Random Post of Randomness

Well, we have a potpouri of topics to discuss today, first of all: the music here is terrible. The department stores and public areas play a lot of late-90's sounding pop-boy band music. And all english music is always the Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls. A lot of Korean pop songs will use a few english verses and the one that we kept hearing over and over since the time we arrived was 'I love Rock Roll" by Koyote. I just found out what the song was called and the artist's name thanks to one of the korean teachers at our school. This song is played allllll the time everywhere. I'm assuming it's a big hit. I really like this song. It's the perfect example of the mindless pop that is so popular here. It gets stuck in your head and when I listen to it/sing it at the top of my lungs it drives Mel up the wall. Listen for yourself here: http://www.myspace.com/koyoteisbeast The song will automatically start after a few seconds. Turn it up, party people.

Also, our school's website is finally active and we all had to write brief write ups about ourselves to go on the page. Unfortunately, they were heavily edited and I look like a fool in my mugshot -ahem- I mean photo. Enjoy. Laugh. http://www.swev.go.kr/int/lecturer.asp If you click on the arrow under our pictures you can read the write ups. Please note that it was irrelevant to mention that Melodie has a bachelor of education. I mean, it's not really relevant to teaching or anything. Please also note that the Canadians got top billing! Woo, go team Timmies!

Last Friday all of the Suwon teachers went out after work and Mel and I drank tall beers. See the cup holder the glass is sitting in? It kept the drinks at a cool -4 degrees. Ahhh, crisp!

Tonight, Mel and I went to Suwon station to finish up our Christmas shopping. There is an area with a bunch of food vendors and tonight we saw an interesting group of items for sale. Remember how we told you about the habit of serving our coffees with straws? Well, how about a cup of french fries with a straw? Is the straw used to suck up the ketchup? What exactly is the advantage of the straw here? Let's put our heads together and figure this out in the comments section. I blame the tomatoes.

Well, our new school opens on Monday. It looks pretty nice and everything is coming together. We are doing practice classes for the next two days before the weekend (which I am referring to as "the eye before the storm"). Certain aspects of the school week have been planned to the minute, and some things have been brushed over and avoided. It will be an interesting week and I'll be hiding in the 'board game' class. Yeah!

Well, you are now completely up to date. I'm going to go eat some fish heads. Good night, all.

It continues...

I wonder what kind of paintings are hung on the walls? The obsession with tomatoes continues; updates to follow...

Objects in mirror

...may be closer than they appear. See, I can read Korean!

Insadong + Sour Cream!!

Yesterday we went to Insadong to finish up our Christmas shopping. Insadong is where a lot of traditional Korean swag is sold. The streets are full of antiques, masks, scrolls, souvineers, and the kinds of things you probably picture when you think of Korea until you read this blog and find out it's all shopping malls and KFC just like the rest of the world! Insadong was a cool area. I picked up a t-shirt with traditional Korean song lyrics written in Hangul (the Korean alphabet) on the front. Oh, and I also bought a kimchi magnet, because if there isn't some kimchi inside your fridge there should at least be some on the door.

This is pretty much what the shopping looked like.

......................SPOOOOOOOOOONS....................

Next, Mel and I went to the Hannam Supermarket in Hangangjin. I'd read about this store online and it was described as a good place to find foreign import foods. Good? I'd describe it as GREAT!!!!

I mean, Korean grocery stores are okay, but most of the products are... well... korean. Which is fine, and I've found a lot of new foods I like, but after a while you do start to miss certain foods. For Mel and I we especially miss mexican foods... but luckily the Hannam Supermarket sold not only tacos, tortilla wraps, and enchilada mix, but they also had a deli that sold sliced sandwich meat! Do you know how long it's been since I had a sandwich???

Mel even found a bottle of Molson Canadian. True patriot love...

This is me at the end of the night with all my finds: a litre (!!) of Sour Cream (we'd never seen sour cream before in this country), Reeses peanut butter cups, Mel's precious salt and vinegar chips, tacos, enchiladas, and tortillas.

Oh, we ate so well last night! You know what? I think I was too busy eating these treats to have an ice cream yesterday! Awwww... another milestone: Nov. 26, Shawn's first day in Korea without a big icecream cone :(



These drunks amused us on the trip home. Please note the flashy gold purse clutched by the gentleman.

Return to Suyu

Last night after "work" (aka playing Mafia, Jenga and cutting out laminated money), Mel and I took the subway alllll the way back to Suyu, which is where we used to work. Now, for some reason the one day of the week that we had to travel after "work" we wound up getting stuck there later than ever (damn laminating) so by the time we actually arrived in Suyu it was nearly half-eight.

