Christmas post turned day's events turned Korean tidbits

For the record, I had full intention of making this post entirely about the Christmas weekend. However, as I started writing it I realized my brief "day's events" recap/warm-up turned into a full-on stand-alone post. Therefore, I'm turning this entire post into a Christmas warm-up. Enjoy. Or don't. I'm not the one killing time reading some punk's blog.

As I sit here, still a little clammy from shootin hoops in the gym with Roger, Jun-Young, and Mr. Lee (who will from now on be known as Min-Chul....I finally learned his name!), I've decided it's about time to reflect upon the weekend that was, Christmas in the ROK.

But first, let me give you a QUICK recap of the day's events:

Winter vacation started today! I was told I was going to have only first period but the kids were a no show. Score. But let me tell ya, the waiting game that ensues after the bell rings at Korean schools is quite the mind game. For the record, we all came here with the full expectation of teaching 22 English classes a week, but nothing can quite brighten a day like a cancelled class. Unfortunately, the nail-biting suspense is usually terminated when 40+ Korean kids come barreling in 5 minutes late screaming, hitting, and grabass...ing. Which you then have to tell everyone you're google chatting with a little something like this:

me: damn
you: what?
me: 3rd graders actually showed up, i dont understand why they always do this
you: yea man that sucks
me: alright well they're all looking at me and ms lee is givin me the stinkeye
you: ha aight later have fun
me: thanks...fml

But today, after sweating it out (it was freezing mind you) for TEN minutes without the usual ruckus parade, I was in the clear. Boom goes the dynamite! Instant fist-pumping jubilation. Besides being bowed to on entering the school by Korean boys calling you handsome like it's their j-o-b, this is one of the best feelings for a native English teacher (no, no one else?).

But the funny thing is, I usually spend that 45 minutes of free time doing anything but productivity. I get so excited when a class gets cancelled yet twiddle my thumbs while g-chatting, checking fantasy, watching NFL highlights, playing Dungeons & Dragons (just kidding......or am I?), etc.

It's getting to the point where I'd rather stand in front of the kids, lecture about Christmas, and play games with them. Maybe I'm starting to grow up? Nah still too early to call that one.

Aaanyways, after skyping my mother all morning, I was ambushed on-camera by Min-Chul. It was his way of telling me it was time to go to lunch. Since winter vacation started today, we had to say bye-bye to the lunch ladies and hello to being on our own (Well, not entirely. Jun-Young and Roger will be showing up to school every day just like me and we've agreed to do lunch together every day. Should be fun). Today was an exception though since the school was treating us to lunch. We all went to a sujebi restaurant to dine on the house specialty. Sujebi is a soup made with homemade noodles, kelp, and whichever meat your heart desires. Much to the dismay of Min-Chul, our table received two orders of the sujebi made with mussles (he wanted one with bossam, or pork belly). It was a little bland, but a satisfying meal to combat the snowy conditions outside.

What should have been an ordinary teacher lunch turned a little crazy mid-meal when a little sparrow flew into the restaurant. It might as well have been a dementor flying into The Hog's Head (I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but I'm teaching a Harry Potter--themed winter camp next week...) because some people were losin' their marbles. However I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed the little guy buzzing my head. Somehow the owner caught it with his bare hands (of course!...) and proceded to parade it around the restaurant. Well one of my more entertaining coworkers thought it would be a good idea if she could hold the embattled flapper. Any guesses what happened next?

A fellow sujebi soup slurper shrieked as the poor little guy escaped mid-exchange. She really blew that one. Talk about a fowl. Young Seong Middle represent! Soon after the unwelcome guest was ushered out and harmony was restored.

During lunch I found out that one of my favorite coteachers, Helena (her English name of course), would not be continuing to teach at Y.S. Middle for 2011. Instead she would be taking one of her THREE allotted years for maternity leave! Three years! Per child! She has two kids so that means she can take SIX years if she wanted. Six years absent and the job is there waiting for you. Only teachers and some government workers are given this generous benefit. The only kicker, if you can call it a "kicker", is that only one of those three years is paid leave. Still, that's pretty nice. And well-deserved if I may say so myself. Pregnancy? Yikes, no thanks. I guess that's one of the many reasons why being a teacher in Korea is such a sought-after position, especially for women.

The sobering moment was momentarily rectified by going out for coffee with some of my favorite coworkers after lunch. I treated Min-Chul, Jun-Young, Helena, and Roger to some Americanos (that's espresso and water for those keeping score) to show my appreciation for them. It was well-received. Also, found out that Min-Chul, whom I previously thought was heading to NYC to work at a restaurant with his uncle, may be staying in Korea a little longer than originally planned, which would be nice. I'm already losing Jun-Young and Helena, don't wanna lose Min-Chul too! Anyways, he invited me to spend a night in Suwon, where he lives, for a soju-filled evening, followed by a day trip to a Bean Pole outlet store (more to come on BP on my next post) some time this winter vacation. Should be awesome.

When we got back, we played a basketball game similar to PIG (see: beginning of post), I said goodbye to my friend Helena, ate some ice cream courtesy of Roger (he lost at basketball), and headed to Starbucks where I am now.

Okay! That was some QUICK recap of the day's events. Now for Christmas. Hold up. Julie just texted. Dinner time. Ah crap, I guess Christmas will have to wait...

"This little piggy goes to the doctor".......and gets a shot in the bum

For the past week or so the "index toe" on my left foot has caused me some serious discomfort. One night I couldn't even sleep due to the itch intensity. Now I'm no rash/itch expert (or am I?) but it seemed to me that I picked up some sort of bacteria on my little 2nd-in-command. I typically squeeze 2 days out of each wool sock so I figured my socks felt overworked and were getting revenge on me. After 5 days of no improvement I figured it was time to pay a visit my old friend: the Korean clinic.

After complaining to my go-to, Paul, about the itching and redness, he contracted the help of Junyoung and the new guy at school serving his two-year mandatory national service (Junyoung's replacement), who is a Korean-American raised in Seattle, of all places, named Roger, to take me to the clinic. I can foresee it being nice to have Roger around since he's fluent in Korean. And he's a cool dude too (but who isn't from Seattle; shout out to Kitchell and my Issaquah cousins).

Anyways, we left school at 4:30 (and not a minute earlier, Vice Principal, I swear....), hailed a cab, and headed for a dermatologist in Yatap, my hood. Like my other healthcare experiences in Korea, the dermatologist visit was smooth sailing. Roger did the talking and I did the head nodding. After giving the receptionist my Alien Registration Card (or what we call the ARC on the streets) to take care of insurance issues, I waited less than five minutes to directly to see the man in charge. His English was average, but had pretty good medical English (he's a doctor after all). I took my sock off to show him the "infection" and he immediately started touching my itchy toe. If anyone should be taking precaution with a potentially contagious foot infection, shouldn't a dermatologist??? 

He then took a magnifying glass to my poor little guy and after about 10 seconds of contemplation, he hit me with the news. Guesses anyone??

If you guessed eczema (I had to look up the spelling), deduct 3 points for you are wrong. The official diagnosis was frostbite. FROSTBITE?! When he told me I second guessed him. And can you blame me? Now I'm no eskimo (Bob Dylan would beg the differ), but I figured I were ever to develop a case of frostbite it would be in Wisconsin......or HIKING MT. EVEREST. Not in Korea. But since we're on the topic, let me complain for a little bit. The schools heat most of their rooms but never their hallways. If you are teaching (or taught) in Korea, this isn't news. And if you know someone else here and they've already told you, it isn't news for you either. But for the others, lemme tell ya, it gets cold in school. [B]rrrreal cold. And It was okay at first. Wearing a sweater at school. Putting on the wool socks. Wearing gloves while teaching. But frostbite is the final straw. It's too cold. My feet have literally been borderline numb all week. And I paid the price (which was only about $5 for the check-up, the meds, and the shot in the bum. Yes, a shot in the bum. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm all about the Korean healthcare system). So, in the future, if you should ever find yourself faced with the following question: 

"Do you know if Korea gets cold in the winter?"

