Nowhereman83

Year of the Tiger!

2010-02-22T06:08:00.003+09:00

Happy Lunar New Year! This is the first time in the last 5 years that I've been in the US for the Lunar New Year, and I'm really missing the all-night symphony of countless explosions. Quick review of 2009:

1) From January to August I was living in China. I visited Hong Kong for the first time in June, and was amazed at how orderly and clean it is. I also gave up any last illusions of being able to speak Cantonese- Mandarin sounds so much easier and "standard" in comparison (the word for "Mandarin" in Chinese can be roughly translated "standard speech").

2) Spent September between Seoul and Southern California, mostly trying to find a car on Craig's list and planning...

3) ...a USA road trip, which, for those of you not from the States, is a dream of just about every American. My siblings joined me for various legs of the trip, pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34632245@N08/sets/72157622779589670/
and here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79825916@N00/sets/72157622623061158/

4) After the trip, I've been between Virginia Beach, DC, and Costa Rica, sort of looking for a job.

That's it for now!

-MJ

New Year! (according to the moon)

2009-01-26T21:10:00.003+09:00

Last night at 12 was the start of Chun Jie, aka Spring Festival, aka Chinese New Year, aka Lunar New Year. Lots of food and fireworks. Here are the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34632245@N08/sets/72157612962528597/

And yes, I made some of those dumplings (the uglier ones).

Harbin there, done that

2009-01-22T11:17:00.003+09:00

Went to Harbin last weekend for the snow and ice festival. It was amazing- I'd definitely recommend it. Also, it was, in the words of my guidebook, the cold was "villainous". Seriously, I wore 4 pairs of socks.
The city itself was cool, too- there is a lot of Russian influence, from the Church of St. Sophia and other old Russian Orthdox churches to Russian restaurants, shops, etc. Not many Russian people, though.
Here are the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34632245@N08/sets/72157612812869562/with/3214832608/

P.S. The ghostly-looking guy in the back of this picture is me.

California here I came

2008-06-25T12:50:00.005+09:00

Update time! Yeah!

In April I moved to southern California, the first time I've been on the West Coast (not counting inside airports) in 24 years. Time to see if the state is all its residents make it out to be.

I'm living only about a mile and a half from the beach, and I have a bike, a bed, and a surfboard, thanks to this guy I didn't even know named Elijah, who gave me all of it for free. Also I think I've found a church here- it's a place where there not so focused on ceremony and timeframes, but really connecting to God, hearing from him, and showing love to others instead of just talking about it. I've really liked it the two times I've been there, and I think it's where I'm going to start attending.

I'm also getting over my deep-seated East Coast bias against the West Coast. The weather definitely is awesome here, and just about every ethnic group is represented here too- I look around sometimes at all these different-looking people getting along in such a beautiful place, and that American pride starts swelling up. Then some guy carrying a surfboard yells out some vulgarities at me while I'm sitting on some steps and eating some ice cream, and some kid flicks me off from his mom's SUV a few minutes later. And so my love-hate relationship with my country continues.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures:

Irvine, aka the middle class suburban American Dream

Santa Monica

Hiking in some National Park near Pasadena

In and Out- A fast-food chain here that Californians LOVE. It was pretty good.

Me in Santa Monica

Update- in points format!

2008-03-23T01:43:00.007+09:00

Feb. 6, 2008- Watched the most extensive, longest fireworks/firecrackers display I've ever seen as the Chinese New Year started in Beijing. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me, but take my word for it, it was amazing.

Feb. 7, 2008- Returned to the US after a year of teaching in China.

Feb/early March 2008- East Coast of the US, from Virginia to Maine. Mostly in DC. Unsuccessfully tried to introduce Chinese hackysack into local population.

March 19, 2008- Flew to Costa Rica to see my parents/ live the good life (for a little while).

Still alive

2008-01-10T16:46:00.000+09:00

If there's any confusion regarding the title of this post, let me explain. I'm not about to recount some harrowing near-death experience, but rather it's a reference to the prolonged lack of posts which has been brought to my attention by my many readers. And by "many", I mean "between one and two". So here's a summary of the past 3 months:

Most things have been the same- Lorraine is still here, teaching with Michelle and me, and I still have mostly the same amount of students and classes, although a few have changed. The cold has cut down on bike riding/jianzi playing, but I still ride my bike to and from school, and play jianzi when we can find some semi-warm place to play. Also my camera's still broken.

Tom (my Kiwi classmate) had a Christmas party, in which we had some boxing matches to celebrate Boxing Day (a few days early). Since the only other guy in my weightclass (see: middle schoolers) dropped out, Tom said that he'd box me, but to make it fair, he'd only use one hand. We also all had costumes. Then Tom left China, which was lame, because we still hadn't made The Ping Pong Kid movie or done a lot of other things we were planning. Now he's back in The Shire, eating sheep, having barbecues for Christmas, and living free from fear of the abundant, non-poisonous animals that inhabit their little islands.

Christmas was nice. I did a lot of Christmas activities and talked about the Christmas story in my classes, and taught our kids Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. We had a Secret Santa gift exchange at our school in which my name was misread as "Michelle", and thus I received a nice pair of sparkly butterfly earrings. I think they'll go well with the rainbow-colored glass dragon necklace I got from one of my students. Also, I received socks, which were surprisingly un-feminine. On Christmas day, we went snow tubing.

For New Year's we didn't set off any fireworks (couldn't find any, as hard to believe as that sounds), but we did eat some delicious Stroop Waffles with some Dutch friends. They were a blast- and they taught us some useful Dutch phrases, like "pipidipip! Yahoo!" and "muda cook".

That's about all that's happened of note that I can think of. Just one more month left, and then back to the motherland!

P.S. I decided to turn No-shave November into No-shave winter. Having a thin beard, it's not as out of control as it might sound. It's kind of like what my brother Steve looks like if he doesn't shave for a week or two.

2007-10-19T14:11:00.000+09:00

Two weeks ago was National Day, which is sort of a Chinese Fourth of July. And in China, like in the US, there are fireworks (as there are pretty much every week), and some people also ate barbacued meat. However, instead of just one day to have a picnic and wave flags, here many people had a whole week off school or work. Being some of those people, my sister and I decided to do a little in-country traveling, seeing some sights and going through some bigger cities. I felt a little like a small-town boy, amazed at how big the cities were, how many western commodities they had, the traffic, pollution, and the prices. For instance, a taxi in our town is usually about 7-8 yuan ( 1 USD), but we took some taxis in other cities that cost 3 and 4 times that much! I know that being shocked at the expense of a $4 taxi ride is laughable in the States, but on a Chinese salary that's a lot!

Although it was nice to see a little more of the country, I was glad to head back to the blue skies, low prices, and familiar faces of our small city. And also the jianzi. One night after playing I ran into a friend (we'll call him Jim) eating at little street barbacue place with some of his friends, and he invited me to join them. He then proceeded to order a good amount of some unidentifiable meat for me to eat, despite my protests that I was full. I couldn't make out exactly what the pieces were in the dark, but I was under the impression that they were some sort of squid pieces or maybe animal fat. I managed to get them (and keep them) down, aided largely by frequent swigs of banana soda.

This month a new English teacher from Canada, Lorraine, started working at our school. She's adjusted really quickly, has had a really good attitude, and has taken over some of our classes, which has been great for Michelle and me. Now instead of finishing at almost 8:00 six days a week, I have a night or two off, which has been great. I now have the time to prepare things for dinner other than ramen noodles, and also have gotten back into language study.

Here are some pictures we took on our trip in the city of Xi An, the ancient capital of China. We rode around the top of the city walls, visited historic sites, and saw the famous Terra-cotta Warriors- built to guard the tomb of the Qin Emperor over 2000 years ago.
They're pretty awes.

