To be wierd, or not to be....

Are all people who come to Korea weird before they arrive, or do you progressively become more strange from being here? That is the question.....my question.
From the moment I arrived it was rather obvious that most of the foreigners you meet in Korea are, well, a little "off". This is a judgement from my perspective, assuming I am somewhat normal, you can make your own judgments based on that statement. In any case I have been a little worried lately that its not that weird people come to Korea, its that Korea makes you weird, and I think I am right. I have comprised a whole theory on the phenomena:
It seems to me that most non-Korean people on the penninsula fit into one or more of the following categories:
1. trying to make money, fast: usually the most normal
2. running from something: a little less normal
3. too socially akward to function at home: weirdo
Now picture a "spectrum of weirdness" made out of the above groups. Luckily, Korea does not make everyone weirder, if you are on the stranger side of the spectrum you actuallly become more normal. The reason for this is because all of the above groups of people are forced to intermingle and be friends through default, because we all speak English. In order for this social system to work, the more normal people (such as myself ofcourse) have to move down on the spectrum while the oddballs move upwards to meet in the middle area. I am not sure I am a fan of the middle of the spectrum because if I am going to be anywhere on a weird spectrum I would prefer to be on the more normal third of it. So this is my predicament... am I going to be socially akward when I get home? OK just kidding about that last part, I am not too worried about it. I am quite excited to come home and not be on the weird spectrum at all though. Luckily here in Korea I have found some others with whom I can stay clear of that sketchy middle area though.

The Korean way, or the highway

No matter what you are doing; eating, drinking, walking climbing, or shopping, you are probably doing it wrong. In Korea it seems that without fail I cannot make it through a day without someone telling me I am doing something wrong and showing me the proper way to go about it. At times I can handle being told to do things the Korean way, other times I just want to poke my eye out. I remember when I first got here going to the store to buy things for my apartment and having the woman at E-mart remove the broom I had carefully chosen from my cart and replacing it with the one she thought I should buy. I tried to convince her to let me buy my original choice but she was not having it and not wanting to waste anymore breathe over it I decided not to argue with the lady. I figured she was a crazy old woman and that I should just do what she said. Throughout the eight months of living here I have come to realize that the broom was only the beginning. It seems that no matter what I do people have to come up to me and point out that I am not doing things their way, which apparenly means I am doing them the wrong way. The best part is that they usually try to tell me in Korean, which doesn't work well for either of us, but when it comes down to it, whether I understand them or not, they don't give up until I am doing whatever it is the "right way". Sometimes they even give you a choice; "Would you like your burger cut in half", and when you respond with "no thanks", they repy with "I think cut in half, better". When your burger arrives is become apparent that you did not make the correct choice because your burger is in two pieces. Even in subway, a restaurant known for "a sandwhich built your way" did not give me the choice of what I wanted, except for certain ingrediants. Things like lettuce and tomato went in without question, because all sanwhiches have lettuce and tomoto.
Saturday night I was asleep in a hotel room with some friends at a ski resort. At 4;30 in the morning we heard a knock upon the door and before anyone got up to see who was there, the door opened and a yelling Korean stuck his head in. We were all very confused and came to the conclusion that it was a security guard reprimanding us for forgetting to lock the door which apparently is unacceptable and warrants a 4:30 wake up call. So much in this country seems to revolve around this black and white, right and wrong way of thinking, without much room for independent thought. Sometimes it entertains me, but at 4:30 in the morning it makes feel like I am going crazy, or maybe that I just live in a REALLY weird place. I guess it should not be a surprise after spending the last 8 months producing little English robots in a place that does not seem to encourage critical thinking...ever. Wow that was quite a rant, but being woke up at 4:30 AM sparked an annoyance in me that those of you who have woken me up before can probably imagine.

Orphan Christmas Party

I know that title may sound bad, not we did not auction off Korean orphans for Christmas. My friends Rick and Adrianne generously invited all of us without families to their house to have a Christmas feast. A wonderful time was had by all. When we first walked in we found Rick and Adrianne in the kitchen reading the instructions on how to cook a turkey. It was quite funny and we all threw in our 2 cents on the matter and came off as being smart asses. My friend Amanda (fellow New Mexican) and I made tamales in order to celebrate the way we do back home (my parents were nice enough to bring masa and husks when they came to visit). I had a minor freak out the day before when I realized that shortening was not a common ingredient in Korea and could not think of a suitable substitute other than lard which I presume would be equally interesting to find. Luckily I found it after an hour or so of fretting over it. I also made bizcochitos which were the most expensive cookies I have ever made since the anise rang in at $13....but what the heck it was Christmas. It is amazing the prices you will pay when you have been away for so long. Their fridge was packed with more eggnog than you can image, another exciting food when in Korea, which I have decided specializes in all of the worst beverages ever. No Korean beverages wer consumed at the party though. My parents also brought me a 6 pack of Mirror Pond which was enjoyed by Rach myself and Rick, another Mirror Pond-worthy individual from Oregon. We played Cranium and laughed a lot. All in all we ate, drank and were merry. I got to spend the night with my favorite people in Korea, what more could ask for on "Christmas"? It is strange how much more I have been in the Christmas spirit here than I ever am at home (thats not saying much, but still). I guess it is just something familar that reminds you of home. I was even really excited about the fireplace the contructed out of carboard. Well in any case I have another Christmas celebration on the the actual day with the people from work. 2 Christmas in a week....assa (Korean word for cool). I wish you all the best for the holiday season!

