James Brown Tribute Show in Hongdae

On Saturday Mel and I met up with some Suyu friends to spend the evening in Hongdae. Hongdae is probably the best place to find a bar in Seoul as the district is spread over many, many blocks and most of the buildings are bars. It's a happening area that is definately alive at night, with street vendors selling everything from mittens to food to binders well into the wee hours of the morning. We got there around 7pm so we had lots of time to look around, and lookee what I found...





And then around the corner we saw...

Don't stop there, here's number three...

This was the point when it started to get ridiculous...

And if you feel like treating yourself, there's a luxury Ho Bar as well:

We stopped for some street waffles at the recommendation of Christa and Ryan, and they were delicious. The lady made them fresh on the street, all while watching her favorite TV show and all for only 600 won (60 cents). I just so happen to have a video too:




Dayna posing with some typical Korean fashion. If I step off the plane in Halifax looking like either of those mannequins, slap me.

We went to a bar called Ta to watch a James Brown tribute show, because Kane (one of the Suyu teachers) was performing a set. Most of the acts only played one James Brown song, so the majority of the entertainment was original music. I really liked most of the bands that played, even the Korean-language music sounded pretty good. Of course there were bongos to amuse ourselves with too.

Here's a video of Kane performing:

After the show we went a 7/11 to get some snacks and Dayna got into a fight with a guy from PEI over potatoes. Then we all headed to a 'luxury' norebang to sing some kareoke. The above pic is us waiting for a room. It was a pretty nice place; they even served complimentary ice creams and pop. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I crashed in the corner, sung to sleep by a kareoke lullaby. We took a cab back to Dayna's and spent the night.

On the way back to Suwon today, we stopped in Myeongdong and did some quick clothes shopping and I tried some clothes on in the most unusual fitting room. There was a head and some circuits on the wall:

Happy with our new clothes we headed home, and on the subway Mel was used as a pillow:

The end.

Bangkok or Bust

Our request for vacation time was just approved, so it's official: Mel and I are travelling to Thailand from March 10-18th!! Plans? Lay on the beach and ride an elephant. If we accomplish those two goals I will be completely satisfied.

Super Skiing Saturday

Last Saturday I went skiing with Sarah, Aaron and Shaun. We went to a place called "Pine Resort" about an hour bus ride away from Suwon. Here is my story:

7:00am- Woke up and had a shower. Changed into my best fleece attire and ate a few bananas.

8:05am- Met the others in the lobby of our building and headed out to catch a cab to Youngton-dong.

8:40am-Caught the free express bus to Pine Resort.

http://www.pineresort.com/yangji_eng/index.html

11:30ish am- Started skiing! Sarah and I took on "teacher" roles to help Shaun learn how to ski.

(Actually, it was more Sarah than me. I, myself, was secretly relearning how to ski since I don't ski that often!)

There were so many chairlifts there that we hardly ever found ourselves waiting more than 2 mintues to get on one! I had previously thought we'd wait forever.

1:00pm: After a few hours of skiing, we were really hungry so we took a break. We decided to try a Korean restaurant because the sign said "roast chicken". Well, wouldn't you know, we were given an "X" when we tried to order the chicken, then another "X" when we tried to order chicken skewers, then another "X" when we order pineapple rice. Eventually, Aaron and Sarah ordered some french fries and Shaun and I ordered a "cheese omelet". Unfortunately, the omelet turned out to be full of rice and covered with a gravy sauce. It was somewhat disappointing, but I guess I was just expecting something else. Oh well!!!

2:00pm-5:00pm: Many more hours of skiing. After a while I found myself getting faster and faster because I was getting lazier and weaker. I mean, your muscles hurt after 6 hours of flexing! I still feel the effects now!

Poor Shaun fell many, many times. But, he was very determined to ski down the slope once without falling. And amazingly, he did, twice!!!

5:30pm- We waited for our express bus....and waited....and waited....

6:00pm- We found out we had missed our bus and there wouldn't be another one coming until 10pm. Exhausted, we all agreed to get a cab back to Suwon.

7:30ishpm: We arrived back home with only a $32.00 cab bill split between 4 people!!! Not bad!

10:00pm: I fell asleep for 12 hours.

The end!

The Most Popular Song in Korea

...is a cover of 2000's "Maria" by Blondie. Everywhere I go I hear this song. The kids play it my computer class every day. There's a Korean-language movie that is popular right now about a young girl who becomes a popular singer... and "Maria" is the song that makes her famous. At least that's what I gather based on the commercial that plays 15 times a day on TV. I've seen it enough that I actually kind of want to see the movie. AND I like the song. Have I been here too long?

