29 / Because I Have To

It always really blows my mind sometimes how much time passes between updates when I remember I should be updating. I feel like we saw and wrote about the tanuki like two days ago? Apparently not.

Harrison went home yesterday & things have gone back to normal, or as normal as they can be. My apartment is back to feeling very empty. When my students saw me today, the first thing they asked about was him. I wonder if they'll miss me half as much :p

Then I went home with a stomachache. I got my stitches out today and didn't feel well on the bus*, so I was walking around all nauseous. I feel like for a person already prone to that kind of thing, Korea really brings out the random  in me. Lolllll

*death machine above the law 

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So my... third? month of teaching is nearing an end. It doesn't feel like three months. I don't know quite what it feels like, but I can say that the thought of two more months is somewhat daunting at this point. I don't dislike being here. I like my school, the other teachers, my students. I greatly appreciate what has been given to me and what I feel I'm taking and contributing, even for all the obvious difficulties. I guess it's just that the difficulties are so hugely obvious it's sometimes hard not to be a little blindsided by them. In many situations I feel like I am personally the largest, most obvious difficulty of them all.

I still really have no idea what I'm doing, though I've been here long enough that I begin to make very educated guesses. My reading is quite fast now -- not to say my comprehension is any better -- and I understand simple conversations in Korean though I cannot replicate them. I am still for all intents and purposes like a baby, so that's not really news. :p I did come here really hoping to get a different insight into language acquisition than I had before, though, and I can say that I very much am. I don't know that I am applying this insight to actually teaching language however. I still often feel that no matter how much I plan, the actual activities matter so little. Something works one day, and then if I modify it to include new vocabulary it totally falls apart. Sometimes I think I've made a breakthrough with my kids and finally understand how to get through to them, and then as we progress it's clearly just a lot of optimism on my part. At least I can say that I empathize with them: people shout foreign words in my face all the time too, and no matter how many times it doesn't seem to stick. :p

Here's some pictures & stuff.

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These things are delicious. Like... little steamed things with walnut stuff inside? I don't know what they're called, but I love them. It's l-o-v-e

We had shabu shabu the night before Harrison left. Mmm. It's like... boiling broth, and you cook your stuff in there. I don't know if it's Korean in origin. I think that you can get it all over Asia under different names. Like a big hot pot of goodness.

In a noraebang (singing room)... I perform only the classics, like I'm On A Boat and Hot In Herre.

28 / Tanuki!

Dear everyone,

We saw a real life tanuki last night in the park.

Unfortunately we did not get a picture because it was waddling away rather quickly and was only crossing the path for a moment. However, here is a picture we found online of what it looked like:

Also known as a raccoon dog. But that wouldn't have sounded nearly as cool for Super Mario Brothers.

Our Korean friend doesn't think it was actually a tanuki, but there's no way it was a dog or a Eurasian red squirrel, like he thinks. It was as big as a small pig.

I want to believe.

ps. two people trying to write one small blog post is complicated. also, index fingers are more useful for typing/life than you realize before you can't use them.

27 / Seoul and Incheon

On Saturday (May 7th) we took a bus from Gunsan to Seoul. The Seoul bus station is on the lowest floor of a gigantic department store (~10 stories). The department stores in Korea are a little different than the ones in the US. While both countries tend to organize at least somewhat by brand, in Korea this is a definitive feature. By this I mean that on each floor there are more than a dozen little branded divisions that all have their own sales clerks and are kind of only working for that brand. It is somewhat of a cross between a mall and a department store. We decided to eat at a restaurant on the top floor, where I had a dish with delicious little octopi in it.

The seafood here is awesome

Next we hopped on the subway to attempt to find a hostel that government of Korea website recommends. The subway system is incredibly nice by comparison with any subways I've ever been on before. The stations were all very clean, well maintained, and 20 years ahead of the US technologically. The cleanliness part was the most surprising to me, and always surprises me here--especially because Korea doesn't seem to believe in trash cans (they're inexplicably hard to find). Subway tickets in Korea are cards with RFID chips in them, so you only need to wave them by the machine (not swipe them). The price of your subway ticket here is dictated by what your destination is. Getting into the area with the trains feels futuristic because there are no turnstiles, but if you fail to wave your card when you walk through a gate will pop out and stop you. There are giant touchscreens where you can plan your journey and it will tell you the best way to get there. The train cars themselves are also clean and modern. LCD screens play soundless ads while at the bottom it tells you the next stop in multiple languages. The stop name is also played over the sound system with crisp clarity in Korean, English, and sometimes Chinese or Japanese.

