Recycling

Recycling in Korea is more than just a "feel good" act, it can cost you money. Many foreigners have been fined for throwing away recycleables. On that note, I'm glad my "family" helped me move in and could give me the heads up about the system. First, there are specific garbage bags for city neighborhoods... they have tons of writing on them and even bar codes! The smaller ones are a little less than a dollar a piece, which initially I thought was expensive for a garbage bag. Then I realized that with all the recycling, a single person living alone doesn't accumulate much waste. My apartment complex has large containers for glass, paper, styrofoam, plastic bottles/containers, plastic bags, cans, etc. Even specific containers for food waste. So, I'm proud to announce that after being here for 6 weeks I have just thrown out my first garbage bag- and it wasn't even completely full! It's a small garbage bag as well... I'm amazed at how much waste is saved by this recycling program here. Well done Korea!

Dieting and Hangman

Two things-

1) Instead of wasting money on a gym membership and expensive diet food, I have a new plan. Move to a foreign country, preferably S Korea, live in a cockroach-inhabited apartment, and for the first two weeks walk everywhere and eat mainly rice. Lose 10 pounds in 1 month. Guaranteed. Even if you are the type of person who loves food, the image of cockroaches in your kitchen will curb your appetite for at least a few weeks.

2) We've been playing Hangman a lot and the cutest thing happened today in my kindergarten class. "D" likes to tell the other two students his word, then still make them guess letter by letter. He whispers the answer to them but won't allow them to guess the full word. And the funniest thing is, the other students are OK with it.

Discipline

Well it happened, I had my first crying student today in class. I just wish it would have been one of the misbehaving ones and not my little one.

To backtrack- my school has no disciplinarian. None. The director and my supervisor are both so nice to all the students. It’s a business after all, so they want the students to return. So while other foreign teachers have the luxury of threatening to send their students to the Director, I have no such person. This week I’ve had to crack the whip (not literally, although they do hit middle school and high school-aged students in most schools.) Phones are being taken away, kids are sitting in corners, this foreign teacher is not taking any more shit. To clarify, I am using stickers and positive reinforcement as well for the little ones. This works most of the time.

Last week was the first day of a new “special kindergarten speaking class.” It’s a combined class of all the kindergarten sections. It was chaos to say the least. My youngest student was sitting there sweating because of how crazy the older boys were acting. I felt so bad for her and tried to calm her down. This week, I was more prepared. Multiple coloring and writing activities and to my amazement, they were wonderfully behaved. They were even behaving well enough for us to enjoy a friendly game of Bingo. Things were going well until I looked over and saw my poor little 5-yr old sobbing. She was being quiet, but she was definitely crying and repeatedly wiping the tears away from her eyes. I didn’t know what had happened! I walked over and knelt down trying to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately, she can barely tell me all the colors in English let alone explain to me why she was so upset. After hugging her and calming her down, the class finished out smoothly (looking forward to a wonderful call from her parents next week I’m sure.)

So, now it’s Friday night. Other teachers are meeting up at the bars ready for a night out, but not this gal. I teach at 10am tomorrow and spending all Friday with kindergarteners has me worn out. Is it wrong that I keep a bottle of wine and bottle opener at my computer desk and not in my kitchen? That’s what I thought.  Cheers!

Leonid Meteor Shower

For the Leonid Meteor Shower on November 17 (the best viewing hours for Korea were scheduled for pre-dawn November 18th), a group of us foreign teachers went on a midnight hike of Mt. Cheongryang. It's a small "mountain" right in Yeonsu with a wonderful observatory structure at the top. Armed with blankets, hot tea, flashlights, and cameras we were prepared for a show. One teacher even brought yummy sweet potatoes. At the observatory there is an amazing view of new Songdo.

We misjudged the timing of the show and arrived at the observatory a little before 1am. We huddled together and got ready. And waited. And waited. Every 20 min or so, someone would "swear they saw one." It was terribly cold and windy at the top of the mountain so we started singing 80's songs and TV theme songs. Turns out, the meteor shower just wanted a soundtrack. While singing Fresh Prince, Madonna, Family Matters, Crystal Waters, and The Pretenders, our group saw about 5 decent meteors and at least 10 more small, quick ones. Granted we were up there for a little more than 2 hours, but it was worth it. Nothing like lacing up new hiking boots, meeting up with a bunch of people you barely know, climbing to the top of a mountain and singing one-hit-wonders. With extremities becoming numb and some of the teachers having to work in the morning, we called it quits around 3am.

It's a rare condition, this day and age,
to read any good news on the newspaper page.
Love and tradition of the grand design,
some people say it's even harder to find.

