Yes or No

I squeeled with joy when Mel found this show while flicking through the channels. It's the korean version of "Deal or no Deal", the mind numbing game show where contestants say numbers out loud for money. In Korea it's called "Yes or No", and it's just as exciting!

Video:


PS: The guy walked away with 50,000,000 ($500,000)

PPS: I'd say the host is much smoother than Howie Mandel

PPPS: Check out how bored the models look. They were fixing their tops, talking, and generally huffing and puffing throughout the whole thing. My model crush at home (#26) would be horrified!

Kimchi in my Brain

Well, you can't have a blog about Korea without atleast one post about kimchi! Kimchi is the national dish of Korea and it is served with nearly every meal: breakfast, lunch and supper. No matter what you order at a restaraunt, you are sure to be served a little bowl of kimchi on the side. There are many different types of kimchi so sometimes you will be served 2 or 3 types with one meal. MMMMMMMMM!

Kimchi is fermented spicy cabbage that looks decievingly like lasagna. That just about says it all, doesn't it? This advert for kimchi should clear up any questions:



Mmmmmm fermented. Mmmmmmm fishy. Poor Dayna used to really enjoy kimchi until she found out there was fish in it. Vegetarians have a rough go in Korea. Some of us at the school really like it... well Jo likes it. Melodie will pick at it sometimes, but she really likes kimchi jigae (a kimchi soup). I have no comment as I do not wish to offend any of you die hard kimchi fans out there.

Still, kimchi is a national facination- and it is supposed to be one of the healthiest foods in the world. In Korea you can buy kimchi chocolates, kimchi rice, kimchi stew, and even kimchi toys,. Above is the white radish kimchi, which is briny and popular at fried chicken places. But before I end this post you have to watch this video randomly found on youtube (thank you, Hannah). It's the cutest thing in the world- an ESL class performing a song they wrote dedicated to kimchi. The teacher is clearly fantastic. It's just a kimchi world and we're living in it, people!



lyrics:

"kimchi in the bathroom, kimchi in the sky,

kimchi on the rollercoaster even in july

kimchi in the backseat, kimchi on the plane,

kimchi in my underwear, kimchi in my brain

kimchi on a lawyer, kimchi teaches math,

kimchi makes you smarter and then gives you a bath

kimchi rain is falling, it makes me feel so good...

if i had more kimchi, i'd make a kimchi world

planets made of kimchi, kimchi in my boots,

i only eat my kimchi, i never eat my fruits

kimchi kimchi kimchi
kimchi kimchi kim
kimchi kimchi kimchi
kimchi kimchi kim"

Public Exercise

One thing that is abundant in Korea is parks- possibly because nobody has a backyard to relax in, you're never too far from a walk in the park. While walking is good exercise, most Korean parks also have the type of exercise equipment you'd typically find in a gym just set out for public use. Everyone is on the honor system here as nothing is chained down, but most of the equipment I've come across seems well kept. Above is an exercise area on Bukhansan mountain- as if climbing a mountain isn't exercise enough! There were weight benches and hula hoops galore.

Koreans have no apprehensions when it comes to public exercise either, and it's not uncommon to see locals break out into full stretches or simply grind the air while waiting to cross the road. I've never seen any joggers, which is pretty popular at home, but that could be a result of the air quality. Some of the machines seem kind of hokey though, like gym rejects that found a second home at the park. Take a look at this video from one of the 3 parks within 5 minutes of our apartment and see for yourself. The lady on the far right just looks like she's doing the twist. The old guy looks like he's having fun though, kudos to him!

Gyeonbokgung Palace

According to Lonely Planet, one of the top 5 places to see in Seoul is Gyeonbokgung palace, located about an hour and a half north of Suwon by subway. We'd been meaning to do something "touristy" and Sunday was the perfect spring-like day to sightsee. Mel, Hannah and I met Dayna at the palace mid-afternoon.


