The Korean Edition

Can I Have a Bite of That?

2009-04-25T15:59:00.003+09:00

It is finally here. After days of hard work and weeks of procrastination, our new website is finally finished.....errr, well finished enough. Please continue to keep up with us as we move on to the next adventure in our lives...marriage.

www.canihaveabiteofthat.com

-Sam

Jetlaaaaaaaaag

2009-03-10T18:37:00.004+09:00

Here are the times that I have slept since we got home. All in Dallas time.

Mar 7

5:15 pm - 11:15 pm

Mar 8-9

7pm - 6am

Mar 9

5:30pm 6:30pm

Mar 9-10

9pm - 2am

Sam

What Day Is It?

2009-03-07T12:59:00.002+09:00

At this point, I don't think my body knows which way is up or down, and for darn sure doesn't know what time to think it is! That's right... we're officially on our way home... and it's taking a tad bit longer than expected, thanks in large part to one Mr. Kim Jong-Il and a certain airline's crappy international flight schedule.

Just for funsies, here's a time-line of our last I-can't-do-the-timezone-math number of hours:
- Thursday night 11:30pm leave Hanoi (the most crap-tastic airport known to man) for Seoul (3.5hr flight)

- Friday morning 5am arrive Incheon airport
- Take the bus into Seoul, rouse David from his slumber at 7am
- Last lunch with our besties 11am
- Pack it up, get back on the bus to Incheon airport at 2:30pm
- Notice sign that says our flight has been delayed at 3:45pm
- Spend 35 minutes shifting various items in our bags to make them all as equally overweight as possible, contemplate kissing ticket agent on the mouth when he finally consents to just let us take our overweight cabin bags on the plain and writes a note on the back of our boarding passes to get us through security at 4:15pm.
-Become mildly worried when we learn that said airline has already re-routed us through Toronto because we will probably not make our 1:55 flight to Denver due to the delay and the notorious length of time it takes to get through customs in Vancouver. Hold on to hope we will fly like the wind 4:30pm
- Plane gets in late and cabin must be cleaned... finally begin boarding an hour and change late 7:45pm.
- Passenger has medical emergency and must leave the plane. They also must root around on the underside of the plane for their baggage. Awesome. Plane takes off at, well, I stopped checking at this point.
- Notice that our flight pattern made quite the U-shape southward, which appears to confirm our theory that we were one of the planes re-routed to avoid Mr. Crazy Pants up north.

- Friday (take 2!) Plane touches down in Vancouver at 12:45pm. (10 hour flight)
- We make it to the ticket counter and find that the 2:15pm flight to Seattle is the last. plane. going. to. America. today. @%^&! Seriously? It's a FRIDAY. Does NO ONE need to go to the U.S. after 2pm today????
- Contemplate punching security attendant when we hand him our boarding passes for 11:35pm and he quips, "You're early". Decide to laugh instead because, well, it's kind of hilarious at that point. Giggle a bit at the security belt operator who takes a long look at my bag and thinks, "Can metal chopsticks be used as weapons?" Realize we are definitely not in Asia anymore :(
- Live like hobos in a corner of the domestic terminal (but hobos with internet and Starbucks non-fat lattes and Cosmpolitan in English!) for 9 hours.

So, instead of arriving home, oh, right about NOW, we're hopping on a 4.5 hour flight to Toronto tonight and then another 3.5 hour flight to Dallas tomorrow morning. And then we'll be HOME. And then Daylight Savings will start and we'll just tack another hour onto the delirium. Or, take it off, depending on how you look at it. And then we'll start updating you on our fabulous fabulous trip!

In Transit

2009-02-26T12:51:00.002+09:00

Hello Everyone!

We are currently in Phnom Penh getting ready to head our for our third day here. We leave tomorrow morning for Ho Chi Minh. We will try to get some blog(s) and pictures posted tomorrow. So far our hostels have limited our internet access to little or none. We are having a wonderful time. We are getting used to the heat. We went from 0 centigrade to about 32 when we went from Seoul to Siem Reap. Ok, we are off. Check back in th next 36 hours for updates.

Sam and Alison

Last Post From Seoul

2009-02-21T09:28:00.002+09:00

Alison and I are currently sitting a few hundred meters from our gate, awaiting the boarding call for our flight to Cambodia. Last night was a fantastic last night!! We went to small local bar that is just up the street from school, so many of our co-workers, friends, drinking buddies, traveling buddies, and neighbors came out to send us off. Saying goodbye was sad, and it was not forever, as we will see some of our friends again when we come through Seoul on our way back to Texas.

I guess our blog title will no longer be appropriate after today, but we will continue to post our travel thoughts and pictures here over the next two weeks as we travel through Vietnam and Cambdodia.

We are happy to announce that we will continue blogging about life in general after we are back in the states. Keep checking back in the coming months for our new website. We actually bought a domain name and I am working with Rapidweaver to develop our very own website. Keep checking back in the coming month or so and I will provide a link. Until then, keep checking back here to keep up with us.

Sam

You May Snow Fight with Firefighters...

2009-02-17T20:58:00.003+09:00

I've had these gems saved on my work computer for forever and came across them while cleaning things up a bit on my break. (You know, since we're leaving and all... ahhhh!) I had one of my upper-level classes write poems about their favorite season and thought these 3 on winter were pretty amusing and a little odd...

Winter
by Han Ju

You may fly a kite in the white garden
You may make a snowman with man’s help
You many snow fight with firefighters
You may drive car to white garden.

Winter
by Daniel2

White snowy day
It is the heart by me
I want to get that white heart inside
I want to be a inside person in outside
I want winter because the snow day makes me to be happy
I think the sky is very beautiful

White Snow
by Daniel1

The winter come with witches
The witches come with a white snow
“Wow! What a white snow!”
One Wednesday everybody whistle
They wonder when the snow will stop.

Gross

2009-02-16T22:47:00.002+09:00

Oh, Yu-Na Kim... you are an amazing figure skater, you running around and sweating is kind of inspiring, and the music is good... but I can't get past the concept of this commercial that's on all. the. time... just wait for the end!

Yeah, nothing's better than chugging milk from the carton after a tough work out... barf-o-rama!

(Have I mentioned that I will actually miss Korean commercials? Sigh.)

Japan Day 3

2009-02-16T13:56:00.006+09:00

We started off a very busy day very early in the morning at the Fish Market. This place was nuts and so much fun to wander around! We spent a long time in the tightly packed aisles dodging minitrucks and motorcycles and workers carrying freshly packed fish. (If dead fish bother you, you might want to skip towards the end!)

Then we stopped for the. best. sushi. ever. I've never had sushi for breakfast, but this was seriously so delicious and fresh!

From the fish market we walked basically across the city. It took for-ev-er, but at least the views were nice! Here's the moat around the palace.

Our next stop was Yasukuni shrine, which is a bit of a controversial place. This is the memorial shrine to those who died in the Japanese military wars. Because of Japan's dicey history with many other Southeast Asian countries when dignitaries stop by the shrine during official visits it creates tension in their home countries.

At the shrine there was also a warm museum that focused heavily on WWII. Let's just say that getting the Japanese perspective on the pre-WWII "Korea incident" and the "American War" was interesting. No photos were allowed inside the actual museum, but here's Sam next to a steam engine they had on display.

Then we stopped off for a little bit coffee to refuel and hit up the Sony building, which was lots of fun. We got to see all of the prototypes for their newest stuff, play with cameras and computers, etc. After walking alllll day long and starting so early we ended up just heading back to the hostel and calling it a night!

Alison's Korean Favorites

2009-02-15T11:57:00.003+09:00

We had our "official" going away party last night, and I think it made me feel nostalgic. So, I'm jumping on Sam's bandwagon and making my own list as a way to recap the year... and possibly to avoid packing. In no particular order at all, here are my fav. things about Korea.

1. Noreabang! This one is fresh in my mind since we were just there like 10 hours ago. I know they have them in the states, but these are literally on every street corner here. The noreabang is karaoke, but in a private room and with full control over the song selection. Glorious!

2. Public transportation. Dallas needs to get on this, stat.

3. Mandatory recycling. Most apartment buildings and public places make it ridiculously easy to do this, which has made me be more concious.

4. Our friends. I haven't had a job where I worked with so many people my own age in a long time. And with everyone living so close together it's a little bit like college again, and who didn't love college?? More than that, though, we were lucky to work with a really great group of people, all of whom I actually like! Plus we have some rad not-school-associated friends.

5. Korean kids. Sure some are punks, but so are 12 year-old boys everywhere. They make me laugh every single day. And while I don't think that teaching is my "calling" I have really enjoyed it this year. Plus Korean babies are THE cutest.

6. Not understanding what's going on around me. Sometimes this place still seems like an adventure. But mostly it's a LOT easier to deal with people yapping on their cellphones in public places when you have no idea what they're talking about. And also it's really fun to shock people when you DO know what they're talking about.

7. Olympic Park. I love having a park within walking distance. I'm really sad I won't get to enjoy another spring/summer there.

8. Sharing food at restaurants. It makes meal times so much more fun and festive feeling. And you get to try more food! It might not be the most hygenic, but it's scientifically proven (by me, obviously) that sharing germs builds community. I apologize in advance if we're at home and I randomly take things off your plate without asking.

9. Express buses. I guess this goes along with public transportation in general, but express buses have Greyhound beat like nobody's business. Big cushy seats, lots of leg room, they make a cross-country trip an actually pleasant experience. Plus, they're cheap and leave a convenient times.

10. The hoses hanging from the cielings at galbi restaurants. So genius! I mean, you can have 20 in-table bar-b-ques going at once in a relatively small space and it never gets smoky in the room. Plus, they are cool to look at. I also just realized that I've never really taken pictures at a galbi restaurant. We'll have to remedy that this week!

11. Markets. There just isn't really anything like Dongdaemun or even Insadong at home and I can wander these places for hours just looking!

12. Won. It's prettier than the dollar.

13. Pretty much everything Sam said, too.

Okay, after I eat some lunch I'm REALLY going to start packing. For real. Because we leave in a WEEK, people! Seriously, this time next week I will be waking up in Cambodia. And I haven't even finished the Japan recaps yet!

Sam's Favorite Things About Korea

2009-02-12T00:44:00.002+09:00

As I was riding my bike to work today, I began thinking about the things I am going to miss. Here are 10 things in no particular order.

1. My bike - I love my bike!! I did not buy it until about 4 or 5 months ago, but I can count the days I have not ridden it on 2 hands. I am looking forwarding to driving again, but I will miss riding my bike everywhere.

2. The food - I got stuck on some dishes early on, but have since branched out, and just tonight tried something new still. Food is the one part of Korea that I feel I have not adequately explored.

3. Drinking Korean beer on the sidewalk - There are no public consumption laws in Korea, so most convenience stores have plastic tables and chairs out front. They sell beer in 2 liter bottles, as well as little paper dixie cups, and of course tons of snacks. Drinking beer on a summer night was relaxing and great times with co-workers, not to mention cheaper than a bar.

4. Alison - haha, I am not leaving her behind, but our relationship was different this year from the first two. We went from living 30 minutes apart in Dallas, to two desks apart at work, and two flights of stairs apart at home, and now we are going home and will once again be separated until after the wedding.

5. Ondol floors - I LOVE MY FLOOR HEAT! and i pay for it. My gas bill has been almost double Alison's some months because I love to turn on my floor heat and sit on the floor while eating, reading, surfing the web, etc.

6. Chopsticks - This is a weird one. I eat every meal with chopsticks. Even most of my meals at home where I could use a fork, I now choose chopsticks.

7. Cutting meat with scissors rather than a knife - It's just a Korean thing. They cut their meat up with scissors while it is cooking, and then serve it.

8. Food - Wait...I said this already

9. My students - A few of my students, I will not miss. But many of them I will never forget.

10. Caramel World Cone - I have never eaten so much ice cream in my life. Korea has the greatest selection of cones that are sold at every convenience store. The Caramel World Cone is the Pinta Island Tortoise(click here to google it) of the ice cream cone world. We only know of one store near us that consistently has it(but not always)stocked in their freezers. It just blows everything else away. If there was a way I could send home a box of dry ice filled with Caramel World Cones....I would send home three boxes of dry ice filled with Caramel World Cones. David and I always stop and look in the freezers on the street to see if we can spot a green wrapper......Most of the time we fail, which makes the successes that much tastier.

2 weeks to go, 4 weeks til home.

2009-02-07T18:10:00.002+09:00

Yep, that's right. We just have two weeks left at our jobs. Last week went by incredibly fast and were thinking that the next two will fly by as well. Leaving is going to be bittersweet. This has been our home for the past 12 months, and now we are in the process of packing it up. Two weeks until we are finished with work and have to be out of our apartments, but that is not the end of our excursion. I will post a detailed plan of our SE Asia travels later, but here is the preview. Feb 20 is our last day at work. The next morning we will be on a plane at 10:35 in the morning heading for Cambodia. Over the next 13 days we will make our way down through Cambodia and up through Vietnam where our flight leaves Hanoi on the evening of March 5th bound for Seoul. We get into Seoul super early on the morning of the 6th. We will then make our way back into the city to claim the suitcases that we will have stashed at co-workers apartments, have one last meal with friends and say our last goodbyes, then back to the airport to catch a 6:30 flight to Dallas, through Vancouver and Denver. If we live through March 6th, it might be a miracle. Scheduling our flights into and out of Seoul on the same day was not intended, but we must make it work.

We will spend next weekend hitting up the last few things we want to do here, and spending time with friends. Surely our last week will be rather hectic. Hopefully one more blog entry before we are off to Cambodia.

K-Pop

2009-02-04T22:17:00.007+09:00

I know you were probably not expecting to see this blog come from me. But I think it could turn out to be one of the more entertaining entries from this year. K-Pop is the phrase used to refer to Korean Pop music. When a song is big here, it is played everywhere, and all the time. We have shared a-lot about Korean Culture historically, but this will give you a glimpse into the music scene. All of these songs have a bit of English mixed in with the Korean. The English phrases are always the catchiest part of the song, and every single one of these songs has gotten stuck in my head over the past 12 months. There are also catchy dance moves that our students teach us(Alison will be glad to show you all of these upon our return) Please let me know if any of these get stuck in your heads. haha. Enjoy.....

"Tell Me" by the Wonder Girls.

"So Hot" by the Wonder Girls

"Nobody" by the Wonder Girls(Let this one run its course, it starts out with a guy singing, but then he gets stuck in the bathroom. This is when the girls come in and save the show.

"One More Time" by Jewelry

"Lies" by Big Bang

Big Bang is HUGE here. Seriously, 99% of the kids at our school will say that they like them.

If you hit this one up at 1:25 you will hear what our students sing to us every time they forget to do their homework.

"Look At Me" by Tae Yang

This is one of Alison's favorites.

Japan Day 1

2009-02-02T01:32:00.003+09:00

Look at me, getting this blog up just a week after our trip!! (If you saw exactly how many photos I had to sort through to bring you this post you would be excited for me, too!) Just to reiterate Sam's earlier entry, we had an a-mazing time on our trip!

So, here we are on the train to our hostel from the airport. The subway system in Tokyo is much more confusing than Seoul, but we literally had NO problem getting to Asukusa Smile!

Mkay, y'all, I'm not gonna lie. Our room was tee-niny. I would have had Sam stand in the room while I took this, but then the picture would have just been a photo of Sam's chest... let's just say I took this standing in the hall, and that suitcase is pressed all the way up against the wall. However, other than the small-ness of the room we really enjoyed our hostel. The showers were hot and clean, the lobby/lounge was nice, and the location was actually pretty good!

After we checked into the hostel we hit the road pretty immediately and headed out to Harajuku. It was packed on a Saturday night, and we had a lot of fun people watching. I couldn't stop staring at everyone who was dressed so differently from each other! I mean, I love Seoul's style, but things are pretty mono-chromatic here and everyone pretty much sticks to the same general style, but in Tokyo there was so much color and variation!
After passing like the 12th crepe stand we gave in. We went for the strawberry/chocolate/ice cream/whipped cream variation there.

I apparently loved it so much I had to make crazy eyes while eating it.

But Sam loved it enough to wear a tiny bit on his lip. Needless to say it was de-licious! (This picture also demonstrates that Sam is still really tall and I'm still short.)

The crepe served as a nice appetizer and as we walked we discussed what we should have for dinner. In the course of conversation we wondered whether Tokyo had different western chains than Seoul. Sam actually said, "Oh man, if they have Wendy's or Taco Bell I would probably have to eat there!" Well, wouldn't you know what we saw when we turned the corner! So, yes, we ate Wendy's for our first night in Tokyo. Feel free to judge.

Then we just continued to wander and wander and wander. Lonely Planet gave typically crappy directions, but we were having a good time just soaking in a new city so it didn't perturb us too much.

We were pretty beat by this point, and new that we were going to have an early date with the snow monkeys the next morning, so we headed back to our bunks for a good night's sleep... thanks to our ear plugs :)

"????" is to "Sam" as "The Great Wall" is to "Alison"

2009-01-28T23:00:00.002+09:00

Can you tell I have been studying up for the GRE?

Well, when we went to China Alison fulfilled her lifelong dream of seeing and walking The Great Wall. Japan was my opportunity to fulfill my lifelong dream of seeing the snow monkeys(or Japanese Macaque, if you want to be technical) I can't tell you when I saw my first documentary blurb on the snow monkeys, but I remember being fascinated. There was just something about them that really caught my eye. I have always loved monkeys, my very first "Animal Report" is Mrs. Hortzman's 3rd grade class was about Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees. The monkeys are always a must see when I go to the zoo, and I still secretly look for jobs in Africa where you live and work on a chimpanzee orphanage and care for abandoned monkeys(shhhh don't tell Alison) But I digress. The snow monkeys are my favorite, and I have psychoanalyzed why, I will now explain..... I love childhood/children/all that fun stuff. I don't long for a lost childhood or anything, but man!!! being a kid was fun!!! My friends and I would just run around, go to the pool, play in the creek, dig around for animals in the ground, go fishing in a pond, every once in a while get in a little fight. It was just good times, and nothing takes me back to being a kid more than seeing monkeys run around in the snow, chase each other, wrestle with each other, and swim around in a pool. I mean seriously, MONKEYS and SNOW!!! God has taken two of the most fun and endlessly entertaining things on the entire Earth and put them in one place! WOW!!! haha, ok, settle down Sam. Alison will blog more about the rest of the Japan trip, but here are the links to the snow monkey pictures.

Click here for Album # 1

Click here for Album # 2

Click here for Album # 3

Hitting the Slopes

2009-01-23T01:57:00.004+09:00

Well, I haven't done it since 9th grade (and we won't mention how many years ago that was, because some of you are all together too good at math) but last weekend Sam and I hit the slopes. Overall it was a good time. I might have cried a little bit once, but that was only from the humiliation of having to haul my skis back up the slope while a large group of Korean children laughed at me. But other than THAT :) Sam was an excellent ski-er and tore up every slope on the mountain along with Jordan on snowboard. David tried snowboarding for the first time and was such a trooper. He didn't cry at all!

Skiing here is actually a really sweet deal. 50,000 won got us a bus ticket there and back and an all day lift ticket. Then it was only about 14,000 won for the ski rentals. We went to Phoenix Park, which I can in no way tell you where it was geographically, but there were ummm... mountains... and snow... so, north? It wasn't too crowded and we got about 3 inches of snow over the course of the morning. So that was fun, but made seeing a bit of a challenge!

All suited up and ready to go! (What is wrong with my face??)

The mountain's many slopes.

Snowboarders just look cooler. Even if they do fall down more.

The cutest ski-er of all.

Aaaand to contine the trend of posting the most flattering pictures of myself as possible, me awkwardly holding Sam's skis and attempting to look "tough". I'll probably photo shop this face onto all the wedding photos... hott!

We plan on getting out at least one more time before we leave... in just 4 weeks... Ahhhhh!!! Also, our trip to Japan is this weekend, so instead of snow bunnies we'll be seeing snow monkeys. Hopefully I won't get my face eaten off! Have a good weekend and happy Solnal (Chinese/Korean new year) to you!