Making Kimchi!!!!!

It's kimchi season in Korea and today I participated in my first Kim Jong. In other words, English that is, I made kimchi... a lot of it. Every winter Koreans spend a day preparing the kimchi that they will eat for the rest of the year. Our friend Yun hi invited Rachel and I to join her this year. I had no idea what I was in for. Kimchi making is like everything else in Korea, there is no point in doing it if you are not going to go all out, so it is quite an ordeal. We walked in to find the biggest bowl I have ever seen, filled with kimchi sauce. We worked on cutting up the veggies to mix in and then started the process of actaully making the kimchi. Yun hi had at least 60 pounds of cabbage in her living room. The three of us worked togther to coat it all in sauce and put it in the bin for fermentation. The red bin sitting next to me in the picture was full of saucy cabbage (I like the sound of that). Rachel and I just kept saying "I cannot believe how much kimchi this is!" when Yun hi informed us that this was about a 6 month supply, that she was going to make more in the next couple days. It made me think of chile roasting season back in NM and how any non-New Mexican would probably have the same reaction to me loading 2 burlap sacks of green chile in the car to take home and roast. I like kimchi and all, but I think I would rather eat ridiculous amoounts of green chile. On the other hand, kimchi is good for your health, I don't knwo if green chile looks like as much of a badass as this little kimchi dude.

In the spirit of Chanukah, this blog goes out to all those Jewish people I know and is dedicated to my Uncle Stu.
What does it mean to be Jewish? I mean, my grandparents were Jewish and raised my father with the religion, but I have never really practiced it. Luckily my elementary students cleared it all up for me. I had quite a few classes that were reading stuff about WWII and the Holocaust and so I asked the kids what “Jewish” meant. What is a Jew? Without fail every single class came up with the exact same definition: “Really rich and smart people”. My reply was always “yes, often times they are well off and intelligent, but what specifically makes a Jewish person different than so many other people in the world?” Blank stares were always my response. So, since I am not rich, and only consider myself of average intelligence I am wondering if I am barred from being Jewish in Korea. Maybe they wouldn’t even believe me if I told them I was. Meanwhile, most of my student’s parents are raking in more money than I probably ever will, does that make them more Jewish than me?
Oh and we got pizza at work today and it came with a star of David on it? I am not sure if it is just meant to look nice or if it is the Korean way to observe Chanukah. The pizza did have bacon on it though so I'm going to assume it was a non-kosher star of David pizza.

English wordlists make me pull my hair out!!!!!!

At my school, they have somehow come under the notion that the best way to ensure the students are learning is to give them lots and lots of tests, I mean if they get it right on the test they definietly learned it, right? So if they take lots of tests they are aquiring a wealth of information. Vocabulary wordtests are the quiz of choice, each test containing 10-20 words, each student completeing 2-4 of them each day. Some of my older kids are expected to remember 100 words every day for these tests. So ofcourse it seeming unreasonable and ineffective the kids don't bother and the scores drop (not that the grades in our school mean anything). When this happens the school freaks out because it looks like kids are not learning anything so they put a re-test policy in place which says kids must get an 80% or higher on their tests or they have to re-take them until they get a 100%. So now ofcourse whenever we doing anything in class in which the kids could possibly learn something they are too busy memorizing words so they don't have to take a re-test. Phew... I am glad it at least looks like my kids are learning something, even if they just memorize and forget not having any concept of what the word means or how to use it.
The best part about it all is what the wordlists are comprised of. They are often made by Korean staff (who don't speak English) who look for random words in the reading book and then google a definition to cut and paste. Sometimes teachers are asked to make them, which usually results in some ridiculous words, just because you know if the kids never learn them anyways, the teachers might as well get a chuckle. Well, one time I had a really smart class. These kids actually did learn to use the words, and I was shocked when I saw the word "crap" which was on a wordlist, used correctly in an elementary student's essay. The other day I saw erotic on one of my wordlists...glad no one asked questions about that one. Oh and one of my person favorites was "dirtbag- a filthy and vile individual". So to all my good friends who claim to be dirtbag climbers I assume it retains the same definition but refers to a climbing individual.

