ELC DAY

So this is a video and some pictures for a more visual record of our ELC Day on Thursday Night...Our kids are so cute!

원주좋아하요 - I love it here

It's official. I love it here. 

Our school is phenomenal...I couldn't have hoped for a better set-up in Korea...(except maybe sometimes being closer to Seoul would be nice) and I am definitely in love with most of my kids. Even though the are sometimes rude...always ignorant and mocking of foreigners, I have come to love them. They are really cute. 

We had our ELC day today (that's the name of our school) and I have to say I haven't felt that loved in a long time. The kids were so cute...and they all love us....even the wienerlike ones like us deep down. Kind of reminds me of working with teenagers. I always think they are at best, indifferent to me, until bam, you leave, or something happens and then you see you actually did mean something to them. It always surprises me. But anyway, picture like 500 cute kids holding your hand and giving you hugs, saying hi and wanting pictures and waving and giving you flowers...it was like a love fest. 

I guess I should explain a bit more...

It was our "impress the parents with all the english they've learned so they'll keep forking out the cash" event. I have a thousand pictures from it that I'll put up later. I took a lot on Amy's camera with a nice bright zoom, and lots on mine with a wider perspective, so we have got the event covered. If they ever want posters or anything.....done. 

Not that the event itself was that phenomenal...I mean, how good could 3 hours...yes 3 hours....of halting English really be? Especially when the audience wouldn't have understood good english in the first place, never mind Konglish....but anyway...it was long, it was good, I'll show you pictures later, I'm really starting to enjoy it here and to all a good night. 

More Orts (morsels)

No disrespect to my country, or to my family, but I have converted to the Korean way

......of making grilled cheese sandwiches. It's so much better. You have a block of butter, and you don't have to scrape off the rock hard butter and try and force it onto the unwilling, donor slice - ripping gaping holes in the bread. You simple open the top of the block, wipe it around the hot frying pan and then fire the bread/cheese onto the pan. Ends up the same I promise. Faster and Easier. I don't know if they make grilled cheese sandwiches here per se, but they have what basically amounts to a glorified grilled cheese restuarant chain (Isac Toast....their motto? "the happiness together" catchy, no?) So good and so cheap. For $1  (85 cents at the current exchange) for can get egg "toast-uh"  (think egg mcmuffin crossed with grilled cheese) or if you're feeling rich, you can spend $2.50 on the deluxe beef patty/sproats etc egg toast. Hmmmm.

We have voted, and the english word that we hear most here is "crazy". I use it at least 50 times a day. All the kids know that word and love it....if you say it, it sends them into fits of delirium....I think because the Korean equivalent is stronger, they think they're saying a bad word....and the teachers don't seem to care (cause it's not a bad word) so they go to town. 

Don't know if you caught my pouting facebook status, but they added another hour to my workday which sucks. They told us on Friday, surprise, you have a new class starting Monday...surprise, it's adults, surprise it's the bosses son and all his friends (no pressure!). We were assured it would only last two months until March (you figure out the math on that one). 

Actually the class is fine, it's like 10 some-odd 18/19yr old boys who just need conversation practice. So we think of topics to talk about and talk. Not hard. They're quite enjoyable actually. But the surprise factor was lame, and no one wants to do more work for the same money do they? (especially when that same money is like 30% less in CDN than it was in the summer) 

What else? I went on my first Korean date yesterday. There's a coffee shop that I went to with friends and a cute girl works there.  I go there to study Korean with friends sometimes, and now I go to study one Korean. JK. Anyway, she helps me with Korean and I help her with English, and yesterday we went out for the first time outside of the cafe. Saw the movie "Australia"... Her name is 예나 (Yaena) and she's really sweet. But it's really not much of a story at this point and she's going to the Phillipines for two months next week so yea. 

If you haven't picked it up subliminally, I like here now - my school and bosses are excellent, which is a common sore spot for foreign teachers - between a few friends here and some more in Seoul (from Prov and from Church), I'm not feeling as isolated as I was. We go to Seoul pretty much every weekend, and it's good. I could probably go every weekend for the rest of the year and not see everything there is to see. The kids don't bug me anymore really, and I like most of them. Studying, or watching the Canucks, and the gym keeps most of my mornings occupied. I haven't ventured out with my camera for a while....since it started being really cold my motivation has been sapped severely - though my lens wishlist continues to grow and there's an exciting new camera offering from Olympus in January. I will accept donations at my Canadian address :) 

That's all for now....

~ Matt 

High1 Part II

So, after our ridiculously late arrival we stumbled out of bed the next day at 1pm and made our way to a ski shop (after much arm-waving and grunting at the hotel receptionist). They were uber excited to see us, and really seemed to enjoy having us. Apparently our elementary Korean sent them into waves of ecstasy. Anyway, the stuff was ridiulously cheap.....I rented skis, pants, googles (for two days), and BOUGHT gloves and a toque for 45,000w ($38). That and they gave us coffee and oranges and shuttled us back and forth to the mountain whenver we wanted. New favorite store right there. 

The ski resort was crowded and very new, and we were very much the only foreigners. You'd even be noticed under your winter clothes, toques and googles....you can catch their double take when they see the foreign eyes staring back from behind the goggles. I was trying blade skiis (the short ones) and they were a lot of fun - after the first two runs that is, when I had got the falling out of my system. 

After a couple runs it was time for a visit to "top of the top" restaurant. Which, you guessed it, was at the top of the top. It was a swanky place, all glass and revolving as you can see in the photo (just look closely, it will spin...really) Check out the heart eh? Only in Korea. I may have mentioned before their obsession with cuteness.  I posted a photo of the cutesy heart couple photo-op from my trip to Sokcho...but this has that one beat. Only in Korea. 

Anyhoo....in the vicinity of this restuarant, three humourous happenings happened. 

