Zip zip zip!

So I don't know about all you furry bunnies out there, but I had a great weekend :) And no, I don't know why furry bunnies...

Haha^^

Anyway, so Saturday was ziplining with Christy, Cali Amy, Edithe, Edithe's friend Joyce and Michelle. Michelle sadly didn't quite make it, being quite severely hungover and unable to even answer her phone until 11 (we were catching a bus at 11.25 and it takes 20 minutes+ alone to get to the bus terminal from our place). The ziplining people were amazingly confused that there were only 5 of us instead of 6 - you would have thought it would be an easy concept to grasp - probably because we were foreigners, but quite understanding once I explained that our friend was MEH (missing and extremely hungover ㅋㅋㅋ). The rest of us got to Jeomchon safe and sound, quite a bit earlier than expected, and one ice-cream cake (just to kill the time of course :D) later, were picked up by the company and arrived at the site.

Joyce, Christy, some idiot, Edithe and Cali Amy

We filled out our information forms and got strapped into our gear and all piled into a truck with four Korean ladies in their thirties and set off. I was a bit worried because as we got in the guy who'd helped me with my gear very solemnly wished me 'good luck' (in English) as he helped me into the truck, and then kept an entirely straight and serious face as I panicked and demanded to know why I needed good luck. On the way up, the guides were a bit nervous that there were so many foreigners, and thought it was funny that we were all talking and joking around quite noisily while the Koreans just sat there silently. 20 minutes of nervous banter, a safety lecture and a climb up some steep stairs later and we were at the first launch platform. Cali Amy being the brave experienced one went first and debuted her specialty ziplining pose in what we would later dub 'the upside down starfish'.

Waiting to go to our deaths

Now those of you who know me will know that I'm not good with things that involve the possibility of falling suddenly to my death, such as rollercoasters. Even though I always think that I can do them and have no problems up until it actually starts, once things kick off and the drops and falls start, I completely lose my head and start screaming and hyperventilating. As well as various rollercoasters, I've had panic attacks on a Viking ship swinging ride, inside a car that my so-called friends once drove to the top of the steepest hill in Wollongong and threatened to roll down (I screamed blue murder at them and then got out and walked down), really big ferris wheels and so on (missed the entire view of Osaka from their gigantic ferris wheel because I was sitting with my hands over my face, crying... later found out that its had the most deaths and accidents of any ferris wheel in the world so that was probably justified), shocking friends and family who thought I was being melodramatic until I screamed their eardrums out and gripped their hands until they lost circulation. I even freak out a little on those 4D simulated rollercoaster things (terrible 'surprise' first date idea by the way) and at take-off or during turbulence on planes. It's a bit weird really since I used to love rollercoasters up until the age of around 11, and I've been flying in planes pretty much every year since I was a baby so there's definitely no reason for that. I also only freak out on things that I don't feel safe on, so I usually can't tell if I'm going to have a panic attack until I'm actually there and doing it - for example, I went parasailing when I was in Malaysia once and was perfectly calm. So knowing the risk, why, you might ask, would I volunteer to do this. Well, apart from being an idiot, I am also determined to conquer this phobia eventually (and it IS a phobia because most of the time it's completely unreasonable), regardless of how much experience I have that tells me that it's not going to happen. Worst reassurance (but good attempt) of the day from Christy by the way - "don't worry, you'll be fine. You'll be wearing a helmet!"

Luckily, once the shock of the first one was mastered, ziplining proved to feel safe enough that I loved it! Edithe was also scared at first, possibly by her own lurid description of ziplining as dropping from a great height at great speed suspended by a thin cable, but by the end of it we were both going for it - no hands, spinning around, upside down, bouncing on the line, and I even managed a 'self-photo' from a few. The last one was the best because it was REALLY high above a valley and you got a great view of the area at the end. I think Little Miss Adrenalin Junkie Joyce was slightly disappointed though - she was complaining that the first few weren't fast or high enough! Although they sure as hell were for those of us trying not to concentrate on thoughts of incipient mortality as we bounced and swung through and over the trees and sharp jagged rocks below us.

Unfortunately, getting back to Cheongju was a bit harder. Even though it wasn't far (about an hour and a half away), there was only one direct bus in each direction each day (11.25 from Cheongju to Jeomchon, 2.50pm from Jeomchon to Cheongju). Christy and I had planned to spend the night in Mungyeong (the nearest big city, or so we thought) and party it up, but since the city appeared to have one intersection and little else, we decided to hit up Daejeon since I would have had to go through there or Chungju to get back anyway, and if we went to Daejeon, Christy could get a train back to Busan the next day. So we and Edithe said goodbye to the others and headed off to Daejeon for some Mexican food, wine and the worst ukelele playing we'd ever heard. Not that most ukelele playing isn't bad, but these guys appeared to only know about three or four chords, only one of them could sing vaguely correctly, they had awful facial hair and frankly seemed to be high. This didn't stop them from murdering their way through half an hour of terrible covers of everything from Sublime's 'Loving Is What I've Got' to 'Let It Be' by the Beatles, until we'd finished our food and drinks and left as quickly as possible for a bottle of wine at a much nicer and very chilled shisha bar around the corner.

The next day more than made up for this however! Edithe had left early to get to an appointment in Seoul, but Christy and I had plenty of time to laze around and catch up with lots of gossip... at a cake cafe. It. Was. DELICIOUS!!! Both of our respective KBFFs Nat and Lara would have loved it, I'm sure! We only tackled three slices - a very healthy breakfast, yes? ㅋㅋㅋ - a four seasons friand-y tart thing with fruit, a maraschino chocolate and rum mousse cake and a crepe tartine that was actually made with layered crepes and a sort of sweet custard filling on a tart base. Each slice was between w5300 - w6400 and the tartlet was about w4500 I think, so it's a bit pricey, but well worth it, and definitely the best cake I've had since Dobinson's in Canberra. Yummy!