Thanksgiving in Korea
Yesterday was Thanksgiving and since our schedule is not conducive to cooking or eating dinner Rachel and I went to the Outback Steakhouse for western food. It was not really Thanksgiving-like but good. I decided that my favorite class deserved to celebrate Thanksgiving so yesterday morning I cooked a huge batch of pancakes (I always use pancakes in example sentences and they have become a joke in class) and brought them into the kids. We talked about what people do on Thanksgiving and I told them stories, like the one about my friend jane who ate so much she puked, and then went back for more. Then I made them all say what they were thankful for before we ate our pancakes together. The kids were so cute about it and they were thankful for things like friends and family...not ipods and money, which I was half-way expecting. I guess you don't always need a turkey and family and friends to feel the Thanksgiving spirit. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner of pancakes with a class of 10 year olds.

The last few weeks have been very very busy. WE have been lucky enough to have some visitors here in Korea and it has been really nice to see familar faces from home...and to go do touristy things. So a couple weeks ago our friend Nick stopped over for a week in Korea. We had soem nights out on the town, went climbing and hiking and saw some beautiful fall colors. We also had our first experience with Dr. Fish....which is quite an interesting concept. Koreans are pretty anal about their skin, so they have developed this method to get rid of dead skin on your feet. Basically you stick you feet in a pool of water and fish come and nibble on your feet and eat away all the dead skin. There is a Dr. Fish coffee shop near us and so ofcourse we had to try it. We took Nick with us and all the fish swarmed to his feet, which made it more bareable for us. I can't say I was ahuge fan of the whole thing, it felt a little strange and creepy...but when my parents arrived a couple days later I had to take them as well. So I have no experienced Dr Fish 2 times and feel quite certain that i will probobly get sucked into it again at some point.
So my parents and my good friend Del have been here for the past 10 days. I took a week off work and we did some exploring. We spent a few days in Seoul and then made our way to Seoraksan National Park. We did a few hikes there, it was really beautiful and amazing to be there in the middle of the week when it was less crowded. Oh and the entire time we were away we only saw one other westerner which was pretty cool. We also went on a tour to the DMZ or demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. It was realy interesting and I will write a blog about it sometime soon. So this is why I have not been keeping up with my blog lately...but I have not abandoned it and will getback to "blogging" now. Here is a link where you can see some of the pictures from my "vacation":
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68949&l=58fa6&id=855105612

Fall is here!!!
Like most things in Korea, the change in seasons here appears to be all or nothing. Koreans are strong believers in "go big or go home" on just about everything, from education to drinking soju, to sports. If they do something they are going to go all out, which probobly explains why I teach children until 10 pm after they have already spent all day at school. Maybe seeing Korean men go all out on shots of soju and then seeing them passed out in the street is simply them as a product of their surroundings. It seems as though it was summer and then BOOM, out of nowhere it became fall, just as intense as the poeple who live here. The leaves have gone from green to yellow, red and falling off in less than a week. I went out hiking last weekend and was able to enjoy fall to it's fullest. I got up early on Saturday morning and spent the day in the mountains. Going back to the all out thing, most Koreans work on Saturdays so it was relatively mellow. It was an amazing day of hiking, the colors were brilliant and at times I felt as though I was in NM on a fall day, except for the sounds of Buddhist chanting coming from the temples in the mountains. Sitting on a big rock looking at the mountains and listening to the chants was one of those "holy shit, I am in Asia" moments. Life here as become kind of normal, but whenever I have one of those moments in freaks me out a little.

The following day I witnessed somthing I have never seen before... and probably never will again, the filming of a Korean movie. This picture is of a very famous Korean actor, and this is an actaul scene from the movie. Our friends were sitting outside a restaurant drinking a few beers when the movie took over the street. We ended up having prime seating to witness a movie we didn't understand and close up views of famous people we have never heard of. We did watch the actor shake hands with a teenage girl who proceeded to scream and run away, with all her friends shrieking and following. When the boys first called us to tell us to come over I was a little upset because we were just about to "bake" cookies (or cook them on a grittle on the stove since there are no ovens in Korea) and watch The Office... but just as they told me "I would have been sorry if I had missed it".

