A Month: The Retrospective

Wow, hard to believe that I've been here for a month, but time is really flying. Figured with a month under my belt I would be able to assess the ins and outs of Korean life. First off, since I spend the majority of my time there, is school. I've already covered at great length the infatuations of my female students, so need to delve further into that. And the pics clearly show how pretty the scenery is around the school so thats a major pro. In general, the kids are great, well behaved and actually pay attention and seem to want to be there, rather than just sleep during class. My largest class I work with is only 25 students, so I've been incredibly blessed to have small, manageable classes where I actually get to know the students. Makes the job alot more fun. School lunch here is incredible. Well, it could be really shitty Korean food, but I wouldn't know the difference as its leagues better than American food. As of yet, I have not actually had the same lunch twice. We even have had churros and curry. And they were pretty damn good. I shit you not. The teachers are terribly friendly and have helped me out a bunch, usually in the form of driving me home, though its not a huge burden, as 3 of the teachers live within 5 min walk from my home. My problems are twofold: the co-teacher and the toilet situation, again. I'm just glad I had prior teaching experience with ESL, since I basically run the show. The easiest way to say it is that my co-teacher is lazy. She never teaches anything that isn't straight from the book and offers nothing to class besides helping to translate English passages to Korean, which I don't feel is terribly crucial to English development. As a result, none of the students can really speak English anywhere near where they could be given the years of English study. She has stopped sitting in on most of my classes, and even threw a class on me 5 minutes before it started, so she could write questions for the mid-term, which I was also conscripted to help write questions for. Really? Honestly, once I get down the students names and can take roll, I might as well take her fucking job. My second qualm yet again deals with the bathroom situation. The teachers bathroom has no toilet paper dispenser and in general, none of the stalls have their own. One has to guesstimate how much tp will be used before the act as the dispenser is located near the sink. That's like asking a scientist to guess what kind of explosion will take place when a volcano blows...you just can't be sure.
As life in general, all is well. My town has everything that I could ask of it: pretty surroundings with accessible nature and quiet relaxing locals, all the amenities of a city, and easy access to differing parts of Korea. There are restaurants aplenty to keep me satisfied for years to come, and it appears that there is a bookstore, and tech/videogame store, so all my needs are satisfied. If Yangpyeong doesn't have it there is always Seoul within relative spitting distance. The bar scene is acceptable by my simple standards, as their are plenty of bars/night clubs for evening activites, though I haven't checked to see if there are any noribongs (Korean kareoke clubs) since I am badly in need of some MJ shrills and screeches. I figure that's where I get all the chicks when they swoon over my mad pipes. All that is lacking at this moment is some actual company. The whole soccer club is full of fun loving folk but they are all older than me and not hanging out/bar going crowd, and I have to really get in touch with the English teachers. One of the other teachers set up a contact list, and I believe they called me last Friday night, but my cell phone is really cheap and it doesn't tell me who called, even when they are calling. It just says number unknown and obviously I can't call them back, even when the number is saved in the phonebook. It's gonna be difficult to find someone near my own age as it appears that everyone is kids and then said kids' parents. I shall endure.
As for the apartment/home life, I've settled quite comfortably into my efficiency. Now that it has cable and internet, I'm set. I spend a lot of time here, so it better be fucking comfy. I've finally gotten used to my rock-hard mattress to the point where I can sleep through the night, and I'm getting acclimated to Korean TV. In general, it kinda sucks as the native programs are no better than Univision or Telemundo: tons of shitty, overacted soap operas and then ridiculous and kinda stupid game shows. They do have the human tetris show which is endless enjoyment, but otherwise that's about it. I spend my time watching the sports stations as they broadcast nearly all the Korean baseball league games (with only 8 teams it isn't hard), many MLB games (usually Clev Indians, as they have a Korean), and a shit ton of English Premiership games (obviously all the Man United games, thanks to Park Ji-Sung, which makes me a happy panda), La Liga games and Serie A games (actually just got done watching the AC Milan vs Inter Milan match and "The Special One" in action...don't expect anyone to know who that is, cept my brother and I doubt he reads my rambliings, he's had to live with this shit way too long). I guess the fact that I can keep up on all the weeks Bolton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion action makes up for the shitty TV. Plus, I've always got crappy American action movies. Yep, that's right. Whenever I wanna watch a Michael Bay flick or Brett Ratner film all I have do is pop on the boob tube. Nice. That's about it over here on the far side of the world. Hope all is well back in the States (well, beside the economic collapse and pending election).

I think I hate, wait, no, I do fucking hate "mountain climbing"

