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 Not the 2-hour-wait-that-seems-to-never-end-because-you’re-reading –trashy-outdated-celebrity-magazines that so commonly occurs in the States.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!