You can matter-of-factly say, "Why yes! I do know! Some jackass who writes a blog about Korea got frostbite doing day-to-day stuff. Yeah, I know. What a sap!"

Ok don't say that.  But you get the picture. This brings me to my next topic: the bum shot. No not Bum Shots, nor Bum Shots 2 (probably movies, I said probably!). The bum shot. Now I've heard in the past that it is very difficult to avoid the bum shot when you go to see the doctor in Korea. I was 2 for 2 before this doctor visit in not getting anally injected (Sorry, I debated about making this joke for about 30 seconds but decided to go with it in the end). This time I did not have such luck.

After chatting with the doc about how often to take my medication, apply the cream, etc. he told me to go into the room next door for a shot. I've always been curious what's in this shot. I'm assuming it's just vitamins and immune system boosters but who knows (do you?). 

The nurse, who spoke little to no English, told me to pull down my pants for the shot. Before I could even ask if she wanted me laying on a table on my stomach (it's how I've always imagined bum shots to go down), she'd already pulled out the syringe and was ready to penetrate. Since I'm what you would call a needle namby-pamby (thanks thesaurus.com), I decided to stall. I asked her if she wanted me to put all of my weight on the leg that wasn't receiving the poke. She looked at me slightly puzzled and answered in Korean. Then, she backed up and kept saying something to me in Korean. At this point, I'm extremely confused. My pants are halfway down. The nurse is yelling at me. And the receptionist, who can see me because the door in between the nurse's office and receptionist area is open, is looking at me laughing. Finally the nurse abandons the Korean and laughingly says to me in English "You are done now. Please pull up your pants." At this moment the receptionist bursts out laughing as I realized I was already poked. Korean nurse-1, me-0. If only shots were this easy in the States no one, myself included, would ever have a phobia of them from such a young age. Or maybe she used a numbing pad. Or maybe I'm just growing up and finally getting over that stupid phobia. Nah it was probably the numbing pad.

Here's a picture of my toes. The photo doesn't really do it justice but the vice big toe is very red near the nail. 

 

You thought the post was done eh? Sorry to inform you but I still have more to say. After the visit (and countless jokes about how my feet are so soft and delicate at the hands of Junyoung and Roger), the guys accompanied me to buy some more warm socks. Ones that I can sleep in so my feet aren't freezing in the middle of night. Even though Junyoung had to go to his second job, and Roger barely knew me, both insisted they come along. And that's what I love about Koreans. Once they open up to you, they are extremely generous and friendly. They see to it that you are taken care of in their country and I am very grateful, not only for Junyoung and Roger, but for the numerous Koreans who have taken the time to help a waygook out.

So to conclude, I'm blaming my Mom. She must have jinxed me as a toddler when she grabbed my toe number toe and said "this little piggy goes to the doctor".....

Just kidding Mom. Love you.

Blograstinating Part 2

One of the beauties of Blogger is that it saves blog posts until you are ready to officially unveil them. Well for me, that's also one of the problems. I started a post, entitled 'Adjummania' a little after Halloween but never finished it. And then forgot about it. I will basically have written it at 2 different times but hopefully it reads seamlessly. We'll see. Anyways, I feel weird posting about Halloween in December so after this I'll post some T-giving photos and then a little taste of Xmas. Ok go...

Also want to give a little shout out to my friend Alex Kimball. Last night was his last night in Korea. A few of us got together at his favorite restaurant for some dwaeji galbi in Suwon, his hometown. It was the tastiest galbi I've had in Korea. He's leaving because he was offered a job with Kohl's Corporate in Milwaukee that he couldn't refuse. He will be missed in Korea. Here's a little photo from the Yang Yang Surfing Festival we went to. Kimball's on the far right. Have fun at the Rose Bowl brooo!

There's no season like Finals season

As I log consecutive hour #7 sitting at my desk for the day, I've check and rechecked my fantasy roster, texted Predick, done some serious damage on Hype Machine, chit-chatted with teachers about my new haircut (some think it's very handsome, some say it won't attract young Korean girls as much as the last haircut did......haven't yet decided if that's a good thing or not), successfully gchatted (all the cool kids are doing it) with my family, and then pretended to do more research on our Thailand-Malaysia-Vietnam vacation but then got distracted by this song. But now, it's bloggah time!

This is becoming a normal routine. I blograstinate, tell you guys, write down what's happened recently, and make empty promises of posting new videos. Well here's another installment:

Last week I had a demo lesson in front of the principal, the vice principal, and the whole English department. This job has definitely improved my public speaking skills tenfold, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tad bit nervous.

...got distracted again...

I was definitely trying harder than usual, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but the class went pretty well. They said that I am a very good teacher and apologized for students not bringing pens/pencils to class. A few days later the English department went to a restaurant to celebrate the successful lesson and appraisal from the bosses. We went to an American buffet (obviously) called Ashley's. It was pretty funny actually. First of all, the vice principal and principal turned down the offers because they "dislike American food," and most of the teachers that went didn't like American food either. They only went to be courteous. And for a free meal.

I was very curious as to what American food in Korea would constitute. I'm not expert, but it reminded me of a classier version of any of your standard American buffets. Just with a hint of Southern Dixie. It was actually kind of expensive too. Koreans must think American buffets are a classy endeavor. The best part was seeing all of my co-teachers awkwardly struggle with forks. They didn't really know how to hold them. At that moment, I got a little glimpse of what I must have looked like trying to use the über-slippery Korean chopsticks the first couple of weeks. This may be a simple example, but it's always fascinating putting yourself in foreign people's shoes.

After getting stuffed on sweet potatoes and cheesecake, most of the teachers decided to call it quits. Lee-Minchun, Helena, Paul, and I, however, hit the night in stride and headed to a place where you can always find Koreans 24/7 who don't mess around: the billiards hall.

Ahhh the Korean billiards halls, a thousand square feet of nineteen, mean, green, Koreean billiards tables complete with gambling, cigarette-laden, Korean caballeros. I used to think bowlers were the most intense "athletes" I'd seen in this country. That is, until I hit up the Korean pool table scene. And oh what a scene it is.

Paul and I ended up losing to Mr. Lee and Helena, but afterwards Paul and I decided that it wasn't because we were playing so poorly but because we didn't want to crush the confidence of Helena. Yeah. That's it. We  lost on purpose...

Aaaaanyways, this week's empty promise is hoping I can finish my videos of Lotte World and of the school festival. The same ones I thought I would have completed months ago. Probably won't happen tomorrow, but I'm shooting for next week. I feel like O'Hare during X-Mas with all these delays.

And speaking of flying, my Dad will be arriving in South Korea about 24 hours from now! I'm very excited to spend some quality time with family, albeit only a weekend. Whether he knows it yet or not, I am going to be taking him to the Santacon in Seoul on Saturday so check back for photos/details of that gem of a night. My school gave me the green light for taking tomorrow afternoon off so I can meet him at Incheon airport. Maybe I'll make a sign for him. It's every man's dream to have someone waiting for you at the airport holding a sign with your name it. Sorry I can't be a supermodel, Dad.