Yup, after two official outings I have determined that I do indeed hate "mountain climbing" as defined by my acquaintance the PE teacher. Technically, it's hiking, but with the manner of obstacles and absolute lack of path at points, I deem it closer to standard mountain climbing. I believe that my core problem with this climbing is my perspective on the act, which is in direct contrast with the PE teacher. For me, climbing the mountain is a necessary evil I undertake in order to reap the fruits of the labor, being the sweet sights and serene surroundings. If it were up to me we'd hit one peak, chillax at the peak for a long ass time taking in the environs, then head down. The PE teacher sees the climbing as good exercise, which, technically, is correct. But shit, if I'm just doing it to stay in shape, I'd much rather just run around town or play soccer or anything that doesn't possess the same degree of danger. Seriously, we hit the top peak, stopped to eat lunch, then moved on. In some spots we stopped for a matter of seconds to admire the view, then we moved on. Boo. Again, I was badly conned and had my perceptions called into question. I expected from the beginning another strenuous climb, but when I got picked up, I noticed that the Mr. Jeong's kids were coming along as well, so I assumed wrongly, as usual, that the climb would have to be more mild to allow the kids to tag along. The climb was just as nasty as the previous one, actually nastier in spots. Last time there was no trail whatsoever for most of the day; we just winged it as to where to go. This time around there was a trail, but it was difficult to manage at spots. Some areas of the "trail" were simply a shear rock face with a rope to pull yourself up by. Now these trails were tough enough to navigate that I wouldn't recommend it to most adults or anyone not in pretty good condition. So obviously, kids simply should not be anywhere near this mountain, especially 4 and 7 year olds. The blame is entirely that of Mr. Jeong. If your kids arent coordinated enough to tackle the task, and no 3 year old would be, then they shouldn't be on the mountain. I hate to backseat parent, but there is no reason why you should put your kids and as a result, yourself, in that sort of precarious position. Una, the 3 year old, was simply not coordinated enough or strong enough to make it up most of the tricky areas, while her brother Jaean, 7, was coordinated enough to think he could handle the mountain, but not old enough or wise enough to realize that he needs to take his time and make sure he has good footing instead of running around not in control. Since the young'ens clearly needed assistance getting around, and that naturally fell on their father and myself. Climbing up this mountain was difficult enough for me with both hands available to grip, but when I'm told to walk hand in hand with Jaean for the majority of the trip, navigating gets that much harder. To make matters worse, the kids inevitably got tired, and they had to be carried. Yup, I carried a 7 year old on my back for major portions of trip. Beyond the simple extra weight, I now have no hands available as both are being used to support the kid on my back. Not surprisingly, all this extra level of difficulty kinda ruined my enjoyment of the actual views I was privy to. The crown jewel in this altogether irksome day was the fact that Mr. Jeong badly miscalculated how much time we had before sundown, so at the end we were rushing, not smart, as fast as we could down to mountain in order to get back before we lost light. Turns out we weren't fast enough. So now, I'm carrying the sleeping squirt on my back and trying not completely fuck up an ankle or a lot worse with a misstep on terrain I simply can't see. I can't even count the number of times I rolled an ankle thanks to a bad plant foot. In the end, though, we did get back and everyone made it home in one piece. But what really pisses me off more than any of the preceding shit was that when we got down the mountain, it was so late that the Sustainable Agriculture Museum of Yangpyeong had already closed for the night. FUCK! And I was all set to learn about crop cycles and fertilizer and shit. Oh well, looks like I'll be doing this again in 3 weeks, as I've been told that the whole family and myself will be heading to the Seorak Mts. Now I would have no fucking thanks right away, but the Seoraks are THE Mts. in Korea and I've got a free ride there. I can't pass that shit up. Maybe it will turn out better and maybe this time the wife will tag along. She is always "sick" so she never comes along on our trips. Apparently, the phenomenon of women's susceptibility to "headaches" whenever their husband/boyfriend wants something is not just an American thing. Interesting.

Seoul, Part Deux

As some of you may have known, I headed to Seoul today, thanks to some boneheaded planning maneuvers. Originally I was going to head to the suburb of Seoul, Seongnam, to catch a Korean soccer league game. But, when I bought train tickets I bought them for the wrong day, so I just decided to use the tickets and visit Seoul for the day. Well, I would have except the PE teacher found out and he offered to drive me to Seoul instead. Don't freak out, he and the family were already heading to Seoul this morning for a wedding. I just tagged along and hopped off at the nearest subway station. Now originally when I bought tickets, I got them for 10 am heading to Seoul and 10:45 pm heading home, which gives me a large chunk of time to work with. But, since I was now traveling by car, my window closed considerably as they were leaving Seoul at 3pm and due to the usual delays that come with 3 and 6 year olds, we didn't arrive in Seoul until noon. The PE teacher was kind enough to drop me off at Itaewon district, which is where all the whiteys hang out, apparently. I guess there is a US military base nearby and many foreign embassies, so the ratio of foreigners (primarily whiteys) to Koreans was about fifty/fifty, maybe higher. There were a lot of whiteys. It didn't even feel like I was in Korea, since all the store and restaurant signs were in English, and most didn't even have Korean on them at all. So if any of you visit Seoul, but you don't want to feel like you actually left the US, Itaewon is the place to be. For me though, it was too much, as I had forgotten how much I dislike most white people, because with white people comes....fatties. Yeah I hadn't seen one of those in a while, but sure enough, when i sat down at the All American Diner where I had lunch, there they were in droves. Now, don't be so hasty to criticize me for passing up delicious local food for the novelty American restaurant, but I was starving, it was convenient, and the block seemed to consist of American chains, like McDonalds and Subway, almost entirely. In the end, my burger was pretty freakin good, the wait staff spoke really good English (surprise, surprise). After lunch, it was off to my favorite part of town, thus far, City Hall. It's pretty centrally located with various palaces and Buddhist temples around to see, not to mention lots of shops. Since I only had a matter of hours to take in the sights, actually about 2, I quickly headed for Cheonggyechon Stream for some r&r. As you can see from the pictures, it's a very pretty and, at least for me, a quite peaceful and serene place in the midst of the hustle and noise that is downtown Seoul. But time was of the essence, so, after a much too short break, I was off to visit Deoksugung Palace. This one wasn't as impressive or scenic as Gyeongbokgung Palace that I visited last time, but it was in the neighborhood and for the reasonable 1,000 won ($1) entrance fee, I could have found worse diversions for a hour or so. After sampling the sights for an hour or so, it was off to the subway station again to try and catch my ride home. Apparently, I missed Jeong Dongchun by a matter of minutes, so no I was completely alone in Seoul and I had to find my own means home for the first time. Crunch Time. So back on the subway I climbed and headed for Yongsan, home of the enormous electronics market, and a bus terminal. The electronics market was as advertised. The section I looked at, and mind you this was only a small fraction of the electronics market, was about the size of a convention center for each floor, and there were 7 floors in total. Each floor was littered with innumerable booths of vendors hawking their wares. 2 floors dedicated to just phones, mp3 players, cameras, and camcorders, 2 floors for computers and bigger appliances (TV, fridge, etc.) and one floor for console games. All in all, it was a techie's wet dream. I don't know how they do it in Japan and other tech crazy nations, but for little old me, it was overwhelming to say the least. Once my romp through Candyland was done it was back to business: getting the fuck home. My map informed me that the bus terminal was supposed to be right outside the building, but that was not the case. After much searching and more than my fair share of griping and complaining about the map lying to me, I realized that the bus station that I wanted wasn't even in Yongsan. Oops. To the subway! Once I hopped on the subway to the right stop, it was a piece of cake. I just followed all the other subway passengers like a freaking lemming and sure enough they lead me to our cliff: the bus station. 50 minutes later and 4.30 dollars later, I was on the bus heading home. Maybe, just maybe, I might be able to not die if I visit this Korean mecca of commerce. Yipee.