Sketchy Climbing PIctures:



Koreans are amazing climbers. They climb very gracefully and are really strong. Unfortunately some of them seem to have a different idea of safety (not just safety meetings) than myself. Last weekend we saw these two things occur within in a couple hours. This draw which is left stuck open was the first bolt on a run-out route. The dude's belayer was watching him and did not bother mentioning that his first piece of protection was worthless. Rachel tried to communicate the problem, but without success...so she took a picture. The second picture speaks for itself, would you want this dude belaying you? I have noticed that lead belaying is pretty sketchy here. Many people stand about 12 feet away from the way and leave an extra 4 feet of slack in the rope....that adds a scary amount of extra rope into a whipper, transforming it into a potential mega whipper.
So thanks to all of you who I have climbed with in a safe manner, I am glad to have people who don't set me up for the mega whipper.

I miss my car, but at least I will never go bald!

This past weekend I had one of those moments of realization about how different my life is now. It all started when I was packing for a climbing trip and I was trying to fit everything into my pack and debating over what I was going to eat for dinner while camping. I decided I did not want to try and carry food and a pot and utensils in my pack on top of climbing and camping gear...so I figured I would just buy food there. (walking though the crowded subway with a huge pack intensifies the "get out of my way" phenomena by 20) For some reason all this reminded me of how easy it used to be to go do stuff. I always kept all my gear in the back of my car and leaving for the weekend was just a matter of throwing clean clothes and some grub up in the mix. Now it is a matter of packing as much as you can into a pack, catching the subway to the bus, and then a taxi to the crag. The feeling of nostalgia rang ever stronger when that evening the people we met there pulled a bbq grill, pork loin, wine, camp chairs ect. out of the back of their car. Meanwhile Rachel and I quietly ate our instant rice and mixed with tuna(which was only hot because teh woman at the store microwed it for us), because that was all we could find to eat. Public transport has been my life for the past year and in a lot of ways I really love it...like it being good for the enviroment, but sometimes I just really miss my car and being able to come and go as I please. I miss the road trips and adventures, the funky smell of my car after being full of stinky climbers. I guess it's just one of those things that I take for granted back home and will really appreciate when I get back.
I may not have a car and many of the other luxuries of being home, but at least in Korea I am learning really valuable life lessons, like all the things that could possibly kill you. The latest thing I have learned will protect me from something a little less serious than the fatal fan death: balding.
So I may have mentioned how anal Koreans are about getting wet...or rather the importance of staying dry when its raining. Now, I lived in rainy Oregon for quite a while, but before coming to Korea I had never owned an umbrella. In Korea it is unheard of to go out in the rain without your umbrella. Rachel and I were both curious about this, and when we are curious about something we look for an opportunity to bring it up in class and ask the kids. Rachel had her opportunity and found out the following: It is extremely important to carry an umbrella when it is raining because the dirty rain will make you go bald. Why, might you ask, is the rain so dirty? The response: dirty air from China makes acid rain which makes you go prematurely bald. (Everything here is the fault of China, usually it's dirty air). I re-affirmed this theory with my students, so there you have it, carry an umbrella if you like your full head of hair.
I posted links (on the side bar) to a half hour documentary I saw tonight about North Koreans escaping to South Korea. It was heart-breaking, and reminded me that I am living on a very fragile penninsula. The presidents from the two countries had a peace summit last week and are signing a peace agreement, although I am not sure how exactly that will work unless North Korea undergoes some major reforms. Hope for the best I guess.

The second Discover Korea day happened today. I am really behind in grading and Rach is a little sick so we decided to stay somewhere in our neighborhood. For the second week in a row we visited a Buddhist temple, this one is only a ten minute bus ride away from us (how we have never been there before, even on accident is beyond me). So in the past year I have visited quite a few Buddhist temples, but I have to say that this one might be my favorite so far. It is located right across the street from the chaotic COEX Mall, sits quaintly below skyscrapers. There was just something about it that made me feel relaxed though. There are about six different meditation halls, each one had a monk there chanting. There is also an outside meditation area, this part was my favorite. There is a ginormous statue of Buddah towering over a marble meditation area. They have meditation pillows there that you can use as well. rach and I decided to try out our quite rusty meditation skills. It was really nice, even if I am not a good meditator. Just being outside in a beautiful place listening to chanting. Sometimes I feel as though city life is so quick and easy to get lost in, so I think this is going to be my new sanctaury...since the "wilderness" in Korea seems to be opposite of a quiet sanctuary.

"Only in Korea"

There are some things that happen in this country that just don't occur in other places. I started to keep a list of events that I witness which make me think to myself "only in Korea":

+ Small children (age 7ish) walking or playing alone in a dark park in Seoul and no one sees reason fro concern.
+Complete strangers approaching you in the shower room (where we are all naked) offering to scrub your back for you because it's one of those hard-to-reach spots.
+ A woman passed out on a bench in the apartment lobby with one shoe on and her purse lying upside-down on the ground next to her (completely unbothered ofcourse)
+Employees try to quit their job and their boss simply tells them they can't....and they listen.
+It is ok for kids to take candy from a stranger on the subway.
+you can purchase designer wallets of the street.
+ Drunk men will pass out anywhere...even the middle of the road.
+ You can always count on someone trying to help you within 45 seconds of looking lost.
+Kids probobly work harder than their parents.
+You go in coffee shop planning to relax and read util you hear the latest dance mix blasting through the place.