 

Humourous Happening #1 

Moments after taking these pictures, I went inside to join Phil and Andrew in the resturaunt...unbeknownst to me, unlike intelligent designers of most ski resorts, this one was designed by morons. The floor was marble, and the only safe place to walk with icy ski/snowboard boots would have been on the provided thin carpet....I partially grasped this concept as 1 1/2 of my feet made it to the red carpet...but the remaining 25% sent me crashing to the floor of the lobby into a pile of snowboards that fell like gargantuan dominoes. Needless to say, if being a foreigner doesn't get them to stare (it does) spectacular wipeouts in the lobby of the swanky restaurant will definitely do it for you. I slunk into the elevator in shame. My hip is now purple. 

Humourous Happening #2 At the same time as I was wiping out, Phil and Andrew were upstairs ordering beer. I think it was the only sub $50 menu item. They were told there was a rule against drinking and skiing....so Andrew told him we were professionals....and it worked (?!?!) The manager agreed to one beer. I think the other people found out too (either that or they were present for the show downstairs) cause they all kept muttering and staring....probably trying to recognize us from the skiing magazines.  

Humourous Happening #3 This one is my personal favorite. #1 wasn't funny (ouch) and I wasn't there for #2...so yea. Getting off the lift, the elastic of my jacket caught on Phil's pants. I skied merrily in one direction, and Phil the other. We unwittingly clotheslined a Korean girl who couldn't figure out for the life of her what was going on. Admittedly, getting engulfed by a elastic-induced foreigner sandwhich was not likely to jump to the forefront of anyones mind.  Though potentially awkward, I can highly recommend this method to those wanting to get close to a girl but just not knowing how. She was kinda cute too. 

I have done it up in diagram form for those of you who are visual people. 

 

Hah-ee-won (High1) Part 1

Friday Night about 10pm I discovered a couple of my friends (Phil [from Chesterfield, England], and Andrew [from Victoria]...they both work with Kyle) were going to go skiing for the weekend. After much humming and hawing (Insider access Matt's Brain....skiing is fun...I don't have winter clothes...we have friends coming to visit from Seoul...they're mostly here to see Amy....I should do this for the sake of branching out and forming relationships... I don't know either of the guys uber well, they're much more into partying and drinking than I am, maybe awkward, do they even want me to go??...I haven't skied since I was 15....they're probably going to leave me in the dust.....poor Kyle with four girls...you can't live your life to please everyone else....) ...I went. 

We didn't leave Wonju until 3am which those of you who know me real well will know I was real thrilled about. Got to a motel at about 5am and went to sleep. On the way I learned that High1 was supposedly Korea's best ski resort....better than Pyongchang (the runner up to Vancouver for host of the 2010 games) Considering that the mountains here top out at about 2,000m I was skeptical at best. [Motels here are uber cheap.....you can regularly get rooms (albiet of questionable comfort/cleanliness) 

for $30/night. One phenomenon of Korean society which I don't have time to explain in depth is that many young people go to these cheap "love motels" to get away from, um, watchful eyes. So cheap motels are abundant...if a little sleazy. ]

Anyways, I will summarize and write part two (some funny stories) tommorow. It was opening weekend, so the snow was nothing to write home about, half the runs weren't open, and  it was very busy (our second day in 2.5hours on the hill we got two runs in - literally faster to walk up the mountain...which we did) The hill was no better than Mt. Washington in terms of the hill itself. In facilities (a massive Casino, amazing luxury hotel, etc etc.) it was way better. I tried blade skies (the short skis) and it was fun. My skiing skill returned, and though the others were much faster I did fine.  There's something refreshing about the clean crisp mountain air, the bright snow....I love it. Random tidbit...the trees aren't evergreens...so it looked weird with all the dead sticks for trees. 

Poppycockish Orts of a Turophile

(NOTE: I tire of a 24/7 diet of five (or less) letter english words...I offer this as a humble explanation/apology for this post. It actually does make sense, they're not nonsense words. FYI this post contains all of the funniest words in the English Language. He who ears to hear, let him hear)

On the way to work there were zaftig womyn in the gazebos and on the wharfs, lollygagging and jabbering - waving pickels around their perambulators. It's like our podunk is out to take over the world!

I felt at once prestogiatorial and bovicidal today. I was gruntled when I got there, but the brouhaha raised by the boogleish students in regards to Me, Amy and Roger sends me into constant conniptions. For a commited turophile like myself, this is very off-putting. Hornswoggling is a constant danger.

As if the Roger thing wasn't bad enough, our hirsuteness is a constant topic of conversation - as is the trenchermenlike appearance of our snouts. Their snooty, hoity-toity obsession with the callipygian ideal is borderline neurotic. The words hurt like the time I broke my zygomatic arch and other bones surrounding my oralmeatus. A person barely has any time to masticate on breaks. One day, one of the bespeckled weasels from the boogle is going to be grabbed by the cankle, defenestrated, and end up in smithereens. Closely followed by one of us heading to the Wonju hoosegow.

To make matters worse, I blunderguffed like 12 times. Smegma. Borborygmusmaximus. Definitely had the blamps. Just when I was trying to explain 'tittle' , the subject of Pogonotrophy came up again. Like that matters a nipperkin. It's either that or spittle. Sometimes I wonder if noodles cause logorrhea. When I was but a hobbledehoy I knew how to behave better than these pooched snorkels! Like a spoon I offer wisdom to their mollycoddled meati, but to the flummoxed and discombobulated it often manifests itself as floccinaucinihilipilification. The flaunting of the scofflaws is traumatizing. Luckily fisticuffs and wenis injuries are rare.

You niggle, you cannoodle, you could offer them a poodle; but nothing but caddywampusness and flibberdigibbets everywhere. Spry mental calisthenics notwithstanding, the kerfuffles and tomfoolery make tutelage difficult and render each class rather higgledy-piggledy. Its easier making a foxy chimp thrive at a cotillion or to transform a kumquat into a thespian. The only ones with garbo are persnickity, reticent and taciturn. I wonder if they would respect a behelmeted mustachioed headmaster from Bangkok. Maybe if he traded his toque flume for a blunderbuss and brought some hubba-bubba and a squeegee to class.

