.

  HONGDAE (or HONGDAZE as we like to call it)

 Tucked away in Seoul, is a little place called Hongdae that houses a myriad of bars, pubs and clubs.  It is considered mandatory for anyone living in Korea to partake in periodic wild nights out in Hongdae.  The last friday of every month is "club night" where, for about $25 you can purchase an arm-band that gives you a 'free' drink and 'free' entry into just about any club in the area.  When one goes out in Hongdae they must party the night away until the busses and subway starts running again in the morning to take them home... at which point the prospect of sitting on public transport for over an hour is so unappealing, money is pooled and extra people are squished into cabs for the long ride home (thus defeating the purpose of staying til 7am, yet never stops it from happening). During my first venture to Hongdae we visited a number of bars, including an 80's bar (the name of which escapes me now... perhaps it's 80's Club), that had Milli Vanilli AND INXS on vinyl - really, I was like a pig in poop.   

BUDDHA HAD A BIRTHDAY

In May, we had 2 long weekends in a row (oooh yeah!).  One, was for Children's day and the other was to celebrate Buddhas Birthday... (no, I'm not sure how old he turned this year).  Buddha likes to get his party started a week early with a few lantern festivals around the country, so I went to Insadong in Seoul with my friends Darian and Darryn to check it out on the Saturday... shame the festival didn't actually start until the Sunday...  however, we did get to see a few lanterns that had been put up in preparation.  I really ♡ lanterns (maybe almost as much as I love cherry blossoms). 

Disappointed with the lack of lanterns to look at, we wondered around Insadong for a while.  I like Insadong as it's one of the few areas of Seoul I've been to that has a traditional feel to it (although, it is a fairly touristy-traditional feel).  There are a lot of old-style buildings, restaurants, shops and tea-houses in they alleys that run off the main street, all selling 'traditional' Korean crafts etc (if you can call a Hanbok-wearing Hello-Kitty mobile phone charm traditional... but there are a lot of calligraphy, ceramic, book and antique shops too).  Anyway, the main drag of Insadong is one of the only areas of Korea I've been to without a million 7-11 style convenience stores dotted along the street at 5 meter intervals - and better still, there is not a Paris Baguette or Dunkin' Donuts in sight (which is less than I can say for every other street in Korea)... there is, however, a Starbucks on the main street of Insadong.  Booooo.  BUT, the reason I mention this is that there was such a hoo-ha about a Starbucks opening in such a traditional area, that it was a condition of opening that the company name be written in Hangul on the storefront rather than in latin script... it roughly reads "Su-Ta Bok-Su Ko-Pi".  Love it! 

Not too far from Insadong you can also find this little gem - the Chonggye Stream, which is definitely one of my favourite places to spend time in Seoul.  The stream, that runs through the centre of the city, was covered over by development for decades (?), but was re-opened a few years ago to be used as a public recreation space... it's just really beautiful and peaceful area of the city.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

Foreigners aren't always loved in Korea... we look funny, we tend to drink a lot and we don't really understand a lot of the social customs of Korea, so we probably unwittingly offend the locals from time to time.  So we decided to do some image maintenance and show the local Koreans that we're not all the scary drunks we appear to be.  We decided that it was time to give something back to the community...  A group of foreign teachers living around Youngtong managed to organise an 'international' festival to run alongside a market day being held by the local YMCA (no mean feat given the language barriers we face here!).  So one Saturday in May, a gaggle of foreign teachers (not sure what the collective noun would be) from the Youngtong area set up stalls near the YMCA flea market with free activities for the local kids.  There was paper airplane competitions, colouring in competitions, hair-wraps, sports, drawing - everything!  I was working on the face-painting site with 4 other girls and WOW did we have kids lining up to get our crappy artwork on their faces!! - Even when a few Korean girls from the YMCA set up their own face-painting stand near us and the kids realised these girls had artistic skill far superior to the foreigners.  It was so much fun - although I'm sure a few kids were wondering what the hell they had painted on them... see exhibit A:

Despite the fact that this kid is still in a pram and therefore isn't really qualified to pass judgement on my art work, I couldn't help but notice her look of "W.T.F?" when she saw the flowers on her arm and the rabbit on her hand.  I did some awesome spiders (even if I do say so myself), but I wont be quitting my day job to become a face painter - even if I wasn't the worst there... My buddy Joe painted a robot on this kids face (being a male, he thought he was more qualified to do this than we were)... well, this robot was so terrible it looked like a rag-doll. He told the little boy's dad that it was an "American robot" and retired his paintbrush then and there... The local's loved us despite this.

