Maekju = Beer

Goodbye Kimchi, Hello World!

2009-05-10T11:27:00.004+09:00

I finished up in Korea last Thursday after 16 of the best months of my life. It was really sad to say goodbye to Korea and I will miss my friends and my students sooooo much, but I`m really excited for the travel that lies ahead!

My blogging slackness in Korea was somewhat shameful, I know... but now that I`m on the road again, I`ve have started a new blog with my travel buddy, Claire, which we hope to update with some semblance of regularity.

Follow us as we blow a years worth of hard-earned cash on our Asian adventure through Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal and India. We`re hoping that our savings will last us for 5 or 6 months... we`ll see how that goes...

Anyway, check out our new blog at www.amyandclaire.blogspot.com

사랑해요 Korea - Happy anniversary!

2009-01-19T00:20:00.003+09:00

So today marks my one year anniversary with South Korea. 365 days. No, wait, 366 days (2008 was a leap year after all). I know I keep saying this, but I cannot believe how fast time has flown. Seriously! How has it already been a year! What a year it has been... 사랑해요 한국 !! (I love you, Korea!!)

I'm sitting here on my bed in my itty-bitty apartment where I can see everything I own without even having to turn my head (just a slight movement of the eyes just about does it), I'm sipping on some bad Korean rice wine, my foster-dog, Elvis, is snoring on my feet and I'm watching my favourite Korean boy-band on TV... I love it all and can't help but think how sad I'll be to leave this place when the time comes.

Technically, I'm supposed to be out of the country today, but I've known for a while now that I wouldn't be ready to leave just yet... so I've extended my contract to the end of April - which, coincidentally (or not coincidentally at all), is when Claire finishes up too. Our post-Korea plans are to spend 5 or 6 months traveling around Asia - Japan, China, India, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos. We've partied a lot of our money away here, but we've also managed to save enough to ensure ourselves a fairly a decent trip - whoot whoot whoot! It's my hope that traveling will take the edge off leaving Korea, but as excited as I am about hitting the road and seeing the sights, I really do get a lump in my throat when I think of what I'm leaving behind... Far and beyond, the two things that will be the hardest to leave are my wonderful friends....absolutely amazing, hilarious, unforgettable people that they are, and, of course, my students... some of the cutest kids I've ever had the pleasure of yelling at/reducing to tears.

(for some tear-free pictures of their Christmas pageant extraordinaire, see http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=199354&l=4211f&id=892645136)

Anyway, in no apparent order, here are a few pics (read 'many') from the last couple of months... I'm sure you can see why I'm finding it so hard to leave.

NYE, Cheonggyechon, Seoul... Our first attempt at a human pyramid...

Our second, and much more impressive pyramid... I'm surprised this didn't make the national news given the 7 million photos taken of it by onlookers.

NYE Cheonggycheon, Seoul

NYE - the police were oddly keen to get into photos

NYE - this policeman kindly held my beer while I fished my camera out of my bag... and I think he's probably 12.

NYE - two very excited and cold Aussies

(it was minus 15 or something horrible and we were outside!)

Fun times at Monkey Beach, Seoul... the cocktails come in buckets

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

This, my friends, is Kimchi, the Korean national dish. The reason it looks like a botched brain surgery is because I made it myself!

I found these little monsters hiding in the cupboard scoffing down cookies

The awesome foursome at Jesse's farewell :(

Yes, my Korean experience is a little more complete, having developed a massive crush on a Korean celebrity.... Meet T.O.P (singer/songwriter/rapper for Korea's most popular band 'BigBang') and my #1 crush. My crush started off as a bit of a joke after seeing BigBang live at a Korean music award ceremony, but has actually developed into a small obsession... (I'm going to marry him. He just doesn't know it yet).

There is a long list of reasons why I love TOP, but if I had to narrow it down to two (which I don't, but I will) it would have to be that (a) he's a dream boat, and (b) he is the only Korean male I've ever heard with a voice deeper than mine. sigh.

(yes, I know... I've been in Korea too long - seriously... one of the other band members who I also like is called G. Dragon... i know it's lame, but i just can't help but love them!)

Speaking of crushes, please meet my 6-year-old fiance, Sean. He proposed to me a while back and of course, I said yes. He's the sweetest, smartest little thing ever... and given that he came up with this pose on his own accord, I think he could be following the footsteps of TOP!

Ern, this would be me on Christmas day, sporting the goodies that Claire gave me - scarf, face mask (i'm always complaining my nose and lips are freezing), a hello kitty and some BigBang paraphernalia.

Having a ball on NYE in Cheonggyechon, Seoul

Claire and I at the Grand Mint Music Festival, Seoul...

Another highly photographed event - apparently no one has ever seen shoulder rides at a concert before.

After making Kimchi, we were "forced" into dressing in Hanbok and being photographed... surprise! mine didn't fit!

Meet another little man in my life... Elvis. Claire and I have temporary joint custody over the little man while arrangements are made for him to be reunited with his mummy in the UK. This pic is from a fundraising night at NowBar for Jorge, Elvis' daddy, who sadly passed away in October. R.I.P. Jorge

Little Elvis already has his black belt in Taekwando!!

Jesse, Claire and I drinking from zip-lock bags at the Grand Mint Festival, Seoul... back when it was warm.

We cooked up one of the finest Christmas lunches the NowBar has ever seen!

Thank you Janine for organizing!

Makin' Kimchi.

I did warn you these were in no particular order...

I'm having too much fun to leave....

The ramblings of Chester

2008-11-24T22:00:00.001+09:00

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

2008-11-11T23:55:00.001+09:00

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.

2008-07-20T19:04:00.008+09:00

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

2008-06-29T13:26:00.011+09:00

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)

2008-06-18T19:58:00.015+09:00

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.

2008-04-23T22:03:00.008+09:00

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

2008-04-10T23:24:00.024+09:00

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...

Adios little fella

2008-03-31T22:57:00.004+09:00

Before coming to Korea, I would've thought that the majority of the hurdles I would encounter here in the first few months would come in the form homesickness or loneliness... yet neither of these have been even remotely present (yes, I miss you all- but I'm far from homesick!). What I didn't anticipate is that I'd get super attached to some of the kids, and be crushed when their parents take them out of the school (which happens all the time at English schools around the country - and in a fairly willy-nilly way I might add).

Over the past few months I've been disappointed to hear about a couple of the kids that have left our school, but on Friday I was shattered to hear that my absolute favourite boy, Leo, would not be returning on Monday. I would be lying if I said I didn't get a lump in my throat and a little tear in my eye when my boss broke the news to me...

Leo in his favourite pose as the Red Power Ranger.

He is a cheeky, naughty little fella, but I absolutely adore him. Over the last few weeks in particular, Leo has taken on the role of my shadow - literally following me everywhere I go. I usually have to force him to go back to his classroom when I'm teaching a different class... he tries to stage jail breaks to follow me when I leave the school on my lunch break and is often hovering around the front door waiting when I come back. He has somehow persuaded the other kids to give him dibs on holding my left hand when I take the class outside and he tells me (and anyone who cares to listen) "Amy teacher, I love you" approximately 7,000 times a day.

If it were the 18th century I would've had him to be betrothed to my niece Poppy - they would've made the most adorably hilarious couple ever... I can see the wedding now- him, dressed in a Power Ranger outfit (made specially by the GAP, as he doesn't wear anything else) and her, in a pink princess costume - complete with heels that would make her tower over him. They would have been married by Merriweather (the little fat fairy godmother from Sleeping Beauty), Spider man and the Little Mermaid would've been in the bridal party and Donkey from Shrek would've been the ring bearer. They would've gorged on fairy bread and lollies and danced their little hearts out to the Wiggles until one or both of them over did it and spewed (something I have seen a combination of sugar and dancing induce in both of them... and yes, I may have had a hand in this happening with both of them... oops). Anyway, it would have been a magical wedding...

So school was a lot quieter, not so full of cuddles and just generally not as fun without him today... but I guess that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes :(

My first real visitor!!

2008-03-27T22:02:00.012+09:00

Well, another week has flown by in Happy Suwon. I'm beginning to think that time actually moves faster in Korea than it does back home... well that's the most logical reasoning I can come up with that explains how it's nearly April. Hours speed by like minutes and weeks like days... and Hey-Presto I've been here over 2 months! I feel really settled now and think (hope) I've learnt a lot more about how to teach the little-uns some valuable things. I'm realising that the teaching English part is only the tip of the iceberg... the kinders are at our school 5 days a week, so it's their full-time kinder, which means it's not just the place they go to brush up their English skills, but it's the place that they go to learn about important life things like sharing and not hitting and listening and being nice to your friends, etc etc . Realising that I am partly responsible for teaching them these things was a little daunting at first, but not such a scary thought now that I'm used to it... in fact, I really like that side of my job now - probably more than the teaching English part!

Outside of work things are awesome as well. I've got a bunch of good buddies to hang out with and am meeting new people all the time. There are lots of laughs and lots of good times had here! And as I recently discovered, sharing those good times with an old friend is great fun too. Last weekend my old buddy Gary came to stay with me for a few days. Gary and I lived and worked together in hostel in London back in 2001 (the Museum for those of you playing at home) and have kept in sporadic contact over the years... If someone told us then that we'd catch up in South Korea 6 years later I think we'd have tried to have them certified (actually, we probably wouldn't have heard them because we would've been too busy trying to rustle up a few quid to do our washing... then used the money to buy beer instead... but still). Anyway, Gary has been teaching English in Japan for the last few years and it just so happened that he had planned a holiday to Korea that coincided with me being here. So on my lunch break last Friday, I met up with Gary in Youngtong and was able to take him back to my school to sit in on my afternoon classes. The kids were so excited to have someone new in the school (he actually got mobbed by a hoard of 10 year old girls - literally, they were hanging off him) and I have to say that it was really nice to have an extra hand in the classroom! After school, it was deemed appropriate that Gary experience a Youngtong ESL teacher's typical weekend... and so it began...

Who could go past a giant ale at Garten Bier? Of course, followed by an obligatory Now Bar session...

