A Beer That Helps You Poo

Korean beer doesn't taste too bad and it's also very cheap. There are many different varieties: lite beer, 6.9% -hard- beer, well-being beer, and now there is a beer that keeps you regular. I usually enjoy Hite products, but I'm not sure if I'll be trying their new beverage:

Hite Launches Fiber Beer for Smoother Finish (from english.chosun.com)

Korean brewer Hite said on Monday that it has launched a beer called "S" that is fortified with dietary fiber.

The beer maker said S beer contains 0.5g of fiber per 100 ml, which facilitates bowel movements and helps staying in shape.

The fiber in one bottle of S is equivalent to the amount gained from two or three cucumbers or eight strawberries.

S beer comes in three sizes -- 330-ml bottles, 355-ml cans, and 1,600-ml pet bottles. It contains four percent alcohol.

The 330-ml bottle of S beer costs W781.74 (US$1=W938), which is 12.8 percent more than existing Hite beer products.

Let's Be Random, Shall We?

Just some arbitrary pix from the last week or so..

The popular character, Puppy Mouse, created by Malt Bizney.

During a quiz game, something deep is written on a white board. This boy could write popular korean t-shirt slogans!

The student who played Venom in my "Spiderman" drama last week gets into character.

A baby is left sitting in it's stroller outside of the bank, while it's parents do their banking inside.

Shaun and Shanda cool off in a fountain after school on Friday.

This is me passed out at the summit of Mt. Gwanggyo... with a long, wet walk down ahead of me.

There are lots of mangy looking stray cats around our apartment building, and Mel fed this hungry guy a can of tuna.

I love hamburger too.

Surviving Mount Gwanggyo

There were five ESL teachers who decided on one pleasant Saturday afternoon to ascend Suwon's largest mountain, Mount Gwanggyo. With their trusty maps in hand, they agreed to take Trail #1.

It was a challenging hike that took them a few hours, with a rope climb up a rock face to reach the peak. When they reached that point, they gasped at the sights surrounding them.

They could see most of Suwon City far below. They also enjoyed the serenity of the neighbouring uninhabited mountains. Often times, they could hear a friendly "Cuckoo" in the distance. All the teachers agreed that the hard climb was worth it and they felt a sense of accomplishment.

After a nice break, the teachers decided on walking towards Trail #3 so they could descend down the mountain. After walking a short while, the trail became steeper and they realized they were going up towards another peak. One teacher asked a native hiker about their whereabouts. He informed the teachers they had passed Trail #3. Surprised and a little confused, the teachers headed back to find their trail. They did find the trail only to discover that the trail was closed off with barbed wire. After some debate about what to do, they decided to continue in their original direction until they reached the next path down the hill as indicated on their maps.

More hours passed and the teachers found themselves without water or food. Though a kind stranger offered them ice water, the thirst was unquenchable.

With their muscles aching, they pressed on because nighttime was fastly approaching and signs suggested that wild boars may be around. Eventually their new path down the hill became smaller and darker as monsoon rains began. The teachers started to slip in the mud and wondered if they were going to end up lost on the mountain. They wondered if their path was really a path at all. No one was around whereas the other paths had many hikers. The paranoia was setting in, perhaps the boars were as well.

Eventually they could see brighter light and they realized they were coming out of the forest. The path they emerged from was dark, scary, and did not look well-travelled.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the teachers came across a reservoir they were expecting to find. After a few minutes of taking pictures, the exhausted and dirty group walked down a rural road filled with rice farms and huts until they found a tent masquerading as a restaurant.

There was a kind lady who worked there and served the teachers some pop and coffee. She also called a few taxis for them because the rain was coming down hard and they could not walk any longer. They had been hiking for a total of 5 hours!

After a change of clothes and a hot shower, the group went to a buffet since they had each only eaten a donut that morning. They ate for a whole two hours until they were completely full.

And then they were happy!

Editor's note: Shawn and Melodie have decided to not scale any more mountains for the forseeable future. Getting lost on Asian mountains has become a trend, remember last time?

Check out an album of photos from our hike here.

Happy Suwon Busted Village

Our school in another 6 months (dramatization)

I remember when we first moved to Korea and started working at Seoul English Village we thought the facilities were impressive, but worn. When I asked how long the school had been open I was shocked to find out that it had only been operational for 6 months. There were piles of broken chairs in the back of the science classroom, the restaraunt had few unbroken plates and all of the magic tricks had been destroyed. Well, Suwon English Village has only been open for 7 months and I'm sad to say that we are in a similar situation. Although a lot of money was initially invested to get the school going, it seems like money is harder to come by these days for upkeep. Don't get me wrong, the school is still nice and the kids don't complain but it is interesting to see what has happened over time, and some serious problems have emerged.

The most obvious and alarming problem is our incredible sinking hallway! The floor outside the "Homestay" classroom sunk one weekend, and it's only a matter of time before someone falls through! The drop is now about 3-4 inches and I'm always tripping over the damn thing. Some of us (Shaun) jump on the crack everytime we walk by just to see what will happen. Dad- come to Korea, your carpentry skills are desperately needed!

