Several weekends ago (yes, I know, it took me a while DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!) Ben, myself, and our friends Jack and Kezia went to Seoul. It was Ben and my first time visiting so we were pretty excited. It was Lunar New Year and we had our first break that lasted for more then one day. We got a Thursday Friday off, which meant we had a nice long weekend. We headed out Wednesday night after work (10pm).
We arrived in Seoul around 2:30am. We had opted to rent an airbnb room. For those of you who don't know what that is, you rent someone's apartment like you would a hostel or hotel room. Usually you end up with more space, contact with someone who knows the city, and a kitchen so you don't have to eat all your meals out. It ended up being the absolute right choice for us. We rented from a gentleman named Kang who was super wonderful. He met us at 2:45 in the morning to get us all set up, and gave us an extra room for free.
The next morning after a breakfast at home-base and an embarrassing number of America's Funniest Home Videos (which we discovered played constantly on one channel), we headed out for the day. Ben and I went to the War Museum, which was really fantastic. Everything was translated into English, and I learned a lot about this country I have made my temporary home. The main focus was the Korean war, but there were also rooms dedicated to Korea's long history of defending itself and being invaded.
We met back up with Jack and Kez in Itaewon. Itaewon is the international section of Seoul. It was really wonderful to see some multicultural faces. I am so used to seeing Korean faces that even seeing another white American foreigner is a little shocking. It was a strange moment when I realized the more diversity there is in the people around me, the more it feels like home. It was lovely. You know what else the international section means? Some freaking international food. Gwangju is known for having amazing food, and it really does, but the wider diversity makes Seoul the place to be to get your international food fix. Which we did. We ate zero Korean food in Seoul.
The first night after some exploring around Itaewon we went to this AMAZING steak place. It's run by a Brazilian woman who married a Korean man and decided to open a Brazilian meat restaurant. For the record, its insanely easy to get pork here, but its really hard to get reasonably priced beef. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure between the four of us we ate like two and a half cows. In the back of the restaurant they have a buffet of side dishes and a massive open grill where they cook all the magical meat. They then come around with the different kinds of meat on a turny stake, and they cut slices off for you. It was phenomenal. At they end they bring out roasted pineapple covered in sugar and cinnamon.
After that we went to Jack's favorite pub to hang out and meet up with another group of friends spending the holiday in Seoul. I had a friend who had never had a flaming shot before, so we did one of those. We had a good night but headed home fairly early so we could get going the next day. One more thing to note, that night after the restaurant the side of my tongue was really itchy. I didn't worry about it much at the time because sometimes pineapple does that to me, but this comes back into the story later.
On our second day we decided to head to a neighborhood that a friend of Kezia's had told her was really cool. It was supposed to imitate European style neighborhoods. It was cute, but a bit anti-climactic. We did get some good Thai food there though. We then headed towards the famous river walk, which goes along the large river that runs through Seoul. We spent some time on that before deciding it was time to get some pub food. We returned to Jack's favorite pub to have a hard cider and some fish and chips. We decided a movie night was in order and returned to our apartment to sack out.
The next morning I woke up early feeling weird. My tongue was super itchy as was my throat. When I felt my throat I realized tone side was incredibly swollen. Although I wasn't having any trouble breathing my gland was so enlarged it was quite visable from just looking in the mirror. Under the left side of my chin there was a section that basically when straight down from my face instead of going under like chins are supposed to do. I woke Ben up and we agreed anything that could potentially block your airways is worth getting medical attention for. We called Kang to find the nearest hospital and headed there. There was one woman who spoke okay English. I made the (what I now know to be) mistake of telling the nurse what I thought my medical situation was...with all my freaking medical knowledge...nope. They sent me to a partitioned hospital bed, did not look in my throat, did not touch my throat, just gave me two shots and a pack of pills. I have since learned that this happens to a lot of people seeking medical attention. They treat you for whatever you tell them it is. If it doesn't go away you have to come back. If its something weird and specific hopefully eventually they do some tests and inspecting. The shots made me super groggy. We were supposed to clear out by 12, but we called Kang to ask how much the rest of the day would cost and he was happy to let us stick around for no charge. That was exactly what I needed. Ben (who was absolutely fantastic through all of this) stayed with me while Jack and Kez headed out for the day. We left Saturday night so we could spend Sunday at our apartments being mellow before the work week. Besides Ben, the other hero of the story is my friend Chelsea, who went way out of her way to bring me some Benadryl. Sunday I stayed groggily medicated all day, but by Monday morning the swelling started to go down.
