How To Leave Korea

Hello from Canada! Melodie and I finished our contracts on September 4th, and have been enjoying the retired life ever since. So here you have it, the long- awaited post about our long trip home...

What to do for our last weekend in Korea? That had been a no-brainer for months- we went to fan favorite Carne Station of course! Lots of cool folks were able to come celebrate the occasion with us, and I suppose it goes without saying that we followed Carne Station up with a sojulicious time at the doll house norebang, horse heads in tow. It was a "greatest hits" playlist of tunes like "2 Become 1", "Toxic", "Wuthering Heights" and many other cringe-inducing songs and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Our last day at work was Tuesday the 4th (yes, about 15 or so hours before we had to fly out of the country... thanks for all the time, Stella!). It was a pretty typical day, aside from the fact that we had a class off to wire our Won home and close our bank accounts which took a w h i l e ..ugh). My last class ever was "Homeroom" in which I let the kids loose on the dominos while I listened to some music and daydreamed about Canada. After work everyone surprised the lovely Shanda with a birthday cake and we had a chance to take a staff photo (above).

After work a bunch of us went into Songtan for some Thai food, where Shanda, Hannah and Shaun surprised Mel and I with a rearry sweet file (AKA "pile") of various memories, pictures, and funny stuff. It was the perfect going away gift, which they'd been very sneakily working on for a while. Thanks again, guys! Supper was very good even if it was slightly ironic that our last meal in Korea was Thai food. After we got back everyone hung out outside the CVS in our apartment building to eat cake and to help us polish of the last of our old liquor bottles. We also got to have a photo with the lady who works at the CVS. We LOVED her. She was always in the shop 24 hours a day, and although she didn't speak a word of english or even acknowledge us in any special way, we thought she was great.

After some fireworks on the roof and some sad goodbyes we packed up some last minute things and settled in for our last sleep in our tiny apartment. The above picture is how it looked as we were leaving the next morning- finally clean! One of the Korean staff members from our school came to check the place and then called us a taxi van to the bus station with all of our luggage. We each have 2 giant suitcases (which I am still lugging around on my travels) and although I have grown to loathe them, I have decided that absolutely cannot part with anything inside of them.

We had no problem getting to the airport in plenty of time, and even though the check-in line for Japan Air was massive, we still got through with no worries. We travelled in a double decker plane (you can see the second row of windows in the above picture). I'd never heard of double decker planes before, and believe me this thing was massive.

Although we had to get off in Tokyo for a few hours, we actually flew in the same plane all the way to Vancouver. In Tokyo we bought some Pepsi and French Consomme flavoured-Pringles with the five American dollars that Mel had been lucky enough to get from a guy on the DMZ tour... the airport shops only accepted Yen or US Dollars so luckily we didn't have to go snackless thanks to Melo. The flight from Tokyo to Vancouver was about 8 hours, and we were able to watch the view from the cockpit on the TV screen in front of our chair. Pretty cool for take-off and landing. The TV also offered movies on demand, so I watched a few craptacular films I'd never rent. The remote also doubled as a controller so we could play video games, so all in all Japan Air offers a lot of entertainment value. It was HOT on the second floor of the plane but the time passed...

When we got to Vancouver we didn't waste any time in the airport but I did manage to grab a bag of All Dressed Ruffles Chips from a vending machine as my first official purchase in Canada. There was no Ketchup chips in the vending machine, obviously. Those chips were devoured quite quickly during our limo ride to Mel's Aunt and Uncle's place, where we were staying. Her family showed us an awesome time... they knew everything about the city and really went out of their way to show us around and make us feel welcome. We explored the city and lots of suburbs, visited Stanley Park, Granville Market, and just basically relaxed and ate good food!

We also took an overnight trip to Seattle to visit the Space Needle and take in some other sights, like an underground tour of the city and the Experience Music Project, a music museum where Mel and I formed a regrettable band and filmed a performance on DVD .

We stayed in Vancouver for 10 days before taking a bus to Vernon for 4 days. Vernon is where Mel's Grandma and Grandpa live, and it was the first time she'd been able to visit them. We went shopping, went to a winery, and again focused on relaxing and eating!