The sky was always this gray color. These pictures were taken around mid-day. Sometimes a small, sickly orange orb would be visible in the sky, which we realized was the sun.

I have come not to praise Chinese classes, but to end them

2007-07-14T11:31:00.000+09:00

"Pengyoumen, Zhongguoren, tongxuemen, jie wo nimen de erdou." (Friends, Chinese, Classmates, lend me your ears). Those were the first words of my speech, and already I was getting a little laughter and a lot of confused looks. I guess some things don't translate so well. Two weeks ago was the end-of-semester ceremony at the university where I study Chinese, so all the Chinese language students, teachers and staff (around 40 people) met together in our classroom for speeches, awards, pictures, etc. I was chosen as the representative for our class, and thus was one of the two students asked to give a speech (in Chinese, of course). With only about a day and a half to prepare, I managed to come up with a short speech in Chinese, which I got a Chinese-speaking friend to proofread. I didn't have time to commit it to memory first, so I read it off a paper, but I think it went over pretty well. It was the first time I've really had to speak in Chinese in front of a crowd like that, but not the last- the next week I was up in front again, although this time it was a smaller crowd (just the teachers and our class), and I wasn't speaking, but singing.

Yes, you read that right. For our final oral exam, our teacher told us that we had to stand up in front of the class one by one and speak in Chinese for around 5 minutes. My classmate Tom and I found out we could sing instead of talking, so the night before the exam we wrote up some Chinese songs, and the morning of the exam we got there a little early and made something up on Tom's little keyboard to go along with it.

Was it rough? Yes. Did they still love it? Absolutely.

I managed to put up some of the less-rough part for your viewing pleasure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mZWHb7dqOk
For those having trouble reading the subtitles, it says:

Wang Teacher- you are not in our dormitory- Wang Teacher- you are not in my house either- Wang Teacher- but in my dreams I meet you - Wang Teacher- next to your donkey

I wake up (wake up), and I miss you (miss you) (repeat)

I should explain that I had a dream a few weeks ago where our speaking class teacher, Ms. Wang (in Chinese "Wang Teacher") was in the crowd, with a donkey, which she gave me so I could escape from people who were trying to kill me for stealing a giant gold coin.

P.S. Sorry I forgot to post this last month after writing it.

Pictures

2007-06-25T17:09:00.000+09:00

You know, people aren't the only ones who need to be careful. Do you think getting accidentally stepped on feels good? How about trying to stick your fangs into steel-toed boots?

This is the son of friends of my sister's friends, who I played with a lot on our May vacation. His name is Hao Dong- it sounds like it means "Good Winter", but I think the characters are different.

Me with the sun in my eyes, on a walking street.

My classmate Tom and I decided that this statue was too cool to not imitate.

Jianzi. Chinese for "awesome".

China, the Confederacy, etc.

2007-06-21T15:29:00.000+09:00

Left or right? Slow down or speed up?

These are the questions I keep asking myself as I make my way to school on my bike. Today when a bicycle-cart pulls out in front of me from a side street, I think that I can quickly pass it on the left- that is, until in my peripheral vision I notice a giant blue mass closing in on me from the left, fast. I slow down and the bus misses both me and the bicycle-cart by maybe a foot as it comes across from the left lane to the sidewalk and makes a stop. After braking and cutting a sharp turn left and around the back of it, I'm looking up for the next vehicle or person that may come at me from any direction (including straight ahead, even though I'm on the right side of the street).
This game of weaving through buses, bicycles, motorbikes, carts and pedestrians is one of many things now made possible by the warm weather. Though it took longer in coming than I'm used to, spring has come and already pretty much turned into summer, and this place almost seems like a different city. Bicycles are out in force, food tents, tables and stools have sprung up on streets and sidewalks, men's t-shirts are often rolled up (or not employed at all), and jianzis are flying on every other street corner.
Speaking of my new favorite sport, playing jianzi's been a great way to make Chinese friends. Many times I've been asked to join people who are playing, or have had strangers come up and join us who were playing, and by the end of the night we're laughing and talking (or trying to talk) like we're old buddies. Just last Thursday night an American friend and I played with some people who invited us to join them, and as we were leaving they kept trying to get us to promise that we'd be back the next night, saying, "We're friends now! You need to come play with us every day!" Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of time to make those commitments. Speaking of not having time, I have two more classes to teach soon, so I'd better get back to preparing.

P.S. I haven't shaved for a little over a month, and generally, the reaction to a beard has just been mild surprise or a few extra stares. But Nick, my Korean-American classmate who is in his 60s, was talking to me after class a few days ago, and said,
"Mike, I don't know if you'll like to hear this, but I've been thinking it for a few days."
"Sure, go ahead." I reply.
"You know, you really look a lot like General Lee."
"Robert E. Lee?"
"Yes."

Sorry there's no photo, my camera recently passed on. It will be missed.

Summer days

2007-05-26T17:55:00.000+09:00

This was going to be titled Spring days, but the two weeks of spring are over.
Also, this is less of a coherent story and more of a selection of random experiences from the past few weeks.

Last week my classmate Tom brought in a bilingual Dr. Seuss book (The Sneeches?) that he had picked up at a local bookstore. We managed to get our reading class teacher to read the entire story to us in Chinese, while holding it up and showing the pictures, even though it had nothing to do with what we were learning. But our hearts were definitely warmed. And we hate the textbook for that class anyway.

I have learned the following phrases in Chinese: "A great master of caligraphy" "Pour out a stream of invective upon someone's head" "The curve of her eyebrow is attractive" "Bully the weak and fear the strong" "Suffer from insomnia" "Lure the tiger out of the mountains" the words for different ping pong strokes (i.e. slice, slam, hit it in a way that puts topspin on it) and many other gems. However, we have not yet learned in class how to say "It's nice to meet you."

I love Chinese hacky-sack, aka jianzi/jianr. It's made of little disks of metal/plastic with some feathers coming out of the top. I'd show a picture but my camera died a few weeks ago for no apparent reason.
Anyway, jianzi is easier than regular hacky-sack, and Chinese people play it all the time in the spring/summer. You can just start somewhere outside and people will come up and join you. There are some old ladies on the sidewalks who are jianzi masters- and the whole time, they're so chill. They do these amazing kicks behind their backs or jumping in the air behind their leg, and they've usually got this bored look on their face. Right now we're trying to form a foreigner jianzi team to challenge other groups of people to jianzi-offs. I don't know if there even is such a thing as jianzi-offs, but there's going to be. And they're going to be awesome.

There's a rock wall in this sort of mall-place here. The guys there asked me if I wanted to do it, said it was 10 yuan (about $1.30), but then told me I could do it for free, and they really wouldn't take my money when I tried to pay them. They were really good at it- one of them had a hurt foot, so he just went up hopping with the one foot and using his hands, and he went faster and higher than I could.

Chinese people love America! I never expected it, but so many people have said to me (in Chinese) "You're an American? America is so good! Why did you come to China? America is much better!" My Chinese knowledge limits me to saying, "America is good. But China is also good. I like China and America." But it does the trick. Unfortunately, most Chinese don't have such a good impression of American food, our most prevalent culinary ambassadors being Maidanlao (Mcdonalds) and Kenduji (KFC). I just want to convince one person someday that our diet does not solely consist of deep-fried and over-processed food in brightly-colored wrappers.

A few days ago my listening teacher used our new phrase "I did not expect" in an example sentence. She said, "I did not expect Zhou Ming (that's my chinese name) to be from America. Because Americans are all very big."
Also two weeks ago someone told me (in English) that I was not dynamic. But I think she meant it as sort of a compliment.