A Day in the Life

Today I eschew the blogs I had planned in favour of a more off the cuff description of the day for your reading pleasure...it was a fairly typical one that should give you an idea of how my life goes along..

Starting from Last Night after work...

20:00 Get home from work...excited that house is warm. Check facebook, email and current events. Not much happening. Eat something.

20:05 Realize it's really warm...I left my heat on max...(old habit from the days when I had no hot water)....the floor temperature now reads 88c and my feet make sizzling sounds when I walk...I throw open the windows even though its below zero.

20:10 Starting watching an episode of The Office online. It takes forever to load. I try 100 other links. They all stink. I curse my computer, give up and leave a slow one to load while I go read about Holy War. Its a really interesting book....Holy War - the crusades and their impact on todays world....

22:00 Episode is finally ready. Watch the office. Episode amuses me because it takes place in Winnipeg. Oh Winnipeg.

22:30 Want to read more...eyes hurt, retire instead. Realize (again) bed has heating pipe right under it....Bed feels like sauna...sleep not possible....play guitar in the dark instead....

??:?? Finally a good temperature, fall asleep.

8:00 Wake-up....magically I am able to fall back asleep again...this doesn't usually happen

10:00am wake up again...pleased with self for sleeping in...make tea

10:01 read CS Lewis talking about heaven, and a chapter from Matthew....I've been doing well at making that a habit in the morning

10:30 Read current events, facebook, email...

10:40 Realize I should eat something....curse my empty fridge and make scrambled eggs....

11:20 Study Korean and write an email to a cute Korean girl 에나 (Yaena) from a cafe I've been frequenting and practicing my Korean on. I don't have a Korean keyboard...so I have to type on a screen based keyboard...it takes 20mins to write hi/how are you/what did you do today?/I'm going to go work out and then go to school/my school gave me a korean name/it's 한솜 (Hansom).

Did I mention I have a Korean name? It's 장한솜 Chang Hansom (chang is a normal last name...but also slang for 'most'...so I am most hansom....hahaha.

12:20 Think about watching the Canucks game.(I know how to watch streams that helpful Canadians post on the internet). Realize I won't be able to see the end....curse the time change y'all in Canada just made.

12:30 Gather Korean skills and go to the gym to inquire about a pass instead...successfully ask why there's no one at the desk, get a locker combination, and find out the price for three months. (about $100...good price. Current exchange rate 80 CDN :( ) Realize I don't know where I live. Am somewhat embarrassed. Vow to learn my address.

13:45 Have spicy chicken with rice. Usually I cook my own rice, but today I'm in a hurry, so pre-cooked rice and sauce...all ready to go. I love that about this place. So many rice and noodle options. I will miss CJ Sauces.

14:00 Shower and go to work.

14:15 practice the Korean I learned on one of the Korean teachers. Sound like a tool I'm sure, and head starts to hurt. Conversational skills are coming along as long as they speak slowly and don't want an answer before 5 seconds of thinking has elapsed.

14:20 Try to decide if there was any chance that my Korean will surpass my Dutch skills....first thought absolutely not because Korean is much harder...new alphabet etc.....second thought....I was never immersed in Dutch for an entire year....so maybe....we'll see I guess. I've been studying hard the last month....

14:20-15:30 prep classes/talk to Amy and the other teachers. Haha. Scare one of them half to death when she arrives...by standing in the doorway when she comes in not looking. It was amazing...she stumbled back and covered her face and almost died. Gives me death glare. She didn't think it was funny. Wonder if something was lost in translation. Feel bad.

15:30-20:00 Teach my seven 40min classes....first class is sad because they took my cutest girl away...into one of Amy's lower classes....Amy isn't happy either cause her class is uber full.

4th class irritates me, I took the time to change a section on American Geography and make a Korean one instead. Why should they learn states and their capitals? They still act like turds and complain. I swear tommorow they will have to do all 52 states and capitals.

20:00 Do some grocery shopping....buy some sausages from the guys who were hawking them because they were cute....their english attempts that is.....picture costco....where there's all those people with samples right? Here, on almost every aisle there's someone standing there, usually in uniform...usually just bowing. You secretly wonder if this fantastic display of inefficiency isn't the cause of the global financial crisis.

Anyways, the ones who do have samples usually do a double take when they see a foreigner, and then for some reason increase the volume and give you the Korean sales pitch. It's kind of annoying. Anyway...these guys were like a comidic duo... 'hi' says boy 1....waves sausages in the air....awkward smile....points at the sausages...asks his friend what sausages is in English (in Korean). 'Soh ssa gee' says boy 2. Points at the price (30% off)...hmmms but can't think of any English.....'sale' I offer.....'hmmm....sale' he nods vigorously... expression seems to suggest he has his identity wrapped up in the outcome of the sale of sausages to the foreigner, so I humour him. They are delighted.

20:30 Go home and check the internet for interesting happenings....realize nothing has happened in the 7 hours since I last checked except the Canucks game.....write a blog.....

22:00 Realize that blog is really long and sign off

Branching out is hard to do

So this week I started making a concerted effort to get out and meet people in Wonju....I don't have many natural connections here, no church, no sports teams, no (English speaking) co-workers (Amy notwithstanding), so it's not the easiest thing in the world. Especially if you have introverted leanings to start with...but I can switch pretty well when I need to, so that's what I've been doing for the last week or so.

I went to a random bible study I found on facebook, went out with some of the public school teachers here in Wonju that I didn't really know and hung around with some of Kyle's co-workers. Also pioneered an evening out with our staff this week. Hasn't happened in the 3 1/2 months I've been here....not that they're not nice or anything....just hasn't happened. People are definitely refreshing sometimes for me....though I would still put myself firmly in the I side of the introvert/extravert scale...

So Gold star for me.