Despite the issues at the end of the trip I still had a great time. Seoul is a very cool city and I look forward to visiting again. When we applied to work in Korea they tell you off the bat that you have to choose between Seoul and everywhere else. We opted for everywhere else and I am glad we did. Seoul houses 1/5 of the population of Korea. It has an amazing subway, a much more diverse population, and some really interesting neighborhoods. But I think living in Seoul, it would be very very easy to exist like you were living in an American city. And I didn't come to Korea to live in an American city.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
The tale of Ice Fishing
The terrifying thing about blogging is that if you are trying to keep your posting up to date, you want to get more then one event behind. I went ice fishing three weekends ago, and this coming weekend I am going to Seoul so my motivation to write this post is pretty high.
Alright! So there is this great guy Pedro. He is a Korean man and he runs a business where he sets up trips to get foreigners to different amazing places in Korea. He'll take care of transportation, accommodation, and have a loosely structured schedule and you pay an incredibly cheap flat price. Our friend Kezia found a trip for an icefishing festival, and six of us decided we were in!
We woke up at the freaking crack on dawn on Saturday to pile into a very warm bus with 35 other foreigners (it was the most non-Koreans I have seen since coming here). Since it was 6am almost everyone promptly fell asleep (except for some truly terrible evil morning people who were loud and God forbid CHIPPER. Yuck.) After a 5 hour drive WAY north we stopped for our first days adventure: Nami Island. Nami Island is supposed to be the most romantic place in Korea. It probably would be if it were covered in snow like the pictures showed. But it was certainly lots of fun. There were all sorts of silly things like the first kiss bridge and big hearts made our of recycled soju bottles. It was wildly eclectic, and definitely a blast to explore. After a decent amount of wandering and snacking we headed back to the bus for our meet up time.
Next we headed to the place where we would be staying. It was a little imitation French village in the middle of Korea. Let that idea mind boil for a second. The drive was through a lot of hilly ups and downs, and by the time we got there I was feeling pretty nauseated. The room distribution took a while, but in a lucky switcheroo me, Ben and our friends Jack and Kezia ended up sharing a four person room instead of being smooshed in a room with 8 strangers.
There was the option to get back on the bus and go to botanical gardens about half an hour away. Buuuuut Jumanji was on TV and none of us really wanted to get back on the over-heated bus. It was fortunate that we didn't because about two hours later the bus returned, having fought through traffic to get a few kilometers away, only to be told it would be an hour and a half wait. That group returned and dinner was served. We knocked out for another very early morning.
On Sunday we woke up at 6 once again. We had a quick breakfast and hopped back on the bus to go the last two hours to the festival. When we arrived we were given passes and shown the area specifically blocked off for foreigners to fish. Our early arrival and the sectioned area ended up being really great. Korean festivals have a reputation for being really great, except that so so so many people come to them that they can be ruined by crowds.
ANYWAY, we stepped onto the ice after being handed things that look sort of like twirly fly swatters with a line and bait rolled up on them. There were some lovely Korean guides there to show us how to use them. I was the LAST of my group of friends to get a trout, but I did indeed get one! Well, two.
I was enthusiastic. After a decent amount of time fishing, we handed our fish off to some military volunteers and were told to come back at 11:30 to eat them on the grill. We wandered around and did some other ice activities, like sitting in a giant inner tube while a dude on an ATV flung us around the ice, and going down a slide coated in ice on a tube.
When we returned, our fish were all cooked up and FREAKING DELICIOUS. We ate them off the grill with chopsticks.
After lunch we did some more wandering around. We headed into the actual town to go to a place called the Illumination Palace. This was pretty sweet. It was giant room willed with ice replicas of famous architecture from around the world. Most of them you could walk through and climb. All of them had lights of different colors built into them. There was everything from igloos to the Coliseum to the giant Buddha.
Alright! So there is this great guy Pedro. He is a Korean man and he runs a business where he sets up trips to get foreigners to different amazing places in Korea. He'll take care of transportation, accommodation, and have a loosely structured schedule and you pay an incredibly cheap flat price. Our friend Kezia found a trip for an icefishing festival, and six of us decided we were in!
We woke up at the freaking crack on dawn on Saturday to pile into a very warm bus with 35 other foreigners (it was the most non-Koreans I have seen since coming here). Since it was 6am almost everyone promptly fell asleep (except for some truly terrible evil morning people who were loud and God forbid CHIPPER. Yuck.) After a 5 hour drive WAY north we stopped for our first days adventure: Nami Island. Nami Island is supposed to be the most romantic place in Korea. It probably would be if it were covered in snow like the pictures showed. But it was certainly lots of fun. There were all sorts of silly things like the first kiss bridge and big hearts made our of recycled soju bottles. It was wildly eclectic, and definitely a blast to explore. After a decent amount of wandering and snacking we headed back to the bus for our meet up time.