The Park

2007-05-19T16:22:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I went to the park a few blocks from my house for the first time. It was nice- it had a mountain, a zoo, and your typical carnival entertainment, minus the funnel cakes. I was impressed by the characters spelled out with flowers, and the doves to be assembled on-command to take a picture with one of the numerous wedding parties. Also, I discovered that that there is something that transcends language, age, and culture, and that thing is the bopping-gophers game.

My Awesome Textbooks

2007-04-27T17:20:00.000+09:00

For my Chinese classes, we use several different textbooks- one for our reading class, one for writing, one for listening, and our main course book. Of these four, the reading book hands-down has the best pictures. The Chinese people don't usually look that bad (except for the creepy old guy, which I included), but the foreigners are pretty incredible. Almost every week we have a new story about "Mike" and "Mary"'s latest escapades in China, where they meet with varying degrees of success. It gives a lot of insight on the illustrator's (and perhaps some of his compatriots') perspective of foreigners. Also, they think this was an appropriate word list for a beginning Chinese class to learn:

-so we still don't know how to say some basic words like "more" and "far", but now we do know how to describe what's going on in this picture:

(It took us a while to figure this one out, but "Mike" is going shopping for eggs, but doesn't know how to say eggs in Chinese, so he mimes a chicken laying an egg.)

Note- if you are wondering about the noses, westerners are often referred to as "big noses" by the Chinese- I don't know why it was never so obvious to us- Mary seems to notice right away.

A day in the life - in China

2007-03-22T15:15:00.000+09:00

"Danyo ogesumnida!"
I bow as I say the Korean phrase for "I will come back" (the proper term to use when one's leaving home in the morning) to my host mom as I leave my Korean host family's apartment. It's 7:30, and I've got to hurry if I want to make it to class in time. I walk down a few flights of steps, through our alley, and down the street several blocks towards the bus stop, carefully avoiding bikes and cars that don't worry about details like staying in one lane or driving only on their side of the street. I turn the last corner and see that the bus is right ahead of me, and I run to catch it as it pulls to a stop ahead. I pay the one yuan fare (about 13 cents), and find a handhold among the crowd of passengers. Soon we're making our way outside of the city center, and the road gets noticeably rougher as shacks of wood and brick take the place of the high rise apartments and stores of downtown. Now the bus has emptied a bit, and I manage to find a seat and take off my backpack...

"Zhou Ming!"
I look up from my notebook to my teacher as she calls my Chinese name.
"Zhou Ming, jintian xingqi ji?" (what day is it today?)
I think for a second, and then slowly reply, "Jintian xingqi san," (today is Wednesday) trying to remember which of the four tones to use for each syllable- if they're not all right, my words could mean something very different. The teacher nods and goes to the next student- I'm safe for now. But Charlie, the 15 year-old Korean boy who sits next to me, doesn't understand her next question. And while the two other westerners in the class understand the explanations our teacher gives in English, as our class's unofficial translator, it's up to me to translate for the two Korean students. As Charlie looks to me for help, I whisper the word in Korean, and he gives her an answer in Chinese. One 45-minute class (almost) down, three more to go...

The loudspeaker on the bus is probably announcing the stop in Chinese right now, but I can't understand the words. I just remember the steps: get on the bus in front of school and stay on it through the city center, past the waterfront, back into the city a little, out by the water a second time, get off at the third stop after that, walk down the street to the light, go right, down two blocks, left, and then straight until the end of the road. The first two days it was a little hard to remember, but now I know the route from the university where I take Chinese classes to our little English school. Today there's no laundry up on the line I walk under, but there are always people who take a second (or third or fourth) look at the foreigner walking through their neighborhood. I arrive at the school, and go up to the teacher's lounge/office for lunch. Lunch is generally variations on a theme- usually dumplings or fish with some side dishes. My favorite side dish is tomatoes and eggs fried together (almost like a watery tomato omelet)- which tastes better than it sounds. And although they don't have it today, I can't complain- lunch is free for us teachers. I hurry through lunch and make sure I have everything ready for today's first English class, which begins in half an hour.

After an hour and a half of explaining recipes, ingredients, and why Americans use measurements like "cups" and "pounds" instead of liters and kilos (and strange words like "heads" to count lettuce and "loaves" for bread), I have a break. Now it's time to prepare for my next classes, grade papers, study some Chinese, and check my e-mail. One of the staff brought in some treats for us- sort of like tart, small, candied apples on a stick. The fruit is evidently called Hawthorne in English, which until now I only knew as an early American author. The taste is new, but I think it'll grow on me- maybe I could say the same about China. There's a lot of things to get used to and to learn, some easier than others- but it's definitely been a good experience so far. Well, this day isn't over- I've got another class to teach soon, and then it's home for dinner and the vocabulary quizzes my host sister and I give each other every night- English for her, Chinese for me. And then I've got to sleep, because another busy day in China is waiting for me!
Zai jian!
-Michael Jeter

P.S. The pictures are 1) of the university campus 2 weeks ago, and 2) of me and a Brazilian guy on the Great Wall.

I say hello, you say goodbye

2007-02-25T14:58:00.000+09:00

Summary of February (I wrote this but forgot to post it until now):
Feb. 1: Decided to go to China to teach with my sister, changed my ticket to leave Costa Rica earlier (not an easy country to leave)
Feb. 10: Arrived in DC from Costa Rica
Feb. 11-21 Spent getting stuff ready for China, traveling to Virginia Beach, and meeting up with friends in DC
Feb. 22: Left for the airport at 6:45 DC time. Arrived in Beijing, China almost 24 hours later.
Feb. 23: Went on a tour of the Great Wall and then a bunch of tourist traps. The only good part about the tour besides the Great Wall were the fun Brasilian guys (friends of a friend of my sister's) who went with me. Spent the day speaking Spanish, English, Chinese and Portugese (well, more like hearing Portugese)
Feb. 24: Leaving for my sister's city, killing time writing this post in an internet cafe

Costa Rican Winter

2007-02-03T00:18:00.000+09:00

Winter continues here in Costa Rica, with bitter temperatures in the 70s and 80s. Somehow we're managing to survive. Here are some pictures of a volcano we visited, along with another crater that's now become a lake, as well as pictures from an area called Montezuma, where my brother and our friend Yoji and I camped out at the beach and jumped off waterfalls.

Country-hopping

2006-12-24T05:31:00.000+09:00

Well, after 10 days in Japan and 2 months in Washington, DC, I arrived Dec. 17 in sunny Costa Rica to spend the holidays with my family. Now before you get too jealous, it might help to inform you that San Jose (where my parents live) is pretty much like other central american capital cities. Here in the capital there are no rainforests, beaches, stunning beauty, etc. However, since San Jose is in the middle of the country, we're only a few hours or less from all of the awesome things to do and see in Costa Rica. Christmas and New Years with the fam were good, and we've taken a couple trips out to the jungles and beaches.
Animals seen so far:
Birds (including a lot of hummingbirds), butterflies, lizards, frogs, fish, howler monkeys, a sloth, and various bugs. I realized after watching the sloth in the tree for a few minutes that if you've seen a picture of a sloth, you've pretty much seen a sloth- it's in the same category as watching grass grow, paint dry, etc.
Anyway, if that one picture of my family in an oxcart whets your appetite for more odd family photos (and general pictures of Costa Rica), you're in luck! (see below)

Japantastic!