I should write a blog about being an INFJ personality type....in Tesol we had to do an extensive personality test and I was the coolest/rarest type....ok...coolest is an opinion...but rarest is a fact....(I taught my kids the difference the other day)

My Korean has also been coming along....I'm almost half way through my course....my first month I studied a decent amount...my second month like none....and the last month when the colds and the cold have been keeping me indoors, my appetite for korean has increased again. I can tell cab drivers where to go, say basic stuff like where I'm going, where I'm from, what I did on the weekend....argue about prices.....ask where places are, ask how much stuff is....and kick kids out of class for swearing in Korean. Not going to lie...at least a part of my motivation for learning is so that the kids can't just say whatever they want and get away with it :)

Anyway, I'm going in early for a korean lesson....gotta go....stay tuned for blogs on INFJness and also the three wishes I would grant Korea if I could.

~Matt

ppeppero day

Thought I would add a piece on Ppeppero day for your reading enjoyment. November 11th is also a special day in Korea. I made everyone do Remembrance Day stuff in class but we had a joint Remembrance/Ppeppero day November 11th. But what a concept....Ppeppero is the name of a candy...the chocolate covered sticks that you see here...made by a specific company...and they've made it into this national holiday...almost like valentines...give out the candies to significant others, teachers at school whatever....

What a racket....its like if we had a national smartie day or something in Canada....and everyone had to give out smarties...Lotte corporation must make a fortune...and I got SO many of these things. Gave most of them away as prizes....Still have some left.....

PS if you want more Korean Pop Music Amy posted a bunch too.... http://kakorea.blogspot.com

Korean Pop Culture

Um...wow. It's bad, real bad. My first encounter with Korean Pop culture was within 20minutes of being in the country. When we hopped on the bus, they had a TV going and when the commercials came on I had to do a double take and look around to see if it was a spoof or something....but no one was laughing. "Are you serious?" I yelled, "very" the TV said....

How to explain it? For starters, they have about 4 songs that play on the radio. One of them is tolerable, melodically speaking, but they're all pretty tragic. Most have a line or two of English mixed in with the Korean (because English will make the song sound cool......right?) Usually something dumb like "kiss me" or "one more time" or "tell me" or "I love you".

It's systemic too, I mean, try to picture 40 year old women dressed as little school girls, or 50 year old ajummas sporting cutesy Disney apparel and you'll start to get an idea of the "innocence" or "cuteness" that pervades Korea pop culture.

As for TV...I can only compare it to the feeling I get when I watch 80's Batman, and laugh hysterically at the commercials. It's like the 80's ubercheese and sort of innocently dorky ways combined with a bit of a modern twist...add a bit of language barrier plus some Korean flavour and voila Korean Pop.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: this video includes an appearance by ET and Little Red Riding Hood...go figure....

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWlIajEIxU

(also includes an English translation for your maximum enjoyment)

Happy Hagwons Virulent Viruses

Sorry for the lack of updates recently...I've been in the throes of two consecutive colds, the first one wasn't as bad, but this one is real bad. I pretty much hate life with colds, and not having any hot water for the last two weeks has made it that much worse. Let's just say its not much fun doing classroom control with kids that don't speak english when you can't talk.Blogs from people who hate life general aren't that uplifting, so I've been avoiding.

The blog I was going to write before I got sick was about liking my job, so maybe I'll pretend I'm not sick and write that one anyway.

Our school and the people I work with are really great. A lot of foreigners in Hagwons (academies) get treated really bad and taken advantage of. There's a lot of horror stories, but my school is great. So, though church and friends make me wish I was in Seoul sometimes at least I made a good choice going somewhere where I had an insiders perspective of the job.

And the kids don't bother me half as much anymore...actually I've come really like a lot of them. For the most part I can see them as beautiful, vulnerable, precious, creations. I mean, yea they're still rude and make stupid comments about white peoples eyes, and noses, and clothes, and hair, and whatever else, but they don't tire/annoy me like they did at first. I don't know whether my expectations have changed or they've improved in behaviour but either way its better.

I've learned how to manage them better, released that rabbit trails are a good thing if they're at least attempting to communicate in English. Perhaps I'll regret having written such positive reviews - jinx myself or something - but I suppose its better to be self-deluding positive then the alternative. Anyway, signing off, fingers crossed that m viciously virulent virus has vamoosed by Monday.

The Scourge of Surgery

I've mentioned the Korean obsession with appearance a handful of times, and promised a blog on the topic more than once - so here goes. For starters, lest I be accused of bias, yes, I know Canada has plastic surgery too....but the sheer numbers, type, and overall sketchiness of the industry here vault it in a completely different universe.

By my count (and I haven't tried looked very hard) there are at least 5 plastic surgery shops within short walking distance of my place. Word on the street is that 3/4 of young women have had plastic surgery. The most common one by far is an eye job...and this one irks me the most. Basically they cut away the eyelid so the eye is open wider and then add a crease in the eyelid to get that caucasian look. This one is a common grad gift from Parents. The saddest thing is that kids are often made to get the surgery, just like they're made to go to our English Academies....parents gotta "help" their kids "get the edge" (read that sentence dripping with sarcasm) .

Second most popular surgery? A more caucasian looking nose. My friend showed me how to notice, and ever since its been a passtime on the subway, noticing how many women have had the surgery, and quite often (sadly) how many are the victims of botched surgery.

Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? Imagine you were an alien (or God for that matter), and you come to earth, and you notice that one group of people are cutting their eyes so as to look more like another group of people. Would it not strike you as odd/extremely misguided? Do I think the eyes look better? Well, usually yes, they look more western for sure...but that's not the point. Beauty is subjective. Since when did western eyes become the objective standard that everyone holds up as beautiful?

And when you add to that number of people that are being mutilated by shady non-certified "doctors" (and I use the term very loosely) trying to make a quick buck - it breaks your heart, thinking about cultural and emotional factors that drive people to those lengths....the needless suffering (to say nothing of expense). I think its a tragedy.

According to a doctoral dissertation published Tuesday by Um Hyun-shin of Kyung Hee University, a survey of 810 women aged 18 and over living in Seoul and Gyeonggi revealed that 69.9 percent, or 566 of the respondents, said that they suffered stress because of their appearance.