On the 18th I flew into Halifax to visit my family and Mel flew (in an 18 seat mini plane from hell) to Saint John to visit her parents. We've been enjoying spending time with all the awesome people we haven't seen in a year. Next week we'll meet up with Dayna, who was in Seoul for a while, and the following week I'll be in Newfoundland hanging out with my brother.

It's hard to believe that a year went by as quickly as it did! Our year in Korea is definately a year we'll never forget. A lot of ESL teachers don't have good experiences, but we had a great one. Korea is definately an interesting country, and we enjoyed exploring it. We really want to thank all the awesome people we met for making our time in Korea so memorable, and though it was sad to say goodbye... we will definately meet again! So for our friends that are still in Korea- enjoy the rest of your time, have a blast, don't work too hard and- road trip across Canada, baby! That's it.

Annyong!

The Obsession Continues

Just in case you need some Heinz at 4 in the morning, Tomato Store is open 24 hours.

357 down, 8 to go!

Yes, the adventures of Melodie and Shawn in Korea will be finishing up in just 8 days- hard to believe! The time has gone by very quickly, but at the same time it feels like a lonnnnng time since we've been home. I'm very sad-cited about the situation... sad to leave our new friends, excited to get back to eat some ketchup chips, live in an apartment larger than a shoebox, and have a well-earned vacation. We've been busy, busy, busy packing, sorting and cleaning (we've each bought 2-3 times our body weight in clothes since arriving here) and we're finding that our suitcases are filling up pretty fast. We've got 5 more working days before we fly to Vancouver for a few weeks. This weekend will be spent in Hongdae, where good times are always had, and horse heads are never too far away.

Over the last week or so, Suwon has hosted an international theater festival. The drama program is a big fat hairy deal at our school, and Shanda is a big fan, so we went to a few shows with her. They were free, and performed around the fortress at night, which made for a really nice backdrop. I was "meh" about the shows (in fairness, I only caught two of them), but it was good to do something different- like see some live theater, and it was in such a nice locale. Here are some pictures form the week, which capped off Saturday with a nice fireworks show (and a trip to the alien norebang)...

DMZ

A few weeks after we arrived in Korea to start our contract, North Korea tested some nukes. We kind of had that feeling like... what did we get ourselves into? Luckily, we've had a safe year dispite the crazy guy running the show up North. After those events, a visit to the National War Museum, and just a general curiousity about the North Korean way of life, we were really looking forward to our tour of the demiliterized zone (DMZ) along the border of the North and South.

We started our Saturday morning bright and early, meeting at Camp Kim in Seoul at 7am. Not being much for early mornings, Hannah, Shanda, Mel and I spent the night at a love motel near the base (after an awesome 9-course turkish meal in Itaewon the night before I have to add). There were two buses of tourists, filled mainly with Americans and it took about a 45 minutes to get to our destination. During the drive, every little detail about our route was covered by a cute little old Korean man who was determined not to let us snooze, lest we miss out on such landmarks as the old gas station to our left or the rice field to our right!

The tour was run by the USO and was very well done and structured. I felt like one of our students, being asked to stand in line or not to move too far in any one direction. Our first stop was an unasuming conference room where talks are sometimes held between delegates of the North and South. There were stern looking soldiers guarding the doors and we were warned not to pass behind them or they'd stop us with force. Like I said- structured! These guys were intense as they didn't move once, and stood there, fists clenched the whole time. The guards wore cool sunglasses that are meant to protect their identity, and they made for a good photo op (above).

The conference room was the blue building to the left in the picture above. It is half on South Korean land, and half on North Korean land. So, when we were in that building we were technically in North Korea. Check that off the list of places I have now seen! The big building in the back is on North Korean land, and there was a creepy North Korean soldier on the steps watching us with binoculars.

Next, we went to a lookout point where we were surrounded on three sides by the North. Ahhhhh- communism!!!! From that point we had a great view of the "propaganda village" of the North near the border. It is said that these buildings are for appearance only, and nobody lives there at all. The flag to the right in the photo is one of the largest in the world and weighs over 600 lbs. Sounds like somebody's compensating for something.