Next we headed to the place where we would be staying. It was a little imitation French village in the middle of Korea. Let that idea mind boil for a second. The drive was through a lot of hilly ups and downs, and by the time we got there I was feeling pretty nauseated. The room distribution took a while, but in a lucky switcheroo me, Ben and our friends Jack and Kezia ended up sharing a four person room instead of being smooshed in a room with 8 strangers.
There was the option to get back on the bus and go to botanical gardens about half an hour away. Buuuuut Jumanji was on TV and none of us really wanted to get back on the over-heated bus. It was fortunate that we didn't because about two hours later the bus returned, having fought through traffic to get a few kilometers away, only to be told it would be an hour and a half wait. That group returned and dinner was served. We knocked out for another very early morning.
On Sunday we woke up at 6 once again. We had a quick breakfast and hopped back on the bus to go the last two hours to the festival. When we arrived we were given passes and shown the area specifically blocked off for foreigners to fish. Our early arrival and the sectioned area ended up being really great. Korean festivals have a reputation for being really great, except that so so so many people come to them that they can be ruined by crowds.
ANYWAY, we stepped onto the ice after being handed things that look sort of like twirly fly swatters with a line and bait rolled up on them. There were some lovely Korean guides there to show us how to use them. I was the LAST of my group of friends to get a trout, but I did indeed get one! Well, two.
After lunch we did some more wandering around. We headed into the actual town to go to a place called the Illumination Palace. This was pretty sweet. It was giant room willed with ice replicas of famous architecture from around the world. Most of them you could walk through and climb. All of them had lights of different colors built into them. There was everything from igloos to the Coliseum to the giant Buddha.
After all that we had to head back to the bus. We braved the 5 hour trip back and knocked out once we got home. It was a great weekend and I look forward to taking more trips with Pedro soon!
Here we have from the left: Nate, Cheryl, Jack, our fisher-guide, Kezia, me, Ben
Friday, December 27, 2013
She does, he does, CUE SYNCHRONIZED DANCERS
Let's talk about Korean weddings.
Yesterday, my co-worker Connie got married. Instead of getting gifts, Koreans give money for weddings. As co-workers we are required to give money whether or not we go, but we are also somewhat required to go.
I was excited to go anyway, seeing a Korean wedding was actually something I came here hoping to attend. Connie looked gorgeous. Her dress was lovely and MASSIVE. We arrived and took a co-workers picture with her on this massive couch thing in a room with carpets and shiny beads and fancy lighting.
We then hung out in the reception hall area for a while before sitting in the bride section of the weddingy area. Lets talk about the weddingy area for a second. It was a long room with black walls. There were small lights in the walls that did a twinkling star sort of a thing. There were also flowy flowery light up pattern things, and mirrored stands with purple flowers on them. Down the center isle was more or less a glass case runway. Inside the runway were more lights and glass/mirror flowers. There were also what I thought of as wedding stewardesses whose job it was to direct guests, and help members of the wedding who were either older, respected, or wearing heels to high to move around by themselves.
I have been told (and now seen for myself) that the success of a wedding is determined by how many people show up. I have also been told that there are like four degrees of separation between the actual people getting married and some of the people who show up. Like families of business friends friends sort of thing. Because of this, there was constant talking throughout the entire ceremony. A guy sitting three rows ahead of us was on facebook on his phone for about half the vows.
The ceremony began with the mothers of the bride and groom coming to the front and lighting candles. They were wearing hanboks, which are traditional Korean dresses. They are super beautiful and it was cool to see them as part of the ceremony.
The fathers came in and sat down, and then the groom, followed by Connie in her glorious huge dress. There was some sort of pre-ambley speech thing, and then vows.
This is when things started to become interesting and incredibly foreign. A man (I assume a friend of the bride or grooms) sang them a song. He had a gorgeous voice. The catch? He was reading the lyrics of the song off his cell phone as he was singing.
Next, a big tray with a wedding cake on it was rolled out. And the couple cut the cake. WITH A FREAKING SWORD. Then four women (friends of the brides) did a choreographed dance to K-pop. Like, Brittney Spears type choreography. Everyone loved it! Our co-worker Sue was in it, and she told me today it took them six weeks to learn.
