Merry belated Christmas!

It's been a while since I last updated, but don't worry, I'm still alive. Our school started its winter break on December 29th, which means I have to forage for my own lunch now. I'll usually eat whatever animal I catch that day, but sometimes during these harsh winter months when critters are scarce, I just have to deal with it like the pioneers of old, and go to the kimbap (Korean sushi) place across the street. Unfortunately, during my first week off from school, I managed to get food poisoning and had a very sick day, and then carried an uncomfortable stomach for the rest of the week. On my sick day, I laid down a lot, and on one of these occasions I happened to catch a movie in English on the telly. It was called "Gone with the Wind," and you may have heard of it because I believe it was made popular after the Simpsons parodied it in a number of highly amusing episodes. Maybe it was because I was already feeling kind of down and sick, but after watching this so-called "classic" movie, I thought it could best be described with the word "what." On a number of occasions, I simply found myself thinking or saying "what?" I remember seeing an old Dave Chappelle skit where they commented how Mammy was the only sane character in the entire show, and I completely agree. They were in the middle of a war and everything is being burned and pillaged, and that girl wouldn't shut up about going back to her hometown. Then she was always so obsessed about that one guy who was no where near as dreamy as Rhett. I think the part that stuck out to me most was how many people were killed by being flung off of horses. If only Ralph Nadir had been born a century earlier to lobby for horse saddle seat belts, then we could have seen a little more of the father act just as crazy as the other characters. I could ramble on and on about how bizarre that movie was, but I've probably bored or offended you enough already.

Anyhoo, I'll catch you up real quick to where I'm at now. I had a week off at the beginning of January, but then the following week I had to teach an English Winter Camp. It consisted of two 90 minute classes and was optional for the students. I had about 22 sign up for each class, which sounded really nice because I'm use to teaching 40 students at once. For better or worse, only about a dozen actually showed up for each grade. I felt bad that out of the 400 kids I teach in each class, only 10-15 were actually interested in my camp, but at the same time, I got to really interact and got to know those students who did come. I taught them conversation, which is usually just questions and answers, so they learned how to use who, what, where, when, why and how. We did a lot of activities like playing "Guess Who?," learning how to do magic tricks for "how to," and looking at pictures of clouds and gestalt pictures and asking "what do they look like?" I had a fun time, and I think the students whom showed up had a good time as well, and by the last day they were all speaking a lot more; some of them were even using English.

I did some other activities during this time (I'll describe them in further detail later), which is why lethargy and can only partly be contributed to my neglecting of this internet web blog. It's a bit of a catch-22; it's really only interesting to read this if I've done some activities or seen something thought-provoking, but if I'm busy doing those things then it can be difficult to have spare time to actually record all of those events.

I'm a bit behind in my writing, but Christmas is an interesting holiday that is worth mentioning. We got the day off, but that was the only day that week that we had off. I asked the other teachers what they normally do for Christmas, and I learned that most people here usually go out and do stuff. There's quite a few Christians here, and I've seen a lot of churches. There might be a bias in that observation because all of the churches are easy to spot with their bright red neon crosses on their roofs. Whether you're Christian or not, it's not a family-only holiday like back in the US, but more of a hey-let's-go-out-and-have-fun holiday like President's Day or Labor Day.

Some gifts are exchanged, but it isn't in the realm of the huge gift giving hullabaloo of the US. The other teachers that sit in my cluster of desks informed me that next Monday we would be doing a gift exchange, but in a Secret Santa style where you only have to buy one gift. I had no idea what I was going to get for one of the other teachers. I thought of all the things that people had been giving me, like those little sticks dipped in chocolate or various oranges and dried fruit. Then I remembered the movie, Elf, where the family gave Elf spaghetti one night for dinner and then he thinks that's all they ever eat, so he is always making and giving them spaghetti. I didn't want to be exactly like Elf, and luckily my ladyfriend thought of a good idea for a gift. She suggested that I make Christmas treats. It would be something unique and pretty easy for me since I was always involved in my family's traditional Christmas baking. I have an oven, but at the time I didn't know how to use it, so that narrowed down my options peppermint bark, some chocolate covered pretzels, and maybe rice krispie treats because they would be easy.

So I went on an adventure to find my ingredients for my Christmas treats; how hard could it be to find those basic ingredients? I met my good professor friend, Ho Gun, on Saturday, and we went out and did some sightseeing and then ended the day by going to a big walmart-like store called E-mart. I found white chocolate toblerone, some dark chocolate, some candy marshmallow treats, and cocoa rice krispies. No pretzels and no candy canes at the store. We asked some of the people working there and they had only ever seen candy canes that were plastic and used for decorations. I went home and looked up on the internet where I could find some candy canes in Korea. Most people suggested going to a big market in Seoul that has an import section, or going to a big mall that has a little candy cart. I had never used the subway to go into Seoul on my own, since I had been following Ho Gun around before. It was a scary idea. I could be lost wondering the subway for years, or kidnapped and sent to China and forced into labor as an English teacher. However, the rewards of being a hero far outweighed any possible risks. If my Christmas treats were a success then the Korean teachers would hold me in the highest esteem, and in 15-20 years they would probably still be reminiscing about the goodies that that one foreign teacher once gave for Christmas.

"Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily" - Curly Howard

So I set out early the next morning to find the missing ingredients to my gift that would overshadow any furby or tickle-me-elmo. After an hour on the subway, I arrived at the big market and found the spot where the import goods were sold. However, something was wrong. The building that said import goods on it was dark inside and only had tables with sheets over them. Then it hit me, it was Sunday and sometimes these places are closed on Sundays. I quickly went back to a tourist booth and grabbed a free tourist book to read about the market. My fears were confirmed. I would have to resort to plan B and find the legendary big mall of Seoul. I found it in the tourist booklet, but multiple subway transfers would have to be made. Would I be able to handle entering and exiting a subway car MORE than once to reach my destination?

Yes. It was pretty easy and all of the signs have some sort of English translation as well. I made it to the big mall, but that's when things got difficult. There was a big directory, and most of the stores were Western brand names, but I couldn't find anything about candy shops anywhere on it. The mall was very crowded and had low ceilings and artificial lighting, which made me feel as if I was wondering through an endless maze of underground tunnels. I wondered around the catacombs for an hour and a half, and like always, just as I was about to give up, I saw it in the distance. A small little candy wagon thing that had candy canes, worth more than their weight in gold both figuratively and almost literally.

I didn't arrive back at my apartment until the evening. It had been quite the journey, but I had mastered the subway system and I now feel confident using it to go anywhere. I quickly got to work on my present. I never did find any pretzels for dipping in melted chocolate, but my ladyfriend suggested that I try making fudge since that wouldn't require an oven. I didn't have any evaporated milk, but the milk here is really creamy so I could try slowly simmering that for a while, and I had extra marshmallows to use for fudge as well. So I made some chocolate fudge, some peppermint bark, and rice krispie treats. I didn't take any pictures of the process because this was important and it needed my full attention, but I did take some of the results.


The fudge actually turned out pretty well. It wasn't too runny nor too hard.


Ooooooooohhhh fuuuuuuuuddddggge


The rice krispie treats and peppermint bark.

The rice krispie treats had a weird taste because the marshmallows were candy-fruit flavored, but I only really made them as a backup in case the fudge or peppermint bark didn't turn out. I gave a bundle of the treats away for the gift exchange and then I also had a separate pile for the rest of the teachers. It turned out that everyone liked the rice krispie treats the best. The fudge and peppermint bark were too sweet for most people. I wish I would have thought more about this earlier, because the rice krispie treats were the easiest to make and the ingredients were all readily available. I ended up receiving an ornate picture frame for our gift exchange, which I put a picture of my ladyfriend in.

On Christmas Day, I slept in really late, talked with family, and went out and practiced soccer. There were a lot of families out at the soccer field together. I think it even snowed a little bit too. I also worked on my internet teaching English certificate class, which I just finished last week. I'm now sort of qualified for my job in a cheap internet teaching certificate sort of way.

I'll leave you with some pictures of Christmas lights around my town.

Take a Hike

I apologize for neglecting my internet web log these few days. Last week was my final week of teaching classes for the school year, but I've still been very busy. People keep inviting me to do things and I keep accepting. Until I learn how to say "no" in Korean, or make this web log more of a priority, you'll just have to use your imagination for how I'm doing (I update my internet photo album very often if you need a starting point). I've also been busy working on getting my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate through an internet class, and I've been planning lessons for next week. You see, even though last week was officially the last week of school for the year, I get the privilege of teaching an English Winter Camp for one week. I'll have two 90 minute classes each day that have inconveniently been separated based on grade level rather than ability. There's no book for me to follow, which is both good and bad, and my co-teachers suggested that I teach basic English conversation. I'm still trying to iron out my lesson plans, but for the lower grade I'll probably try and focus on a different question word (who, what, when, where, why, how) for each day and also have a theme for each day. There will probably be a lot of overlap for the second grade class, but I'll try to use more review material from what they have learned this last year as well. If this all sounds very boring to you, then don't worry, I'll probably end up teaching them conversation by having them watch reality dating shows and VH1's The Pick-Up Artist.