Then off to a club called Crazy Duck (why?)... How many foreigners can you pack into a taxi before the driver gets pissed off??? (there were many more than the photo is letting on)

Apparently quite a few... this driver was awesome (as many taxi drivers in Korea seem to be)

And it seems that the later into the night it gets, the more people they'll let you squeeze into a cab... and the worse my camera and/or photography skills get.

We had planned to visit the Suwon fortress on Saturday, but around 6am on Saturday morning it was discussed (over a plate of end-of-the-night-dumplings), that perhaps we would go on Sunday instead. So on Saturday afternoon we headed over to a friends place for a roof-top BBQ... had it not started pouring with rain, it is my firm belief that we would've sat up there eating hamburgers and drinking beer all night long.

The view from the roof-top barbie... so Korean

As the rain so rudely forced us off the roof, we did what any other self respecting foreigner in Youngtong would do on a Saturday night... we went back to the now bar and backed it up with a stint in the Noraebang (purely a social comparison between the Japanese Karaoke and Korean Noraebang styles, of course).

The photos are bad enough... I'll spare you from the video footage (Gary, you should do the same... please).

As it goes with Noraebang and the speedy Korean clock, we again, did not make it home much before sunrise.... we didn't make it to the fortress either. Ooops. Instead we only managed to venture into Suwon city for an hour or so before the rain and the weekend took their toll and we turned for home - not before Gary got drenched by a bus speeding through a rather large puddle on the road though (I'm still cracking up at that). Great weekends like this don't come without their price though... my enthusiastic efforts at the noraebang left me without much of a voice for most of the week - which made trying to talk over 12 screaming children somewhat difficult. The husky voice has developed into a cold, which required another trip to the doctor today (I'm constantly warned that colds in Korea don't go away by themselves so decided to err on the side of caution). Again, the doc used the sucker thing on my nose (then laughed at how much my eyes watered), made me breathe the funny air (this time through my nose) and quizzed me on my knowledge of Korean drama shows (i know nothing about them except that they all seem to involve people dressed in traditional costumes, sitting around a palace having stern words with each other)... In Australia, if I went to my local GP with a similar ailment, I probably would've been prescribed a simple antibiotic to take after meals. Done. Over. That's it. This is what I got here....

You'd think I was suffering from pneumonia with this vast array of medicine.... maybe I'll open my own pharmacy...

As far as I understand it, the little sachets of pills are for me to take after meals - but I have to take certain pills after lunch in particular. The pharmacist stressed this several times, yet couldn't explain what would happen to me if I took the wrong ones at the wrong time. The bottle of liquid is essentially cough syrup which I have to take 2 spoonfuls of exactly 10 minutes after the tablets... but 15 minutes after the lunch time tablets. Tablets and cough syrup - fairly standard medication (despite the odd packaging)... It's the smaller sachets at the front that got me. They're patches that I have to put on my back. I have to wear each one for 24 hours and they can't be anywhere but the middle section of my back... I can only guess at why (oh, the story of my life here!), but the picture on them looks a little like lungs (or maybe a u-turn sign, I can't be sure), so I think the stringent positioning requirements may have something to do with the patch being near my lungs. I don't know... all I do know is that I feel like I'm walking around with a little square of rice paper stuck to my back and that's kinda weird.

More about the rug-rats...

2008-03-19T22:18:00.007+09:00

My new role as a kinder teacher has not only forced me into morning classes (ugh... I hate getting up no matter where I am in the world), but it's also given me a much better opportunity to be a lot more involved in the hagwon I work in. Although I still only teach some classes 2 or 3 times per week, there are 19 kids that I teach on a daily basis (one class of 7 and another of 12). I feel like I'm starting to establish a good relationship with some of these kids (even though some of them drive me absolutely nuts!)

On top of this I'm the only foreign teacher on the full kindy shift and consequently I've become quite the celebrity around school... Often when I walk out of the staff-room for a class I'm confronted by a sea of children fighting over who will hold my hand (lucky I've got two) and who will carry my basket to the classroom. Upon arrival in the classroom there is often a scramble to give me a back massage (I honestly did not teach nor ask them to do this) and a fight over who gets to be my 'helper' for the class. If only all of this meant they'd behave themselves a little better during class time...

The kids seem to love all the teachers and we are often inundated with attempts to get our attention. Every time I walk down the hallway I'm greeted with choruses of "Hello Amy Teacher!!", vigorous waving and peace signs (très cool yes). Sometimes they just run up yelling "Amy Teacher, Amy Teacher" (they always say it twice) to get my attention, but then forget to have something to say for after the greeting... or they just say something so totally odd that all I can do is nod, say "oooh" or "hmmm" and smile. For example, the other day while on my way to the photocopy machine, I had the following random exchange with a girl called Gina who is in her third week of learning English.

Gina: "Amy Teacher, Amy Teacher!"

Amy: "Yes Gina"

Gina: "Hello"

Amy: "Hi" (smile... wait for something more, then continue walking)

Gina: (running after me) "Amy Teacher, Amy Teacher!"

Amy: "Yes Gina"

Gina: (pause) "Uuummm... Zebra!"

Amy: "Hmmm! Zebra. Good!" (smile... wait for something more, then continue walking)

Gina: (again, running after me) "Amy Teacher, Amy Teacher"

Amy: "Yeah"

Gina: (long pause) "... Glue!"

Riiiggghhht...

Anyway, last Thursday three of my kinder classes were cancelled due to some nasty fumes coming into the school from renovations happening on the floor below. While the school was being aired (opening up the windows, cranking up the fans, laying out plates of giant chopped onions- wtf? I thought we were trying to get rid of the smell...) we took the kinder kids to the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum. YAY field trip!! It was really fun to spend some time with the kids out of the classroom for a change - although I didn't get much of a chance to see any of the exhibits as I was constantly either chasing seven 4 year olds around the museum or trying to get them to stop hanging from my arms screaming "What's that! Look! What's that!". I have to say, as annoying as the hanging off the arms was, it was also pretty of sweet. Joey, one of the girls, was particularly clingy that day and spent most of the morning kissing my hand, or my jacket, or my scarf, or my bag, or my camera.... or anything that was remotely traceable to me. As weird as that was, it was nice to know that my students like me... and really, it's days like that that make the more trying times in class a lot easier to bear.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my kindies at school and at the museum...

The kinder kiddies en masse.

And now for the classes - little rascals that they are...

SUN CLASS

L-R: Julie, Kelly, Sam and Daniel.

These are the babies who are 5 y/o in Korean age - hence about 3 or 4 in Western age. Missing from this picture is Candy. She was crying - as she does 95% of the day. I have never seen a kid cry so much... seriously, she colours outside the lines - cries. Drops a crayon - cries. Sneezes - cries.

Kelly and Julie are the most awkward, clumsiest little girls I've ever seen! Consequently I think that they are both an adorable and constant source of entertainment. They can barely walk without bumping into something - each other usually, otherwise it's walls, doors, chairs, tables... everything. They both break into a sweat at the slightest hint of physical activity and are often found with food all over their faces, clothes on backwards and shoes on the wrong feet. Standard kid behaviour, yes, but these two take it to a whole new level. Gorgeous.

As for the boys in Sun class... Daniel is lovely and generally pretty well behaved. Sam, on the other hand is trouble. Actually, I think he may be a reincarnation of the devil - but he still has his cute moments. He has 2 older brothers who play rough with him and as a consequence he is indestructible (yet still loves a band-aid on a bruise). Sam enjoys; breaking things, head-butting things, throwing things, climbing on things and yelling. I actually really like him, but wouldn't be surprised if he serves a few stints in juvi before he reaches high school.

I teach Sun class twice a week - one of these classes is Science. They can't even write their own names and I'm somehow supposed to talk to them about the properties of magnets and polarized lenses! Whatever, we just play with the science stuff, do some drawings and generally just make a mess instead.

Sam at the museum. He ran around for a solid hour wielding this beating stick and terrorising all in his wake in the process. Between 6 teachers, we couldn't manage to take the stick away from him.

(also, you may notice a little pair of black legs in flight in the background... they belong to Erin - more on her later - who was mid-tumble as I took this photo. I don't know if you can see it too well on here, but her legs are completely tangled together just from walking... something only Erin can do)

Hmm... Safe kids games. Let's all stand in a circle and throw a pointy stick into a really small opening. Of course this turned into 'throw the stick as hard as you can at the person opposite you'...

MOON CLASS

I still can't remember all these kids names... neither can they.

Moon class are 6 year olds (4 or 5 western age) who have never learnt English before. They were all given English names on their first day and I can guarantee that 90% of them have either forgotten or changed them without telling us. Therefore most of them generally don't answer to any name. They are HARD work... thankfully I only teach them a few times a week!

MOUNTAIN CLASS

Paul, Andrew, Andy (the one who cried through his first week at school), Alvin (I don't know why he chose that name - he was called Eddie before and that's heaps cooler!), Brian, Ricky, Gina (zebra/glue girl) and Judy

I pity the two girls in this class of boys. They are sweet and quiet while they boys yell, punch and kick each other ALL DAY. Mountain class are 7 in Korean age and have never learnt English before either. The difference between the 6 and 7 year old classes is HUGE though, and these kids actually remember their names (despite changing them often), so they are a bit easier to control. Andrew and Brian had a little stint of sitting outside the classroom earlier in the week and the whole class is starting to calm down a little as a consequence as I think that they are now a little scared of me (mwah ha ha ha!).

OCEAN CLASS

Back: Cherry, Lewis, Lynn, Grant and Jacky.

Centre: Sarah, Kevin and David.

Front: Angela, Andy, Sophia and Ann.

Ocean class is the other class I teach 5 days a week. I love them sometimes and really-don't-like-verging-on-hate them at others. Today, I kind of like them again, but yesterday I was definitely not a fan. There are 12 kids in this class including 6 big, strong personalities. This creates chaos. When they are good, they are great though (ain't it always the way?!)... it's just getting them to be quiet for a few minutes that is my greatest daily challenge. We are all on a discipline rampage with this class at the moment and I really don't like having to be strict, but they get seriously out of control (just thinking about that makes me not like them again)... please be good tomorrow, please be good tomorrow, please be good tomorrow.

