Skip to the bold titles if you are bored by details of my school life and just want to hear my misadventures.
Today officially began my 2nd semester at Sincheorwon Middle School. A lot has changed over vacation. My office (twice), my computer (thankfully) my office mates, my co-teachers, the English classrooms, the English building (found out today English classes are moving to the main building), the principal, the textbooks, the schedule... basically everything has changed.
This semester, I'll be teaching 14 middle school classes with my four new co-teachers, and 4 high school classes with a teacher at the high school. I only found out today that I'll be teaching at the high school, and tomorrow I begin classes! I don't even know where to go, so I hope my high school co-teacher is ready to help me out a lot.
While the high school classes make my schedule harder to manage (the two schools run on different schedules, so at one point I will finish class at the middle school at 3:10 and simply have to get to the high school as soon as I can, as that class begins at 3:10. My co-teacher has agreed to begin class without me that day) I am also looking forward to it. For one thing, I will receive a bonus for taking on a extra school- yay money! For another, I really loved the graduating class of middle school students, and I'm delighted that I'll be teaching them another semester. Finally, this class is totally on me, as to the topic, which I'm sure will be challenging at times, but also allows me a lot more creativity, and is a lot more fun.
My four middle school co-teachers, so far, have been a delight to work with. Mindy is my main co-teacher and will teach 2nd grade with me (that's 8th grade in the US). Emily will teach 3rd grade (9th) and Rachel and Narae will split 1st grade. Mindy, Emily and Rachel, have all just graduated from university and have no teaching experience. Narae has taught for one year. Emily sometimes refers to me as "Sunbae" (senior colleague) which I find a little amusing.
Many of the new teachers are quite friendly and try to speak a little English to me. The new PE teacher in my office shared some coffee with me. To my surprise, it was not syrupy-sugar power mixed with hot water, but actually looked and tasted like real coffee. I expressed my surprise and he informed me that it was Kenyan hand drip coffee. I told him I love coffee, and my hometown is near the first Starbucks. He pointed to himself and said "Barista!" Well, I have no problem having a barista in the office!
Misadventure #1 slippers
It is normal in a lot of schools here for most or all of the teachers to wear slippers around the school. And when my feet continually felt icy in the cold office, I soon joined in the slipper-wearing crowd (thanks to some lovely slippers from mom and dad). Today I was wearing slippers as usual when my co-teacher informed me that we were going to the gym for the opening ceremony. I failed, somehow to note that my co-teacher had changed into her shoes. Once we entered the gym, I became aware that the normally slipper-clad feet of my coworkers were suddenly clacking about in 5 inch heels. I began to feel a little self conscious. Then my co-teacher told me that we all had to walk into the gym and sit in the teachers section. Seconds after arriving in the teachers section, we were trotted up on stage and introduced to all the students and many of their parents. In my slippers. Oops. I was trying to figure out how I could look less slipped clad, when I decided, hey, I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, so what does it really matter? I went up on stage and smiled at everyone and bowed when they called my name. Afterwards the vice-principal said something to Mindy, and I wondered if it was a comment about my slippers, but Mindy told me he said I look like a movie star.
Misadventure # 2 Toast
Oh, teachers dinners. After dinner (with the entire middle school staff) we had several toasts. I was enjoying the fact that my entire table was downing shots of water and hadn't even opened the soju, when suddenly a microphone was put in my hand and I was required to give a toast. I mumbled a few welcome wishes for the new teacher, and I love Korea, I love working at Sincheorwon, and meanwhile the guy who handed me the microphone (and who, incidentally, doesn't speak English) "translated" what I was saying into something that everyone else thought was uproariously funny. I ended with "Cheers" rather than the Korean version, because I thought they'd like it, and then they made me repeat it three times so they could all learn the new word before we could actually have our drinks and someone, thankfully, took the microphone off my hands.
Misadventure #3 I am handsome.
The highlight of the evening, was, no doubt, when a rather drunken coworker pointed at me (with the wrong finger) and shouted "BERY HANDSOME!"
Misadventure # 4 Thumbs up?
One of my new coworkers (the barista guy, actually) gave me a thumbs up. I responded in kind. Apparently, I was agreeing to go drinking. I backed out of that pretty fast.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
A long overdue post
So, I've been busy busy busy and then out of the country, and didn't touch my blog or even think of it while I was in Washington with the family. Have I had some adventures since my last post! I'll give you a run-down of my weekends leading up to my vacation in the States.
Following the unfortunate wallet theft (the thief got $900 out of my account, ugh! I got the money back in the end, but it was a hassle!) I had literally no voice at all and showed my students movies in class, something which I never do, but really, I had no choice, I could not make a sound.
That weekend I went to Yangyang and stayed at the home of my lovely friends Hannah and Trevor, and pulled off a magnificent surprise party for Hannah. Or Trevor did anyway, for me the main task was not to give away the surprise.
The weekend after that was another infamous adventure. I was trying to get to a town called Dogye, where I would spend the night with friends before heading to the nearby ski resort, High1. There was no possible way to get from Sincheorwon to Dogye that did not involve me arriving in the middle of the night, so I decided to take the train, thinking it would be more comfortable than the bus (it wasn't).