So all in all, a good weekend - ziplining, cake, and catching up with Christy, who lives far too far away for my liking! Although, granted, it's awesome that she lives in Busan and so I have somewhere to crash when I visit ^_^ If you're ever looking for something to do on a weekend, I definitely recommend the ziplining, although you'll need a Korean speaker to help you make the booking who can go with you too if possible. And if you're ever in Daejeon, I also recommend that you go to Dunsan-dong and look for the Cafe Cremes cafe near the Galleria Time-World Department store. I will definitely be going back there next time I'm in Daejeon!

MMMMMMmmmmmnom nom nom nom nom....

A week last Wednesday I went to the Hello Kitty cafe in Sinchon with Lara and JP. How to get there: take exit 3 of Sinchon Station and walk down a block towards Yonsei University, or alternatively exit 2 and walk out the underground passage way past Hyundai Department Store into the intersection. Turn right and walk until you see a Naughty Kitty (잘못돤 고양이) accessories store. Turn right again and walk a minute or two until you see the store. You won't be able to miss it, unless you are colourblind to the colour pink. This is their website: http://www.hellokittycafe.co.kr/

First impressions? It. Was. SO. Pink. And awesomely cute :) I'm not usually one for the girly girl stuff, but it was so overwhelmingly adorable that I couldn't help but "ooh! look at that!" at everything. There were even waffles shaped like Hello Kitty's head! After a huge budaejjigae lunch ('Soldier's Stew') full of spam, sausages, baked beans, elbow macaroni, ramen, corn and mushrooms I couldn't fit one in (budaejjigae is basically junk food stew and probably wouldn't taste nearly as good if it weren't for all the ingredients packed full of msg and additives), but Lara managed to push through the fullness for cutsie and thoroughly enjoyed hers. Here are some pics of us enjoying our thoroughly Kitty afternoon tea (there are more on facebook).

Contrary to his expression, JP actually really wanted to go!



Quote of the afternoon: "I don't mean to be racist, but black Hello Kitty really doesn't look as good as a white one" (yes, that was me, with my usual grasp of finesse).
We decided that for whatever reason, Hello Kitty also doesn't look good in profile - her huge head probably sets her off balance too much.

In other news, there is a new animated children's movie out called 'Rango' featuring a chameleon, so at the moment I'm all about chameleons. Which is not to say that I've forsaken my ultimate goal of a pet hedgehog either! I'm still trying to decide if I can scruple buying one when I'm leaving in a year (they are classed as foreign vermin in australia apparently so I don't think the Quarantine Inspection people would be too happy if I tried to smuggle one in in my pocket or suitcase). But I'm not going to lie.. I kind of want to see the movie...oh come on! Johnny Depp voices the chameleon and there are mexican singing owls in it! Who would NOT want to see it???? I also thought that this picture of a chameleon was cute and would be a good way to say goodbye to the working week and hello to the weekend ^_^

Here's the trailer if you want to see it :D

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be showing off the Ju to one of my Busan buddies Nat so I know that we will :)

SAD

Make that VERY sad. Because today is the day that my beloved KBFF Lala (or Lara to non-Koreans) departs in preparation for her flight home to South Africa tomorrow morning, and thus is a very depressing end to my first year of teaching English in Korea and living in Yongam-dong and start of my second. And there is little prospect of this situation getting less gloomy, as Neil and Geri also leave Cheongju today and Korea tomorrow for New Zealand, Emmy goes in four days, and then just when you'd expect the gloom to lift, Nat (the KB of the original KBFF) is off on the 28th of March (although luckily the FF will still be here ^_^). And even though she lives in Busan, it still saddens me (and probably a lot of other people who actually live there even more) that she won't be a bus ride away... lucky that I will be seeing her at least twice before she goes!

It's also a little bit of a weird day today because it's the first day back at school, but really also the last day of school from last year because the new year hasn't started yet. Because of the Korean public school system where teachers can't stay at one school for more than 5 years and can't stay in the same area for more than 8 years, staff at public schools frequently change, so today we had a leaving ceremony for about 12 teachers who are going elsewhere, and in one special case, retiring. For the teacher who is retiring, it has been a very emotional day, as he is leaving after 40 years of teaching to do a PhD at Hankook University of Foreign Language Studies, and, I gather, has spent most of that time here in the Chungbuk province. As well as giving everyone a leaving gift (an embroidered hand towel - this is a common 'remembrance' gift here I think) and inviting us all to the leaving dinner later held by the school which is mostly in his honour, he was presented with awards and flowers from the school, the Chungbuk Education Office and from the Parents Association. The Principal and Vice Principal made speeches, as did the new school captain, who even hugged him.

So to cheer myself up from all these slightly gloomy farewells, I and Cali Amy are taking ourselves off to the Bau Haus doggie cafe in Hongdae (Seoul) on Saturday to immerse ourselves in unquestioning canine affection (and one cat). This is the website if you are curious: here (it's in Korean). As far as I can tell, you get there by going out of Sangsu Station exit 1, walking straight down Wa-U-San Rd (not the main road that follows the subway line) until you see the 7-11, turning left and going straight (across the traffic island or whatever it is in the middle of the big road you'll have to cross) until you see it on your right. From the sounds of it, you'll smell a distinctively doggy smell when you get close.

For those who are only slightly curious and just want to see cute puppies, here are some screenshots :)

 

 

Ooh and I also went to the Hello Kitty cafe last weekend so stay tuned for a post about that when my computer is being less schitzo.

Lala KBFF continued!

Pt 2 of the photoshoot - this time with a 'studying' theme, which as many of you will know I am not likely to be terribly convincing at :p

But it was a good excuse (like we ever need one) to drink tea at a very cute cafe, have a giggle, and probably intrigue the other patrons with our photo antics.

Looky here! http://a-photo-each-day.blogspot.com/2011/02/photo-shoot-amy-part-2.html

Lala chingu~~

Photoshoot pt 1 courtesy of the lovely and very talented photo-jjang (photo-wizard) Lara, my KBFF (explanation in her blog). Pt 2 to be posted soon :)

http://a-photo-each-day.blogspot.com/2011/02/photo-shoot-amy-jenkins.html

Also, will put up a post about being back in Korea later this week or next when I am back to deskwarming. Watch this space!