Food for Thought

2009-01-12T23:59:00.003+09:00

If you're here for the pictures you may want to skip over this post :)

For those of you that don't know that me that well, I will let you in on a little secret. I am kind of a blog stalker (with the "kind of" being maybe the understatement of the year). My Google Reader regularly logs over 100 blog entries with the posts varying from weddings to cooking and healthy living to travel and photography to religion to motherhood to travel. It pretty much runs the gamut, and now, looking at it, pretty much sums up who I am pretty succinctly. (Well, except for the motherhood part... that's just more of a preperation for the very distant future!)

Wait, why am I writing about blogs on a... blog, you might ask. Well, in reading these blogs about other people's thoughts and other people's lives I find myself thinking, "Wow, that's amazing! I want to do that!" Some of these people, including people who are my actual real-life friends and not just people I stalk... errrr follow on-line, are doing amazing things and having amazing adventures. Today as I was reading one of their entries I got a bit jealous of their life and the places it is taking them, and then I got to thinking...

I am truly excited about my own life and where it is taking ME as well! It might be taking me in a different direction, and in some ways not the exact direction that I might have thought, or even picked, several years ago, but yet I am content. There is adventure in front of me including a marriage and reunions with family and friends, and yes, travel and food (and hopefully healthy living!). And the best part is that just as 2 years ago I never would have predicted that on this night I would be sitting in a TGIFriday's in Seoul celebrating the birthday of a friend from Canada there is no telling where I (we) will be in another 2 years.

What adventures are on your horizon right now?

A Blast From the Past

2009-01-09T01:29:00.003+09:00

Are you ready for a seriously RANDOM post?? Good! I finally brought my crappy old camera home from school (where I angrily tossed it into my desk drawer on the last day of the semester because the stupid batteries died after I was able to take only TWO pictures of my classes, some of my favorites ever!! Single rolling tear.) Anyway, there were some real gems on the memory card, so I figured I'll cram them all into one post, because, well, why not?

First up: Classes Last Semester

The two measely pictures from last semester's classes. (Let's not mention the fact that it may or may not be my fault for waiting until the LAST day of the semester to take my camera to class... shhhhh... just look at the pictures of cute Korean kids!!!)

Hayden. The cutest nug of a kid you've ever seen. (This picture does not capture his tiny-ness)Sam stole him this semester, but is nice enough to share him when we combine our English Village intensive class on Tuesday/Thursday. (Yes, Sam and I are co-teaching a class. We're pretty awesome at it, I'm not going to lie. Or I just like doing less work. No, it's probably because we're awesome.)
Brian2 and Kai. Sam has Kai this semester, too. Ohhhh Kai. He's kind of a turd, but he sounds like a Muppet when he talks, soooo I heart Kai, too. I was also upset that Brian2 did not wear his bright red jacket and then claim to be cold and zip it alllll the way up with the hood on so you could only see 2 inches of his face. It annoys me whenever other kids do it (or when Sam does it to me in my hoodie sweatshirts) but for some reason he was super cute.

Topic 2: A-mazing Waffles

Before Kendra left we went to Cafe ImA in Gwangwhamun to have their famous ice cream waffles. There is ALWAYS a wait there, but it is TOTALLY worth it. Seriously, if you are in Seoul, I cannot stress this enough. Eat. These. Waffles.

Can you say holy yum? I mean, I don't even like waffles that much, but these were de-li-cious. You get to choose your two flavors of ice cream, or you can get fruit on top (which I'm sure is also good, but the ice cream seemed more appealing this day). We shared the waffle and had some really good soup before and were stuffed afterwards!

And finally: The Kimchi Museum!

The Kimchi Museum is quite tiny and located in Coex Mall (which means that you are practically obligated to have lunch at On the Border while you're there) and only costs 3000 won. It's quite informative, but I would recommend it towards the end of your time in Korea, because, well, I personally feel that it takes awhile to truly TRULY appreciate the gloriousness that is kimchi.

So many kinds of kimchi!

But cucumber kimchi is my favorite, hands down!

Did I mention that the museum is informative? It even has an entire hallway dedicated to how kimchi is good for your health! Here we have a depiction of how it cleans out your digestive system. (I would point out the pile of d-d-o-n-g, but I'm not 12 years old.)

Kendra learning about how kimchi is pretty much the same (but still different!) all over Korea.Different kinds of kimchi pots.

And now for quite possibly the least flattering picture ever taken of me. Obviously I had to post it on the internet. We watched a small child sit so that the woman was feeding her just before we got there. It turns out when you are full grown you have to sprawl across the scene, which I'm pretty sure is not what it's meant for, but when a wax figure wants to feed me a piece of delicious kimchi, who am I to say no??

It's official. I have no shame.

Seodeamun Prison

2009-01-04T23:34:00.006+09:00

This weekend we continued on our quest to check more things off of our "must see" list in Seoul. We met up with several other teachers to visit Seodeamun Prison which is one of the more somber places we have visited to date. Seodaemun Prison was used by the Japanese as a place to detain and torture Korean resistance fighters during their occupation in the early 1900s. I actually don't have too many pictures, because in many areas of the museum they are not allowed, and honestly many of the vignettes they have set up to depict what happened to the resistance fighters were so graphic that I understand why they have the "no photo" signs everywhere. I found it strange as well that there were so many small children running around.

Anyway, here is a view of the prison from above. Most of the buildings were under construction while we were there, so a picture of a picture will give you the best idea of the layout.

Front gate.

The first building that you enter is an exhibition hall, where all of the vignettes are set up, to give you an idea of what prison life was actually like. It still amazes me that South Korea is what it is today with so much oppression and utter destruction in the very recent past.

We then entered the prison buildings themselves. Looking down a hallway that was under construction, with all of the cell doors standing ajar but deserted was eerie.

Such small cells.

Sometimes the human capacity for evil is more than I can take.

Overall it was a very interesting trip and reminded me again of what a resiliant nation South Korea truly is!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T22:46:00.004+09:00

We hope you all enjoyed your New Year's Eve! Word is my parents actually managed to stay awake until 12pm this year... woowee! We decided to head downtown for the general melee, because, well, why not?

Do I look chunkier than normal? That's because I am wearing EIGHTEEN pieces of clothing. Literally. Have I mention I really don't like the cold?

The riot police were out. As usual. It's funny because we were with some people who are newer to Korea and they were a bit freaked out by their presence while we didn't feel like it was too unordinary! The girls were walking a little slower than the guys at the beginning and got cut off when they formed a line. There were a few tense moments but we managed to use our ninja skills to get through to reunite. (Or we might have just snuck through where an break opened up, but that's not really as exciting, is it?)

Laurie, Tom and Steve, do you remember this cow?? He was making the rounds again for NYE, but repurposed because 2009 is the year of the, you guessed it, cow! There were lots of hats shaped like cows, too.

The sign reads "Lee Myung Bak OUT". A lot of people still don't like the President.

Braving the cold and the crowds.

LOTS of people.

And as the clock struck midnight it was time to light the fireworks. In a crowd! Nothing makes the New Year more exciting than the possibility of being accidentally lit on fire!

Later we headed to Mike's Cabin in Sinchon to warm up. Can you tell I have 4 shirts on??? We didn't stay out too late as we're both still a tad under the weather, but overall it was a fun way to ring in 2009, a year that is going to be very eventful! Just 7 weeks 'til we bid "aneyang" to Korea... ahhhh!

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Wrap-Up

2008-12-29T22:08:00.007+09:00

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Here are few random photos of ours. As Sam mentioned in the doctor's blog below I wasn't feeling up to much on Christmas Eve or Day... or the days after that, but I did manage to rally for a few festivities...

The tree (thanks Abby!) I made all of the decorations except for the lights and green balls for a fully decked out tree for under 5000 won. Sam was uber impressed with the paper chains... sometimes I wonder if he missed Kindergarten entirely.

We decorated our gingerbread family and their abode.

Happy couple. (One of Sam's feet broke off, so we ate off the rest of the feet so that his wouldn't feel like less of a person... and because we might have wanted a little gingerbread cookie and a bite off the roof of the house might have been more noticeable.)

Our moms sent us some fantastic activity books and we dove right in.

Look how excited I am for a cheesy holiday movie to watch, even through the sickness! Worst. Picture. Ever.
And this is what the rest of my weekend looked like: OJ, painkiller/fever reducer, tissues, thermometer (side-note and random "Alison fact": taking my temperature ALWAYS makes me feel better, even if my problem isn't illness related. Basically, don't be surprised if there are multiple thermometers on our registry!), etc. At least the tree was nice to look at!

And my packet-o-pills and cough syrup! (It still weirds me out that they aren't in child-proof containers, but the single serving cougy syrup packets are SO handy!)

A Trip To The Doctor

2008-12-28T01:07:00.002+09:00

If you have known me for any period of time, you know that I am a regular visitor to the hospital. Whether it was sports injuries, appendicitis, metals bars in my chest, hanging from a fence, ridiculously bad allergies, or any other number injuries, a yearly visit to the doctor is not uncommon for me. And it seems that Alison is starting a tradition of being sick on Christmas. Last year she had her gall bladder out just a couple days before Christmas, and this year her Christmas present from me was a cold.

But we will get back to this weeks events later. First let me tell you about healthcare in Korea. Each of us pay roughly $50/month for national health insurance, this is the same plan that pretty much all Koreans are on. You have two options if you want to go to the doctor. There are clinics and international clinics. Clinics are like your regular doctors office, and international clinics and small branches of large hospitals. At the clinics there are usually one or two family physicians. Their English is OK at best, they can tell you what is wrong if you have a simple cold or something, but they are definitely not fluent. I have visited the clinic that is very close to our school 3 times. The first was back during the first month when I did not have health insurance yet. I had a sinus infection. The visit and prescription(3 days of antibiotics, tylenol and who knows what else) totaled $16. When you get the meds from the pharmacy, they give you all the pills that you are supposed to take at once, all in the same pouch. Kind of convenient, but you're never exactly sure what you are taking. But no one has died yet, so I think it is safe.

I also made a trip to an international clinic back in the spring because my allergies were really bothering me. So I found an international clinic relatively close. The doctor's, as well as the staff's English, was not much better than the regular clinic. Actually, there was one member of the staff who spoke English well, but that was it. I had some blood work done to try to figure out what I was allergic to, but it showed nothing and ended up with some simply nasal spray. Pretty much no matter what you play 50% or less when you go to the doctor. The blood work, two visits and meds all cost me about $90.

Well, about three weeks ago I felt my self getting sick. I just had this feeling in the back of my throat. So I went back to the clinic, and this is how the visit went.

Sam: I have a sore throat.

Dr: OK, let me look at your throat(looks at my throat)your your throat is red bumps....but not bad

Sam:(nods)

Dr: Now I will check your neck nodes(checks my "neck nodes") Your neck nodes are healthy.

Sam:(nods)

Dr: Now I will check your lungs(listen to lungs) Your lungs are good.

Sam:(nods)

Dr: Now I will check your heart strength(listens to heart)Your heart is strong.

Sam:(nods)

Dr: Now I will check your kidneys(lightly punches my kidneys)Does that hurt?

Sam:Not any more than normal.

He then proceeds to tell me that I do not need medication and that all I need to rest, humid air, lots of water, and a good diet. I walked away disappointed, and I had a cold the next day. A week later I thought I was completely over that cold, but no. Last Friday night my right "neck node" swelled up massively. So I went back to the clinic(at this point I was wanting to go somewhere else but it was the weekend and I just needed something. The conversation with the doctor went the same way, but he actually gave me medicine this time. I thought he was giving me an antibiotic but I don't think he was. Because later that day, my body decided that it wanted to form a painful and gross cyst underneath my tongue. I figured that I was taking antibiotics and that it would clear up. Well, within a few days(by Christmas Day), my cough cleared up but I was still very congested and still had this cyst under my tongue. By this time I had gifted my germs to Alison(even though she attempted to avoid me). We decided that we would go to a different international clinic, one that a co-worker of ours had gone to for a chronic problem that she had while she was here. She said everyone spoke great English and made everything very easy. So I call the morning of the 26th to get an early appointment. Mind that we still had to work at 2:3o that day. So we get our appointments and get in a cab for the short ride. We get there, and both the receptionists at the International clinic speak nearly perfect English. We fill out our paperwork and wait for the doctor. Alison goes in first and then it is my turn. I go in, I give her the run down of my medical history and then I tell her what I have told you about the congestion and cyst. So she is listening to my chest and this is the conversation.

Dr: You have some dander in your hair.

Sam: Yea, I think the dry winter air has dried out my skin, I have some dandruff shampoo that usually helps clear it up.

Dr: Oh, well lets have a closer look. Hmm, yes, you have scales.

Sam: What is causing that?

Dr: Well, probably an overgrowth of bacteria, its not bad bacteria, but there is an overgrowth.....and your human function is failing.

Sam: OK (at this point I have gotten used to these kind of matter of fact phrases coming out of non native speakers, but this one almost made me giggle out loud)

So she ends up giving me shampoo and ointment for my scalp, more nasal spray, 10 days of antibiotics, and 10 days of ibuprofen. The doctor visit was $15, and all my prescriptions were $24. Before we left, Alison decided that she did not want to go to work that day, so we asked for a note so you could have a sick day. The receptionist told us that it would cost her $10 for a note in Korean, and $20 for one in English. How crazy is that? haha. oh well. She got the Korean one.

All in all I was very impressed with the international clinic at the Asan Medical Center. It was definitely the best/funniest visit to the doctor I have had here.

We are both feeling much better now.

The Most Random Day of All the Days

2008-12-24T02:16:00.006+09:00

Well, I'm not going to lie, I've been having a little bit of a meltdown over here. It's been a tough week. First, Kendra teacher finally left to head back to Canada... a day I had really been dreading! I'm missing the girls that have gone home like nobody's business. Also, as Christmas is well, tomorrow technically, I'm also really missing home. I really love Christmas... like, a lot... and it's just well, different here (who would have thought??) Christmas here isn't so much about oh, the birth of Christ or even family and togetherness... it's about couples. Not entirely hard to believe from a country that has THREE Valentine's days, but I think it takes a little something away from the actual holiday. However, I think I'm rallying. Sam has been great, as always, and I finally got our Christmas tree up (expect photos soon), and just knowing we get a day off on Thursday (1st holiday since September!) is easing some tension. Still with me? Sorry, I just needed to get that off my chest, now for the REAL post :)

As I mentioned before, Kendra and I have been working on a list of things to do before we leave, and she, Shana and I (Shana post your pictures!!!) checked some off the list on Sunday! It made for a randomly awesome day for sure!

We started off at Lotte World, which is a giant mall just a few blocks from our house. In said mall they have 1) Ice skating 2) Bowling 3) an Amusement Park and 4) A SHOOTING RANGE!!! Obviously we had to go! A few pictures...

(I think the child really adds a little something special to this one)

(Prepping to shoot my Barretta 9mm... the Glock was broken, unfortunately)

Post shooting... leaning against (not) my 100% accurate target. I actually scored a 35%, but hit the target 7 times with 2 shots that would definitely have killed Mr. Super Stationary, so look out! If there's ever a pre-loaded and cocked gun chained to a booth that you are standing in front of, there is a 1 in 2 chance that I will maim you!

(Also, we may look tough, but none of us knew that the casings would come out of the gun, and I may or may not have momentarily thought I managed to shoot at myself. Dude, I grew up in Flower Mound and was not in Boy Scouts (ahem, Samuel) so this was my first time... don't judge!)

Kendra modeling our super hot vests and the hats we found just lying around the place.

Did I mention we were IN THE MALL? Just a few yards from where we were weilding our instruments of death (and adrenaline rushes!) there was a marching band on ice. Making a love heart. Because Christmas is for couples. (Sidenote... If I hear "All I Want for Christmas is You" one more time I may punch someone out. It's like the only Christmas song I hear!!!)

After a delicious dinner at On the Border ("Holasumnida!") we went back to Kendra's to help her pack up a bit and meet up with the boys. Then we decided to have a late snack of... Live Octopus!!! We headed up restaurant row in Cheonho to find a tank displaying the sea creatures and then whipped out the phrasebook to tell them what we wanted. Then we had to mime that we wanted it still wriggling. Yeah. So, out the man went to pluck a live one from the tank and then we heard the chopping block.

Technically the octopus is dead, but it still manages to wriggle and suction. So, basically, chew really fast and thoroughly, or it will suction to your throat. Awesome! Who doesn't like a snack with a side of possible death?

Look Ma, no hands! (I'm also pretty sure I didn't stop making that face for the entire time we were in the restaurant...)

Doing the same thing... to. Sam's. face. Ahhhhh!

Also, just because I have the pictures... there is an outdoor skating rink in Olympic Park where skate rental and entrance fee cost a whopping 1,000 won to skate basically under the Peace Gate. We went on Saturday and glided like ice angels. (Okay, at least we managed not to fall down and only took out one small child!)

That's all for now, but I wanted to wish all of you a very "Helpy Christmas" from South Korea! We love and miss ALL of you!!!

The View From the Top

2008-12-11T01:49:00.005+09:00

It is absolutely amazing to me how quickly the time is flying by!!! I mean, seriously, when did it inch towards the MIDDLE of December? At the end of the month, another of the teachers, Kendra, will be heading home. While all of this leaving certainly makes me sad, it's also been fun having someone to go and do some of the things on my "must do list before leaving" list with. This weekend Kendra and I tackled a big one... Seoul Tower!

Seoul Tower is visible from lots of places in the city, and from the top observation deck it offers a 360 degree view of the city. Needless to say, it's best to go on a clearer day, and as we had heard that dusk was the best time to go we headed over around 4:00 (after a delicious lunch at Dos Tacos in Gangnam).

Here's the inside of the lobby:

A view from the observation deck... kind of a smoggy day, unfortunately.

There are a bunch of "media art" installations on the observation deck. I guess they are trying to actually make your 7,000 won admission fee worth it... I think they are using the term "art" rather loosely here.

If you don't want to click to make the picture bigger I'll just fill you in... some random skyscrapers, several fish, a nun, a boy with his head in his hands and an undentified blob. It certainly enhances the view. Errr...

Some of the fanciest bathrooms I've ever seen. (I felt awkward taking a picture in said fancy bathroom, hence the terrible framing and bad lighting... but seriously, a panoramic view and fancy sinks... had to be documented!)

As it got darker we decided to head down to the lower, outdoor observation deck to hang up our "love locks". On the deck there is a big chain link fence, and people write their names on locks and then lock them together to signify their love. Since Kendra and I are in love, obviously, we hooked our locks together. They have our names and the ever popular phrase "I love you, but your face is under attack". Sam and I will definitely have to head back up to make sure our love is properly documented in Seoul :)

I know, we all wish my night photography skills were better :)

While we were out on the observation deck it started snowing like crazy! So much fun. It would be more impressive, except that I heard you actually got some snow in Texas this week. Always snowing on my parade, aren't ya!

What else to do when there is a (mildly creepy) Christmas tree made of teddy bears? Make a love heart, obviously!

Debate Competition

2008-12-08T01:49:00.002+09:00

For the past 5 months I have been teaching the highest level class at our campus, they are all 6th graders and have excellent English skills. We concentrate on current affairs and issues. We cover a new topic every week with the culmination of the week being a debate on Friday. The basic format is that we read an article on Monday, and then have a writing/discussion activity. On Wednesday we read another article on the topic and then they split into their groups and start putting together their debate. Well, for the past 4 weeks I have been preparing four of my students for the debate competition. They spent over 20 hours writing arguments, memorizing templates, and brainstorming rebuttals. I put in an additional 5 or so hours editing, copying, cutting and gluing arguments onto cue cards. Alison was a sweetheart and did a couple hours of gluing the other night when I had had enough of it. Well, this weekend, myself, the students Korean teacher, Kabin, and I got on a bus to go to the competition with 20 other debate teams. They won their first round, and did very well the second round but unfortunately they did not move onto the final round of four. I was so proud of them. They were not really excited in the weeks leading up to the event, but after their first debate something came alive in them. I stopped forcing them to practice, because they were asking me for their cards, wanting to rehearse!! It was really fun to see these kids enjoying themselves and it was fun for me to let them enjoy themselves. Most of the time I am telling them to get back to work, stop speaking korean, get back to work, sit down, stop talking about me in Korean, where is your homework. These kids work really hard and it was fun to get to see them have fun. Jason, one of my best students, and the only boy on the team, wanted to play poker on the bus ride back. I obliged and taught him, Uri, and Sujin how to play five card draw on the way back to Seoul, as well as how to shuffle a deck of cards. I played a dozen hands with them, and then needed to sit back and rest, but they continued to play. I had a couple observations. One was that they kept speaking English. Most of the time when I stop speaking with them, they revert back to Korean, but I think they just forgot all about Korean for a while after being surrounded by fellow Korean English speakers all weekend. That was cool to see. The other was that it dawned on me that when I was in 6th grade, I rode a bus from St. Louis to Yellowstone and on that bus was where I learned to shuffle a deck of cards. I just found it very "circle of lifeish" to be teaching my 6th grade korean students how to shuffle on a bus. If it is not clearly evident by this blog, I really enjoy teaching and coaching these kids. I have had thoughts of teaching once Alison and I come back to the states, but you will have to come back later to hear about that. It is worth devoting an entire blog to. I will leave you with a presentation that Jason wrote. The topic is English Immersion Education, his assignment was to write a presentation on the topic from the viewpoint of a member of the Korean Government. This was what he e-mailed me, I have not edited this at all. I am going to make a push to "publish" more and more of my students work, whether it is the upper level stuff, or my lowest level kids, or just plain old pictures.