The subways are also different from the US in that they're chalk full of Koreans

Finding the Hostel we set out for was a mess. The instructions were clear, but the landmarks they used were well hidden. We ended up wandering around in pretty much every direction from our stop before we happened upon an information area where they clarified how to get to the hostel. Turned out we basically had to go down a hidden ally, so that made kat and I feel better. The information people also made us aware that even though the Korean government website told us to find the Seoul Backpackers Hostel, it was actually called Banana Backpackers. Yet when we got there, the sign said it was called something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. This seems to be a common trend--that the government website is outdated, or just flat out incorrect. Anyway, we ended up staying somewhere different because it was full and as expensive as a regular hotel.

We ened up going out to explore the town that night. It was especially lively because a festival for Buddha's Birthday was going on. There were colored lanterns and lotus flowers, traditional korean outfits and parades. It was fun.

Cool owl lanterns

One of the parades

Awesome dragon made of paper in a parade 

There were a million of these all over the place

It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but there are several of these Buddhas and they are ENORMOUS. Probably around 4-5 meters tall for the Buddha itself.

Big paper lanterns of kings and elephants and other things

The city that night

The next day my friend BC met us at our hotel and took us around his homeland that is South Korea. We explored the daytime version of the festival, walked up and down Insadong (a street to buy things and get streetfood), and went to a palace from the 15th (I think) century.

All of us in front of "some place where the king chilled" as BC put it

The inside of that place. I think the lightbulbs are an addition since the King's time.

Another place where the king chilled. "I guess the king needed a lot of places to chill," BC said.

A tree that was struck by lightning many years ago. Half of it is now petrified.

BC mounting a horse, theoretically

Festivities during the daytime. Their hats are crazy.

Me catching some mad air, as I participate in what I believe is some kind of traditional jump roping?

There were tents describing all the different types of Buddhism

The ancient buddhist game of ridiculously large Jenga

BC said that all they eat is bark

One of the many types of streetfood we tried. It's what the guy is making in this video. It's thin strands of honey and cornstarch wrapped around your choice of either almond, peanut, or chocolate paste. Very good frozen.

Later in the day, we took the subway with him back to Incheon where he's from. I'll post about that another time.

-Harrison

26/ Gunsan and Engrish

Ok, so I didn't get around to posting as soon I wanted. But that's ok, the engrish should make up for it.

On Friday we walked around the Gunsan shopping area, and kat just kind of showed me the city in general. I should post this more after the fact so I can remember more details...

First we went to the big department store in the area.

Lotte Mart

A couple notable things are:

• Koreans really like orange juice (it's the go-to juice here)
• Cereal is extremely expensive (2-3 times more expensive than in the US)
• Milk here comes in flavors anywhere you go (which is a lot more common in the US where maybe there are two flavors-chocolate and plain). It comes in flavors like banana, chocolate, cereal, strawberry, and different coffee flavors (these are all delicious)
• Cold prepackaged coffee flavored drinks (like the prepackaged starbucks' ones in the US) are popular here (coffee in a shop is also popular just like the US, but its around $5 for a drink which is absurd)
• The escalator things are really cool. They're inclined but smooth (not like steps), and are magnetized to your cart so you can bring it up and down the floors

Mmm... baby Einstein milk

Cool escalator thing

On the top floor there was a food area where we ate. There was a huge display case where you could look at plastic versions of the food and decide what you wanted. When you paid you got a number that would show up on an screen when your food was ready (shown below). The cups, trays, and everything were all reusable. You grabbed a metal cup from a UV sterilizing machine, and put it below the machine when you were done. Korean living seems to be very sustainable like that. It isn't too common to find things that are disposable.

Coffee shops and little food places in Korea take a lot longer to get your food/drink than in the States. If you get a coffee or pressed sandwich it can take up to 10 minutes. If that happened back home, I'm sure 9/10 people would be enraged.

Coffee is the best medicine

Next we took a cab to the main shopping area. Cabs are a very reasonably priced in korea. Kat and I could go pretty much anywhere in the metropolitan area of Gunsan for under $5 for a cab ride, and usually the distance we use it for is closer to $2.50-$3, which makes it very cost effective compared to the bus ($1.10). There is no subway in this city. A lot of cabbies have a screen to watch TV in their cab. Safety advocates would go nuts if anyone tried to do this in the US.