Enjoy! Mariaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........

The Cut

Dayna and Ryan came to visit today, so we headed to Suwon station to pick them up as neither are aware of where we live. Our address is a closely guarded secret.

On the way to the station we witnessed this close parking job just outside of our apartment building. We took a cab to the station. We hopped in and I said "Hello, Suwon Station please" in Korean. Of course, the cabbie then assumed I could speak Korean. This was not the case, the conversation turned silent, and the radio volume was increased.

We showed them the amazing view from our roof. In this photo, the view is unfortunately obscured by Mel, Ryan and Dayna. We went to Mr. Pizza for supper so that Dayna could experience the deliciousness that is garlic sauce, and on the way home I tried to get a snapshot of her posing with the Galleria's so-five-minutes-ago Christmas display:

The first one turned out a little blurry...

The second one was a little Korean...

Third time's the charm.

We all tried to help Dayna use her Canadian debit card in the Korean ATM, and trust me it is a 4-person job.

When we got back home, Dayna was kind enough to cut my hair! I'd lured her to Korea for this purpose and was pretty excited.

Anyone need a bag of hair?

We topped the night off with a good game of Nertz, which was always a Suyu favorite, and you've likely read about the game in previous posts. Though we were clearly the underdogs, and though Mel and Ryan were admittadly cheating, Dayna and I won the game after a rocky start. Nertz tends to bring out the worst in people, as evidenced by Ryan's fist in the above photo...

And I know you're all waiting for this, the "after" photo... here it is... the grand reveal of.... my haircut:

Thank you DC, for once again bringing sexy back.

What Children See

Hello Brocolli-Teacher!

Teacher, you have small face.

We play a "True or False" game with the students every Monday and one of the questions is always: "True or False- Shawn-teacher has a perm". Most kids will answer "true" because if you are Korean and you have curly hair, you probably had a perm. Thus, for two weeks now I have been nicknamed "brocolli-teacher" although I would say my hair is much more cabbage-like.

Students tell Melodie multiple times a day that she has a small face. At first she was offended, but we have come to realize that having a small face is very beautiful and very desirable in Korea. Korean women can pay 10,000,000 won to have plastic surgery to make their faces smaller. The surgery involves breaking every bone in their face. Last week a rumor went around the school that Melodie's boyfriend was (U.K.) Shaun because she has the smallest face of the female teachers and he has the smallest face of the male teachers.

Little did they know that she was dating a melon-head!

Jamie, one of the Korean teachers at our school, measured that my body is approx. 5 times the size of my head- which is average. But Mel's body is 6 1/2 times the size of her head, which is makes her very very sexy in the la la land of Kimchi and Tomato Banks. I am, of course, feeling a little jealous.

And how many heads tall are you?

New Class

'Flipbook', a website that me, Mel and our friends in Fredericton used to use for fun, has just become a new class at our school! After tossing the idea around for less than 24 hours, we will now be offering 8 'animation' classes starting next week. The website is pretty easy to use if you want to check it out: http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbook, I made the above cartoon in about 1o minutes. Go ahead, make a lewd cartoon- I know you want to.

Mel also managed to get rid of 'homeroom' twice a week. wOOt !

Rip Off

Walk around the streets of Seoul or Suwon and you'll see many familiar faces 'borrowed' for advertisements. I'm pretty sure that the offending businesses aren't paying any royalties, but they certainly are amusing. Enjoy!

Ghostbusters bar near Suyu station. Who ya gonna call? Beer!

I'd always pegged the Genie from 'Aladdin' as a drunk. Mmmmm Disney wine...

Popeye shopping in Itaewon, specializing in spinich and olive oil.

A mural of the Little Mermaid at Disney-rip-off, Lotte World. This painting was near the castle that looks just like Cinderella's castle in Disneyland. Meh, it was fun.

The infamous Suwon "Tim Hortons", which turned out to be nothing more that an overpriced bar/coffee shop with a stolen sign and broken hearts :(

The 'Puma' logo, redone for a bar named 'Buma' in Suwon. Such polite cats, pouring drinks for one another. We should check that place out, actually.

Of course, there are so many more examples that I don't have photographic evidence of, like the 'Old Navy' copycat brand: 'Young Army'. 'The Body Shop' is quite popular here, and right next door to every 'Body Shop' is the Korean version: 'The Face Shop'.