SUWON FOLK VILLAGE

Me'n' Darian at the Folk Villageeeee (this is how the word 'village' is said by koreans - I'm not kidding, if you want to get to a village of sorts by cab, you have to say villageeee to be understood - good friends of mine live in youngtong villageee, so I get to say it a lot)

.

I don't know what to say about the village - I guess it's the Sovereign Hill of Suwon.... but, in typical Korean style,  there were a lot of things at the village-eee that one wouldn't expect from a 'traditional' village.  The above picture and the fact that the folk village has an amusement park speaks for itself and the sheer randomness this country can bring - humorously strange things in stranger locations .

MONKEY BEACH

Another night out in Seoul... this time, at a club called Monkey Beach in Apgujeong.  Monkey Beach followed a farewell dinner for my lovely friend Darian...  A group of about 30 of us went to an all you can eat and drink restaurant (salad bar, seafood, meats, pasta beer, wine and spirits and more - all for $25!) then stumbled our way to the club...

All that needs to be said about this photo is that there is a cocktail in that bucket.  A cocktail with 12 shots of tequila sunrise goodness.  A cocktail with 12 shots, that only costs 12,000 won (about AUD$12.10). A cocktail with 12 shots, that only cost $12 and some very thirsty people.  The only other thing that needs to be said about this photo is that the cabbie had to pull over a few times on the way home for our mate James... to, erm, de-cocktail.  

R-16 FESTIVAL

The R-16 festival was an urban arts festival and b-boy competition held in Suwon.  Yes, I went to an international breakdancing competition in Korea -bahahahaha!  It was so fun - and the breakdancing really was world class! (in my humble breakdancing opinion). 'Crews' (see, I'm down with the lingo) from 15 countries were competing for the title, which Korea unsurprisingly won...  little rigged perhaps?- I was sure Japan or France had it in the bag.  Anyway,  I love how Koreans can fit cartoons into the most unlikely situations....

Me'n'Trav with the 'boy mascot' (could you get any LESS b-boy??)

The crowd at R-16... The Korean MC liked to say 'aiii'iite' at the end of his sentences.... the American MC made up a new word:  he said the 'R' in R-16 stands for 'Respect' then he said it also stands for 'Recognise'... then he actually said "Respecognise".  Oh, how we laughed. It's my favourite new word.

AUSTRALIA WEEKEND

Last weekend, Claire (my friend from home who came to Korea to take a job at my school at the start of May)our buddy Trav (who is another Melbournian we met over here) and I, while waiting to meet some friends in Itaewon, Seoul,  decided to head to an Aussie bar in the search for a Coopers Pale Ale.  Now, I'd like to say that this was the first Australian ANYTHING I've been to in the 5 months I've been here, and I'm not going to make a habit out if it.... but it really was nice to sit down and eat beetroot in a hamburger while watching a bit of AFL on TV (even if they didn't have pale ale). Anyway, I'd heard rumors that this bar was owned by the old drummer from the Chiorboys.... turns out the rumors are true - as you may or may not have noticed from the above picure.

The following day, Claire and I joined a bunch of our American friends to watch Australia Vs USA in Womens Soccer - just another wonderful event to take place in Happy, Harmonious Suwon.   Not wanting to be outdone by our friend with a U.S. head-bandanna, we sacrificed the last of our Aussie flag stickers and got ourselves down to the shops for some green and gold ribbon...  We were the ONLY Aussie supporters there, so LUCKY we had some flare to show it (and lucky we were able to convert some korean kids and old men to our side... they liked us so much, they even shared their lunch of kim-bap with us!)... too bad Australia lost the game though - perhaps our chanting wasn't loud enough??

I'm pretty sure these kids thought we were famous... who was I to burst their bubble???

 

The end for now.

P.S.  This post is dedicated to my sister Cathy - cos she made me promise to dedicate it to her. 

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

Forgive me father for I have been slack.  It's been a few weeks since my last blog and for this I am sorry....  

Yes, my slackness in blogging of late has been duly noted... by many (I honestly didn't think anyone outside of my immediate family actually read this, but the numerous crabby emails I've received about my lack of posting suggests that perhaps I was wrong).  It's just that the weather has been fantastic lately (sunny and around 25 degrees most days) and  staying indoors to write my blog has been a far less attractive option than the abundant park-life that has been taking place.  Anyway, point is that I'll try and get my act together on a slightly more regular basis.