I managed to fall asleep and miss my stop and woke in the wrong town at 4am. I panicked and very nearly left my bag on the train, and then headed to the station and tearfully told the worker (who was locking up the building!) my predicament. She looked very concerned and told me sadly "No bus, no train... 8am train!" well, I wasn't going to spend 4 hours in the freezing cold, so I took a pricey taxi ride to Dogye and arrived around 4:45am, at which point I had no way of finding my friends apartment. I had the address, but couldn't get a taxi at that horrible hour. I went into a convenience store where I was comfortably looked after by the very motherly worker. She insisted that I sit in her chair next to the heater and gave me a cup of tea, tried to call several taxi services and told every customer who came in about my plight. In the end, she convinced one of the customers to give me a ride, so I climbed into the car of a strange man who had happened to stop at the convenience to store to buy cigarettes at 5am, and he gave me a ride to Sam's apartment and then promptly honked the car horn long and hard and woke the whole building, to my embarrassment. Well, it did turn out to be the right building and I did find my friends in the end, so I guess it worked out ok.
The following weekend it was back to Yangyang for a tender Christmas party! Good times and pancake breakfasts were had.
Then we had a lovely Christmas party in Dongsong, which involved a gift exchange, karaoke, and homemade egg nog.
And then it was off to the States!
A few more notes:
I got my camera fixed while I was in the States, hurray! I can post much nicer pictures now, hopefully.
I composed a list for Korean New Years' for your general enjoyment. Everyone who knows me knows that I am quite awkward and clumsy. I miss my mouth and pour coffee down my front, trip over my own feet and run into stationary objects on quite a regular basis. And I've found the best way to deal with this is a great deal of laughter at myself. And I don't mind at all if other people laugh a bit too, because I fully admit that I am good at making myself look ridiculous. So, for your enjoyment, the top three moments of Jaquie-awkwardness last year:
3. The Revolving Door Incident
There are revolving doors outside of the Lotte Mart under Gangbyeon station (where I buy cheese!) and I am not really used to revolving doors. One day, in my hurry to buy cheese, I mistimed my entry into the door, forgetting I was wearing a large backpack. The door went CRUNCH on my backpack and came to an abrupt halt, causing a couple of Koreans who were exiting at the same time I entered to run into the glass. We all had to stop and push the door backward to release my backpack before anyone could else could go in or out of the door.
2. Gerings Imitating Bowling Pins
At least I know where I got the awkward genes from. My parents and I went skiing and were approaching the lift for our first run of the day. However, a mis-communication, a lift operator in the wrong place at the wrong time, and our excellent ability to mistime things, meant that no one actually got on the lift except dad-- and he was unceremoniously dumped off when the operator grabbed the chair to try and stop it hitting my mom. Down the three Gerings all went, dad's skis coming off in the process, and they had to stop the lift until we all got the tangle of skis and limbs sorted out and safely on the chair.
1. I am the Opposite of Robin Hood
And by that, I mean I've got terrible aim with a bow and arrow, well, actually, I've got terrible aim with just about anything (don't stand beside me when I try to skip stones!). Whilst being ushered around Seoul by a film crew, it was decided that the foreigners ought to decorate toy bows and then practice shooting with them. Decorating, well, that I was good at, but when it came to shooting the results were not so great. After several laughably bad attempts, I hit a bull's eye by pure luck and proceeded to gloat, at which point my friend Cal told me he would give me W100,000 (about $100) if I hit the cameraman in the face. I laughed, because I wasn't, of course, going to hit the cameraman in the face, that would be mean. Alas, the cameraman would probably have been safer if I had aimed for him. I was full of confidence as I took the next shot... which went several feet above the target, ricocheted off a wall and hit the cameraman.
My first reaction was to duck out of sight before the cameraman could see who'd shot that arrow, and then to laugh helplessly until tears ran down my face while my concerned friends gathered around me trying to ascertain whether I was laughing or crying.
Following the unfortunate wallet theft (the thief got $900 out of my account, ugh! I got the money back in the end, but it was a hassle!) I had literally no voice at all and showed my students movies in class, something which I never do, but really, I had no choice, I could not make a sound.
That weekend I went to Yangyang and stayed at the home of my lovely friends Hannah and Trevor, and pulled off a magnificent surprise party for Hannah. Or Trevor did anyway, for me the main task was not to give away the surprise.
The weekend after that was another infamous adventure. I was trying to get to a town called Dogye, where I would spend the night with friends before heading to the nearby ski resort, High1. There was no possible way to get from Sincheorwon to Dogye that did not involve me arriving in the middle of the night, so I decided to take the train, thinking it would be more comfortable than the bus (it wasn't).
I managed to fall asleep and miss my stop and woke in the wrong town at 4am. I panicked and very nearly left my bag on the train, and then headed to the station and tearfully told the worker (who was locking up the building!) my predicament. She looked very concerned and told me sadly "No bus, no train... 8am train!" well, I wasn't going to spend 4 hours in the freezing cold, so I took a pricey taxi ride to Dogye and arrived around 4:45am, at which point I had no way of finding my friends apartment. I had the address, but couldn't get a taxi at that horrible hour. I went into a convenience store where I was comfortably looked after by the very motherly worker. She insisted that I sit in her chair next to the heater and gave me a cup of tea, tried to call several taxi services and told every customer who came in about my plight. In the end, she convinced one of the customers to give me a ride, so I climbed into the car of a strange man who had happened to stop at the convenience to store to buy cigarettes at 5am, and he gave me a ride to Sam's apartment and then promptly honked the car horn long and hard and woke the whole building, to my embarrassment. Well, it did turn out to be the right building and I did find my friends in the end, so I guess it worked out ok.