President/Government

By Jason

Hello. I am the education minister of the Republic of Korea. As the education minister I agree with President Lee. We believe that young students such as elementary school students or middles school students should be thought in English. There are lots of benefits in this plan. First, South Korea will be globalized. Second, our imports and exports will be more fluent.

First, South Korea will be globalized. You see, the world, the Earth, is united with a language called “English”. To be more and more compatible with other nations, such as the United States and Australia, we must be excellent in English. We must learn or accept their cultures and learn what are good for us. As we become better at English, the world will be friendlier to us and we will be able to solve problems such as F.T.A. with us having more benefits. We will even be a part of solving international problems because we have a good relationship with the others. So, we must be experts at English.

Second, our imports and exports will be more fluent. Korea is an exporting country. And exporting starts with importing. We don’t have a single drop of fossil fuels in our land. So we import fossil fuels from the Middle East. They’re language isn’t English but they can speak English. With a good communicator who can speak fluently, our imports will be better for all of us. With the oil, we can export products. Actually, not just exporting, but exporting in a fairly decent price. So, if we make students study English in younger ages, we will be able to have those communicators.

As you see, by studying English in a younger and younger age, it is good for our economy. Basically, it benefits all of us. All of us.

A Feast for the Masses

2008-11-30T02:04:00.005+09:00

Well, we did it!! Sam and I officially hosted our very first Thanksgiving meal together, and I think it was definitely a success. As Sam mentioned before we were in no way expecting this to turn into as massive a par-tay as it did. I mean, come on... twenty people to feed, two small burners, a mini fridge, two tiny pots, and approximately 20 square feet of space??? The odds were formidable, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!

We started the fun by giving Sam's apartment a deep clean last night, then this morning went on a re-con mission to Lotte Mart, then to Costco where we purchased 7 rotisserie chickens, 3 big bags of potatoes, 2 bags of rolls and 3 giant apple pies. Then I went back and cleaned my apartment while Sam went to Lotte Mart and HomePlus to pick up the green beans, butter, bigger bowls, potato masher, etc. We also managed to snag the giant pot from Brett's apartment and then, the most clutch move of all, Brady and Ashlee hauled home the office microwave for us. (Yes, I have no shame, I asked to borrow the office microwave for our Thanksgiving feast, and luckily they were awesome and not only said yes, but also gave us some funds to actually have said Thanksgiving feast! Double score! Having no shame pays sometimes I guess :) Sam cut up all of the chickens and we got cooking around 5 pm.

Here is evidence of the 2 tiny burners. I only wish I had thought to take a picture of the GIANT pot of potatoes, because these two pots do not truly depict the fact that these are two. tiny. burners. (Thanks to Ian for lending us the toaster oven!)

Part of the spread. It looked much more impressive in person. Notice the microwave that was key for making everyone's dinner deliciously warm instead of just room temperature. Also notice the kimchi on the edge of the table. We are in Korea, after all!

We had mashed potatoes with skins and without, because we wanted everyone to feel at home :)

My plate of food.

Another plate of food. (Can you tell I was really proud of the food?) Frank brought Stove Top Stuffing. I don't even really like Stove Top in general, but his was de-licious.

Chowing down! It was really nice to have some "newbies" with us, too! David's friend Shannon was visiting from New York, our fav. Korean Jen came along, plus we had the new teachers from the Middle School campuses with us, too. How crazy is this... the guy in the brown jacket went to Trinity, and he and I actually know several people in common that went to Southwestern! Such a small world.

Mmmm... apple pie!

What Thanksgiving is complete without a family portrait? Ashley managed to sneak out before we got to picture time, but yes, you're counting correctly... that's 19 people! Everyone cracked up when Sam busted out the tri-pod, but this is SUCH a classic!

If Cole looks full, you know there was enough food!

Well, we definitely bought wayyyy too much food, but better than safe than sorry I say! Plus, everyone got to take home some leftovers, which we all know is the best part of Thanksgiving. (If you did not get leftovers and want some, we still have a ton, so just let me know!) It was so much fun to have everyone together and I'm soooo glad we had enough food and space! Thanks to everyone that brought drinks, food, cups, plates, and anything else too! I'm still in a bit of shock that it worked out! Thanks to EVERYONE who came, you totally made my Thanksgiving! To everyone at home, we hope you are having a fantastic holiday weekend, and look forward to celebrating with you next year!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T00:54:00.002+09:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! It is now officially the day after Thanksgiving here in Korea. (side note = I proposed to Alison on the day after Thanksgiving last year, and writing this blog prompted me to check last year's calendar to see when Thanksgiving was. Turns out it was on the 22nd of Nov last year, which means we totally forgot to celebrate one year of being engaged on the 23rd. haha) Our Thanksgiving Day dinner consisted of us going out with 5 of the other teacher from our school for kalbi. Which really is not too far off from a Thanksgiving feast. Kalbi is pork ribs that are cooked over hot coals right at your table, and you can grill peppers, mushrooms, and garlic on the grill as well. It is a ton of meat, and if you have read our other blogs about Korean meals you know that every meal comes with at least a few side dishes. We went to our favorite kabli restaurant, and becase kalbi is considered a "big, heavy, somewhat nice, eat out meal" it comes with numerous side dishes. ? to be exact: 2 soups, the best kimchi in all of Korea, rice, hominy type stuff, red pepper dipping sauce, shredded cabbage, and 2 types of leaf lettuce to wrap it all in. Korean custom calls for almost all meals to be eaten family style where everything is shared. So the meal was truly as close to a Thanksgiving feast as we could have on Thanksgiving night.

We are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at our apartments on Saturday evening. We initially planned on buy 3-4 rotisserie chickens from the supermarket, along with potato(e)s for home made mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, a couple pies, and some dinner rolls. We figured this would feed 12 or so people(about the number of people we thought would come from our office. Well, we did not realize how much people would latch onto this idea. Word got around to the middle school campus and the new teacher at another campus across the hall from me. They all invited a friend. Soooo, our current count is now over 20 guests. See my last blog entitled "I live here" if you would like to give me some tips on how to it everyone in here). It is more than we planned for, but nothing another bag of potato(e)s, rolls, two more chickens, and another pie can't fix. We are absolutely thrilled that we are able to host our family away from home for a Thanksgiving feast. We will definitely take pictures and post them ASAP.

We wish all of you back home the best on this Thanksgiving Day. We hope that you are able to be with family and friends on this day that calls for being thankful for what we have. As for us, we are thankful for all of our friends that we have made here, but especially for all of our family and friends back home that have supported us on this journey at the beginning of our lives together. We are thinking about you and hope you have a wonderful day. Take an extra bite of everything on your table for us!

I live here

2008-11-25T02:45:00.006+09:00

Alison also wrote a blog today, don't forget to check it out also.

I was looking through all of our old blogs todays and realized that the only pictures of our apartments are from the very first week we were here. So I thought you might like to see what my place looks like now that it has been lived in. I did some minor tidying up so I would not look like a complete slob, but I left all my books and gadgets exactly where they were when I had the idea to take some more pictures. So here is the tour of an apartment that has been lived in for nine months.

My bike outside my door in the hallway

The view of the inside of my door. I recently purchased my coat rack that was an absolute necessity for my collections of coats, gloves, hats, scarves, and umbrellas. And yes, I take my shoes off at the door every time I come in. I'm so asian.

Turn the right once you've walked in the door and you have my kitchen, complete with tea pot warming my water for some jasmine(쟈스민) tea. I have acquired multiple cooking utensils, a drying rack, and a toaster since we got here. I actually do quite a bit of cooking so my sink is always full of dishes.

Thats the washer underneath the counter(mini-fridge to the left of it), a 4kg bag of rice that needs to be put away in green, and the other bags are my non-food waste trash by the door.

My drying rack in the foreground. Desk and "closet" in the background. All the way in the back is the TV I never use. I never set up cable or internet in my place because I can get Alison's wireless internet in my room. My Xbox went out of commission a month or so ago, so the TV is relatively useless.

My desk and windowsill that are use for storage more than anything else. The windowsill is full of things like Shout, airspray, change, pictures, books, video games, a lint roller, nasal spray, and some computer speakers. The desk houses my DVD collection and random things that don't have a place.

The green chair was courtesy of the hotel that went out of business down the alley from us. Alison and I spotted two of these bad boys one night on the way back from the convenience store. We grabbed them, gave them a good wipe down and now we each have one in our room. On my bed is the beautiful bedding set that Avalon provided for me. The TV stand that I now use as my bedside table houses a GRE book, a Japan travel guide, and some other books that I am eventually supposed to get around to.

Just another view.

The floor table is where I find myself spending most of my time recently. Thanks Abby!! Abby recently left and gifted me this table. I plop down on my floor cushions and surf the net, download music, write blogs, etc. The floor is the best place because the heating comes through the water that runs underneath the floor. Coming home and sitting down on the warm floor is amazing.

So there you have it. It's what I call home. I will be sad to leave it, but I really am looking forward to a full size kitchen(and refrigerator) a separate living room with a couch(ohhhh a couch!!!), and my full size corner desk from IKEA. haha, its funny what I miss.

Change, Change, Change

2008-11-24T15:59:00.003+09:00

Well, there have been lots of changes over the last couple of weeks and it has really gotten me thinking. The weather has definitely changed, and I am still adjusting to that. I've realized exactly how "Texan" I am... I keep thinking, "Okay, it's been cold for a couple of days, but it will warm up again soon!" Umm, not quite. I'm learning to wear socks and always have my scarf and hat handy! I'm also trying not to think about the fact that it will probably only be getting worse until we leave. Sigh.

There have also been quite a few changes in staff at our school. One of the teachers that I am closest to, Abby, finished her contract and headed back to Winnipeg last week. Lindsey and Jordan are back in the States, although, Jordan will be back here before we know it, and many of our favorite Korean teachers will be moving to a new campus that is opening later this month. We've also gotten some new teachers, so that has been exciting. For those of you that know me well, you know that change is not exactly my favorite thing. At all! However, with all of this transition it has made me think about the last nine months and also think about what the future will hold once we head back home.

I regret not posting more of our day-to-day activities here in Seoul, because I'm not sure how well it has come across on this blog how much I absolutely love it here. While adjusting to a new culture and a new city took some time and effort, I really do feel like Seoul has become "home". For one, this is the first real "city" I have ever lived in. Even though I have lived close to Dallas and Austin, I never explored them to the extent that we have explored Seoul over these last 9 months. Even with all that we've done I've already started compiling a list of everything we still have to do and am trying how to fit it all in over the next 12 weekends! I also love being able to function with out a car... even if it is mildly annoying to have to haul your groceries a mile on foot or on the subway, I don't really think too much about it now.

One of the things that has absolutely made this year for me, too, is the people we work with. While I absolutely adored the people I worked with at White Rock (and still do!) it has been nice to work with so many people in my own age bracket. Being here together, so far from home, really creates a bond. We talk about work way more than we should, and sometimes we get really sick of each other, but for the most part I really do enjoy the people we work with, which is a huge blessing. It's nice to have people in your neighborhood, to relax in front of the convenience store with after work, borrow books and movies, etc. It's like a slightly more adult version of college life :)

It's also been a year to slow down and think about where I am and where I'm going. Although I haven't found the "magic answer" for what I should be doing with my life (sorry Mom and Dad!), I've definitely had some time to think. I've also learned some valuable skills as far as communicating clearly and effectively and patience. Patience has NEVER been one of my strengths, but when you are dealing with a classroom full of kids who are obviously not getting the point or a cabbie who wants to take you anywhere but where you want to go you learn that blowing up won't get you anywhere. I'm not exactly Ghandi, but I feel like I have definitely learned to keep my cool much better than before (right, Sam??) I can honestly say I never expected to find myself in Asia, but it has by far been one of the best experiences of my life. I'm trying not to over think the "going home" part, and listen more, trusting that God will show us what we're supposed to next when the time comes. I'm trying to be patient :)

To close (if you've stuck through this rambling!) Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! We will be picking up a rotisserie chicken and apple pie at Costco this Saturday and mixing up some mashed potatoes, green beans, and maybe even some stuffing to feast on with our crew, but we will definitely be missing you all!

Layin' Low

2008-11-22T00:08:00.003+09:00

It is Friday night here and Alison and I are both laying low tonight. Alison is feeling a slight bit under the weather, it is probably just allergies, but she decided to stay in to get some rest just to be make sure it does not get worse. I am just hanging out in my apartment because I don't feel like spending any money. South Korea has not been immune to the economic downturn, and in a sense it may be hitting us harder being here rather than back home in the states. Compared to nine months ago when we arrived the exchange rate between the South Korean Won and the US dollar has dropped over 30%. So, if we sent home 1 million won in February, we would have gotten $1,000, but now we only get $670. OUCH!! We are hoping that the economy gets going in the right direction before we have to send all of our money home in three months. It certainly won't be back to the rate it was at 9 months ago, but hopefully it will make a small rebound. But we are not letting the bad exchange rate keeping us from making the most of our time here. Like I mentioned before we are going to get to go to Japan on a four day weekend in January. We will fly into Tokyo, probably spend a day there, then head over to Nagano to see the snow monkeys. From there we might head south for the remaining two days before heading back to Seoul. It will be a quick trip, but it would have been disappointing if we did not make it to Japan. We have also decided that we are going to go to Vietnam and Cambodia(at least) immediately following the end of our contracts. Our employer allows us to delay our flights out of Korea for up to 30 days after our contracts expire. So we will fly to Vietnam, travel for ten days, then fly back to Korea, spend a night in Seoul, and then catch our flight back to the states the following day.

Beijing Day 4

2008-11-14T17:23:00.001+09:00

Go look at the other entry entitled Beijing Day 4. I wrote it a long time ago but never got around to publishing it, but when I did, it published it on the day I started writing it.

Beijing Day 3: The Great Wall

2008-11-14T02:55:00.008+09:00

Well, what Sam said is true, visiting the Great Wall has been a life-long dream of mine. I had a strange fascination with the Wall when I was little (I can still see the small, blue, hardback book my parents bought me). I guess it's the allure of something you can see from space, but that was built without the assistance of any "modern" construction conveniences. The idea of this wall snaking though the countryside for thousands of years (construction on the first sections of the Wall began in the 6th century BC) just captivates me. In any case, finally getting to see it and walk it was a really amazing experience.

We decided not to take our hostel's tour because we wanted to set our own time frame on the wall. We also decided not to go to Badaling, the most often visited section of the Great Wall because we wanted something a bit less, well, crowded. Instead we took a bus (and then a taxi) to the Mutianyu section, about 70km northeast of Beijing. Overall, I think it was a good decision, and getting there and back was not too difficult. Just make sure that if you do this, when you get off the bus at Huairou you set a return price with your cab driver before you take off as your cab driver will sit and wait for you while you are on the Wall.

So, we finally arrived at Mutianyu and took the cable car up to the top. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I will now stop talking and provide photo evidence of our journey! (As usual, more over at the picture page.)

Ummm... so. many. stairs.

What trip to the Great Wall would be completely without a thoroughly exauhsted, ridiculously dorky high-five photo as a capper? Obviously not this one!

It's about time.....

2008-11-13T13:47:00.002+09:00

I am sure that is what you are saying right about now. It has been months since either of us posted a good blog. I just posted Day 4 of our China Trip, hopefully this will inspire us to get Days 2 and 3 written as well. In the meantime, we have just about 3 1/2 months before we touch down on US soil again. Our contracts end Feb 21. In between now and then we are planning a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner. Since we have no oven, we might have to resort to turkey lunch meat sandwiches, but mashed potatoes, gravy, store bought rolls and sweet potatoes will all be present. We inherited a small Christmas tree from a teacher that is leaving, so that will be a nice adornment in one of our apartments. In January we have a 4 day weekend, which we will spend in Japan. And then when our contracts are up on the 21st of February we are planning to delay our flights out of Korea for about 10 days so we can hit Vietnam and/or Cambodia and/or Thailand before come home.

With some of our fellow teachers leaving in the coming week the reality of how much we miss our family and friends has made itself more evident. There are alot of things we don't miss back home(paying for gas, driving to the store instead of walking around the corner, greasy food) but family and friends can not be substituted for. We really look forward to seeing everyone and catching up when we get back. In the meantime, there is a number that you can call me(Sam) at. It is not long distance, it will call my computer, and if I am not online, you can leave a message. The number is 469-277-6758. More info later on Alison's number.

Oops

2008-10-13T13:03:00.002+09:00

Yeah, we stalled out a bit on the China trip... some day you will get to relive days 2-4, I promise! We've had a lot going on lately, Mama Hughey came to visit and I dragged her all over the city, we've had some staff changes at work that have kept Sam busy, and general life in the city has been very distracting-in-a-good-way. And some day I'll do an entire post on the laundry ordeal that is the bain of my Korea-life.

We can't believe that we have just 4.5 months left in Seoul! I'm already making a list of all of the things we must see before we leave!! For those of you still sticking with us (thank you!) we hope to have many more posts coming up soon. We miss and love you!

Beijing Day 4

2008-09-25T02:24:00.005+09:00

No, you did not mysteriously miss Day 2 and Day 3, I am just skipping ahead because Day 2 is skipping my memory at the moment, possibly because Day 4 was my favorite day in Beijing. As for Day 3, Alison will be the author of that post because the visiting the Great Wall was her lifelong dream, so my words could not do it justice. So here is Day 4.

Monday was our last day in Beijing. Our flight left at 6:45 pm so we had until about 3:00 pm to wander around before we had to get a cab from our hostel. Alison and Katrina went to Silk Street to do some more shopping. I on the other hand wanted to see some different parts of the city. So I rented a bike from our hostel for a mere 4 dollars and set out to explore the city. I had looked at a map the night before and plotted some destinations I wanted to see. Olympic Park, a city park(so I thought), Pearl Market, and Snack Street(again) were on my list. I thought I could do math AND use my finger as an accurate means of measuring distance on the map, turns out I can not do either. What I had thought would be a 10 mile journey at most, turned out to be a 30 mile one. The legs were a little wobbly the next day, but even after I finished riding, I had not realized how far I had gone. I had read somewhere that Beijing was as flat as a Mahjong table. Corny, but oh so true! It was so flat, and every street had a massive bike lane, and a seperate set of lights just for bikes at every intersection. I have to admit that pulling out into traffic to pass buses that were picking up passengers was a little nerve racking, but the cars in the road actually respected the bikes and gave them the right of way. I guess that is how it works in a city where literally millions of people commute on their bikes everyday. It was also thrilling knowing that when I was on that bike I was controlling where I was going. I don't miss the cost of having to put gas in a car, but I do miss being able to go where I want to go, when I want to go, and being able to stop when I want to stop. Being on a bike for those 5 hours gave me that. It was a lot more fun than I had expected, and I wish I could have done it for a couple more days. Here is a map of Beijing. I put some place markers in Blue, and my bike path in Red.