Two (or so) weeks in review...

Items on the agenda: trivia night, fajita/jenga night, hookah night, hedgehogs and a covert helipad adventure. See below for details.

Item #1: Trivia night

Location: "The Magnet" (aka. Now Bar)

Rationale: Mid-week public holiday, an excuse to drink (like we needed another one) and a chance to put our collective trivial knowledge to good use... oh, and raising money for charity.

The Team: Amy, Kit, Darryn and Phil 

We thought we had the trivia night in the bag... we thought wrong. Although, we did put in a cracking effort for the karma sutra - pictionary round... 

Well we weren't entirely wrong- we did have something in the bag... A Chihuahua.  After the quiz we were left babysitting said chihuahua in the bar while we drowned our sorrows over our tragic defeat... this photo highlights just one reason why dogs should not be allowed in bars.

Item #2: Fajita/Jenga night

Location: My apartment.

Rationale: Mexican food is hard to come by here... Jenga has so much potential in the 'seemingly innocent games turn drinking games' realm.

A recent trip to an American wholesale supermarket left me with an excessively large amount of fajita seasoning in my possession.  Given that a lot of decent foreign foods can be quite hard to track down over here, this is acquisition was big news amongst my friends.  In addition to this, my former co-workers left me as the guardian of a jenga set that they had previously used as a drinking game... basically (and it is a very basic concept), there are instructions on each jenga block, so each time you extract one from the pile you must do what it says.  For example; finish your drink, do 2 shots of soju, ask the neighbour for an apple (keep in mind all our neighbours are Korean), attempt an acrobatic feat, sing your national anthem... etc etc etc. So, last Friday, I invited a few buddies around for fajitas and jenga (if you didn't already gather that from the title of "fajitas/jenga night").  Unfortunately my role as hostess-with-the-mostest left me with little time to photograph the evening (actually, there were a few hilarious videos, but I promised they'd never see the light of internet), so instead I've opted for a photo from significantly later in the night after we'd migrated back down to now bar...

Fajita'd, jenga'd,maekju'd, soju'd and mandu'd out...

Item #3: Hookah night

Location: My apartment (apparently this weeks social hub of Yongtong)

Rationale: There is a hookah amongst us... and it keeps us away from the bar.

'Round here, we like to hookah (or shisha - depending on what you like to call it) and although there are a few cool hookah bars in Seoul, they aren't exactly convenient for an impromptu mid-week get-together.  However, as I mentioned before, we like to hookah , so my friends Kit and Joe came up with the brilliant idea of co-purchasing a hookah of their very own... and thus bringing the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak.  Over the last few months we have had a growing number of people partaking in hookah nights at Kit and Joes apartments.  Last Wednesday, however, due to extenuating circumstances, we were left without a venue at the last minute, so I volunteered my place.  Thinking that the 6 people who came for fajita/jenga night was probably at the higher-end of my apartment's comfortable catering limits, I was surprised to find we were able to squeeze 12 people and a hookah onto my lovely lino floor without too much trouble (in fact, I dare say that there was  a tiny bit of room between Joe and my fridge for one more)

Yes, I realise it looks like something of a boys night... un/fortunately (depending on which way you look at it), most of my buddies here are boys - aside from a few of the boys girlfriends (who sadly don't live in Youngtong), a lot of the girls I know here don't go out all that much.  As a consequence, I've been made an honorary boy - which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm taking the glass-half-full approach.

In Korea, everyone leaves their shoes at the door... this was my doorway after about half of the group showed up.

Item #4: Hedgehogs

Location: The park

Rationale: I don't think there needs to be a rationale behind hedgehogs as a species... but my rationale for putting them on the items agenda is that they're pretty damn cool!

Not too much to be said about this item of the agenda - aside from that this is Blackberry the pygmy hedgehog - 1 of 5 that friends of mine own.  I want a hedgehog, but they are spiky and I discovered that I'm a little scared of touching them... but they're so cool, I want one!

Item #5: Covert helipad adventure

Location: New towers in Youngtong

Rationale: Keeping in mind I said 'rationale' and not 'rational': (a) we wanted to and (b) no one stopped us.  