The following weekend it was back to Yangyang for a tender Christmas party! Good times and pancake breakfasts were had.
Then we had a lovely Christmas party in Dongsong, which involved a gift exchange, karaoke, and homemade egg nog.
And then it was off to the States!
A few more notes:
I got my camera fixed while I was in the States, hurray! I can post much nicer pictures now, hopefully.
I composed a list for Korean New Years' for your general enjoyment. Everyone who knows me knows that I am quite awkward and clumsy. I miss my mouth and pour coffee down my front, trip over my own feet and run into stationary objects on quite a regular basis. And I've found the best way to deal with this is a great deal of laughter at myself. And I don't mind at all if other people laugh a bit too, because I fully admit that I am good at making myself look ridiculous. So, for your enjoyment, the top three moments of Jaquie-awkwardness last year:
3. The Revolving Door Incident
There are revolving doors outside of the Lotte Mart under Gangbyeon station (where I buy cheese!) and I am not really used to revolving doors. One day, in my hurry to buy cheese, I mistimed my entry into the door, forgetting I was wearing a large backpack. The door went CRUNCH on my backpack and came to an abrupt halt, causing a couple of Koreans who were exiting at the same time I entered to run into the glass. We all had to stop and push the door backward to release my backpack before anyone could else could go in or out of the door.
2. Gerings Imitating Bowling Pins
At least I know where I got the awkward genes from. My parents and I went skiing and were approaching the lift for our first run of the day. However, a mis-communication, a lift operator in the wrong place at the wrong time, and our excellent ability to mistime things, meant that no one actually got on the lift except dad-- and he was unceremoniously dumped off when the operator grabbed the chair to try and stop it hitting my mom. Down the three Gerings all went, dad's skis coming off in the process, and they had to stop the lift until we all got the tangle of skis and limbs sorted out and safely on the chair.
1. I am the Opposite of Robin Hood
And by that, I mean I've got terrible aim with a bow and arrow, well, actually, I've got terrible aim with just about anything (don't stand beside me when I try to skip stones!). Whilst being ushered around Seoul by a film crew, it was decided that the foreigners ought to decorate toy bows and then practice shooting with them. Decorating, well, that I was good at, but when it came to shooting the results were not so great. After several laughably bad attempts, I hit a bull's eye by pure luck and proceeded to gloat, at which point my friend Cal told me he would give me W100,000 (about $100) if I hit the cameraman in the face. I laughed, because I wasn't, of course, going to hit the cameraman in the face, that would be mean. Alas, the cameraman would probably have been safer if I had aimed for him. I was full of confidence as I took the next shot... which went several feet above the target, ricocheted off a wall and hit the cameraman.
My first reaction was to duck out of sight before the cameraman could see who'd shot that arrow, and then to laugh helplessly until tears ran down my face while my concerned friends gathered around me trying to ascertain whether I was laughing or crying.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Having your wallet stolen is kind of a party killer
This weekend was so awesome in so many ways. And so not in one way.
I went to Itaewon (the foreigner area of Seoul) with Blythe and some of her friends from orientation. It was a great time- we stayed at a hostel run by some really cool Serbians, and shared out dorm room with a guy who is traveling on his motorcycle and has been to dozens of countries. It seemed like we had the perfect set up. Including the fact that our hostel was located just a few blocks from Taco Bell!
We checked in, dropped off our bags and headed to Myeongdong for a lot of shopping. Blythe and the other girls arrived in Korea in October, and therefore hadn't had time to buy warm clothes for our bone-chilling Gangwon-do winter. After shopping, we stumbled to our hostel with all our packages and got ready for the evening. Then we went out with others from our hostel, including our motorcycle friend, Noah, and a girl from Germany, and a guy from Greenland (I've never met anyone who's from Greenland before!). We were having a good time, and then we went to a place that was very crowded and a bit seedy, and sometime around four in the morning, I checked the latch on my purse for the millionth time to make sure it was closed, and it was, but my purse felt oddly light so I opened it, and behold, no wallet. Some clever person opened my purse, removed my wallet (which is enormous and bright red) and even shut my purse. I had bought a water just minutes earlier, so it was only a couple minutes at most before I discovered it missing. Luckily we did eventually find the wallet- someone had thrown it on the ground. I snatched it eagerly from Blythe annnnd all the cards were gone. The thieves were kind enough to leave my ARC (ID card) and my subway card, but everything else was gone.
Noah kindly brought me back to the hostel where we ate more Taco Bell and I frantically tried to contact my credit card companies. Around 6am I gave up, as my calls kept getting disconnected, but luckily my lovely mother at home was able to take care of it for me. I just have to figure out what to do about my Korean card. I called and they didn't speak English, so when I got back to my apartment and had the luxury of google translate I tried again. I think I managed to convey that my card was stolen, and gave them my info, but I think the person on the other end might have just been saying yes to get rid of me- I am not at all convince that she understood what I was trying to say. So a trip to the bank is most definitely in order.