In particular, 81.5 percent of women between 25 and 29 felt the need for cosmetic surgery and 61.5 percent of that group said they have already had it, suggesting that cosmetic surgery has become commonplace for 20-something Korean women.

As to whether cosmetic surgery is necessary, 72.6 percent of respondents said it should be done if needed, while only 20.4% said it should be avoided if possible.
The most important factor in determining beauty was cited as the face (25.8 percent) and body shape (18.6 percent), which placed above personality (13.5 percent) and attitude (10 percent).

As confirmation of Korean society's emphasis on appearance, 55 percent agreed that “external factors, rather than internal factors, are more important in defining a person’s beauty.”

Sources
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200702/200702220030.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4229995.stm
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/plastics.html

Ode to Seoul

So we made another Costco run this weekend, but instead of turning around and going home, I stayed in the city and met up with Mike, Tyler, and Derek from Prov.

If you've followed my blog thus far, you'll know that my impressions of Seoul are not particularly positive...not awful, but between the hoardes of people, concrete jungle, bad air, and multi-cart pileups in Costco I'm usually not too sad to leave. This weekend however, was much different.

I went through the western district of Itaewon, found an English bookstore, and two Canadian resturaunts, and met up with Mike and Derek around dinner time. After getting harrased by another older drunk Korean man, we met up with two of Mike and Dereks friends (girls! and they spoke pretty good English!) and had a fun time. We hung out on their roof, and hiked up to Seoul tower (the top picture) In the morning I was going to go home cause I was feeling sick (thanks Tyler!) but I decided to stay and go to their church and I'm really glad I did.

When we got there I was actually in shock.....there were Koreans speaking fluent English! Haven't seen that in Wonju. Even my supervisor who can communicate really well doesn't sound anything approaching fluent. Fluent English everywhere....the music was great....the message was awesome. It was the first time I really felt connected to a church for a long time....probably since before I left for Providence 5 years ago.

Afterwards, we were going to just leave, but I had left my bags on a couch and me and Mike decided to go talk to the people who had sat down around the bags. Most of them were English (from London) with a Korean background and that was sort of a mindwarp too. Hearing a whole bunch of Koreans with a British accent was funny....kind of like the first time I heard Chinese people speaking Dutch in Holland.....though not quite as shocking....

Anyway, we ended up going out for lunch and ice cream and hanging out for a long time....and it was so much fun...I don't know if its just the two + months that I've had without the chance to really banter in English....but we had a lot of fun together. And girls that spoke English were a bonus too :) Again...maybe its just the two and a half months talking, but it was really, really refreshing....

Made me sad to leave..like I said, that was the first time I really felt connected to a church for years....and the first time since Prov that I really felt some community being with the guys there at their house. It made me realize what I don't have here in Wonju living in my flat with not much community to speak of. I'm definitely going to hunt down the rumoured English Church in Wonju and see what its like.

So anyway, a refreshing weekend, a few more facebook friends and I'll definitely be back to visit Seoul more often as a result.

Creepy Man Crushes

Sounds disturbing doesn't it?
In the last two weeks I've been asked out for drinks by two 50+ (Korean) gentlemen and had one hold my hand for a prolonged period of pun (minutes in Korean...couldn't resist the alliteration) .

Aaaah.

The first one was dnabsuh s'ssob ym. Amy thinks he has a crush on me. The second one was late at night when I was taking pictures in the park, and a 50 something man wandered over to practice his English. He wanted to talk about photography which was cool , but then he pulled out a super creepy line "we should, go deeper, how we, have deep relationship?" and said he had a nice place we should go for drinks.....I hastily remembered that I was supposed to be meeting someone else......

Or course being me, I felt bad the rest of the night for turning down Mr Creeper.

I wish I wasn't wired that way...its lose lose, either humour Mr. Creeper even though I don't want to, or feel bad for maybe hurting him and saying no.....

Anyway, moving on the handholding incident....I was hiking in the mountains last weekend (see previous posts) and in a hurry, trying to make up the 3km that lay between me and my friends before night fell in an hour........so I was flying past hiker after hiker....and

Much to my chagrin, one reached out and grabbed my hand and started enthusiastically babbling away.....and singing....even the Korean hikers thought he was weird....once he had me in tow, the songs were all english.....he did a rendition of Rocky Mountain High by John Denver when he found out were I was from, and tried to speak German with me, before realizing that Dutch wasn't Deutsch. Not much loss, as his German consisted only of Guten Dag.....

I briefly escaped at one steep point where he needed both hands, but my escape route was cut off and he quickly latched on again. Curses.

Eventually I was able to wriggle free and speed off into the distance. Keeping him behind me was good motivation for pushing myself on ahead........

As a footnote, the guys handholding is something they do here, so don't worry, its not actually that creepy.....just a funny cultural difference....

Taming Koreas Tallest Mountain Part III

Picking up the story at the sleaze motel again..... It was without a doubt the worst place that I have ever paid to sleep. The bathtub was grungy and the size of my thumb. Seriously. I had my knees schrunched up against my head, and it had a regular tap that was pretending to be a bath sized tap. So it took three years to fill up. And the shower head was out because it was waist height and pointing at my foot. The night didn't get any better when we tried to order a pepperoni pizza and got the sea food special instead. My room didn't have curtains either, so between the neon lights at night, the sun in the morning, and the people talking non-stop outside both my door and window, I didn't get the recovery enhancing sleep that I was looking for.

In the morning we jumped a bus headed for Sokcho and hopped off looking for some tourist info. I don't think any of us were bending our legs at this point. I hadn't realized how nice it was going to be to see the ocean again, but it was. We managed to time our lunch just right to avoid a horrid rainstorm (see picture)

We walked along the beach a little, climbed a light house and saw a breakwater that reminded me of home. It was nice to be by the water again. We found a cool coffee shop up high with a nice ocean view and regrouped there before heading out to the condo. Heres some random sokcho shots. They are, the beach, a photogenic couple braving the waves, some barbed wire, and the view from the lighthouse.