We met up with friends at the Outback Steakhouse, which has lured us into it's pricy digs far too many times with it's delicious Aussie Fries. That's (left to right) Mel, Rob. Emmer, Eva, Mitch and Cade.

Oh yeah, the reason we went to Suyu is because Emma is leaving on Saturday morning!! After supper we went to the infamous Hot Tracks store, where many of your Christmas gifts have been purchased. After that we went with Emma while she bought a cake for herself and then went back to the school for some last minute nertz.

We only got to play one round before Mel and I had to go for the last train, but it was a good fix until we get our webcams set up for some inter-continental games! We were able to catch a train from Suyu at 11:30p and we made it all the way down to some stop that I always call "Gummy Joe"... I think it's called 'Geumjeoung' or something like that... before the trains had stopped for the night. Well, "Gummy Joe" is only 4 stops away from Suwon but it was a rough time getting home! We got in a cab outside the station which only drove us for about 10 minutes and then pulled over and asked us to get out and take one of the cabs we'd parked by. So we got out on the side of the road in the middle-of-nowhere and went into the cab he'd parked by. We showed the guy our address and he shook his head and spoke a lot of Korean and asked us to get out. There was another cab behind us so we went and showed that driver our address. Again, a lot of Korean and he wasn't willing to drive us. There was only ONE MORE cab parked there and like I said- we were in the middle of nowhere- so we got in that cab, showed him our address and again, he didn't want to drive us. We went back and forth a few times (which is hard when you have no idea what the guy is saying) and eventually got him to agree to take us as far at the subway station in Suwon. 10 minutes later and 15,000 won later we were there! Well, at least we were in Suwon. We got a third cab (a local, phew!) to take us the rest of the way. This was easily the hardest "getting around" experience we've had yet so our lesson was learned: don't miss the last subway train!

Drinking Coffee With A Straw?

The first question we're usually asked when we order a coffee in Korea is "Hot?" Yes, hot please. Most Koreans enjoy cold coffee drinks or cappucinos so there usually isn't any coffee perked when we order it. It takes a few minutes to be brewed but at least it's fresh! The coffee is then served to you with a little straw, which I promptly toss in the trash. Everyone drinks their coffees with these little straws though... we probably look like barbarians slurping our coffees in big Canadian gulps:P

Our "Day Off"

Mayor Kim of Suwon City

This morning someone kept knocking on our door. We ignored the first few knocks because we were both asleep and we'd assumed it was the Jehovah's Witnesses that came the previous day. On the fourth round of knocks, we finally answered the door. I mean, it was our day off, what could the problem be? Apparently, our boss found out that the mayor wanted to visit our village today! Surprise!!!! We were given 30 minutes to change into "nice" clothes and walk to our school. Now, if Korea has taught us anything, it's to disregard time deadlines. So Shawn and I skipped our showers and went to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and donuts. I won a Dunkin Donuts mug on the roll up the rim! We are getting to be quite the regulars there! And since I think I'm the only person who buys the coffee, I've been winning every time.

We got to the school 10 minutes before the expected arrival of the mayor of Suwon. Of course, he didn't show up until nearly 2 hours later. I have been sick since last Friday and I looked like death today. I was blowing my nose, had no voice, was experiencing headaches...all those cold-like symptoms. Anyway, I looked in no shape to meet the mayor. I was hoping to simply shake his hand and hide the rest of the time. But no, out of everyone on our staff, I had to have MY picture taken with the mayor! Why does that always happen? I hope I didn't get Mayor Kim sick! And tomorrow, we get to wake up early and meet the vice-mayor! Woo hoo!!!! (sarcastic)
Wish us luck!

Missing and Presumed Loved

Emmer's Last Weekend: Salsa + Norebang

Saturday night saw a return to Hongdae where we met up with a bunch of teachers from SEV. It was Emma's last weekend before she makes the trek back to the UK on Saturday. Emma and Ryan are quite the accomplished dancers so we went to/invaded a salsa bar. When we first arrived there were 3 or 4 Korean couples there, all dancing like they were on an episode of Dancing With The Stars. Well, when the 20 of us came in it didn't take long for us to scare them off. Melodie, as clever as ever, managed to snag several fun instruments from behind the bar: a cowbell, bongo, and the ever-popular maracas.

While my dancing ability is just as lame as ever (Emma described me as "hopeless"...), Mel and I had fun trying, playing instruments, and hanging out.

Like I said, the instruments were a big hit. This is my favorite ever picture of Emma...