We spent most of the day sitting around the hostel trying to recover from the evening, while I moaned my losses- amongst my losses, I should also include my voice, which disappeared at some point during the course of the evening, and has not yet returned. I'm seriously wondering how this is possible as the last time I lost my voice like this was following the USA vs Panama World Cup Qualifier, and I certainly wasn't yelling like that last night. Anything I now try to say sounds like I am imitating a creaky door hinge. Lovely. Anyhow, hopefully I get a new bank card tomorrow, and when Taco Bell and friendly Serbian hostel workers lure me back to Itaewon in future, I will be a little smarter about what purse and wallet I bring.
I went to Itaewon (the foreigner area of Seoul) with Blythe and some of her friends from orientation. It was a great time- we stayed at a hostel run by some really cool Serbians, and shared out dorm room with a guy who is traveling on his motorcycle and has been to dozens of countries. It seemed like we had the perfect set up. Including the fact that our hostel was located just a few blocks from Taco Bell!
We checked in, dropped off our bags and headed to Myeongdong for a lot of shopping. Blythe and the other girls arrived in Korea in October, and therefore hadn't had time to buy warm clothes for our bone-chilling Gangwon-do winter. After shopping, we stumbled to our hostel with all our packages and got ready for the evening. Then we went out with others from our hostel, including our motorcycle friend, Noah, and a girl from Germany, and a guy from Greenland (I've never met anyone who's from Greenland before!). We were having a good time, and then we went to a place that was very crowded and a bit seedy, and sometime around four in the morning, I checked the latch on my purse for the millionth time to make sure it was closed, and it was, but my purse felt oddly light so I opened it, and behold, no wallet. Some clever person opened my purse, removed my wallet (which is enormous and bright red) and even shut my purse. I had bought a water just minutes earlier, so it was only a couple minutes at most before I discovered it missing. Luckily we did eventually find the wallet- someone had thrown it on the ground. I snatched it eagerly from Blythe annnnd all the cards were gone. The thieves were kind enough to leave my ARC (ID card) and my subway card, but everything else was gone.
Noah kindly brought me back to the hostel where we ate more Taco Bell and I frantically tried to contact my credit card companies. Around 6am I gave up, as my calls kept getting disconnected, but luckily my lovely mother at home was able to take care of it for me. I just have to figure out what to do about my Korean card. I called and they didn't speak English, so when I got back to my apartment and had the luxury of google translate I tried again. I think I managed to convey that my card was stolen, and gave them my info, but I think the person on the other end might have just been saying yes to get rid of me- I am not at all convince that she understood what I was trying to say. So a trip to the bank is most definitely in order.
We spent most of the day sitting around the hostel trying to recover from the evening, while I moaned my losses- amongst my losses, I should also include my voice, which disappeared at some point during the course of the evening, and has not yet returned. I'm seriously wondering how this is possible as the last time I lost my voice like this was following the USA vs Panama World Cup Qualifier, and I certainly wasn't yelling like that last night. Anything I now try to say sounds like I am imitating a creaky door hinge. Lovely. Anyhow, hopefully I get a new bank card tomorrow, and when Taco Bell and friendly Serbian hostel workers lure me back to Itaewon in future, I will be a little smarter about what purse and wallet I bring.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
I have given up on NaNoWriMo for the year. And I don't feel bad about this. I've won four years in a row, and the point of doing it this year was that, despite moving to Korea and all the crazy things in life that came along with that, I had some free time on my hands and wanted to stay as busy as possible. I didn't want to use the fact that I was "settling in" as an excuse to sit around and mope instead of writing. While, I didn't sit around and mope. I wrote over 20,000 words, which is still a considerable amount, and I kept extremely busy when I wasn't writing. I've gone somewhere every weekend in November, from zip-lining to Thanksgiving parties to meeting up with old friends to touring the DMZ. And all of that was in between planning and teaching my students, administering their speaking tests and helping them prepare for their finals. It's been a busy and wonderful month. Even though I'm not going to "win" NaNoWriMo. And to be honest NaNo isn't about a specific number like 50k (which is pretty much an arbitrary number) anyway. It's about accomplishment. And I feel like I've accomplished a lot this month.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Happy Thanksgiving all!
This weekend was the Cheorwon Thanksgiving extravaganza. Thanks to much more experience and resourceful expats than me, several of us stayed in an apartment and ate a real Thanksgiving meal, including Turkey, stuffing, gravy and pumpkin pie.
After the meal, we chatted over mulled wine and more pie.
This morning was a massive cleaning effort, which I and the other Cheorwon-ites escaped a bit early since we have so far to travel.
I got home fairly early this afternoon, and immediately took a nap. Then I struggled with my Korean thermostat, because my floor has barely been getting warm when I turn it on lately, and the water for my shower has been a bit chilly too. After much button pushing, I managed to turn the hot water temperature up and get my apartment warm for once. The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking dinner, washing dishes and doing laundry.