Only two more days to go...

Two more days of class that is, and then only three more of non-class (which I shall enjoy significantly more!) and then I'm home! Glorious, glorious home!

So this has been a bit of a sucky week, for all sorts of little reasons, but not really any big ones, and with many little happy moments to keep me uplifted and to stop it from being a REALLY sucky week.

One of these such moments was samgyetang (삼계탕, a sort of spring chicken soup where you get a whole little chicken thing in a stone hot pot stuffed with rice and cooked in a delicious soup), photo stickers and a strawberry ice-cream sundae at Love Story (a cafe) with Lara. The food was delicious of course (the samgyetang restaurant we go to ALL the time is awesome) although it was weird to get cherry tomatoes as part of the fruit in our sundae and cornflakes too, and taking sticker photos with lots and lots of glitter was an excellent way to burn off some energy between courses. Here is one of the results! Sorry for the awful webcam quality - still without a real camera. Looking at some of the features on cameras I am considering buying, I figured out that it might have actually frozen on the day of our teachers' trip since apparently "freeze-resistance" is something that Korean camera makers consider important.

Another thing that made me happy this week was newspaper that my second year kids made during our winter camp. We did activities for articles for it each day, like making up their own country (which the girls promptly decided to name after their favourite drama "Dream High"), and telling each other's fortunes, and then they had to write another 'newspapery' piece as well, so I gave them 20 minutes at the end of each two hour class to work on what they had. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, my kids aren't the most brilliant in Korea, and it wasn't anything that's going to rock the world, but I was really proud of how well they did, and how they all helped each other out to get everything done on time, and in the end I really didn't have that much editing to do to put it all together. My co-teacher Paige took some photos so everyone was in it or contributed at least two or three things, even if it was just a few sentences. So it was great, and I was really happy, and they've seemed pretty impressed with it themselves as they've picked up their copies this week.

However, I then did something really stupid - I gave our Vice-Principal and Principal each a copy, because I thought they might like to see what the kids had been doing (even though most of the kids undoubtedly have better English and the VP and P probably couldn't even read the whole thing without a dictionary). First came the VP, who grunted non-committedly and immediately pointed out that we were infringing copyright by using a picture of Kim Yuna and a movie poster. Fair enough. Then the Principal. Before he even opened it, out came the red pen, and he started nagging my co-teacher about how it didn't look professional enough because the margins were wrong (I'd basically just printed everything out back to back and then stapled it down one side). Next, flicking through it, he complained that I should have written the date on it and I hadn't put in page numbers - ok, fair enough too, shame on me for not taking a four day project seriously enough. Then came the kicker - he told us to fix it up because he wanted to distribute as a school product to show off our English program. BIG WTF moment. Never mind that half of it is something that will ONLY make sense to the people who actually went to the class, since half the articles are about an imaginary country. Oh and he complained that the puzzle page that Dae-Ho had done was too hard to do because it was too small.

Pain. In. The. Butt.

So anyway, I escaped at that point because I had a class to go to, but my poor co-teacher had to stay and listen. Actually, I guess it's karmic irony really, because earlier in the year the VP had told me that he expected me to write an English newspaper for the school and waved one from another school (that he had clearly not read himself) in my face that had turned out to not actually be written by a teacher, but by the students of a very prestigious girl's high school with a rigourous English language program, which I had docilely agreed to and then forgotten as quickly as possible, as it was a ridiculous demand and I already had been volunteered into running the Super Duper English club every week. But still. So I did a bit more editing, and sent it off to Paige, but I have no idea what she can do about the puzzle (which we don't even have an electronic copy of) so I guess she's got a busy few days ahead of her until she leaves (very thankfully I'm sure!) on her much-needed holiday.

My new 'visa'

Oh and yes, this was right after the lovely day I had on Tuesday, which constituted of my VP calling me a bitch (I think he meant to say "busy"), walking out on my flabberghasted face when I didn't respond, then telling me ten minutes later that he expects me to tutor him one on one once the new semester starts which I flatly told him he would then have to either pay me extra or take it out of my teaching hours because that's not my job. Oh and then I ended up having to cancel my afternoon class (which on the upside at least meant I got to the gym) because I spent my whole lunch break waiting at the Office of Immigration for two hours and fifteen minutes to get my visa extended. Which turned out to constitute writing on the back of my ARC (alien rego card) with a texta and covering it with sellotape. Yes, sellotape. Thankyou for justifying the 30 000 won and more than three hours getting to and waiting in your ridiculous office.

Anyway, basically, I have now learned to keep things to myself, and after a really pointless day yesterday, the silliness of sticker photos and good food with a good friend was much appreciated ^_^ Thankyou Lala chingu~~~!

15 days to home!

Two weeks from tomorrow and I'll be stepping off the plane, hugging my family, and hopefully stepping out into some lovely 35 degree weather and baking Sydney sunshine.

So I had my first winter classes today. I was slightly disappointed that my parents class didn't in fact turn out to be any of the parents from last semester like I'd thought, and also appear to be lower level and expect me to teach them English in Korean, despite knowing that the class was going to be taught by the foreign teacher, without making any effort themselves. Apparently my Vice Principal was also disappointed that only 3 mums showed - one of whom didn't actually sign up for it and apparently got press-ganged into it by him - and got angry at my co-teacher to be, so I might have to fudge the numbers from now on. Mind you, I'm also not very happy with her because she tried to palm a copy of Watchtower off on me as a 'mostly science' and deny that it had anything to do with religion, but I guess she'd get flak from whatever you call groups of Jehovah's Witnesses (.... no I'm not going to make a bad joke here because she's mostly very nice) if she didn't at least try.