The Yangpyeong Casanova and other tales

Well, the last several days have been...pretty good. The week was terribly slow, but things picked up nicely as the weekend rolled around. Friday started off strongly, as I finally got my Alien Registration card, which basically entitles me to anything short of voting, and I got my passport back. With a legitimate id now in hand, I along with a fellow teacher, who suggested I refer to her as "Audrey Hepburn" to help me remember, headed out after school to pick up a cell phone. I won't actually get the phone until Monday, but still. I mean, cmon, its actually got a camera...very high tech for me. Ironically, out of the phones I got to choose from, I just happened to like the cheapest one...surprise, surprise. The good times kept on roling when I found out that the school was paying for the phone and I'm covering the meager $12 a month for the service. Wow. That brings my total expenses/bills per month up to $75 or so dollars a month, with cable/internet at $40 and utilities around $20. Which means I gonna be saving up a decent chunk of change, provided I don't blow it on drugs, booze, women, or any combination of the three. Given past experience, I should be okay. After our phone adventure, Audrey and I moved on to the local bakery, complete with pretentious french name to boot, where Audrey treated me to my choice of baked goodies. I chose the simple frosted and jelly filled donuts. While they were not Greenbush quality (frankly, Ill probably be disapointed for the remainder of my life), they were good enough to assuage my fears about baked goods in these parts. After settling back at the homestead for an hour or so, it was off to the soccer field for my second game with the soccer club. This time they assembled the whole crew and we had a full field and then some of players. As is becoming the norm here in Korea, everybody apparently loved me, so much so that they took me out to dinner with a bunch of the guys, paid for dinner and treated me to a liberal amount of sobaek (soju and beer tossed together in a class). Frankly, the stuff was very palatable since soju and weak ass Korean beer have minimal flavor. This is where the town Casanova makes his grand entrance. While drinking in large quantities, one of the table mates tells me that another tablemate was "Yangpyeong playboy, Yangpyeong Casanova". The aforementioned man seemed to agree as he began pounding his fist into his open palm repeatedly and motioning to his thigh and encircling his thigh with his hands then holding it up to show the size. I got the gist pretty easily. This wouldn't have bee quite as humorous had he not been at least forty and one of the smallest Korean men I have yet to see. I may have found my Jason/Rounds at long last. But in this case he really is a dirty old man. We left early before I got completely drunk and made a major fool of myself, as I had already spilled hot soup on myself twice, since I had to get up early on Saturday for the school's cooking competition. Apparently, all the schools students are broken into teams and they have to prepare certain dishes and when they are all done, the teachers get to eat them. I like the respect for teachers thing they have over here. For a couple of hours I got to walk around, watch the students cook or try to cook, then I got to sample the results. The only dark cloud on this wonderful day was my usual "indigestion" that kicks in afer I drink heavily that led to my disappearance for a considerable period and a hearty laugh by all the other teachers. It seems I may be slipping down to mere human status in these people's eyes. I will have to try to remedy that.

Fishing, circa 1850

Well, today was a welcome surprise as I had planned to do absolutely nothing, and I did, in fact, do something. As usual this was thanks to the PE teacher. Man, I'm gonna have to buy him a car or at least babysit his kids a bunch or something. I owe him big time. Today, he showed up around noon and asked if I wanted to go fishing. Obviously, being incredibly busy with tons of plans, I agreed. Shortly thereafter, Jeong, his son and I headed off for some fishing. Once again my perceptions/assumptions of what we would be doing was way the fuck off. Rather than the standard fishing that one is accustomed to, we headed to a shallow little river that looked identical to the small streams out west where everyone panned for gold about hundreds of years ago. And frankly our tools of the trade weren't much more up to date. Apparently, casting for fish is illegal, at least in this area, so we fished for small little panfish (shari, and others that I can't remember the Korean for) by hitting rocks in the stream with a sledgehammer, then moving the rock and hoping that the fish underneath would be scared into the net we placed out front. Yeah, high-tech, I know. After doing this for a while, we moved out into the deeper area and the PE teacher used a a simple toss net to snag more panfish, while his son and I tried to catch kegari (frogs). It was cute cuz his dad taught him how to say "Let's catch some frogs" in English and he just kept repeating it for the rest of the day. Well, it was cute for a while. After we were satisfied with our haul, we sat down for lunch. We broke out a portable gas stove, cleaned and cooked up the panfish, threw in some ramen and green peppers and had lunch right there on the stream banks. When that was done we munched on some corn cobs, apples, and the teacher and I downed some soeju while his son ran around, as 6 year olds are privy to do. Man, these people know how to live. Eventually, we decided to return to the 21st century and hopped in the car and headed home. Again I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd been invited to a home cooked dinner with the family, so obviously I said yes. Before I could enjoy the delicious meal of bulgogi, gogi (fish) and chicken (don't know Korean for it yet...crap), I had to play with the kiddies first. The games on tap today were Throw stuff at Wallin until he cries or someone stops you (they started with soft balls, moved up to soccer balls, then onto to little handheld arcade games, and were stopped just before the boy let loose with a 2.5 lb or so dumbbell...that would've hurt...I'm sure I would have cried), Hide and Seek (very easy since the apartment isn't very big and they kids kept talking...amateurs), and teach Eric Korean (I even got some sweet flashcards to practice with as the daughter just started learning Hangul about the same time I did). Seriously, these kids are just too incredibly cute for me to take, which is why I would have let them let loose with the dumbbell. Come to think of it, kids injuring me is pretty adorable to almost everyone I know. The wife also sent me home with the vast majority of the leftovers to sit next to the remnants from the food they gave me on Saturday. Wow. Like I said, I owe these people big.