The palace was originally built in the 14th century but it was detroyed like a lot of things in this country by the Japanese in the 16th century. The castle was reconstructed about 125 years ago, so although it looks very old, it is not. I like the above picture because you can really see the contrast of old and new that is so common in Korea- random recreated ancient castle in the foreground, modern skyskrapers in the background.


There were lots of tall doors...


The castle grounds were enormous and would take hours to explore properly and that's not how we roll. This small building built on a little island was particularly scenic, with lots of hungry fish with big mouths to feed swimming in the water around it.

The blossoms were in full bloom and reminded me of our Apple Blossom Festival at home in the Annapolis Valley. The palace shared its grounds with a folk museum (seen behind the blossoms in the above picture), which we visited only to buy their tasty ice cream.

It was a nice stroll, although it felt a little artificial since we knew it had all been recreated. It was a bit like a walk through the park. I recommend that they build a roller coaster.

After visiting the palace we got some sandwiches (a rare treat) in town and went to the bookstore. On the way back to Suwon we saw this pimped out Spiderman train- pretty cool, huh?

Shabu Shabu

We're pretty lucky to live so close to a store like Home Plus in Suwon. It's a lot like Wal-Mart so it makes shopping for groceries, clothes and shampoo very convenient. Home Plus also has a food court on the first floor with (the worst burger joint in the whole world) Lotteria, Baskin Robbins, a food court, a fortune teller, and little "well-being" restaraunt in the corner we'd never paid much attention to. Well, searching around Dave's ESL website I was reading about Mongolian-style shabu shabu restaraunts (yes, I have a lot of time on my hands) and it turns out that little restaraunt at the Home Plus was a shabu shabu place. So Saturday night Mel and I went with Jo and Hannah to check it out.

We were sat down at a table with a boiling pot of yellow water in the middle and instructed to check out the buffet of fresh meat, seafood and veggies. The dish is made by submerging a very thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in a pot of boiling broth and swishing it back and forth several times. The swishing sound is where the dish gets its name- Shabu-shabu roughly translates to "swish-swish", thank you Wikipedia.

The food cooked fast and the meat was tender. There were lots of noodles, sandwiches and salads to compliment the meat. It was a really nice meal, and recommended to anyone looking to try something different. Is there anything you can't do, Home Plus?

Living in a Gangsta's Paradise

This week we have about 40 "special needs" students attending our school. "Special needs" means their family can't afford tuition so it's been provided by the city council and the student attends for free. Understandably, if the family is low-income the children also have little-to-no english as the parents probably aren't able to afford the after school english programs that the typical student at our school attends. We often teach students with very little english, which is fine, but these students have very little english PLUS a mean streak. This week we are teaching inner-city kids raised on the mean streets of Suwon.

I have 15 students this week and 8 are "special needs" (in contrast, Mel only has 1). Most of my kids were trouble from the first hour. Before I'd even taught them two of them ripped a plastic "S" of one of our "Happy Suwon" signs and drew penises on the Hospital classroom wall during a tour of the school with Melodie. Then in their very first class Jo had to break up a fight between two of the boys. Fighting is pretty much unheard of at our school so I couldn't wait to meet them! They are exhausting. The classes are short- 45 minutes at a time- but I am constantly telling students to sit down or to stop speaking to the point that I can barely get through 1/2 the lesson I would with a typical class. I had to break up a fight first period this morning too, when two of the boys just l-o-s-t it.



On a whole many of the kids are nice. That's me confiscating a gun of "Superman" (my favorite student of the week) on Monday morning. Although even if they are nice, if the kids understand no english it is really hard to organize a drama play and explain any games or activities to them. Sometimes I feel like I may as well conduct the lesson in french- they'd understand just as much I'm sure. My kids this week really seem to like the "name game" so we play that every day and they think it's off the hook. I also think a lot of them may not get the attention they need at home. I can't walk through the hall without being hugged by little people! 6 of them hugged me after my last period class today. It's cute, but makes it slow going when you're just try to get down the hall. I think our graduation might be kind of tear-filled tomorrow (tears of sorrow from them, tears of joy from the teachers).