Nari and the cowbell.

A video of Melodie and the bongos.

The masters of de salsa, Emma and Ryan.

After that foolishness, some of us went to a norebang (which means "sing room"). Norebangs are private kareoke rooms that are very popular and very common in Korea but we'd never been to one. There was a disco ball, lights and even some smoke. It was pretty cool, I think they'd be a big hit at home if someone opened one. However, it was clear that none of us should quit our day jobs. Poor Mel lost her voice so she didn't do a lot of singing, but if you'd like to see me make a fool out of myself, here I am butchering "Bohemian Rhapsody"...

I apoligize to anyone who is now deaf after listening to that. Well, after the Norebang it was 4:30am so we decided to take a cab home. Clearly the train would have been cheaper but it doesn't run 24 hours. Do you want to know the number one best thing about Korea? Cheap transportation. It took over an hour for us to get home and the fare was only 35,000. At home it would have been over $100 I'm sure. Subways are cheap too. The cost to travel over an hour to Hongdae by subway was 1600 won. That's about a $1.60. Anywho, back on topic: we had fun and I think Emma had a pretty good last bash. Nehhhhhhh Emmer!!!!

Finally...

I found a place to store our tomatoes!

Hwaseong Fortress

What did you do at work today? Yesterday, Mel and I travelled with our fellow teachers to Hwaseong Fortress, the pride and joy of Suwon. The fortress was, at one point, a wall around the whole city that was built to honor the father of the King in an attempt to move the capitol of Korea from Seoul to Suwon. It was a place for citizens to hide if there were attacks, but it was a defensive fortress with a floodgate, four secret gates, four guard platforms, two observation towers, two command posts, two archer's platforms, five firearms bastions, and so on. It looks really old but it was actually built between 1794-1796 and it's just under 6km in length. We'll be teaching a 'History of Suwon' class at our school so this trip gave us some background on the history of the city and an easy shift at work. We also discovered a big market outside one of the gates which had a 3-story Daiso!! Daiso is a kick-ass dollar store (1000 won shop) that we are definately going back to raid.

We climbed some really tall stairs but were rewarded with an awesome view.

The wall, in all it's glory

The gang at one of the many things that looked like this along the way.

Don't drink the water.

Were we allowed to sit on the wall? That church in the background was huge. The biggest, blackest, scariest church I've ever seen. Almost as scary as those pants. What was I thinking...

Grand Tour

This is the 10 cent tour of our apartment aka white box in the sky...

Holy Crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that IS a Tim Horton's, right here in Suwon! A few of our fellow yankee teachers told us they had seen a tim's 15 minutes away. Now, Shawn and I have done quite a bit of research into these rumours and promptly made the short journey to verify the lie. As we were walking we discussed the possibilities: "It's got to be just the name, it CAN'T really be a true Tim's", "I wonder if they will know what a double-double is", "I don't see any Tim's litter, that can't be a good sign"....etc. Well, we got to the intersection and lo and behold, there it was: Tim Horton's Coffee, Cafri, Ballentine. But as we got closer, we saw that it was dark inside with blue lights.

When we got inside, we ordered two coffees and were instructed to sit down (no take-out option). We sat in black leather seats and drank our coffee. At this Tim Horton's you can buy alcohol, but no donuts, bagels, timbits...you get the idea; it was more like a bar than a cafe. We got the bill for our coffees and it came to 12,000Won (about 6 US$ each!). So, though this place was nice, it was NOT a true Tim's. The coffee grounds were of an unrecognizable brand name and the coffee came with a little cookie. We wonder how this place came to be. Did he simply steal the name upon a trip to Canada? Or does he have some kind of deal to use the Tim Horton's name and logo? I would guess the former as a more likely scenario.

Check out this video we made inside this giant farce!

Chain of Fools

Snapshot of the Suwon teachers. A small staff, but a cool bunch of people. Please note that we're all in our winter jackets because there's no heat, and we're all on the floor because we've got no furniture. No furniture = no work. It rocks!

Bonus points if you can spot the third Canadian!

Nothing's On

Moving Day and Our First Weekend in Suwon

Our Taxi van got a flat tire on it's way to pick us up so we found ourselves with 45 minutes to kill and - conveniently- two decks of cards. So Emma and Ryan, who had walked us down to the gate, joined Mel and I in plopping ourselves down in the SEV doorway and playing a last-chance game of Nertz. Personally, I think that Emma slashed the tire herself as she is a bit of a Nertz addict and is always looking for one more fix.