View Larger Map

Beijing Day 1

2008-09-18T22:44:00.004+09:00

It's true, I did put a moratorium on Sam's blogging until we had pictures because, really, how do you explain things like The Great Wall in words? Even the pictures we captured don't quite do these places justice. As Sam already described our first day I thought I'd just give you a quick recap with pictures. We're working on getting some of the 1200 pictures we took over the weekend up on the picture page, so check there if you want to see more!

As Sam said we really hit the ground running when we got to Beijing. We stayed in a great hostel, The Red Lantern House. It was a great deal... in a historic hutong, room for 3 (using the shared bathroom) for $33 a night. The front desk staff was super helpful as well and directed us to lunch and a bus to the Summer Palace, which is about 45 minutes north of the city. Here are few shots from our journey:

The Summer Palace was absolutely gorgeous. We are quite used to Palaces in Korea, which are generally pretty small in scale and were somewhat unprepared for the sheer scale of the Summer Palace. We were pretty wiped out from traveling all day, but easily could have spent more time there than we had.

After the palace we decided to head over to Tienaman Square. We got a bit turned around coming out of the subway (which is in no way as well marked as Seoul's), but had fun exploring the area on the west side of the square for a bit.

When we got closer to the square we realized that traffic was being re-directed and there was no way to actually get into the square as the underground tunnel was blocked off. There was also a pretty big crowd gathering, but we couldn't figure out what was going on.

Then we saw the guards marching across the road and realized that we were there for one of the two times a day that they bring everything to a halt in order to raise and lower the giant flag. Kind of cool to see.

By this point we were famished and decided to hoof it over to Snack Street, which Sam filled you about. After that we headed back to the hostel and promptly passed out! The day was a great start to our trip... but the next couple of days just kept getting better and better! Be sure to check back soon for the "Day 2" installment :)

Sunday Night In China

2008-09-14T22:55:00.003+09:00

Alison has requested that I wait to fully blog about the rest of China until she can add pictures to give y'all the full effect. Here is a sneak preview though......shhh

We went to...
The Forbidden Palace
Tiananmen Square
The Great Wall
Pearl Market

We ate...
Scorpion
Seahore
Meat on a stick
Giant Eggrolls
More meat on a stick
Candied fruit on a stick

We bought...
alot

Hello From China

2008-09-13T11:59:00.002+09:00

We made it!!! We are currently in Beijing. We flew in yesterday morning, dropped our stuff at the hostel and headed for the city. Yesterday we made it to the Summer Palace, which is absouletly enormous compared to the palaces in Korea, but parts of them are not as well kept. Korea has done an excellent job of preservation and upkeep with their palaces. The Chinese have not done so with all part of the Summer Palace, which actually made it more interesting. All the fading paint, cracks in the walls, heads missing from statues, and worn down stairs gave the place a lot more character and made it seem more authentic. We then made our way to Tianenman Square in time to see the lowering of the flag. For dinner we found the "Snack Market." It was about 1 acre of food stalls with all sorts of goodness. Grilled corn, giant eggrolls, candied fruit, and EVERYTHING on a stick. I mean everything....Squid, lamb, seahorse, scorpion, starfish, octopi, etc. We were just plain hungry last night so we kept to the normal stuff, but the stranger items will have to be tasted before we leave. Don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures of that adventure. Today we are going to the Forbidden City, then maybe some shopping and possibly an acrobatic or Kung Fu show tonight. Sunday will be dominated by the Great Wall, which we are really getting excited about. It has been Alison's dream to visit the Great Wall since childhood, and it is the main reason that we chose China as our only trip outside of Korea this year. I think we are going to try to update everyday while we are here since there is so much that we are doing, it will be hard to remember after we get back. So check back again tomorrow.

The Korean Way

2008-09-09T19:56:00.001+09:00

There is no telling how many blogs entries I could write about "The Korean Way." I've got work on my mind today though. I can't claim that I have ever worked in an office full time back in the states, but I have done some part time work. Most of that work consisted of planning ahead for future events and being given deadlines for projects, whether they were big or small. These things simply do not happen in the office here. About a month ago I was told that I would be giving a presentation on the new curriculum for our company's academies. They gave me two weeks to get ready, which was actually quite amazing. Consider what I have been told in the past 48 hours(the beginning of a new term) at our office1. There are no questions for the novels for three of the nine levels at our campus2. Potential investors are coming to watch you teach a different teacher's class on Wednesday.3. A few hours later I was told that I would instead be teaching a different class, still not my own, and another teacher would also be observed.4. Just 4 hours ago I was told that someone from one of our big investors was coming to take some pictures.5. What actually happened was a small film crew(foreigners) showed up and wanted to film some classes. 6. Talking with them, they told me that they had just been contacted 3 hours ago by our investor when they heard that this crew was in Korea currently and asked them to swing by.7. We should dress up tomorrow for the investors.Everything is just so last minute. Luckily I perfected the art of scrambling during my college days. I was good at procrastinating and even better at working on the fly. But I also love having things organized, and my Korean co-workers are often impressed by the little things that I do. I actually came in on Saturday to get some work done. One of the things I wanted to accomplish that day was make an assignment sheet so every teacher knows what sections of their books they need to cover in class. Since we share some of the books with the Korean teachers, it can get confusing because one foreign might teach the same level 4 times, but have 4 different Korean teachers that he or she co-teachers with. So all I did was make a spreadsheet that had the titles of the sections of the books, and underneath them they were marked F for Foreign, K for Korean, and B for Both. They were amazed! It was as if they had never even thought about organizing this before, and they probably hadn't. It must just be a cultural difference that the norm is for them to fly by the seat of their pants for everything. They roll with the punches, sometimes complaining, but generally not. For us foreigners, it is a little more difficult, but everyone slowly learns to deal with it.

August

2008-09-01T17:23:00.003+09:00

Hey everyone,

I apologize for not being as loyal to you as Alison has been. August has no doubt been a busy month at work, but I know y'all don't care about that. So lets get into the exciting stuff. Watching the olympics here was really something to witness. While South Korea is a top medal contender every Olympics, they win about 1/4 the total number of what the USA wins, so every medal is celebrated. Some of the highlights of watching the Olympics here were watching Park Tae Hwan win the countries first ever gold in swimming, a Korean woman winning the gold in taekwondo, and of course watching the Korean baseaball team dominate, which culminated with Jordan, his girlfriend, Brady, and myself going to the local pro baseball stadium to watch the gold medal game versus powerhouse Cuba televised live. We were surrounded by 40,000 Korean baseball fans. Admittance was free, and tall boys are always just $3, so it was a cheap and fun time.

Jordan leaves in two weeks, so he and I went east for a man's weekend. We took the bus east to Chuncheon, which was alright, we managed to find a festival, but no real good activies, other than the carnival games. We only played one, I performed better, and was awarded with a yo-yo, but the lady felt bad for Jordan, and have him a big roman candle(which he carried with him for the rest of the day). We thought this might be the case, so we hopped on another bus and headed farther East to Inje, which is toted as the adventure sport capitol of South Korea. We managed to find a place by the river where we set up Jordan's tent. Then we made the 15 minute walk into town to find some dinner. We got some pizza and fried chicken at a local joint, and ate it in front of a convenience store down the road. While there we made friends with a guy that is a rafting a ice fishing guide. He gave us his number and e-mail address, so we are going to hook up with him again come ice fishing season. After we had stuffed our selves with food and beer, we hailed a cab back to our campsite and played some cards(and finally set off jordan's fireworks) before getting some sleep. We resisted the sun, but it finally woke us up around 8. We then made the walk into town again to figure out where we would raft/kayak. We figured out where we wanted to go and grabbed a cab, he dropped us off at this place up in the valley along a nice flowing river. We ended up using inflatable kayaks. Our guides were two guides about our age. The trip was about 2 hours and we got plenty of sun, and the water was cold, but felt great. After drying off we waited for the bus and took it back to our campsite. We then made the walk back into town again to find some food. We ate, chilled by the river. Then Jordan went bungee jumping from 63 meters over the river. Pictures to come later. We then made the walk back into town again, and then jordan realized he left his wallet at the bungee jump place. So he took a cab there and they had it, and then came back into town(this time in a cab cuz we had a bus to catch soon). Funny thing happened on the way back to the bus. We were walking down a hill towards the bus station and from behind us we hear a "Hey!" We turn around, and its our friend from the night before, and he asks, "did you find your wallet?" and were thinking how does he know Jordan lost his wallet? Turns out, the people at the bungee jump place went through Jordan's wallet and found this guy's number that he had given to us, and called him to try to find us. HAHA. It was such a small town, only 30,000 people. We will definitly be heading back to Inje again.

Sokcho

2008-08-29T00:46:00.005+09:00

I told you'd we'd be catching up eventually! This is a bit out of order, as we actually went to Jeju before we went to Sokcho, but a) Sokcho was the more "interesting" trip (i.e. we did more than lay by the pool) and b) I already posted a few pictures from Jeju, but none from our super fabulous trip to Sokcho.

Sokcho is on Korea's East Coast, just a 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Seoul. The buses in Korea have the Greyhounds back home beat by like 200 times over. For just $44 per person round-trip we were treated to arm-chair sized leather seats with foot rests and a rest stop half-way there that American rest-stops could learn a thing or two from!

So, we hopped on the bus with a vague idea of what we would be doing over our 4 days there and had decided to pretty much just wing it. Sokcho appealed to us because it had both the beach and the mountains in close proximity. It turned out to be one of our absolute favorite trips we have taken so far and we are already making plans to return this fall!

Sam's family went to Sokcho during their trip to Korea and picked up a brochure for "The House" hostel. We tried to call ahead and make reservations, but ummm... forgot, so we thought we'd just see when we got there. The man who runs this place is super friendly and helpful and came and picked us up from the bus station to show us where the hostel was (it's a bit tricky to find). For just $30 a night we got a small, functional room with a bathroom, ac, a water cooler and a mini-fridge. We also got a modest (free!) breakfast each morning and there was a computer with internet access. Plus the lobby was super cute. The bathroom was a bit dicey, and if you're planning on heading out during the summer I would definitely make a reservation, we had to move rooms the 3rd night to a room with no AC (but they were nice enough to accomodate us even without the reservation).

Our first order of business was to check out Seoraksan National Park. As you can see, it was absolutely gorgeous. The entire time we were there was great hiking weather! The first day we took a short hike up to a waterfall and then the cable car up to a peak whose trails were closed.

Not a great picture, but I post it because when we got up to the waterfall everyone had their shoes off and was enjoying splashing around, and I was amazed by all the tiny kids they managed to haul up the literally 20+ flights of stairs that make up the end of the hike. (Plus, they couldn't get this kid to stop picking his nose for their own photo which kind of cracked me up.)

Sam and I split up on the 2nd day and we both had quite the adventure. Sam climbed the highest peak in the park (which I'm sure he will post about some day) and I decided to set off to find Hwajinpo, a small town north of Sokcho.

Let me just say that whoever writes directions for a certain very popular guidebook might need to be fired. For most of the day I thought I was lost in the Korean countryside and would probably not ever find my way back... but I ended up making to my final destination unscathed beside a minor sunburn from hiking in the direct sunlight (and slight embarassment because they neglect to mention that entrance they guide you to is actually a vehicle entrance so I waited in line with a car both in front of and behind me MUCH to the amusement of the woman at the ticket booth).

While there I was able to see this house, which is where the infamous Kim Jong Il summered as a child. It was pretty interesting, but maybe not so much worth the 1.5 hour bus ride each way and then half hour hike. If only that guidebook had told me there was a great beach nearby I would have brought my suit!

We loved going to the beach at night. It's quite unlike the States where they have to shut the beaches down early so that people don't wreak havoc! Instead it's like a big party with families everywhere shooting off fireworks and walking along the water.

Our last morning there we decided to walk along the harbor and see the fishing boats that had just come in from their night's work. We got to see some fresh caught squid and guys working on their nets.

Then, we noticed these gentlemen gesturing at us and they invited us to sit down for some raw squid with chili paste. It was absolutely delicious! They spoke very little English, and we speak only a very little Korean, but we had a really nice conversation for about half an hour. They were super impressed that Sam climbed the mountain, and they all wanted to touch his beard.

Then we decided to check out the lighthouse. Poor Sam, soooooo many stairs the day after he climbed the mountain! However, it yielded a rare decent photo of the two of us together, so I think it was well worth it!

After all that walking and climbing and such we decided to treat ourselves to the "Sokcho special" of... fried goodness. We got ALL of this food, plus the ddok bokki in the background for $2! The fried shrimp and fried pajeon were amazing, and I'm not even that big a fan of fried things.

So, there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about our trip to Sokcho!

The DMZ

2008-08-26T00:07:00.005+09:00

I know, it's about time, right? We only went a month and a half ago! Well, as I will apparently do anything to procrastinate from cleaning my apartment tonight (I know, shocker!) I thought I would finally get started catching up on our travels this summer. This could be a long one, but I will be focusing on the time that we spent in the most recognizable part of the DMZ.

We went to the DMZ when Sam's family was here and it was truly an intense trip. I'm not sure photos can really capture the sense of tension you feel while you are there. We also happened to be there the day after a South Korean woman was shot and killed by the North Korean army. You can read more about that incident here. Needless to say tension was especially high that day. It is strange because I don't think we ever felt "unsafe" at any point, it was just a heightened sense of being at a place of deep division.

We started our day at literally 4:30am. We needed to be at the USO office by 7:30 to check in for our tour and didn't want to risk running late at all. The USO tour is the only one that actually takes you inside the JSA (Joint Security Area... where the famous blue buildings are) and it is definitely worth it. Our guides all day were very knowledgeable and we were able to see areas that no other tour is able to see.

The 4 km (about 2.5 mile) wide border between North and South Korea, the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is the most heavily fortified border in the world. Panmunjom (the JSA) is the only place in the DMZ that the two sides meet. Before we actually entered the JSA we had to have a briefing and basically sign our lives away at Ballinger Hall:

Then we headed up to Conference Row where the infamous Military Armistice Commission (MAC) Building is. This is the building where all meetings related to the 1953 Armistice Agreement take place and it straddles the line of demarcation... half of the building is in South Korea, half is in North Korea.

The table is marked down the middle. We are on the North Korean side.

A Hosack family portrait in North Korea.

The lighter side is North Korea, the darker side is the South.

This soldier is gaurding the door that opens onto the North Korean side. I kept my distance...

Soldiers stand only half-way exposed to the other side.

The Bridge of No Return. Where all POWs chose sides at the end of the war. Once you crossed over, you could never go back.

A view of North Korea's "Propoganda Village".

I don't feel like I got many great photos of this experience... probably because I was so nervous through the entire thing. I did manage to break both rules that we were given "don't place anyting on the tables in the MAC building" and do not point or gesture at the Northern side. I blame the 4:30am wake-up call.

However, the relationship between North and South Korea is improving all the time. Reunification is the ultimate goal of most citizens and there is no ill-will between the citizens of either country. A Free Trade Area has actually been established inside the DMZ and the Kim Jung Il has met with South Korean presidents several times. In fact, when we went to watch the World Cup Qualifying match between North and South Korea it ended in an obviously deliberate draw and the North Korean players received a standing ovation when they entered the stadium. However, the two countries are still technically at war, and the DMZ makes this abundantly clear. It was definitely a day we won't forget.

Olympic Fever

2008-08-16T11:12:00.002+09:00

We are having a bit of a lazy Saturday morning and I'm waiting for the boys to wake up so we can head into the city for some sight-seeing and errand running. Yes, that's boys (plural) because one of Sam's good friends from college, Mitchell, has been in Seoul this week on his way around the world with two of his good friends from high school, John and Andy. They have been a lot of fun to have here and Sam has been loving all of video games and Texas Hold 'Em and whatever else boys do when girls aren't around stuff that has gone on this week.

Anyway, the Olympics are in as full a swing here in Korea as they are just about everywhere else in the world. It's just SO different to be watching them here than in the states, though! First, the sports that Korea excels in are completely different than the sports America does, except for swimming where Teawhan Park (and the rest of Korea) is not exactly loving Michael Phelps at the moment. Conversations about the Olympics and the TV broadcasting reflect this.

This week I had my kids do a free-write on the Olympics. First we talked about all of the different sports and other vocabulary and then I had them pretend that they were an Olympic athlete and write about what it was like to be in the Olympics and how they did there. The results were pretty funny, but they definitely showed some cultural differences. For example, do YOU know the name of the best US female archer? Because lots of girls in my classes wanted to be like Sunhyun Park or Ok-hee Yun, Korea's "bow and arrow queens". Other really popular sports were swimming, weightlifting, badminton, table tennis, handball, fencing, judo, tae kwon do and soccer.

As I said before the television coverage has really reflected what the country's athletes are best at. I have yet to see gymnastics, diving, beach volleyball, or some of the other more popular summer sports on TV. Although, the fact that we haven't been able to locate a TV schedule might have something to do with this. However, being exposed to different sports has been kind of neat. I have to say, those Korean lady handball players show a lot of heart and never give up! And did you know that the badminton shuttlecock can travel at speeds between 100-200mph during a match between experts?

We'll be traveling to Beijing in September and are excited to see all of the buildings that were constructed for the Olympics. For now, though, enjoy the games!

Weekend Update

2008-08-11T00:39:00.004+09:00

So, my computer has decided that our Sokcho pictures are its new favorite snack.... argh! I managed to salvage a few and posted them, along with the best of the Jeju pics, on our picture page. Enjoy! (And yes, someday we might actually get around to blogging about our fabulous adventures, any requests on where to start?)

In other news, I had my first Korean haircut today! Sheryl and I set off to Itaewon to a salon that promised to cater to our beauty needs (aka the stylist promised Sheryl that he could "cut white girl hair"). So, after a brief stop at Pita Time for lunch we headed to the salon. We arrived a bit before our appointment to see if we could get some ideas from magazines to provide more direction to our stylist than "I'd like some swoopy bangs and about 5 inches taken off with maybe some layers, but not too many, and I don't want 'fat face'". What we saw didn't really put us at ease as there was one girl being worked on whose hair was nowhere near a natural shade of blonde and I was really hoping the girl next to me was pre-haircut. Then our stylist introduced himself and he was missing random chunks of hair to form some sort of strange mullet type concoction on top of his head. Oh dear.

Sheryl bravely goes off to suit up while I try not to take the fetal position and hyperventilate. Sheryl returns with a strange look on her face and says "This girl just stopped me and told me not to get our hair cut here under any circumstances, what do we do???" My answer was obvious... "We run like the wind, Sheryl." Luckily, the girl (whose hair was very presentable) gave us directions to her stylist, because as she put it, "Hair is a big deal" and we decided to try that out. What we found was Zen Salon (Ewha Women's University station, Exit 1, take a right at the Giordano, it's on your left... take the elevator in the shoe store to the 5th floor). A haven where all of the stylists are trained at Toni and Guy salons in England and where haircuts are only $30! Lucy was great, but I'm still in shock as to how much of my hair I instructed her to cut off. My plan, though, is to let it grow out until we go home.

Anyway... here's the new 'do... try not to judge too harshly as self-portraits always result in either a)angry face and/or b)terrible backgrounds.

Sam also went to the bookstore this weekend and purchased the Beijing Lonely Planet, so we can start planning our trip over Chuseok in September! SO exciting!!!! How was your weekend?

Well, That Was Odd...

2008-08-06T14:10:00.003+09:00

Being foreigners we tend to attract a lot of attention. Sam definitely gets more stares and giggles than me, but I'm definitely used to the stares and the near constant stream of "Hello!" However, every once in awhile something happens that is just plain strange. Since my computer is acting up and I can't post pictures from our recent adventure to Sokcho (hopefully my computer repairman - aka Sam - will have the problem worked out soon!) I thought I would share a couple of recent incidents with you.

1. While innocently waiting for the bus to my Korean lesson a few weeks ago a middle-aged woman came up to me and just started chatting me up in Korean. I politely told her (in Korean) that I, um, don't speak Korean. This did not really seem to deter her, so she just kept chatting away until she finally asks me (in English) "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" I tell her, "Yes, I do" and she smiles. Thinking this is the end of the exchange I go back to staring into space and waiting for the bus to show up and then I hear her speaking again. From behind me. And then she is stroking my hair. And doing the full on reach-around face stroke. And praying over me (I'm 90% sure) in Korean. Loudly. While everyone else looked at me and I just kind of sat there thinking, "Well, I sure didn't see THIS coming!" I waited until she'd gotten done with one particulary vexing knot in my hair (seriously, she was all up in there) and then made a break for the cab that had just pulled up.