After lunch, I had my students class, which went a bit better and turned out to be mostly composed of students from my recent 2nd year conversation class. I did feel bad for one student though, Dae-Ho (or 'Paul'), because there were only two boys signed up for the class and I knew the other, Il-Hyeong, wasn't going to show because he had only signed up due to heavy badgering from his mum. Frankly I wasn't too bothered about Il-Hyeong, as he's very disruptive, has no English, spends every class drawing pictures of guns and shooting people, and told me he wanted to be a Nazi when he grows up last time I talked to him. It's a good thing that his eyesight is so bad that he'll probably be exempt from his military service, although he'll probably be very disappointed. But anyway, his no-show left Dae-Ho all alone as the only boy, and even though Dae-Ho is by far and away one of the top students in his grade, if not the school, and is usually pretty confident and competitive, being the only boy with six girls and two female teachers was probably pretty nerve-wracking so he was unusually quiet. Since it was the first lesson, and Paige hadn't told me which girls were going to be in the class yet, I thought I'd let them play a game to also test their English capabilities. So I let them play my version of International Monopoly, in which all the streets are different countries arranged by continent, the railways are airports, and instead of community chest and chance, there are English Challenge and World (Knowledge) Challenge cards, such as "Give me a different adjective for every letter of your name" and "Name the capital city of every country that you own". It was pretty fun, and the girls that kept winning all the money, Seon-Yeong and Ah-Young (also known as 'Sunny' and 'Jamie'), got really excited. So much so in fact that they didn't notice me stealing their money (I was the World Bank) ㅋㅋㅋㅋ~

Don't worry, they had so much it didn't matter anyway, and I did eventually tell them and give it back. I'm not that bad a teacher!

After school, I headed to that Mecca of groceries, Homeplus Express, and picked up some goodies for dinner with Lara, my finally returned neighbour and much missed Yongam-dong buddy! (She had been to Thailand for five days.) We had jjajangbap (짜장밥), black bean saucy rice and champagne, then turkish delight and Christmas cake (thanks mum/Fran!) and watched 'First Wives Club'. And now I'm blogging instead of re-writing all my lesson plans for the parents' class and remaking my Powerpoint on plural nouns with Korean explanations. Awesome evening ^_^

Hehe, so my funny for the day is Lara's blog entry. Remember my earlier allusion to her faceful of snowball? Hehe, guilty as charged ^_^ Oh and also, I learned how to walk on ice properly today - not something you take to naturally after growing up in Oz. What you do is walk like you're ice-skating, so you push with your toes and slide a little, but you slide to fall over forwards and only gradually, instead of walking normally by stepping heel first, which results in falling backwards and suddenly with flailing arms and an aching backside.

Oh and some more random information thrown in, here's my recipe for jjajangbap for about 2 people which of course could also be jjajangmyeon if you want to eat it with noodles instead.

Ingredients:
About 100g of fatty pork, such as samgyopsal pork or belly pork.
Jjajang sauce - I used about 1/2 a packet of Ottugi Jjajang (오뚜기 짜장) which is a dried powder.
Whatever vegetables you want, cut into small cubes of about 1cm. These should at least include 1/2 an onion, about 1/4 of a Korean radish (mu/무) and half a zucchini. You could also try adding carrot, broccoli, some peas, etc.
About 1/2 tbsp of minced garlic
About 300mls of water.
Oil (use something that doesn't burn easily like soybean or canola).
Rice/Wheat noodles
Yellow Korean pickle as a side (danmuji/단무지 or 단무치, I can't remember how it's spelt)

1. Put your rice/noodles on to cook. Dish goes best with plain medium grain white/brown rice if eating with rice.

2. Cut up your vegetables. You may want to microwave the radish a little after you've cubed it (say for about 4 - 5 minutes in water) or it will take a little longer to cook.

3. Cut up your pork into small strips, about 2cms in length. I cut off most of the really chunky fat, but you shouldn't cut too much off because this is a Chinese-Korean dish so it's meant to be a little oily.

4. Heat about 2 tbsps of oil in a frying pan. When it gets hot, throw in your pork and cook until browned and a little crispy.

5. Add your onions and cook until soft, then add the garlic.

6. Add the rest of your vegetables and stir. When everything starts to sizzle again, add your water. Allow to boil.

7. Depending on how thick you want your sauce and how much bite you want your vegetables to have, you can either add your jjajang now, or let everything simmer for a few minutes first. When you add the sauce, keep stirring it slowly until it has thickened evenly. If you want a strong flavour, add another couple of spoons of jjajang powder.

8. Turn the heat down and let it simmer for at least 10 minutes.

9. Serve over your rice/noodles, mix in energetically and dig in! Eat with the danmuji.





Good lord, it's a bus full of teachers!



Hello all! Yesterday being the last day of school, today was the teachers' end of year 'picnic' trip. And oh boy was it a wowser! I can in all honesty say that I've never been on such an interesting and also possibly such an illegal business trip in my life. It wasn't that we did one particular thing that was spectacular, but rather, the whole day added up to .... well, something pretty darn memorable!



Lucy and I braving a taxi

 Ok so first things first. The lovely Lucy came to visit on Sunday last week and stayed with me for three days, discovering the joys of ondol heating (Korean underfloor-heating) and particularly, how awesome it is to sleep on when it's cold outside! Also, the joys of noraebang (karaoke), soju, Korean taxis, snow, snow and more snow. On our first night, in the space of a 20 minute journey, our taxi driver managed to only just miss colliding with a delivery bike and another taxi, and then dropped us off in the middle of the road, nowhere near the pavement, leaving us to splash through a pile of dirty slush.