The ride itself was 2 1/2 hours, but probably closer to an hour if it weren't for the traffic jams. Our driver talked on his cell phone the whole time and there weren't any seat belts. He did, however, have red ginseng mints that he kindly offered us. They were so nauseating! I couldn't wait for him to talk on his phone again so he'd be distracted and I could spit it out. When we arrived we helped us carry everything up to our place. We live on the 9th floor and, luckily, there is an elevator to spare us from the stairs.





Our apartment is cool. It's small, but it is funtional, clean and fine for us for now. There is a lot of storage, a washing machine, and free cable. We also have access to the roof, which is 12 stories up and the view is pretty awesome. The skyscrapers, mountains and lights make for a good backdrop, especially for a boy from small-town Aylesford like myself. We are in a good location. The following amenities are within a 5 minute walk from our apartment: Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Homeplus (a Wal-Mart type-store with groceries), Migliore and New Core (8+ story department stores full of clothes), Lotteria (the Lotte version of McD's), a big Cinema, Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, TGI Fridays, Bennigans, VIPS, a Pho place, a park, city hall, and a 1,000 won store. Yeah, Korean Dollarama!!



The view from our apartment.



An ad in our elevator for a spa. The spa is for your 'gody' and offers 'dreast care'.



At the 1,000 won store there were crap (or crab???) grocery bags.

Saturday night we went to Homeplus for groceries. We had to as we forgot all of ours in the SEV fridge. As SOON as we walked in the door an older Korean man stopped us and tried to strike up conversation. He started out with "Where are you from?" and by the end of it all he was singing Elvis' "Love Me Tender" to Mel. I think he wanted me to sing too but I didn't know the words like he did! Odd.



At Homeplus they're always saving you won.



Mike, they have 151 proof rum at Homeplus!!! Caution: Highly flammable and also, highly intoxicating.



We also picked up some ethnic Pringles. They tasted very cultural.

Sunday we explored and found all of the above listed stores and sights.



Around town we found a local favorite: Bib, the Michelin Man!

Today we had our first day of work. The english village is located inside KBS (the Korean Broadcasting Studio) so we'll be rubbing shoulders with some Korean celebs. I would say it's 80% complete- kind of dusty but the walls are up and carpets/paint are complete. There was no heat though and it's gotten pretty cold here so we had a chilly afternoon. There's also no furniture so we had a chilly afternoon on the floor. We only worked 1-5 and we have tomorrow off! Woo Hoo!!



Our new school has a computer leb.



And a washroom for men, but only one woman.



The maple leafs are bigger in Suwon.

Last Night at SEV

Mel and I were off at 5:15 Friday, so the early evening was mostly spent packing things up and cleaning. We wanted to spend our last Friday the same way we spent all of our other Fridays: eating pizza, drinking beers and playing games. This Friday we super sized it, though. Emma showed up around 9pm with 4 pizzas, 10 tubs of complimentary pickles and several large bottles of beer that went with the many large bottles of beer Mel and I had already purchased. We played all of our favorite games (there was a list and as we played each game it was crossed off) and a lot of our friends were able to come over. Ryan, Rob, Vanessa, Shannon, Mary, and Bronwyn all joined in the madness. The last game, of course, was Nertz and was won by none other than Team "F*** You": Emma & Shawn.

Rob, Emma, Me and Vanessa giving the "X" that you get ALL THE TIME in Korea. It means 'no', 'it's broken', 'we're sold out', or anything like that...

Bronwyn went for the 'cushion on the floor-no games but beer' option.

This was taken during the high stakes dice game, Farkel. Please note the pizza pen on the table.

Our last day... goodbye Melrose Place

This our last day at Seoul English Village! We move to Suwon tomorrow. I met all the Suwon teachers yesterday and had a few of them over to our place while they were observing classes in Seoul. They're all nice and there's even one girl from Nova Scotia. Small world!

However, we saw a sample schedule for our new school and it's the suck. Teaching 7 classes a day, 5 days a week! We teach 3 or 4 a day here, some days we only teach one1. AND all of the classes are different. I'll be teaching 20 different subjects! I noticed that one of the classes scheduled for me to teach is DANCE and I plan to raise old hell over that. It's not happening. Here we teach the same two classes all week, which allows you to get comfortable (and good) at your class. Also, in Seoul our lunch break is an hour and a half, in Suwon it's an hour. In Seoul our apartment is big, in Suwon it will be small. Plus, I hear the school still has a lot of work to be done and the other teachers haven't even been allowed to see it yet. Needless to say, we are approaching this all very hesitantly. I'm truly looking forward to doing more work, paying utilities and living in a smaller apartment for the same pay (**sarcasm**)

On the bright side we get free cable! And like I said the other teachers are cool. And we might not have to teach for a few weeks until it opens. So it will be OK at first but, umm.... I can see the big picture and I'm scared!