2. While in Sokcho this past week we had a fabulous time. One day we were on the way to the bus stop from our hostel and Sam realized he had forgotten something. So, he ran back up while I waited for him down on the street. I suddenly see an older gentleman approaching me and he smiles and waves so I smile. And then he grabs my arm. And starts kissing it. The upper shoulder part. After a very firm "Aniyo!" and a gentle shove I turned around and walked back up to the hostel. I saw the same guy 3 times that week, but managed to avoid further incident with the Sokcho Stalker (as I now refer to him in my head).

Since both of these incidents happened in broad daylight on a busy street they didn't freak me out too much. In fact, 90% of the encounters we have with Koreans are very pleasant. They were more just funny stories that make me shake my head and say once again, "Only in Korea."

Ugh Squared

2008-07-22T23:23:00.004+09:00

Well, I had all of these grand plans to upload the photos from our recent adventures with the family Hosack but alas we have entered into "The Intensive Zone" and it is sucking the life-force out of me for sure. That's right summer in Korea can only mean one thing... more classes! Public schools are out and that means our little Korean workhorses errr I mean students are now taking an extra course in the mornings instead of doing what most of their American counterparts are doing: waking up at noon, playing video games all day, etc.

We switched a few things around schedule-wise as well, so instead of our normal 3-10 schedule we are now working various hours from 9-7. I've gone from teaching just under 19 hours a week to just over 31 hours. Luckily this will decrease some in a couple of weeks when we get another teacher. Then I'll teach 9:30-10:45 and 3-7. Head Teacher Sam teaches wayyyy less, in case you were wondering, so he has no excuse for not updating the blog. Except that he has actually been "working", but whatever :)

So, suffice it to say all I have gotten around to is uploading the 400+ photos we took in Jeju and loading the DMZ pictures to the picture page. I'll give you a couple of "teaser" pics from Jeju where Tom and Laurie climbed a mountain (literally) while Sam and I laid by the pool (literally).

Where to begin

2008-07-21T17:53:00.002+09:00

So, I started writing this before Alison posted her most recent blog, but since I have been "working" i just forgot to finish it and post it. So here it is.

It has been 5 1/2 weeks since I posted last. In that time it was finalized that I would be taking over the head foreign teacher position at our campus when the current one would leave, my parents were here, I have assumed the position and responsibilities of my new position(not always fun), and gone on vacation. As Alison wrote, my family has been here since the 9th and they are leaving in the morning. It was great having them here, we did city stuff the first three days, and then they headed east for some hiking for three days, then we all left thursday morning for the resort island of Jeju, of the south coast of Korea, for four days. It truly was a vacation, not a trip. We went to the beach, sat by the pool, ate great food, took taxis everywhere instead of walking, and drank beer on the balcony before we turned in for the night. So now we are back. My job has changed more than I thought it would. I teach less classes(3 MWF, and 2 on TR, as well as covering 1 class for a teacher who will be here next week. The other teachers each teach 4, or in Alison's case, 5, classes every day). While all the other teachers primarily concerned with teaching classes, preparing lessons, and grading quizzes and essays, my primary concern is that this campus doesn't collapse in on itself. I field questions for the 5 new teachers that we have received in the past 3 weeks, as well as numerous issues that pop up every day from the veteran teachers, as well as requests from those who are above me. I haven't decided whether I like it more or less than teaching, but I do like. This campus is still relatively new, and there are still alot of loose ends about protocol and organization that I am attempting to sort out. Ok, back to work.

Sam

Christmas in July

2008-07-11T20:00:00.004+09:00

So, Sam's family is finally here and we could not be happier to have them! It has been a whirlwind three days in which the Hosacks have managed to log over 50,000 steps according to Laurie's trusty pedometer, have been all over the city about 3 times, and have been thoroughly enjoying the company :)

The fam. was also nice enough to bring over two extra (bulging!) suitcases with stuff from home. It definitely felt like Christmas in July. Our parents hooked us up with a bunch of Weight Watchers treats, Crystal Light, macaroni and cheese, new shoes, and other various needed/craved items. Thanks to Mama Hughey for filling my "wish list" and then some! The best, though, was that Sam and Laurie worked together to suprise me with a 6 pack of actual-real-authentic Diet Coke! It had been 5 months since I tasted that glorious, chemically goodness (they have Coke Light here, which is just soooo not the same) and Sam asking for it/Laurie risking a carbonation explosion in her suitcase was just about the sweetest thing ever!

I neglected to take my camera anywhere the first 2 days, but today we went to the DMZ so as soon as I upload those pictures you should be getting a nice long post from Sam or myself on a most interesting day involving: our 4:30am wake-up time, a family portrait in North Korea, me breaking every rule they told us to strictly obey, a mini-riot at the City Hall subway station and a delicious galbi dinner. So, stay tuned!

The Death of a Skirt

2008-07-05T18:10:00.005+09:00

... the end of an era. (Or, why I should not be allowed to use black dry erase markers ever again.)

Friday afternoon proved to be a tragic day in the life of my wardrobe. Now, this isn't the first time I have managed to get marker all over myself (the running office joke is that I am cursed with the black ones in particular), and normally it wouldn't warrant a blog posting. However, the spontaneous marker explosion (ok, I took the cap off and the tip fell out, so it wasn't quite that dramatic) that took place in first period resulted in this:

That's right... it was THAT skirt. The beautiful Anne Taylor skirt I have owned and worn for TWELVE years! I took my "Parkway School District Star 8th Grader" pictures in that skirt. I also took my High School Senior pictures in that skirt. It was the perfect summer weight and color. I literally shed a single rolling tear, knowing from previous experience that this stuff does not come out of clothing (although, from a bit of on-line research I've heard Murphy's Oil Soap works wonders, if you are ever faced with this delimma in a country that actually sells Murphy's Oil Soap).

However, when I got home and removed it I was faced with this, the ultimate skirt-death irony.

(no, you didn't read that wrong... it says "made in korea")

That's right, people, my skirt lived a long, full life, then came home to die. If that's not mildly hilarious, I don't know what is.

A Relaxing Sunday

2008-06-30T01:25:00.003+09:00

Today Sam and I spent a very relaxing afternoon in the Namsangol Hanok Park. It's a really cool park where several very old homes have been relocated and restored. There are courtyard areas where different demonstrations and things take place and then a park area and the time capsule. We walked around for awhile checking out the different areas and then settled under a tree to read for a bit. Later we walked down to Myeongdong for some street food and people watching. Here are a few random shots from the day (more can be found on the picture page).

I'm pretty sure there was 1000 year old kimchi in those pots.

The time capsule. We're planning on going to the opening in 2394... anyone else in?

It was such a relaxing day and the Village is definitely someplace we'll return to in the future. One of the things I absolutely love about Seoul is that even in all of its "urban-ness" there are still areas of beauty and quiet. While we sat and read we could hear the sounds of the traditional drumming and music demonstration in the distance... it almost completely drowned out the sound of the traffic :)

Maybe it's the fact that summer has officially arrived, or that the Hosacks will be here in just a couple of weeks, more than likely it has a lot to do with finally making good on my promise to myself to be more disciplined in my prayer/study/praise time, but whatever the case, this is the happiest I have been in a long long time. This year is such a gift in so many ways and I am so thankful for it.

Lots of love from two English teachers who obviously need to get some sun :)

Namdaemun Market

2008-06-23T23:39:00.005+09:00

The markets in Seoul are some of my favorite places in the city. You can go and wander for hours through side streets and alleys and never get tired of looking at all of the random piles of stuff for sale, the people, everything.

You do have to be able to brave a crowd, though...

And the smell of bundegi (roasted silkworm larvae... yummm)

Sorry there are not more pictures... blogger is being VERY persnickity lately... or it's just that my computer is awful I can't decide which.

Busy Days

2008-06-18T14:56:00.002+09:00

I realized it has been awhile since I posted anything (thanks to Sam for picking up my slack!) so I thought I'd turn to some of our best material: our students.

On Monday one of our book activities was to have the students write a letter to a friend describing their day. It gave some insight into how busy some of our students really are, so I thought I'd share a couple with you. I also left all of the mistakes so that you could get a sense of where they are skill-wise. These are all from 4th or 5th grade boys and girls.

Dear Lucy,
Hi Lucy? I am Jamie. Maybe you are busy. I am busy, too. So, I am always tired. Monday, Wednesday, Friday I'm go to Avalon at 3:40-6:40 (You too :) and Tuesday, Thursday I have math classes, Leather gym (class name) and Brain class. It's so busy. I'm always sleep at 12:00 or 11:30 and gets up at at 6:00 or 6:45 so I'm always tired. I thinks it's student's life. Oh, it's very hard. but when we grow up maybe good. Bye bye!

Dear Jasmine,
Hello! I'm Amy. Now, I tell about my week. Okay. My week is always busy. I go to piano class and English class on Manday, Wendsday and Friday. On Tuesday I go to Jazz, science, and discuss class. I love all thing. I go to history and math on Thursday. It's so busy. Right? I want to go Jazz always. You like Jazz. This is my weekend. Goodbye! Write soon!

Hey my friend Jun. I don't know about you. So, you may teach me about you and we will dro friendly. I have only a little free time. I play computer games during free time and that's so fun! I have a lot of help in house and take out trash. I don't like!

Hi Jessica,
I love weekend becaus there sleep every day and in the week we go to school every day and go academy every day. I am very tired. Sometimes I think 'I want to die I hate school I hate academy.' I think weekend make for like me. I believe school is burn and I want (insert picture of school burning). Bye <3

I think one of the keys to the low crime rate here is that everyone is so exausted all the time! I am always happy on the weekends when I see kids out riding their bikes or playing in the park with their parents because it seems like they are getting a well deserved break. It's tough to argue with this system, though, because these kids are very bright. However, ask them to write a short story and it becomes pretty obvious where the educational system is lacking. That's a different story, though.

By the way...I'm a foreigner.

2008-06-11T00:00:00.001+09:00

Alison might weigh in on this at a later date, but these are my thoughts.

So, we have been here almost four months now, kind of hard to believe we are one third of the way through our contracts. I have been doing a lot of thinking about what it actually means to be a foreigner. I don't always feel like a foreigner here. During the week when I simply go to school and run in the park everything seems normal, even when I go to my regular restaurants and convenience stores. But anywhere new is completely different. I wonder what the native citizens of Korea think about when they see me. It is a safe assumption that if you see a foreigner in Seoul, they are probably an english teacher, especially if they are around my age. It might even be a stereotype, not necessarily negative though. In attempting to figure out what they think when they see me I thought about my thoughts when I see a foreigner back in the states. Here is what I came up with.

Living in Texas I would see or interact with hispanics everyday, especially working in restaurants and areas where there is construction. I think it would be a safe assumption that these men and women are here seeking better opportunities than what they could find in the their native country, whether they crossed the border last week, or their grandparents did 50 years ago. What they came for was something better than what they could get in their native land. I have that in common with them. Our skill sets are different, but our objective is the same. With my low-demand and low pay sociology degree, finding something comparable to what I have here is very slim. My benefits here include a competitive salary(when you figure that housing is paid for), full health insurance coverage for roughly $50/month, not to mention that a doctors visit will set me back a mere $7.00 and 3 days worth of prescriptions is usually less than $5.00, and I am actually putting money away in the back, not merely scraping by. While I am sending my money home to build a base savings for a marriage and family, hispanics that immigrate into the states are seeking money to send home to mexico to support their family there. I never thought about why hispanics came to the states this much before, I always knew they were seeking better opportunities, but I feel like I can empathize with them slightly as well. I have heard people say of hispanics "why don't they learn the language?" to this my response would now be "I work a mere 30 hours every week and have a hard time trying to find time to learn the language. I have learned the phrases that I should know to get by, and I am going to keep trying to learn more, but it is hard finding the time. For many of the men and women who come into the states, they are learning more of the language than I have here, and they often work 2 or 3 jobs to stay afloat."

The state does not make it as easy for foreigners as other countries do. Granted english is more widely spoken throughout the world. But here in korea, all subways signs and traffic signs are in korean, english, and japanese, and sometimes chinese. Where korea goes the extra step to help foreigners, the states do very little to nothing at all. I will say that the in the state of texas there has been change, all state forms can found in spanish, and most companies have spanish options for calls to customer service.

When I am out in public, I do my best to not embarass my country by adhering to all the customs of this country. I believe that most foreigners in the US have the same attitude, so I would encourage you to think about how welcoming your attitude is towards them. I can tell when someone here is not quite sure why I am there, or think I am out of place, and it's just as easy to tell when someone just accepts you and respects you for being brave and living in a foreign country. Let me know your thoughts on this.

same ole same ole

2008-06-04T13:33:00.004+09:00

By now the days have alot less excitement than when the first month here. We have settled into our job, every day is a little different, but it is the same challenges everyday. I guess that is to be expected from most jobs though, so can't really complain about that. We try to balance it with making sure that we get out and explore on the weekends, which really reminds us that we are halfway around the world. Like Alison said, we met up with some korean friends two weeks ago, and this past weekend we attended one of our korean co workers weddings. It was different, held at a wedding hall, where they probably push out 5-6 weddings on a saturday. Everything is on one floor in building in the middle of the city, so you just move across the hall from the ceremony to the banquet hall. There is no true reception, just a meal. Everyone goes through the buffet line of fantastic food and then the bride and groom go around and greet everyone. Its all over in just about two hours.

I also shaved off my beard this past week. It was beginning to get warm and muggy here, and it was just getting to be a nuisance, so i shaved it off in phases and sculpted it into to nasty facial hair.

A Random Sample

2008-05-27T01:47:00.004+09:00

We're still alive, we promise!!! We've just been kind of excessively dull the last couple of weeks. School has been busier as we wrap up the semester (although, technically they are quarters, but luckily I'm not all that technical). However, I know that our tens of readers have been sitting around on Saturday nights wondering "What are Alison and Sam doing at this moment?" and I hate to leave people wondering, so I thought I'd give just a random sample of our lives over the past few weeks and at this very moment.

1. Teacher's Day
May 15 was "Teacher's Day" here in Korea, and we all got a few random presents. Like foot spray and cake. I didn't receive anything terribly exciting (besides the cake, that was delicious). A few flowers and candies and a note that said "Happy Teachers Day. Congratulations on your day. I lost my essay." At least it rhymed. Our office also got us the most ginormous corsages I have ever seen in my life. Here Sam and I are able to have the prom moment we never shared together:

2. Cable
We finally got cable and internet in my apartment. Sam was smart enough to bring his router, so we are able to share one connection which works out pretty well for the most part. Having cable means that we now get lots of random English programming. It's pretty hit or miss and, sadly, it means I no longer have the Armed Forces Network. I can now watch Bones or seriously old episodes of Law and Order... but I am really missing Judge Judy and being caught up on the global armed forces scene. On Style, one of the channels that often shows programs in English, is showing American Idol episodes, but is about 3 months behind. I watched the top 16 girls (or something, I wasn't really counting) do 80's songs tonight, but now knowing who the winner is takes some of the fun out of it. How do you feel about our newest Idol?

3. A Few Neighborhood Shots
In our neighborhood all of the sidewalks are lined with these short picket fences which I hadn't really noticed until the flowers bloomed out of control:

Here is a night view of our walk home. It's really a very nice walk to and from school. The trees have filled in even more now so it's very pretty. You might notice the cars on the left... parked actually ON the sidewalk.

Walking here in Seoul requires a level of physical alertness that strolling the streets of Denton or East Dallas did not. Not only do you have to contend with other pedestrians and cyclers but delivery drivers on motorcycles (why wait in traffic when you have the sidewalks??) and... cars. There are some spots that I really do wonder how they get them there... or rather, how they will ever get out! But parking is at such a premium here people really do take whatever they can get. It just means you have to look out for people throwing it in reverse or veering onto the sidewalk in front of you.

4. New Korean Friends
This weekend we were able to meet up with one of the most random connections we have. One of Sam's parent's neighbor's co-worker's cousins (seriously) lives in Seoul and is close to our age. He will be leaving to study in Dallas in July so we decided to meet up and hang out. It turned out to be a really fun day. We met up with Kyu and his girlfriend Soo in Myungdong and ate at the very famous Myungdong Kalguksu restaurant (a delicious version of chicken noodle soup). Then we went to a palace, walked around Dongdaemun market for awhile, walked down the stream and finished up with a galbi dinner. It was really interesting to see the city with a couple of "locals" and both Kyu and Soo really impressed us with their English abilities. Here's a picture from the palace, a place we will definitely return to at a later date:

Hope you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend!
Edit: Obviously I meant Memorial Day... ummm yeah... I guess I'm not "American" anymore oops :)

Sindo, Sido, and Modo

2008-05-12T23:20:00.004+09:00

This weekend was another long one for Sam and I, and being the glamorous types that we are, we decided to go island hopping. So, one very long subway ride, a bus ride, a ferry ride, and a thirty minute wait for another bus ride we were finally all set to enjoy the undeveloped island string of Sindo, Sido, and Modo. They are the first 3 islands pictured below from right to left. As usual, the rest of the pictures can be found on our picture page (link to the left).

Sam on the ferry out to Sindo.

We met up with Jordan and Lizzy at our minbak (v. small motel) and then headed off to find a seafood dinner. The ajashi (older man) minbak owner had recommended this place to Jordan and Lizzy the night before... and it did not disappoint!

1st course... yes, that's baby octopus at the bottom... delicious!

I'm not entirely sure what all of the rest was, but it was excellent.

Round 2! The server popped down this huge plate of sashimi in front of us, plus mussel soup, fresh cucumbers, shrimp, sweet corn, edemame and dried figs.

At this point we thought that our feasting was over, but then they brought out the spicy soup made from the parts of the fish not used in the sashimi. Stuffed!

The tides come in and go out each day revealing mud flats all over the islands. These are excellent areas to hunt for mollusks... or dock your boat.
Later at the minbak, we played a fierce round of spades.... I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time! The minbak owner made us the best pajeon (green onion pancake) ever and then later brought in fresh lobster that ajashi had caught! Double stuffed!

The next day we rented bikes and headed over to Sido and Modo to do some hiking along the beach and visit the sculpture park. The beach was mostly rocky, and Sam seemed to really enjoy climbing all over everything. He only scared me half to death a few times by trying to get the highest point without actually considering how to get down. Such the mountain man!

Hunting for mollusks. We really enjoyed being able to use the word "mollusk" excessively over the weekend... because, when do you really get to use that word ever?Here we are at the top of the big hill.
We ended up coming back with Jordan and Lizzy today so that we wouldn't have to rush back for school tomorrow. Overall, it was really nice to get out of the city and explore a bit in the fresh air.

I did learn a couple of lessons, though. 1. If you are going to be climbing all over rocks you should probably wear something besides khaki shorts. 2. I have not ridden a bike since I was 12 and couldn't really judge where my seat/handle bars should have been... Sam is now under strict instructions that if he witnesses me doing something that I haven't done in more than a decade incorrectly (especially if it will render me unable to sit comfortably the next day) he should tell me immediately! 3. I really really like Korea.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend, too!

Google Maps

2008-05-08T15:35:00.003+09:00

The little blue balloons are markers. Click on them to read more about what they are marking. They show some of the important places around Seoul that we visit often. I will add more as time goes on and let you know when I do so.

I recommend clicking on "View Larger Map" below the map. You will be able to see better.