As per usual the main trouble makers have ridiculous names. "Happy" is anything-but, and was the central thug in all of my team's fights. There's a boy named "Suwon" on Jeannie's team that is giving his town a bad name, "D Undertaker" is a bad ass (he and "Suwon" are cronies), and there's a girl named "Sina" that is just wild. So what's in a name? I'm hoping for some "Jack's" and "Susie's" next week.

NOFX concert in Hongdae

Last night was fun. At 5:15pm, we left our happy village and got into a cab bound for Suwon station. Since we were incredibly hungry, we decided to grab a quick combo from Burger King. By 6pm we ran and pushed our way onto the subway headed for Seoul. At 7:05pm, we arrived at Hongik University station and met up with Dayna and Steve. With some sketchy directions, we decided to get a cab to find the "Rolling Hall" Club. Once we saw all the white 20 somethings drinking outside the convenience store, we knew we were at the right place. It was very interesting to find some Korean punks, who given the cultural importance on appearance, were completely decked out in punk attire: Make-up, leather, chains, kilts. I assume that they must be shun by their families! At about 8pm, we made our way into the club to see NOFX!

Of course, these old punkers were as immature as ever making many racial and religious jokes. They happen to be American with both a Mexican and a Jew in the band, so you can only imagine.
Surprisingly, Canada was a hot topic. The band picked one guy out of the crowd who was from Ontario and all the Canadians screamed out. They were like "Why are there so many Canadians here? What's wrong with Canada?" Oh, "We're just graduates in debt with no real jobs", I wanted to say. I think we made up about 30% of the crowd.
Also surprising was that we could not drink in the club. So that would naturally explain the great liquor sales from the Family Mart directly beside the club. The cashier even popped open our bottles for us! That's the kind of service I like!

Although there were many songs we did not recognize, it was a pretty good set. They did play some of the old favourites, though. For being 40 years old, these boys put alot of energy into their music. There were some annoying little Korean girl-punks who behaved a little too enthusiastically for my liking; dancing, elbowing, pushing, stepping on my toes. It was like they had seen people on tv at a punk show and tried to imitate it. But don't worry, one strong push from me and they were out of our way for the night. At about 9:30pm, the concert was over. We were tired and sore from our long day and decided to head back home. Upon that decision, we officially came to the conclusion that we are now old. At 11:00pm we arrived back to our apartment in Suwon content that we saw one of the best punk bands in our time!

Where is my damn Chocolate Bunny?

Happy Easter to all back home!

It isn't a day much different than another here in Korea. At Christmas, you see decorations and you hear Christmas music. There are even Christmas trees and several reminders of the most exciting holiday of the year. On New Year's Eve, you can watch fire works that are set off 15 minutes late. On February 14th, aka: Valentine's Day, couples celebrate with chocolate, flowers and cards. But Easter, however; nothing.

Back home, the Easter holiday is often highly anticipated for many reasons: The long and relaxing weekend with usually two days off of work; Eating a ham dinner with the family; Searching for chocolate eggs and a chocolate bunny; Having an all around good break.

Since Koreans are nearly 50% Christian, you would think that there would be some kind of attention drawn to the significance of the holiday. Now, I'm not a religious person, but if you celebrate Christmas then shouldn't there also be a holiday set aside for this occasion? Perhaps I'm just bitter we don't get any free days off.

Although we looked in the most American part of Seoul, we did not find any Easter eggs or a bunny of any significant proportion. So with that said, I genuinely hope all of you enjoy your Easter holiday. Hmmmm.....I wonder if you can order cadbury cream eggs off of Ebay.