The boys: Andy, Kevin, David and Grant... Andy is an absolute angel (I heart Andy!). The others are the trouble makers.

Sarah is possibly the sweetest kid in the entire school.

Sophia hugs my leg for a solid 5 minutes every day. I tell her she is a leech... but I don't think she gets it.

Angela knows how to strike a pose. She's a feisty little one who likes to dish out the hugs when she's happy... Tell her off though, and she can deliver a dagger stare that rivals the most practiced divas.

Grant - the smallest boy in the class but the biggest pot stirrer around. Grant makes the bullets for the other boys to shoot (but he looks so cute!).

STAR CLASS

Leo, Lynn, Rosemary, Joey, Kyle and Erin (hiding behind her book).

I'm not going to deny it, this is my favourite class - hands down, no competition whatsoever. It was this class that noticed my resemblance to the Korean penguin cartoon Pororo and it is this class that I am generally in charge of when we do anything outside the school walls. Leo and another boy, Sean (who was sick the day I took this photo), were recently moved into star class, giving Kyle some boy power (and apparently a growing attitude!). As a class they can be pretty rowdy, but usually quieten down when I tell them to (or threaten to take away their stickers). There are often tears, but we all hug it out and everything is fine (yes, I taught them to say 'hug it out'). They have the attention spans of, well, the 4 year olds they are, but can dance to the Wiggles 'Hot Potato' song for a solid 15 minutes (which I love as it doesn't involve me trying to teach them to write! Plus, let's be honest here, I certainly don't mind a boogie to the wiggles every now and then... or every day as the case may be now).

Joey (the hand/jacket/scarf/bag/camera kisser).

Distinguishing characteristics: Very cuddly. Is built like a midget giraffe .

Likes: Pinching my cheeks and singing the "5 Little Monkeys" song.

Dislikes: Blueberry lollies.

Favourite crayon colour: Purple.

Leo

Distinguishing Characteristics: Always wears entire outfits from the GAP

Likes: Saying "I can't do it" and pretending to be the Red Power Ranger (see above pose).

Dislikes: Reading and writing

Favourite crayon colour: Red (like the Power Ranger)

Lynn

Distinguishing Characteristics: Almost always has her dress tucked into her tights after using the bathroom.

Likes: Saying "No!" (Amy: "Hello Lynne!" Lynne: "No Hello!").

Dislikes: The "5 Little Monkeys" song (she hates it so much that she sometimes covers her ears and hides under the table when I put the CD on... shame, as I have to play it every day because it accompanies their story book).

Favourite crayon colour: Pink.

Rosemary

Distinguishing characterisitcs: Wears nothing but PINK. Sometimes looks like an old lady.

Likes: Arranging crayons in their correct colour order in the packet.

Dislikes: Being called Rosie. Crayons that are haphazardly put back into the packet.

Favourite crayon colour: Sky Blue ("No light blue", she tells me, "sky blue").

Erin (the one who spotted my similarity to Pororo)

**Erin has 2 personalities that switch in an instant - happy Erin and angry Erin. See below the next picture for angry Erin's profile**

Distinguishing characteristics (of happy Erin): The youngest in the class. Is very floppy, bendy and awkward (trips over her own feet often).

Likes: Hiding behind the door or under the table and calling me "Pororo Teacher".

Dislikes: Leo and Kyle.

Favourite crayon colour: Orange.

Angry Erin

Distinguishing characteristics: Exhibits a scornful look that she has down to an art-form.

Likes: Scratching, hitting and screaming.

Dislikes: Everything.

Favourite crayon colour: None of them.

Like I said, sean was absent the day I had my camera in class and I couldn't get Kyle to stand still for long enough to take a photo, but I will give you their profiles anyway:

Sean

Distinguishing characteristics: Very small and quiet. Is often sick.

Likes: Picking his nose. Rosemary.

Dislikes: The "Heads, shoulders, knees and toes" song.

Favourite crayon colour: Dark blue.

Kyle

Distinguishing characteristics: Always wears flannel, tartan-print shirts. Has rainbow striped leggings that he wears as stand-alone pants.

Likes: Playing the part of 'Mr. Crocodile' in the "5 Little Monkeys" song/story book.

Dislikes: When I touch my nose (no idea why, but it limits my 'Simon Says' and 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes' repertoires somewhat).

Favourite crayon colour: Green.

Here they are again as a complete class at the museum... they don't look very happy because they were hungry and pissed off that we had to go back to school... So was I.

생일축하합니다

2008-03-16T21:04:00.003+09:00

(I believe this means Happy Birthday... although knowing my luck it probably means something bad like 'I am a rabid monkey')

Korea has stolen my youth! Yes, that's right, you read correctly. It has STOLEN. MY. YOUTH. In addition to that, it has compromised my ability to calculate my age in a straightforward and logical way. You see, last week I turned 26, but in Korean age I'm considered to be 27.... well for the sake of accuracy I was also considered 27 in Korean age when I was still actually 25 in Western age. Confused??? So you should be. I am too. I will try and explain the Korean age system to you as I understand it, however, be warned, there is a big chance that I could get this very wrong! Here goes nothing...

Koreans measure age according to the calender year rather than the 12 month years we use. According to Koreans, you are one year old when you are born (it seems that they count the time spent in the womb as your first year of life... never mind that it doesn't account for 25% of that year). After that you age one year with the passing of the new year rather than a birthday. So, I was born on March 12, 1982... By Western standards, I just turned 26. By Korean reckoning I actually turned 27 on the Lunar New Year that passed in February and didn't age at all on my birthday last week. If I were born in January, however, I would have been 1 when I was born and turned 2 at new year (which would've been around February sometime) - when really I was less than 2 months old! I would have turned 3 when I was only 13 months old... get it?? It's taken me 2 months to try and wrap my head around this...

Anyway, it was my birthday on Wednesday and true to form, I had an awesome day. To be perfectly honest, I was missing my people a bit on Tuesday night (yeah, that's you guys). I was thinking about birthdays gone by and remembered a string of parties filled with friends and family. It was weird to think that I wasn't going to have that this year - but before I had a chance to get sad I received a phone call from my supervisors at work telling me to be out the front of my apartment in 10 mintues. I had no clue what for, but I went outside and was whisked off to Costco (a big American wholesale supermarket) where I was able to buy a bunch of things (in bulk) that you just can't get in the Korean supermarkets (I won't bore you with the details of everything I bought- but I got CHEESE! Good, decent, non-orange-plastic-coated, glorious cheese!). That boosted my spirits like nothing else could and to top it off, my supervisors paid for a whole bunch of what I bought as a present to me! Sweet!

The next morning I woke up, had a quick chat to my family while opening presents (awesome- all of them awesome - thank you!) and ran out the door to go to work. I opened the door to find this....

My new neighbour and co-worker, Mardi, had got up early and decorated my door!! How sweet is that!?!? Thank you Mardi!

Then later at school, some of my afternoon classes obviously got wind of the birthday news and I walked into one of my classes to find this...

This is the work of a class of 5 girls I just started teaching a few weeks ago.

My suspicions were aroused that they were up to something when I heard them asking other teachers how to spell 'Birthday'... too sweet!

L: Amy, Suan, Sally, Heather and Lina.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can't see the words they accidently wrote backwards.... like mirror image backwards - I didn't have the heart to tell them.... so cute!

Another class were alerted to my birthday last week when the saw a package from home arrive to the school. I've been teaching these kids since my first day here and love them! They're about 9 - 10 years old (in Western age), so eager to learn, so well behaved and all 'round awesome... genuinely great kids.

Anna- the class sweetheart... I'm sure you can see why.

John - how cool is he with his leather jacket teamed with a pink button up shirt over a pink polo! His glasses also have a fluro orange twinge and he has the coolest spike-do I've seen since the 80's!

Don - the class clown (and the boss's son).

Samira - the baby of the class (in terms of age, not maturity that is... the boys would have to take that prize)

Love (yes, her name is Love, but it totally suits). Love is Samira's big sister and looks after her in the most gorgeous sisterly way. Love is, without a doubt, one of the sweetest and smartest girls I know!

And this is their board decoration...

I love you's

Don said I'm a big flower (whatever that means - he was looking at me for approval whatever it was, so I don't think it was an insult), then Anna got mad because his comments had obscured her "We love you" and "We happy" messages. After a quick peace treaty they were friends again.

This is my favourite (it's from Love). "You are best (good) teacher". I love the clarification of best as (good)!

It didn't stop there either, next I had homework and work books decorated with birthday wishes and messages of love...

These say something along the lines of "Amy teacher I love" and "Great Day Amy teacher"... Will have to work on their grammar before Christmas card time...

Upon returning to the staff room, I was presented with a giant tiramisu from the school - which we then proceeded to eat with chopsticks. No kidding. There are no forks in the school (except my snazzy Tom and Jerry fork), but there are plenty of spoons - however, chopsticks seem to be the cake utensil of choice in these parts! It made the occasion all the more Korean, but certainly didn't help me eat less cake.... It sure was tasty though.

After work drinks naturally followed and continued for much longer than they should have considering I had to be at work at 9am the next day.... but what are birthdays for if not for enjoying time with nice people!?

New Beginnings.

2008-03-09T23:19:00.019+09:00

This week saw the beginning of the new school year in Korea, which brought with it new students, new classes and a new schedule for Amy Teacher. Goodbye leisurely days of 2.30pm starts and hello morning classes, kinder kids and full days of work! I knew my dream schedule of the first 6 weeks wouldn't last long and now that my honeymoon period is over, I guess it's only fair that I actually have to work for my pay... but geeze it's been exhausting! I mean, I know the first week of school is always a bit crazy - the kids have new classes, new classmates and new teachers to get used to, not to mention the general sense of disorganisation they must be getting from the frenzied staff at school, but I certainly wasn't prepared for the absolute chaos that I encountered!!