View Larger Map

Updated Daily Routine and our weekend plans

2008-05-08T15:14:00.004+09:00

Now that we have been here for 2 1/2 months, my routine has changed. Alison and I have both set goals to get into better shape. Part of this means waking up early to beat what will eventually be rather warm and muggy afternoons. I also have my reasons for waking up early. I can wake up early, around 8:35 to be exact, and listen to the Cardinals radio broadcasts. It really works out well, it gets me up out of bed. I have some breakfast and then go exercise around 10 or so and make it back to listen to the end of the game. After the game is over, I usually play some video games, watch a movie or I can watch any of the old baseball games from the current season. The radio broadcast subscription for live games cost me $15, but to watch the archived games is free! I start getting ready for school around 2, and we try to be out the door before 2:30 to make it to work by 2:45. We are usually on our way home by ten, which means were getting home around 10:15. Sometimes I will eat something when I get home, others I won't. Evenings are much like the mornings. I'll do some crunches, lunges, or pushups while watching a movie, baseball game or play some video games. On this new schedule I am trying to get to bed by 1am. The weekends usually consist of some sort of sightseeing or adventure on Sat or Sun, not usually both. The other day is spent shopping, tidying up the apartment and general relaxing. We have started taking Korean lessons on sunday or 1.5 hours. They are free and provided by a church. They are really trying to get you to come to their english service. I am sure we will oblige every so often. Then it starts all over again on monday.

This weekend we are going to what are referred to as the west sea isles. They are a small chain of small islands off the shore to the north west of Seoul. We will stay in cozy rooms with yos(mats on the floor) for sleeping. Each room sleeps four people and costs around 30,000 won. It should be a nice weekend outside the city.

Buddha-Fest

2008-05-06T00:22:00.006+09:00

How should a city celebrate the birth of the Buddha? By having a giant street party, obviously! I wasn't feeling well at all on Saturday morning and actually sent Sam and Jordan ahead, but after an hour I realized I was missing out on something that, in all likelihood, I would never get to experience again. So, I dragged myself out of bed and over to Insadong. Sam was sweet enough to give me his seat at the "lantern making for foreigners" event, opting instead to be our event photographer. He got some amazing shots of all of the goings on of the festival, so you should check out our picture page for all of the good stuff. Here are a few shots from the lantern making process:

First, you twist the paper to make the leaves.

Then, you paste the leaves onto the lantern.

Always maintaining intense focus!

Tada! Two hours later you have a beautiful paper lantern.

After crafting that beauty we headed over to Jogyesa temple, which was fully decked out with lanterns. Almost every lantern has a wish attached to it, for peace, for health, for prosperity. It was a really neat experience to have all of those hopes above our head, and it was beautiful to see:

Sam was a trooper hauling our lanterns around all day long!

The entire day it threatened to rain, and we were all pretty exhausted, so we parked ourselves in the "foreigner's" section of the parade seating and were able to have a front row seat for both the Hi Seoul parade and the Lotus Lantern Parade. The Lotus Lantern Parade was really the first time we have seen so many people being friendly and outgoing at one time that it made us feel a bit warm and fuzzy inside... even though it was drizzly, windy, and chilly outside!

New Picture page

2008-04-28T21:37:00.002+09:00

I've made us a new picture page as Sam's will expire at some point. This one also loads quite a bit faster. So, to see all of the pictures of our shinanigans that are not featured on this blog you can visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/alison.hughey

Also, we've had a bit of a blog explosion recently. So, make sure you scroll all the way down to catch up on our lives, which have been busier than normal recently. You could also, you know, leave a comment so that we don't feel so lonely :)

The project I have been working on for the last two weeks.

2008-04-28T14:14:00.001+09:00

Part 1

Part 2

Best Day in Korea So Far

2008-04-27T23:57:00.005+09:00

and it might not be topped either.

Wow!!! Today was an incredible, once in a lifetime experience. The Olympic torch was in Seoul today. You have probably heard of protests in other cities along the relays route, but South Korea has its own beef with China other than the Tibet issue.

A brief lesson: It is illegal to leave North Korea without government permission, therefore if you leave you are committing an act of treason. If you are from North Korea and you seek refuge in China, and are caught, you are sent back to Korea to face disciplinary action, which in some cases is execution. In addition to those refugees from the north that are living in Seoul many South Koreans have relatives that are still there, and others are just sympathetic to the cause. There are also many other foreign human rights activists in Korea that are upset about China's treatment of North Korean refugees. The South Korean government's view is that politics should not have anything do with the Olympics or the torch relay.

So, here is what we have, probably 1000 human rights activists(both fighting for Tibet's freedom and those in support of the North Korean refugees, mostly scattered along the route with signs, but many protesting in a group across the street from the starting point of the relay, about 5,000 Chinese supporters, mostly Chinese students studying in Korea, and the government (who wants a smooth relay) in the form of 8,300 police and riot officers on hand along the route (2,500 of which were at the starting point). So, of course we were there, the starting point is literally 2 blocks (about a 4 minute walk) from our apartment.

The wide opening you see through the middle is the barricaded path about 3 meters wide, and out side the barricades was another 5 meters of empty space on each side being guarded by police. We were positioned just a bit above blue bus in the bottom right hand corner. (AP Photo)

You could feel the electricity in the air as you walked through the crowds and it was a surreal experience to see our normally peaceful, if busy, neighborhood transformed into what seemed like a battle zone in just a matter of hours. We made it to the front of the police barricade nearest the torch route through the park. Seriously, the very front... notice the policeman we are pressed up against. It was amazing how many people we ran into in the crowd, here's Lindsey and I, and we also several groups from other campuses that we met yesterday.

On the Peace Gate side of the street the Chinese students did not tolerate any hint of an adverse opinion... like this guy, who was definitely shoved around a bit, even though his sign's message isn't technically pointing any fingers.

Our view as the torch passed by. It's directly to the left of the woman in the tan coat's head and disappointingly small.

After the torch left the police let down their guard and about 500 Chinese supporters rushed across the street to go chant and yell at the human rights activists, whose protest was largely blocked from view by the police buses set up along the curb in front of our coffee shop. We stayed safely across the street:

But this AP photo shows what was going on in the crowd. The riot police had everything under control in a matter of minutes, but we could see a few bottles, flag sticks, and rocks being thrown through the air.

An activist and a chinese supporter, in front of our coffee shop. (AP Photo)

Human rights activists. We have seen this group out on numerous occasions. (AP Photo)

Obviously having this entire even take place so close to our house and being in the midst of it forced me to think about both sides of the issue in a way I probably wouldn't have before. The sign below echoes the sentiments of the Olympic organizers in South Korea "Go Olympics. No Politics." but that statement isn't entirely accurate.

The first Olympic torch relay was for the 1936 Berlin games, and the path of the torch was planned carefully by the burgeoning Nazi government to promote itself. Now, I am in no way directly comparing China to Nazi Germany. However, the route of this Olympic torch does seem to be designed to tout China's increasing power in the global community. And the torch is going through North Korea next, something that hasn't happened in a long long time. Then there's the business with taking the torch to the top of Everest (in Tibet), something that's happened... never. So, politics are a part of this event whether anyone wants them to be or not. Is this right? Who knows. I appreciate the Olympics as a time when countries can come together in a positive way. I also think that, like just about everything else in the world, it's been way over-commericalized. I'm also still not sure what I think about the Chinese government in general. Being at the relay, though, provided much food for thought. (Alison)

As things started to die down we decided that we wanted to get some lunch. So we met up with one of our co-workers who was somewhere else amongst the crowd, and we brought along Martin, our new Irish friend that Jordan met while waiting for the torch. After lunch we charged our cameras and headed for City Hall, where the torch would end up 4.5 hours after it left the Peace Gate around 2:30 pm. The scene there was much more cheerful, less tense.

In this video you will see many things. The men in police uniforms are obviously police. The men in blue jumpsuits are also police, they ran down both sides of the street, I'm not sure if they were there the whole way. The men in the middle in yellow are basically surrounding the torch bearer, there had to be three dozen or so of them. You will then see the last torch handoff before the torch entered Seoul Plaza, which was filled with about 5000 people or so.

You will here lots of chanting, they are yelling "China" in english and chinese.

Jordan, Lizzy and I(Sam) then went to this stream that runs through the middle of the city. The story is that this area used to be a sewage dump, then they just paved it over, and it was just this concrete area in the middle of the city. Then about a decade or so the current president of South Korea(who was then the mayor of Seoul) decided to make this beautiful stream. Right now it is decorated for Buddha's birthday, which is in two weeks. Along the way we passed traditional korean percussion group. It was cool and you could tap your toe to it. But we continued moving, but then witnessed a very fun sight when we were walking back on the other side of the stream.

Brief korean culture lesson:

Korean's have addictive personality, they smoke and drink constantly. That said, its not uncommon to see tipsy or just flat out drunk people, mostly men anywhere you go. Also, an ajjuma is a middle to older aged women.

So when we came back by, this group of couples decided to break it down and dance to the music. It was quite a sight. The ajjumas were dancing and the old men were dancing. Then three foreign guys about our age decided to join in. They joined hands with the ajjuma and danced with them. The video is very dark, but you might be able to see.

We then went to Bennigan's for dinner. It's funny, the menu was a bit different. Bennigan's and Outback are considered higher end restaurants here in Korea, and the menu reflects that.

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

Rooftop BBQ and a Noreabang

2008-04-26T22:04:00.004+09:00

It's been a pretty long day, and I don't have too much excitement to bring to the table, but it has been almost a week since the last blog! We now have internet in our apartments, so communication should pick up significantly.

Today we had our teacher workshop. The first half of the day was presentations by all of the different campuses, and then we had "team building" activities... for five hours. It was exauhsting and hilarious all at the same time. These were not your typical team building type of games... instead it was a giant competition involving multiple rounds of karoke, team jump rope, a blow-up obstacle course, balloons, etc. It was very... Korean is really all I can say. All in all, not a bad time, and we got a pretty good dinner and were home much earlier than expected, definite bonus!

At school this week we were also treated to a rooftop bbq. The food was delicious and it was fun to hang out after work. The pictures aren't great as it was, well, dark outside, but here you can get the general gist. It was quite a spread.

Kendra and Abby model the popular method of eating anything and everything at our office... with chopsticks out of a dixie cup.

The view from the roof. The Good Office is somewhere out there, and yes, that's Bennigan's next door.
It just wouldn't be a work party without "second place" so we decided to head to our local noreabang. Noreabangs are amazing. Seriously. It's karaoke without the embarassement, because it is only you and your friends in a private room. You get a couple of mics, a couple of tambourines and a pretty decent selection of English songs. Type in your selections and lights automatically go down and the music comes on...

For some reason the screens that display the lyrics also display ridiculous nature scenes. Sometime's it's flowers, occasionally a monkey will pop up, sometimes you're on the beach, but it's never actually connected to what's going on in the song.

Here are Abby and I rocking out. We did an amazing rendition of House of Pain's "Jump Around"... with tulips in the background. Is it just me or do I look mildly creepy in this picture? Oh well, it was another fun night out! And dear America, please have noraebangs by the time we get back!

Changdeokgung and Insadong

2008-04-20T23:40:00.005+09:00

Well, we finally did it. We made it out of our apartments! We decided to take advantage of the sunny day by visiting a palace and then strolling around Insadong for awhile. We went to Changdeok Palace ("gung" means palace) which is a huge complex of buildings and gardens.

All of the eves are brightly painted and so pretty to see. The different colors all have a meaning, but I can't remember now what those meanings are.

This is the part of the palace that the last of the royal family lived in until 1989. The palace has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. Construction first began on the palace in 1405 and the Japanese burned most of it down in 1592. Things have always been tense between Korea and Japan and it seems that there is not a single building that has not been destroyed and rebuilt because of conflicts between the two.

These flowers are blooming all over the city and they are gorgeous! There were huge bushes of them on the palace grounds. Thanks, Jordan, for the picture! It proves that Sam and I are actually in South Korea together :)

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and spoke great English.

Unfortunately, all of the ponds had been drained for cleaning, but the "Secret Garden" or "Forbidden Garden" was still gorgeous. It was fun to imagine what it must have been like hundreds of years ago with kings and queens strolling around.

After the palace, we decided to walk around Insadong. Insadong is a bit of a tourist trap, but its a fun place where both older Korean traditions and the present are on display everywhere you look. Here, a woman makes traditional tteok cakes.

Here, a man dressed as some sort of animal sells balloons.

We also stopped at "The Old Teashop" for some cold tea. I had quince tea, a favorite of the Joseon Dynasty royalty. It was delicious. My guidebook had promised birds would be flying around the shop, but alas, we only saw a few in a cage.

After the tea we happened upon the Knife Gallery, where Sam and Jordan had a great (nerdy) time viewing the Lord of the Rings paraphenalia that was on display. They declared it the best 1000 won they've spent in the city... hmmm.

Afterwards we headed back to Olympic Park and ate dinner at a Chinese food restaurant there. We also attended the grand opening of the Cold Stone Creamery in the shopping center. We also discovered that the palace is open on Thursday mornings without the tour, so we will definitely be going back to practice our photography skills. We hope you all had a great weekend, too!

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

2008-04-20T15:45:00.002+09:00

And the crowd goes wild as they cheer Sam's triumphant return!

I can't believe its been more than two weeks since I last blogged. But then again, of course I believe it, I have been very busy. First we had our first round of essays that had to be graded by the first of the month. Then straight after that we had midterm essays to grade, and then waiting around the corner was the second round of essays that we received and graded last week. Also, as Alison mentioned I have taken the role of leader(imagine that) in our campus' making of a presentation for a seminar/conference next weekend. We decided that a skit was just too corny, so we all put our collective brains together and decided a parody of the NBC sitcom "The Office" could be pulled off. I can't take all the credit, everyone in the our office wrote their own scripts for their parts, and they are fantastic. Meanwhile I am the cameraman/editor truly. It has been alot of fun seeing my co-workers be creative and getting to edit everything on my computer. Once it is finished I will put it on youtube.com so everyone can see.

So that it what is going on at work.

In our other lives, Alison and I are working together in true couple form. While Alison is writing about how she feels like she will never truly feel at home here, I am the exact opposite.

So we kind of bring eachother towards the middle and keep eachother sane and in check. The feeling of calling this place home has become more of a reality in the past two weeks for me. We received our alien registration cards, we got paid, which enabled us to set up cellphones(or as the Koreans say "handphones") So we can now communicate with our co-workers on the weekend about plans and how to get places that we want to go. My phone even has a fancy shmancy subway map on it. It does not surprise that I am calling Bangi-(2)dong, Songpa, Seoul, South Korea home so easily. I mean lets take a short history lesson on where Sam has lived and how often he has moved in his life, especially the past 6 years. I spent the first three months of my life in St. Louis, then it was off to Chicago for 6 years, then back to St. Louis for a 7 year stint. Then it was on to Dallas for 6 years before heading off to Hendrix in Arkansas for 2.5 years. Then returning to Allen for almost a year before moving to Denton and UNT for the next two years(in which I called three apartments home) And then it was back to Allen after I graduated, and now Korea. I guess you could say I am accustomed to having to get accustomed to new living spaces and neighborhoods. I wouldn't have it any other way. I enjoy new adventures and there are plenty of new adventures to have here. Alison, Jordan, and myself visited a fantastic palace yesterday before going to Insadong, which is known as "the most famous street in Seoul. It is not an open market, instead it is mostly small store fronts with street food vendors in front of nearly every store. Very cool environment. We then had some chinese food for dinner before heading to two of the hot spots for nightlife in Seoul. Alison is the one with the camera, so be expecting some more details and pictures from her in the next few days.

Why I love/hate my job

2008-04-18T23:38:00.005+09:00

That's right... it's classroom story time, again. Since I have nothing really better to blog on and Sam has been super busy filming/directing/editing the skit for our teacher workshop next weekend, I thought some pictures and stories might make up for our recent blogging lapse.

Here's a walk through the joys of my MWF. My first period is a class that comes to English academy every single day. How they stand it, I have no idea. But they have recently discovered the "Alison-Sam" connection and like to celebrate our love by randomly yellng "Congratulations" during class. Today I walked in to find this on the board.

They like to spread out. We've got Jasmine in the front (top of the level!) Prima, Annie, Jennie, and Sophia and Mike in the back. Mike makes weird noises alot, which the girls do not appreciate so much!

Here we have James and Stephen. In his assignment last week, a paragraph on what their lives would be like when the grow up, James wrote that he would like his job to be "killing men" because "killing is beautiful". Yikes. He also wrote that he would like for his car to be a Hyundai Sonata. A few things. 1. I get it James, you hate my class, but don't let it drive you to killing people! 2. If you are going to be a killer for hire, maybe you could aim higer than a Sonata...

John is maybe the biggest nerd ever. But he's super cute!!!

Jenny, from my 2nd period class, always leaves me stickers on her quiz. I put the stickers on my attendance sheet folder, which makes her insanely happy.

Ah, the dreaded 3rd period. AKA the reason I sometimes hate my job. Here we have Steve, Jung Min, Seng Eun, Moung, David, Sally, and Tom. More on Tom later.

Yes, Tom. Tom would be the kid that managed to make my blue dry erase marker explode all over the wall, floor, girls in the first 2 rows, himself, me, etc. He's rude (or, as my co-teacher says when she's really frusterated and confuses her r's and l's: lude!), and not that smart. Sigh. I will find a way to break him, yet!

This is the rest of the class, and really a perfect picture. Kirsten is concentrating hard in the front, so is Jacob. Kwon Xi Young has no idea what's going on, but is trying. Paul, who doesn't get things even when the kids explain in Korean, is staring out the window. Kwon Min Seok is studious as usual. Wendy looks like she'd rather be anywhere else, and Chris is done with his work and ready to cause some trouble. Going to this class is like facing an epic battle of good and evil three times a week. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose!

Luckily, though, the loves of my lives are in 4th period. They are super funny, cute, and excited all the time. Their class doesn't let out until 9:25, so Fridays are a little crazy, but they are bound and determined that I will be fluent in Korean before the semester is over. I keep having to gently reinforce the English only policy. Here we have Amy (super smart), Jack, James-2, James-1 (they use 1 &2 instead of last name initials because EVERYONE is a Kim or a Lee), Jacob, Tommy, and Stephanie.

Here we have Christine (her hobby is "insects"), Jennifer, Alice, Jack, Jacob... again, Billy, Paul, and Stephanie. This is the class that whenever I get on to them sings me "I'm so sorry, but I love you!" The feeling is mutual.

So, there you have it. The little tyrants who rule my life from 4:10-9:25 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

A Little Reflection

2008-04-10T14:21:00.003+09:00

It rained again after a couple of days of beautiful weather, and I think it made me feel a bit contemplative. I realized that most of our blogging thus far has been about the places we go and people we see, and that’s what the blog is really for, but I also wanted to share a little bit of my thoughts and feelings on moving to a foreign country and setting up house for a year. (This would also be your cue to stop reading if thoughts and feelings are of no interest to you… I will in no way be offended!)

I just really can’t believe that we have been here for 7 weeks already. We’ve been getting more and more settled in… getting our Alien Registration Cards, phones, paying bills, eventually getting internet, etc. But I think I’m starting to realize that I will probably not feel “settled” at any time over the next year. There are constant challenges. The part of me that spent most of my college career talking about things like race and gender and ethnocentricity is suddenly faced with actually being a minority in one of the most fiercely homogenous countries on earth, and it is a challenge. I am trying to be conscious of how this feels, not to just react, but to think through the way I feel like reacting and ask myself why I feel that way. Trying to ask myself honestly how I’ve acted when I’ve been on the other end of the interaction. It’s been humbling, eye opening, thought provoking and, truth be told, kind of exhausting at times.

The other day in class a student told me that he didn’t like America. When I asked him why he told me it was because of the new Korea Free Trade Agreement. I had no idea what he was talking about. The learning curve is huge… the language, wars of the past and possibly the future, current events here and at home. How did I end up in a country I knew so little about? What an adventure.

Lately, I have also been missing my family, and those who might as well be family, quite a lot. I miss being able to pick up the phone and call one of you (without having to find a pay phone, calculate a massive time difference, etc.) and be filled in on your daily life in matter of minutes. I miss family get-togethers and the funny/ridiculous things all of the kids (and adults!) say and do. I have also, though, come to realize that I am so richly blessed to have this kind of family to miss. To know that I am half a world away, but never totally alone in the world. Thanks for that. Having Sam here helps quite a bit, too!

There have been moments, too, where things have just felt right, somehow. Moments like getting off of the subway at our stop and realizing that I didn't have to pause and wonder which way to go for the entire trip, ordering a meal entirely in Korean and actually being understood, when I put the word "zoo" on the board and the entire class finally says zzzzoooo instead of "jew".