They started a dance to another song, this time with pom-poms, and the groom jumped out and danced with them. He had clearly learned it without Connie knowing, she was surprised and cracking up, that was pretty adorable.
This is all happening while people are talking.
After the ceremony was over we were told we had to be in a picture, so we waited while family members were in pictures, and got arranged and re-arranged for 10 minutes before the photographer snapped some shots.
I think I have mentioned before that the documentation of events is as, or more important than the event itself. Even during the ceremony a friend of Connie's would jump up to the alter where they were standing to fix her hair, or bring her crying tissue, or arrange her dress perfectly.
It was a really interesting cultural experience. I had a blast seeing how it all went. The space was amazing and very fancy, and it was definitely totally different from what I was expecting.
Afterwards there was a big buffet, which was great. Our new coworker came with us, and we got to know her and spent the rest of the day with her and our other foreign co-workers. (All great people).
Yesterday, my co-worker Connie got married. Instead of getting gifts, Koreans give money for weddings. As co-workers we are required to give money whether or not we go, but we are also somewhat required to go.
I was excited to go anyway, seeing a Korean wedding was actually something I came here hoping to attend. Connie looked gorgeous. Her dress was lovely and MASSIVE. We arrived and took a co-workers picture with her on this massive couch thing in a room with carpets and shiny beads and fancy lighting.
We then hung out in the reception hall area for a while before sitting in the bride section of the weddingy area. Lets talk about the weddingy area for a second. It was a long room with black walls. There were small lights in the walls that did a twinkling star sort of a thing. There were also flowy flowery light up pattern things, and mirrored stands with purple flowers on them. Down the center isle was more or less a glass case runway. Inside the runway were more lights and glass/mirror flowers. There were also what I thought of as wedding stewardesses whose job it was to direct guests, and help members of the wedding who were either older, respected, or wearing heels to high to move around by themselves.
I have been told (and now seen for myself) that the success of a wedding is determined by how many people show up. I have also been told that there are like four degrees of separation between the actual people getting married and some of the people who show up. Like families of business friends friends sort of thing. Because of this, there was constant talking throughout the entire ceremony. A guy sitting three rows ahead of us was on facebook on his phone for about half the vows.
The ceremony began with the mothers of the bride and groom coming to the front and lighting candles. They were wearing hanboks, which are traditional Korean dresses. They are super beautiful and it was cool to see them as part of the ceremony.
The fathers came in and sat down, and then the groom, followed by Connie in her glorious huge dress. There was some sort of pre-ambley speech thing, and then vows.
This is when things started to become interesting and incredibly foreign. A man (I assume a friend of the bride or grooms) sang them a song. He had a gorgeous voice. The catch? He was reading the lyrics of the song off his cell phone as he was singing.
Next, a big tray with a wedding cake on it was rolled out. And the couple cut the cake. WITH A FREAKING SWORD. Then four women (friends of the brides) did a choreographed dance to K-pop. Like, Brittney Spears type choreography. Everyone loved it! Our co-worker Sue was in it, and she told me today it took them six weeks to learn.
They started a dance to another song, this time with pom-poms, and the groom jumped out and danced with them. He had clearly learned it without Connie knowing, she was surprised and cracking up, that was pretty adorable.
This is all happening while people are talking.
After the ceremony was over we were told we had to be in a picture, so we waited while family members were in pictures, and got arranged and re-arranged for 10 minutes before the photographer snapped some shots.
I think I have mentioned before that the documentation of events is as, or more important than the event itself. Even during the ceremony a friend of Connie's would jump up to the alter where they were standing to fix her hair, or bring her crying tissue, or arrange her dress perfectly.
It was a really interesting cultural experience. I had a blast seeing how it all went. The space was amazing and very fancy, and it was definitely totally different from what I was expecting.
Afterwards there was a big buffet, which was great. Our new coworker came with us, and we got to know her and spent the rest of the day with her and our other foreign co-workers. (All great people).
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Work lunch and catch up
I am back! Hello!
Well before I tell you about the work lunch, I'll do a quick catch up. Things are still going well. Teaching is good. We are coming to a strange part of the year. In January students re-enroll in the program. This makes things stressful for the school on several fronts. Obviously they need a certain number of students to keep the school afloat. Also, they rework the schedule. They test all of the older kids to decide who should progress to a more difficult class and who should stay at their level or level down. Our friends and co-workers Joel and Jessica leave at the end of December as well. The two of them are being replaced by only one person (Amelia, who seems great). So that calls for some rearranging class-wise as well. Although none of this changes my current schedule, you can definitely feel the strain of management freaking out. I'll be interested to see how it all works out in January, but there isn't much I can do about it now.