Late one Sunday evening, after a day of hanging about in the sunshiney park, a bunch of foreigners got talking about the new apartment towers that had recently been completed in their town.  It was noted that although between them they had seen a combined total of approximately 3 helicopters during their time in Korea, the vast majority of high-rise buildings (of which there are many), have a helipad on the top.  Their conversation naturally progressed to speculation about the nature of the views one may encounter atop the aforementioned 40 story buildings... and soon enough these inquisitive and adventure-hungry foreigners decided that they would like to see the views for themselves....

The triumphant delinquents - moments after reaching the summit of the high-rise.

(with the lifts currently servicing only the first 10 of 40 floors, it really did feel as if we had just climbed a mountain.) 

Speculation no longer required.  The views were pretty sweet...

Holding my camera still enough to get good shots of them proved to be quite difficult.

So that's been the last 2 weeks for me - more or less... I went to the zoo last week with the kids at school and this week we had a mini-olympics - but that's another post all together.  I also started volunteering at an orphanage near my house this week.  I've been trying to organise it with one of my Korean co-workers for about a month now, but finally on Tuesday we were able to get it sorted to go down to meet the kids and assess their English levels... The orphanage is not at all what I expected (but given that my imagery of orphanages is entirely based on the movie 'Annie' and a terribly depressing kids home I visited in Vietnam, I'm not surprised my expectations were a little off).  It's run by nuns and it's a really warm, clean and comfortable place.  There are just 9 kids there at the moment and they all go to a local elementary school and have piano lessons and math tutoring like everyone else... they've just never had the option to learn English before, so Bunny (my Korean co-worker) and I will take them for a 45 minute beginners English class once a week and just hang about and play some games with them. So yeah, I'm looking forward to going again next week 'cos the kids there are sweethearts... and it's just really nice to be able to do something good while I'm here too.

Well, that's all my news for now - oh, except that a kid threw a banana at me today which reminded me of the Groucho Marx quote I used for the title of this post... anyway, I hope everyone back home has a nice ANZAC weekend.  Eat some ANZAC biscuits for me!!!

Flowers in trees are pretty

I have never experienced the seasons change as rapidly as they do in Korea.  A few weeks ago it was winter - freezing and snowing, the trees were bare and the grass was completely dead and brown... the next week it poured with rain, but I lost the need for my thick winter jacket... the week after, the sun was shining again - it was shining nearly all winter, but I could actually feel it's warmth this time.  The grass turned green over night and all of a sudden, the bare trees of winter burst into full, glorious spring time bloom - it is, in  a word, stunning. And better still, no longer am I bound to the confines of my apartment with the ondol switched onto high.  Now, my time off work is spent lazing about in one of the many nearby parks with a book or a few friends... it's noice. It's different.  It's unuuusual.  

Most of the foreign teachers around here had Wednesday off work due to a local or provincial election (can't be sure of which it was... most of the explanations I've received from my Korean co-workers have been vague and/or sketchy to say the least) - but we at the wonderful ECC were lucky enough to get Tuesday off as well! (yes, we were the envy of many).  So my fellow Aussie co-worker, Mardi, and I decided to head into Yeouido Island in Seoul to have a look at the Cherry Blossom Festival.  Wow....  I don't normally go ga-ga over flowers (or trees for that matter), but these flowery trees were gorgeous.  I must've said "it's so pretty" about 7 million times in the first 10 minutes of being there - and that's just the times I said it out loud. 

A stream running through the beautiful Yeouido Park - with the obligatory high-rise buildings in the background... wouldn't be Seoul without them.

(BTW.  Yeouido... seriously, how many vowels do you want to put in a single word!?)

I like photos that capture the old and new... well given that the park isn't even 10 years old (like most things in Korea) I guess I should say that I like the contrast between the traditional and the modern style - or something like that.

Purdy cherry blossoms... around much of the world, these would often just be regarded as nice flowers, but almost everything in Korea carries a deeper symbolism - even the letters of the Korea alphabet represent the land, the sky, people etc.  Aside from the visual beauty of blossoms, Korean thinking uses their short, but stunning existence as a metaphor for life.  The fleeting glory of the blossom signifies the precarious and transitory nature of life - something we're supposed to be reminded of during the festival.  Nice huh?

... Aaaand back down to earth - in the Korea of day-to-day-  an outing wouldn't be complete outing without seeing something completely bizzare... and here is a fine example.  Yes, these girls are riding a tandem bike - whilst wearing roller blades.  "Why?", you may ask?  Well, my guess is as good as yours... but it typifies the sheer randomness I see here on a daily basis.  I'm learning not to ask questions about it as the answers are generally more confusing than the behaviour in question.