Early in the week, it became apparent that the normally polite and cute children I had become accustomed to, had morphed into over-excited, seditious little devils with a knack for executing seemingly random yet synchronised acts of sabotage on my classes. Obviously I have underestimated the organisational skills and cognitive abilities of the 5 year old brain, as I now have reason to believe that somewhere, over the course of a single weekend, a series of covert meetings were convened by my students (most likely in someones tree house... not that they seem to have them here) to discuss mutiny tactics.

I imagine blue prints were drawn up in crayon (and subsequently buried or even swallowed) detailing the layout of the classroom and the optimal positioning of students within the room so as to create an environment of chaos that is impossible for me to control. I bet if I got hold of the meeting minutes they'd read a little something like this...

"OK, so Kevin, you perch behind the door so she won't see you when she comes in... David, you hide in the cupboard.... Grant, you're under the desk to the right of the teacher and Andy you hold the left side... I'll fight with Leo and he'll cry which will instantly distract her. Girls, it's your job to keep her distracted when she comes into the room, so Angela, you hug her while Sarah gives her a sticker... while she's thanking Sarah, that's when Lynn comes in with the back massage to distract her and lull her into a false sense of security, then she'll be an open target for Ann and Sophia to wrap themselves around teachers legs. Whatever you do girls, DON'T LET GO... Once we've got her pinned, Grant and Andy will come out from under the desks and get her arms...If you can, tickle her as well. Anything, so long as you bring her to the ground or at least a sitting position so we can reach her head. When she's down, that's when Kevin comes from behind the door and takes her glasses and David, you gag her so she can't yell at us or cry for help... It's important that the timing of this is PERFECT otherwise she may try and teach us something and we want to avoid that at all costs..."

I'm learning that teaching the kindy kids can be very hard and draining work... but it's also a lot of fun and really rewarding. Whereas last month my students were mainly between 10-14 years old, my kids now range from 3 years old (that's about 5 years old in Korean age) to just 9 years old. While I teach most classes just 2 or 3 times a week, there are 2 classes (a class of five 4 y/oand a class of ten 5 y/o) that I teach 5 days a week.... I love them. Seriously, I am smitten. They are both incredibly noisy classes and the kids are almost always terribly behaved, but the glimpses of sweetness they show me has made me fall head over heels in love with them (even if I did temporarily swear off ever having children after a particularly trying class on Tuesday).

A lot of the new kids who started this week have never learnt English before.... actually a lot of them have never been in an actual classroom before! One particularly cute little boy, Andy (one of many Andy's) spent his first 3 days at school crying constantly. Poor little thing just sobbed and sobbed his way through class after class and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what was wrong with him. He didn't seem sick, the others weren't being mean to him and I'm pretty sure he hadn't just endured some kind of long-term relationship breakup (he is 5 after all)... but he just cried into his books all day long. On Thursday morning he walked into school dry-eyed.... that was until I said "Hi Andy" at which he burst into tears. Great. It's me. He hates me. He hates me so much that I made him cry with a morning greeting.... but my hate-theory didn't really make sense because he kept coming up to me and holding my hand while saying something in Korean through his tears. Eventually I went and got one of the Korean teachers to ask him what was the matter. Turns out he was crying because he couldn't understand English.... because he couldn't understand anything we said to him. aaaawwww . We then got some of the other kids who had been at the school a bit longer to explain to him that none of them understand much of what the teachers say at first, but that he will learn to understand soon... that's why he's here. And just like that he stopped crying - and I think even enjoyed school on Friday! Success!

Aside from not understanding us, a lot of the new kids also didn't have English names (yes, taking on English names is a somewhat strange practice widely adopted around Asia it seems). I was excited at the prospect of naming some kids... until I actually had to name some kids. First of all, I was shattered to be told by my supervisor that neither 'Lucky' or 'Mad Dog' were suitable names for a child and secondly it was really hard to come up with a name that they liked! Some had names in mind already (4 Leo's in one class... I don't think so boys!), and others had no clue... I tried to come up with English names similar to their Korean names, but when this wasn't possible I named them after members of my family.... The next day I got to school and half of them had either forgotten their names (why didn't I have the piece of mind to make name tags!?) or had changed them overnight. Humph. Now they have English names, the next step is to try and get them to actually respond to them - yelling out "Tom, get off the table" doesn't really have any impact when Tom doesn't understand the words 'get', 'off', 'the' or 'table' and particularly when Tom doesn't remember that he is Tom....

At lunch the other day, some of the little 4 year old girls were showing me their training chopsticks... see exhibit A:

There's little rings to put your fingers in to teach the correct chop-sticking technique...

Anyway, so one of the girls has training chopsticks with a little penguin called Pororo on top. As she was showing me how they work she began looking at the penguin, then looking at me, looking at the penguin, looking at me.... this went on for several minutes. I was perplexed as to why she (a) had a very confused look on her face, and (b) had developed a sudden fascination with both me and the penguin.... but then a lightbulb turned on in her head and she cracked up laughing. And I mean hysterical laughter. She babbled something to the other girls who also broke into fits of giggles, staring at me then staring at the penguin. At this stage Lailla, one of the Korean teachers, came into the room. I asked her to find out what was so funny and after a quick explanation, she too was in hysterics. Turns out that in the minds of 4 year olds I bear a strong resemblance to Pororo.... what do you think?

In other news, it snowed like crazy again this week. It actually only snowed for a little while, and as it was a reasonably warm day (when I saw warm, I mean it was above zero) the snow didn't settle on the ground for long... actually it was completely gone within an hour. But still, it was, without a doubt, the most impressive snowfall I have ever witnessed. None of the delicate little flakes of snowfalls gone by... these snowflakes were GIANT and hit my face and glasses with a splat. Naturally, i got snap happy...

Really not as impressive as in real life, the photo doesn't really capture the size nor sheer amount of the snowflakes, but it gives a small indication nonetheless...

As you may have noticed from previous posts, snow brings out my inner child. So much so that the Korean teachers find great pleasure in alerting me to even the most minute sign of snow... apparently they like my 'happy snow dance'. They also like to come outside with me and laugh as I run around giggling like a little girl while trying to catch snowflakes in my mouth...

Anyway, that's enough from me tonight - I have another big week ahead and should really try and start the week off as fresh as possible! I hope everyone is well- wherever in the world you may be... In the meantime, if you get a chance, I really recommend you try a new drink I found in Korea. It's not coffee, it's not beer and it's certainly not whisky....
Yes, that is correct. It's Cocktile. Mmmmm.

Snow is fun but avoid the stairs... and doctors if possible.

2008-03-02T21:41:00.020+09:00

So, uh, going to the doctor in Korea is an interesting experience.... Run down, after working double shifts for the last week, I woke up the other day to find that the glands in my neck had swollen to the size of golf balls and I had developed a headache that promised to split my skull in two every time I moved. I waited a day to see how I felt, and with no improvement (or rather a much worse condition) took myself off to the doctor to get something to ease my aching head and neck. First the doc had a look-see in my ears, nose and throat - pretty standard doctor behaviour in my book... but that was where normality ended and bizzaro began. He then proceeded to stick a long metal tube up my nose and with the flick of a switch began sucking all the, erm, stuff out of my sinuses - an uncomfortable yet incredibly pressure-relieving and all out weird experience. I wondered if he slipped, would he suck out my brain through my nose in a modern day twist of the ancient Egyptian mummification technique? Hope not. After my nose was sufficiently cleared of goobers he did a bit of work on my throat. This involved a swab (not sure that it was necessary form him to stick it into my larynx though) followed by a quick spray of the throat, a short stint breathing some weird air from a weird tube, et voila, a diagnosis of tonsillitis. Too bad my throat didn't even hurt... although whatever drugs he gave me worked a treat and I was pretty much back to my old self within 2 days!

The other big news of the week is that it snowed again!! Apparently this is almost unheard of in February - particularly as we got quite the dump of snow! Not wanting to let this opportunity pass, Ellen (who finished up in Korea on Saturday - boo hoo, come back!) and I decided it was necessary to try out a little something we'd been thinking about a few weeks ago. We call it BRIDGE SLIDING...

For bridge sliding you need: a) snow, b) a foot bridge, and c) something to slide on. A toboggan would be preferable, however, we improvised with a Winnie the pooh rubber coated foam mat (functional AND stylish - what more could you want?).

We started off with a straight-up seated butt slide (we did, after all, get a lot of experience in this while snowboarding on death mountain). Then, we moved onto a slightly more difficult knee slide and steadily progressed to the backward-side-slide (pictured above) and other equally impressive maneuvers.

This one required a run-up and belly flop... scary at first, but not when you're a pro at bridge-sliding like I am.

This is the face of someone having TOO. MUCH. FUN.

My first snow angel!!! As if my clothes weren't wet and frozen enough from bridge sliding...

These Koreans really know how to make a snowball. This is, in my humble opinion, the Best. Snowball. Ever.

Meet Wilbur, our strapping young snowman.

We made Wilbur (with the help of Mardi, our newest work colleague) before we went bridge sliding. We returned to find him in a state of nakedness (no buttons - shock horror!). Who would violate a snowman in such a way? Everyone knows a snowman is naked without his buttons!

P.S. Wilbur was still there in the morning, but alas, as I came home from work that afternoon, he was missing. I found remnants of his ample head of hair and beautiful face, shattered on the side of the hill. Such senseless violence... and to such a nice snowman. R.I.P. Wilbs xx

As I arrived at school the next morning, I was met by dozens of our kindy kids screaming and pelting snowballs at each other... and then at me... who was I to deny them their fun?? And in that case, who was I to deny ME that fun? That's right, I pelted snow right back at them. Their puny little snowballs did nothing to withstand my boulders of snow (minor exaggeration, yes). They've gotta learn somehow right? And before you say that I was mean, at least I wasn't flinging snow onto them with a shovel like one of the Korean teachers was doing!

Amy... My mini-me. The kids like to identify the things that make little Amy and I the same. Aside from the obvious name similarity, we both have glasses, bangs, earrings, bracelets, parents, arms and teeth (they actually cited these things). She also has a mini version of a red jacket I recently bought and waves at me every time I walk past (which is frequently). So cute.