On a less ominous note, Christmas is coming! It's really strange to think of Christmas away from home. My family has gone to Pittsburgh to see my Mom's whole side of the family every year for a looooong time. I am the first to miss a Christmas (except for when my cousin got sick and destroyed Christmas, but don't worry, we rescheduled). It will be hard not to be there this year. Oddly, it helps me to think that our Christmas' won't be on the same day! The 25th comes to Korea a day before the US. But we have a big Christmas party to go to with friends. The lovely people we replaced left us a Christmas tree, and gifts have been seriously pouring in from Ben's and my family members. Our apartment is very festive and we have good people to celebrate with.
So now to yesterday. First of all, it was Ben and my 3 year anniversary. That's crazy. We had to go into school on a Saturday for an open house/information session thing the school does to try and get more students involved. Our job was to dress nicely and look American/Canadian/English. We also bowed at one point. Videos of some of our classes were taken ahead of time to show the kids' language progression. They were actually pretty adorable. After the presentation was over, the school took all the employees out to lunch at a duck shabu shabu place.
Lunch was a fun but strange experience. I found it to be kind of draining. Being the odd one out as far as fully understanding etiquette and Korean customs was a bit exhausting. The lunch was done as a sort of two in one holiday party/goodbye to Joel and Jessica. This is the second goodbye meal we've been to (the first was Johnny and Amanda's just a few days after we got here). Mr. Kim, the head of the school gives a speech thing, and then other people are asked to as well. All of the foreign teachers, including myself, stood up to say something to Joel and Jessica.
Then there were "In This Coming New Year" type speeches. I found the speeches given by the Korean staff to be bizarre (as did many of my foreign coworkers). I have found several times that speeches that have an uplifting "you guys are doing such good work" message always have a "but we have to do EVEN MORE" side to them. Also, there is some concern about the amount of money the school is making. In almost every speech given by management, there was a pretty clear message along the lines of "you guys are doing really good work. Please keep doing good work. The only way we can get more students is if we work harder." While I understand that teaching well and having the students be engaged and excited is very important, the idea that any teacher can do more than put their best energy into teaching to up enrollment is very strange to me. I consider it my job to teach the kids in my classes to the very best of my ability and with the best attitude I can. If I do a good enough job that the kids are happy and stay enrolled, or other kids and families become interested I guess that could count as DOING BETTER. But I'm not sure how much control I have over it.
Something to keep in mind (for you, reader, and probably for me too) is that these speeches were mostly given in Korean and then translated by our head teacher. So it's possible that some of the strange undertones came from being lost in translation. They were also all delivered in a very affectionate way that was clearly meant to be inspiring and motivational. Once again, cultural differences and the Korean work ethic have to be kept in mind.
It was a fun lunch despite the strangeness. There was good duck, and lots of chatting and laughing. Our head teacher Lynn had been pouring her heart and soul into the open house and was absolutely giddy when it was over. It was great to see her smiling and relaxed.
Another interesting note is about Korean drinking etiquette. It is very very common to have drinks at business dinners or lunches. The rules of this sort of business drinking are really complex and interesting. The top things to remember as they have been explained to me are: never let your bosses cup run dry, never fill your own glass, but be sure to fill the glasses of anyone around you who is drinking, face away from your boss when you drink, and when someone is refilling your drink hold your glass with two hands. (Actually taking and giving things to others with two hands applies to everything, not just booze. It's a respect thing I actually really like, it makes passing something less haphazard. It shows that you are putting bodily effort into taking or giving something to someone.) ANYWAY. Fortunately, because I am a female and foreign, people filling up the cups (mainly my boss) were less pour happy with mine then they were with the men.
It was another interesting experience. Later that night Ben and I had a nice dinner out, and after getting incredibly lost and wandering for an hour and fifteen minutes looking for our meet up point, joined our friends downtown for a great night of dancing and singing (at a nori bong, which is karaoke where you get your own couchy room with your friends). Then there were glorious 5am kebabs, and sleep by 6. It was a great day.
Next weekend we are going to a Korean coworkers wedding. Korean wedding! I am psyched. I will most certainly have something to say about later!