Our next stop was lunch in the village between Paju and the DMZ. The land in the village is not run by the Korean government, but by the UN, so the residents pay no taxes and the men are exempt from the manditory military service other Koreans must face. The land is so rich that the average farmer makes over $80,000 US a year from their crops. Pretty good deal, i'd say, aside from the location. Lunch was bulgogi, which was probably one of the more crowd-pleasing Korean foods you could offer a tourist. After lunch (and several gift shops), we went to another lookout point where you could use binoculars to see into the North. You weren't supposed to take photos, but somebody (I dunno who) took the pic above where you can see the border. Both sides look the same- can't we all just get along?

Our last stop was a tour of one of several underground tunnels dug by North Koreans into the South. The North had been digging this tunnel for 5 years before it was discovered. We only had access to the portion of the tunnel on the South, so we really only saw about 1/5 of it in all. The walk took about half an hour and absolutely no photos were allowed. Who took that picture above, then? It's illegal! The ceiling of the cave was really low, so we had to wear hard hats and walk in a nice hunch for the tour. It was pretty sneaky work on their behalf, I say, and we were greeted by a nice cement wall and some barbed wire at the end. With that, our tour was finishy, and we boarded our buses in a straight line and headed home more educated than before and ready for a good nap. Great tour, highly recommended!

Jeju-do

Well, busy times have led us to skip posts about fun times in Apgujung (Korea's Rodeo Drive) and the Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival, but hopefully we'll have time to revisit those adventures. Last weekend was one of the best times I've had since coming to Korea, as Mel, Shaun, Hannah and I flew to Jeju Island for a mini-vacation.


Jeju is known as the "Hawaii of Korea", because of it's beautiful beaches and palm trees. With only half a million residents it has half the population of Suwon, though it is a huge draw for Korean honeymooners and Japanese tourists. In fact, we had to wait nearly three months to get plane tickets to Jeju because the planes were all booked up on the weekends. We left last Friday, which was also my birthday and a it was very exciting way to spend the evening. The trip was smooth- the flight was less than an hour and we found our nearby hotel easily. At only $30 a night our rooms were fantastic, and we spent the night looking around and having some drinks at a local brewery which fermented and lagered on site.

Saturday we awoke to gail force winds and buckets of rain which persisted for the remainder of the weekend! Nevertheless, we pushed on and headed directly to Korea's one and only sex-themed park, Love Land. Love Land opened a few years ago and all of the statues and artwork on the property were created by a group of Hongik University students who obviously have a good sense of humor. The grounds were quite impressive, with loads of humorously sexy statues and innuendos. No need to go into graphic descriptions, but it definately went against anything I'd ever seen in conservative Korea, and the ajumma's visiting seemed to like it too.

We then took a cab from the sexy park to the southern area of the island where our hotel had been booked for the second night. The drive was amazing and I saw the most green I'd seen in months and months. After checking into the hotel, we walked to nearby Cheonjiyeon waterfall. The walk to the waterfall was nice, especially since the rain had let up for a bit.

After that we walked about 5 minutes to the harbour and watched the big waves created by the storm. I'd never seen such huge waves in my life, and they looked so purty in the emerald green water against the grey sky. It had stopped raining for about an hour or so, but it picked back up again so we decided to partake in an indoor activity...

...a teddy bear museum. Hannah had suggested this place a few weeks back and we'd been obsessed with the idea of it ever since. The museum basically retells historical events using teddy bears. Above is the teddy Last Supper, but they also had the first teddy on the moon, teddy's bringing down the Berlin Wall, teddy Titanic, teddy hippies, and so on and on and on. It was awesome. Highly recommended if you feel like a laugh.

Hungry, because the food choices on Jeju were much more limited than on the mainland, we bit the bullet and went to a horse restaurant. The main dishes on Jeju are black pig, fish, and horse- three things I had little interest in as I am lame and unadventurous in the realm of food. I'm pretty sure I would die of scurvy if I was working on Jeju lol. Mel pointed out, and I agree, that Jeju was probably very similar to the Korea of 10 years ago. No western chains or products whatsoever (not even a McD's! Probably a good thing...) and a much simpler way of life. Ah, but back to supper. Hannah and Shaun had the horse and enjoyed it, Mel and I had bulgogi which was *meh*. Mel tried the horse though- go Mel! I settled for beef and putting my big melon head through the wall (above). That's what you get when your walls are made of paper.