"Mountain Climbing"

I should probably begin this post by imparting one vital point of knowledge that I discovered in the past few days: If a Korean asks you if you want to "climb a mountain" with them, know exactly what you are getting yourself into. Also, get some fucking climbing shoes. My adventure on the mountain began early, really early Saturday morning at 5:30 am, when the PE teacher picked me up and we began our 30 minute drive to one of the nearby mountains to climb and pick mushrooms. Now I, coming from a background in the US where climbing to higher elevation usually entails a gravel path or maybe even paved path with a very minor grade, assumed that this climbing would be such, as the PE teacher clearly saw that I had no special gear and would have made a point to mention if I was ill-equipped for the task at hand. So I threw on the shoes that appeared to be most suited to what I perceived would basically be hiking: my indoor soccer flats. I love my Adidas sambas to death, but anyone will tell you that they are called flats for a reason...they have almost no tred or traction. So we get to the mountain and we begin driving up a small, winding road that goes along the edge of the mountain that will take us to, I assume, the trail. After a time, Jeeong simply stops the car, gets out and begins crawling/climbing up a less steep and more accessible section of the mountain. Fuck. Now granted we weren't climbing up shear rock face, but the climb was steep enough where we were both using trees and branches to help pull us up as one simply could not walk upright normally. With my poor footware slipping and sliding all over the mountain I basically crawled up on all fours. While the initial part was a bit of a shock, the struggle was well worth it as the view (see facebook photos) was incredible as we hit the mountain right about dawn. We traveled up the mountain for about 2 hours before finally resting for some breakfast of kimbap (Korea's version of the sushi rolls with the goodies in the middle surrounded by rice and wrap), little Korean pastries that are pressed to look like walnuts and are filled with crushed walnut paste, and a real hearty man's chocolate, Hersheys. Can't beat starting your day will a real blue-collar chocolate, not that elistist Girondelli's shit (I'm sure I spelled it wrong, but I don't care). Our search for mushrooms proved to be rather ineffective, and we soon headed down the mountain. Now I thought going up the mountain was difficult. Dumbass. Trying to go down a mountain where over half of your footings slip/give way and send you sliding down the mountain on several occasions can be rather unsettling. I even had a branch that I was using to hold myself on the mountain break and I literally slid 5 feet or so before I was able to grab hold of another tree to stop my fall. To top off our strenuous trip, when we actually got back down to the road, we couldn't remember/find where we had parked the car, so we wandered aimlessly for 30 minutes or so until another car came by and drove us to our car. Wow.

The Neverending Story of Wallin and his lovelorn students

I know I've touched on this before, but the endless interest of my female students is getting mighty weird now. At first it was incredibly wonderful, having never had to deal with lots of attention of this kind before, scratch that ANY attention of this kind, but as such I am ill prepared for everything. I quite early noticed the attention of several of my 6th grade females, but apparently 8th grade feels much the same. In the middle of my teaching, a female student yelled out my name and when I looked up she was holding a sign that read "Erik teacher hansome", with the d carroted in for handsome and several hearts written next to it. After the co-teacher questioned her about it, in Korean, another girl was found to be the ringleader and she was forced to stand at the back of the room holding up the sign for about 10 minutes. During that same class, one of the students asked if I had a girlfriend and after I answered no, she responded by asking if I had a phone. Subtle. Gym class with that grade was the same story (to fulfill my teaching hour quota I'm helping teach a couple of gym classes). I guess the sight of me in t-shirt and shorts really got them going, since when I arrived to class they all wanted to talk to me and a few brave students gave me a high five and then ran back to their little circles where more giggling ensued. They all wanted me to throw the baseball around with them and whenever I made any simple catch or throw I received a thunderous ovation. I'm gonna need to develop a Collin-sized ego quickly otherwise this shit is gonna get uncomfortable. Ohh, we also had fucking churros at lunch today. Yeah, churros in Korea. Crazy shit, but it was wonderful as they were actually well made and nobody in Korea likes sweets like that, so I got all the leftovers that no one wanted. The highlight of the evening was most certainly the kayak trip I took down the Hangang (spelling?). It was absolutely beautiful as it was right around sunset and the sun was setting through the mist behind the mountains. It actually made me forget about the fact that I can't paddle a kayak straight to save my life.

I Have Hepatitis B...wait, what???

So today was business as usual at school. I did confirm within a shadow of a doubt, that several of my 6th grade girls are apparently in love with me. I catch them staring at me for really long periods of time, they always wanna talk to me, but then they get really bashful and just run away. It's flattering and really weird all at the same time. Frankly, I feel bad for them and their lack of exposure to the world if I'm what keeps them up at night. Today's strange moment came at the medical clinic where I went to get the results of my blood work and various exams from last night. Good news, I don't have HIV, but I did think for a few short moments that I had Hep B. After my liaison talked with the receptionist he explained the best he could that there was a Hep B test and that positive is "OK" and that I tested negative. Well, I started freaking out in my head and started asking what I have to do. My liaison said I just needed a shot. Then I realized that I had failed a test for the Hep B vaccine, so I have to get vaccinated sometime next week. Wow, what a load of my shoulders.