Maybe when I get back home, I'll start ripping off popular Korean brands for my new start-up business. Like the Tomato Bank.

Maybe not.

Thank God it's Friday!

We've been looking forward to this particular Friday for a few reasons:

1. Dayna's arrival to Korea, 2. It's a real 2-day weekend again and 3. The conclusion of the Team 6 from Hell.

We'll start with the negative: Yes, my team this week was incredibly behaviour challenged. One kid whose English name was "Mad" made EVERY teacher "mad". He got this name because on Monday's orientation when you give the kids a tour and they fill out their name tag, this particular kid made Chris very "mad" and he decided this would be a good name for him.

From the very first class I had with him, he was in my face, fighting with other kids and laughing if I got angry with him. So on my second day I decided to pull him and his two croonies out of class and I threatened calling their mothers. I pointed to the video cameras in the classrooms and I told them I could show the tapes to their parents. That seemed to calm them down for only the next few classes. So needless to say, the rest of the week was HELL. Unfortunately, the only real discipline action we can provoke is to give the students "Red Stamps", but after so many red stamps, this discipline doesn't mean anything. So I ended up kicking a few of these bad apples out of a few of my classes. I decided early on in the week to not let it bother me and to laugh about it. It's nice because I knew I wouldn't have to worry about it next week. So to conclude this saga, Mad ended up getting in a physical fight with a girl during the graduation ceremony and he was taken outside. I saw him crying when we left to go home. I hope he got what he deserved! What a week!

So right after work, Shawn and I left to get on the bus to Incheon Airport. It had been only 4 months since we'd been there, but we realized that we couldn't remember much about the airport. At the time, it had been almost 30 hours without sleep for us! At approximately 8pm, Dayna walked out.

She seemed better off then when we were in her position. She said she was able to sleep a little bit on the plane. We went to McDonald's and ate a few things. We gave Dayna a package with directions to the grocery store, an "I'm a vegetarian" card in Korean, a Bus/Subway Pass and our phone numbers. We got her on her bus and we got on ours. At approximately 11pm, we got back to our apartment in Suwon.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. We're excited that Dayna is here and we plan to take her around Seoul on Sunday. Yee!!!!!

Our One Day Weekend

Yes, unfortunately, it's true. This week, we worked Tuesday-Saturday because we got New Year's off and that was the deal. I guess Korea doesn't "do" four day weeks. But now we have to get back on the regular schedule so we have to work Monday to Friday this upcoming week. Yep, so as a result, we only get Sunday off. It blows because this past week was actually really challenging for all the teachers. I lucked out though by getting a pretty impressive group of kids. I mean what kid knows the term "oxygen mask"? Mine! However, I'm afraid I won't be as enthusiastic as expected tomorrow morning.

So because of this short weekend, some of us decided to go skating at a local rink to make the most of our day off. With a Korean translation of the rink in hand, Shawn, Shaun, Sarah and I got into a cab to the rink. All in all, it was pretty fun. You wouldn't believe the chaos there! There were so many people skating and falling all over the place. We were all very pleased (and surprised) that none of us sliced up any children. After going round the rink once, Shawn and I demanded they sharpen our rented skates because we could barely keep from falling. I'd never been on such dull skates before! Also, we had to wear helmets. This makes sense considering the amount of people falling. I fell twice because I wasn't used to the hockey/ski boot style skates and I was trying to make fancy moves. Both Shaun and Sarah fell too. Shawn (known as Canada Shawn) was the only one who managed not to fall.

Our skates getting Sharpened...

After we got back to our apartment, we were all hungry. Of course, who wants to make food when you can easily buy a nice steak around the corner. So the four of us met up with Jo and we all went to our new favourite restaurant "Bennigan's", an American chain store. They presently have a promotion of free beer with your food. We like to get the unlimited salad bar (consisting of hot food, sundaes, nachos...) for 11,000 Won and to drink unlimited free beer. It's insane, imagine getting free beer at home. The restaurant would go under, for sure!!!

Best sign EVER.

One Week!!!

Our best buddy and birthday-hogger Dayna is arriving in Korea next Friday to copy my fashion sense for the next six months!! She'll be "teaching" at our old school in Suyu, cutting my hair, and arm wrestling us for soju shots in just 7 days! Woo hoo!! Can't wait to see you, Big D (don't forget to bring deoderant).

Big Sael in Suwon

Ladees sherts up to 50% of.