No offense to the company I celebrated Thanksgiving with, but observing the holiday without my family made me feel pretty homesick. I have a feeling this might be a tough week for me as far as that goes. My school is trying to figure out what to do with me during winter vacation. Normally, teachers are given just two weeks off; the rest of the time, we are teaching "English Camp" or working on lesson plans and paperwork (aka "deskwarming"). Basically, even if there's no school, you still have to be at work for 8 hours except when you're taking your two weeks of paid vacation. However, my school is going to remodel the building during break, which means no English Camp and possibly no desk to warm. So they are trying to figure out if they can give me the remainder of Winter break off unpaid, which would be fine by me, but it's very complicated as to whether my contract allows for that. Confusing. I haven't made any decisions about break yet, expect that if I have the entire month off, and permission to live the country for that amount of time, I will most likely come home.
This weekend was the Cheorwon Thanksgiving extravaganza. Thanks to much more experience and resourceful expats than me, several of us stayed in an apartment and ate a real Thanksgiving meal, including Turkey, stuffing, gravy and pumpkin pie.
After the meal, we chatted over mulled wine and more pie.
This morning was a massive cleaning effort, which I and the other Cheorwon-ites escaped a bit early since we have so far to travel.
I got home fairly early this afternoon, and immediately took a nap. Then I struggled with my Korean thermostat, because my floor has barely been getting warm when I turn it on lately, and the water for my shower has been a bit chilly too. After much button pushing, I managed to turn the hot water temperature up and get my apartment warm for once. The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking dinner, washing dishes and doing laundry.
No offense to the company I celebrated Thanksgiving with, but observing the holiday without my family made me feel pretty homesick. I have a feeling this might be a tough week for me as far as that goes. My school is trying to figure out what to do with me during winter vacation. Normally, teachers are given just two weeks off; the rest of the time, we are teaching "English Camp" or working on lesson plans and paperwork (aka "deskwarming"). Basically, even if there's no school, you still have to be at work for 8 hours except when you're taking your two weeks of paid vacation. However, my school is going to remodel the building during break, which means no English Camp and possibly no desk to warm. So they are trying to figure out if they can give me the remainder of Winter break off unpaid, which would be fine by me, but it's very complicated as to whether my contract allows for that. Confusing. I haven't made any decisions about break yet, expect that if I have the entire month off, and permission to live the country for that amount of time, I will most likely come home.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
"It is that time of year again when Jaquie posts numbers on facebook... Boy I missed that." - Josh Gering
In other words, it's National Novel Writing Month! (nanowrimo.org) Which is why I haven't updated the blog in a few weeks. National Novel Writing Month is when I ( and many others) spend the month trying to force 50,000 words that, in some slight way, resemble the first draft of a novel into a blank word document. This is my sixth year participating, and if I manage to keep up, it will be my 5th straight "win." NaNoWriMo is one of my favorite hobbies, so be nice. And no, you can't read my novel, trust me, you really don't want to anyway.
I hope that one day I will actually finish Nanowrimo and not completely loath my characters and despair of ever piecing together the plot into something that makes any sense, in which case I will be able to move on to re-writing and editing. In the meantime, I won't inflict my "novels" on anyone, just know that, however weird it may be, I'm actually enjoying this. Be happy for me and congratulate me when I make it to 50,000. Or just hide my status updates if the numbers annoy you that much.
Moving to life in Korea, my schedule has gotten extremely confusing lately, due to the fact that I have to give a speaking test to all of my students, but each grade is getting their speaking tests at a different time. So last week it was the 3rd graders, and then this week they have their finals, so they are kind of panicking all over the school (or they just look like zombies because they've been cramming all week).
This week I have to give the 2nd graders their test, but unfortunately, the way we formatted the test, I simply can't even come close to fitting in all of them in one period, so it's going to take two weeks. The first graders will have their speaking test next week or the week after.
It's all very confusing, with class times changing, I was late to one class, forgot the classroom key for another, and then EVERYONE -me, my co-teacher and the students for one class- got told the class was moved from second period to first period. This normally wouldn't be a big deal, except we were all told this ten minutes after the first period had started, and since we were giving an exam all the kids were panicking and saying they weren't ready (as though they'd be studying for their English exam had they had math class as regularly scheduled!).
And beyond that, since my 3rd graders have their finals 3 weeks earlier than the other two grades, I have to come up with something to teach them. What? Who knows really, just something. So... I guess I better get on that sometime soon. Ah, well, we'll figure it out.
As for my weekends, I really don't know if I can describe how awesome the 1st-3rd was. There were a lot of animal costumes involved and bowling and karaoke. We also toured the DMZ, which was very cool. There were lots of covert photos taken in the 2nd tunnel. I won't say by whom, but there are photos.
Last Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, and decided to ignore it, because Saturday day was zip-lining day! I met Ben and Rochelle, my fellow Cheorwon-ites, and we took the bus to Gapyeong where we met some friends of a friend. Sadly, our mutual friend was sick and couldn't come. We found the zip-lining platform and after a long wait (during which we took a lunch break) we made our way up to the top of the 80 meter platform and went whooshing two-by-two (except me, I was the odd one out) out over the water all the way to Nami island. The zip-lining was really amazing, but unfortunately, it began raining right after we touched down, after wandering around the island, we were all wet and tired. We hopped on a ferry back to the mainland, and waiting in the rain for what seemed like forever until we could shove our way onto a bus to the train station. Several hectic chases after trains and buses later, we made it safely on the bus to Sincheorwon and two hours later we were home and I was finally admitting that I was indeed coming down with a cold. So I've been well-punished for the rainy-day trip to Nami Island, but it was still lots of fun, and hopefully I will get a chance to go back sometime when the weather is more cooperative (and when I haven't been exposed to the Cheorwon death plague).