Wow, that's a lot of text

I should probably warn you that there is quite a bit of text up now. So if you really wanna read it, I advise grabbing some food and/or drink, go to the restroom before hand, and find a comfy chair, cuz its gonna be a long one. Just saying.

I’m still alive

Okay, first off, the Korean version/bastardization of pizza is well, nearly impossible to describe, just wow. But to more important issues, yes I am still alive. I am still without internet in my apartment on Tuesday evening and I didn’t have any access to internet until Monday morning at the school, so I have quite a bit of details to bring to light about my all-important first days here in Yangpyeong. I got down to Chicago for the meet and greet with the other TTGs (Teachers To Gyeonggi-do) on Wednesday night, nothing terribly exciting to report. As you would expect I ignored and avoided social contact whatsoever with any of the other teachers. Big surprise, right I now. Anyways there was a nice moment when one of the other teachers approached me, called me by my first name and asked if I remembered her….obviously I had no idea who this girl was. Turns out we had a T.S. Eliot class together and we even worked on a group presentation together and I couldn’t even remember her name…oops. To be frank, I didn’t even remember her name after she reintroduced herself. As for the flight day, Thursday, nothing too crazy to report either. I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly and efficiently people are moved through the security checks…I was expecting a couple of hours of wait, but we were through in a matter of minutes. Ohh, I almost forgot that I ate at Denny’s before getting on the flight. Nothing special but I just wanted a chance to say “SSSSStephen’s money”. I just can’t eat at Denny’s without thinking about how I wasted Stephen’s money. Anyway, the flight was actually pretty damn good for a 14 hour flight. The Korean Air flight attendants were the most attractive and friendly stewardess’ ever, no questions asked. It actually made me a little excited for the prospects once in Korea…sadly I have yet to come across such quality specimens since then…sigh. The food was good, one can never get enough of complementary hot towels and glasses of OJ every half hour or so, and I got to watch Be Kind Rewind, which is a very enjoyable movie. The only drawback, and it’s a big one, was my seat mate. Granted we were in a row of three seats and the middle one was open, yeah I know, awesome, but this kid was, in the kindest possible terms, was a knob. He was of those stereotypically loud, obnoxious, stupid and utterly clueless as to his lack of etiquette Americans that give the rest of us a bad name. I feel bad for the unlucky school in Yeoju that has to deal with his dumb ass for the next year. He just kept talking to me about stupid shit, even when I had my eyes closed and was trying to sleep or if I was obviously in the middle of reading a book…like I really wanna talk to him about whether or not little trinket pieces of candy was an appropriate present for your coteacher and principal, which it is most certainly not. He honestly said, and I quote, “Hey are we over Alaska or Iceland right now? Actually we’re probably over Alaska”. Yikes. Anyways once we got to Incheon International Airport things started looking up. I was amazed by how spotless and amazing the airport was…Im not sure that they actually let people use it, it was that clean. After our whole group got their baggage we met the screaming crowds of our Asian employers…think the Beatles landing in the US. Seriously though, there was a lot of people there waving signs for their teacher. It was a freaking mess and terribly disorienting, but finally I found my people, except that Im now teaching at some Gang-ha Middle School instead of Yangpyeong High School like I thought. I try to be polite, but inside I’m a little worried because I don’t where the fuck this school is located. I tried to ask the question without tipping my hand, but eventually I found out that the school is located just outside of Yangpyeong, but I’ll be living in Yangpyeong. My greeting party consisted of my co-teacher, who has very limited English, her fellow teacher, who has no English, and the co-teacher’s son, who has pretty decent English, compared with what I’ve had to work with. Anyways we get going to the car and they tell me that it’s another 3 hours to Yangpyeong…fuck. I barely sleep on the 14 hour plane ride, it’s 6pm Korean time and 4 am American time and I have to sit in a car for another 3 hours??? They found out that I was quite hungry and they stopped at what was to be my first encounter with Korean barbeque….wonderful. My hosts laughed at my inadequacies with chop sticks, but they were kind enough to pick up the tab, so I’ll take the trade-off. Actually come to think of it, I have yet to pay for a meal when eating out, and the number is up to 5 or 6 now…nice. Finally, at about 9pm local time we arrive in Yangpyeong and get to the apartment, which is frightening small when I first get inside it and I notice it is missing many of the things promised me in the contact…crap. To compound matters, the teacher informs me that I have to meet the principal and the staff at school tomorrow morning, Saturday, at 10 am. Boo. They finally leave me to rest, well try to rest, as this brings our tale to my first of 2 major grievances with Korea…their mattresses. No joking, their mattresses are only one step above hard floor in regards to softness. I don’t even think America makes mattresses this firm anywhere. It simply has no give. Well, during a very uncomfortable night’s attempt at sleep, I wander into the bathroom and come across my cross to bear…their toilet situation. Granted, its not as bad as the Chinese squat toilets, although the local hospital did have the type, no these toilets are fine seaters, but the problem lies in the fact that you can’t flush down the toilet paper. I don’t know if China or Japan also has this, but I hate it because inevitably, when not thinking, I toss the TP in the toilet and then I cussing the whole way, have to fish it out with my bare hands from the “unclean” water. Uggg. Anyways, I get up and am driven to my school the next day and let me tell you the view is well worth the 15 minute drive, as I’m surrounded by mountains and rivers on all sides, rice patties interspersed with huts and large skyscrapers…it’s a kinda surreal scene. Pictures can really only do it justice, words simply fail. Anyways, I get to the school which is about a half a mile or so off the actual road and further buried in the hills, and I get a more than acceptable introduction. I sit down and chat, or try to, with the whole staff, while the students, who apparently do the majority of the cleaning and janitorial duties at the school and were there cleaning the place, were peeking into doorways and climbing on shoulders to see through windows in the room I was in. It was pretty crazy, as most of them had never seen a foreigner before, as I was told, especially not one as tall or as handsome as this one…yeah, I said it. The school is quite small and quaint, just my style, as it houses about 100 students and only 10 teachers, including me and the principal and vice-principal. I really wanna learn Korean because my principal seems like such a cool guy. He’s a really cute shriveled old man with no English knowledge, save for the ability to say “My son…in Chicago”, who wanders around smiling, laughing, patting me on the back and offering cigarettes to me. Finally, I’m whisked away from school so I can get my affairs put in order, with the help of the PE teacher who happens to live in Yangpyeong, less than a 5 minute walk away, and will be driving me to school every day. Well, we aren’t more than 5 minutes into the drive home and he’s found out that I like soccer and he’s invited me to play with him and the Yangpyeong Soccer Club, who play almost every day before work…aka 6:30 am. Whatever, worth it for some futbol. Once we get back to town, he asks if I’m hungry and if it would be okay for his wife and two kids to come along, its obviously no problem to me, so off we go. We all arrive at the