Carne Station

Friday night after work we made the trek to Hongdae to eat at Carne Station, a restaraunt we'd read about that sounded magical: all you can eat BBQ and all you can drink for 23,000. Who could ask for anything more? Book me a room, why would you ever leave? We left Suwon after work with Chris, Shaun and his brother Jake, and *fresh off the boat* new teacher Hannah and got on a bus that we thought would take us directly to Hongdae. We got stuck in traffic for the longest time and then we got kicked off in Sadang, where the bus route actually finished. It was about this time that we got a text from Dayna saying that she and the rest of our Suyu friends had already arrived in Hongdae, which was still pretty far away. So we got on the subway, and we still made it there before Jeannie, Michelle and Cavin who had driven through the traffic from Suwon. In all we had four Canadians, two Americans, four Brits and 3 Koreans. We were like a mini UN.


The restaraunt was fantastic. Best place ever! There was a whole wall of meat: beef, pork and seafood that you selected and then brought back to your table and BBQ-d to your liking. There were also lots of soups, fruit, salad and of course- kimchi and rice! Given the price of beef in Korea, I'm surprised this place can stay open with the chunks of cow we were frying up at our tables...


Like I said it was also all-you-could-drink. Which turned out to be a lot but would have been a lot more if the place hadn't abruptly started closing around 10:30. Don't worry, we picked up the pace when we noticed the place emptying out. Look- you could pour your own beer! There were coolers of soju for the taking, bottles of wine and the most impressive thing- the wall of free hard liquor. Oh, a place like this wouldn't be able to stay in business for one week at home!



Soju shots all around!


Here's Michelle measuring how many heads Jake has in proportion to his body. 8 is ideal, and a higher number is even better. Koreans find "small face" very attractive, so if you are a pea head I would highly recommend teaching in Korea. One time at work, Jamie (one of the korean teachers) wouldn't stand next to Mel during the morning assembly because her head would look too big in comparison. Just so you know, Jake also has a small face. I'm pretty sure I do not.


Of course we smuggled out some of the soju and stashed them in the girls' bags so we could take them into the Norebang (kareoke room). Drinking is not allowed in the rooms, but it's pretty much expected that people will bring their own drinks in with them. Unfortunately some beers that weren't hidden so well were taken at the door, but returned to us when we left. Once again we hit up the luxury norebang because of the free ice cream. Oooh la la.


Melodie adds some sass to the festivities.

Jeannie and I always sing a very special song together. You might remember our rendition of "What's Up" from a few months ago. What was on tap for Friday night? Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". The best part was when we did the Titanic pose.

Our friends from the UK sing some Oasis or the Beatles or something lol. We had a really fun night, ate a lot of food, and butchered all the right songs. We got a cab back to Suwon, hung out on the roof, chased Mike's ghosts out of Hannah's apartment and finally got some sleep. Well to finish, I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite photos of the night. Let this be a warning, this is your brain on soju:

PS:

Spring is a time for Change-y

Spring is here and the weather has been pretty mild this week. Though the temperature itself hasn't increased significantly from past weeks, the grass is now green and the trees are starting to blossom (see above).

In addition, Korea has been hit by a wave of yellow dust from China, and Sunday was supposed to be the worst sand-storm day of the season. You know what? I didn't really notice. The sky is always a little hazy being in such a populated/polluted area but it didn't seem out of the ordinary. Shaun was in Seoul that day and said you could see a yellow haze over the mountains and one of our part-timers at the school suffered a respitory infection over the weekend because of the dust. Since I admit to being oblivious to the dust, my camera was not handy and thus the above image has been provided to you courtesy of Google image search.

On Sunday Mel and I weighed ourselves at a department store to find that we'd both gained a surprising amount of weight since we'd last thought to weigh ourselves (in Canada of course). I'm not at liberty to quote the amount of weight gained by Mel, but I've put on 20 lbs- roughly 3 lbs a month since I got here. This doesn't really bother me. I'm actually pretty happy because I've had a hard time gaining weight for as long as I can remember. However, I haven't added any muscle at all, just gut. So, on Monday Mel and I joined a gym to displace our weight from the gut to the pipes. Neither of us have ever worked out before but we had a decent time on our first visit. I am pretty sore though! It was only 30,000 won for a month, which is pretty reasonable and it's so close that we have no excuse not to go. Watch out Canada- I'm coming back all big and ripped.