I do feel, though, like the dust is beginning to settle a little bit. We haven’t done that much exploring since we’ve been here, and I think both of us are feeling the urge to get out of our corner of the city and really see what Seoul has to offer. I have been going through the guidebooks again and making a pretty massive list of things I’d like to see while I’m here. Now, I just need to get out and see them. It’s amazing how easy it is to fall into a rut of “hang out, work, sleep” even when you’re in an exciting new place.

For me though, the rut has been kind of nice for awhile. It’s given me time to get used to the job, read some good books, and think through some things. I’ve been thinking a lot about life and the parts of my path that I’ve chosen and those that are still wide open. I’ve been talking to God a lot about how to have a life worth living. I recently read, I think on someone else’s blog, actually (sorry I don’t remember who you are!!) that if you are far enough away to see the “big picture” you’re not really in it, and that the big picture is made up of smaller steps, each of which you should try to thoroughly embrace and enjoy. So, I will, for the moment, stop worrying about what to do when we get home, and focus on this step that I’m on… focus on embracing it and enjoying it, with joy.

Sorry to get all introspective on you our… dozen(?) of readers. I promise my next entry will have lots of pictures of interesting things, or something, to make up for it :)

Weekend Wanderings

2008-04-08T22:42:00.003+09:00

So, this weekend I decided to do a bit of adventuring while Sam playing basketball with the boys. I heard the cherry blossoms were out at Children's Grand Park, so I decided to head over and see what I could. When I got there, I realized I didn't know exactly what a chery blossom looked like, but I'm guessing these are them! The park was crazy-packed as it was the first nice day, really, of spring. There were lots of cute kids, though, so mostly I did some people watching, read a book, and enjoyed being outside... with thousands of other people!

This weekend also involved a trip to Costco. It was utterly fantastic... once we got there! Note to self... if I'm going anywhere with a certain co-worker (coughKendracough) I will make sure to look up exact directions, including subway exit numbers! The Seoul subway exits involve approximately 5 flights of stairs each... and in the Sangbang station there are six exits. We exited every single exit except for the correct one... Exit 2 (in case you were wondering) and walked 10 minutes in every direction possible. After an hour of searching and climbing stairs (I don't know how Kendra didn't just leave me in the fetal position in the middle of the sidewalk) we finally found the Costco, just 2 blocks straight out of Exit 2, and filled our cart with amazing goodness.

Then, we began the long process of hauling 8 pounds of cheese (you cannot find decent cheese here to save your life), 5 bags of pasta, pillows, towels (regular sized!), tobasco, wine, crackers, caesar wraps, fabric softener, bagels, etc. home. This involved the most terrifying cab ride of my life (think cement mixer inches from my door with me basically jumping into Kendra's lap!) splitting stuff up, then taking another cab to drop the rest of the stuff off. I've realized that in this city I have climbed more stairs than I had in my life to date and I am constantly carrying stuff. Lots of stuff. But boy, does that cheese taste amazing!! It's also funny what comforts I "miss the most" from home. What do you think you'd miss?

Picture Page is ready

2008-04-04T13:23:00.004+09:00

Sam's pictures are posted. Alison has better one's they will be up later this weekend.

Click on the link at the bottom:

It will take you to the front page with all of the albums. Click on an album to see all of the pictures in that album. You can leave comments by clicking "Add a comment."

Enjoy!!!

Picture Page

Sam

Adventure on Line 7

2008-04-03T15:00:00.004+09:00

Today I decided that I wanted to get out of our neighborhood and go check out the English Teacher Supply store in Nowon, which is in northern Seoul. This would be my longest solo trek from home, but I felt prepared, having looked up my route and times and armed with picture directions from a very helpful poster on Dave's ESL Cafe. I made it there just fine, browsed, bought a couple of books, and hopped back on the Subway to head home with plenty of time to grab some food before school. Right.

So, I managed to snag a seat and settled in with my iPod and The Other Boleyn Girl for a pretty lengthy ride. Then, approximately 4 stops into the ride the subway makes what seems to be a normal stop... and then doesn't start. After one announcement in Korean a few people get off the train. Since most people seem to be staying I decide I'll give it another few minutes. Then several more Korean announcements occur in rapid succession and about half the people get off the train. At this point I realize that I need to make some sort of decision, so I get off the train. It smells like burning and there is an angry mob forming around someone who looks like he probably works for the system (he was wearing a conducter hat and white gloves, I made an assumption). So, I consult my subway map, realize that transfer-wise I'm in the worst place possible, and decide that I'll try to catch a cab to my transfer point, as I have no idea where the trouble on the line is.

After hiking up the 15 flights of stairs to the street level I attempt to catch a cab. Unfortunately there is a mob of approximately 47 ajummas (older Korean women who are notoriously aggressive when it comes to transportation) and after getting physically shoved and elebowed out of the way for the 14th time I decide to walk a little farther to try and catch a cab a few blocks away.

As I'm waiting to cross the street I hear "Excuse me, excuse me!" and get a tap on the shoulder. I turned around and a young man tells me "Hello! I see you on the subway and think to myself, maybe she needs some help, so I have come to see what I can do for you." So, I pull out my subway map and show him where I'm headed. He thinks for a minute and tells me the bus is probably my best option, so he then walks me (I'm pretty sure 10 minutes out of his way) to a bus stop, consults with a few other people, and tells me where I need to go. Along the way we had a nice chat about what he's studying and how he'd lived in Seoul his entire life and had never ever been on a subway that had broken down... go figure! This was seriously the first random act of kindness I've experienced here, and it's done a lot to restore my faith in this city. So, boy who's name I can't remember, thank you so much for helping me find my way to school... even if I couldn't figure out where to make the bus transfer and ended up taking a cab to my subway transfer point... your kindness was much much appreciated.

Picture page coming soon

2008-04-03T14:09:00.001+09:00

I have started experimenting with the web editing software on my new computer. I am getting the hang of it and will be putting together a page for all of our pictures in raw form within the next week or so.

My weekend(Insert sad face here)

2008-04-01T13:37:00.001+09:00

This weekend was about as dull as it gets. It rained all weekend. I had a fever of 102.4 saturday night, that is just now back to normal on tuesday morning. Consequently I spent all weekend in my apartment while Alison fled to the germ free confines of her own apartment. She did manage brave the lions den and check my temperature and bring me Aleve and fruit cups.

Sorry, I know that is not as exciting as say...... 10 grand babies, but it is the best I can do for now.(sorry if you don't get this reference, its a little inside)

I promise more exciting news in the near future(no babies though)

Just a Regular Thursday Evening...

2008-03-28T12:36:00.000+09:00

So, we have been doing review activities this week to prepare for the student's mid-term tests next Monday and Tuesday. That means we get to come up with our own review activities instead of working from the textbooks. I found a website that lets you make your own word searches, so I made some sweet worksheets using the unit vocab. It turns out the kids go crazy for word searches, just like my mother incidentally. Seriously, this is the first time my classes have been quiet... ever. I thought I'd capitalize on the moment and take some pictures. My plan was to pass it off like this is how my classes always look, but that would be a... lie.

This is my TTh 4th period RB class. We have (L-R) the twins Kevin and John, Paul and Jake, Judy and Michael, and Sarah and Alice. Jake was th big winner. He got a sheet of frog stickers and 3 pieces of candy.

On this side of the roon we have Nina and Isabelle, Annie and Kristi, Ron and Harry (all of my Harrys are holy terrors, just FYI), and Jack.

Next, because Alison Teacher is awesome, we played some unit Jeopardy, which was also a hit. However, since the classrooms are squashed together it's necessary to keep the children from screaming their heads off, which is difficult when there are thirty points on the line and your teammate seems unsure. Please notice the ridiculousness of the units I have to teach.

Sue's Red Shoes was deceptively challenging.

After the school Sam Teacher and I decided we were a little hungry, so we went for dinner at one of our favorite places by school. I have no idea what it's name is, but the couple that run it are hands down the nicest people we have met here. We had a slight mix-up in the ordering process and aren't quite sure how we ended up with so much food. However, when we got to the cash register the total was a whopping 11,000 won. That's about $11 for all of this food. It was crazy. Crazy good.

Kimchi Jjigea

(The rice comes on the side, but Sam had already put it in before I remembered that I'm supposed to be taking pictures of everything we eat. It's a spicy stew with kimchi, in this case tuna, and broth. Great for a cold, winter day.)

(sounds like: kim-chee chee-gay... sort of)

Kimchi Jun

(Mom, this is what you had at the Korean restaraunt in Denton!

It's a very thin egg-y kind of pancake with kimchi baked in.)

(sounds like kim-chee j-un)

I have absolutely no idea what this was but it is one of the best things I've eaten in my entire life. It was some sort of egg, cheese, ham, honey mustard goodness. The lady tried really hard to teach me how to say it after I pointed to the picture, but I forgot to write down the Korean to learn to pronounce it myself. Whatever, it's new name is: delicious.

Our meal also came with all of this as well. That's some sort of processed fish (really quite tasty) on the top left, dipping sauce for the jun top right, below that some radish kimchi, and some seaweed to wrap it all up on the bottom.

All in all a pretty typical weeknight for us. School, food, home. So, what do you think of the food so far? I'll probably take pictures of my MWF classes at some point in the near future. If I can stop yelling at them for long enough to get my camera out and fired up. I'll also give Sam a gentle nudge to jump on the picture band-wagon, too. His kids are funnier that mine, anyway.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-26T00:02:00.000+09:00

Okay, so, a bit late, but I hope that you all had a great holiday. Being away from home over Easter was actually a bit difficult, but I finally broke down and purchased a phone card, so I had a nice chat with the parents which helped tremendously.

As usual, the weather on Easter took a turn for the worse and was gross and cold and rainy. This tempted Sam and I to blow off going to church and stay home in our pajamas, but it was Easter after all, so we bundled up and headed out to locate the church. We decided to go to Onnuri English Ministry, a part of Onnuri Community Church, which is apparently one of the biggest churches in Korea. It was a bit of a hike on the subway, and we weren't sure what we would find when we got there, but we're always up for an adventure.

It was an interesting experience. The only slightly strange thing was that although it was, in fact, Easter, the holy day of holy days, it was only mentioned a few times and the service was pretty much "business as usual", which was slightly disappointing. However, the band was really good, and I enjoyed the praise music a lot. The service was pretty packed and there was a big blend of Koreans and foreigners which was nice. The pastor, who spoke amazing English, was really young, energetic, and funny and Sam and I both enjoyed his sermon, an interesting take on the David and Goliath story. Some of his points were good talking points for us during the day, which I think always says something about a sermon. We ran into Lindsey and her friend Paul on our way out, so that was a nice surprise, too! I think we will definitely be back to that service, but also want to check out a few closer to our apartments.

After we got home we broke out the egg dying-kit that my mother sent in our care package and had some good old-fashioned Easter fun. Almost all of the eggs in Korea are brown, though, so only a few colors took. And, we really wanted hard-boiled egg in our tuna salad like right now so we only ended up actually decorating 4. But it brought much festivity to our drizzly Easter day, so, thanks mamma!

A Trip to the Hospital

2008-03-21T15:36:00.000+09:00

Okay, don't let the title freak you out too much, this was a planned trip. Well, I use the word "planned" in a very loose sense, really. Sam was told that we both needed to be outside the big church by our apartment at 10:10 on Friday morning and that a car would pick us up to take us to the hospital to complete the medical part of the "getting our Alien Registration Cards so we can begin living life normally" process. So, all we knew was to be on the corner at 10:10 with 70,000 won and someone would pick us up in a car. If we hadn't already been in Korea for a month this would have seemed maybe a little bit sketch, but I think we're beyond that now.

So, sure enough at 10:10ish an actual official school van pulled up to wisk us and three other new teachers from our school away to the hospital. We get to the hospital and have a bit of paperwork to fill out. I think I have gotten the wrong forms so I mention to the guide that mine don't look like everyone elses. He very politely turned them right side up for me. Awesome, this is going well already. While we waited we did a bit of teacher bonding sharing ridiculous stories about going through the new visa process and random things that have happened so far, and we all received eggs from the Easter ladies (that is not their official title, I'm sure, but they were giving out eggs wrapped in tissue paper and a sticker of Jesus coming out of a tulip, so I'm pretty sure that's the gist of it).

After that we were taken upstairs where we had our height/weight/bp/hearing/eye sight tested. And our chest measured. Just the chest. Not entirely sure what that has to do with, well, anything, but nevertheless, Korea now knows how big my bosom is exactly. After that we're told to head down to the chest x-ray area. Sure, why not. After that we are to follow the red line on the floor to the "blood department". There we get lots of blood drawn to test for hepatitis, drugs, AIDS, etc. Then we're handed a cup and told to run off and do our urinalysis. So, Lindsey and I head to the public toilet to do our business. I open the stall and encounter this:

The dreaded squat toilet. I have managed to avoid these thus far, but this time I had no other option. Let me just say that if you are a lady, the best first time to attempt the squat toilet is not, in fact, the drug test scenario requiring both balance and precision. Awkward. Lindsey and I were cracking up by the time we were done, though, which I'm just hoping the medical professionals did not take as a sign that we were actually doing drugs at the moment.

So, that is what roughly 64,000 won will get you in a South Korean hospital (that's the not-with-insurance rate). If we pass we get half refunded. Yeah, if we'd had to have all of that done in the states it would have cost probably twice as much with insurance. Seriously, get it together US! Anyway, we'll find out next week if we passed everything... fingers crossed!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!!

2008-03-21T14:44:00.000+09:00

Just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who wrote on my facebook wall or sent me an e-mail for my birthday a couple weeks ago. It was much appreciated. Special thanks to Grandpa Forbes. I got your card today when I got to work. I am glad that you are able to keep up with us through the blog and the pictures. I miss you all and thanks again!!

Food

2008-03-20T19:50:00.000+09:00

I really did try to think of a snappier title, but I promised myself I wouldn't blog until all of my essays were graded and it hasn't left me much time!

So, we've been trying to remember to take pictures of the things we eat. However, we haven't been paid yet, so a lot of what we've been eating has been Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches, and we figure that y'all know what those look like (they are the same in Korea, we promise).

I feel that I should preface this post with the fact that a)I don't actually speak/write/read Korean, so if some of this is wrong I blame... someone else. Also, as with any place, every Korean restaurant makes things a little bit differently, so things will will not look the same from place to place, even within a franchise. One of our favorites, Gimbap Sarang, has very different takes on some of the same dishes, and we are learning what we prefer at each.

Tteokbokki 떡볶이

(sounds like: dock bo key)

Sam wouldn't stop eating long enough for me to take the picture. He loves this stuff! It's pretty tasty. You have your ricecake tube-thingy, some ramen like noodles, and a delicious spicy red sauce. All of the other stuff comes with your meal. On the far left we have some kimchi, some pickled radish (not my favorite), some lightly flavored broth, and in the silver cups is our mul (water). All of this food costs about 2,500 won (about $2.45). You can also buy this dish on the street as a snack at almost all of the markets.

Gimbap 김밥
(sounds like kim bap with a soft k)

It doesn't normally come with the random noodle. This was part of the same meal as the tteokbokki and I'm a little messy with the noodles/chopstick combo. So, gimbap is the pickled radish (I usually take that part out), ham, carrots, some cooked seaweed, egg, and some other random stuff all wrapped up in rice and seaweed. There are several varieties, chamchi (tuna), nude (no seaweed), kimchi (pictured above), triangle (because that makes it taste different?), and some others that I haven't had, but I'm sure are delicious. One roll (again, I wasn't fast enough with the camera, so we had already eaten about half) costs about 2,000-2,500 won.

Galbitang 갈비탕
(sounds like kal bee tahng)

Delicious soup that has some galbi (beef), rice noodles, onions, and spices in a delicious broth. It's served with bap (rice). This bowl cost around 4,000 won, but I couldn't even finish it! It's not nearly as spicy as most Korean dishes, so it made for a nice change.

Banchan 반잔

This is the name for all of the side dishes that come with just about every meal. In the white dish you have some kimchi(9 o'clock on the plate), seaweed(12 o'clock), bean sprouts(3 o'clock), and lotus root(6 o'clock). You also have the pickled radish again, and the broth again. Notice that Sam is eating the tteokbokki yet again :)

Okay, so there's a start for what we're eating. It's all been pretty tasty so far, and we'll try to keep you updated!

In other news, congratulations to Erin and Jason on the birth of their first baby! I'm so so happy for them, but it is definitely events like this that make me miss you all so much. We're having a great time, but sorry to miss the important events of loved ones lives!

Our Address

2008-03-20T13:39:00.000+09:00

We have had a lot of people ask for our address.

We are more than happy to provide it to you. The price to ship a flat rate box is around $40, so don't feel like you have to send us stuff. We appreciate the simple fact that you are thinking about us.

Here is the address:

Our names

Seoul-Si Songpa-Gu

Bangi-dong 182-8

Avalon Building 2nd Floor

138-050

South Korea

Oh yea!

2008-03-19T00:08:00.000+09:00

Almost forgot.

The kids are enthralled that Alison and I are together. They are always trying to pair up the teachers with other teachers. If a teacher is seen talking to a teacher of the opposite sex, they always jokingly ask if they are your girlfriend or boyfriend. So when we tell them yes, they thought it was the weirdest thing at first, and they would just run off giggling. But now they have started asking questions. Even though Alison told one of her classes that she was "married"(we say married because they do not understand engaged) to Sam teacher, this class just didn't quite understand for the first two weeks, then it sunk in one day, and created a hilarious dialogue.

Student 1: So you love Sam?

Alison: Yes

Whole class: oohhhhhh

Student 1: And he loves you?

Alison: Yes.

Whole class: oohhhhhh

Student 2(male): I love Sam.

Student 3: AHH Love triangle!

Another instance: Our last classes of the day on MWF are right across the hall from eachother, so we wait for each other to walk downstairs to the office. For some reason some kids from both of our classes seemed to be hanging around while we were getting our stuff together. As we walk towards the stairs the kids follow us and the following ensues.

Student: Sam, you are so tall.

Sam: Yes, I am.

Student: But Alison is so small.

Alison was also asked one day after class: "You love him(points at me)?

Alison says yes. And the students responds "Why?" and Alison says "He is nice."

A Day In The Life Of Us

2008-03-18T13:53:00.000+09:00

Sleep

We are still, yes still, attempting to get a regular sleep schedule down. What our bodies want us to do does not agree with what we would like to do. So right now, we are still waking up around noon or so, having something to eat, maybe going to the coffee shop to get on the internet, then making the 15 minute walk to school at 2:30. We usually get home from work between 10:15 and 11 depending on whether we get something to eat on the way home or not. And this is where the fun begins, we usually try to wind down by watching a movie or some Lost or The Office. Unfortunately we have trouble falling asleep before 3 or 4 some nights. Needless to say, it is a struggle.

Language

The Korean language is very easy to learn. The alphabet is much easier to read than the English alphabet. Every character has a distinct sound. For instance, the letter A in the English language can be pronounced like 4 or five different ways depending on what it is followed by. But in the Hangeul alphabet ㅏ is always uh, as in up. so it is nearly impossible to misprounounce words. We are learning the alphabet slowly but surely. The subways are in English and Korean, so that is a good learning tool for sounding out and matching up characters with their english counterparts.

Food

Another way we are learning to read is through the menus, which is what we read most often. I believe Alison is going to be posting some pictures, so I will let her tell you more about our meals later. I love the food here, there is a decent variety, although almost all korean restaurants serve the same things. But there are also japanese, chinese and vietnamese places everywhere as well. There are also Burger Kings, McDonalds, Bennigans, Subway, Quizno's, and TGI Friday's, along with some korean run Italian places. Korean food is by far the cheapest. For instance Alison and I had lunch yesterday at one of our local favorites, the total bill was 4500 won, which is less that $4.50 and it was plenty to eat.

The Korean People

Everywhere we go we get little looks and glances. Last week we had one of the funniest things happen yet. On our walk home from school every night we pass about half a dozen schools that are letting out kids. So we get lots of funny reactions from students who think that I am a real sight to be seen. This particular night we were come up to an intersection waiting to cross the street. I noticed three high school age boys look at me, and then murmur to themselves, nothing new. I just stand there talking to alison standing next to me. And I didn't see it for my self but Alison said she saw one of the boys come up and stand right behind me, and he was making some faces and trying to appear as tall as possible. She looked back to his friends and they were showing him with their hands how much taller I was than him. Almost all the smaller school children we see in the subway will say hello to us. Some of the braver ones will ask us questions, take pictures of us and try to have a conversation.