Introducing Lucy to Cass beer

Oh and the snow... so yes, it's been cold. It was so cold that on the way to and from Incheon Airport, the condensation on the inside of the bus windows FROZE, even with the heating on. Luckily it started raining on Lucy's last day, so the snow melted a little and wasn't so bad... or so I thought. At about 12, the rain became snow. And more snow. And more snow. About 10cms later, it eased up a little.. needless to say, I am very definitely sleeping on my floor these days as even with a hoodie, trackies, three blankets and my heating turned up full blast, my bed isn't cutting the mustard any more. (If you want to see snow pics, you can have a look at my facebook albums - will post a link in a bit). Oh and hehe, I have a confession to make here - as previously confessed, I am not a fan of snow. But I don't mind it so much when it's as thick as this was, as it's way easier to walk on and more crunchy than slippery. As I was meeting Lara for dinner on Tuesday, I remembered that she had professed a wish for a snowball fight. Obligingly, I decided that a surprise snowball would be in order, that I would spring out with. Going for the surprise 'snow' factor rather than the 'fight', I decided that I'd only toss it, and throw with my left hand so there'd be a chance it wouldn't actually hit her at all. So I hid behind a car, and got ready to girly-throw my ball of powdery fluff...

Ba-bow. Failure. Not only did I manage to hit her, I managed to hit her right in the face. O_O

So back to the story. What with the cold and all, most of us had our fingers crossed that the teachers' trip today would be cancelled, as we knew we were going to Namiseon (남이선), an island in Gyeonggi-do famous for its scenery and for being the site for much of the famous Korean drama [Winter Sonata] ([겨울 연가]). (These days, apparently some famous Thai film has also been shot there.) But no, so we all turned up at school and hopped onto the bus at 9 and set off. Being in Korea, this meant, we immediately cracked open the food, so everyone got their roll of kimbap, as well as a bottle of water, a packet of songpyeon and sweet ddok (see earlier post for an explanation) and a little snackpack consisting of a packet of salted peanuts, two mini nougat chocolate bars (like Milky Ways), a small packet of Gosomi biscuits, two mandarines, some gum, some caramels and a cheese sausage stick. And of course, the alcohol. Most of the male teachers were sitting at the back of the bus, like where the tough kids sit, and three bottles of soju immediately found their way there.


Mohyeong Joong library entrance

Before heading to Namiseon however, we made a detour by Mohyeon Middle School in Yongin which is famous for both a high record of academic achievement and for it's excellent afterschool- and mentoring programs. It was amazing! Perhaps because it was kind of on the outskirts of the city, almost in a kind of small satellite town, the grounds and buildings were twice the size of ours with space for gardens and some small fields for their agricultural program. Once inside, everything was clean, well sign posted, very modern looking and brightly decorated. We peeked into a classroom, which looked to be about a third again as big as ours, and then went to the library to watch a short video on their afterschool program and talk to some of the teachers in charge of it.

It. Was. Amazing! The library was beautifully decorated, both structurally and by the students (presumably), and very inviting. Apparently Hankook University of Foreign Language Studies has a campus in the town nearby, which supplies their Mentoring (like after-school tutoring) programs with all their teachers too. My co-teacher Ms Shin (who is also in charge of supervising the afterschool program) asked their supervisor what their secret was to a successful program, to which they answered "it's magic!" Cute, but possibly somewhat smug? ... Anyway, it was a beautiful school, so any smugness would be well justified!

1/3 of the school building and a third of their playground





Another 1/3 of the total building




Handing out the Cass

So after Mohyeon, we piled back on the bus and started the 1 and a half hour trip it would take to get us to Namiseon. By now it was about 11.30, so obviously, it was beer o'clock. Since it was a more reasonable hour, some of the female teachers joined in, so I didn't feel so bad about sharing a beer with my bus-buddies Miss Cho and the tech teacher Mr Lee Soong-Gi, although some of the other teachers made surprised noises that I was able to drink. Even more surprising however was when the bad boy teachers at the back lit up and started smoking. Yep, you read that right - teachers, smoking, on the bus. Oh, sorry, smoking AND drinking, on the bus. Just like would probably happen if it was a school trip with the kids and one of them had lit up (probably without the alcohol though), soon the other teachers up the front noticed and started yelling at the smokers to put out the cigarettes and telling them off for the smell. The rebels tried cracking open the hatch at the back, but eventually put out their smokes, thank God.

Some six packs of beer later, we got to Namison, just in time for lunch. Keep in mind the food that we had already had, as well as two more boxes of mandarines that we'd been munching our way through, as well as the beer and soju... but this was barely an appetiser. Lunch was dak-kalbi (닭갈비), bing-eo twikim (빙어 튀김) and makguksu (막국수), a kind of broiled chicken marinated in a spicy sauce, deep-fried freshwater anchovies, and buckwheat noodles in a spicy sauce/soup served cold, like a mix between mul-naengmyeon and bibim-naengmyeon, but with julienned carrot strips, lettuce and kim (seaweed). Unlike the kind I'd tried before however, this dak-kalbi was grilled like samgyeopsal over a firepot. Of course, it was all delicious! Especially the bing-eo, which had really soft and almost creamy flesh, and wasn't crunchy like it's saltwater cousins, myeolchi (멸치) which is usually dried before it appears in dishes. And of course, there was more alcohol. Since none of the three teachers I was sittng with drank however, I didn't have anything either, which was lucky because I don't think I could have knocked back the three or four (or five or six) bottles of soju that ALL of the other tables were managing. Don't get the wrong idea (if you've never been to a Korean meal in Korea before), it wasn't a general lunch-time sot-fest. It was very convivial, with everyone pouring drinks and toasting each other, and as is usual for Korean meals, making sure everyone had lots to eat and sharing the best bits of the dishes with everyone else, in some cases force-feeding each other by holding it to their mouths and insisting "먹어! 먹어!" ("mok-o! mok-o!"/ "eat! eat!")