Last month, my main co-teacher informed me that the teachers of our school belong to various school clubs and that it was necessary for me to join one as well. I think the choices were something like a movie watching club, a badminton club and a hiking club. I always picture badminton as an outside activity on a summer day with some cool refreshing lemonade, and since it is winter I couldn't choose this club. So I ended up going with the hiking club. I went on my first hike with the club a couple of weeks later. We went to the park near the reservoir outside of the town. It wasn't really as much of a hike as it was a casual stroll through a park. I had actually already been to the park during my first week here when I was exploring my surroundings. Here's a couple pictures from then:



It's a small park for a hike as a loop around it is probably a kilometer. There's also a center for learning more about the wildlife that we visited. Inside, I learned about how nice the reservoir will look in the spring when the flowers bloom. There was also a room with pictures of birds that frequent the area, and some of the pictures had a button underneath that you could press to hear the bird call. I impressed the other members of the hiking club by cupping my hands to my mouth and blowing into them to imitate the bird calls. Near the center there was a little zoo/shack that housed various exotic animals. The other hikers weren't feeling adventurous and didn't want to go look at it, but when I went before I saw some pigeons, ducks, seagulls, rabbits and turkeys.

I enjoyed talking with all of the teachers, but the best part of the hiking club was learning that one of the teachers, Yeong Ki Bi (영긔비, which turns out to be a joke name because it is the name of a past beautiful Chinese empress; kind of like the Cleopatra of the far East), is in a real hiking club that travels to national parks and hikes the mountains there on the weekends. She said that I was welcome to join her and her husband with the club at anytime. The next week I asked her how her hiking trip with her club was, and I think she got confused and thought I wanted to go with them that upcoming weekend. Rather than try and sort out what I was asking, I ended up agreeing to go hiking.

I woke up early that next Saturday morning (blasphemy) and met Yeong Ki Bi and her husband at my school. They drove me to Suwon, the nearby city where they live and where the hiking club is based. The hiking club rents their own private bus for their hikes since there are about 50 people that go every weekend. It was a three hour bus ride south to Byeonsanbando (변산반도) National Park. I slept for most of the way, but woke up near the end and talked with the lady sitting next to me. She taught me some of the Korean language and showed me where we were going in my guide book.


Here's where we started. Our leader pointed his fancy hiking stick at the map and I assume he explained where we would be going. His tone was serious, but also inspiring. I felt like we were about to march out and fight the North.

We hiked past a temple, through a small gorge and by a 30m waterfall. After about 30 minutes we took a break and some pictures. We were at a big rock face and there was another hiking club drinking beer and having their break too.


Here I am with Yeong Ki Bi and her husband. I dressed for very cold weather and if you watch the slideshow of pictures at the end of this post you'll see how I'm wearing progressively less clothing until I'm finally naked and one with nature. Koreans all wear very fancy hiking clothes and carry the hiking poles. Yeong Ki Bi's husband gave me one to use. I told him how we just use sticks back home, but he didn't like the sound of that.

We hiked for a while longer until we got to the top of a small mountain. It was time for lunch, and I came prepared with kimbap, which is like Korean sushi. I learned that our hiking lunch was communal, which was nice because people shared their hot soups with me. Yeong Ki Bi's husband was disappointed that I did not bring any kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage), which is a necessity with every meal here. I felt awful and I hope to someday redeem myself and earn his respect. Seriously though, he's a cool guy that likes to joke around and is very friendly.


At the end of our hike was an old Buddhist temple. I really like how there are so many old relics and places in Korea. It makes the hikes really interesting and rewarding. In this picture, you can see some people in the upper right-hand corner, whom are drinking some special water. My head is blocking the orediden(sp?) or old tree, which has sort of significance that I can't remember.

That was the end of our hiking, but not the end of the day. We only hiked for about 3-4 hours, which didn't seem too long since the bus ride was nearly the same amount of time. We ended up going to a nearby town on the beach. A guy in our hiking club bought some raw oysters on the beach, and we all ate them and drank soju, a rice liquor. Someone also bought and shared some small hermit-crab-like seashells that were steamed. You have to suck the little guys out, and it was worth it as they were pretty good, but I might be biased since I love seafood. One of the guys was being nice and held out his hand for us to put our empty shells for easy disposable. The other hikers pointed at him and said something in Korean, which I'm assuming was a joke about him collecting the shells since they all laughed. I asked/mimed if he was making a necklace out of them and they thought that was funny too.

The club was really prepared, they brought a big gas tank, burner and huge pot with soup in it. They made an ahmu (fish noodle) soup and a ramen soup. They brought out a big case of soju and there was this little lady in a pink hat that went around filling up everyone's dixie cup and getting hers filled in return (in Korean culture you never pour yourself a drink). It was a really fun and cheerful way to end the day. I had a really good time hiking and meeting the members of the club. They were all very friendly and kept wanting to get their picture taken with me during the hike. They would speak as much English as they could with me and I would reciprocate as best as I could with my limited Korean. I'll definitely be going with them again, so expect some more pictures of the Korean land in the future.