OKay! Well this post only took me forever to write. And if you haven't been sold on the hype machine links I've dispersed throughout this post, this is sure to melt your face off (for proof, see: Geoff Johnson's fb wall).

Thanksgiving??? Ohhhh....American Chuseok!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'd like to sappily and cliche....ly (mmm not a word, and i hate the word cliche, which is ironically a cliche word to rant about...) start this post by giving thanks to the things that make me happy (tis the season right?):

- first and foremost I'm thankful the Internet is working!
- my family, sans Bryce n Marit, are all together in Delavan right now, makes me happy and sad (obvi); I miss you guys and hope you eat my usual portion's worth for me; and if you play 'couch', maybe toss my name in the hat for good measures?
- I'm thankful I didn't have to teach the last class of today; kids got unruly and the teacher laid the hammer down (or is it the fist?) and made them sit in silence for like 30 minutes; I'll tell you who wasn't upset, this guy
- I'm thankful that my Pops does some business in China; without that Eastern connection he wouldn't be touching down in Seoul for the weekend of December 11th; I'm pumped Daddy-o!
- I'm thankful for all the great people I hang out with in Korea; you guys make the weeks fly by; before we know it we'll be digging our toes into Thai beaches, which brings me to my next point....
- I'm thankful my debit card works abroad; just purchased my one-way ticket to Malaysia; Julie, myself, and many other great UWers will be taking a 3-week vacation into SE Asia starting in Kuala Lumpur and working our way north into Vietnam and Thailand; it's gonna be sweet
- I'm thankful that the Badgers and Packers are having great seasons even though it's a little bitter sweet that I'm in a foreign country but now I may have just jinxed them but the fact that I'm acknowledging the potential jinx should nullify it (right?) but I'm still going to knock on wood as a precaution.......moving on
- I'm thankful for living in a great suburb south of Seoul, in a small-yet-nice apartment, in the same building as my wonderful girlfriend, teaching at a great school with well-(*cough*) behaved boys and very, very friendly co-workers
- I'm probably thankful for many, many more things but since I want to cover other stuff, we're gonna keep this turkey train rolling...

Since today is Thursday in Korea it's technically, you guessed it, Thanksgiving. But since everyone in the country where it's celebrated is out at the bars celebrating Blackout Wednesday (well not everyone; Mom and Dad I'm lookin in your direction), it didn't quite feel like Thanksgiving. That, and the fact that I was with only Koreans today eating kimchi and mandu, it really didn't feel like turkey day.

My only consolation was in teaching hundreds of kids of the course of the week about Thanksgiving. It was quite the paradox. Most of the kids knew what Thanksgiving was. Some, however, looked extremely puzzled until I mentioned that T-giving is the American Chuseok. What's Chuseok you may ask? Exactly. You wouldn't know what it was (unless you're Korean, living in Korea, or reading my blog and actually paying attention). It's Korean Thanksgiving. Fascinating right? No?! I've had too much coffee? You're probably right. Moving on...

This weekend a bunch of us are getting together for our own Thanksgiving celebration. We may be ovenless, and therefore for turkeyless (it's overrated anyways, nooooot) but we WILL have a surfeit of potato dishes, pumpkin pie, wine, board games, comas, and outdoor activities. It'll have to suffice.

Love you and miss you Mom, Dad, Bryce, Marit, Adam, Tonya, Sigrid, and the greater Hubertz and Vieth families. Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to take the turkey out of the oven or to put the computer on the table so that my digital self can hang out with y'all...

Playing with fire, North Korean-style

As I'm sure many of you have already heard,  our wonderful neighbors to the North attacked a small South Korean island yesterday afternoon. The North fired dozens of shells at the island of Yeonpyeong, killing two of the South's soldiers and further blossoming the bitter tensions on the Korean peninsula.

But rather than tell what you can read on any news site, I'll tell you what it's like to be living here right now. According to many major news outlets, there is a sense of panic and anxiety sweeping the peninsula. I just got to school a little bit ago and no one has showed the slightest bit of worry. No one has even bothered to mention it to me! (which is surprising because they think I'm very incapable at many things, and I'm sure "reading the news" is on their list).

This is all very new though and I'm sure there will be further updates. I will try to keep you posted on the local news and opinions. Who knows what will culminate from this caveat? The South Koreans that I encounter never seem to be very worried what their northern siblings are up to. They are known to be very optimistic on the matter, using words like "when" they will reunite and not "if." I personally am not too worried, but we'll see what happens from here.

For some really great photos from all of this check out The Big Picture on boston.com.

Pepero'd out on 11.11

Apparently, "Hallmark holidays" are not secluded to just The West.  In Korea, "Sweetest Day" is called Pepero Day (I originally thought it was Korean Valentine's Day but I later found out they celebrate that like the West does).  For those of you who don't know what Sweetest Day is, congratulations, it's a concocted holiday by confectionery companies in like October or something (I'm pretending not to know) where you unwillingly buy candy for your loved one.  Pepero Day on the other hand is the time of the year when you give chocolate-covered sticks to your significant other, friends, and family.  Being a classic shallow holiday, the more sticks you give someone the more you like them.  And if you don't get sticks, well, then you're not cool duh?!  Pepero Day is held on November 11th because, write this down Hallmark, 11/11 resembles 4 pepero sticks.  And with Korea being the land of monopolies the way they are, only a couple companies get to rake in the massive profits won off these delectable chocolate-covered goodies.  It's rather ingenious, really.  Can you imagine Seven Eleven having "Seven Eleven Day" on July 11th?  Everyone has to go out and buy slurpees for those closest to them.  Stupid right?!  (Note to self: e-mail Seven Eleven)

My Pepero Day wasn't too crazy.  Other than the fact it was at an all boy's school.  I've seen a fair share of man love in this country already, e.g. Korean men embracing each other after the bars, receiving free beers from seemingly straight guys while our female friends play second fiddle, etc., and Pepero Day didn't disappoint.  Boys were giving more piggy back rides than usual, kissing each other on the cheek [more than usual], and brown-nosing the crap out of teachers (that sounds wrong) in the form of, you guessed it, pepero. Luckily I came to school prepared and gave peperos to all of my favorite co-workers (when in Rome) and received, other than giggles and blushed faces, peperos in return. By the end of the day, I had stockpiled enough chocolate-covered sticks to start my own edible dessert chopstick company (note to self: google 'edible dessert chopstick company start up').  I knew I took many teachers off guard because the following day, the teachers who didn't pepero me brought stuff to share with me.  I received a vitamin C drink, a ginseng energy drink, 3 tangerines, a donut, and a homemade rice cake (note to self: bring gifts to teachers more often).  All in all, it was a great first Pepero Day experience.  I still have some left over though.  Any ideas what I can do with them?

Blograstinating

Where has the time gone? Not only did I call in sick yesterday, it seems my blog has been calling in for almost a month too. Where has the time gone? Anyways, by the end of this week I hope to add 30 new posts! Ok lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Hopefully I can add Halloween, Pepero Day, and the Yang Yang Surfing Festival by the end of this week. When it rains it pours. And I'm still behind on my School Festival and Lotte World posts. Someday, blog, you will get my full attention. Someday. If you thought this was going to be an actual post and not me blaming my blograstinating lifestyle, your bad. For now I leave you with a taste of Halloween. They were taken by the official Silent Disco website.

For more check out silentdisco.co.kr

Lottes of fun at LW!

The 2nd installment of today's "Friday Reflection."

Yesterday I got to join my school's field trip to the popular Korean amusement park Lotte World. I was pretty excited to keep the "not teaching" theme going this week and blow off some steam in Seoul for the day. And that was exactly the extent of my expectations. I had heard it was kinda janky so my hopes certainly were not Snoop Dogg-high.