Well then there must be some magic clue inside these tearful walls
Cause all I see is a tower of dreams
real love burstin' out of every seam.

As days go by,
we're gonna fill our house with happiness.
The moon may cry,
we're gonna smother the blues with tenderness.

When days go by,
there's room for you,
room for me,
for gentle hearts an opportunity.

As days go by, 
it's the bigger love of the family.

Itaewon

the artist who painted my name

Ventured into Itaewon on Sunday. There is a U.S. Army base near there so it's known for being a very foreigner-friendly area. It was weird walking around hearing English instead of Korean. There were many tourist-y type shops and underground markets. Like Bupyeong, practically anything you can imagine was there, from jewelry to socks, tights, warm blankets, sports jerseys, wall hangings, etc, etc. I even did the bigtime tourist move and had my name painted on paper.

There were many many westerners walking about so it's a great location for an English book store! What the Book? is a wonderful book store filled with new and used books of all kinds. Late lunch was at Los Amigos, a Mexican restaurant, and it was delicious to say the least.

Bupyeong Underground Market

On Saturday, three of us ventured into Bupyeong's Underground Market... woah! It was filled with small "stores" or booths of everything and anything you could imagine. Every few shops there was another shore store with boots and shoes, mainly tiny sizes. We quickly realized that many of the shoe places had similar shoes but the prices were slightly different. It was amazing, and incredibly overwhelming, to see all the shoes. I came away from the outing with a pair of brown boots- but I easily could have come home with at least a few dozen pair. I learned my Korean shoe size is roughly a 245, which is a lot bigger than the average Korean woman's. There were shops with accessories galore and clothing shops as well. No trying on clothes! A friend went to slip on an over-sized cardigan and was quickly chastised by the shop woman. Bought a pair of brown shorts (to wear with tights) and gauged the size by putting them up to my hips.. bought a size L to be safe. The women are tiny tiny tiny over here and the sizes reflect that.

After Bupyeong, a few of us girls had dinner, drank wine and chatted all evening at a friend's apartment. We found a bottle of wine for 1,700 won (about $1.50) and had to buy it. Tasted like sugary medicine. Needless to say, we stuck with the better wine for the evening. Even found a giftbox with two small bottles of Korean wine and a can of Tuna! We figured after two bottles of Korean wine, just about anything would taste good as a snack.

Whisky, Jackets and Time Traveling

On Saturday, I went to a bar, "Old Clock,"... filled with older Korean men sipping whiskey. The four of us women sat in a booth and ordered a bottle of J&B. We bonded while American records played in the background. Wonderful evening...

The next day, the same group of us went into Seoul for some "soul shopping" (I couldn't resist)... found a great jacket for 14,000 won and a huge bag/purse for 10,000. Rounded out the girl's weekend with a trip to the cinema to see The Time Traveler's Wife. I won't go into detail, but, as expected, we all cried during the second half of the film. It was a great flick.

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey is barely enough.” -Mark Twain

Comforts of Home

“What an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home, and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile attempt to recapture the comforts that you wouldn't have lost if you hadn't left home in the first place.” -Bill Bryson

I've been thinking a lot about the "comforts of home" that I'm missing while being here. I started this, after a new friend told me about a person she had met recently who was complaining about their new apartment in Korea. This person, she said, complained that the shower did not have a bathtub or enclosing walls (most don't in Korea). This person said they were not going to give up their "standard of living" while being in Korea. I was amazed. They sought out a teaching position IN KOREA, agreed to a year abroad, an experience away from home, but yet they want all of the comforts of home. While there are definitely certain things I would like not to live without, warm water, a lock on my door, a bug-free living space, and heat in the winter, for example, there are many unsaid things that come with a contract teaching abroad. You're signing on for the experience. It has taken a while for me to figure out the washing machine (liquid fabric softener is key) and I'm used to not seeing, or hearing, any English for the majority of my day. If I find myself frustrated, I remind myself, if I wanted all the comforts of home, I would've stayed there. Simple as that. It's a personal test. And while some victories might seem minute to most, while living abroad, alone, they are incredible personal triumphs.

I think about not having a dryer and then I realize how much energy I'm saving by line-drying. Looking at pictures on the new iron to see how it works and being thankful I've been ironing for a good 10 years and irons are pretty universal. And having a shower with no surrounding walls or tub, well, it's still a shower. It has hot water, the water goes down the drain and I feel clean afterward. It gets the job done. Period.