2006-10-12T03:56:00.000+09:00

Two weeks ago I taught my last classes of Korean kids, said my goodbyes to my students, coworkers and friends, and headed for Japan, where I had arranged a 10-day layover on my way back to the US. After a 7-hour delay in the Incheon (Seoul) airport, in which I made use of their bathhouse facilities and did a lot of walking around, I flew into Osaka, Japan. I was at a loss at first, not being familiar with the language or the transportation system (which is confusing and not as expensive as I had thought), but I managed to get on a train and then the subway to downtown Osaka. I stayed in a capsule hotel there, which was a good time- you get a little robe to wear, and you sleep in this tube that's about 7 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet high. It's got a little TV, radio, light and shelf in there, and they have bathrooms, showers, and lockers for you to use. After a day in Osaka, I spent 3 days in Kyoto with my friend Daniel (we were friends during my Korea exchange student days at Yonsei University), a day in Hiroshima and Miyajima, a day near Nagoya with my friend Aiko (also from Yonsei, 3rd picture, center), and two days keeping it street in Tokyo with Joy (WM buddy) before heading back to Osaka to get my flight out. Kyoto has tons of stuff to see, Osaka had a nice waterside area and lots of big buildings, and Tokyo was as modern and packed and awesome as I had hoped. It's hard to summarize Hiroshima in a word, it was really good in a shocking and depressing sort of way, it definitely left an impression of the instant carnage that an atomic bomb creates, and its aftereffects.
On a lighter note, my day with Aiko was great, we went to see this series of small waterfalls up in some mountain forest- it was beautiful, and amazingly we were the only ones around (in Korea a place like that would have mobs of people). We also ate conveyor-belt sushi and went to a Brazilian Pentecostal church service that night. Yes, you read that right- there's a sizeable population of Brazilians in Japan, who either have some Japanese blood in them or who married Japanese people or just Japanese people who grew up in Brazil, and they have a church in Aiko's town. I was still working on getting used to Japanese culture and language, and then in this building I ran into a polar-opposite culture and language, and it was a little overwhelming, but the service was energetic and really good. No one there spoke both Portugese and English, but they found someone who could translate into Spanish for me. Afterwards, when we were talking with people, it was in a crazy mix of English, Spanish, Portugese, and Japanese- but somehow we managed to have conversations ranging from American hip-hop to whether Rio de Janiero or Sao Paulo is a more beautiful city. Good times.

I already miss these kids

2006-10-12T03:20:00.000+09:00

Here are some pictures from my kindergarten classes. The first one is from the 6-year old (that's Korean age, really they're five) class aka Orange Class, and the rest are from the 7-year old (really they're six) class, aka Apple Class (the classrooms had fruit and animal names). The first one is Roy and Matthew having a conversation "on the phone", and the group shots were from my last day with Apple Class (they were my favorites)- it was during break time, and I tried to get them to line up neatly for a picture, but they preferred climbing all over me. In the first picture, from left they're Anna, Sam, Chris, Liz, Jeffrey, Alex, and Jamie. In the second picture you can see Austin, too. You might notice in these three pictures that Jamie was the best behaved student in the class- she's the only one who would stand and look at the camera like I was telling them. But I had so much fun with them- they especially loved it when Mike Teacher would leave the classroom and the Robot would stop by while he was out. All in the name of "teaching English".

Last Trip Around Korea

2006-09-25T23:07:00.000+09:00

A few weekends ago I took an awesome two-day trip with two of my coworkers, Rob (of Cheju-do fame) and Ashley. We went to the North-Central part of Korea, first to a town called Inje, and later through several small towns on our way to Gangchon and then back to Seoul. Inje was our main destination, because it's known as an adventure sports center in Korea, which means that it has a bungee jump, among other things. We got to the platform where you board the little car that goes up a bright orange crane-like machine to the 60-meter (180 feet, approx.) high spot where you jump. After paying our $40 and being given instructions in Korean (which I, as best Korean speaker of the group, only partially understood), I went up with one of the operators in the mechanized car that takes you up over the (very shallow looking) river. I get to the top, my legs strapped in with only VELCRO (yes, only velcro) and a loose waist harness, and the guy tells me to step out and put my arms straight out to the sides. I start to do it and then rush back in, making sure that my harness isn't supposed to be tighter, there isn't more to hold my legs, that I'm supposed to just jump out like a swan dive and OH PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO DIE. After his assurances that it's all ready and a bunch of Korean that I don't really understand, I step out on the 2 foot-by-2 foot metal platform sticking out from the car, and slowly release my arms from the handrails. I look down from the sickening height (instead of looking at the mountain like I was told) and make my peace with God, stretching my arms out and listening to the count of 1, 2, 3... and then make the gut-wrenching swan-dive into nothingness, against all of my instincts and better judgement. Miraculously, the bungee cord holds and I bounce up, still trying to figure out which way is up and laughing in my ecstatic joy that I'm still alive. Definitely the most frightening thing I've done in my life, and definitely one of the most awesome.
We also took a variety of buses, a boat, and a standing-room-only train, and ate sea snails, conch, and bondegi (steamed silkworm pupae). The sea snails were pretty good, and the bondegi, as you might have guessed, was disgusting.
The last two highlights of the trip were in Gangchon, where we 1) rented 4-wheelers and drove around the town and some of the countryside, and 2) went to a nearby waterfall, which is probably a lot more impressive when it's been raining.
Here are the pictures:

Korean Hawaii!

2006-08-16T23:34:00.000+09:00

Three weeks ago I went to Cheju-do, an island of the southern coast of Korea that has been called, among other things, Korean Hawaii. It's a semitropical island with a big extinct volcano in the middle, plenty of beaches, and Korean tourists and honeymooners galore. My new coworker Rob and I took a 5 hour train from Seoul down to a town called Mokpo on the southwestern coast, where we got a 4.5 hour ferry the next day to Cheju. Actually, we almost didn't get the ferry because we were at the end of a long waiting list, but one of the guys working there had pity on us foreigners and let us on in front of all the Korean people who had their names on the list before us. This was amazing because 1) it was blatant racial discrimination, 2) none of the Koreans seemed to protest the act, and 3) we rather enjoyed it, as wrong as it was (if we hadn't gotten on the boat we would have had to wait another day in Mokpo, where there was absolutely nothing of interest except a Korean midget we saw at some street performance the day before).
In Cheju we hiked the extinct volcano (Halla-san), but not to the top because the last bit of the trail was closed off for "environmental protection". We also explored caves created by lava flows, ate a gigantic raw fish feast, went to a beach or two, and went windsurfing, which was cool. It was actually not as hard to get up on the board and pull the sail up as I thought, but it was a little tough to do more than just go in a straight line. People in Cheju were friendly to us (as almost all Koreans are), and although it's the peak season, it wasn't as crowded as I had expected. It wasn't the most amazing place I've been to in my life, but I'd go back if I had the chance, and do the things on our list that we didn't have time (or money, really) for, like hangliding, horseback riding, scuba diving, etc.
I didn't take many pictures, Rob took some good ones, like these:

Mud Festival!!!

2006-07-19T22:23:00.000+09:00

This last weekend I went to the much-anticipated Mud Festival in Boryeong, which is about 2.5 hours south of Seoul. Unfortunately, we couldn't get early train tickets, so we didn't get there until about 4pm. When we walked onto the beach, we saw a lot of mud-covered people, but to our surprise, THERE WAS NO MUD LEFT! Ok, not exactly NO mud, but pretty much- we were scraping it out of the bottom of buckets and off the street to put on ourselves. Despite that fact, we still had a pretty good time, although I didn't take many pictures because I had my camera stored in a safe, mud-free place most of the time. The two biggest redeeming factors were that it was a nice beach for swimming and that there was a bathhouse (i.e. jjimjilbang- motto: no clothes, just right) right there that only cost $3 to use- it included showers, baths, saunas, mud to cover yourself with (which was where I ended up finding the most mud to get on me), etc. So mud festival = definitely worth it, but get there early.