Soju bottle Christmas tree

After lunch, we sauntered onto the ferry and made the 5 minute journey out to 'The Republic of Namiseon', highly amused that our tickets were in fact 'visas' and that the boat proudly declared "We Are All Naminarians! Welcome!" on the front. Despite the snow, or maybe because of it, it was beautiful! Many of the teachers had been at least once before, so we just kind of wandered around the tiny island, looking at all the displays and trying not to make the resident wild ostriches and Muscovy ducks angry (if you know anything about either of these animals, both can be prone to rather violent anger) and taking lots of pictures. Despite the large crowds of tourists, many from Japan, Thailand, China and Vietnam, it was very serene and peaceful, and we saw various ice-sculptures (or rather icicle-sculptures made from frozen fountain jets), the UNICEF Hall of Peace, dozens of different artworks made of soju bottles, the Cheot-kisu (첫키스 or 'first kiss') place from 'Winter Sonata', Meta-Sequoia Lane, a strange kind of pyramid made of books, and so on. And there were periodic woodfires to melt yourself in front of, so it was very nice ^_^

Meta-Sequoia Lane

My principal and Mr Park having a snow fight

Ms Ha (?), Miss Cho, Ms Shin and Ms Park

**Sadly, I don't have any more photos after this point as my camera has gone kaput for some unknown reason**

After an hour or so of wandering around freezing our butts off, it was home time, so we putted back across the semi-frozen river on the ferry and gladly scrambled back into our warm bus. Once we were all in, the teachers began again on that consummate solution to the cold - more alcohol - and began shouting for another - noraebang! Others brought up the small point that karaoke on buses is now in fact illegal in Korea, to which the Principal, Mr Kim, responded that yes, and so was drinking alcohol. Twenty minutes of discussion later, as one of the teachers who is leaving next year to do his PhD moved down the bus pouring shots for everyone (Miss Cho, who doesn't drink, was very smart and took a very small amount, then discreetly spat it out while pretending to drink a cup of coffee), and the art teacher Mr Lee Kwang-Jae solved the argument by putting a song on, picking up the microphone, and belting it out, followed by four others, all male, and all most likely the biggest drinkers. Having warmed up the bus-mosphere, they then decided that since none of the women were singing, the best way to spread the trend was by making ME do one. I am by no stretch of the imagination a good singer, being mostly tone-deaf, but I can usually hit a few of the right notes (mostly by accident). So I wasn't exactly keen. Nonetheless, seeing that there was nowhere to run away to, I thought "why not? Better to embarrass myself having a go at something rather than falling over drunk at a dinner at some point", took a deep breath, got up and belted out "All I Want For Christmas" by Mariah Carey. Having been completely abandoned by Miss Cho, thankfully then EVERYONE (including the people who had been pretending to sleep) on the bus started clapping along, in some cases singing, and then my Principal, bless him, got up and danced along to the music. If you've never seen a short, stocky, slightly tipsy Korean man in his late fifties with a jolly face and a decided pot belly in a suit dancing along to Mariah Carey, pulling faces, pouting, cheering, and occasionally shouting out "WOO WOO WOO!" behind you on a moving bus while 35 other teachers cheer you both on, you've never done karaoke.

My martyrdom over, everyone politely cheered and I sat down highly embarrassed, and highly amused :) The singing and dancing, including the Principal pretending to pash one of the other male teachers, and at one point what was almost a six-teacher conga line in the aisle, continued for another two hours, and we finally reached our school once more at 8pm after what was possibly the most illegal and interesting bus trip I've ever had in my life. P.S. the cherry on the sundae (or even Thursdae, ㅋㅋㅋ) - I don't have to go in to work tomorrow. My school rocks!

Merry Christmas!

 ‎*★MERRY*•˚° •。•★*CHRISTMAS★ °* •。★* •。★*˚
° 。* •。˛˚˛★*˚*° 。* ★。EVERYONE!♥˚° 。 ° ˛˚*° 。˚*• °
° 。.°˛˚* _Π_____*。*˚° 。 ° ˛˚*˚° • 。 ° ˛˚*˚° • 。 ° ˛˚
˚ ˛˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ° 。• ° ˛˚˚° 。 ° ˛˚˛˚˚° 。 ° ˛˚˛
˚ ˛˛ ˚ *｜田田｜門｜ ˚˚˚° 。 ° ˛˚˛˚*And Happy New Year*

So we ended up having a white Christmas here after all - it started snowing around 2.30 this afternoon, and by about 7pm, everything was coated in a fine layer of powdery white icing-sugar snow. And this time I liked it!... Because I was inside and keeping warm hehe :)



 Christmas in Korea is not really much of a holiday. Actually, it's more of a couples day than a family day, like a second Valentine's Day, so people might do something special for it with whoever, but things don't really shut down like they do at home. So shops stay open (although usually for shorter hours) and traffic is predictably terrible and because of the cold weather and it being a weekend, catching a taxi was tricky.

 





With Chanel at the C.o.E. dinner



So this is a quick run-down of what I did for Christmas. First of all, we had the Chungbuk Office of Education end of year (Christmas) dinner on Friday, Christmas Eve. As my friend Lara pointed out, not everyone is Catholic or Christian, so calling it a Christmas dinner straight out might have been a little exclusive. Our co-teachers were told it was a 'workshop' however, so I guess we were just told whatever they thought would make us want to come. It was kind of fun though - an ok buffet dinner with some pretty good oysters! and an orchestra, photo slideshow and Karaoke competition which was .. interesting... :) Luckily, after the dinner ended Lara (who lives a street away from me) and I cadged a ride with one of the co-teachers and didn't have to walk home in the minus 16 degrees or whatever it was.



With Lara and Teresah

Christmas day started with a morning skype home and opening presents with mum, dad and Fran at 7am (9am Wollongong time). Floss was in her reindeer suit as usual, and looked miserable, as usual, but looked slightly happier at the prospect of her and Henry's new doggie biscuit bottle. Cute! Needless to say, I was very jealous at missing out on the traditional stewed fruit, yoghurt and bagels. Next came a call to my grandparents, and I accidentally confused my grandma by telling her that I was coming home on the morning of the 18th and making her think that I was coming home TOMORROW morning - sorry nan!



MMMMM!! or as they say here "nom nom nom!"