Chinese restaurant and we enjoy the best sweet and sour chicken ever…America just can’t come close, period. Throughout the whole meal I’m entertained by his 4 year old girl and 6 year old boy who are possibly the most adorable kids ever…their nicknames I’ve been told are Cat and Dog. They are just bouncing around and under and above everything during the whole meal, keeping their distance from me, cuz they just don’t know what to make of me just yet. After the meal we drive back to my apartment and the kids just go to town on the mattress bouncing, well trying to bounce, hiding under the covers, and eventually coming near me only to run away from the “big guy”. It was too sickeningly adorable. He and the kids leave me for a bit, with the promise of coming back in an hour so we can go grocery shopping, etc. So when he comes back to pick me up, Im surprised to see that he has already purchased all the kitchenware I’ll need, and he evens takes the time to unpack everything and put it in place…wow, these people are nice. Finally, once everything is put away, we head to the grocery store. I know that shopping for food when you can’t read nearly any of the labels and you’re out in public for the first time in some weird world should be a challenge, but frankly it couldn’t have been more comfortable thanks to the 6 year boy who insisted on taking me through the store by the hand to show me all the most delicious and undoubtedly sugary drinks. Again, way too adorable. Finally, we go back to the Jeong’s house where he gives me some of the hangers from his house, some of his house towels, as well as some fruit..again the generosity is amazing. Sunday morning arrives and I’m up bright and early playing soccer at the local high school with the soccer club. I’m really gunna miss grass fields since everything over here is dirt, but the fellows were really cool and we had a bunch of laughs over some terrible shots, several of which attributed to yours truly. The rest of the day was rather uneventful save for my first trip wandering around the town…just beautiful. There’s so much to say that I’ll have to save for a post dedicated solely to that once I have pictures up. Also, Jeong, the PE teacher randomly stopped over at my house to deliver two apples and a handful of candies. When I asked why he decided to stop over, he said that his daughter had told him the she wanted to visit Eric….awwwww. Finally we come to Monday, my first day of class, the suspense…wait I’m not actually starting teaching until next week, uhhh okay. Apparently, to allow me to settle in, I don’t start actually teaching until Sept 8, which will shortly be followed by the Korean Thanksgiving holiday which gives me Sept 15 and 16 off from school. After a day of doing nothing but probably getting paid for it, I’m whisked away with the administrative chief, the high up bureaucrat working at the school, I assume, for my medical exam. That all goes well, or as well as possible, given that the chief speaks basically no English, except for a very small handful of badly pronounced English words. He actually called the co-teacher just so he could relay a message to me at one point. He also, at first, seemed like the type that wouldn’t be fun to be around, given that he’s terribly grumpy and mean looking, but apparently he’s a big teddy bear on the inside or something like that, as he invites me out to dinner after the paperwork and medical forms. When we arrive at the restaurant we meet several of the other bureaucrats at the school, or at least I think they are bureaucrats, since they don’t usually work in tandem with the teachers. So we sit down for another delicious meal of Korean barbeque and one of the group asks if I want a beer, and they were about to order me one, when I proudly exclaimed, “Soeju!”, to which they responded with gasps followed closely by exultations. Apparently, I’m making quite an impression with my willingness to put down any Korean food or beverage put in front of my gullet without the least hesitation, even if they warn me about how spicy it is. So over much soeju and much more beef and kimchi, we have a pretty interesting conversation, at least the parts that I could read from hand/facial expressions and the occasional English words they throw me. They make fun of the administrative chief because he’s 42 and not married, but the interesting stuff comes out of nowhere, when suddenly out of nowhere a couple of the table members exclaim, “May I please hold you close?” or something like that. Well, Im obviously confused, but the lone female member of the table starts blushing and shaking off the idea by saying something like I’m old…34 years. I think they wanted me to “involve” myself with their colleague because she is at present single and they had earlier found out that Im also single. Finally, we arrive to today, Tuesday, and second verse same as the first, I sit around doing nothing at school because I still don’t know how many classes I’ll be teaching, when, what abilities, etc. The real fun starts once the administrative chief and I leave again. I feel like even though we can’t really communicate with words per say, we’ve built a report. I think we’d work well as a team. For now he’ll have to make due as my Jason and Rounds replacement. He’s definitely a high roller, and it appears that he isn’t above taking me around town to show off to his friends…seriously, we stopped at more than a handful of places to chat that had nothing to do with our errands. Plus as my wingman, I could do worse. He’s got cash, and he’s not attractive at all, thus making me look even more attractive in comparison, while I can bring him to the attention of females due to his proximity to the tall, really handsome foreign guy…I’m sorry I can’t help but have a bit of an ego since I’ve already been told like 10 times that I’m handsome, and some were from females. Well, he makes some calls and finally gets me some curtains for my room and a table and chair to use as desk which was in the contact but was not provided up front. Granted that some of these things were supposed to be provided, he didn’t have to put down the type of cash he did on the really nice curtains and table (pictures to follow). I only caught a brief glance, but I think the table and chair cost around 190 bucks. Anyways, after all that is settled, we go back to visit the curtain lady who is apparently a close friend and we sit down to chat, well they chat, and we order pizza. Now I don’t know exactly what was on it, it definitely had a weird look but it was fucking delicious. I mean they had pickles as side condiments like peppers back in the states. Anyway, my bachelor status pops up again as the curtain lady asks if I want a girlfriend. Well, I don’t really answer too hastily because I’m not sure if she was meaning to ask if I have a girlfriend, when all of a sudden she solves my confusion by simply blurting out “I have a daughter” and then she goes on to talk about how she is in her second year of school at the University level and how I should come back to the shop to visit. After we say our goodbyes, my little buddy drives me up to his undoubtedly pricy health club to show me the sport he really likes…squash. His English was so bad on the subject that when he was saying squashu with a swinging motion, I assumed that squashu was Korean for tennis. Nope. We get to the club and we start by warming up on this body shaker. Seriously it is just a platform that shakes your whole body back and forth like the shakers they have at Christmas tree farms to knock loose stray needles. I tested the higher settings but I wasn’t man enough to push it all the way to 18. I could only get up to 14 before I loosened up so much that I was sure I pooped myself and I just couldn’t feel it. After we had warmed up, I watched my buddy play a couple games of squash while I looked on. It felt like we were on a bad date where one person drags the other to something that they really love, just so the other person can see how much they rock the house, how much they kick ass when in their element, their environment. I felt like he was out there playing for me. It was kinda sweet in a strictly heterosexual way, obviously.