In other words, it's National Novel Writing Month! (nanowrimo.org) Which is why I haven't updated the blog in a few weeks. National Novel Writing Month is when I ( and many others) spend the month trying to force 50,000 words that, in some slight way, resemble the first draft of a novel into a blank word document. This is my sixth year participating, and if I manage to keep up, it will be my 5th straight "win." NaNoWriMo is one of my favorite hobbies, so be nice. And no, you can't read my novel, trust me, you really don't want to anyway.
I hope that one day I will actually finish Nanowrimo and not completely loath my characters and despair of ever piecing together the plot into something that makes any sense, in which case I will be able to move on to re-writing and editing. In the meantime, I won't inflict my "novels" on anyone, just know that, however weird it may be, I'm actually enjoying this. Be happy for me and congratulate me when I make it to 50,000. Or just hide my status updates if the numbers annoy you that much.
Moving to life in Korea, my schedule has gotten extremely confusing lately, due to the fact that I have to give a speaking test to all of my students, but each grade is getting their speaking tests at a different time. So last week it was the 3rd graders, and then this week they have their finals, so they are kind of panicking all over the school (or they just look like zombies because they've been cramming all week).
This week I have to give the 2nd graders their test, but unfortunately, the way we formatted the test, I simply can't even come close to fitting in all of them in one period, so it's going to take two weeks. The first graders will have their speaking test next week or the week after.
It's all very confusing, with class times changing, I was late to one class, forgot the classroom key for another, and then EVERYONE -me, my co-teacher and the students for one class- got told the class was moved from second period to first period. This normally wouldn't be a big deal, except we were all told this ten minutes after the first period had started, and since we were giving an exam all the kids were panicking and saying they weren't ready (as though they'd be studying for their English exam had they had math class as regularly scheduled!).
And beyond that, since my 3rd graders have their finals 3 weeks earlier than the other two grades, I have to come up with something to teach them. What? Who knows really, just something. So... I guess I better get on that sometime soon. Ah, well, we'll figure it out.
As for my weekends, I really don't know if I can describe how awesome the 1st-3rd was. There were a lot of animal costumes involved and bowling and karaoke. We also toured the DMZ, which was very cool. There were lots of covert photos taken in the 2nd tunnel. I won't say by whom, but there are photos.
Last Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, and decided to ignore it, because Saturday day was zip-lining day! I met Ben and Rochelle, my fellow Cheorwon-ites, and we took the bus to Gapyeong where we met some friends of a friend. Sadly, our mutual friend was sick and couldn't come. We found the zip-lining platform and after a long wait (during which we took a lunch break) we made our way up to the top of the 80 meter platform and went whooshing two-by-two (except me, I was the odd one out) out over the water all the way to Nami island. The zip-lining was really amazing, but unfortunately, it began raining right after we touched down, after wandering around the island, we were all wet and tired. We hopped on a ferry back to the mainland, and waiting in the rain for what seemed like forever until we could shove our way onto a bus to the train station. Several hectic chases after trains and buses later, we made it safely on the bus to Sincheorwon and two hours later we were home and I was finally admitting that I was indeed coming down with a cold. So I've been well-punished for the rainy-day trip to Nami Island, but it was still lots of fun, and hopefully I will get a chance to go back sometime when the weather is more cooperative (and when I haven't been exposed to the Cheorwon death plague).
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Like Wal Mart on Black Friday
I've always said that I would never go to Wal Mart on Black Friday. I don't even like going to Wal Mart on normal days, and I'd rather no go to any store at all on Black Friday. I don't have a death wish. But last night I did find myself in similar difficult circumstances.
Let's start at the beginning, when I decided to go to Busan for the fireworks festival, despite being warned that the crowds would be insane. My options at the time were: leave immediately after school, take the 8:10 pm bus and arrive around 1:30 in the morning, take the midnight bus and arrive at 6:30 am, or take an expensive KTX* train in the morning and arrive around noon. I wanted more time in Busan but didn't want to have to look for lodging in the middle of the night, so I took the overnight bus, thinking 6ish hours of sleep on a bus would be fine. The bus was actually great. You pay a little extra for a midnight bus, but it's worth it. The seats recline all the way and you even have a footstool. It's still not the most comfortable way to spend the night, but it's nearly as comfortable as sleeping in a vinyl recliner. I brought a pillow (Thanks for the travel pillow, Jessi and Josh S.) and blanket and prepared to settle in. And then the guy next to me started the small talk. "Where are you from?" The small talk continued for several minutes with me irritably removing one my headphones every time he asked a question, trying to make it obvious I didn't want to talk. Eventually I just reclined my seat and spread out my blanket and pillow and he finally took the hint and left me alone.