Then, the big thing that so many of us Cheongju-ites were looking forward to - Christmas breakfast at Chanel's! Everyone brought something delicious - we had orange juice, cheesy scrambled eggs, crispy crunchy bacon, sausages, french toast (with mandatory maple syrup), croissants, fruit salad, kiwis and strawberries, yoghurt, nougat Christmas pudding, tim tams (thanks mum, dad and fran!), bread that turned out to be cream-filled... YUM!!! It was all delicious ^_^

We also watched 'Love Actually' too while we ate - the perfect Christmas movie to watch with a group of your best girlfriends ^_^

Getting home turned out to be a bit more difficult than we thought though - I read the bus route map wrong, so the bus Lara and I caught ended up at the Eastern bus depot (동부종점) with no taxis or information on buses in sight, but luckily the driver of the bus we were on helped us out and helped hustle us onto a bus that was going our way and luckily was the only one that went right to my front door. A quick dash inside to drop off my stuff and then I was back out into the cold again and off to the Cheongju Sports Complex(Chaeyukgwon or 체육관) to see "B,Boyz and Ballerina". My co-teacher Ms Shin had an extra ticket so she was her usual awesome self and invited me to come see it with her, her son and her school friend Ms Kim. And it was awesome! I thought it was going to be a kind of stage version of one of those fancy ballerina meets tough street boy love stories with some speaking, and it was, but today it seemed like a kind of dancing pantomime because there was Christmas bit where they threw presents (candy) into the audience (I actually hid because some of it was being thrown quite forcefully). And I love pantos! Haven't seen one since I was in year 9 or something, and Ms Shin really enjoyed it too so we clapped and cheered and had a great time. Luckily we were in the centre, about ten rows back from the stage so we had a great view, and when they asked everyone in the audience who was "solo" (meaning single) to put their hands up and then picked people to come up on stage and be a couple or dance with them, we were far enough back that neither I nor Ms Shin's son got picked, even though Ms Shin tried her hardest to get them to choose me by yelling out and waving at them. It was so much fun! And completely worth going outside for on this chilly minus 14 degree day, even having to walk through falling snow dropping into my face. I was actually supposed to drop by and see Super Onni and her family today too but when I got home I ad a quick nap that ended up lasting until 10.30, so I think I kind of missed that one. Luckily they are Buddhist anyway, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't going to be anything especially Christmassy.

So that's about it. Oh, I have one more Christmas thing to look forward to! Lucy is coming to see me! Yay fo stopovers! ^_^ So hopefully in a few days time I will be adding a post about what an awesome time we'll have and the snow won't be too much of a buzzkill.

****P.S. All photos here from Lara's much higher quality collection and ability at photo-taking than mine :)



A mostly good day...

Yes, I am cynical and prone to occasional bouts of - shall we say a dour grumpiness? So really I shouldn't head what I intend to be a mostly upbeat post with something that hints at more of the same. But that annoying vein of combined honesty and literalism and an inability to ignore niggling wrong details stops me from changing it.

So first things first - last week I was pretty busy. As you may have guessed from my whingey Friday grouse, I was busy and tired and then on top of it all, freezing my butt off, so all in all not a happy camper. A pair of wellies, a chilled dinner and drinks after buying an extra super thick (electric purple too!) blanket helped me de-stress a little, just in time for a busy two days of travelling all over to see a lot of fabulous people. Don't get me wrong - I was happy to do it, and really, I did manage quite a lot of snoozes in between. But it was a bit weird finally getting home on Sunday night at 9.30pm and realising that I had another week in front of me of more of the same craziness that I'd just recovered from and then it would be Christmas. Where does the time go?



Nat enjoying her birthday :)

 Ok, a quick summary of where mine went: Saturday saw me in Busan to celebrate my lovely and entirely awesome friend Natalie's birthday and help her age noisily if not gracefully. Happy Birthday Nat! We love you, even if you piked early (our fault really for letting her lapse between drinks in favour of beer pong and allowing tiredness to get there before drunkeness). After 5 hours of sleep it was up and off to brunch and then a dash to Busan station, where thanks to three wonderful compassionate people who allowed me to cut in front of them after waiting in line for an unproductive seven minutes got us nowhere, I made my train with literally 1 minute and about 10 seconds to spare. A screaming child (excited screaming not crying screaming) for most of it made it slightly less restful than it could have been, even after asking the mother to keep her kid quiet. (I put up with it for a good 15 minutes. Enough was enough and really, if your four year old child is STILL excited at the prospect of a piece of gum, even after it has chewed and discarded the other nine pieces in the whole packet, I should not be the only one wondering what the hell.)


Me, Hema and Sonali



All of this was worth it though because it meant I got to see Hema!! In fact, one of the things that has made this such a great year so far is all the old friends that I've managed to see again, and Hema makes it doubly-great because I got to see her twice! I was lucky that she had time really, on her whirlwind tour around the world from NY to Korea, to Mongolia, and then back to Korea before going onto Finland and home again. And of course that meant I got to catch up and hang out with her sister Sonali too, so the three of us had a great time chatting in this weird coffee place in Myeongdong. (Seriously, awful drinks, awful service, awful attitude. Between exit 7 at Myeongdong Station and Caffe Bene with the outdoor seating. Don't go there!) It was sad saying goodbye, but Hema had to go home and find a way to stuff all of her shopping into her suitcase! :p

Bus back to Cheongju, home, did some washing and tidying, ate something and crashed. Up again early this morning to another pea-soup fog type day for my health check to extend my contract next year. Doctors and nurses were ok, but am definitely not keen on their methods of taking blood. Not that I am at the best of times, but here they've been so bad I wouldn't even volunteer to do it to give blood, which apparently they have to bribe uni students with extra credits to get sometimes so it mustn't just be me who thinks it's bad. (Actually, it's weird, but everyone has been great at injections!)