Well before I tell you about the work lunch, I'll do a quick catch up. Things are still going well. Teaching is good. We are coming to a strange part of the year. In January students re-enroll in the program. This makes things stressful for the school on several fronts. Obviously they need a certain number of students to keep the school afloat. Also, they rework the schedule. They test all of the older kids to decide who should progress to a more difficult class and who should stay at their level or level down. Our friends and co-workers Joel and Jessica leave at the end of December as well. The two of them are being replaced by only one person (Amelia, who seems great). So that calls for some rearranging class-wise as well. Although none of this changes my current schedule, you can definitely feel the strain of management freaking out. I'll be interested to see how it all works out in January, but there isn't much I can do about it now.
So now to yesterday. First of all, it was Ben and my 3 year anniversary. That's crazy. We had to go into school on a Saturday for an open house/information session thing the school does to try and get more students involved. Our job was to dress nicely and look American/Canadian/English. We also bowed at one point. Videos of some of our classes were taken ahead of time to show the kids' language progression. They were actually pretty adorable. After the presentation was over, the school took all the employees out to lunch at a duck shabu shabu place.
Lunch was a fun but strange experience. I found it to be kind of draining. Being the odd one out as far as fully understanding etiquette and Korean customs was a bit exhausting. The lunch was done as a sort of two in one holiday party/goodbye to Joel and Jessica. This is the second goodbye meal we've been to (the first was Johnny and Amanda's just a few days after we got here). Mr. Kim, the head of the school gives a speech thing, and then other people are asked to as well. All of the foreign teachers, including myself, stood up to say something to Joel and Jessica.
Then there were "In This Coming New Year" type speeches. I found the speeches given by the Korean staff to be bizarre (as did many of my foreign coworkers). I have found several times that speeches that have an uplifting "you guys are doing such good work" message always have a "but we have to do EVEN MORE" side to them. Also, there is some concern about the amount of money the school is making. In almost every speech given by management, there was a pretty clear message along the lines of "you guys are doing really good work. Please keep doing good work. The only way we can get more students is if we work harder." While I understand that teaching well and having the students be engaged and excited is very important, the idea that any teacher can do more than put their best energy into teaching to up enrollment is very strange to me. I consider it my job to teach the kids in my classes to the very best of my ability and with the best attitude I can. If I do a good enough job that the kids are happy and stay enrolled, or other kids and families become interested I guess that could count as DOING BETTER. But I'm not sure how much control I have over it.
Something to keep in mind (for you, reader, and probably for me too) is that these speeches were mostly given in Korean and then translated by our head teacher. So it's possible that some of the strange undertones came from being lost in translation. They were also all delivered in a very affectionate way that was clearly meant to be inspiring and motivational. Once again, cultural differences and the Korean work ethic have to be kept in mind.
It was a fun lunch despite the strangeness. There was good duck, and lots of chatting and laughing. Our head teacher Lynn had been pouring her heart and soul into the open house and was absolutely giddy when it was over. It was great to see her smiling and relaxed.
Another interesting note is about Korean drinking etiquette. It is very very common to have drinks at business dinners or lunches. The rules of this sort of business drinking are really complex and interesting. The top things to remember as they have been explained to me are: never let your bosses cup run dry, never fill your own glass, but be sure to fill the glasses of anyone around you who is drinking, face away from your boss when you drink, and when someone is refilling your drink hold your glass with two hands. (Actually taking and giving things to others with two hands applies to everything, not just booze. It's a respect thing I actually really like, it makes passing something less haphazard. It shows that you are putting bodily effort into taking or giving something to someone.) ANYWAY. Fortunately, because I am a female and foreign, people filling up the cups (mainly my boss) were less pour happy with mine then they were with the men.
It was another interesting experience. Later that night Ben and I had a nice dinner out, and after getting incredibly lost and wandering for an hour and fifteen minutes looking for our meet up point, joined our friends downtown for a great night of dancing and singing (at a nori bong, which is karaoke where you get your own couchy room with your friends). Then there were glorious 5am kebabs, and sleep by 6. It was a great day.
Next weekend we are going to a Korean coworkers wedding. Korean wedding! I am psyched. I will most certainly have something to say about later!
Monday, December 2, 2013
Thanksgiving
BUT! Thanksgiving!
So early on Ben and I decided we wanted to host Thanksgiving. We are big cooking people and we like having people over. We have hosted international Thanksgivings before so we figured we were good people for the job. We took care of the turkey and stuffing and did the rest potluck style.