On the barbed wire topic, you can never quite forget that this is a country at war, between the barbed wire, snipers nests, jets/apache helicopters overhead everyday, and ever present military bases and soldiers you always have small reminders.

The condo was really a breath of fresh air, it was nothing luxurious, but it was a resort setting with a big (expensive) waterpark, spa, and roman bath set-up which we didn't partake in. It was expensive and crowded, so we didn't bother. But it was spacious, quiet, 10,000,000 times better than our sleaze motel, had some walking trails a couple restaraunts and a coffee shop.

We were lucky enough to find a direct bus home which shaved off two hours from our traveling time...that was a bonus for our weary heroes.

All in all a great weekend, I would obviously have preferred not to have the 13hr hiking day and descent of darkness, but it makes a better story that way anyway. ~ Made some memories that's for sure.

Taming Koreas Highest Mountain Part II

Alright, so there we were on the top of this crazy mountain with no one who speaks English to help us make a choice. So, at 4pm, with two hours of light left, we decided to make for Sokcho, the city on the other side of the park - a seven hour hike. Thankfully we all had headlamps to help us down

At this point I couldn't stand the thought of being within 1.5km of the peak and not making it up, so I made a lightspeed break for the peak and Kyle and Amy began the descent.

It was a very steep 1.5km but I made great time zooming past hordes of hikers (snort! a white guy! and he's not even using hiking poles!). I snapped a few pictures at the (overcrowded) summit, and drank some water, and then began the more arduous task of making up the 3 or so kilometres between me and Kyle and Amy.

The pounding of rocks against knees was starting to get very bothersome after 8 hours of hiking. But the worst was yet to come.

After eventually squirming loose from the Korean man who was trying to hold my hand for like ten minutes straight (while we were hiking), and singing me every English song he knew (including "Rocky Mountain High" after he found out where I was from) I raced through beautiful valleys, streams, waterfalls and mountain views without really a chance to look. After two hours of pursuit without a break, I made myself stop briefly and tried to get the shaking legs under control. Shortly thereafter, I caught up with Kyle and Amy just as it was starting to get dark, and we joined the many hikers who were on their way out of the park (we weren't the only ones caught off guard by the crowds apparently). We staggered out of the park after a very steep 13 hour, 25-30km hike and retreated to the "comfort" of a nearby sleaze motel for the night.

To be continued.......I have to go to work.... :(

Taming Koreas Highest Mountain Part I

Well... I am back from our Seoraksan sabbatical and lets just say it was an adventure.

Setting the scene for you...as mentioned in my last post, me and Kyle and Amy headed for Seoraksan this past long weekend. Seoraksan is Koreas most cherished national park, mountain range, highest peak and famous for its fall colours. And yes, its up in the North East corner where my head is if you were confused. Probably my forehead to be precise. Wonju is like my chin.

As I briefly mentioned last time, we were a little worried about how Kyle and Amy were going to hold up going from nothing to uber strenuous all at once. Compounding that was the feedpack we got - every Korean we talked to about the hike seemed highly skeptical about our trip being a success (and spoke of camp stoves, boots, gloves, toolkit, the whole nine yards).

Just for reference, our plan (meticously crafted in six pages worth of detail by my bosses husband) was to ascend the peak (Daechongbong) the first day, stay at a shelter near the top, hike the next day down the other side, stay at this nice condo/resort (using my bosses membership to get a sweet deal!) in seaside Sokcho and head back. The astute among you may have noticed I said "our plan was". More on that later.

Friday morning after a 4:30am wake up call (ugh!) I stumbled to the taxi and managed to remember everything -including my camera battery in the charger (very key). I met Kyle and Amy at Wonju's other Bus Station...and let me tell you it is the sketchiest place that I have been for a very long time. Poor Kyle and Amy arrived at that terminal their first day in Korea with no one to meet them. Welcome to Wonju! But I digress.

I arrived first and managed to sort out what bus we had to take whilst meeting a pleasant Korean gentleman who had to have been in his late fifties, and had recently returned from hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania - 4th Tallest in the world). He was also heading to Seoraksan. He was excited to practice his English. The bus ride was nice enough, we passed a few things that were worth going back to, a long bike path along a river, a place to rent kayaks on the river.....and after 2 1/2 hrs or so we had to hop off.

After getting off we tolerated a pompous, skeptical uber-hiker long enough to follow him into the park. ("You? Daechongbong?" ...he says as he snorts to himself..."wanna race?" I mumble under my breath) Alarm bells started going off when I saw the Disneyland sized parking lot full of cars at 8:30am, and hundred some odd que waiting to catch one of the shuttles the raced in every couple of minutes to whisk people to the beginning of the trail.

If you can't tell from the picture, pretty much every Korean in that line has got their full-out brand name hiking poles, hats, sunvisors, shirts, pants boots, moisture wicking shirts, goretex, the works. Many have massive packs that look like they're doing the west coast trail or something. At this point, still wondering where its all of them or me thats sadly misguided about the requirements of the hike. Their gear aside, the sheer number of them makes me think it can't be that hard.

At the beginning of the hike there was a temple with thousands of prayer rocks. Was something to behold. We followed the river bed that you see in the photo for quite a ways, in non-stop hiker traffic for a good hour or so. We did not enjoy that part at all. Never have I experienced such crowding in the great outdoors or not been able to stop and take a picture for fear of being trampled. It was basically put your head down and go, pass the slow ones, dodge the pushy ones, bodycheck the ones that stare too long. Just kidding. About the last part anyway.

The crowds did thin from this ridiculous level, but the number of people was still shocking the entire way up. Another welcome to Asia moment for Matt. Cultural differences.....I bet they're just used to so many people, and thought Manitoba was soooo empty. Even I thought that, so I can't imagine what the Korean students thought.

Sans the people, the way up was what I expected, steep, doable and very beautiful. The leaves had changed at higher elevations so it got nicer as we went. I've never seen fall colours like that before. I guess BC is mostly evergreen. And Manitoba was mostly....um, treeless.