There is a crack on the wall and also the ceiling around the sinking floor... coincidence? I really wonder if they'll ever fix it or if they'll just let the school snap in half?

The glass tabletops on all the desks are broken, I suspect as a result of the teachers regularly sitting on the desks- I know I broke one that way. The jagged shards of glass have not been removed (presumably because the desk would fall apart if there wasn't glass on top), but instead left there to cut our students and faculty.

One of many broken lobsters ("robsters!") from "Supermarket" class... that's his claw on the right hand side. There are many broken fish and eye-less squid to keep him company.

Want to raise or lower the screen? Or put on a DVD? Don't do it with one hand touching the underside of the button or you'll get a really, really, really bad shock.

Why these seats were purchased boggles the mind. They practically encourage the kids to not sit upright and roll around constantly, but they might want to be careful where they roll because these seats look like they're harbouring some bacteria...

Want to check out the map of the english village? Don't look too closely or you'll get a metal wire in the eye!

According to our boss the internet "these days" isn't that reliable. Is this true? Are you guys having a problem with your internet "these days"? Mine's working fine at home. When you're teaching "Animation" class and the kids can't log on to the animation website, it puts a few kinks in your lesson plan!

Our sports classes are taught in a large field that is fully of rusty nails and broken glass. To the best of my knowledge nothing has ever been done about this, which is unbelievably irresponsible. There's always random ajummas in the field picking grass for their suppers, so I really think someone needs to give them some won to clean up the nails too.

This is the scaryiest of all- in case of a fire, there is only one exit AND you need a security key to use the door. All the other doors are chained shut like the door above! Our school is just one long hallway on the second floor of a building, and it's 5 minutes from the furthest class to the only exit. And that's if the building doesn't crack in half from the heat or you don't fall on a rusty nail on your way out.

We've only got 2 months left... cross your fingers for us!

Happy Father's Day/Jebudo Island

Sorry Dads! I hope you had a nice Father's Day yesterday! Sorry we couldn't make it out, but you know, we're in Asia. It would most certainly be a long drive!

This weekend we went on another adventure. This time we went to Jebudo (Jebu Island) to go swimming. It has been 30+ for about 2 weeks now so we really wanted to get to a beach. On Sunday we decided to go to the Tourist Bureau at Suwon Station. Upon asked if there was a beach we could go to somewhere in Korea, the employees answered "No". Then they told us that there was actually a beach about an hour's drive away, but that it was "muddy". Well, we took our chances and went regardless.

Once we made it there, it was in fact, quite muddy and polluted. We decided to have some beer and boil in the sun when we realized that the tide was coming in. After a few hours, the beach seemed more inviting as the muddiness was replaced by water. We were eventually able to swim and rested on the beach for another few hours. The area turned out to be really scenic so we had a really relaxing and enjoyable day with friends.

Strangely enough, none of the Koreans had bathing suits and most of them relaxed in tents on the beach for the afternoon. Going to the beach, better bring your tent!

There were only a few locals splashing about in the water, but they were fully dressed and wearing flotation devices in knee-deep water. Apparently there are very few swimming beaches in the Yellow Sea (the sea between China and Korea) because the beaches aren't as nice and presumably, because the water is dirty.

We had the priviledge of seeing a beautiful sunset over some smoke stacks in the distance.

I just realized today that the "rainy" season is starting this week. By rainy, that means it rains all day, every day for a month. I was surprised because I wasn't expecting it until August and I wanted to do more outside activities. We still want to do to the DMZ tour (Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea) and go to Busan (Southern seaside city). But I guess we'll have to see how that works out. On the plus-side, our adventure to Jeju Island "the Hawaii of Korea" in August will be in the post-rainy season.

Keep checking for our next post about our school slowly splitting in half!

I Believe The Children Are Our Future

We work in an English Village school, so that means are classes are situation-based and involve a lot of role play. There is Hospital class, Restaraunt, Airplane, etc. However, twice a week we have Homeroom class. Homeroom class means our director couldn't think of any more situational classes and wants us to kill 45 minutes. Thursday in Homeroom I have my students write journals to tell me about their week so far at the village. The insight is sometimes facinating.

Eileen wrote: " I like english and I thought my english is very well. But I come here and meet 'Chunky Monkey' who is good at english. "AHHHH!!!" I want to talk to teacher in classtime, but he!"

Poor Eileen! Chunky Monkey was an attention hog.

Chunky Monkey wrote: "My favorite teacher here was Shawn, because he was nice and fair to everybody. But unfortunately, I don't think it was fair for him to give me a red stamp. (I can't explain why because it takes too much space.)"

We give red stamps for discipline. Sorry Chunky, but you were wearing your drama costume over your head while your body was stuck through a folding chair. I had no choice!

Sally Kim thought: "I like the lunch vere vere vere vere vere vere vere much. Lunch is so much. I love lunch."

Sally, I've had the lunch and I have to disagree.

Da Hye writes: "English Village is fun.. teachers are kind.. But I can't speak english. So I can't listen it.. little hard"

At least she's honest, and no, she didn't listen it.