Jeff, packing snowballs with his uber-cool Power Ranger gloves (note the matching snow boots and his ear muffs that inadvertently cover his cheeks).

Nathan - the object of Jeffs snowball throwing wrath... I think he looks like a baby mouse in this picture.

So yeah, snow is so much fun!! Who knew precipitation could bring so much joy?! But do you know what's NOT fun about snow?? I'll tell you what. It's in the days after, where you are forced to make very important and possibly life-altering decisions such as whether to take...

The Stairs of Icy Peril.... OR,

The Ramp of Spinal Jeopardy...

May I be a good friend and recommend that you stay away from both. I have learnt the hard way... well actually the numerous people I saw stack it down both stairs and ramps learnt the hard way for us all, I just laughed (quietly of course).

It's all about the kiddies.

2008-02-24T23:19:00.010+09:00

Well, I've pretty much covered the social side of my life in Korea so far, but considering that I came all the way here to teach English to some kiddies, I guess it's about time you met them!

So let me introduce you to....

Left: Lynne, Rachel, Amy, Martin, Jeff and Nathan.

This is my one and only Kindy class at the moment. I teach them for two 40 minute classes a week and it is undoubtedly the hardest 80 minutes of work I do all week!! I adore them, but they are exhausting! I'm unfortunate enough to teach them for their last class before home time... and boy do they get ratty! Plus one of them is my boss's daughter which adds a little extra stress to it!

Last week Martin got a blood nose in class and found it amusing to spray blood on everyone (worse still, they also found it amusing). In the end I jammed a wad of toilet paper up his nose which, of course, all the others had to copy which, of course, ended in me having to fish chunks of stray paper out of Nathan's nose... colouring in was about all I had the energy for after that!

"Hip-Hip Horray Class" (named after their text book)

Back Left: Kelly, Cindy (or Cindy, Kelly... I'm never sure which one is which), Lina, Sara, Andy.

Front Left: Peter, Glory, Julie, Kevin, Candy.

Playing "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" with Hip-Hip Horray Class

Ah, the Hip-Hip Hooray class... what can I say about them? They are really smart and so cute sometimes, but the are also incredibly difficult at others (read, almost always)! Aside from two girls who are absolute angels, there are a lot of bad-eggs in this class . The boys are particularly bad, although missing from this picture is their ringleader Danny, the cutest, baddest kid in school (who is also one of my favourites... oops, that's not very teacherly!) When the boys aren't throwing things at the girls and calling them names, they're punching each other and having competitions of who can stand the hardest slap in the face without crying. I've gotta give it to them though - there are rarely tears!

Sally and Sabrina... I believe you've met them before already though...

"Carnival" Class... (also named after their text book)

Back Left (standing): Adam, Samira (hiding), Love, Anna, Candy.

Front Left (sitting): David, John, Don.

These kids are awesome. Usually eager to learn and almost always do their homework (some even draw pictures and maps of Australia for me as 'extra homework' I didn't even ask them to do!) In addition to teaching my boss's daughter in kindy class, I also teach my boss's son in Carnival class... but I only found this out last week after teaching him for a month. Lucky I'm not into favoritism or anything...

"Reading class"

Kevin and Sam.

I love these two boys. They crack me up non-stop. I only get to teach them twice a week, but they are definitely one of the better classes to teach. They are like little sponges who remember how to spell any word I teach them even if they've only seen it written once! While pretty smart, their vocab isn't huge, which means there is a lot of miming and pictionary on my part. I can' t draw which they think is hilarious... and they now pretend they don't know the meaning of a word just so I'll try to draw it on the board for them while they sit back and laugh hysterically at my wonky stick figures ad crappy animals before coming up and finishing the drawing for me. They also like learning tongue twisters ("How much wood can a woodchuck chuck..." is their favourite) and they bring me lollies all the time, so I like them a lot.

"English Time 3" Class (with Harry hiding under the little pink desk for good measure)

Eric and Harry of E-T3 class

Wendy and Ginny of E-T3 class.

"English-Time" is definitely the best behaved class I have... In fact, they are positively nerdy at times! I think the smaller classes are by far the easiest to teach (except Sally and Sabrina, who are the equivalent of 12 screaming girls)....

Anyway, that's all my classes except one, who tell me they are too old and cool for photos (they're 11 - 13). Funny kids though. I really like teaching them - when I can get them talking that is!

I thought I'd also include a few pics of the Kindy Graduation from last week. Seriously, this graduation ceremony was more impressive than my own uni graduation (which was not at all impressive by the way, but that was uni, and this was kinder!). It was hilarious. They all had to make little speeches in English... not in their own words of course, the Korean teachers fed them their lines which they rehearsed for weeks... "our time here at ECC was so so fun! we had many great experiences along the way..." They wouldn't even know how to say that in Korean!!

Yup, they have little robes and hats on!! How cute!

They were singing "So long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music at this point...

My little Amy... a proud graduate.

Jeff (or, Jepuh as the Koreans often say) is one of the best kids at the school. Adorable. How cute is his little bow-tie and suit!!!

Well, that's all for now. I have a busy week coming up - a bunch of kindy classes have been hand-balled my way for the next few days and if they're anything like the kindy class I already teach, I think it's going to be a looooong week.

EngRish, strange signage and other random oddities

2008-02-20T14:16:00.000+09:00

So, here are a few pictures I thought you may enjoy.... a bit of engRish, some interesting signs and, well, just some weird things I've seen around!

I found these placards on a nearby building site. Yes, a building site - with real builders (not children). Don't think you'd ever catch blokey Aussie builders on a site where the safety instructions come in the form of cute cartoons.

Mmm Steaky pan... rumour has it the don't even sell steak...

Oh, I see, the 21 TH... not the 21st business fox!

What exactly IS the story of MashiMaro and why is it on the toilet seat?? (and what's with the plunger by the way?)

Yes, it certainly looks that way.

Somehow I doubt that this is referring to the Nymphs in Greek mythology... this was taken down a dodgy side-street in dodgy Itaewon.

It is what it is....

(FYI, the Korean text reads t-u-r-a-n-s-u j-e-n-d-e).

Heheh, this one is great... It's a note book for school kids. The cover suggests three topics that could be studied in this book; Music, Korean and English. HELF!

Bahahaha! The clothes were worthy of the store title too.

I have put this one in before, I know, but who can go past a business club called Dumb and Dumber!?!?

This is my absolute favourite! Aside from the random "I Love Study" and "Best of the Year" remarks that brighten up this pencil case, check out what the panda is saying in the yellow square to the bottom right...

Mmm... my tissue are feeling me. Nice.

These lovely words are also on a packet of tissues. Sweet, but what the hell are they trying to say??

Could anyone tell me what this dog is doing to the other dog? I can't figure it out and don't know why it was on my shopping bag.

Phew, I'm glad this is a live restaurant and not an inanimate one... the food is much better when it's happening live.

This building is... well, I don't know what the hell it is... but it's around the corner from my house.

I LOVE folding paper Granes, don't you??

Singin' and Snowin' the time away

2008-02-18T17:10:00.000+09:00

The weeks are flying by! I've spent four weeks in Korea already... where has the last month gone??

Everything is still going well... I'm really enjoying life here! I feel like I'm settling into a bit more of a routine now too, which is good , and I'm really enjoying living by myself (which I was a bit worried about before coming here)- I've even found myself getting a little crafty with some painting and origami (some of which I have even made into fridge magnets! NERD!!)

After the new year break last week the kids at school were totally ferrel on Monday and Tuesday, which made this week feel a little longer than it was... and a lot more difficult work-wise. Really, at times, I struggled to get the kids to even sit down let alone open a book and actually learn something. It was so draining and I felt like I was having to be the 'mean teacher' the whole time... there were no stickers given out and no games played in class. I even made some boys write lines (hahaha!!). Being a hard-ass in the classroom didn't feel so good, but the tough love thing did pay off in the end and the kids were absolutely gorgeous for the rest of the week! I guess there's a very fine balance between fun teacher and push-over and I think I was starting to slide into the latter - which wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't actually have to teach them something. Ah, it's a steep learning curve I'm on, but it's definitely getting easier with every day.

Anyway, turns out that this learning curve is thirsty work, so friday night we headed out to Now Bar followed by a spot of Noraebang action. Yes, you're probably noticing a pattern developing that involves Now Bar and karaoke on Fridays... I have no rebuttal to this - it's just what we seem to do on Fridays! Something about blowing off steam and singing cheesy songs (badly) with a bunch of other foreigners is strangely alluring for some reason...

Me with Jeff, Tania and Ellen - These are my co-workers. They're awesome.

Noraebang time!! Ellen and I peruse the song list. As usual, we open with "Obla di obla dah" (We think we're pretty good at it... although, I wouldn't really know because you can't hear yourself sing in these places - it's just everyone around you that has to endure your howling).

Oh, geeze... I don't even know what we were singing, but it looks like it would've sounded real bad.

Jeff, Ellen and I have adapted a few hand gestures which we use to communicate our drinking intentions to each other...

We drank and noraebanged late into the night but skipped the usual Mandu stop on the way home in favour of a few hours of much needed sleep as we'd arranged to go snowboarding the following morning.... yeah, it's smart to go out drinking the night before strenuous and potentially bone-breaking physical activity...

On Saturday morning, six bleary eyed foreigners headed to the nearby slopes- this was my first time snowboarding, and it was fun fun fun! Only half an hour away from home and cheap too - $10 for snowboard hire and $40 for lift passes! Sweet! Although, I might add, that I am so sore today I can hardly move... every single muscle in my body is killing me and I'm covered in bruises from stacking it down the mountain a few times (read several hundred times). Sitting down is particularly painful as my butt is somewhat tender after countless falls on my behind. Entirely worth it though!

I was trying to get a snap of a couple in matching outfits, but unfortunately they skied away (in perfect unison of course) before I got the chance... shame. A good photo of the slopes though!

Oh, hahaha, yeah, I'm all laughs and smiles on the lift up to the top with Ellen and Kit - this was, of course, before I attempted to actually stand and move on a snowboard. I wasn't so smiley after my butt collided with rock hard ice several times.