Speaking of change, we've also changed addresses! Remember in our last post we mentioned the squeaky pipe from hell that had been keeping us awake at night? Well rather than fix it, our landlord preferred that we switch rooms. It was an inconvenience but necessary. So Tuesday after work we packed up and moved from #902 to #816. The apartments are exactly the same in just about every way. There are a few drawers that are differently shaped and the view has changed so things have felt a little 'off' at home for the past day or so. But we have cable again, which was better than we had remembered it being. And we also got our internet connection set back up this afternoon and the technician was even kind enough to give Mel a drive to work after he had to return to the apartment because he'd forgotten his stapler. A silent drive to work.

Did I mention that we had to move everything the day after our first workout at the gym? SORE!

Another week has meant a new herd of students at our school, and I have been lucky enough to be teaching a team of little prodigies that use words like "furthermore". It's been really nice to actually have conversations with students that can express themselves quite well in english. We've also had a new teacher start, which is exciting since we haven't had anyone new join the staff since the school opened. Well that's the big update for the day. We're looking forward to a big all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink supper tomorrow night, so watch for some (likely embarrassing) pics soon.

Suwon's Funniest Home Videos

Well they aren't really all that funny.

Friday evening we met up with Dayna for some Chinese food at "Holy Chow"'s in Itaewon. Afterwards we went to the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a Canadian bar, where all the provincial flags were hanging from the rafters, hockey was on the big screen and a big Tim Hortons mug was proudly on display. And you could get Molsons for $6 a bottle (we opted for huge mugs of $3 local beer- Cass). It had been a long week, so we called it a night and headed back to the subway station. We live in opposite directions so we had to wait on opposite side of the tracks. I thought this video was kind of cute.

In Korea cars are not required to yield to police cars, ambulances, or fire trucks that have their lights/sirens on. At home it is a driver's first instict to pull over, but here it doesn't matter if someone's having a heart attack and the ambulance is responding to a 119 (Korea's 911) call, they just have to wait in line like everyone else. We were on our way to the GS Mart today and captured this all on tape.

Lastly, our officetel has squeeky pipes in the walls. It gets especially loud overnight and it's been getting worse lately. I'm a heavy sleeper so it doesn't really bother me, but it's driving Mel crazy! But now I have the squeek captured on tape and we're going to try talking to the landlord tomorrow. Are there any plumbers reading with a quick diagnosis of the problem?

Using the John

It actually took us a few months to discover our first "squat" toilet in Korea. It was in late October, on a day trip to Suwon from Suyu and I remember thinking "I AM NOT using that". Before that most public toilets we'd seen were western-style. I know, especially for the ladies, the quality of the washroom can make-or-break a restaraunt or bar. That's why I've decided to dedicate this post to something we all have in common- the washroom.

Many of the bathrooms in Korea are unisex, especially in Bars. The above picture is of me and Dayna (that's her hand on the stall door) in the same washroom at Beergarten in Suwon. At least in the Beergarten washrooms the urinal is around the corner from the stalls, but in most public unisex bathrooms a lady can bump into quite a surprise when she emerges from the stall.

Meanwhile, the washrooms at Bennigans are beautiful, and there's a sign to prove it. In korea, the janitors are almost always female, and they will not hesitate to clean the bathroom while you are using it (male or female). It is not uncommon to find an ajumma mopping between your legs while standing at the urinal.

This bathroom at the park across from our apartment building promises a classic western toilet for your bathroom needs. Another insteresting thing about washrooms in Korea is that the toilet paper is usually not provided, or if it is it's usually outside of the stall. You grab how much you need and then proceed. And if you didn't notice until it's too late, you're screwed!


Unfortunately, this is what the subway station washrooms usually look like. Most public bathrooms here are no worse than they are at home, but the stations are generally disgusting!! I'm not sure why the guy had to take off his shoes, but he did leave both pairs there.