I slept pretty well on the bus, aside from being woken up at every stop. Then, but when there'd been a long stretch of no stops and I'd fallen into a nice deep sleep, was woken by a concerned fellow passenger shaking me and speaking to me in Korean. I made a sound like "gnahhhhh?" and he said "Haeundae! Haeundae!" which is the name of the my stop (the final stop for that bus). I was extremely confused, because it was still pitch black outside, and I was sure that I shouldn't have had to wake up until dawn. The clock on the bus said 4:42, so I asked the bus driver and he confirmed that I was indeed in Haeundae. Great. I normally love it when my bus arrives somewhere early, but not when I was planning on getting six hours of rest on the bus and ended up with less than 5! I wandered down the main street considering going to a nearby jimjilbang**, and also keeping an eye out for any 24 hour coffee shops where I could order something hot to drink and then doze off in a comfy chair in the corner. Nothing was open except bars clubs, and seafood restaurants, which didn't look very appetizing at that time of the morning. I wandered back towards the bus stop thinking I'd get a taxi to the jimjilbang and then stopped to check the metro sign and realized the first train was at 5:20. I went down into the station and dozed off on a bench there for a while before catching a train to Busan station. My hostel was near there, but I couldn't check in until 4, so I put my backpack in a rented locker, bought my return ticket via KTX to Seoul for the next day, got some coffee and breakfast and then picked a random location from a flyer at the tourism info booth. Gupo market.
*KTX is the highspeed train system in Korea (as opposed to bullet trains which are Japanese).
**Korean Sauna. It's a very cheap place to stay when you don't have any other options. You get a little pillow and a tiny blanket and crash on a (in my one experience very, very hot) stone floor with about a hundred other people. Not my top choice as a place to sleep, but still a place to sleep.
***adjumma is an older woman in Korean.
****adjoshi is an older man.
Let's start at the beginning, when I decided to go to Busan for the fireworks festival, despite being warned that the crowds would be insane. My options at the time were: leave immediately after school, take the 8:10 pm bus and arrive around 1:30 in the morning, take the midnight bus and arrive at 6:30 am, or take an expensive KTX* train in the morning and arrive around noon. I wanted more time in Busan but didn't want to have to look for lodging in the middle of the night, so I took the overnight bus, thinking 6ish hours of sleep on a bus would be fine. The bus was actually great. You pay a little extra for a midnight bus, but it's worth it. The seats recline all the way and you even have a footstool. It's still not the most comfortable way to spend the night, but it's nearly as comfortable as sleeping in a vinyl recliner. I brought a pillow (Thanks for the travel pillow, Jessi and Josh S.) and blanket and prepared to settle in. And then the guy next to me started the small talk. "Where are you from?" The small talk continued for several minutes with me irritably removing one my headphones every time he asked a question, trying to make it obvious I didn't want to talk. Eventually I just reclined my seat and spread out my blanket and pillow and he finally took the hint and left me alone.
I slept pretty well on the bus, aside from being woken up at every stop. Then, but when there'd been a long stretch of no stops and I'd fallen into a nice deep sleep, was woken by a concerned fellow passenger shaking me and speaking to me in Korean. I made a sound like "gnahhhhh?" and he said "Haeundae! Haeundae!" which is the name of the my stop (the final stop for that bus). I was extremely confused, because it was still pitch black outside, and I was sure that I shouldn't have had to wake up until dawn. The clock on the bus said 4:42, so I asked the bus driver and he confirmed that I was indeed in Haeundae. Great. I normally love it when my bus arrives somewhere early, but not when I was planning on getting six hours of rest on the bus and ended up with less than 5! I wandered down the main street considering going to a nearby jimjilbang**, and also keeping an eye out for any 24 hour coffee shops where I could order something hot to drink and then doze off in a comfy chair in the corner. Nothing was open except bars clubs, and seafood restaurants, which didn't look very appetizing at that time of the morning. I wandered back towards the bus stop thinking I'd get a taxi to the jimjilbang and then stopped to check the metro sign and realized the first train was at 5:20. I went down into the station and dozed off on a bench there for a while before catching a train to Busan station. My hostel was near there, but I couldn't check in until 4, so I put my backpack in a rented locker, bought my return ticket via KTX to Seoul for the next day, got some coffee and breakfast and then picked a random location from a flyer at the tourism info booth. Gupo market.
The market has a lot of clothing stores, but it is mainly famous alllllllll the many different foods, especially seafood, which is mostly live and wiggling in tanks and buckets of water in front of the vendors stalls. I saw all kinds of snails, oysters, clams, mussels, eels, fish, turtles and shrimp.
Sadly, also had a street devoted to vendors selling these:
No, those aren't pet stores. Those are dogs being raised specifically as food. This was the end of the street, I saw the dogs, snapped the picture and immediately did a U-turn because I couldn't stand to walk down there. They were crying. They look so sad in their cages, and it's bad enough to see them while they are alive, I had no wish to see the dead ones being sold as meat. This is one Korean dish that I just have no desire to try.
After a full morning of shopping and taking in the sights at the market, I was hungry, so I headed back to where I had arrived at not quite 5am- Haeundae beach. I knew there would be good seafood there and I was not disappointed. About a block from the beach various restaurant owners began calling out to me when I showed the least bit of interest in their signs. I chose one that looked promising and settled in to enjoy this lovely, lovely meal:
Mmmm... Yes, all that food was for me, and I ate nearly all of it. The seafood soup was delightful. I even ignored the stares of the Korean diners and used my fingers to eat the crab. Because it is just wrong to try and use chopsticks for that- you end up leaving half the meat in the shell. It was SO good. If I lived in Busan, I would probably want to eat this for dinner almost every night!