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On a separate note- I recently found a blessing/curse only a block away from my apartment. Tous Les Jours is an amazing bakery and very cheap (at least it is here). While one of my goals in coming to Korea is to learn to cook (Chase summed it up perfectly when he said, "You don't cook."), I came up against a roadblock when my first real kitchen was crawling with roaches. Quite the deterent when thinking about cooking yummy homemade meals. So while my kitchen is being cleaned daily (and my mind, of the images), hopefully in the next few weeks I will start to bring food home and begin my culinary adventure. In the meantime, Tous Les Jours will be my daily stop.

Swine and Pay Day!

It's been a few days since I've written anything- first reason, I "think" I had a mild case of swine flu. I had all the symptoms, and after two days of working WITH the symptoms, my boss took me to the doctor. While, he didn't test me for H1N1, because of the symptoms and with how many westerners had it, he gave me a prescription anyway. The "prescription" consisted of six small bags (3 doses x 2 days) filled with multiple pills of all shapes and colors. I didn't ask questions. After completing the first day, I was already feeling better. Maybe it was mental and the pills were just placebos, but either way, they worked! Yay for Korean medical clinics! After my appointment, my boss took me to her apt (which is very nice!) and had her "helper" make me food then she instructed me to, "take a rest." Of course, I was expected to be at school to teach by 3:25pm... But, when it came down to it, my boss was very sympathetic. The parents have been upset because there were many classes canceled with the absence of a foreign teacher (the previous one left in August), so the school would get a lot of angry calls if my classes were canceled. I toughed it out and now it's Friday night! I successfully worked through the flu... or whatever sickness I had.

Today was payday- my first, official, post-graduate, full-time job, pay day. This is a big deal folks. But since I don't have a bank account yet, my boss gave me my pay check in cash. Shady. And I liked it. After work to E Mart and my first official shopping trip, post first official pay check (sort of) consisted of the essentials:

Iron
Hair Blowdryer
Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Bottle of Wine
Hangers
4 Pack of Hoegaarden (like I said, the essentials)
Clothes Hamper (which doesn't match any of my furniture, sorry Dyl, I know it would bug you)

I've officially been here for more than 2 weeks and with the bug problem under control, I can finally start to settle in to my new home for the next year. I'm still enjoying teaching my classes, they are challenging and rewarding (cliche but so darn true) and every week I'm getting more comfortable being the "teacher." I've started disciplining more... they aren't getting anything by the foreign teacher anymore! But I've also started giving out more rewards, like candy. The little ones are adorable and I want to bring them all back with me to the States. Yesterday, one of the little ones brought me cookies! To be polite I shared them with the other teachers but not before taking the best two for myself ;)

Halloween

Halloween 2009- where to begin?

First, the Halloween party at school was great! We had a "Store" where the kids could spend KKW dollars to buy little toys. They practiced their English by asking, "How much is this?" and things like that. We also had a "Movie Theatre" and showed the film, Up!. It was a great flick. Kind of sad but overall an awesome movie. The kids could buy food at the movie theatre as well; chips, pop, corn dogs, and ddeokbokki. The snacks and movie were a huge success.

Second, it's been a lazy lazy Sunday (recovery-mode). We ventured into Seoul for Halloween festivities. Started in the eastern part of Seoul at a friend's apt for a Halloween party (lots of yummy Korean and western foods). Then went to the Funky Dunky (western-type bar) for some ridiculous dancing at 9pm. A teacher in our group was dressed as Jack Sparrow and he won the costume contest- a bottle of JB 12-yr.

From there, our group took cabs to Hongik- a very popular area and home of Hongik University. Tons of bars and foreign teachers dressed up for Halloween. To put it bluntly, it was a shitshow. Felt like Happy Valley, football weekend, night game. We went to Club FF for live bands (playing from 10pm-5am) and free booze from 11pm-midnight! 10,000 won to get in but free booze for an hour. Sweet deal. The choices were vodka & OJ, gin & tonic, or rum & coke. The drinks were served in small paper cups and the liquor was pretty cheap, so the best method was to drink quickly- one person in our group was drinking slowly and attempting to "savor" the beverage... that method didn't last very long.

The bands were GREAT! There was a Michael Jackson cover band who was phenomenal and the crowd was loving it. Costumes ranged from giant pumpkins, to the Clue characters, to Jesus Christ, to a White Board. Very eclectic group. Overall, it was a fun Halloween... I'm still meeting tons of new people. Last night was a bit of an overload being surrounded by so many foreigners. It felt a little like being at a frat party at PSU. It was a good experience but I'm not in a rush to go back into a crowded bar any time soon.

I think the plan for next weekend is taking advantage of the awesome hiking Korea has to offer.