Cure for Korean World Cup Fever = Switzerland

2006-07-10T22:23:00.000+09:00

The month of June was overshadowed, no, make that eclipsed by World Cup Fever here in Korea. Starting around two months before the world cup started, the chants, songs, team colors etc. began to become more and more noticeable, finally reaching a fever pitch the week that the World Cup started.

Ironically, this time was by far the most I've ever paid attention to and cared about a World Cup, and also the most disappointing. While both the US and Korea did very well last World Cup, in this one they fizzled out in the first stage, the US not even scoring a goal itself in any of its games (its one goal of the cup was an autogoal scored by Italy). But Korea- I've never witnessed as enthusiastic and wildly patriotic fans as Koreans, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of them had convinced themselves that all their cheering and support would ensure a stellar performance by their team. However, with a 1-1-1 record, they didn't make it out of the 1st (group) stage, and then all of a sudden World Cup viewership went from about 99.9% to about 5-10%. We went to watch Korea's game against Switzerland in front of City Hall (where I took these pictures), which is the most popular place to cheer and watch the games on big screens. The game didn't start until 4am, but we arrived at 10pm and waited out there on the streets with the tens of thousands of other fans for 6 hours cheering, singing, and waiting for the game to start. Despite all our cheering and hoping, Switzerland beat (and thus eliminated) Korea, and now we've got 4 more years to wait and to come up with more patriotic fight songs.

Another day, another 955.5 won

2006-06-18T22:56:00.000+09:00

I went to my first Korean wedding last month, of my friend Ebi (sp?) a Japanese girl who's marrying a Korean guy. It was fun, especially since I went with my old host mom and host sister, and they managed to get the ajuma (middle-aged lady) who worked there to let me try on the traditional wedding clothes and pose for pictures at the traditional wedding table. My host mom is awesome.

Click here for more pictures of Ebi's Wedding

Korean elections and my brother Steve also came last month. The weeks leading up to the election saw pairs of election volunteers wearing matching outfits, complete with hats and sashes, promoting their candidate mainly by seeing who could bow to you the most as you walked down the street or into the subway. Also, candidates really utilized little trucks in their campaigns. I've noticed that Koreans love doing stuff out of little trucks, such as:
-selling fruit, clothing, instant coffee value packs, giant crabs, etc.
-roasting and selling chickens
-playing drums to promote some store opening
-showing an ad for something on giant TVs
-cheering for the national soccer team
-chanting slogans to support a political candidate
-and (my favorite) the candidates themselves setting up a podium in the back of one of these trucks and giving an impassioned speech out of the truck.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of one of these campaign trucks, so I had to shamelessly steal a photo from Ben's blog of one of the trucks right before a speech.

Steve and I had a good time, we saw Nanta which is kind of like the Korean cooking version of Stomp, and the usual tourist stuff. We also ate sannakji (live octupus), which Steve was set on eating before he left. Luckily they cut it up before we ate it, so we didn't have to swallow a whole writhing octopus, only writhing pieces of little octopi. Also, I introduced Steve to the jjimjilbang (bathhouse), Korean food, and Korean FASHION!!!!!!!!!!*
Steve had his huge camera with him all the time, so I let him take all the pictures, but he hasn't sent me any of them yet. When I do, this post will be much more visually stimulating.

*by "introduced him to Korean fashion, I mean we laughed at it.

Michelle comes to Korea

2006-05-19T23:33:00.000+09:00

My sister Michelle visited me during the first week of May, and although I didn't get to spend that much time with her due to me having to work for 2 of the 4 days she was here. We still managed to see some of the sights, including Lotte World (Korean Disneyland) and of course the main old palace downtown.

Guitar Wolf+Rock Tigers= Incredible

2006-05-19T22:58:00.000+09:00

Also on the weekend of the Lotus Lantern Festival, I saw a concert of the Rock Tigers with the band Guitar Wolf from Japan headlining. It was awesome to have such powerful forces of East Asian rock together at last.

The last picture was from when the lead singer/guitarist from Guitar Wolf, Seiji, grabbed a random guy from the crowd, brought him on stage, put his guitar on him, and had the guy try to play even though he had no idea what he was doing. This bit lasted for about 10 minutes- when the guy tried to take the guitar off after a few minutes, Seiji wouldn't let him, and instead began to instruct him how to jump and hit the chord when you land.

Lotus Lantern Festival

2006-05-08T00:52:00.000+09:00

Last week, I went to the best festival that I've been to in Korea. The festival was the Lotus Lantern Festival, which is an annual festival held a week before Buddha's birthday. There was sort of a pre-festival celebration the night before, with dances, music, floats, and lanterns. But the next day the real thing started, with an opening ceremony, lantern making, a 3-hour long lantern parade involving thousands of people, music, drum circles, congo lines, old people dancing, us dancing with the people in their costumes, and everyone holding hands with complete strangers with pink confetti falling on us at the end. It was awesome.

P.S. I might need to explain that one picture- while in the western world, that simple symbol makes us think of Nazis, it (with the arms going the reverse way) is actually the Buddhist symbol here. The Koreans innocently put on signs, flags, and of course, festival floats.

Mountains, deserts, and cowboys- all in Seoul

2006-05-08T00:17:00.000+09:00

So it's time to catch up with everything that's happened in the last few weeks. First of all, there's been a lot of hwasa the past few weeks (yellow dust from the Gobi desert in China that has made its way to Korea. No, I'm not making this up). Here's a picture I found on the internet that someone took about 2 weeks ago from Seoul tower- you couldn't see it this well from inside of it, but visibility was real low and it made my throat hurt.

Kim and I went hiking a few weeks ago, and I managed to get a great shot of a Korean hiker while pretending to just take a picture of Kim:

Koreans take hiking seriously. They have a whole wardrobe solely for hiking- a special hiking hat, shirt, scarf, pants, vest, shoes, socks, backpack, walking stick(s), caribeanners, ice picks, etc. Ok, so the ice picks are a little rare, but the rest is standard equipment. This is the mountain that we climbed, Bukhansan- we didn't make it to the top, but we told ourselves we would next time. I can see it from my apartment, and while for some people seeing it every day would be like a constant challenge, I look at it and think "Boy, I don't want to waste my time trying to climb that thing again."

Also, I saw this guy downtown the other day, advertising something, and it was love at first sight. I'm just sorry I didn't get a better picture.

Rock Tigers!

2006-04-21T00:29:00.000+09:00

Last weekend my coworker Scott's band, One Year Jones, had their 3rd and final concert. I made sure I went, because 1) it was their last show, and 2) my new favorite Korean band, The Rock Tigers, was playing after them. This was my second time seeing them live. The first time I saw them, I wasn't too impressed by their name, but their music quickly won me over. That, and the fact that they look AWESOME. Seriously, their hair is unbeatable. Also, I really like their music, which is mostly rockabilly with a little punk. If that doesn't mean much to you, think Chuck Berry plus the Ramones. And if that doesn't mean much to you, then I don't know if you'll really be able to appreciate their Korean rock and roll genius.
Here are pictures, so you can at least appreciate their hairgrease skills (the first is of Scott's band, the rest are the Rock Tigers). Also, this show helped me realize 1) that there are actually some Korean bands that I like and 2) I really need to clean my camera lens.
For more on the Rock Tigers, check out their website (where I got the two good photos in this group)- www.myspace.com/therocktigers

How much do you trust 2-minute internet tests?