After lunch I wandered down Haeundae beach for a while
and then headed back to Busan station to retrieve my backpack and check in to my hostel, which turned out to be the beginning of a very unfortunate 'adventure.' You see, I had been a bit desperate to get a room because I'd been waffling about whether or not I was going to go to the festival for so long that everything filled up. I snagged a bed at hostel that had less-than-stellar reviews and hoped for the best. Later I realized I should have looked into the place a little more carefully. The directions I had led to Busan Station and stopped, but I figured, google maps would come to the rescue. Not so. The address provided was missing important info like parts of the street names.
Not panicking, I called the number to ask for directions and was greeted by a pre-recorded message informing me that "the number you are calling does not exist."
Still not panicking (well, not too much) I asked at the tourist information desk. They couldn't help me. I asked random people on the street. No one had seen it. I gave up, as I was already late for meeting my friends at Gwangalli Beach for the fireworks festival. I emailed the hostel begging them to call me with directions and caught a very crammed subway to Gwangalli, where I began to realize slowly the extent of the crowds and impossibility of finding my friends in such a press. I made it almost to them when the first fireworks went off and the crowd completely solidified. I was unable to move in any direction, could barely breath and very luck if I wasn't being viciously elbowed. The fireworks were INCREDIBLE. Really gorgeous, but it was painful being in that kind of crowd. I didn't take any photos or video, mostly because my arms were pinned down by the crowd and I was terrified of dropping my cell phone. Also because I was being elbowed in the head by people holding up cellphones and camera, and I knew that by the time I got around to posting in my blog, there would already be posting it on you tube. So I decided to just enjoy the show as much as I could in my contorted position and post some links for it later. So here you are:
The show was about an hour long, and by the end, the crowd was getting to me. I don't usually panic over things like that, it's just a crowd. But I was legitimately afraid that if I fell over, I could be trampled by the crowd and seriously injured. As the finale neared, people began trying to leave by forcefully shoving their way through the crowd and the solid mass of people around me became one wall of viciously flying elbows. People were screaming and yelling and trying to protect their children from being crushed. I began to panic. Just as the show ended in breath-taking explosions of light and color, a fight broke out next to me. Seriously, two men beside me were throwing punches and it was all I could do to stay out of the way. Maybe it sounds a little funny now, or maybe it sounds like I'm being over dramatic, but I think that may have been the most terrifying moment of my life so far. I completely snapped. Usually when I'm upset, I get frustrated and angry. I have never experienced sheer panic like that. I guess there's no way to describe it other than to say I was having a panic attack. I felt like I couldn't breathe. The wife and two little girls of one of the men were crying and screaming at them to stop, and I got shoved into some steps (which were pretty much invisible in the crowd) and nearly fell. I was rescued by very elderly gentleman who had taken refuge on the steps. He saw me falling and grabbed my pack and practically lifted me up onto the steps by it. I was so grateful I could have hugged him!
After a few minutes the crowd thinned a little more and I was able to fight my way against it into a nearby convenience store where I bought a bottle of water and some tissues and tried to calm down before sending very a pitiful text message to my friend Chris asking him to come and fetch me. Finally seeing a familiar face in that crowd was a huge relief! Chris took me to a bar where his other friends from Wonju were waiting and I was able to calm down and enjoy the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, I never did hear back from "Guest House Korea Busan Station" because their email account was shut down. So basically; I got scammed. Hopefully Hostelworld can get my money back. Meanwhile, the company from Wonju missed the last bus back, so we all slept in a fast food restaurant in the bus terminal. Not how I planned to spend my weekend getaway! But we all survived, and at 7:00am we said our farewells and they got on the bus to Wonju while I hopped on the subway back to Busan Station and exchanged my 12:30 KTX ticket for the 8:30 train instead. Three hours later I arrived in Seoul Station.
Some of the highlights of the rest of the trip home:
I was in line for the bathroom and an adjumma*** yelled at me that I was in a wrong line. She was very shocked and embarrassed when I turned around and she realized that I was actually a girl. Then she told me that I was actually really pretty!! I can't blame her though, I was wearing a puffy down coat, carrying an enormous backpack, and hadn't showered in more than two days, so my hair looked... interesting.
Then, just minutes later, I was on the subway and an adjoshi**** came up and began chatting with me. He asked several times if I was Russian, despite my firm denials (If you don't know what the connotations of being a "Russian Women" are to the older generation in Korea, here is a video explaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7DrBbyosDQ). Then he asked if had a boyfriend. Thinking this was a way out, I lied and said yes. He nodded as though this made sense and then said "Many boyfriend."
"No!" I said, indignantly.
"Russian person." He insisted, and then added something in Korean which I think had the words "How much?" in it.
Luckily as that point we reached the stop. I was annoyed when he got off too, but I made a quick escape and managed to duck to the side and get on a different car from him when I transferred to the other line.
*KTX is the highspeed train system in Korea (as opposed to bullet trains which are Japanese).
**Korean Sauna. It's a very cheap place to stay when you don't have any other options. You get a little pillow and a tiny blanket and crash on a (in my one experience very, very hot) stone floor with about a hundred other people. Not my top choice as a place to sleep, but still a place to sleep.
***adjumma is an older woman in Korean.
****adjoshi is an older man.
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