It was beautiful. Deep green pools, crystal clear mountain springs, waterfalls, and a stunning aray of colours as we went higher up.

Amy and Kyle were fine....found it hard and we took lots of breaks, but I didn't mind at all cause it gave me time to take pictures. That and it actually was steep, so breaks are good. There were a lot of stairs, some stone trails, some loose rock. As much as the people took away from the experience, it was impressive that so many were willing to subject themselves to such an undertaking. The hikers were mostly of the middle aged variety. The kind with the curly perms and sunvisors and no spatial awareness.

We reached the second highest base camp mid-afternoon after six hours and 14km of hiking, and I was shocked to see a mini-city with hundreds of people sitting down eating noodles and rice. It was loud. There was obviously no room to stay there, so we continued on. Amy was not moving so well at this point, so I was sent on ahead to get us a spot. I quickly realized however that the mini-city we passed was the shelter we had intended to stay in, and even though we arrived by the time we were told to, we weren't even close to soon enough. Not good news.

After some handwringing, attempts (mainly successful) at Korean and several phone calls with spotty reception, we had narrowed it down to four bad options:

a) sleep exposed on the mountain side in the bush

b) hike back the way we came where there were no hotels or anything

c) hike forward 7 hours down to the city on the other side mostly in the dark

d) hike to the reservation only shelter at the peak and beg them to let us sleep there/feign mortal illness and collapse on the floor (that was actually my boss's husbands idea)

Tune in next time to find out what happens to the three sorefedup amigos.

Sorry for the cliffhanger, but this post is already long, and I'm super tired, so we'll pretend its a choose your own adventure, without, um....any choose.... and I'll fill in the rest of the story soon. Don't worry, I don't die.

Provinians and The Sacred Pool plus a note for non-facebookers

This weekend we had the pleasure of some visitors from Seoul that used to go to Prov - Krista and Jennell. I didn't really know them before, but we've seen them a couple times on our Seoul Costco runs, and they came out for the weekend to join us for a hike. It was fun....makes you realize there was lots of people you didn't know at school. Anyway, we had a killer bunnies tourney and it was definitely fun seeing some fresh faces and speaking some good English. Though at times the quality of speech seemed to suffer from lack of use.

We took them out to Chiaksan, the national park out here with the huge mountain that I climbed my first week here. The gang didn't end up being game for the ascent, so we meandered along the trails and enjoyed the river scenery. This pool is one of the most beautiful places I've been. Unfortunately it was afternoon which limits the photographic potential.....but you'll get the idea. The air is fresh and clean and everything seems right when out in these woods. Besides the hordes of hikers that is (rolling eyes) Can't escape the people anywhere.



We were hoping to get Kyle and Amy a warmup before we head out to Seoraksan next week. Seoraksan is Koreas most famous mountain range and national park and we're going on a three day trip through there next weekend (yea long weekends!) World famous for its changing fall colours. Crossing my fingers that my compatriots are going to be up to it. Also that I don't blow an ankle or something early in the trip. I don't have great hiking shoes.




There's lots of these prayer stack thingies wherever we go. Its really bad luck to knock them over. When we were there a guy knocked a bunch over by accident and almost got glared to death by a pack of ajumas. If you don't know what they are, read this post by my friend Mike. I was going to write about Ajumas, but he basically wrote what I was going to...so check it out, its worth it. http://mquiring.blogspot.com/2008/08/ajuma.html They're scary in the subways.

Anyway, that's my weekend update.....currrently I'm kinda down and wishing I was home. Hope you're all doing well.....

~Matt

Anyone wanting to see more photos that doesn't have a facebook account (I can't think of many...but anyway) you can see all of my korean facebook photos here in order of newest to oldest posted.

Album #3 http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33114&l=25899&id=515047862

Album #2 http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29579&l=09558&id=515047862

Album #1 http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27120&l=1c8c7&id=515047862

What Brightens up life

Given that I've been removed from basically eveything and everyone I know, and with - to put it mildly - plenty - of alone time, I've had a superfluity of time to think about the things that I value most, couldn't do without, miss most or, alternatively, would miss most if they were taken away from my current equation.

Near the top of the list has got to be English and people who speak it....thats right up there for sure. But in the category of things

Propelled to the top of the list on the criterion of most time spent with, the winner -hands down- is probably my computer. Not only is it my point of contact with the outside world, News, Facebook, Skype and so on.....and source of music, and come to think of it DVD's as well, it is essential to my biggest hobby.....which leads me to

My Camera and photography, very very close to first place, shoved down the list only because I need my computer to actually see the photos and edit them....photography is quicky becoming my biggest passion....its my creative outlet, my way of expressing how I see the world, and keeps me from going completely insane with nothing to do.

Hiking, Exploring and Sports closely tied to taking pictures, my life would defintely suffer if I couldn't hike, experience nature, and find some peace. Given the lack of English churches, nature is sort of my connection to the spiritual side of life at the moment besides good 'ol C.S. Lewis. At least a few times a week I have to get out and shoot a basketball or kick a ball around too. I miss organized soccer though :(

Also making the list is my Guitar, which, when I didn't have it for the first 3 weeks here, felt like I had lost a limb or something. Another creative outlet and way of expressing what's inside...as well as a form of self-therapy I think.......

Just got two days ago, but it probably deserves a higher ranking given how much I've used it in the lost two days and the endorphins released in that time span. My Bike. Enables the exploring, provides some freedom.

Miss most and can't get around here? Probably Cranberry Juice.