Another Day, Another Adventure

It’s Wednesday evening, and there is yet another fruitful days worth of adventure to report. School was yet again the same ol’ sit around and do nothing. At least today I got a schedule of what classes I’ll be teaching, although the internet failed throughout much of the day and my free trial of Microsoft Office is running out so I don’t really have a word processor in which to write out my plans. Ohhh well. I also found out that I won’t be getting internet till at least next week it seems. Just swell. But enough of the bad news, as there was plenty of good to report. I now have a bank account and am happy to report that I am a happy and successful several hundred thousandaire…in won. 300,000 won to be exact, as I finally got my living allowance for the next month and an ATM card to boot. That victory was closely followed by my first encounter with an actual living and breathing English speaker, namely another English teacher from the local elementary school. His name is Deon and he’s from South Africa and he’s been in town for six months now and he gave the full rundown on everything, finally answering all the questions I couldn’t communicate to my gracious hosts. After the school day officially ended one of the fellow teachers at my school offered to drive me home, take me out to dinner, and help me find a PC bong, that’s Korean for room as I learned, so I could use the interwebs. For dinner she took me out with her sister and fellow friend for delicious kalbi, which appears to be grilled beef. Yes, dictionary confirms it is spare ribs. Anyways, the food was wonderful as usual, and Im assuming not cheap at all, as calamari was one of the endless side dishes available. Yeah, these Koreans don’t fuck around when it comes to restaurants. This makes 5 nights eating at restaurants out of 6 days in Korea, and none of them on my tab. At this rate I’ll have hit all the food joints in town in a matter of weeks and there is a fuck ton of places to eat at here. After dinner it was off to the PC Bong, or PC room, which is where many a Korean child has wasted his or her childhood away with games such as Starcraft, Starcraft, and undoubtedly more Starcraft. Once inside, one could smell the broken dreams and wasted lives in the air. It was pungent to say the least. After sending off a e-mail to the family, I arrived at home, only to be greeted not five minutes later by Deon, who decided to stop by and offered to show me around town. So we left and wandered around town while Deon showed me the best bars and clubs, as well as let me in on the secret of teaching English under the table at private academies behind the school’s back for some extra cash. Who knew there was a dark and dirty side of English teaching? Anyways, we headed off to the English teachers bar of choice, Bobo’s for some cheap, by Madison standards, beer. Beer is generally about 2.50 per mug here in Yangpyeong. I also learned there are about 10 or so native English speakers from England and Scotland, and several from the States. I got back to my apartment after several drinks only to be interrupted, this time by the PE teacher who came to inform among other things that I’m invited to come along with him and probably his family up to the mountains to fish and then eat that fish over the Korean thanksgiving holiday coming up next week, where I get Monday and Tuesday off. Ohhh, and I’m probably heading into Seoul this weekend to get shown around by Hyun, one of my former students from ESL. And you guys just started class. Wow, sucks to be you guys.

Seoul, The “Soul of Asia”