2006-03-25T01:43:00.000+09:00

After seeing this on Ruth's blog, I decided to give it a shot.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:
You have medium extroversion.You're not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party.Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences.But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your "down time."
Conscientiousness:
You have high conscientiousness.Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life.Most things in your life are organized and planned well.But you borderline on being a total perfectionist.
Agreeableness:
You have medium agreeableness.You're generally a friendly and trusting person.But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism.You get along well with others, as long as they play fair.
Neuroticism:
You have high neuroticism.It's easy for you to feel shaken, worried, or depressed.You often worry, and your worries prevent you from living life fully.You tend to be emotionally reactive and moody. Your either flying very high or feeling very low.
Openness to experience:
Your openness to new experiences is low.You're a pretty conservative person, and you favor what's socially acceptable.You think that change for novelty's sake is a very bad idea.While some may see this as boring, many see you as dependable and wise.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Note: I tried this again, after feeling like it wasn't quite right, and openess to experience and conscientiousness changed to medium, while the others stayed the same. You decide which is more accurate.

In other news, I'm teaching 200 classes this month (usually we teach between 130 and 150), and I just finished reading David Copperfield last night. I really enjoyed David Copperfield- while I was impressed at the Illustrated Classic (roughly 100 small pages, half of them pictures) version's ability to get all the main points of the story, and even a few good quotes, finally reading the full version was really satisfying. Now with the Brothers Karamazov, that makes 2 classics in almost 6 months- time to pick up the pace.
Lastly, I saw this great Korean band called the Rock Tigers a few weeks ago, when my coworker Scott's band opened for them. They're a Korean rockabilly band (think punk mixed with Chuck Berry), and they're awesome- especially their hair. Pictures are on their myspace site (www.myspace.com/therocktigers) but you have to login with a Myspace ID to see them, so if you're holding out from myspace like I am, you'll have to take my word for it.

Cuteness Overload!

2006-02-26T19:45:00.000+09:00

In the past two days, I think that I've experienced about as much cuteness as I have in the past couple of years combined. First of all, the WM class of '05 Korea Reunion finally happened on Saturday! It was great to see Lauren, Ruth, Ben, and Mi Young all at once (my Canadian friend Helena also made an appearance, despite not having had the privilege of attending good old WM). We went ice skating at this public outdoor rink in front of City Hall, and then hung out at Dunkin Doughnuts for a long time. I know what you're thinking- Dunkin Doughnuts? But while in the US Dunkin Doughnuts doesn't usually bring to mind the words "cleanliness" and a "classy atmosphere", it does in Korea! I'm pretty sure couples even go on dates there. These are the photos I took there of Ruth and Ben, who have both been infected by the Korean cuteness bug.

Then today I went to the kindergarten end-of-the-school-year performance, which was mandatory for all teachers at my school. The kids did all these plays, songs, and dances (in English), which was almost too cute for us to bear- one, because kindergarten plays are always cute, but even more so when it's Korean kids doing it in English. I didn't get many quality pictures because we had to sit all the way in the back, but here's one of the "5 Little Monkeys" skit, and a close one I got of one of the dances.
P.S. I tried sleeping in two different jjimjilbangs (public bathhouses/saunas) these past two nights. While I love going to the jjimjilbang, through those experiences I've learned that I'm not good at sleeping on the hard, crowded wooden floor there surrounded by talking/sleeping/snoring Koreans. I guess I still am attached to my western comforts of beds to sleep on and chairs to sit on while eating.

Middle Earth to the Middle Kingdom

2006-02-06T11:51:00.000+09:00

Well, after hanging out with Ben, Gabe, and the hobbits last week, I took another trip, this time to China. It was my first time in the middle kingdom (China is Zhong guo in Chinese, which means middle kingdom, because China in the eyes of Chinese people is the center of the world) and I really enjoyed it. I met up with my sister who's teaching English there, and we went to a couple cities in northeast China, including Beijing.

We saw most of the sites in Beijing, although I was disappointed that the Maosoleum (that's what I call Chairman Mao's mausoleum- pretty clever, huh?) was closed. We did see Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, and we ate Peking Duck, which was fantastic. We also went to the Great Wall near where my sister lives, and we hung out with both Chinese and Korean people, which was fun. We could communicate and get around alright, but it required that my sister and I use the full extent of our limited Asian language abilities (mostly my sister).

While China was fun and interesting, I got the impression that most Chinese people were perpetually angry about something- but then my sister explained to me that all the yelling, arm waving and angry expressions are just how Chinese people communicate. For instance, this one time we were in a taxi I thought the taxi driver was going to throw us out of his cab or start hitting us, and I was asking my sister what we did to make the driver so mad, and she said, "Oh, he's just saying that he's not sure where it is."
Not that one way is better than the other, it's just that Chinese and Koreans act differently.
Also, Chinese food is so good.

P.S. I felt compelled to share this quote and picture.
"A man who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man." -Mao Tse Tung.
There you have it.

Living it up with Gabe and Ben

2006-02-06T11:29:00.000+09:00

So for two weekends in January I was lucky enough to be able to hang out with fellow WM alums Gabe Kauper and Bennet Baldwin (left), in Suncheon (a city where Gabe was teaching in the southern part of Korea) the first weekend and in Seoul the next. While I couldn't hang out that much in Seoul because I was leaving for China about 12 hours after Gabe arrived, we had a blast the previous weekend in Suncheon. The three of us were in norebang (karaoke) for about 2 hours, singing our hearts out, and then we went around town buying snacks and eating in convenience stores, and we ended up in the jimjilbang (bathhouse/sauna) at 2am. At the jimjilbang we hung out in the showers/baths for a while (sans clothes), then put on the little shorts and shirts and went into the big common area where they had a snack bar, internet access, a norebang, massage chairs, little caves of different temperatures to hang out in, and the main floor area where people could hang out/sleep. By that time it was about 3am, and the place was jumping! There were probably around a hundred people in there, about half of them sprawled out asleep on the floor and the other half talking, laughing, and running around. Our plan was to sleep there, but sleeping straight on a hardwood floor with nothing but a little hard pillow for your head was not as easy as we had hoped (there were a few mats/blankets we saw, but they were all taken). So I ended up trying to sleep in one of the automatic massage chairs, and Ben and Gabe roughed it on the floor. While it wasn't the best sleep we'd ever had, we still loved the jimjilbang.

The next day we went and saw this big old Buddhist temple complex near the city, and while we were taking pictures we ran into Rose, my Korean co-teacher from my school in Seoul (which was about 4.5 hours away)! We hung out with her and her photography friends who she was down there with, and then Ben and I headed back to our respective cities. This picture is of one of the temple roofs. Also, we got to meet Gabe's foreign co-teachers, who we liked to refer to as "the hobbits". They were a unique bunch.

I also managed to get Ben and Gabe to do the "Victory"/"Peace" sign in this picture, which is ubiquitous in East Asian photos. Now I am posting the picture on the internet to shame them in front of the millions of viewers who visit my site. It's alright guys, I think we've all been there.
Sorry, no pictures from jimjilbang.

Goodbye 2005, Hello 06!

2006-01-07T13:13:00.000+09:00

Happy 2006! First of all, to those who actually check this from time to time, my apologies for my lack of recent posts. Let me go back to where I left off in the last one.
My first Christmas away from my family was actually pretty good. On Christmas Eve I went to a service at my church here with my friends Susan and Qiqi. It was a little different from regular Christmas Eve services, in that although we sang and listened to Christmas songs and did the candlelight service thing, there was also a couple of classical piano/cello pieces played, a ballet dance, an acapella performance, and even a taekwondo performance (one of the guys in the church, Songkwon, is a taekwondo instructor, so it was him and his students). The only downside to the service was that Susan started feeling really sick, and could hardly walk out of there by the time it was finished. Fortunately she took some meds and was feeling better on Christmas. On Christmas day, after a service at church where by the end I found myself somehow elected to the church council, I went to this big Christmas dinner at my coworker Angela's apartment where the foreign teachers from my school and a few friends had gotten together. We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, etc., hung out, listened to Christmas music and played a rousing game of Canadian Cranium. Yes, you read that right, it wasn't just Cranium, but Canadian Cranium (it was Angela's game, and she's Canadian) so there were some questions that we could answer, mixed with some questions about ice hockey, Saskatchewan, etc. It also had Canadian flags on every side of the box, which was amusing.