Rachel and I started a weekly event call "Discover Korea Thursdays". On our first Thursday we went to a Buddhist temple called 조 게 사 (Jogyesa). It was like a sanctuary inside the city, with Buddhist chanting and the smell of incense. I actually felt as though I was back in Nepal or Thailand and not in Seoul. The locus picture is from that day.

A Very Happy Chusock in Seoul

The past week all of Korea has been celebrating the Chusock holiday, which is a little bit of a mixture between Thanksgivng and Day of the Dead. It's main purpose is to celebrate the harvest so people all go home to their parents/grandparents houses for a huge feast. Another part of the tradition is to bow to your ancestors to show respect.
Our original plan fro tehe week off of work was to go check out the national park North of here that we have been dying to see, but our school bribed us with a lot of money to stay and work over the break...and we gave in. It ended up workng out well though. Our classes were really great (other than starting at 7 am), some of the top students in Korea. They are all prepping to get into the very elite highschools. My job was basically to talk to them about writing and brainstorm possible essay questions about current global issues...I was in heaven. These kids blew my mind though. They are highschoolers who write better than most first year college students in the US do. It always does make a me a little sad though because I doubt they actually had a childhood outside of school.
Our Busan girls came up to Seoul for the holiday and we decided that we should have a practice run for real Thanksgiving in celebration of Chusock. We decided to boil chickens since there are no ovens or turkeys in Korea. At the store, the whole chickens were really whole, head and all. Rachel and I looked at each other and discussed what you do if the chicken still has a head and you don't have that sharp of knives. Luckily the butcher caught our look of concern and tried to point us to teh pre-cut breasts. We told him we wanted this and asked him to chop the head, he looked at us a little crazy, but chopped it for us. Headless chicken dinner went great and we had even found pumpkin pie at Costco! I had about 12 people in my studio apartment and I was feeling thankful and content for all of the wonderful people I have met here.
On the real Chusock which was Tuesday, our Korean mom's brought us over tons of tradition Korean Chusock foods. 상 평 (Songpyeon) is a rice cake stuffed either sweet bean, sesame or sweet potato. It is a Korean myth that if a woman can make pretty songpyeon she will have beautiful children. We also ate many fried pancake-like things with different things in them. It was so nice of them to come over, it really felt like family coming and making sure we were not celebrating the holiday alone. We decided to have them over for dinner the following night, so we cooked them pesto past with sundried tomatos and spinach. Mrs. Im brought over a 한 박 (Han-Bak) which is a Korean traditional outfit. She had me try it on since we are about the same size. She explained to me that it is a hanbak that you wear to bow to your husbands parents when you get married, which she taught Rachel and I how to properly do. I took it off before dinner and folded it up to give it back to her and she said "no, this is a gift". I did not really know what to do, I thought I might start tearing. She gave me one of her wedding dresses! So I promised if I do ever get married I will bow in the Korean dress. I just cannot get over how generous and friendly people in Korea are. They are also so proud of their culture and absolutly love to share it with us.
As the Chusock holiday comes to an end I sit in my apartment quite happy.

Have any of you ever seen the show The Office (American version)? I am not a TV watcher as most of you well know. The last time I actually had a TV in my house was when I lived with parents, but somehow I have become totally addicted to this show. I have realized it's because now that I work in a cubical-style office I can relate to this madness. The weird assortment of people, the pranks, the things done instead of work. We have ongoing pranks and games in the office, including fantasy football (which I am losing miserably at because I know nothing about football) and world geography challenge which I have been no champ at either. One would think that when there free time in the office I would be marking one of those 100 essays I get to read a week...but don't be fooled, I play games. My friend Jon and I spent about a week creating BANANZA, the best office game ever (argued by many). Basically you have a string of paperclips with a heavier paper clamp on the end. The object of the game is to hit the cardboard head as far as possible. You get three tries (like baseball). It's much harder then you may think which is why you have to say "bananza" before you take a swing so everyone knows you are actually going for it. Ah yeah...I could have graded about 25 essays in the time I wasted trying to break Jon's record.
It's time like these that I realize how different my life is here. Sometimes it really freaks me out that I live in a city and work in an office, but it is my life right now and if I have to do ridiculous things like play banaza in order to have a great time...well I have no problem with that.