I already needed a rest - and I was only at the TOP of the first run! Trying to stay vertical was so tiring that that the prospect of navigating a negative gradient was positively exhausting!

Eeek! That's a scary sight for a first timer!

My first snowboarding experience was a little like my first day as a teacher... once again I was thrown in the deep end. No ski school or flat ground instructions for me! Jeff and the boys (all with a fair bit of snowboarding experience behind them), thought this was an appropriate starting point for me. I pretty much fell over every meter of the run the first time I tried it, but it definitely got easier and by the end I was making it all the way down with only one or two stacks along the way!

Oh, we were having so much fun! But an outing for Ellen and I isn't really an outing without an attack from Dumb and Dumber... so of course, we accidently got on the wrong ski lift. Rather than taking us half way up the mountain to runs that we could actually tackle, it took us to the very TOP of the mountain... the place where all the really experienced snow-bunnies go. There is a reason they go there and we inexperienced people don't... because up there is a triple diamond/black run. Great. We only realised what we'd done when we were about a quarter of the way up the mountain, but it was too late to get off the lift.

We got off at the top and looked down and I nearly shat myself. It was veeeeerrryyyy steep. Like when I say steep, I mean that there was a section that was pretty much a vertical drop... we couldn't go back down on the lift and it was too steep to try and walk down, so we did what any other person would do in our situation (if any other person was dumb enough to get themselves into that situation, that is)... we slid down on our butts. It was seriously scary - aside from being ridiculously steep it was also icy which meant that there were several times when we couldn't even stop our graceful butt slide. There were definitely moments when I wondered if we were going to slip too fast and turn into giant snowballs rolling, with increasing speed, down the mountain like in the cartoons, but because we survived I can say that bits of 'death mountain' were actually kinda fun (well, sort of... like in a "I think I may die, so let's make the most of it and pretend I'm having fun when I go" kinda way).

Ellen, butt-sliding down the mountain of death...

Aside from the near death experience, we had such an awesome day! I'll definitely be trying to get to the mountains a bit next season (apparently the slopes close soon... which means it must get warmer soon too - whoop whoop!!!)

The story of Dumb and Dumber

2008-02-13T16:48:00.000+09:00

In the days leading up to the recent Lunar New Year break I'd been hanging to get out and see a bit more of 'traditional' Korea. Aside from Thursdays trip to the Changdeokgung Palace, everything I'd seen of the country so far has been really modern and shiny and flashy (like neon flashy, not show-offy flashy)... and unless I'm mistaken and Dunkin' Donuts and Paris Baguette are actually remnants from the Silla Kingdom, I think it's pretty fair to say that at least visually, Yongtong isn't exactly dripping with traditional Korean artifacts and buildings.

The 5 day break provided me with the perfect opportunity to get out there and check out what else Korea has to offer. On Saturday Ellen and I decided to head to the nearby city of Icheon- popular for it's ceramics, rice and natural hot springs. Mmm... hot springs...

And here begins the story of Dumb and Dumber (AKA. Ellen and Amy)

Our day didn't get off to the best start when we got a bus into Suwon city (north-west from here) to get a bus to Icheon (south-east from here) only to find that the second bus drove pretty much right past our apartment building (at least an hour or two wasted with that)... Furthermore, the bus driver on the way to Suwon was apparently training to be an off-road drag racer, which made for a bumpy and often hair-raising trip, some serious back jarring and sore behinds (this is probably why he was given the oldest, most rickety bus in Korea to drive). However, the bus ride was made all the more entertaining by a little man with very big shoes sitting a few rows in front (see below for the covert picture of the year award)....

Now, I know the quality of the pic isn't the best, but unless this man is on his way to tap-dancing class (and hasn't attached his tappy bits yet), I am going to conclude that he is wearing high-heeled (and platformed) court shoes due to a severe complex about his lack of hight - a complex he has obviously harboured since childhood, ( a speculation I have made based on the agility and ease in which he mastered the aisle and stairs of the dirt-derby-speed-racer-bus as it barely slowed down to let him off at his stop).

After arriving in Icheon we headed to the "Ceramics Villiage" (a village where ceramics are made, not a village made out of ceramics, I believe). Getting off the local bus at the "Ceramics Village" bus stop, we were a little shocked to find a "Not a Ceramics Village".

Yes, it's a paddock with nothing in it... AKA a "Not A Ceramics Village".

There were some shops (and cool statues) opposite the "Not A Ceramic Village"... selling ceramics (surprisingly enough)... although we decided we didn't really like clay that much anyway, so we just stood in the shops to get out of the freezing cold... Really didn't bank on standing in a bloody paddock when I got dressed that morning.

Me, being cold (opposite the paddock).

We decided to have a walk around and look for the mysterious village of ceramics. This was scary as it involved walking down a highway with no pedestrian facilities. Plus we were having trouble feeling our extremities by this point which made walking somewhat difficult and painful. The village would want to be pretty bloody good after all the effort we put into trying to find it... but we didn't. Find it, that is... not until we got back on the bus into Icheon city where we passed it about 5 mins down the road - we'd just gone the wrong way (Dumb and Dumber strike again!). Meh, it looked kinda crap anyway and upon re-reading the guide book, which pretty much said it was as crap as it looked (why neither of us read the entire article rather than just the misleading first sentence remains a mystery), we figured we hadn't missed out on anything much by not getting there. Besides, it was a bit of an adventure... into a paddock... but we did see pretty mountains, a stunning sunset and some interesting statues.

Umm, what the..??? If you look just above and below the sign that the carving is holding, you may understand my curiosity. This statue was outside a building we found which could be named "The Building That Was Closed and May or May Not Have Contained A Village for Ceramics".

The not-so-happy-campers... jaded with their trip to a paddock - even if it was a kinda 'pretty-surrounded-by-snow-capped-mountains' type of paddock.

Isn't this the dude from the video game Crash Bandicoot or something?

Arriving back in Icheon city after dark, we kept our fingers crossed that our attempt to find the hot springs would not be as disastrous as the ceramic village attempt... (thank goodness everything in Korea is open 'til late!)

We stumbled across this picturesque bridge and and frozen lake on the way.

Ellen's crafty camera work...

When we finally made it to the spa place we were suprised to find that what we thought would be a "bring-ya-swimmers" type of place turned out to be a room full of naked women greasing us off for wearing bathers.

**Can I just add that I haven't run off to some hippy-nudist commune or anything, the nakedness is the norm in Korean bath houses (Jjimjilbang)... but we didn't expect in this place for some reason. (I'll write about my experience at the Jjimjilbang some other time as it really does require a post of it's very own). **

So we followed suit, or rather, removed suit, and did what we went there to do... we walked outside into the minus 10 degree night (yes, incredibly cold... particularly without clothes) and spent hours soaking in steaming hot herbal spas, mud spas, green tea spas, salt water spas, charcoal spas (although the charcoal one did smell and look a little like sewerage). We soaked away the cold that had frozen our bones in the paddock and soaked away all the memories of the "Ceramic Village" (still gets inverted commas as I am not sure it (a) actually exists or (b) is deserving of the title 'village')... we were hoping for snow, but when none came, we soaked and soaked some more until all fingers and toes were sufficiently prune like. Then, warm, relaxed and satisfied that the day had not gone completely to waste in a paddock, grabbed some dinner and headed home where Dumb and Dumber live to do dumb things another day.

New Years Day, or, the day I got farted on...

2008-02-08T16:52:00.000+09:00

Happy (lunar) new year! Goodbye to the year of the Pig and hello to the year of the Rat! It is new years day (Seol/Seollal) here in Korea and we have a 5 day weekend to celebrate (yah, 2 whole weeks after I started working... it's a tough life here I tells ya)! It's totally different to new years in the western world - probably more like Christmas day as far as celebrations go (although they do celebrate Dec 31st / Jan 1st here as well) . In Korea, the lunar new year holiday is a time to visit family and pay respect to bygone ancestors. There is a mass exodus from Seoul as people travel across the country to return to their home towns - traffic is horrendous - apparently it is not uncommon for what would normally be a 5-6 hour drive from Seoul to Busan to take up to 24 hours during the new year break!

Some Koreans choose to break from tradition during this time and use the 5 day break to travel abroad - so much so that flights and ferry trips into and out of of Korea are ridiculously expensive and booked up months in advance... needless to say, I missed the boat, so to speak, and have been spending the last few days wandering around in what feels like a deserted country.

So many little kids dressed up in their traditional Hanbok today - soooo cute!

Last night Ellen and I decided we should hit the town to ring in the new year... but Yongtong had morphed into somewhat of a ghost town. Hardly anything was open and some of the neon signs had even been turned off (which is a seriously scary thing to see when you're in a country where even toilets have neon signs). With no street parties or fireworks, we decided to head to the ever faithful Now Bar... surely the other foreigners in town (who would throw a party for a bowel movement) would be celebrating the occasion. Nope, not so much. Maybe everyone had braved the traffic and headed out of town too? So Ellen and I made our own little toast to the new year and headed home to read up on possible new years day activities. We decided on Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul.

Front gateway of Changdeokgung Palace, which wasn't too busy considering it was one of few things open on New Years Day.

After a massive trek to get to the palace (apparently when Seoul is deserted the roads are still packed and the bus lanes are open to private cars... and Ellen and I forget to check we are actually on the right subway train), we were happy to find that a lot of Koreans dress in Hanbok and visit traditional places such as the palace!

These two lovely ladies were kind enough to pose for us in their beautiful Hanbok.

Gamsa-hamnida!

How cute is this kid!?!?! (Thank goodness for the dress... I would've sworn it was a boy otherwise!)

This is the artwork on the ceiling of the building in the above picture. The picture doesn't really do justice to the amazing detail and vibrant colours (yes, I am an art critic in my spare time these days too... very talented girl I am).

It was such a beautiful sunny day... but don't let that fool you! I have NEVER been so cold in my life... guess that's what you get for walking around for 6 hours in sub-zero temperatures.

And look! There's still some snow on the ground 2 weeks after it last snowed!!