Between Christmas and New Years I went skiing with all my coworkers on a trip that my boss, Mr. So, payed for. It was a really nice ski resort called YongPyong, that is arguably the best in Korea and was in competition to host the next winter olympics, although they didn't quite make it. I rode a gondola (as in the enclosed ski lift, not the Venician boat) for the first time there, which was fun, and I got in some good snowboarding, especially with my coworker Marty.

For New Year's Eve I met up with Izzie and Calvin (the new pastor of my church here, the two of them are in this first picture), and we saw King Kong, which was pretty ridiculous. If you can sit through over 3 hours of people fighting everything from animalistic natives to veloceraptors to giant mutated man-eating bugs, and King Kong battling T-Rexes and wreaking havoc on 1920s New York, then you might actually enjoy it. After King Kong we had dinner with Sam (an old exchange student friend) and then went downtown to Jonggak, the "Times Square of Seoul", for the festivities. And by "the festivities", I mean thousands and thousands of people, most of whom were shooting off roman candle fireworks (picture, bottom left) throughout the evening.

There was also a big stage with performances

on it (although we couldn't see it very
well) and instead of a ball dropping there was a huge bell there that they ring 33 times every new year. There By the time it was over we had roman candle smoke in our eyes and mouths, a layer of ash from them on our clothing, and our ears were ringing, and it was worth every bit of it.

I'm dreaming of a white, incredibly cold Christmas

2005-12-08T22:25:00.000+09:00

While the temperature here has continued its descent to levels of cold that make me homesick for balmy Virginia Beach, there is one positive aspect of this freezing cold season: snow. About a week and a half ago we got our first flurry, and on Saturday we got nice big flakes that stuck. Although the streets turned icy and dirty a day later, it was really pretty for a few hours. My roomate Will (from southern California) was especially excited to see the "blizzard" (we got maybe an inch), as he'd never seen anything like it before. Enough talk, here are the pictures.

Susan arrives!

2005-12-01T11:54:00.000+09:00

Well, the last two weeks have been pretty full,
but I'll try to condense them into one fun-filled,
easy-to-read blog.
My friend Young Min (who was a fellow exchange
student with me in Korea and is from Australia)
came and visited two weekends ago, so we met up
one night and had takalbi (this first picture- it's a
mix of chicken, vegetables, noodles and little things
made from rice, and of course lots of spicy sauce,
hence the color). Despite the spiciness, it's one of
my favorite Korean dishes.
My old host mom, Ryu, ate with us, because that
day I had met up with her and some of her friends
and some current exchange students and we went
to the National Museum of Korea, which just opened
in a new building in October. It was a huge place, we
only really saw the 3rd floor and it took us about 2
hours. There were alot of Budda statues and old pots, but
honestly a picture of an old pot isn't exactly riveting, so here's a picture of the statues.

This last weekend (11/27-28) I went and saw Brother Yun, this Chinese Christian guy with an amazing story. He was jailed and tortured for years by the Chinese government for being a Christian, and he managed to escape from China a few years ago and now is telling what's going on with Christians in China. I saw Lauren and Ruth (WM friends) and Izzie there too, which was cool. I was especially glad to finally see Ruth, becuase it's the first time we've met in the 2 months that we've both been in Korea.

Speaking of friends, Susan Russo, my good friend from William and Mary/ Miyako Japanese Restaurant came to Korea- she'll be teaching English in a northern suburb of Seoul, Uijeongbu. She flew in Saturday night and we met up on Sunday, went to my church, went to Gyeongbokgung palace (see picture below) and Insadong, which is this one main street with lots of traditional foods, souveneirs, and performances. It was pretty sweet but also pretty cold- it's definitely winter here now, and we even got a little snow flurry a few days ago.

Pepero Day and Soccer Game

2005-11-13T20:00:00.000+09:00

Friday was a Korean holiday- pepero day. Although widely celebrated in Korea, it's not really an official holiday, but rather the ingenious marketing scheme of a Korean snack manufacturer. Peperos are these little cookies that resemble a chocolate covered pretzel stick- long, skinny, and chocolate covering about 4/5ths of it. Now the way I imagine it, one day someone in a cubicle at Pepero, Inc. was typing the day's date, November eleventh, and realized that the "1"s in 11/11 resembled Peperos. Then his innate Korean sense of entrepreneurship kicked in, and he thought, "Koreans love holidays. Why not make every November 11th a holiday where people have to buy our product and give it to each other?" And thus Pepero day was born. So Friday morning I bought $2 worth of Peperos, so I'd have two or so to give to each student that day. But although I gave out all my boxes of Peperos, I got much more Peperos and other sorts of snacks (including Pumpkin taffy) from my kids. Here's a picture of what I still had left after eating my fill of Peperos and Pepero-related snacks at work.

Yesterday (Saturday) I met up with my friend Izzie, and after showing her the awesome DVD of the Jeter boys' Central America summer backpacking trip (that my brother Daniel made), we went to Namdemun Market, where I got some new glasses to replace the ones I've had since senior year of high school. We also looked for winter hats (that's Izzie trying on a hat- it's getting pretty cold here) and I met this Peruvian guy in one of the shops who didn't speak much English or Korean, so he was loving being able to have a conversation with someone in Spanish. Of course, we exchanged cell phone numbers and made promises to hang out in the future, and I told him I'd help him learn more English. On the way back we went by that same subway station that had the bench that Ben and I took a picture on, and now instead of the bench it had this random table with headless manequins, so of course I had to get another picture there.

After Namdemun, I went with my friend James (see picture) to see the Korean national soccer team play the Swedish national team at World Cup Stadium in the western part of Seoul. It was fun, especially since there were lots of free events going on outside of the stadium, like taking your picture with a cardboard picture of the team, free cappucinos, and contests to win free t-shirts, blankets, etc. I almost won the t-shirt thing where you had to kick a soccer ball into a hole in this cardboard goal they had set up, and I hooked up all the free stuff repeatedly. The game ended in a tie, 2-2, and it was a lot of fun, although a little cold. One last note- you know how they have those plastic inflatable sticks that you hit together to make noise at games? Well, I saw this one Korean guy who was doing that, except instead of those sticks he was using two big plastic beer bottles, whose contents he had evidently recently consumed (I really wish I had gotten a picture of it). Classic.

Seeing the sights

2005-11-13T00:50:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I went to Coex mall (probably the biggest mall in Korea, it's huge and mostly underground) and to Building 63 (the tallest building in Korea) with Ben and his friend Beth. Building 63 is on Yoido island, an island on the Han river (which runs through the middle of Seoul), and it technically has 63 floors, although 3 of them are underground. We had to buy a drink from the cafe at the top to stay there and look out, and the cheapest stuff on the menu was $7, but we decided it was worth it to hang out there for a while and enjoy the view (in the picture the Han River is on the very left). Also, in the Sinchon subway station on the way home we saw this random bench with a backdrop behind it, and we had to take our picture on it.

Disco who?