The challenges: turkey. It's difficult to find turkey around here. There is a bar/restaurant downtown that caters to foreigners (and is run by foreigners) that sells holiday meat around the holidays. So for an arm and a leg we covered the turkey. 2. Bread. It's all puffy white bread here so Ben and I made bread. Fortunately Ben worked on a farm in Italy and made bread every Friday for 5 months. Convection oven. I love our convection oven, but it does take some getting used to and some recipe tweaking to use it. The turkey came out perfectly, the stuffing was a little dry in spots, but mostly pretty delicious.
We used veggies from the market and cooked for like six hours. We set up the apartment with all kinds of weird seating, different level tables, cheap table clothes, candles, and wine. But it looked awesome and we had a great turn out of people. It is pretty cool to be in a foreign country and have over a dozen people come over to celebrate a holiday with you. I am thankful indeed to have so many great friends who welcomed us so quickly.
Anyway, everyone brought AMAZING food. It took a lot of re-arranging just to fit everything. We all pigged out and then played cards against humanity (for those of you who don't know, this is the pg-13 version of apples to apples). There were tears of laughter involved. The last people left at 2:30 in the morning. It was a massive success.
As is proper, we have been living off the leftovers this week.
Christmas shopping has begun and we are looking forward to our next holiday in Gwangju.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Korean shopping culture shock, view out my window, and the art of dressing in ski gear to go to work
Hello there! Long time no information I'm afraid! That's because not a whole lot has happened that screams BLOG ABOUT ME! But I will give you a general update.
It has started to get chilly in Gwangju. There were a couple delightful weeks where I would look at the forecast here and see 60s and 70s and look at the forecast for Syracuse and see the oncoming tundra wasteland that is Syracuse winter. It was quite satisfying and I highly recommend it for any grad who has moved to a kinder climate than that of Syracuse. But it has started to get chilly so I'll bite my tongue. The awesome thing though (which I was actually told about before I came here) is that fall in Korea is really beautiful. It sort of happens overnight. One day it's 75 degrees and the trees are green and the next morning everything is yellow and red and it's 50 degrees. Apparently that's how all temperate weather in Korea comes in (and out). Abruptly. I have taken a few pictures out the back window of the apartment to give you an idea of the view we are working with. (These were taken about a week ago, so it's even more colorful now).
Alright, so I also stuck a picture of our plants in there. But they are pretty great, huh? huh?
Also! Here is a video out the window of a bus to give you an idea of the area near downtown/the pretty tree business.
So briefly back to the weather, the strange thing is that the school doesn't turn up the heat in the building until a certain point. It's possible this is a legal thing (I know in the summer large spaces like grocery stores can't turn the ac up very high), Regardless it makes for interesting attire choices. Today I am wearing two pairs of tights, a shirt, a dress, and a wool sweater. Inevitably I will end up in the giant shawl thing which Amanda kindly left behind for me. It makes me look like a wizard.
Enough about that! On to the shopping tale. So Ben and I got paid on Wednesday after seven weeks of living off the money we brought with us. We did fine off of that, but it was pretty exciting to start filling in the gaps as far as kitchen supplies, house stuff, groceries we didn't need but wanted, AND PLANTS. Two other things we were really looking forward to investing in were a beer brewing kit (Korean beer is like Natty Lites sad cousin) and an oven. (Koreans do not bake much, and so do not consider an oven a necessity. Because so many foreigners do consider it a necessity and we are cooking people we decided to buy one that we will easily be able to sell on when we leave). We tried to buy one online at a store called GMarket, which is the Ebay of Korea. This did not work for us. Apparently sometimes it can be a bit faulty. It was for us. So in person stores it was! First we went to Home Plus, a big department store that is connected with Tesco, a department store in the UK. This makes finding certain things easier. Alas, their ovens were wildly expensive. We also couldn't find a good number of the things on our list. We decided despite the fact that we had been shopping for around two hours, that we wanted to get everything on our list and we would venture to Emart, another department store nearer to our house. We returned home, unpacked, and took the 20 minute walk to Emart. Both of us were oddly nervous as we headed to the ovens. And with good reason. Once again there were only five-ish ovens there and they were well out of our price range. Highly disappointing. It was at this time that I started to feel exasperated. The phrase "come on, Korea" was said a couple times. It was only after we failed to find the correct (and much needed) vacuum bags for our vacuum, and a freaking pot for less then 60 dollars that I really lost it. Thus far it is the first time I have noticeably felt culture shock. There have been plenty of instances where I have noted cultural differences, or been told about Korean beliefs or customs that are greatly different from American ones. This does not rattle me. But having a good number of things that we need, or have been really looking forward to getting and being totally incapable of getting them was pretty daunting.