I came to school early on Thurs morning to catch a ride with the Mr. Lee (The IT guy I play ping-pong with regularly! I finally learned his name!), Junyoung, and Junhyuk. We took off from Young Sung Middle at 8:30am and headed to Lotte World. After watching Mr. Lee's favorite Korean TV show on his GPS (yes you read that correctly), singing along to some k-pop over the dinging drone of the "wear-your-seatbelt" alert (Mr. Lee hates wearing seatbelts apparently...), running red lights and swerving in-and-out of traffic, we got to Lotte World at 9am.

The initial feel of the place was of a giant mall more so than an amusement park. We walked in and saw the hordes of Young Sung kids. Homeroom teachers were taking attendance, and the students were sitting and waiting for the gates to open. It was really interesting to see my students wearing normal street clothes rather than the uniformed middle school garb. In general, they were all dressed very nicely. Many looked appropriately dressed for a night out at the clubs. Lots of puffy vests, expensive looking dress shirts, and fancy sneakers.

The park itself was a cross between Six Flags, Mall of America, and Disneyworld. Half was indoors and half was outdoors. The elaborate shopping and enormous dome over our heads felt like MoA. The thrill-ride laden outer portion felt like Six Flags. And as much as I hate to say it (...Sigrid...), it kind of had the Disney "it" factor. Whether it was the identical park maps to Disney, the "Cinderella castle", or the Mickey and Minney wannabes, it kind of, KIND OF (Sigrid) felt like a smaller, cheaper version of WDW. It didn't have the same resort scene that WDW has going on, and there's only 1 park, but it was fun nonetheless.

For lunch, the teachers ate at a fancy-ish Korean restaurant that was perfectly outfitted for large groups. My 2 new fave Korean foods are now bossam, or grilled pork belly, and pajeon, a green onion and seafood pancake-like pizza. Oh and, like always, there was a healthy dose of booze on the table waiting for us. Yesterday's poison? Makgeoli, a rice wine that doesn't not taste like medicine. A little weird, but it's growing on me.

The rest of the day I spent walking around with Mr. Lee, Junyoung (a coworker my age), and Junhyuk (a Young Sung 1st grader - our 5/6th grade). We hit many of the rides with little to no wait and fraternized with the kids. Mr. Lee told me summer weekends typically see a 3-4 hour wait per main attraction. Loco. As for the kids, one thing to note was the teacher-student dynamic outside of school. Kids see their teachers as more than just an authoritative figure. They are role models too. They have parental characteristics in the classroom and almost become an older sibling outside the classroom. Hierarchy is also huge here. For example, Mr. Lee and I would cut almost every line simply by finding a willing and honored student. Part of me felt guilty but it seemed very normal for everyone else. He would grab kids' water/food, take a swig/bite, and then offer it to me. And sometimes they would gladly offer food. Mr. Lee even gave some kids money to spend on arcades and ice cream. Overall, a very interesting and notable relationship between teacher and student.

I'm probably missing some details but I just want to finish this post. I'll let the video do the rest of the talking. More on the videos though. I probably have a few hours of raw video to edit yet, and I'm going to make them in order. So, it's gonna be Gangnam video first. School festival second. And Lotte World third. Hopefully it doesn't take me TOO long.

In other news, I JUST bought myself a Nikon D3100 off the Korean version of Amazon (thanks Junyoung). So expect pictures I actually took. So. Damn. Excited.

School Festival - Soccer, Sundae, and Lady Gaga

Today is Friday so it's time to reflect on the week that was. It's weeks like these, by the way, that make me stop and realize just how nice we have it here. The only days I taught this week were Monday and Tuesday, which isn't too shabby.

Flash digression! - days taught the last 5 weeks or so.

-This week (Oct 18-22) - taught 2 days
-Last week (Oct 11-15) - taught 4 days, Friday's classes got cancelled day of
-Midterms (Oct 4-8) - taught Monday, desk-warmed rest of week
-Orientation (Sept 27-Oct 1) - taught Mon and Tues, went to GEPIK Orientation in Anseong rest of week(soooo much to talk about that lil gem of an event ie the other "interesting" English teachers in Korea)
-Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving (Sept 20-24) - desk-warmed on Monday, went to Busan rest of week, see 'Busan videos'
-For those keeping score, I haven't taught a Friday class since mid-September. Which is sweet because Fri is my worst day of classes. 5 total. Mostly middle school 3rd graders (8th graders in USA). Mostly painful.

Ok! Back to the mission at hand. All week, the kids and teachers alike have been preparing for Wednesday's school festival. Hours of after-school sweaty dance rehearsals. Endless practice free kicks. Band practice. The whole 9 yards. The brisk Wednesday morning started with a trip down from the teacher lounge to the soccer field. The entire student population was on the field doing warmup-stretches in unison not unlike something you see Communist armies doing. On the sidelines, in the meanwhile, a group of mothers was setting up a Korean concession stand with all the usual suspects: dokbokki (my go-to), udon soup, instant coffee, cold seafood corndogs (ironically called "hot bars"), cow/pork? liver, and my new fave, sundae! (pronounced soon-day) which is a pig intestine casing stuffed with cellophane noodles and congealed pork blood. Sounds gross I'll admit, but once you realize you're eating noodles and some mystery organ, it's pretty tasty. It was a sight to see to say the least. Lucky for me I brought an appetite and my [Mom's] Flip cam (vids coming!!!).

The rest of the morning entailed all of the kids on the sidelines and in the stands watching the soccer tournament pan out. Teams were based on homerooms and as to be expected, no matter where in the world you are, the boys went nuts for it.

After jamming on sundae and cheering for some kids I recognized, I ate lunch and headed upstairs to the gym to watch the performances-aspect of the school festival. I walked in to a hot, stuffy gym packed with enough middle school boys to make Michael Ja......mm nevermind. Apparently the MC for the event (oh yes there was a hired MC) was some popular TV personality and the kids went crazy for him. Didn't catch a name. Remember the Lady Gaga kid from last post? No? You didn't read last post? Mmkay well forget you then. I got there just in time to see him and his 2 cohorts breaking it down to "Telephone" while wearing head-to-toe animal costumes. You gotta see it to believe it (remember vids coming soon). Also, a local high-school-girls dance team made a special guest appearance and broke it down to a few k-pop jams including Miss A's "Bad Girl, Good Girl". From what I've heard from other English teachers, it's the go-to song for these school festival dance performances. If you haven't heard it, I recommend it. Kinda catchy. Yeah I said it. You'll also most likely hear it on the school festival vid I make. The best of there dance was seeing the boys at an all-boys middle school go absolutely bananas over these high school girls. It's similar to what would happen if David Hasselhoff walked into a German Mary Kay party. Boys were freaking out at the sight of 5 girls with not-so-conservative dance moves. So funny. The rest of the afternoon was filled with other dance teams and wannabe boy bands.

Overall, the day was too much fun to put into words. I'm really excited to get this video online. Ccub.

When I say 'ping' you say 'pong'....'ping'....'ping'

I'm gonna try something new here and give you a quick update on my life. Today is Friday and I just got done with "work." I say "work" because I got paid to sit around all day. There were graduation photos and a guest speaker so 4 out of my 5 classes got canceled. Yet somehow I didn't have time to blog. Thanks facebook / gchat / blackoutkorea.blogspot.com. But here I am finally getting around to it in the wee hours before a bunch of Badgers arrive in Seongnam. Yesterday was the birthday of one of my friends Zoe and tonight we're heading to Gangnam to celebrate. Julie and I are housing a bunch of our friends tonight so it should be fun playing host. Street meat isn't going to eat itself after all!