Another Great Weekend
Last weekend I we went out climbing with the Korea on the Rocks crew. Unfortunatly Typhoon Nari decided to make an appearence as well. The weather was pretty insane, I have never seen rain in Korea like friday night. I got out of work at 10 and it was raining Korean style dogs (with pink ears and booties) and I decided I was tired to I would take a taxi instead of the subway. Well, I think everyone heading my direction must have had the same thought because it took forever to find one. When I finally found one and told the driver where I was going he gave me a big X with his arms. (I think people may get joy out of giving the X here) He told me he was going the other way and kicked me back out into the rain. When I did finally make it home there was pumpkin pie from Costco waiting for me which made it all ok. Wow that was kind of a tangant.
By Saturday morning it had stopped and we made our way down to the climbing area. By about 4 the rocks had dried off enough not to be soaking wet, but it was definitely not optimal climbing conditions. I didn't care though, I was happy to be out climbing with cool people and didn't mind getting wet and dirty. We had a potluck burrito bar for which explains the smirk on the new Mexican's face. Saturday we got a few routes in before it started coming down pretty hard again.

Life has been really good in Korea. I am feeling pretty stoaked to be here right now. Last week my friend AJ and i went out to smack the ol' tennis ball around a bit. Both times we went out we were challenged to doubles matches by older Korean couples, and both times we lost. In my defense, I have not played an actaul match in at least 5 years....but yes we lost of 50 year olds...all in good fun though. This is part of what I love about Korea though. The people are so outgoing and interested in doing things with forgeiners. The wierd thing is that my experience has been opposite of everything people complained about in Korea. I don't understand why this place has such a bad reputation. My only explanation is that a lot of the forgeiners here are a little strange and are just socially akward people. Poor Korea, their reputation has been resting upon all those people who were akward and unable to survive in their own countries.
Anyways I have been slacking on the blog, and all communication for that matter. I will try and "get my ass in gear" as my father would say.
Pictures include dark gloomy climbing, burrito eating and dorky posed pic.

Biking in Korea

When I was in Thailand I met a British boy who carried a picture of his friend in his wallet. I made the comment that if I carried a picture in my wallet it would probobly be of my bike. That said, it may not seem so weird that I knew that today was the 1 year anniversary of the last time a rode my bike. I decided that I would go on a bike ride to mark the day. So off I went on the river trail, where I experienced some interesting things in Korean biking culture. At the beginning of my ride there was quite a head wind, and that combined with my heavy bike (I think it may weigh half my body weight) and no clipless pedals made for a little bit of a work out. At one point I looked back to see a Korean man, on a nice road bike, decked out with bike racing attire and clipless pedals drafting me. At first I just found it a bit entertaining, but after 25 minutes of busting my ass, while he continued drafting I was a little thrown off. It's so bizzare to me that you can have all this hardcore gear and then draft off a white girl who has a $100 Chinese bike (that quite possisbly could fall apart at any time).
After riding for awhile I stopped to get some water at a park and just sat on the grass and observed for awhile. One of the best things I saw was a guy and a girl on a tandem bike. The guy was peddling his heart out while his girlfriend, wearing a dress and heels, sat with her legs up taking in the views. I guess if you are on the back you don't really have to do anything because the poor guy on the front will never know. (When am I ever going to learn that you shoudl never go anywhere in Korea without a camera...you always witness picture worthy events) After I drank my water I decided to use the porta potty before heading on my way. I was so confused when I walked into a porta potty cleaner than most public toilets, and used the toilet to the relaxing sounds of classical music. I am not even joking, the porta pottys in the park play classical music for your enjoyment. It was a really great day, not quite the same as a bike ride at home, but fun nonetheless.
These are just some random pictures from around the city.

New Ways to die in Korea:

So the time has come to update the list. A couple of months ago I wrote a blog about the dangers of living in Korea and I have recently been informed of a couple more things that just may kill you in this country. Before I inform you of my newest discoveries I will give you a quick briefing on updates from the last "killers' I wrote about.
1.The Red Pen: So, in our speaking classes we have to fill out score sheets about kids performanaces. As a teacher, I always seem to have a red pen on hand. Kids Freak out when you write ther name in red, it is pretty hilarious. They will rummage through their bag for a black pen and lunge towards you yelling "teacher, my name, this color, no red". I have one student who thinks the whole thing is looney, and she always tells me "Write my name in red...three times". (It seems as though that would be triple death, but she is miraculously resilient and is still alive and kickin').
2. Fan Death: the latest explanation is that fan death kills you by freezing you to death...hmmmm
3. Flower Death: Well I am pretty certain that I killed my orchid, so you can all stop losing sleep over it maybe killing me in my sleep.