Gotta go to work (note that that did not make the list)

Loser Bus Drivers, Trivia, and Plastic Surgery

So this weekend being my birthday weekend me and Kyle and Amy headed out to do something Mattish - in this case exploring the river spot that we found some more (see last post). We met to take the bus and that in itself is always an adventure, because there's no english, and bus guides, no internet bus guides....its pretty lame. Anyway, I successfully read the sign, asked a bystander for confirmation, and thought I'd ask the bus driver too, just to be safe but he was a turd - didn't answer yes or no, didn't try and understand, just yelled at me and chased me off the bus. Picture the poor sad foreigner taking his fledgling Korean skills for a test drive, just standing on the steps of the bus, sweetly asking if the bus went to Kanhyeon....and the moronic bus driver waving his arms angrily and say "no questions, get off" . It felt great let me tell you. He's lucky his bus didn't get a nice souvenir from my tripod on the way past. Anyhoo....alls well that ends well though, it started pouring moments later and we wouldn't have wanted to be out in the rain anyway.

We had a trivia night on the night of my birthday, a gathering (enabled by the omnipotent facebook) of the foreign English teachers from Wonju. According to facebook there's about 90 of us, but there was a solid 25 or so at the event. Lots of Aussies, New Zealanders, some Americans and a few Canadians. One girl went to Columbia Bible College in Abottsford....small world. It was fun to speak English and meet some more people, as this has been a rather isolating 7 weeks or so...one guy from Michigan talked hockey with me and Kyle for most of the time. Lots of newbies there, all talking about being lonely.....most of the people were couply types, so that was a little lame...but it was definitely a good thing to do. Hopefully we can do some community building around here....Our team won by the way, but we deferred the spoils (writing the questions for the next event) to our co-winners.

On Sunday I headed out to the river to make amends for the previous days rain-out, and find the rumoured waterfall....I took the train this time, not because of the bad bus experience, just for fun. I did eventually find it, but it wasn't particularly spectacular...nice but that's about it.

Closing story - The latest rude student quote is quite a winner. (This is completely out of the blue during a lesson) "Teacher.....you......go doctor.......change face.....nose, eyes.....change"

Teaching ESL does wonders for your self-esteem. I don't have any words to describe how much I can't wrap my head around ten-year-old randomly saying that to his English teacher. That reminds me, stay tuned for a scathing blog entry on plastic surgery here and the idolization of the west....coming soon....

Korean Church and Hikers Paradise (well, almost)

So this weekend me and Kyle and Amy went to Korean Church. It was a big Presbyterian church by my house. Seven stories tall.....but actually a surprisingly small sanctuary...like 300 maybe...We were all kinda nervous, but everyone was really nice and seemed to enjoy having us. The service was decent...the music was old hymns that had been translated, so for the most part we knew the tunes and a lady who spoke decent english had the words. The sermon was unitelligble of course (I counted six words I knew.....) and on some obscure text from Chronicles. Whoot. The pastors voice I must say was probably the least annoying one I've encountered thus far - which is good, because if you're going to sit for an hour and a bit not understanding anything, an annoying voice would make it just that much worse :)

As for the hiking, there are all sorts of trails through the mountains here. Everywhere....see a mountain, walk toward it, find a trail through some weird field, and voila, you'll have a hike. Even if your trail happens to be kinda piddly, you'll eventually run into the main trails. Works every time. I've gone a couple times a week before I work since I have a good portion of the day before I head to work (usually around 2:30 or so for 3:30 class) and am usually in the market for something to do besides sit on my computer. (BTW, my apartment is the building to the left of the red one in the foreground)

Its sort of like explorers paradise...except when you conquer the mountain (and some of them are about 450m...kinda like Finlayson, or Jocelyns peak) you see nothing. There's still dense foliage all around. Its aggravating. Imagine going up Finlayson and seeing nothing but more trees. Every hike I've done around here except one has had zero view.

I was so annoyed at this lack that I climbed a power pole on one peak for a decent view. Even then its just sort of meh.....

Explorers paradise - almost, photographers paradise - no. And try taking pictures while you're balancing half way up a power pole....its a good time...

And this is the best I've seen in terms of wildlife....he was at about 400 metres, which I thought was strange...but apparently thats normal for Asiatic Toads. Go Figure.

PS its STILL 30+ degrees here. Getting pretty sick of it, not going to lie.

The Korean Child

The other day when I went to the creepy empty theme park, I had to get up real early to catch a bus. I caught the bus on the other side of town and to my shock (and horror) it was packed to the gills with sweaty Korean adolescents. At 7:00 AM. Going to school. 

It started to dawn on me what these kids go through in a normal week. Some of them are there until 5:00 PM and then they come to see us at the English Academy. No wonder they're all demonic or in deadly depression by the time they come to my class. And not only that....they have SIX DAY SCHOOL WEEKS!  Being as open minded as possible of course... it's really stupid. 

A sorry state of affairs

I was teaching the expression "used to" to one of my more advanced classes (all boys), and the example in the text was about changing as a result of marriage. i.e. "Tino used to eat out a lot, but now he eats at home" Some of the follow-up questions were about the advantages and disadvantages of marriage. The first things my students said were "Uhh....husband drinking....fighting wife...." making hitting motions in the air. This was slightly disturbing, but I thought maybe it was just my class. Meanwhile in the other advanced class (mostly girls) Amy was having the same conversation with her kids. The first thing the girls said about disadvantages was getting hit by their husbands as well! We were shocked when we compared notes. :( Anecdotal? I wish, but not likely that they would all jump to that answer first in two different classes purely by chance.

Stupid Signs and Shirts

For anyone who has never experienced the wonderland that is English in Asia, here is a glimpse into the wonderful world of Konglish....or Chinglish...depending on where you are. Believe it or not, there is a a lot of English here, even in Wonju. There are a couple problems however: a) nobody here can read it or speak it and b) most of the time it is tragically wrong, hilarious, or revolting. They only use it because they think English is cool. The idolization of things western is kinda sad. More on that later though...this is a lighthearted post. They have these expensive shirts that are the just the dumbest slogans...we have fun laughing at the people we see on the street. Here is a picture Amy took from our very own Wonju. For more go to http://www.engrish.com

Followed by a few other amusing examples......

<-- Those commiting suicide will be severely punished

<--But the occasional mishap is ok.....

<--Yaaarrrrr Yoga Pirates