So anyways I've had quite the week and need to share it before I forget it all. This week I started teaching my after-school English program called "Sports English." I play sports with kids, teach them some English, and get paid extra. It's a pretty sweet gig. On Monday we played basketball. I showed them some Michael Jordan clips, taught them some b-ball vocab, and headed to the gym to play some 3-on-3. Besides a loose ball almost hitting some adults practicing group drumming and ruining the party for everyone, it was lots of fun.And on Wednesday we played ping pong. I set up a little round robin with the kids and went undefeated (no big deal). During one of the games an older female teacher grabbed the paddle from one of the boys and, very intensely, ordered me to serve. She wanted to brawl! Ping pong-style. Even though I had a commanding lead, I let the game slip out of my hands. There will be revenge lady, there will be revenge.

The other highlights of the week include:

-speaking of ping pong, today after I lunch I played ping pong with the IT guy (lost), the school disciplinarian (barely lost, still bitter), and the school's #1 ranked player (won!). And yes, the students have ping pong rankings at Young Sung.

-being asked to join and resign from the teacher dance team for next week's school festival. Better luck next year I guess...

-a kid asking me what I think of Lady Gaga to which I replied "ohhh very sexy!" (for the record I do not think LG is that attractive). During Wed.'s edition of "Sports English" I witnessed him and 2 friends performing a rendition of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" complete with song AND dance. They are also gearing up for next week's school festival, which will definitely be videotaped.

-inadvertently joining the young(ish) dude teacher lunch table clique. It's the Art teacher, who serenaded an ABBA song to me right before lunch today (I can't make this up people!), the IT guy, who I regularly play ping pong with (and who gave me a paddle today), and the gym teacher, who asked me to help transcribe an "orgasmic birth" youtube video a few weeks back (I think he thought it was appropriate for sex ed. It wasn't.) rocking a table all by ourselves every day. No girls allowed!

-was told  that next week's schedule includes the school festival on Wednesday, Lotte World field trip on Thursday (soooo excited), and the school anniversary on Friday (which means no school). So next week I will only be teaching Monday and Tuesday. I honestly don't think I've taught the Friday kids for at least a month. Not complaining though.

Okay well I think that was a pretty accurate rundown of the week. I'll get back to y'all as soon as I can. I still have lots to say, so stay tuned. Good news, I'll be purchasing a Nikon D3100 with my hard-earned dollars in the next couple of days so I'll finally be posting photos that I actually took. And HD video. Sooooo pumped. And I'm pumped to head into the Seoul's "Beverly Hills" to club with a bunch of Badgers tonight. AND I'm also super pumped for the Ohio State - Badger game this weekend, which we will be watching on Sunday morning at a foreigner bar! My first Badger game of the year! Let's Go Red.

Oh and here's a little preview of what I think my halloween costume will be looking like...

Nanta at the Hi Seoul Festival

Last Monday night, Julie and I didn't feel like twiddling our thumbs at home all night, so we headed into Seoul to catch a little bit of what the Hi Seoul Festival had to offer. The selling point for us was  we heard there was a free showing of the popular Nanta happening that night. For those keeping score at home, Nanta is Korea's most famous theater show. It is basically a kitchen-flavored love child of Stomp and Blue Man Group. The premise of the hour-long show is three cooks, a nasty restaurant manager, and an apprentice trying to make a meal for a wedding or something. The non-verbal show is high-octane fun for all ages and loaded with percussion, rhythm, dance, and comedy. Whoa I sound like an advertisement. Considering the tickets usually go for like $40 or something, we couldn't pass up the chance to see it while saving some serious won (we work at public schools ok?! not those cushy, high-paying hagwon jobs. no, im not bitter about the pay difference, why do you ask?! no, really!!).

Phew where was I? Ah yes that's right. So the word 'Nanta' literally translates to "hit repeatedly" or "strike relentlessly" (thank you Internet) and that pretty much sums up the theme of the show. Nonstop entertainment, my kind of jam. The venue was pretty small so there wasn't really a bad seat in the house. It was essentially an over-sized pavilion that held a few hundred people. The show itself included dramatic drum segments with knives and drumsticks alike, lots of audience participation, and cool light shows. Mom and Dad, when you guys come visit (I said when not if) we should probably check this out. That goes for you too Bryce, Marit, Adam, Tonya (yes you Tonya!) and Seegz. Here are some pics I definitely didn't take:

And since I'm still riding this whole making videos thing, I decided to compile all the clips I illegally took (they said no video, whoops) into a short and quickly-edited video.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYTcoQJTwEc

The 2:00 mark is the start of the encore. It gets a little dark and difficult to see, but what's happening is a traditional Korean dance where a long ribbon is attached to the top of hat. The dancers twirls their heads and, correspondingly, so too does the ribbon. Nanta's version included black lights. Ok enjoy!

Gettin' our Busan

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately, but I have been using every ounce of my free time making lesson plans (nah not really) and editing the raw videos from Busan. I didn't want to post about the stuff that's happened post-Busan until I got these vids up-n-running. I had to split them up into 2 separate entities because, I don't know about you, but a 9 minute video would bore me to death. And I'm still a little raw when it comes to editing (and after eating 2 helpings of dukbokki but more on that later). I probably could've made some of these shots a bit more concise but whatevs. Alright! So without any further adieuuu, I present to youuu, Busan! (You have to click the Youtube link. I know I know, kinda anti-climactic)

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeuLgBEOpQg

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8H1XETM2JY

Seoul Design Fair 2010

Julie and I went to the SDF10 (I feel cool abbreviating) at the Olympic Stadium last Saturday and had a blast. Since I still don't have an actual camera, my options are stealing Julie's pics or using my Mom's Flip camera. I opted for the latter this time. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMjVbAoSUls

Korean Healthcare?.....Niiice!

Since last Friday, I have been feeling a little under the weather. After coughing up a storm (or typhoon if you will) and failing to fix my leaky nose, my pseudo co-teacher Paul took me the hospital yesterday. It was rather funny, really, to see the look on his face when I told him I was coughing and blowing my nose all weekend. He was shocked that I didn’t get any meds and that I survived to tell the story. I mean c’mon, it was just a cold for cryin’ out loud (thanks Mom for my tough skin ;). Nevertheless, Paul was taking me to the hospital and I didn’t resist. 

We left school yesterday at about 1pm since the kids weren’t there.  They have all week off for Chuseok, or the Korean version of Thanksgiving. I had to come to school to “desk warm” as they say.  After opening my bank account with KEB, (Citibank sucks here, but’s a whole ‘nother story) we headed to the local clinic. And lemme tell ya, it was quite the enjoyable experience.

At the clinic, the nurse handed us a little form to fill out with the usual name, address, symptoms, etc. However, it was just a LITTLE form. Not the time-consuming 3 pages of inane questions that you have to fill out in the States. The nurse called my name (Queen Hoobutzuh) within 2 minutes of turning in the form and I IMMEDIATELY saw the doctor. Immediately. Not the 2-hour-wait-that-seems-to-never-end-because-you’re-reading –trashy-outdated-celebrity-magazines that so commonly occurs in the States. Ok. Moving on. The nurse brought me DIRECTLY to the doctor’s office where the English-speaking doctor asked me what ailed me. He sent me on my way with a prescription after about 60 seconds. All said and done, it took about 5 minutes. Wham bam thank you ma’am. Paul and I headed to the pharmacy right next-door, grabbed my meds, and c’est la vie. And the best part? Everything together cost me about 5USD (that’s US Dollars for those keeping score).  5 bucks?! Unreal. And the pills they gave me look fit for a severely sick horse. There’s about 7 pills per dose, and I’m supposed to take 3 doses PER DAY. That’s 21 pills per day. Here’s the evidence…

With that many pills, I felt like Lindsay Lohan!