Fed, we cabbed back to our hotel for drinks and then ventured out to the bar scene which was nonexistant, probably because of the weather. We did find a few places that were open and had a laugh by ourselves anyway. The next morning we awoke to... rain! We decided to go check out the beach anyway and by the time we got there the rain had let up for a bit. The weather actually got pretty agreeable for the two or three hours we spent at the beach so we were very thankful for that. I think we'd all been hoping to swim a little. Unfortunately swimming was not allowed because the waves were too strong. But it was a pretty big beach and there weren't many lifeguards, so we got in the water anyway- every now and then getting whistled at by a lazy korean in orange. It was impossible to swim because of the waves but they were definately fun to ride! There was a picturesque waterfall on the beach and the water was warm.

After we'd finished at the beach we got a taxi and headed to a north-eastern part of the island where we visited the Manjanggul lava caves. Jeju is a volcanic island, and we were able to walk through one of the tunnels created by the lava. It was cold and damp (as caves are), and the imprints left by the lava on the walls of the cave were interesting and unique. It was a massive, tall cave and we learned quite a bit about lava balls from the information booths within. The cabbie that drove us to the caves stuck around and gave us a ride to the airport as well.

There was a rainbow to see us off, but we would've felt much safer had we stayed on the island! We boarded our plane to go home, but then everyone was asked to get off and return to the airport. We had to wait another hour before it would take off and there was nothing to do at the airport at all besides suck on some kimchi :P When we did take off, the turbulance reached a point where the plane just shook in every direction and all the passengers screamed. Hannah was sweaty, Shaun was gripping his chair and my head was in my hands. Melodie was securing an exit plan as she's the decisive one in the group. It was a scary situation! When we landed, the runway was so wet that the plane skidded around. Needless to say we were so happy to be on the ground and I am not looking forward to any on the 5 flights ahead of me in the next 30 days!! Help!!! Somebody book me a ferry to Canada!

So Jeju was really awesome and I'm really glad we were able to visit the island before we go home (in only 20 days- ahhh!!) In my opinion, it was the most beautiful part of Korea I've seen to date. If you like, here are some albums of pix from our trip- definately worth checking out for the Love Land pictures alone!

Album 1

Album 2

Album 3

How To Build A Street In Korea

This is a reference to aid all Korean city planners in the future. Anyone who's been here for a while knows that every street in Korea is exactly the same and features all of the same conveniences. At the same time is is both mundane and relaxingly predictable, because you know exactly what will and will not be conveniently located just around the corner. So here you have it folks, the eleven businesses necessary for any Korean street to function:

1. Paris Baguette- the ubiquitous bakery in Korea. Here's a tip: your successful Paris Baguette should be fully stocked with sweet garlic bread, larvae sandwiches, and donuts filled with chunks of butter at all times.

2. 7/11 or GS25 or IGA mart or Family mart or With Me- Or how about all five? All Korean streets must have a convenience store on each corner with an unlimited selection of sweet chips, kimbap triangles and beer within. And no matter what the store is named they must all sell the exact same items. Variety is not appreciated and will not be tolerated!

3. Norebang- Can your kareoke room please include as much Westlife and Backstreet Boys in your playlist as possible?


4. Kimbap Heaven- Cheap and easy Korean comfort food. On our brief walk to work we pass three of these. The menu is available in english here if anything on there tickles your fancy.

5. Miscellaneous women's clothing store- that sells the same $5 t-shirts as the miscillaneous women's clothing store on the next street.

6. Random coffee shop- Maybe it's a Starbucks, maybe it's a Coffee Bean, Dunkin Donuts or a Tossico, but there's a few on every street and there's nothing wrong with that.

7. Baskin Robbins- very popular here and never too far away. The balanced Baskin Robbins menu should include some combination of red bean, pumpkin and green tea ice creams. Also on the menu should be an ice cream fondue with tomatoes.

8. Lotteria- The korean version of McDonalds has got to be the worst fast food place ever! But they're so popular here, I don't understand! I guess some people enjoy heat lamped food and bulgogi sauce on everything. I've gotten raw burgers there too, but- hey on the bright side it is cheap.