GPS next to a screen to watch TV. The counter is near his hand.

The shopping area has this strange ridge and recession zigzagging throughout the center of pedestrian mall. This was great for tripping when you weren't looking at your feet.

There was also a knock-off Starbucks

Ok, onto the engrish. We happened upon a small dollar-store type establishment, which is where we found most of this.

Good question

I trip. I frill.

It's the most comfortable way to move

This is a little extreme

I always forget the capitol of Morth Carolina

That classic NY tycoon

Zebra is deep

Hopefully we will go visit a PC Bang soon (I'm told bang is the korean word for room), where people go to play computer games. Here's a picture of the Starcraft 2 box from Korea:

I would really like to know what the syringe is supposed to represent

And that's all the interesting stuff from that day. Coming soon: Reuniting with my friend BC in Seoul.

-Harrison

25/ Guest Bloggin'

Hey, it's Harrison.

I'm in Korea visiting Kat, so I thought that as long as I'm here I'll update with my thoughts on things, and post interesting pictures (unlike kat).

First Impressions: Dang, everything is spick and span. Literally as soon as I got off the plane, I noticed that the airport was shiny clean. Like, no dust anywhere. Anyway, that may or may not be that amazing. The next thing I noticed was pretty startling though. In the bathroom on the hand dryer was the name of the guy responsible for cleaning the bathroom, but that's not all--his PICTURE was on there too. So if the bathroom wasn't clean you could go hunt this man down and pin him for the blame.

Inside the airport (and as I will soon discover, all around the cities) there was a Dunkin' Donuts and 7-Eleven.

Luckily, I have seen no more Kraze Burgers. Their motto says it all.

The Dunkin' Donuts was different than the US in that you had a tray and grabbed your own donuts, but it was also different in the flavors of donuts that they had.

Such as green tea, and tomato&carrot.

The 7-Eleven proved to me yet another reason beyond self serve donuts and clean facilities as to why America has some catching up to do with the Koreans.

Behold: Pineapple on a stick (I'm neglecting to mention the strange meats on sticks).

Ok, so leaving the airport we took a bus to the city where kat lives, which is about 3 hours south of Seoul/Incheon/wherever the hell the airport is (the pilot didn't even really seem to know, so Im guessing it was somewhere between the two cities).

(this just happened: I was like SEE BLOGGING IS HARD HARRISON and he was like YEAH ITS ESPECIALLY HARD WITHOUT A CHAIR. well welcome to my apartment :p) /end kat

Back to the bus ride: it was very pleasant. Lots of leg room, leather seats, and big windows through which you could watch the small mountains (/big hills), sea, and cities roll by.

Cue picture with sea, mountain, and city

So on our ride we went through this one city (which I think they mean to connect to Incheon at some point) where they're basically building all skyscrapers right now. And that by itself wouldn't be that weird if not for the fact that its super strange to see giant towers next to vacant dirt lots. Here in the US cities spring up rather naturally, where the city center slowly gets larger and larger buildings, and the population density (along with the building heights) taper out from there. But not in this city. There are completely empty apartment buildings because no one has come into the city yet. It basically seems like they're constructing a strange ghost town. Except the town is a city. And there are no small buildings around it.

Here's the city

Dirt... dirt... dirt... HIGHRISE

What's that line running up the 70 story skyscraper?

Oh, that's just a gap where they haven't finished the interior of the building yet

These are the only people living in this city

On one side of the stream, monolithic apartment buildings...

...on the other side shacks and fields.

And there was a tomato savings bank

 When we finally got to Gunsan, we walked to kat's apartment. Motion sensing lights under her building turned on while we were coming up to the door. She waved a card infront of a panel and the door slid open. The inside of her building is as clean as the airport. Her door is opened by typing in numbers on a keypad, but without using a card, which means that if someone is watching you they can break in pretty easily. But the building isn't crowded or anything, and its pretty obvious is someone is around you, which is why they probably dont have a more thorough means of entrance.

Phew. Well, that was my first day here. Today we walked around a bunch of shops, and saw a boatload of engrish. I'll try to post all that by the end of the day tomorrow.

-Harrison