 I have taken 3 doses so far. My runny nose hit a hurdle. My cough is out the window. And my headache is as gone as Clay Aiken's career. Korean drugs? Success!

To conclude with some political commentary (hooray, right?...), the Korean healthcare system seems to be working. The fact that I was in and out within 10 minutes, and that it only cost me $5 for everything, tells me that the US healthcare needs help. After reading this, my Mom is gonna ask me why I hate the US and the answer is I don’t. I love the USA more than anything. I just wish people would stop saying that US healthcare shouldn’t be changed. Ok that’s it for the banter. Sorry if it was too heavy. On a lighter side, I’m heading to Busan for fun in the sun tomorrow! That’s all for now, I’m out!

Soccer in Seongnam: BYOB, chopsticks, and vuvuzelas

Well tonight sure has been one for the record books.

Within the last week or so, I have been mentioning to people how badly I want to go to a soccer game. We recently found out that there is a soccer stadium just a few blocks away from the apartment, so we had no excuses not to go!

Julie, Eric, and I decided to hit up a Korean Champion’s League Quarterfinal game between Seongnam (us) and Suwon (them). We bought the most “expensive” ticket for about $10 (because we can), grabbed a couple of vuvuzelas, and aimlessly wandered into the stadium. Our tickets were entirely in Korean and didn’t have any numbers on them. We really didn’t know where we were going. We assumed a ticket guy would direct us in the general direction but no such thing existed. Lucky for us, I apparently look like one of the two Caucasian players on the home team. Cuz ya know, all white people look alike blah blah blah. 

Anyways, the guy looked star struck and offered to have us sit with him and his cohorts. Only problem was that it was on the $8 side of the stadium. We bought $10 tickets. We had suddenly become Korean stadium snobs. We decided to check our superior, lavish egos at the door and grace the general masses with our humble presence. That and we were afraid we would break the guy’s heart if we said ‘no’. After settling on seats, we got cold feet and pretended that we were gonna go look for beers but come back (we weren’t gonna come back). As we walked away, the guy seemed to panic and held up 3 beers that were apparently for us. He clearly didn’t want us to leave his company. We decided that we couldn’t pass up free beers and returned to the section saturated with Seongnam fans and our new best friend (according to him). After a few faux convos with this guy (of the we-speak-in-English-he-speaks-in-Korean variety), we apparently were hittin’ it off. Before we knew it people from all around us were sharing stuff with us. (sidenote: this stadium seemed to be BYOFAD, bring your own food and drink; I know, pretty sweet) After receiving 2 cans of Cass Beer each, we were showered in dokk (Korean rice cake), fried peppers (and chopsticks to eat them with of course), Korean Doritos, glorified Chips Ahoy cookies, fried walnut/rice balls filled with a sweet paste, and an emptied-out soda bottle full of more beer. It was as if the Concert On The Square in Madison and the ’88 Seoul Olympics had a love child. It was outlandish to say the least. At one point during the game I asked our drunken friend, who claimed to be the “leader” of the Seongnam fans, if I could beat his drums. He agreed and I followed the one other drummer’s lead and we banged out Seongnam battle cries for a few minutes. It was quite the experience.  Towards the end of the game, the guy aggressively muttered a few drunken Korean words to Eric and I. One of our seat neighbors translated and told us that the guy wanted to take us out for drinks and food after the game. I’m sure it would’ve been a blast, but it’s a school night and this guy seemed a little too into us. Maybe next time Korean guy! Seongnam ended up winning 4-1 and at the end, all the fans in our section were singing “nah nah nah nah, hey hey, goodbye” Twas fantastic. All in all, a very memorable evening with some great people. And who knows maybe we didn’t have to look like a soccer player, maybe Koreans are just that hospitable to friends and foreigners alike. 

The infamous dude is on the far left, he would periodically throw on his jersey over his straight-from-work dress shirt

Weekend in Seoul

Last weekend, most of the fresh Wisco English teachers in SK headed to the Hongdae district in Seoul to blow off steam from the first week of school. We were a little burned out from the first week of giving the same presentation over and over again. Goes a little something like this: 
Me: "Good morning class!"
Students: "Gerd moaninguh classuh?"
Me: "Welcome to English class! My name is Mr. Quinn and I'll be your teacher for the semester. Any questions?"
Students: Gurfriend! Do have gurfriend?!
The first week was particularly exhausting because we had to give this same shpeal about ourselves over, and over, and over... It will get better once the actual "teaching" begins. But alright alright enough talking about school. This post is supposed to be about Seoul, not school. So as you can see, I (and the rest of us) was in some serious need of R&R in the form of fraternizing with fellow English speakers.

Julie and I left Seongnam on Fri around 7 and got to our hostel, Mr. Kim's Guesthouse, after a good hour or so on the Seoul Metro. We grabbed a little bottle of soju for a $1.50 from the local Buy The Way and met up with our fellow UW amigos. We sat around the hostel for a while sipping soju and swapping silly stories. It was very relieving/comforting knowing that other people had many of the same confusing/frustrating/strange moments (like not having a bed for a few weeks) that I've experienced. It's funny how little we actually knew going into this program. Anyway, we left our hostel around 11 and headed to the Hongdae main drag where all the restaurants, food vendors, bars, and other 20 or so UW people were at. We met up with the whole group and headed to a 'Ho Bar'. No, it's not a place where Hongdae floozies hang out (actually not entirely sure about that), but the general term for a bar where you can grab cheap drinks before hitting the nightlife. It was nice actually being able to drink and socialize with other UW kids since we are scattered all over the Gyeonggi province. Other than Julie (score), I don't see any other UW kids during the week.
In brief the 1st night included:
-eating "chicken" on a stick for dinner and tipping 40 cents only to receive utmost gratitude and shock, and a free kebob later in the evening
-playing "how hard can you punch?" and "how hard can you kick?" arcade games on the street for a good 30 mins with other UW dudes. I let some drunk Korean have a go on my dime, which cost me less than 10 cents, and he was so thankful he wanted to buy me a drink somehwere. My creep detector went off and I politely declined.
-watching a young American soldier play tonsil hockey with a Korean girl for 3 periods. The game seemed to go into overtime...
-new buddy Eric unsuccessfully trying to get past the VIP-section bouncer at a so-so hip-hop club. The bouncer wasn't taking any of our "American charm"-bait....or speaking to/looking at us

The next day we walked around and checked out some sites surrounding the area. Hongdae is home to Hongik University. They must have a decent Art School there because there lots of hip shops, cafes, artwork on the street, and art galleries. We all happened to stumble upon some book event in one of the art galleries and they were giving away free food and beers. Free beers! On a random floor in an art museum! We didn't belong...

Olivia and I shamelessly drinking free beer in an upscale art gallery

We ended up just walking around the rest of the day and really enjoyed our day in Seoul. 

 Weird street performers. I felt like we were in the movie Pan's Labrynth.



That night, we...

...went to a bar/club named Oi that totally could have been described by Bill Hader's character, club kid Stefon, on SNL. I will read you a description a la Lonely Planet: "...imagine an all-white Hobbit-land interior of caves, platforms, ponds, and small bridges: that's the dreamy atmosphere of this quirky club-cafe where you can chill out over a hookah pipe and cocktails. And over the summer they host crazy water-pistol parties." Soooo we couldn't NOT go there. Also when we went it must have been vampire night because all the waiters and bartenders were dressed supercreepy. It was awesome!