 And then classes. Was watching the rest of Home Alone 2 in the two of them, one of which I did lesson plans in and the other I played omok (오목, like Korean connect five - also known as gomoku in Japanese apparently) with my co-teacher on a set that she'd confiscated from one of the students so they were good. The other was with one of my worst first year classes - lowest level boys. We were finishing their class Christmas tree (made out of their hand silhouettes) and letters to Santa (paper decorations) and also making Christmas cards with paper snowflakes and paper chains. I wasn't sure how they'd like this since the tree making had met with mixed success the week before, but they LOVED IT! It was weird, but apparently Korean kids don't learn how to make paper snowflakes (or at least none of mine have yet) so they thought it was all new and intriguing. None of them got up to making a cut-out Christmas tree or paper dolls, but they had a brilliant time experimenting with cutting out the snowflakes and sticking them onto paper cards so we had a great lesson. Part of this might have been because I gave them all little Christmas tags and candy at the end though ㅋㅋㅋ

  I have to say here - not all of the students in this class are low level. Some of them are really bright, and up until exams I had actually split the class into low and high (about 2/3 to 1/3 respectively) with my co-teacher and the high stream kids had been doing fantastic work, even with just me and no co-teacher to occasionally translate. But until then it had been a struggle trying to find stuff that appealed to everyone and was achieveable for all the students, so it was really great to have a lesson that they all enjoyed and got into. Which brings me to what I think has to be the highlight of my Christmas decorations so far - Hyeong-Nae drew me a special Christmas picture. Here it is on the right... Yes, apparently Alien celebrates Christmas too.




Letter to Santa (from one of the girls)

 So another bright spot in my day is also the Christmas letters that my kids have been writing to Santa. I've done a post about this on Facebook, but I've definitely noticed a bit of a gender divide in terms of material, although they all pretty much come down to the same bottom line - give me a present. Here's one from one of the girls. If you can't read it, it says "Dear Santa. Hello Santa. My name is Ye-Jin. I love you. You are children's Rome (?). Every one hopes your prasent! Others: Santa doesn't exist. But I believe your exist. So you will give a present to me! Love you Santa. To Ye-Jin." Other letters from the girls have included "Dear Santa. Please bring me a dog for Christmas. Because I want a friend. I love you! Hannah.", "Dear Santa, please bring me new cloths and i-pot.", "Dear Santa, please bring me MBlaq for Christmas!" (a K-pop group. I think she meant their album.. but then and again maybe not)

In the meantime, the boys have been much more.. shall we say, direct? Here's one I particularly liked. It says:

"Dear Santa

Hellow, Nice Christmas,

How old are you? I want to know your age.

It is mystery to all the people. Why didn't you die?

Please, tell me about your secret.

Bye bye, Hun-Min

Others have been "Dear Santa. I hate you. Just give me a present. Jeong-Bin.", "Dear Santa, show me the money! Give me lots of money. Then give me more money. Love Tae-Hee." and today "Dear Mr Ha. You is so foolish."

Lol, great stuff ^_^

But onto the final part of the day, which is what made me hesistate before claiming today was a great day. Dinner. I was meeting Lara for dinner and I felt like haejang-guk (해장국), a kind of yummy savoury Korean soup that you usually add your rice to and mix up to eat, so we decided to check out a haejang-guk hole in the wall type place in our area we'd seen but never been to and grab some kong-namul haejang-guk (콩나물해장국) made with bean sprouts. We walked into the restaurant, sat down and ordered from the slightly deaf old lady running the place. There were only two other people in there (it would have only fit about ten people in the whole place), two ajosshis (old men) drinking and talking loudly, so we continued our conversation in our corner until our food arrived, at which point the one closest (and drunkest) decided to get chatty, saying that they'd been listening to us talking English. Which was fine, and we chatted for a bit, me translating as best I could for Lara, and then turned back to our food. A few seconds later, ajosshi #1 started telling me how pretty I was. Seeing that he'd embarrassed me and I wasn't translating this to Lara, he turned to her, pointed at me and said loudly in English "Miss Korea, eh?" We all laughed and seeing that we were trying to eat, his friend told him (in Korean) to shut up, stop bothering us and let us eat. Which we managed for a good five minutes or so, before ajosshi #1 began yelling at the ajumma to order something else and started getting a wee bit rude, (with his friend telling him to shut up and stop swearing). And then since he was pointed that way moved on to trying to talk to us again, asking us where we were from and trying to explain that he wasn't being rude, it was just that the ajumma was deaf and Koreans were naturally noisy and energetic but very sincere (all the while insisting periodically that I translate for Lara). His friend once again tried to get him to leave us alone, but then the lady brought out their food (a plate of meat) and they decided to give us half, saying they couldn't eat it all themselves. We thanked them and tried to get back to eating it. Five minutes later Mr Drunk was back . His friend left, muttering about how the other guy was drunk and telling me that he gets so drunk he "falls out of his room" (meaning he must live alone, and unmarried ajosshi's living alone are invariably drunk, angry and usually have some sort of social problems) and the old lady retreated into her kitchen. By this point I had very little or no idea what the guy was talking about, but trying to translate as best as possible for Lara, and trying with very little success to occasionally actually eat. It was obvious we weren't going to be left alone by now, and Lara took out her phone to check the time. Mr Drunk did not appreciate this and started saying how rude she was to talk on her phone (which she wasn't). I then said to Lara that it was probably time to escape in as cheery a fake tone as I could muster, and then apologised to him and said we had to go, as we had another appointment. I don't know if he'd understood what I said to Lara, but man was he pissed! By the time he'd started yelling at us to get out ("그냥 가!") amidst a variety of other abuse, we were wrapped up and jumping into our shoes. A torrent of abuse continued as we paid and left (the old lady was very apologetic) and we thought we'd escaped. Since we hadn't finished dinner, we headed for some ice-cream to cool off. This proved a great comic relief as we were highly amused to discover that the cookie ice-cream sandwich I'd bought was literally a sandwich made out of bread and cookie ice-cream. Standing on the street laughing over this and various other things before parting ways however proved to be a mistake, as Lara noticed drunk ajosshi coming down the street who had unfortunately noticed us and was glancing over his shoulder to glare at us angrily. Solution: we jumped behind a huge blowup balloon advertisement pillar and hid until he'd turned the corner.

What a weirdo. But now that I'm (presumably) safe and warm, hidden in my apartment that I'm 98% sure he didn't see me go into, and hopefully Lara is the same, it's kind of funny. lol, I guess I'm weird too... but not as weird as he was! ^_^