2005-11-04T23:39:00.000+09:00

So for halloween, not only did one of my co-workers hold a costume party, but we also had to wear costumes to school on both Tuesday and Wednesday. So this would have to be a good costume- I originally was thinking of just getting some round toy glasses and saying I was Harry Potter, but you can't get away with that for three days. However, money was still really tight, as my first paycheck wasn't going to arrive until Wednesday night. Luckily, I looked at my wardrobe and realized that I kind of had a theme going already. So, this is what it boiled down to:

Leisure suit jacket, aviator sunglasses and polyester shirt: $0 (already owned them)

Overdone afro wig: $3

Disco ball necklace: $2

My Halloween Disco outfit: priceless

P.S. Alot of my kids were confused by my costume, and some even seemed scared by my hair- I told them, "Think Disco Stu, or Michael Jackson when he was a kid", but that didn't really help any. Evidently Koreans missed the 70s. Well, at least the 11-year old ones did.

P.P.S. Here are some pictures of my co-teachers and kids.

Cell phone number, round 3

2005-10-31T23:35:00.000+09:00

Ok, sorry everyone who was hoping for some fun korea story/picture (don't worry, I'll have some soon), but first I have to make yet another cell phone number correction. So it turns out that the number I originally put out, 010-5838-2225, is now my cell phone number. That's the number that the lady at the cell phone office originally gave me, but for some reason for the first week I had the cell phone that number wasn't working, and it was instead working under that other number, which I then posted. Then yesterday (i.e. a week after I got it) it suddenly decided to switch to the number the lady gave me, although on the phone itself still says it has that second number. Confused yet? Well, for most of you, none of this will matter anyway, because if you really want to talk to me, you should get skype, which is free (www.skype.com) and then we can talk for free anywhere in the world. Yes, I know that sounds redundant, but if I don't put free in both parts of the sentence, people still think there's some sort of catch. Halloween costume pictures etc. coming soon.

Cell phone number, round 2

2005-10-27T22:59:00.000+09:00

Sorry everyone, my actual cell phone number is 019-1267-2225. It appears that the kind lady at the cell phone office had written it down incorrectly for me. So I'd like to give my apologies to all of you, as well as to the confused Korean family who have been receiving all my calls.

Electronic leash, teaching, etc.

2005-10-24T23:16:00.001+09:00

This weekend my friend James (the army chaplain) gave me his dad's old cellphone. Brandon, I apologize, I know it's technology and I will try not to trust it. For those of you who are in Korea, the number is 010-5838-2225. It's all in Korean, so I still haven't figured all of it out, like how to change the background picture from the current picture of a little Korean girl (I assume it's James' niece), or how to turn off some of the annoying sounds it makes.

In other news, my classes are generally going pretty well. I have one class of 11 and 12 year olds that's my favorite. We have a little story book that we read each class, and all of them are so desperate to be able to be the first one to read a page from it out loud. They also give me high-fives on the way out and each one says "Hello!" and smiles really big when I call roll.
On the other hand, the class I have after that is not quite so good. I always struggle to keep it under control, and today I got the distinct impression that my full name sounds like a bad word or something in Korean. I was talking about nicknames, and how they can be short for longer names, and when I said my full name, they all cracked up and kept repeating the last part and laughing. Who knew that something as simple as my name could bring them so much amusement? On top of that, my voice cracked during the class, which didn't help in restoring any sort of order. Of all my classes, it had to happen in that one. Thanks, vocal chords.

P.S. I forgot to mention in my first post that I also saw my friend Izzie (korean pronunciation: "E.G."- she'll probably be the most faithful reader of this blog) that first weekend. Seeing her was fun, we went to a restaurant and got this huge chicken dish that could have fed about 4 people, and then went and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Seeing Izzie and eating Korean food was good, but honestly, I wasn't that impressed with the movie. I didn't really like Johnny Depp's performance/character, and you just can't improve on the original in my mind.

New country, new internet community

2005-10-22T12:21:00.001+09:00

Well, I've been here in Seoul, South Korea for two weeks now, and I have quickly come to realize that I don't want to go to all the trouble of sending everyone every cool picture I take or update that I write, so I have jumped on to yet another internet bandwagon. I was thinking about Myspace, but it just looked too trendy, and I finished with that "make internet friends" stuff when I turned 13. Also, another reason for blogging is that I can never really gauge which friends actually do want to hear from me, and which I just start to annoy with my updates. So the ball is now in your court. Read, or don't read, at your leisure.
Here's the first update. Don't worry, the rest won't be this long.
-Mike
P.S. Sorry about the cheesy intro.

Anyong haseyo! That's "Hello" in Korean, which was the only word I knew when I came here for the first time two years ago as an exchange student. Now I'm back as an English teacher, and although the food, customs, and language aren't so foreign anymore, I still have so far to go before I can really have conversations in Korean. I arrived a week and a half ago, and am starting to get settled in my neighborhood here. I live on the 5th floor of an apartment building in the northeastern part of Seoul with a Canadian and another American who also teach at my school. It's a fully furnished apartment, we each have our own bedroom, and the school pays the rent, so I'm pretty happy with it.

The school I teach at is an after-school english-language school, so I teach from 3-9pm every day. I teach kids ranging in age from 7 to 15 years old, and although my first day of teaching them was a little rough (since I had just flown into Korea the night before), I am starting to get the hang of it. Luckily, the kids know a decent level of English, and the Korean teachers all speak English excellently, so I don't have many communication problems at school.

Outside of school, however, is a different story. Yet although I know very little Korean, I'm already starting to get to know some of the people in our neighborhood, like the woman who runs a little restaurant right on the corner by our apartments. I have gone to eat there a few times after work, and although my Korean skills are minimal, I have made friends with her and her son, who is my age and was there the first night that I ate there. The whole time we were talking in Korean I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm still understanding what they're saying and am able to reply!" Her son even gave me his phone number and asked me to call him sometime, although I don't know how much we'll be able to talk about before I run out of words I know.

I've also been able to meet up with some of the friends I had made last time I was here. One of them, James Kim, is the chaplain at a Korean army base in the western part of Seoul. On my first Sunday here, James invited me to come to the service on the base, so I went, and not only was I the only foreigner in the service, but they said that I might have been the first foreigner ever to visit that particular base! I didn't really understand any of the sermon besides the passage he was preaching from that someone pointed out for me in an English Bible, but "amen" is "amen" in Korean, so I could chime in with everyone else at the pauses in the prayers. Afterwards the church put on a big sort of field day for about 150 or so of the soldiers, and I joined in, too. We did obstacle courses, three legged races, that game where you tie a balloon on your leg and try to pop everyone else's before they pop yours, and played soccer. It was fun and everyone was really nice, but it seemed kind of surreal- I kept thinking to myself, "This is my 3rd day in Korea and I'm on a Korean army base playing elementary-school-birthday-party games with a bunch of Korean soldiers."

Last weekend I met up with my friend Ben from college who is now teaching English in a small town in Korea on a Fullbright Scholarship. Ben and I went to these mountains called Seoraksan in the northeastern part of South Korea. People go to those mountains for the hiking and the fall foliage, but when we got there we saw to our disappointment that most of the trees were still pretty green. And although we did do a good amount of hiking, we were constantly surrounded by other people, because Seoraksan is the most popular hiking destination in Korea, and Koreans evidently are avid hikers. It was pretty amusing to see alot of them in full hiking gear, with special shoes, pants, shirts, vests, scarfs, hats, and backpacks for hiking, and many with one or even two professional walking sticks. Although they had all the gear, alot of them didn't hike very high up the mountains, and there were paths everywhere, so the going wasn't very rough. But despite the crowds and the mostly green leaves, it was a good time and there was some great scenery. And yes, I am doing the "peace" sign in that picture- pretty sweet, huh?