...hit up a 24-hour noraebang called Luxury. The name didn't disappoint. For those of you who don't know, I am currently a huge fan of the noraebang. It's a private karaoke room that you rent out. It's like having Karaoke Kid (bar in Madison) all to yourself! Who wouldn't love that?! They also were giving out free ice cream (to cool your singing voice?). Here's a pic from the outside....

 

...went to a taco street vendor owned by a couple of dudes from Austin, TX. They teach outside of Seoul like we do, but head into the city on the weekends to sell pretty good carnitas tacos to drunk kids. Supply meets demand: capitalism tastes good.

And that was basically our first weekend in Seoul! I probably forgot some other funny things that happened but I should finish this post cuz it's getting pretty loooong. Chau for now!

"Stayin' Alive" at staff dinner turned drunken karaoke

Like I said in the last post, my first day of teaching was also my principal's first day on the job. It is customary in Korea to go out to a restaurant for a big dinner to celebrate/welcome the new principal. The guests (school staff in this case) bring gifts to cordially welcome him/her to the school. Paul, Ms. Lee, and I arrived a little late because they were helping me move into my new apartment. We had rented our own private room at the kind of place where you take off your shoes and everyone sits cross-legged on cushions at a long, low table. I brought a bag of Ghirardelli chocolates for the new principal, Ms. Kim, and gave it to her upon entering the room. She replied by handing me a shot glass, filling it to the brim with soju, and telling me to "dlink!" Then it was the vice principal's turn. He handed me his shot glass. Sloppily filled it with soju, a Korean rice alcohol similar to vodka, and ordered me to take it. He did this two more times and even graced me with a chicken leg chaser! After I downed the last force-fed shot of soju, I walked (stumbled)  back to my cushion feeling nice and warm inside. The waitresses brought an endless supply of little plates filled with this and that. I could try and impress you by dropping a bunch of pretentious, hard-to-pronounce names of Korean dishes, but I flat out don't really know what I was eating. The fried noodles were fantastic. The seaweed soup was salty. And I couldn't resist the cold jellyfish salad. All in all, pretty delicious. My coworkers, who I perceived to be a mostly professional, shy, and respectable group, were lettin' loose. I'm talkin' your average freshman-year dorm party: starts with awkward shyness and ends with debauchery. About 30 minutes and half a dozen soju shots in to dinner, the room full of mostly middle age teachers was getting rowdy enough that you could tell there's something coming next. That's where the noraebang (no-ree-bong) comes in!

Much to the dismay of my co-teacher (she thought the other teachers would get me too drunk and I would miss work the next day), we headed to a noraebang. For those keeping score at home, a noraebang is a private karaoke room. I don't know if this is standard for all noraebangs, but ours from last night could fit about 15-20 people on 3 couches positioned against 3 walls. The remaining wall was covered in a giant flat screen TV. This was clearly the Cadillac of karaoke. When I walked in to the full room, I received a drunken, mini applause and noticed the table was full with beer, soju, soda, snacks, etc. If noraebangs had a tag line, it would be noraebang: check your dignity at the door. That's exactly what the teachers of Young Sung Middle School that night. Remember the hard-knock discipline guy from the assembly? He was stumbling around, singing songs he had no business attempting, and shakin' his tailfeather like a polaroid picture. The science teacher could hardly stand and was sloppily speaking right in my ear that he was honored to have me at Young Sung. As for me? Let's just say I thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of the principal, vice principal, and many colleages by singing "Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees, "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond (which got prematurely axed by someone), "I Got A Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas, and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2 (also got ended early). Feeling nice and toasty, we all left around 8:30pm. I guess since everyone works early in the morning, we have to start the night early.

The best part of that night was seeing everyone in the morning. No one mentioned anything about the previous rambunctious night. The sloppy science teacher? He gave me a sharp head nod in the morning and moved on. The hard discipline guy that was having the time of his life? He was looking as mean as ever. My wonderful girlfriend Julie described it best, it's either all work or all play. Day never mixes with night. It's something I'll have to get used to I suppose.

Kids, Kimchi, and Korean Kastigation: 1st day teaching

I had my actual first day of school yesterday. The day started with a big welcoming assembly for the new principal and 5 new teachers. Me being one of them. All the kids were standing, lined up in perfect rows facing the stage. The new principal was introduced right after a few bouts of what I assume was the national and school anthems. After she spoke for a few minutes, the school discipline guy came to the podium. Imagine a strict father scolding his 600 children after finding out they took out his Lamborghini (or, keeping the Korean theme going, a really expensive Kia Sportage (oxymoron)) and totaled it. It was a sight to see lemme tell ya. I asked one of my co-teachers, Paul, what he was saying. Apparently the school was sick of spending so much money on toilet paper and the kids were making TP bombs. The man-with-a-lit-match-up-his-ass wasn't having any bit of these shenanigans. Also he told the kids smoking was bad. The fact that this guy is the face of anti-smoking is probably the reason why so many Koreans smoke. Fail.

After the angry rant, all of the new teachers, including me, came up on stage. I was a little nervous-excited because I was told I would have to say a few words to the kids. I had been scheming up a half-Korean, half-English bit that would shock and awe. Unfortunately only one teacher got to speak. I got to save the embarrassment for another day. The did, however, go down the line of teachers and introduce them with names only. Each teacher got a cordial clap from the masses until it was my turn. Apparently Korean boys are enamored with blonde American dudes because the whole gym was hootin-n-hollarin. After that moment it hit me. I am really far from home.

My first class started a little rough: 40 kids and a teaching virgin. There was supposed to be a Korean English teacher there guiding the way, but she was in a meeting. Perfect. Classes last 45 minutes and for this week I'm just supposed to do introductions. So I made a little powerpoint about myself. One of the slides is a picture of Julie and I at graduation. I wanted to show them pictures from the UW. The second the photo hits the screen all you can hear is "Ohhhhhh! Gurfriend! She is gurfriend?? Ohhh! Girlfriend! (This whole "girlfriend" thing went down like clockwork for every class and continues to happen to this day. Korean kids love the idea of girlfriends I guess)15 minutes later, I had exercised my plan for the day. Go figure a "powerpoint about myself" runs a little short. Story of my life I guess. Anyways, we played impromptu hangman and everything ended up working out. Phew!

Other highlights of the day:
-Every single class has at least 10 kids that come up before and after class and say "You. Vely handsome." Things to note: Korean dudes have unabashed affection for other dudes; "handsome" is defintely an English word taught in schools; Korean kids are suckups (I'm sure not all of these are true, just for the record ;)
-During lunch, a girl from the English department told me it's a scientific fact that learning how to use chopsticks "makes brain smartuh"
 -Holy crap I'm in Korea!

"Romeo's" 1st day at Young Seong MIddle

Monday the 30th was my first unofficial day at Young Seong Boys Middle. Paul picked me up at my apartment, I grabbed the small gifts I brought for the VP and co-teacher Ms. Lee, and off we went. We took the bus to school and I bombarded him with questions about what the school was like and what I should say to my co-workers upon meeting them. Apart from the basics, anyong haseyo (hello how are you), kamsa hamnida (thank you), and je ireum-eun Quinn imnida (my name is Quinn), Paul taught me a few phrases to help impress my future co-workers. I dropped bangap seumnida (nice to meet you) after, well, meeting people of course. It was amazing how high my stock flew after muttering a few poorly pronounced Korean words throughout the day!