Yes that is a pond, and yes it's frozen solid (save a few spots where there was evidence of duck footprints and melted duck-belly shaped sections!)

Another frozen pond (it's such a novelty!) Kids were throwing chunks of ice and rock at it to try and break the surface (so glad they did... I wanted to but didn't want to get into trouble)... not even a crack was made though.

I want to squeeze this one and take it home!

After hours of wandering around in the freezing cold (we actually bought a can of hot chocolate - they heat it up for you - in an attempt to thaw our freezing hands!), we headed toward nearby Insadong to find a place to eat and de-frost. Being a tourist-y area a few places were open - but not many!

So anyway, we were innocently waiting for the little green man to allow us to cross the street but instead of getting a signal to go, a little Korean man standing in front of us wished us a happy new year in what I hope is not the traditional Korean new year greeting... He farted on us. Yes, he farted. On us. Farted. So loudly, so unashamedly, he just let it rip and didn't even flinch... and nor did his friend (which makes the whole thing even scarier). A man - not a child, not a boyfriend, not a best friend, not a pensioner, but a total stranger in his mid-20s farted on us. He never bothered to check before or after the excretion - which is lucky for us as we were nearly on the ground in fits of laughter unable to believe that we just got farted on like it was the most normal thing in the world. Welcome to the year of the Rat (maybe that should be the Dirty Rat).

After our shock and laughter had subsided enough for us to walk again (I can't believe a dude farted on us), we managed to find a cosy pub / tea house and warmed ourselves with delicious home made teas and Bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables and egg - very tasty). As with every Korean meal, an interesting array of complimentary side dishes arrived...

Top Left: "some sort of a stick off a tree" (courtesy of Ellens articulate nature) with oily prawns. Top Right: Not entirely sure... looks like drain-hair, smells like drain-hair probably tasted like drain hair (the smell alone was enough to make me gag). Bottom Left: Little dried fish... like whole fish... with little bones and little eyeballs... and a big, nasty taste. Bottom Right: The Korean staple dish, Kim-chi (cabbage, left to ferment in a spicy sauce in pots in the sun - smells like feet).

Me, bracing myself for the little fish... they vomit me but I tried them (please take note of that DAD)... and yes, I am aware that I look like Theodore from the chipmunks... with dentures.

I can't believe we got farted on....

Tricks of the trade

2008-02-03T04:00:00.000+09:00

Two weeks in and I think I'm starting to get the hang of this teaching thing a bit better... Yes, I still feel like an impostor in the classroom and I have a long way to go (although I do have my own, patented, version of the hands-on-hips-showing-cross-face stance, with an optional wagging of the finger when called for), but it's definitely feeling less weird... except for the fact that I have to wear slippers when I work. I wonder how anyone can take anyone seriously when they're trotting around with slippers on! (Mine are fluffy and blue with white and pink spots just incase you were wondering - I've received many comments on their beauty from students and fellow teachers, thank you very much).

Here are some things I have discovered about teaching in the last week;

-Lesson #1.

Teachers have to assess their students. This means giving them exams.
Exams don't magically create themselves. Teachers must do this.
Creating an oral exam for 5 classes with only 30 minutes notice is not an easy feat.
Determining a grade for a student is difficult when you have not been instructed how to do so, or what constitutes as 'good', 'average' or 'poor' English.
Giving all students near perfect scores seems to be an appropriate solution to the above problem.

-Lesson #2.

Teachers must give their students feedback. This means giving them report cards.
Report cards don't magically create themselves. Teachers must do this.
Writing reports for 40 students whose names you have not yet learnt is not an easy feat.
Finding nice ways of saying "your child really annoys me" is also difficult.
Writing 40 glowing reports seems to be an appropriate solution to the above problem.

My little class of two: Sally and Sabrina - creators of my pointy nosed giraffe-fish complex.

- Lesson #3.

In order to teach, teachers must be able control their class. This calls for a skill set that I am yet to acquire.
Using bribes such as stickers is an effective tool if carried out properly. I have not yet learnt how to do this properly. Sticker bribes cannot be administered too early in class as behavioural standards tend to deteriorate post sticker collection.
Repetitive use of above bribe technique renders it ineffective and renders teachers poor due to excessive sticker purchasing.
New bribery methods must be imagined. Soon.

-Lesson #4:

ALWAYS ignore an 8 year old when they start a sentence with "Teacher, Teacher... do YOU know what boys and girls do when they love each other?" for no apparent reason.
ALWAYS confiscate pencil cases when they are being used as props to demonstrate said 8 year olds take on what boys and girls do when they love each other ("this one is the boy and this one is the girl... and then they kiss... and..." STOP!!!).
After the above point has been carried out ALWAYS keep a close eye on all draw-able surfaces when said 8 year old is armed with a drawing implement and wants to illustrate 'love' further.

Sally: Perpetrator of the "what people do when they love each other" episode and possibly the craziest kid I know.

- Lesson #5.

Hitting the bars is a mandatory activity for Teachers on Friday nights after school.
Teachers like to party.

Ellen Teacher and Amy Teacher see how long they can keep their hands in the refrigerated built-in-table beer coolers (complete with flashing lights on the inside too!).

June Teacher sporting the latest Korean fashion - the beer mustachio.

Me, very happy with our $5 find !!

June shows us how its done (watch out for when you drink down to the wider bits in the glass... for some scientific reason unbeknownst to me, the beer shoots down your throat, or in Junes case, all over herself).

The official photo stance of Korea; Technically speaking, there should be a peace sign without a smile. I have been taught this by my students as well... so it must be true.

I guess some things just never change - no matter where you are in the world.

When Amy met Soju

2008-01-28T16:34:00.000+09:00

Spot the difference anyone???

Oh yeah, one is a place where you go to watch cute dolphins jump through hoops and the other is where you eat them!

I get spam on my front door EVERY day. I think most are takeaway menus (oh, to understand what they said), but I haven't a clue what the others are. A strange, yet I assume effective, advertising method.

This type of animal cruelty, I am sad to say, is something I have seen very often over the last week. Do you think this dog (which is probably a he) LIKES having a strawberry dyed into the fur on its left butt cheek?? I think not. Please also note the pink dye spots on its cheeks (face cheeks this time) and the fluorescent orange and pink dye on its legs... don't even get me started on the jacket!!

Trees wrapped in straw... I guess it's to keep them alive during the winter or something, but I really don't know. Any suggestions?

Pretty teapots in Gangnam, Seoul.

Me, Ellen and the great potato spiral. Deep-fried spud with tasty sprinkles of cheese, onion and chili salt. mmmm....

I survived my first week as an English Teacher!!! I feel like a bit of an impostor standing up there at the front of a classroom... I'm paranoid that at any moment someone will realise that I shouldn't be here - given I can hardly speak the language myself let alone teach it to people who are paying good money to learn! I'm particularly nervous since I discovered that on of the girls in my kinder class is the daughter of my boss... I wonder what type of feedback a 5 year old can give her parents???

Anyway, I'm having a great time and I'm learning so much along the way! Like, did you know that when choosing an English name to go by, approximately 33% of boys in Korea choose Kevin? Ok, well that is an entirely fabricated statistic, but I sure seems like just about every boy I teach is called Kevin... Perhaps the Wonder Years has made a comeback in Korea?

On the topic of names, I think I've caused a bit of damage with a few kids and wouldn't be surprised if they come to school sporting new ones tomorrow... On Monday I told a student (Eric) that he had the same name as my grandfather and as a consequence he has been taunted by the others about being an old man for the entire week. Obviously I don't say Peter like the Americans do and therefore it sounds like Peeta, and when I speak to a student named Hans (it's 'Germany' he tells me), I say it like 'Han(d)s' instead of 'Hahns'. I know accents can be funny at times, but geeze, I feel terrible that mine has caused a case or two of bullying! I've never heard kids chant mockery quite so loudly before...

On Friday night after work I went out with a couple of other foreign teachers. That's when I met Soju. We were introduced by a mutual friend and were immediately attracted to each other. We went out on the town and spent the night together, then woke up in the morning and didn't like each other anymore.... I guess that now would be a good time to mention that Soju is a Korean alcohol made from rice (sorry if I scared you there Mama). It tastes similar to vodka and has much the same effect - possible side effects of soju may include dancing, singing, slurred speech, lack of balance and impaired motor skills. If I told you that the night involved a) many games of twister, b) hours spent in a Norabang (karaoke room), c) a 5am dumpling run, and d) the most painful, nasty headache in the morning, could you guess how many of these side effects were in action? Yes, all of them. Good times.

I have a loyalty card at the local coffee shop. That means I officially live here right??

2008-01-25T16:45:00.000+09:00

It's something like minus 10 degrees outside and to me, that's pretty bloody cold!! I have never felt cold like it before but while it's very, erm, cold, it's not entirely unpleasant. Although in saying that, I'm pretty sure my boogers froze while I was walking to work today... well, maybe not quite, but the disgusting globules of spit that dot the streets of Youngtong have certainly frozen. I learnt this as one crunched under my feet on my walk home. Gross.

I haven't even been here a full week and yet it feels like forever... and I mean that in the best way possible. Somehow it just feels right. I'm surprised at how easy it's been to slot in here so far, and while I am sure there will be a reasonable period of adjustment ahead, it feels like everything is as it should be. That I am where I should be at this point in time.

This week has been filled with a million new experiences - new country, new language, new apartment, new job, new friends, new food, new money, new rules, new weather... Granted, everything is new and exciting right now, but sometimes new is not always exciting... sometimes it is just plain scary. Surprisingly, this really hasn't been scary at all - it's just been really, really fun! I'm having an awesome time!

I woke up for my first day at work to a city that was covered in a blanket of snow. It was beautiful... What wasn't beautiful was that the front steps to my apartment building had morphed into an invisible back-breaking ice-slide that required the skill of a figure skater and the agility of a monkey to descend (why anyone would think that shiny granite is a suitable material for step-building in a country that rains and snows is really beyond me). Thankfully I was forewarned about the step issue and was able to not-so-graciously make my way to the bottom without serious injury.

The following photos were taken on the way to work, in the winter wonderland (aka: a park)

right near my apartment.