Transportation

Walking is our main mode of transportation. We can walk to our local corner store, to buy water(cant drink the tap water) and other small items. We can walk to any number of restaurants and of course school. Our other options are subway, bus, and taxi. We use the subway to go to E-mart, basically walmart, it is where we do our grocery shopping, and they also have any household items we need. It is two stops from us(about a 15 minute trip from street level to street level) The subway costs anywhere from 900 won to 1200 won(one way) depending on how far you go. We can take a bus to work if we choose, which costs 800 won base, and increases over distance traveled. The subways stop running around 12:30 am on weekdays, and 11:30 pm on weekends. So if we are out late, the taxis are the best and only choice besides walking. the base fare is like 2200 won and increases over distance. For example to take an taxi home form e-mart would cost 4400 won compared to 900 on the subway.

Back Street's Back... Sort Of

2008-03-11T19:33:00.000+09:00

So , I know that you have all be waiting with baited breath to find out how the concert went. Well, it was definitely an experience, to say the least. And a fun bonding time with the ladies.

The whole thing actually started the night before as we made our homemade shirts (complete with glitter glue, because, as Kendra managed to say with a straight face "the glitter will catch the lights better when we get called on stage".) Here I am putting the finishing touches on my shirt. And yes, Allison, I did pick Brian just for you!

Here, Kendra makes me practice my "sexy cry" to be utilized if we do actually get called up on stage. It's designed to say both "I'm super hot" and "I'm a huge fan". I'm not quite sure I have it down just yet.

Saturday afternoon we hopped off the subway and found this sign as our direction to the concert. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This sign lets you know that The Boys will be playing in the Fencing Gymnasium in Olympic Park.

Our first sighting of The Boys! We're so excited! From the left are: Kendra, Myself, Sophie, Brittany, and Sheryl. Kendra and Sheryl are my coworkers and Brittany and Sophie are friends of Kendra. After an experience like the BSB concert, I feel I can count them as my own friends as well. Please note the hordes of other BSB fans... errrr...

Here is some of Brittany's excellent and illegal (they don't let you take pictures in concerts in Korea for some reason) (unless you're sneaky) photography of the actual concert. Several things to note here. First, though you can't see it, apparently the "Unbreakable" tour afforded neither a wardrobe stylist (case in point, AJ's shredded leather vest, shudder) nor a choreographer. We're pretty sure they just watched old video footage of previous concerts and tried to recreate it themselves. Pretty badly. Secondly, all of those red lights in the audience are glow sticks which the crowd pumps in time to the music through the entire show. Quite the arm work out! (Obviously, we purchased the glow sticks as well!)

Here we are after the concert. Though it was largely cheesy and we didn't exactly know the words to their new stuff, it was still an excellent time jamming to the old school songs we did know. And, admittedly, laughing at 4 men in their 30s trying just a bit too hard to recapture the boy band magic. It was also at this point that the Koreans noticed our shirts and went cr-azy over them. Girls asked to have their picture taken with us... people snapped shots of us from afar. The shirts were almost a bigger hit than The Boys.

Here, Sheryl attempts to get us access to The Backstreet Boys by talking up a roadie. This was after jumping up and down yelling "pah T-shirtuh" (which apparently means "green onion T-shirt... Sophie quickly corrected her). She then pushed her way to the front to talk to him and ask him (in her words "native English speaker to native English speaker") if The Boys had actually left the premises.

She then called us all over for backup which caused much squealing and cheering from the crowd once they realized we all had amazing homemade glitter-glued shirts (the technical name). Mr. Roadie then leaned in conspiratorially and said "Well, The Boys are staying in the same hotel as I am, and if you follow that van (points to sketchy white van) we're on our way there now." Sadly, following a van through the streets of Seoul on foot was not something we were up for. However, we decided not to let the fact that The Boys missed out on their most hardcore fans in Korea get us down and took our shirts for some pizza. (At Mr. Pizza you only get one cup and multiple straws, another Korean quirk)

There now, don't you just feel like you were there? You might notice that Sam opted out of this event and had male-bonding night instead. Interestingly, his night also involved pizza. But no glitter.

Taking Requests

2008-03-10T19:52:00.000+09:00

I have been asked for a picture of my name in Korean, which will be up shortly.

Anything else any one wants to see or hear about. Just leave a question in the comment section.

That Place We Go Every Day

2008-03-07T14:06:00.000+09:00

By popular demand....

Welcome to our school!

Because every school needs an elaborate (and completely fake) atrium.

The spiral staircase of doom. Now, imagine trying to fight your way through 250 students up to the 6th floor. In five minutes. The netting might look slightly flimsy, but we've been told it's been thoroughly tested... now, who volunteered for that job??

This is how you spell my name in Korean. In case you would want to do such a thing.

This is Sam at his desk. He was relegated to the smaller office.

They should come visit us in the big office more often!

Okay, so there you have it! There will probably be more pictures along the way of the children we teach and what not, but I haven't decided which ones are cute enough to make the

blog just yet.

Also, I feel it necessary to let you all know that tomorrow I will be going to the Backstreet Boys concert with some other women from the office. That experience will probably deserve its own post, but if you would like to pray that my eardrums remain intact I would appreciate it!

Alison Teacher's Classes

2008-03-06T12:58:00.000+09:00

Okay, Sam gave you the basics, so I guess I'll fill you in on what my schedule looks like.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach 4 classes. That means that on those days when we get to work at 2:45 I immediately start planning. Then, I start moving at 4:10 and don't have time to stop and catch my breath until after my last class is over at 9:25. We only have about 5 minutes between classes, which means there's basically enough time to get to your next classroom, or in my case, as 3 of my 4 classes are right next door to each other, to survey the chaos that is 250 kids and teachers attempting to use one tiny spiral staircase at once. It's a kind of intense schedule, but it makes the day fly by.

I have two levels those days: RB and RI. My RIs (3rd level from the bottom) are my favorites by far. For one, they are super cute. Second, they know just enough English to think I am hilarious. Love it. My RBs (2nd level from the bottom) are a little bit rougher. For some reason we have a lot of older students (12-13 years old) in the lower levels this semester and I have to teach them stories like "A Hot Day" and "Hungry and Thirsty Mouse". They are so not into it. So, they get really bored and don't listen. At all. So, another teacher and I are working on curriculum supplements to make the lessons more interesting. Yesterday I had them get in groups and write down all of the foods and drinks they could think of and then write their five favorites on the board and if no one else had those on their list they got a point. It went over very well. There was much cheering and genral rowdiness, which I always appreciate in the classroom.

Tuesdays and Thursdays my schedule is much easier. I only have 2 classes those days: another RB class and an EB (4th level from the bottom). I have 2 breaks in the middle of the day, which kind of makes things drag on. I plan on using some of that time to explore our neighborhood a bit, grade quizzes and essays, and plan for Mon/Wed/Fri.

So far, I really like teaching. I know that at some point the "newness" will probably wear off and it will seem like more of a chore, but I'll worry about that when I get there. I love the look in a kid's eye when something clicks for them, and I love the challenge of getting to that point. The schedule isn't bad either! I don't know how we'll ever go back to 9-5 work after this. Another thing to worry about when we get there, I suppose.

I am, however, already suffering from a common ailment of lower-level English teaching though: sometimes I can't stop over-enunciating and speaking slowly with lots of expression and hand-movements, even when I'm talking to a competant English speaker, like say, Sam.

So, there you have it. It's what we do every day, but so far it doesn't feel like an actual "job" to me for some reason. Love and miss you all!

Sam's Classes

2008-03-04T12:42:00.000+09:00

I suppose Alison will post a similar blog in the next few days about her classes. I am not familiar with her schedule, so I will let her fill you in.

Our new semester started yesterday. The semesters are approximately three months long. Here is how it works. There are three ability levels, R, E, and W. R being the lowest, and W being the highest. In each of these three levels they are split up three times again,(B, for beginner, I, for intermediate, and A, for advanced) so all in all there are 9 levels of students, they dont really go by age, the students take assessment tests, and the grades on those tests determine what level they are. So, the nine levels, starting with the lowest: RB, RI, RA, EB, EI, EA, WB, WE, WA.

I am teaching 2 RB classes, 2 RI classes, and 3 RA classes.

The students schedule works one of three ways, they either come Mon, Wed, Fri, or Tues and Thurs, or they come Mon-Fri.

Classes are 75 minutes long and run from 4:10pm - 9:25 pm, with 5 minute breaks in between each of the four periods.

The students who are MWF and TR come for 155 minutes on their respective days. This is split between a foreign teacher(thats us) and a Korean teacher. So 75 minutes with each of us with a 5 minute break in between.

The students who come Mon-Fri are only there for 75 minutes each day. I only have one of those classes, so I will see these students for 75 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday, and they will see their Korean teacher for 75 minutes on MWF.

We report to work at 2:45 and work on lesson prep, which usually doesn't take too long, unless we have essays or book reports to grade. And then we can leave at 9:45, we usually take the remaining time from when the last class ends to enter grades into the online grade book.

So my schedule goes something like this, I have three classes(out of four) on MWF, and four classes on TR.

The R levels kids that I teach have decent skills, they can understand, speak and write simple sentences with mostly simple vocabulary. Vocabulary is the funniest thing, especially in their writing, they use a translation dictionary to find mostly adjectives for their book reports or essays, some just don't translate well. I will start posting funny phrases in later blogs.

I suppose that is enough for now, I am sure its a lot to digest and probably a little confusing for all the readers.

P.S. It's snowing, and it's my birthday.....technically, after the time changes its not really my birthday for another couple hours, and the funniest thing is that when it is 10:47 am on March 4th in the Central Time Zone(where I was born), it will already be March 5th here. Not planning on celebrating too much, rumor has it that work gets everybody a cake on their birthday though. So yall can just go out and celebrate for me.

Getting Adjusted

2008-02-26T16:28:00.000+09:00

It's tuesday afternoon here, and Alison and I have both been thrust into covering another teachers classes for the rest of this semester(which ends this friday). In an unfortunate situation involving a fellow foreign teacher, his sleeping pills and him drinking alcohol with said sleeping pills, we will be covering his classes following him being fired yesterday. Strange situation, but anyways, we spent this morning preparing, and well, we feel prepared, imagine that. We are actually very glad to finally be teaching as observing classes is probably the most boring thing ever. So that's that, we will let you know how it goes.

In other news, we are getting adjusted, we have found our local markets, been to the giant e-mart, which is very similar to walmart, except of being spread out on one floor, it is a bit smaller and 5 stories. We also visited techno-mart. OH DEAR GOD! It's like technology heaven. I swear, every piece of technology currently on the market is in this massive 7 story building. We have learned how to say our favorite Korean meals, so ordering at some local restaurants is quite easy. We each purchased a beginners korean language book, so we are working on those. Hmm, what else, it snowed last night about 2 or so inches, enough to cover the sidewalks thoroughly. Other than that we are really starting to call this our daily life. We will post more about our teaching experiences in the next week or so.

Virtual Tour Part 2

2008-02-25T11:02:00.000+09:00

Welcome to our humble abode. (Sam's looks exactly the same, except he has rearranged his furniture a bit. Yes, he also has the velour happy heart bedding and actually refused to use it for 2 days until I finally convinced him that no one would actually think he bought it for himself.)

The kitchen. Please excuse the trash. You have to buy special bags for your neighborhood to put your trash out and we haven't located ours yet. All in all pretty functional. If only we knew how to actually use the washer.

The mysterious Korean thermostat. Anyone?

The other side of the apartment. Just to give you a feeling for the size.

And, last but not least, the much discussed bathroom.

So, there you have it. Small but very functional. You should definitely come visit :)

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

2008-02-25T10:47:00.000+09:00

These are the Olympic Peace Gates that are about two blocks from our apartment and directly across the street from the Tom n Toms coffee where there are ridiculously overpriced drinks and free internet.

Our subway stop.

Our home. The "Good Office" building.

The alleyway.

Ah yes, the "Love Motel". These rooms rent by the hour and the long flaps are so that people driving by can't see the license plate numbers of the cars parked inside. We are sandwiched between about 12 of these on our block.

Blogger is being annoying, so I will have to make a separate post for the interior shots...

First Thoughts

2008-02-24T14:42:00.000+09:00

So, the last few days have gone by in kind of a whirlwind and I feel like now is the first time I've had to really sit down and process what has gone on. We have seen and done and tasted so much over the last 72 hours that I honestly don't even know where to start. All know is that I really like it so far. Almost everyone we've met has been friendly, I love being able to walk or ride the subway everywhere, there are a million places I want to go and see, and I love that not being able to be fully understood is really driving me to learn the language.

I will give you the biggest tip that I have learned since we got here: If you ever decide to go and live in a foreign country make sure one of your good friends has gone over 5 months earlier and has learned just about everything. Well, not everything, but we'll get to that later. Now, I'm sure it is entirely possible to get through those first few days completely on your own, and maybe I'm just a giant wimp, but in any case Jordan has been a life saver! It's been really nice to just jump into going and doing things from the start instead of struggling to find everything. Over the first few days we have tried most of the traditional Korean dishes... and one that we weren't so much expecting. You see, Jordan knows quite a bit of Korean, but when we decided to try to the restraunt that is on the first floor of our apartment building he didn't exactly recognize anything on the menu, so we decided to take a risk and order the cheapest thing on the, pretty pricey, menu. After the meal Jordan texted one of his co-teachers to find out what exactly we had eaten. Turns out it was either pig or cow intestines and liver. It was a actually pretty tasty, but I think that will probably be the last time we eat first text later.

So far we've mostly done shopping related trips. Sam and I ventured out to Emart yesterday to buy some home necessities. Think Walmart but in an up and down foremat (7 floors!) I was able to replace my straightner which I managed to almost burn down my apartment with the first time I turned it on. Even though my converter box had a picture of a straightner on it. Technology hates me. Also, being with Sam and Jordan I wasn't too surprised to find myself at Technomart within the first 72 hours of being in town. Technomart is nuts (I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying "crazy" because apparently that has seriously negative connotations here). It is 10 floors of every single electronic on the face of the planet (except converters, which was the whole "reason" for our visit) and is, I think, actually what heaven looks like for Sam and Jordan.

Anyway, now that we know where the free internet is we will attempt to post photos in the near future to give you a visual of things like showering over the sink (which, really, deserves an entire post of its own) our school and neighborhood and such.

First Day Teaching

2008-02-22T17:38:00.000+09:00

It is friday here and we were both scheduled to have three classes of observati0n(which, while useful has already proved boring after two classes of observation yesterday) but one of the other teachers called in sick, so we were asked if one of us would cover one of his classes at the end of the day. We said yes, wanting to be willing and helpful new members to the team, but nervous enough that neither of us was really confident in saying yes, so we decided that there was only one way to solve the dilemma...rock paper scissors. The series went the distance to three games with Alison prevailing, leaving Sam excited but nervous. I just observed the same class(same as in level and curriculum) so I have an idea of what to do. I now have the next two periods(75 minutes each) to prepare. I feel ready but nervous. Alison is observing right now and will have her break the next period, in which we will go grab some dinner. There are dozens of restaurants in every city block, so its just a matter of choice. Nearly every restaurant posts pictures of their menus in the windows, as well as the prices(usually between 4000 and 8000 won) 1 dollar converts to roughly 900 won, but we are slowing moving away from comparing the won to the dollar. It is really great that Alison and I can both eat out for less than 8 dollars. The servings are gigantic, there is no such thing as going hungry. Some places are even cheaper, although you really have to search for them, but meals can run less than 3000 won. There are also street vendors every where, we havent had a chance to try anything from them yet, but it looks tasty. Hope everyone back home is doing good. If you see our parents give them a hug for us.

Surprise, we're here!!

2008-02-21T20:19:00.000+09:00

We made it! After relatively good flights and a total travel time of 27 hours we have made it to Seoul. The only hiccup was our non english speaking cab driver not being able to find our apartment building at first. After stopping the car three times to ask for directions, we finally made it. Alison has adjusted to the time change better than I have. I got a little sleep on the flight, but somehow managed not to be tired enough to sleep through the night last night, I only slept from about 12:45 till 4:30. I am definitly feeling it now. We have already met up with my BFF Jordan, he took us to lunch and showed us his favorite coffee shop. We are currently at our school, we both observed two classes today and will do more of the same tomorrow. I am lucky enough that my height is an instant ice breaker with the kids. They all want to know how tall I am, so I tell them 1.9 meters, and they all thinks its the craziest thing they have ever heard. We are now off to grab some dinner(kimchi chugae) basically kimchi soup.

Departure Date

2008-02-15T01:50:00.000+09:00

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Well, we finally have the flight iterneraries in our inboxes and will be leaving Tuesday, February 19. Again, later than expected, but it wouldn't be any fun for things to start happening on schedule here at the end, would it? So, we'll be headed out early on Tuesday morning and will fly to Detroit and then Tokyo and finally end up at Seoul's Incheon airport at 9:15pm Wednesday.

Since I'm terrible at converting dates and times and Sam isn't here to help I'll give you the general breakdown by hours. According to our itenerary we will be flying for close to 19 hours with 2.5 hours for layovers. That's a lot of flying. And not a lot of laying over. We only have an hour and 10 minutes in Tokyo to change planes. Yikes. Not that I've ever been to the Tokyo airport and thus have no way to judge whether this is sufficient time to actually change planes... I'm sure it will be fine.

So, if you have any ideas for how we should entertain ourselves for those 19 hours, suggestions are welcome!

EDIT: Sam is not, as he claims in the comment section, the only one that is good at math. I cannot add hours but am perfectly comfortable with regular integers. So, there.

Finally!

2008-02-06T01:23:00.001+09:00

We have received our visa issuance numbers! We'll be heading to Houston early tomorrow morning to turn in our visa applications and have an interview at the consulate. After that it will be another waiting game to receive our stamped passports back in the mail and find out our flight schedule, which is slightly complicated by the fact that it's the Lunar New Year, one of the country's biggest holidays, so everyone is off of work until the 10th. We're pretty good at waiting by now, though, and knowing we passed the test at Korean immigration is a pretty big weight off of our shoulders! We'll keep you posted as to our actual departure date!

Still Waiting

2008-01-28T13:19:00.000+09:00

After a hiccup in our visa application process we are still waiting to receive our visas. We are hoping that we will be on our way in one more weeks time. Keep your fingers crossed. In related news we learned today that the IRS does not tax any of our wages earned in Korea. HOORAY, this is going to end up allowing Alison and I to save another big chunk of money over the next year.

Our lives are in Korea....well, at least our lives on paper.

2008-01-16T10:15:00.000+09:00

All of our documents(copies of our passports, diplomas, transcripts, medical checks, criminal background checks, resumes)were safely delivered to our recruiter in Seoul at the beginning of this week. She has passed them on to our school, where they will look them over and then send them on to the immigration office to begin our visa application process.

Thanks so much to everyone who was able to make it to one of our gatherings, either here in Dallas, or in St. Louis over this past weekend. It was great to see everyone and share our excitement about our lives together and our new jobs.

One Step Closer!

2008-01-08T13:30:00.000+09:00

Today we mailed all of our documents over to Korea!

The first step was getting our passport-sized photos made. The size of Sam's hair + the size of Sam's head gave the ladies at Kinko's a bit of a challenge, but after standing half-way across the store they were able to fit him into the required size (only kidding). Then after several container changes we were able to get the cost of mailing down to a more reasonable amount. Let's just say we won't be offended if we don't receive too many care packages from home!

Hopefully everything will (safely) arrive in Seoul by next Monday and we will receive our visa issuance numbers by the end of next week and can then make a quick trip down to Houston to receive our actual visas and still be on track to leave on the 27th. Definitely keep your fingers crossed!

More to come soon.

2008-01-06T07:47:00.000+09:00

As of today, our departure should be January 27th, but it could be the 26th or 28th, depending on flight schedules. As soon as we know our mailing address we will post it. Keep checking back for updates.

Sam