We're going to miss everyone but mostly all of the SEV gossip. Like my post title suggests, this place is a bit like Melrose Place. It's kind of a soap opera because everyone lives together. Some people are dating, some people are fighting with other teachers, there are cliques... it was definately an interesting group!

Our internet access is also up in the air, but be sure that when the dust is settled we will start posting again! It's Friday night so you know there's pizza, beer and cards at our place tonight...

Update: We'll have our internet Monday morning!

Pepero Day

When we started to see store displays like this popping up after Halloween we thought maybe Koreans celebrate Valentines Day in November. Nope- November 11 is Pepero Day. Of course, at home it is Rememberence Day, the day that we remember the soldiers of World War 1 and other wars. Well, in Korea it is a day to celebrate possibly one of the suckiest snack foods around: Pepero (or, Pocky as we call them at home).

Peperos are pretzel like sticks dipped in chocolate. Whoopie. Give me a Chip Day or Gummi Bears Day and I'll get excited. Pepero? Pepero Day was invented by none other than the fantastic LOTTE company, which we know and love. Lotte has previously been discussed on our blog HERE. Pepero day is mainly celebrated by teenagers who exchange boxes of the junk food with their significant others.

Yesterday, Mel and I were in Dongdaemun and there was a big group of people gathered around a stage outside of Hello APM. They were having a show where the MC stuck a pepero in a guy's mouth and a girl had to eat the other half of it. Afterwards, the MC would hold up the remaining piece of Pepero to show the audience how close the guy and girl got to kissing. So weird! Of course, I took a video! Enjoy the strangeness!

Soju King

One of the teachers at our school, Kane, is a really good musician. He sounds a bit like Jack Johnson or Xavier Rudd, if you know who those guys are. He played an open mic set at a bar called "Big Electric Cat" in Itaewon (the foreigners district) last night so we dropped in to see the show. Unfortunatly we got there after he'd already played, so we sat back and enjoyed the next act: Soju King. For those of you who don't know, soju is a alcoholic drink of choice in Korea. It's $1 a bottle and 20% alcohol. It tastes like straight vodka with a hint of lemon and neither of us like it very much. It's not uncommon to see men passed out in the street with a bottle of 'ol soju in their hands and all of the kids at our school joke about it and ask us if we like soju. Well, I think Soju King probably likes the drink OK, and here is a video of the performance for your enjoyment:



They had a female drummer, which is pretty progresive, and I was amused when later in the evening they sang Elvis' "Hound Dog".

If you want to know what Kane sounds like, click HERE. We'll be checking out his next show on Friday and promise to show up on time.

We Climbed Mt. Bukhansan- whatever that is

Some teachers here recommended that we climb the mountain behind our school before we leave- they said the view is "not to be missed" ! Well, they were right! Sunday we finally decided to do it, as it was a really nice day. Please note that I was wearing shorts on November 5th!! So we grabbed a bottle of water and a Twix bar and we were off. As soon as we entered the trail we met up with an old man that spoke a little english. He became our unofficial tour guide and led us most of the way up.


The trail was pretty ancient. There were a few rocks used as steps and some random rope to hold onto. There were points where we had to climb up rock faces, and we were pushing ourselves to keep up with this 60+ year old man! Actually most of the hikers were old- we were definitely impressed! Good for them!

It took about an hour and a half to get to the top. Along the way there were random water stations where water streamed out of a rock for your drinking use. There were also random weight benches and excercise equipment as well as badminton courts- halfway up a mountain!

Our tour guide friend left us just before the top, where we rested for a while. The view was awesome and hard to capture in a photo. You could see the whole city and even all the way to the water. The skyscrapers looked pretty small from that height. We enjoyed our Twix and then headed back down... the wrong way!

I don't know how we managed to get turned around the wrong way but we did. We found a hula hoop station on the way down though.

We came out in the next town over from Suyu, Mia, with only 3,000 won on us! We were going hiking so we didn't think we'd need money. Plus we were exhausted and did not feel like walking home! In Mia we managed to find a bus back to Suyu and then took another bus back from Suyu to our school. We were so hungry that we treated ourselves to a buffet. It was awesome! We'd wanted to check it out, as it's near our school, but never got the chance. They had every food, drink and dessert imaginable. Is this what they call a happy ending?