OK so the newest: In Korea kids learn in their science books that it is very dangerous to sail to far out to sea, because if you end up on a ship in the middle of the ocean there is no oxygen. What is it with Koreans fear of lack of oxygen and suffocation? The only explanation I can think of for this phenomena is that there are no trees nearby to take up CO2, but really osmosis should take care of any unequal distribution, right? When my kids told me this I was not really sure how to respond other than, "huh, I have never heard of that before". So if you come to visit me in Korea be sure to splurge for a plane ticket, because you might suffocate if you try and take a boat here...
My second new discovery is also a way you suffocate in Korea, except this is something that actually does happen. People in Korea eat live octopus. I have never seen it with my own two eyes but it is rather common I hear, I know some people who have done it. It sounds a little creepy to me, apparently as you are eating it squirms around and tries to wiggle its way off the plate (I don't blame it). Personally I could never even be at the same table where it was happening. In any case, if you do choose to sample this meal you have to know what you are doing....or you may bite the dust. If you do not chew properly, or enough, the suction cups on the tenticals will stick to your throat and suffocate you. Who ever heard of such a thing? I can't imagine octopus (especially raw/live octopus) ever tasting good enough to risk your life in order to eat it!!! I prefer a safe burrito myself.

In other news, last night I had my first experience at a real Korean spa. What a crazy experience. Korean spas are famous for exfoliating scubs. After soaking in tubs, saunas and steam rooms (one was 92 degrees C) you lye down on a table and a mostly naked Korean woman gets to work on you, scrubbing off all your dead skin. Koreans are not shy at all. They have no shame in nakedness, which I have experienced in the shower room of my gym...but this was a whole new level. So there I lye for about 20 minutes while a complete stranger who was topless scrubbed every single part of my body, except my face. It actually felt really good though. I have never felt so clean and my skin has never been so smooth.
I posted some pics of my kiddos from last term. We got new schedules and I am teaching mostly older kids now, I think it will be a lot better.

My Korean Name: 제 나

In school all of the children have English names, which they get to choose themselves. We have some really good ones like Bush. (He didn't want to be George, but wanted to name himself after good ol' W) Some teachers have given kids really great names like Tyrone, and inevitably we have loads of Lisas, Sarahs and Alexs. Really, Engish speakers could not be more lingua-centric than making kids choose English names so we don't have to try and pronounce and remember their Korean ones. I am not sure if lingua-centric is a word, but if it's not it should be because it's a pretty good description of most individuals who speak English.
Yesterday some of my kids asked me what my Korean name was. I told them I didn't have one, and so they made it their duty to give me one. One of my favorite llittle kiddos deemed me 제 나, pronounced je na which is not really a Korean name I don't think, but whatever...they all call me teacher all the time anyways.

The Irony of Girls Climbing Weekend

Last weekend I had a fantastic and ironic weekend. Some girls from Korea on the rocks organized a "girls climbing weekend". This ofcourse caused some drama on the kotr forum because anytime girls try and do a girls climbing weekend it does for some reason. I am not sure why it is so hard to understand why girls would want to organize such a thing. First of all it encourages us to push ourselves harder and reminds us that we can do it on our own. Furthermore it's just really fun to hang out with all girls and climb...but we realized you can not take the guys you know with you, but others will inevitably be there.
We went down South to Busan and met up with everyone. On Saturday we made a delicious breakfast and then went out to climb. The crag was filled with Korean men, who insisted on trying to tell us what to do and how to climb. The irony was a little funny for awhile, but ended up getting just plain annoying when they would not leave us alone and then critisized the way some gilrs were belaying...mind you I have seen multiple Korean's deck at the climbing gym due to bad belaying technique.
Really all of that would have been fine and dandy, but it got a lot worse. During the last climb of the day a crazy drunk guy decided to make an appearance. I was climbing and I heard a lot of raquet below me. When I got down I found out that drunky McDrunkerson told the other girls he was a model and then pulled down his pants and asked for sex. We quickley packed up our stuff while the creepo continued to pull down his pants again. As we were leaving he reached out and touched one of the girls, she then preceeded to smack him across the face with her cooler causing him to fall to the ground. My first instinct was to make sure he stayed down so I wacked him with my full waterbottle and we all ran. Girls weekend quickly escalated from a pleasant day of climbing to beating up a drunk Korean man...huh that's funny.
Despite all this, it was a fantastic weekned. It was really great to meet people that I felt as though I really connected with and reminded me of my girl friends from home. I work with all guys and after awhile the testasterone overload becomes a little much to handle....
The pictures are some of the many Korean men we encountered who tried telling us how to climb.

For the love of god, get out of my way!!!!