The Cherry Blossom Festival was a nice day out for many a couple... as I imagine it would be anywhere in the world.  Difference here is that couples often wear matching outfits.  The matching aqua tops above are far from the best his-n-hers outfits I've seen, but at least it gives you an idea.  I once saw a couple wearing identical hot pink t-shirts with a picture of said couple printed (in a love heart) on the front. Let me also throw in that the guys carry their girlfriends handbags everywhere - no matter how girly the bag may be. 

Ahh... Beondegi - the bane of my pedestrian life in Korea.  Beondegi are boiled silkworm larvae... mmm... unfortunately it is also very popular snack here - you can get it in on the street, in restaurants, bars and even in a can at the supermarket.  Every bloody street vendor (of which there are many) boils up beondegi for peckish passers-by.  The main problem is (if you can get past the obvious 'you are eating freaking pupae' issue) - that it smells absolutely vile.  I have to remember not to breathe when within 15 meters of it, as it is one of the most pungent, thickest, stick-in-the-back-of-your-throat smells going 'round. I've had a few close calls with the old gag reflex and really want to avoid jumping on the Korean band-wagon that apparently okays vomiting on the street (although they do it when drunk... which, judging by the number of spew piles dotted around, is quite often). Moral of the story is: I hate Beondegi.

Ah yes.  Back to the Cherry Blossom Festival.... in all it's Korean-ness.

This picture is my attempt at capturing the Korean penchant for unashamedly photographing oneself in a range of hilarious poses... but they do it for serious.  I could have taken this picture a million times since arriving here- insomuch that everyday I see girls sitting on their lunch break taking pouty photos of themselves with their mobile phones... or just sitting and and checking themselves out in the obligatory hand held mirror.  I'm not sure how much of it is vanity and how much of it is just taking care of their appearance... but it makes me giggle.  

Another interesting insight into Korea... here you see families and friends picnicing on a hillside.  Well, to be accurate, this was less of a hillside and more of a ditch leading down from the blossomed Yunjungno street to large, noisy road.  I'm not sure why this was deemed a nice spot to sit and eat kim-chi and drink ginseng tea - particularly when Yeouido park was mere minutes away - but for some reason it was.  It's not like there was even a nice view across the large road onto which the picnicers were facing - there was just a big, packed car park!  I really don't get it, but again, I got a good giggle out of it!

I don't think I'll ever get used to the cartoons... This one is on a police station.  If there's one profession that shouldn't use cartoons, it would probably be the police, right?  And maybe politicians.  Which reminds me - the candidates for the election on Wednesday... well, their campaigns involved a lot of  dancing and singing in the streets.  One candidate (I only know him as #2) had his campaigners set up shop on a traffic island in the middle of a 6 lane road and dance on the back of a truck to cheesy music while illuminated by a range of colourful disco lights.  No joke.... perhaps candidate #2 is a joke.

I put this one in just because it is such a typical view in Korea - I like the views across the Han river because it's one of the only times (in Seoul at least) that you can see more than 100 meters in front of you - normally you are crowded in by big buildings.

Hehehe... this kid had a sticker with his name and parents mobile phone number stuck to his back.  It made me happy to see that this kind of thing happens all around the world - I remember my dad writing my name and address on my arm in permanent marker at the Royal Melbourne Show... just in case we got lost and it was really rainy or something.

More odd posing with flowers by the Koreans... that's three different photos going on in the background there...  Cos squatting with your face in a pot of flowers is the most natural pose you could get!

Meh... when in Korea eh? But just as I suspected, the photo looks ridiculous and will never make it's way into a photo frame in my house... mostly because it looks like I'm on a squat toilet hidden behind the flowers (perhaps I was?).  I'm yet to discover how any of the others taking this style of photo could have avoided the same problem, yet I'd put money on it that this pose is the source of many a framed photo in Korea.

Seoul through the blossoms.

Yunjungno street with its festival goers.  There were parts of the street that were so densely covered with blossoms that it felt like we were walking in a cloud... or a fluffy, white tunnel... or some other analogy that describes the feeling better... 

And to top off a great day, I found this.  It's a truck with rotisserie chickens on the back.  Yup, you can buy an entire chicken at a street stall... intended as a snack on the subway home?? Who knows, but I think it's brilliant.

Anyway, I hope that my day at the Cherry Blossom Festival gave you all a better insight into Korea... and how weirdly wonderful it is.

  Until I can be bothered blogging again...