Anyways, my day at the school started by meeting the Vice Principal. Korean schools place a lot of importance on internal hierarchy. The principal was absent so the VP was The Man at school. I gave him the fancy UW shot glass that I brought from home (lay off, I heard it was a good gift to bring) and got off on a good foot with the bossman. He spoke little to no English but managed to mutter with grin, "You...are...uhh...Romeo." We both laughed, me being confused and uncomfortable. "Do...you...uhhh...know why?" I looked at him with an awkward smile and blank eyes and shook my head no. "You...are...uhh...Romeo...because you have....uhh....Juliet! You are....loverman!" He then broke out laughing and I realized he somehow knew that I came to Korea with Julie. Throughout the day my co-workers would introduce themselves, welcome me, shake my hand, and ask me about Julie. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Shaking hands was supposed to be  taboo in the professional work environment, and we supposedly weren't allowed to ask co-workers about their social lives. Well, everyone shook my hand and everyone knew about Julie! Paul showed me around the school and periodically we ran into students. He would make them bow to me and say good morning/afternoon to their dismay. This process was rather comical. As we walked by classrooms, heads turned as the students laid eyes on their new English teacher. I felt like a gazelle walking by lion's den.

The room I'll be teaching in is super nice. It has a huge smart board, air conditioning, and each one of the 8 tables where students sit at has a built-in TV that comes out of the table at the push of a button. Crazy! The English room, oddly, is by far the nicest/biggest room in the building. And it's all mine! Kinda seems too good to be true actually...

Anyways, I had lunch with some of my coworkers and everyone was very nice. Kimchi, kimchi, and more kimchi! After lunch, the VP told Paul that he had a little somethin up his sleeve for me. He wanted Paul to ask me to conduct some sort of after-school English program. It would meet 2 days a week for an hour and a half after school, and I have complete freedom as what it would be. Paul was a little skeptical of my desire to work extra hours and to produce a lesson plan since I have never taught English before. After a long convo with Paul, I decided to do it! It's going to be called Sports English and I'm gonna play soccer, basketball, badminton, and, surprise surprise, table tennis with about 10-20 kids 2 days a week after school, somehow incorporating a little English here and there. They are gonna pay me an extra $100/week for an extra 3 hours of "work". Can you say cha ching!

Other highlights of the day include:
-our sweaty school techie calling me very handsome
-having only one "Western-style" toilet in school
-finding out a past English teacher was fired for downloading porn (insert joke here)
-multiple teachers brushing their teeth throughout the day in the staff lounge


That's all for now! First day of school starts tomorrow morning so I'm sure there will be funny stories to report.

Shop til you drop in Bundang

Day 3 included a little more exploring of our city. We headed to AK Plaza (formerly known as Samsung Plaza) to do a little shopping. We had no idea what to expect. It was a mega supermall full of all the usual suspects when it comes fancy European designers. And they were actually busy. The Louis Vuitton store had a line out the door with a bouncer. Louis Vuitton! A bouncer! Apparently Jules and I are easily excitable because no one else seemed half as astonished as us. After trespassing on the 20th floor of an unfinished apartment building to check out the sweet city panoramic view, singing "Hey Ya" in a private karaoke booth, and catching stares no matter where we went, we decided to call it a day by seeing Avatar 3D in the theater across the street from us. The Navi's language was subtitled in Korean. Lucky for me I had already seen Avatar. Not so lucky for Julie. The jet lag permitted me to sleep for 30 minutes or so. Good thing Avatar is 15 hours long...

Day 2 - Blood Test! and Seoul with new UW friends

Alright I'll try and keep the rest of these posts on the short side. One thing I forgot to expand on was my temporary apartment. As we walked in to the keyless apartment (you open it with a numeric password, pretty tight since I've lost keys before), Paul says "Oh yeah by the way, you don't have any furniture." Excellent. There is no bed, no desk, no toilet paper. Nothing. After pondering for a while, he tells me he'll get me a pillow and some blankets. "No problem!" he jokingly says, "I'm sure you did this all the time in South America right?" Lucky for me, Julie's apartment is on the floor below mine. My apartment is actually really nice, huge separate bedroom, fancy toilet with lotsa buttons, many windows, big kitchen. Onry probrem is that there's no furniture. I'm getting moved to my new apartment tomorrow (Wednesday) but it's gonna be way smaller. Boo. But it's gonna have furniture! Booyakasha!

So Day 2 started with our required medical check-up complete with blood test. Blood test! Balls. If anyone knows me (5 people including parents),  I hate giving blood. Call me what you will. After psyching myself about it for an hour, push came to shove. I asked the blood dude if he had any of those numbing pads  I've been hearing about. He laughed and tied the rubber band around my arm. Couldn't tell if he laughed because he didn't speak any English or if he was laughing at the pale, sweaty American wuss sitting at his chair. Either way he found it amusing. I survived to tell the story so I guess it wasn't too bad.

Julie and I spent the rest of the day walking around Seoul with her co-teacher Ms. Yoo, Ms. Yoo's friend Minyoung, and Minyung's new American friend Chip. Minyoung went to grad school at the UW and Chip was actually an Econ professor at, you guessed it, UW-Madison! He is now teaching Econ at a university in Seoul. We had a great time walking around with them. We walked around the Gyeongbok Palace and had chicken bolgogi for lunch. Oh and Julie got called a Carifornia Girl on the street in broken English. It was a wonderful-yet-rainy day!

하루 1

Groggy, grumpy, and gross, I finally landed the 13-hour flight from O'Hare to Incheon. The flight included all the standard amenities: on-call cocktail waitressing, personal TVs, digital shopping, and cookie cutter super models-cum-flight attendants. After picking up two 50-lb suitcases from baggage claim, we said hello Korea! and goodbye to each other, just like that (Other than Julie, who's in my city of Seongnam with me, I've still yet to see any other Wisco kid since meeting with my co-teacher). But anyways where was I? Korean Air, Incheon Airport, extreme exhaustion, saying goodbye, ah yes! The co-teacher. My co-teacher was in the airport along with Julie's waiting to pick us up. My English co-teacher, mind you, doesn't speak a lick of English. Yes you read that right. Any time I tried saying something to her she deferred me to Julie's co-teacher to respond. Hoh boy. To be honest it didn't really bother me. The SK gov't wasn't spending millions of dollars on English teachers if the current ones were already experts. Makes sense. Our teachers proceded to take Julie and I on a 1-hour taxi ride to our district of Bundang, in the Seongnam city limits. During the ride my co-teacher hands me her Korean version of the iPhone and says "other teacher from school." I take the phone, say hello, and I hear "Herro...can...you...unduhstand...my...Engrish." Trying to be as polite as possible, I encouragingly say yes. The voice then says, "Nah I'm just kidding. What's up man I'm Paul, I'm in charge of the foreign English teachers at your school." Cue: sigh of relief. Since I'm as new to this whole blog thing as kimchi is spicy, I'm gonna try and paraphrase the rest of Day 1 since you're undoubtedly getting bored if you're still reading this. Anyways, we met up with Paul, he showed me my temporary apartment, and Ms. Yu (Julie's co-teacher), Ms. Lee (mine), Paul (also my co-teacher I think?), Julie, and I ate out at a Korean-Chinese restaurant. We ordered enough food for a North Korean village (hehe) and called it a night after 24 consecutive hours of no sleep. Day 1 in Korea: Great success!

Korazy in Korea!

I've been in SK for about 5 days and between severe procrastination, travel ADD, shoddy Internet, and sheer laziness, I'm JUST getting around to the blog I vowed to create days before I left. So with no further adieu, the highlights from days 1-5!

PS Please excuse the  lack of photos, I'm currently camera-less :/