Luckily, we managed to figure out the oven purchasing online. Now we are just crossing our fingers that it comes before Thanksgiving (which we are hosting). So long story short, everything worked out, but I had my first noticeable and distressing culture shock experience! Still having a blast and learning a lot. Now off to write some tests! Toodles.
It has started to get chilly in Gwangju. There were a couple delightful weeks where I would look at the forecast here and see 60s and 70s and look at the forecast for Syracuse and see the oncoming tundra wasteland that is Syracuse winter. It was quite satisfying and I highly recommend it for any grad who has moved to a kinder climate than that of Syracuse. But it has started to get chilly so I'll bite my tongue. The awesome thing though (which I was actually told about before I came here) is that fall in Korea is really beautiful. It sort of happens overnight. One day it's 75 degrees and the trees are green and the next morning everything is yellow and red and it's 50 degrees. Apparently that's how all temperate weather in Korea comes in (and out). Abruptly. I have taken a few pictures out the back window of the apartment to give you an idea of the view we are working with. (These were taken about a week ago, so it's even more colorful now).
Also! Here is a video out the window of a bus to give you an idea of the area near downtown/the pretty tree business.
Enough about that! On to the shopping tale. So Ben and I got paid on Wednesday after seven weeks of living off the money we brought with us. We did fine off of that, but it was pretty exciting to start filling in the gaps as far as kitchen supplies, house stuff, groceries we didn't need but wanted, AND PLANTS. Two other things we were really looking forward to investing in were a beer brewing kit (Korean beer is like Natty Lites sad cousin) and an oven. (Koreans do not bake much, and so do not consider an oven a necessity. Because so many foreigners do consider it a necessity and we are cooking people we decided to buy one that we will easily be able to sell on when we leave). We tried to buy one online at a store called GMarket, which is the Ebay of Korea. This did not work for us. Apparently sometimes it can be a bit faulty. It was for us. So in person stores it was! First we went to Home Plus, a big department store that is connected with Tesco, a department store in the UK. This makes finding certain things easier. Alas, their ovens were wildly expensive. We also couldn't find a good number of the things on our list. We decided despite the fact that we had been shopping for around two hours, that we wanted to get everything on our list and we would venture to Emart, another department store nearer to our house. We returned home, unpacked, and took the 20 minute walk to Emart. Both of us were oddly nervous as we headed to the ovens. And with good reason. Once again there were only five-ish ovens there and they were well out of our price range. Highly disappointing. It was at this time that I started to feel exasperated. The phrase "come on, Korea" was said a couple times. It was only after we failed to find the correct (and much needed) vacuum bags for our vacuum, and a freaking pot for less then 60 dollars that I really lost it. Thus far it is the first time I have noticeably felt culture shock. There have been plenty of instances where I have noted cultural differences, or been told about Korean beliefs or customs that are greatly different from American ones. This does not rattle me. But having a good number of things that we need, or have been really looking forward to getting and being totally incapable of getting them was pretty daunting.
Luckily, we managed to figure out the oven purchasing online. Now we are just crossing our fingers that it comes before Thanksgiving (which we are hosting). So long story short, everything worked out, but I had my first noticeable and distressing culture shock experience! Still having a blast and learning a lot. Now off to write some tests! Toodles.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Halloween ECC Style
So this will not be a writing heavy post. But brief Halloween update:
We celebrated Halloween with the kids today. We were required to dress up, and led the kids in various party activities. We trick-or-treated from classroom to classroom, gave out candy, played pin the tail on the donkey (I was the donkey artist, that's goin on the ole CV), and did some trivia games. There were also pictures of us posted for the kids to vote with stickers on the best costume. We found out a week before the day that there would be cash prizes which was unfortunate because I would have been MUCH more elaborate had I known that. FORTUNATELY Ben had decided to be Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was his makeup person and it turned out pretty awesome, so we won grocery money! Huzzah! Without further ado, here are the pictures of me and some of my kids and Ben's sweet award-winning costume!
We celebrated Halloween with the kids today. We were required to dress up, and led the kids in various party activities. We trick-or-treated from classroom to classroom, gave out candy, played pin the tail on the donkey (I was the donkey artist, that's goin on the ole CV), and did some trivia games. There were also pictures of us posted for the kids to vote with stickers on the best costume. We found out a week before the day that there would be cash prizes which was unfortunate because I would have been MUCH more elaborate had I known that. FORTUNATELY Ben had decided to be Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was his makeup person and it turned out pretty awesome, so we won grocery money! Huzzah! Without further ado, here are the pictures of me and some of my kids and Ben's sweet award-winning costume!
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