9. Show- Most koreans have at least two cell phones and most streets have 4 or 5 cell phone shops that sell the trendiest new phones. Show is the shop I see most often, and we have our phone through them as well. Cells are so cheap here! We text as much as we like and it's never more than 15,000 a month.

10. A wedding hall- Weddings are big business here and the waiting lists are quite long to get a spot in the wedding halls. A woman at work got married in the winter and our co-workers said that there was another couple waiting to get hitched as soon as her service was finished! A lot of the halls are castle shaped- we live behind one... I'd love to get married in a castle! Cool.

11. A western chain resaraunt- such as Outback, TGI Fridays or Bennigans- tasty recognizable food, often with free salad bar- wheee!!

Please note that there should be absolutely no Tim Hortons, Drive-thrus or sandwich shops on your street. Other things that are discouraged include nameing the street, street numbers or civic addresses. If your street does not have a u-turn lane it may be permanently shut down.

Busan

Alright, this is really old news, but Mel and I spent a few days in Busan two weeks ago and I just haven't had a chance to post about the trip. Busan is the second largest city in Korea (after Seoul of course) and it's located about 5 hours away by train on the south-eastern coast. We had considered taking a job in Busan before deciding on our Suwon gig, so we'd been interested in visiting the city for quite a while.

To travel to Busan we took the hi-speed KTX train for the first time, and it was a comfortable ride. We arrived around 11pm on Friday night after work, so after a quick walk around the station (where there was a creepy Russian red light district) we stopped at a love motel and called it a night.

On Saturday we took the subway to Haeundae Beach, which has been called Korea's best beach. Though the sun wasn't really on our side, the beach was too beautiful to resist! The waves were huge, so taking a note from the locals we rented inner tubes and surfed the waves. It was so, so, so much fun! Unfortnately, it was also pretty cold so we retreated back to our umbrella (ella eh eh) to relax for a bit.


We weren't the only ones with an umbrella either, check out the picture of our community of parasols. The rows of umbrellas went on forever as this beach was packed.


Next we went to the Busan aquarium, which our friend recommended and was conveniently located right on the beach. It was pretty cool- about three floors of exhibits and a 360 degree glass tunnel that had all sorts of creatures swimming around us.


The aquarium was connected to a food court that had the common Korean fair, but also -shock of shocks- a Dairy Queen! We knew this was too good to be true, because there are no Dairy Queen chains in Korea (previous burger cravings had led me to research this...), but I ordered a Blizzard anyway. It came from an authentic looking Blizzard machine, it was served in a Blizzard cup, but it tasted like ass! Fake!


In the evening we took the subway to the port to check out the boats and the huge fish market that Busan is famous for. I don't like to eat seafood but it was definately cool to check out. The building was the size of one of our malls at home with vendors at every stop, selling anything you could imagine (and probably some things you couldn't). After buying your octopus, fish or whatever you could take your catch upstairs where the on-site restaurant could cook it up for you. Cool! Not tempted, we went for some chicken galbi and it was really good!


After supper we met up with fellow displaced Frederictonian Livia, who Mel used to work with at Read's. She is teaching at a public school in Busan and is an all around cool person. We went out for some drinks and then to the requistite norebang. This time we went to the CNN norebang, which was some interesting branding. After some good times and a particularly soulful rendition of "Ghostbusters", Livia kindly offered us a place to stay so we crashed at her place.


Livia had a cat! *squeels* Thank you Dorian, for putting up with our neurotic smothering. And btw, it was such a nice apartment- screw you english villagey!!! (kidding, kidding...)


In the afternoon we went back to Busan station to catch our train home. But first, we returned to the seedy Russian district where big scary blonde women in bright red lipstick were sitting outside of each pub and gangs roamed the streets. Curious, we stopped for lunch. I'm pretty sure the Russian mafia was sitting two tables over, and at one point this big guy started rapping on the other side of the room. It was time to go.


Springer's Final Thought: Busan was fantastic and the beach was really nice. It was the first place in Korea that I'd been that seemed unique, and by that I mean that a street in Suwon looks the same as any street in Seoul or Daegu to me. But Busan had a different, more relaxed feel. The buildings were built into the hills, the taxi fares started 10 cents cheaper and the air smelled of the sea. The people were a little less stylish and they didn't feel the need to wear life jackets and swim caps at the beach, so they were OK in my books.