Not the pyramids of Suwon, but the centerpiece of a fountain in the middle of the park.

Above is the bridge I walk across to get to work (which is located in the building on the right). Very Korean-y no??

As I walked into the school I saw a bunch of cute kindy kids running around. Then they saw me. Suddenly I was surrounded by a dozen little faces all expressing various degrees of excitement, bewilderment, shock and curiosity. "What's your name? What's your name?" they yelled out. "My name is Amy", I replied. "Oooohhhhhh Amy Teacher, Amy Teacher!" they chorused, and in a babble of Korean they ran away. Hmmm... interesting.

Considering I'm new to the school and that I've never taught before, I was pretty sure that my first day, if not my first week, would be spent observing classes and learning the ropes. Wrong! After observing only 2 kinder classes I was handed a stack of text books and left to teach the next 5 classes on my own (and with most of my students being kids from about 7 - 13 years old, the kinder observations weren't exactly relevant)! At least I didn't have time to get too nervous, but talk about being thrown in the deep end!!!

The first 10 minutes of my first class felt a little weird, but after evoking some tricks of the trade learnt in my TESOL training, I began to relax into it a little more. Apparently the kids did too... They were told to be on their best behaviour for the new teacher - a piece of information that eluded some of the boys about 20 minutes into the class. As I was doing my very teacherly duty of writing a sentence on the whiteboard an almighty crack rang out across the classroom. I turned around to see two boys lunging at each other fighting over a pencil. The crack, as it turns out, was the sound of one boy slapping the other across the face. TESOL did NOT cover this. After separating them, reorganising the seating arrangements and inspecting a perfect, scarlet, hand-shaped welt on the poor kids cheek, I gave them my best cross face (whilst really trying to hold back a laugh) and was able to complete the rest of the class incident-free. Phew. I guess it could've been much worse... and at least there were no tears (from me or the victim of pencil-stealing rage).

My work hours are laughable really... especially compared to what I was expecting. At the moment I'm working 25 hours per week including class preparation time -and because I'm on contract, I get paid the same amount as I would if I were working the maximum 35 hours a week! The longest day I have is a whopping 6.5 hours and the shortest is 1.5 hours. My work day begins at 2 or 3pm and ends at either 5.00, 6.30 or 8.30pm depending on the day. New timetables will begin in March, so this dream schedule may not last beyond that, but for now I'm considering myself very lucky!!

Currently, I have 7 different classes of various ages and English levels that I teach 2 or 3 times per week. I like them all for different reasons, but the most entertaining would have to be the class of just three 8 year old girls that I teach three afternoons a week. My physical appearance seems to be a constant source of fascination and amusement for most of the students (the kinder kids love my hair for some reason and stroke or relieve me of strands of it every chance they get), but these three girls are definitely the most vocal about it.

Here are some of the questions and comments I've fielded from them over the last 4 days;

Monday.

Candy/Sally/Sabrina : Amy Teacher, your nose is very pointy.

Amy Teacher : Really? O.K. Thanks. Anyway, let's keep correcting your homework...

C/S/S : Yes, but Amy Teacher... Your neck is very long. Long like a Giraffe.

Wednesday.

Amy Teacher : OK, so let's open your workbook to page 23.

Candy/Sally/Sabrina : Amy Teacher... your neck is still very long.

Amy Teacher : Well, yes... it would still be long.

C/S/S : But why?

Amy Teacher : Well guess that's just how I am... Maybe my mother has a long neck. I dunno... let's keep working.

C/S/S : But Amy Teacher! Wait!... Is your mother pretty?

Amy Teacher: Of course she is!

C/S/S : Is SHE a giraffe??

Later Wednesday afternoon

Candy/Sally/Sabrina : Amy Teacher. Take of your glasses!

Amy Teacher : Why?

C/S/S : Oooh! Puuurrreeeessseee!!!!

Amy Teacher : OK (**take off my glasses**)

C/S/S : (**fits of laughter followed by intense staring into my eyes**) Amy Teacher, look up... look down... look this way... look that way. Oooh. Your eyes are very blue... very beautiful!

Amy Teacher : Erm, thank you...

C/S/S : Yes Amy Teacher... They are very blue and beautiful... and big... like a fish.

Great. I'm a pointy nosed giraffe fish. I'm told it's a compliment. Whatever it is I don't care. It's hilarious and I can't wait to see what next week brings!

First Impressions

2008-01-21T15:29:00.000+09:00

Greetings from Happy Suwon!! (that's actually the town motto)

In the 24 hours I've been here my senses have been overloaded with an array of new sights, smells, sounds and tastes (yes, I've tried Kimchi and I think I like it!! This is a good sign for my survival here).

First of all here are a few pics from around town...

Downtown Yongtong

Etiquette bells - just what every toilet needs

More Youngtong ...

After a great send off on Friday I slept through most of the 11 hour flight to Korea (hangover was present but not oppressive - I think the exhaustion of the last week finally kicked in though...)

After arriving at the airport in Seoul I boarded a mobile disco to Suwon. Ok, well maybe it was a bus and not a mobile disco, but the flashy green and orange lights that lined the inside of the bus, coupled with the cheesy Korean pop music blaring from a fellow passengers headphones sure made it feel like a mobile disco.

Anyway, so while I'm trying to suppress my desire to dance I see patches of snow dotting the roadside and what seemed like a million apartment buildings. Seriously, for about 10 solid minutes all I could see were high-rise apartment complexes. These buildings ran at least 10 deep and each would've been at least 10 - 20 stories high... obviously privacy and/or space aren't high on the Korean agenda!!

Like in Vietnam, Korea seems to enjoy the marriage of religion and neon lighting... Dozens of flashing red neon crucifixes adorned the tops of buildings - some church looking, others not so much. Really neon seems to ben all the rage here - EVERY building seems to be covered in it!

Although the driving here is not nearly as hair-raising as in some other parts of the world, it would still appear that road rules are a mere suggestion rather than lawful obligation... but what this lacks in safety it sure makes up in funny! At one point, the bus cut off another car causing the driver to retaliate with a blast of his horn... a normal road scenario right? Not when the car horn was an electric guitar sounding version of Mary Had A Little Lamb! Nothing says "Screw you" like a nursery rhyme.

I was met at the bus stop by the Director of the school and another Aussie teacher, Ellen, and shown to my apartment (Ellen is a Godsend who has taken me under her wing and is showing me the ins and outs of life in Youngtong).

The apartment is tiny, but all I need for just me really. It's just one room with a bed, desk, TV, wardrobe, fridge and kitchenette. There's a little detached laundry that doubles as an enclosed balcony and there's also a bathroom complete with a squishy foam toilet seat (!) and a shower (which is just a nozzle on the wall without a shower recess/screen/curtain)... I discovered today that putting the toilet paper in a cupboard before having a shower will be a good idea in future.

There are so many strange strange things going on here... for example, today in my wonderings I saw;

Possums and Hedgehogs for sale at the supermarket (pets not food, thank you)
Dogs dressed in full outfits with their fur dyed pink and orange
Men getting perms. Not just one man, but several
A lot of spitting taking place by the Korean men (national pass-time or dirty habit I'm not sure)
Tom & Jerry toilet brushes (because cartoons make toilet scrubbing much cuter)
Pucca butter (cartoons make butter more appealing to children?)
Paprika flavoured cordial (yes dad, I'll try to remember to bring you some)

Well that's all for now, I should get to bed - I'm starting my new job tomorrow and I'm stuffed full from of Korean BBQ (veeery tasty... will be high on the dinner rotation I think!) Watch this space...

T minus 37 hours to takeoff

2008-01-17T13:30:00.000+09:00

For the last three weeks the biggest thing on my plate has been deciding if I feel like sunning myself at the beach or the park and what pub I fancy a beer at later... so it's quite an odd feeling to think that this time in 2 days I will be on a Korean Airlines flight about to land in the country that I am going to call home for the next year.

After months of waiting around - waiting to find the perfect job in Korea, waiting to get my degree at the extremely boring RMIT graduation ceremony, waiting for said boring graduation ceremony to end (felt like years), waiting for DFAT to put silly stamps on all my original documents, waiting for the immigration department in Korea to process my visa application... my visa authorisation number finally came through early last week and my world was put into a spin!

Here's how last week went.

- Tuesday 8th: Visa authorisation number arrives in my inbox. This makes all this Korea talk real. That's a scary thought. I consider pretending I never received the email. I decide I have talked it up too much to turn back now.

- Wednesday 9th: Send passport and application #2 to Korean Embassy in Canberra. They tell me I will be contacted the following week for a phone interview and that it will take at least 5 working days to process the visa after that. I am relived at the thought that it may take a while to process.

- Thursday 10th: While trying on clothes in Myer my phone rings. It's the Embassy calling to conduct my interview (wasn't that supposed to be happening next week?). In luck that would only befit me, my visa interview is conducted as I stand half naked in a change-room. I am told to expect my passport back by the middle of next week.

- Friday 11th: The doorbell rings at 8 am. It's the postman with my visa. Again, I thought this was supposed to happen next week. I begin to think I'm onto the joke about making me think I have time up my sleeve before I go. Apparently it's not a joke.

- Saturday 12th: I check my emails. My inbox reveals an e-ticket. The departure information reads Saturday 19th January, 9.40am. I shit myself.

Since then I've been running around in a buzz of excitement (ok, so it's been more of a dazed frenzy if there is such a thing) trying to get organised enough to move away for a year. Oh, did I mention that I'm moving to a winter of well below zero averages?? (-14 degrees the other day I believe... mmm toasty). Boots, beanies, scarves, thermals - I've got them all... now if only I could find a way to fit them in my case.

So that's where I'm at. All that's left to do is go buy a years worth of deodorant (yes deodorant... I'm told that you can't buy it in Korea... apparently the Koreans don't sweat... or smell.... or something), finish off packing, go drink with my friends tomorrow night, jump on a plane hungover and navigate my way from the airport to Suwon! Piece of cake!

Catch yas all from Korea!!

(Oooh yeah, I'm gunna make a great teacher with english like that!)