I am going to preface this little rant with the following; I love Korean people, but some of the things they do make me CRAZY.
I think one of the most common phrases I mumble under my breathe here in Korea is "get out of my way!!!!" You know that car that pulls out right in front of you and then puts along at 10 mph below the speed limit? This feeling of irritation is how I feel in Korea except it is not a phenomena that occurs only in the car, but rather all the time. In the store, at the gym, on the subway, in the elevator, at the coffee shop...you name it and I promise you Koreans are in my way. It does not matter if no one else is on the sidewalk, a Korean will find a way to get in your way. Riding my bike makes me a little nuts, in the US when you ring your little bell people move out of your way, but not in Korea. They will remain in you path until you are about to run them over and then they give you a surprised, apoligetic look, even though they have been watching you approach for at least 15 seconds without moving. I am a bit befuddled as to why this is the way it is. I do know they learn it from a young age though, because I have definitely bumped a young child on rollerblades who disregarded my bell and stepped out in front of my bike. At the gym women will stand in a group chatting and completely block the exit, even if one looks up and sees me obviously trying to escape, they remain in my path. To make matters more frustrating I don't speak very much Korean and "get out of my way" (or a more polite equivalent) is not in my reservoir of basic conversation. I think that's one I should look up. Most of the time I can laugh at these moments of aggravation...but I have those days when I have to think back to what I learned in Buddhist meditation in order to restrain from yelling "get out of my way", and instead think to myself, "loving kindness".

A trip to the beach...

Last weekend Rachel, our friend Greg and I took a trip to Mangsang beach. I was so excited to get out in the sun and play in the ocean that I forgot to pack my umbrella. Low and behold, upon arrival it was definitely raining. One thing about Koreans and rain; they don't believe in getting wet from it. (I even saw a guy on a run carrying his umbrella the other day) So there we were standing outside a hotel in the rain trying to find our friend Greg who had arrived earlier. An old woman looked over at us, walked over and handed us a pink umbrella...god forbid we get a little damp. When we got in the taxi to leave we tried to give the umbrella back, but the woman said it was for us to keep...I am sure she thought we were crazy for not having one (maybe you melt if you are Korean). We found Greg and a hotel room which was Korean style, meaning there is no bed and you sleep on the floor....and it cost more than 10 nights in Southeast Asia. We ended up having lots of fun in the rain, and even got some sun the following day. We had a great time laughing at the Koreans running for cover everytime it started to rain. Another interesting thing about Koreans at the beach is that they all swim in their clothes. I could not imagine playing in the ocean all day in jeans and a t-shirt...it sounds downright miserable actually.
We did not see any other forgieners the entire time we were there, which turned us into a little bit of a spectical. Rachel and I were offered a spot on a a toy raft taking on the waves. All the Korean's fell off and we commandeered the thing, until we realized one of the commandees was a one-armed Korean. Stealing a one-armed man's flotation device could only result in bad karma, so we gave it back. Good times in Korea....

Constitution Day

Today was constitution day so we had a day off. Really we couldn't think of anything more enjoyable than putting on some creepy clothes and putting the ol' bike gang into action. There is a group of us from work who just bought bikes and we like to think of ourselves as a gang of sorts. Today we went on an exploratoy adventure of Seoul. This city is reallly awesome because the entire thing is connected by bike paths. Today we headed North and stoppped off at the climbing wall at the partk and did some barefoot bouldering. It did not work so well for me, but it was fun non the less. From there we continued on our way unril we found a different park to ride around, and this one had deer in it. It was a little strange to see deer in the city I must admit. Today made the city seem a whole lot smaller and it is really nice to know that there are endless biking possibilities.

Weird food...

Its strange how after you have been away from home for long enough eating weird food just becomes normal. I remember a distict moment in China when I was offered a fried worm, and without the slightest thought I grabbed one and popped it in my mouth. At that moment I knew I had changed a little bit since leaving home. Food is such a fascinating aspect of traveling and not sampling what seems weird would be a shame.
Saturday at our Korean language/cooking class we prepared these beautiful sesame leaf wraps...chalked full of fish eggs rice and different sauces. I had never eaten fish eggs before, but theres a first time for everything. I can't say they were my favorite, I didn't like the texture and how you could feel them breaking as you chewed. They looked very pretty though.
That night we went and had a drink in the jazz bar in our building. In Korea when you go out and have drinks you always get a little plate of munchy foods, and in this bar you get dog jerky, yep dog jerky. The first time we went there we asked what it was and the bartender said "dog, ruff ruff, very delicious" It is actually really good, tastes a lot like beef jerky. I finally brought a camera to document me eating dog (knowingly anyways, I am pretty sure dog was one of those mystery meats in China). So on Saturday I ate fish eggs and dog. It's weird to think that I used to be a really picky eater, I would have starved in Asia.
I changed the settings on my blog so now anyone can leave comments, my mom told me that poeple were unable to.