Here's what David thought about our psychadelic golf class: "The best game is golf, yes it's very good effect to me."

My favorite though, was jolly Josephine: "I learned more english. I'm go home, I speak english. Ho-ho! "

Ho, ho, ho!

Carribean Bay-The Best Waterpark in Korea

Well after Saturday's visit to Wonchon Amusement Park a day in the bathtub would have seemed exciting, but with the sun shining and the whole day ahead of us we decided to go to Carribbean Bay. Carribbean Bay is a water park that is linked to the Samsung-owned Everland amusement park, which we visited last year. The park was only a 40 minute bus ride away from Suwon, and we were able to travel in a nice express bus with air conditioning- a pleasant break from the sweaty subway system.

Can you imagine travelling for 40 minutes without watching TV? Me neither, and luckily the bus was showing some Mapagi skits. The passengers were in hysterics, you have to admit it is pretty funny.

Of course, since it was a water park I wasn't carrying my camera around all day so all of my pictures were taken after the park closed. Trust me, it was busier than the pictures suggest, but the wait times weren't too bad for most of the rides. Later in the season admission prices peak around 60,000 won, but we bought our tickets for 40,000, which seemed pretty reasonable. The park was quite nice and pretty similar to water parks I've visited in Florida.

One thing I really liked was that you could buy a wristband with a bar code on it, purchase some credits, and then use the wristband to pay for drinks and snacks within the park. It was much easier than running back to your locker for cash everytime you were thirsty. Of course the money disappeared very quickly on hot dogs and swim caps...

Yes, we bought swim caps. The park was not without it's random korean rules. The wave pool, which at it's deepest point was waist-high, required a life jacket! I mean, I'm not the best swimmer in the world but.... really! A life jacket? I don't think koreans as a whole are good swimmers- perhaps they don't have many oppourtunities to swim. There aren't many public pools. Most people wore life jackets on the waterslides as well, even though the water at the end was -again- only waist high. No shirts though- take off the shirt, put the life jacket back on, and then you are permitted to go down the slide. And a swim cap was required to go on any water slides, or even the lazy river in which you float around on an inner tube and your head never touches the water. These rules were slightly annoying, but amusing nonetheless. And don't you think I look great in that swim cap?

The park had 2 wave pools, one inside, and one large pool outside. There were 9 waterslides, and on most of them you could use a single or double innertube to go down. It was fun riding with a friend because we went with Shaun, Hannah and Shanda, but the heaviest person had to ride in the back of the tube (which we didn't realize at first) and the ride attendants didn't have a lot of tact when it came to asking who was the heaviest. "Who is heavy??" they said. "Who is chubby-chubby????" Really!

There were some really nice hot tubs, each with different supposed health benefits. There were strawberry, jasmine and lemon baths. I can't say that they smelled like their names, but they were warm and relaxing. One of the baths had seats around all the sides, which you could sit in to be massaged by a bunch of different pressure jets.

At the end of the night we were satisfied with our day of fun which more than made up for the scary ghost park the day before. It was about 30 degrees all day so it was the perfect day and I got a little tanned but not burnt like I usually do. It was good to relax this weekend, since the students that arrived on Monday could only be described as... creatures. Creatures who are very very "englishy no". Mel's students don't even know the alphabet but have to put on a drama production Friday. Wish us luck!

But really, who is "chubby-chubby"?

Is it you?

Woncheon "Amusement" Park- The worst park in Korea

Sorry about the delays, but we have some great updates to blog about so keep checking!!!


So, on Saturday, a group of us decided to go swimming at a nearby lake because it was closer than going to the ocean. We heard that this lake had 3 pools and an amusement park so naturally we were pretty excited to spend a relaxing day lounging around in the sun. When we drove into the gates we noticed that all the houses/hotels/restaurants were boarded up, all the windows were smashed and most had graffiti.


When we got out of our cab, we looked around and quickly realized that this amusement park was dying a slow and painful death. There was a rusty old ferris wheel, decrepid and cob-webbed filled buildings and a dead fish floating beside a lump of poop in the lake. We explored one of the cafes in search of food and it was like there had been a nuclear fall-out. There were strange things like dead bouquets of flowers; a misplaced trampoline where you could easily bounce off the building to your death; and the ceiling was holey and water-damaged.


Of course, this park also possessed the world's greatest collection of rusty swan boats! Naturally we got in one of the swans and took a leisurely paddle around the disease ridden lake. Shaun and Shanda went on some of the scary amusement park rides and were treated to inappropriate comments from the ride operator. I had the feeling that this place doesn't get too many foreigners despite being the # 2 attraction in the Suwon City-authorized travel brochure.


I don't think I've been to a weirder place in my life. I kept thinking about how there could be a headline on CNN.com about the deaths of 3 Canadians and 2 Brits at an amusement park in Korea. I can't believe that this was a recommended tourist spot by the Suwon Guide Book. It certainly makes me think twice about the other recommended sites!!!

Poor fish!!!!

Please stay tuned for another update tomorrow about the best park in Korea......Carribean Bay!!!