Well, I just got back from an interesting weekend in Seoul and do I have lots to report, so let’s start at the beginning. I got my first surprise early on Friday when my co-teacher told me that rather than taking the train from Yangpyeong to Seoul, another teacher was going to drive me to central Seoul. These people continue to amaze me with their generosity. My co-teacher said the other teacher lives in Seoul, but I really don’t believe that so much, but I’m kinda stuck because these people don’t take no for an answer, let alone the fact that they probably wouldn’t understand me if I told them no. Whatever. So this wonderful woman drove me into Seoul, where I rendezvoused with my friend Hyun. A little background info on Hyun: He was one of my students during my co-teaching last spring, his English is incredible (to the point where I speak to him like I would any other native speaker…he broke out English words like “pagoda”, fucking pagoda, although I did stump him on “postapocalyptic” and “Armageddon”, win for me), and he also is basically fluent in Japanese as well. So we meet and we immediately hop onto the Seoul subway system. It was incredible, you can get anywhere in all of Seoul in no time, and it is so simple and easy to understand, even for foreigners, since everything is in English and the maps are really easy to understand. I hope New York’s subway is this simple, but given its American, probably no. Another early point of notice: Seoul is insanely clean. There just wasn’t dirt anywhere, and barely any hobos. They probably sweep them up with the rest of the garbage, probably. We headed to City Hall, a central hub of northern Seoul, that houses, you guessed it, Seoul City Hall. The lawn outside is home to most of Korea’s numerous protests. Hyun joked that the reason that the Hyatt Hotel right next door is so expensive is because you have a great view of all the protests and riots without fear of harm. We eventually met up with another of my former English students, Jung-Eun, and the three of us headed out for dinner. On our way we wandered along the Cheonggyecheon Stream that runs through central Seoul. Apparently the city decided several years back that they would restore this small stream that runs through the heart of town and its since become quite a popular relaxing spot in a busy town. I’d direct you to the numerable pictures I took of it, but sadly, I forgot it, so no pictures from this trip to Seoul. Guess I’ll just have to go back again soon, darn. Eventually, with some searching, we found a Korean barbeque for pork this time. Can’t remember what they call it, though I know galbi is the word for beef via BBQ. After dinner we wandered around the area for a bit, me amazed by the lights and sounds and utter lack of hobos, while the other two chatted in Korean. Saturday was hectic, to say the least, as we covered much of the town. We started at Gyeongbokgung Palace, which dates from the Josean Dynasty from 500 years, which was a sight for the eyes to say the least, but you can’t see that…hahaha. That was mean. Anyways, we got to see the ceremonial changing of the guards, watched many people take pictures with them (they couldn’t move, just like the British Palace guards), and then visited the National Folk Mueseum, before heading to the traditional market area of Insa-dong. That place was crazy, with innumerable street vendors and weird crazy shops everywhere. Chances are that’s where most of your Christmas presents will be coming from, just saying. After lunch of nammyeon (cold noodles), we headed to the Namsangol Hanok Folk Village, a recreation of a traditional peasant village on our way to Seoul Tower and Mt. in the middle of Seoul. Big mistake. We stumbled onto the village in the middle of setting up for some Seoul Film Festival and its numerous tents, the 6^th Annual Seoul International Walking Festival (yeah, they were celebrating walking…I thought it was dumb too), and an actual wedding, all three taking place within the village’s walls. We escaped quickly only to discover that to get to the peak we would have to walk for over 30 minutes, as there were no buses, and we were certainly not walking anymore, so we headed back towards City Hall, as there was a Buddhist temple right in the middle of town. The most incredible thing about the temple was the mini-industry of Buddhist paraphernalia that sprung up around the temple. For a small fee anyone could buy Buddhas of all sizes, Buddhist beads, even Buddhist robes. Crazy. After that we headed out for samgetong for dinner, followed by the famous Korean film, “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith…wait, no. Samgetong is basically broiled chicken, where they throw most of a chicken inside a stone pot that keeps the food at volcanic temps for a long time, along with rice, surprise, surprise, and various seasonings. Pulling chicken off the bone with chopsticks would be nearly impossible had I not drastically improved my skills with the sticks in the last week. It’s gotten to the point where I feel insulted if the waiter or waitress tosses a sympathy fork in front of me when she sees whitey sit down for a meal. “I Am Legend” wasn’t bad either, though it coupled with my reading of Cormac Mccarthy’s book The Road about a post Armageddon world, had me feeling really glum until I realized I was only in Asia, not some post-apocalyptic world where everyone is 5 feet tall and supple breasts are as rare as fucking white tigers. On that front though, the ladies about town were very lovely and breasts are more common than I thought. Sadly, as much as Brian tried to prep me for the trip (see facebook wall), I did not “get to know” any of the ladies. This trip was strictly sight-seeing, with minimal drinking. Heavy drinkings probably not gonna take place with Hyun as he’s as much of a boring bookworm and homebody as myself. Sunday was a bit slower as we only visited Korea’s largest bookstore, which was immense, and their major tech store, which was 6 floors of wall to wall digital cameras, mp3 players , tvs etc. It was techie heaven. After which, I hoped on the train and headed back to Yangpyeong. In conclusion, this weekend taught me several important lessons: 1) Seoul is very manageable to get around and survive as a foreigner, as everything really is in English, as well as most things in Japanese, if you happen to speak that devil’s tongue 2) Navigation around this entire country is very workable and inexpensive. Subway fare in Seoul was about 1 dollar to go around town, the hour train ride home was only 3.30 dollars, and bus fare to home isn’t really any more. Plus, flying to Jeju Island, the southernmost part of Korea, costs only 150 dollars round trip. 3) The English teacher I talked to last week was right: At times you are going to feel completely alone here. In Seoul, I’m surrounded by millions of people, and I feel alone since no one is telling me how much I suck at everything, how I could never please a woman (or man, for that matter), or how much my haircut sucks. Damn it, I hate you people. I actually miss you guys. Crap.

Hell Yeah I can finally post

Hello again all. It's been awhile, but I finally have internet access that allows me to post. Not too much to report from my first day of class other than the fact that my kids speak almost no English...its gonna be a struggle. But there some light moments, as one boy in particular, who his friends can only describe as "crazy" serenaded a group of us with the song "Stand by Me"...in English, impromptu. He was just standing around then he suddenly bursts into "When the night is young...". Kid knew a couple of verses. I fell out of my chair I was so amused. I also practiced capoeira in the park again. It's amazing how easy it is to practice out in public when you can't understand what everyone's saying about you and since they're gonna be staring anyway, no matter what I'm doing or wearing. Maybe I'd get a few more stares if I was naked, but probably not many more. Just to clarify the possible confusion, the following posts were all written awhile ago, but I had no way to post them.

Wallin