Greetings from outer space. I have been safely home for about 40 hours or something like that. I'm not really sure, I slept for a long time, and then I didn't sleep for a long time, and now I'm tired. The long flight actually went really well; we got to sit together and I watched the new Star Trek movie which was awesome. I also read letters that Tommy and Cherry had sent with me to read on the plane and those made me real happy.
In true academic form, I feel I should exercise my summarizing skills in regards to this trip. So here is the list I made on the plane of my favorite things about Korea (or at least my experience in Korea).
1) The people. We met a lot of really friendly people and they were really cool (except that one guy on the bus that yelled at us).
2) Korean Barbecue - the food and the sitting on the floor aspect
3) Mountains
4) Lotte Mart on Saturday when they give free samples of everything
5) Public transportation
6) Ice cream - they have it everywhere for cheap
7) Their Eco-friendliness. They have a lot of motion-sensing lights and good public transportation, among other things . . .
8) Like really nice parks dotted throughout the city.
9) Going shoeless. I really like taking my shoes off the moment I walk in the door.
10) Hanging out in mountain streams, aka "kego"
11) T-shirts with "English" on them. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't.
12) Smoothies made to order from fresh fruit
13)Eating with chopsticks - I've actually gotten pretty good at it.
Yesterday (Saturday) we had our final presentations for the English camp. We invited all the parents to come and watch the kids do a little speech about the book each class had read. My class did a great job, despite our poster boards constantly falling. One of the boys had a little trouble standing still, and it turned out to be pretty hilarious. I think this video might be one of my favorite things from this trip. Its kind of long, but definitely worth it. (sorry, I'm having technical difficulties putting the video up) I love these kids a lot and it was a lot of fun to work with them.
After the presentations, we went to the LotteMart to get groceries. If HomePlus = Walmart, then LotteMart=Meijer, only way better. They had free food samples at the end of pretty much every isle, and it was some pretty good food. If I ever go to Korea again and need a free meal, I know where to go.
In the evening I went for a bike ride with the kids and then we watched Spiderman III. So, overall, a great day. I'm going to miss it.
I am by no means an expert on cultural issues, nor the study of them. But I have learned a lot about Korean culture since I've been here, and I think I've found an underlying attitude behind some of their customs.
Koreans are very health-conscious. A lot of their food is really healthy, they like to buy organic food, and they really promote exercise. I can't say for sure that most of them actually do exercise, but they have lots of parks with exercise machines in them. I do see quite a few older people walking and using the machines in the morning.
Koreans are not safety-conscious. At least with their driving. Running red lights is totally acceptable, as long as you slow down first. Changing lanes erratically is ok too. Wearing seatbelts is definitely not cool here. I think one of my favorite things is their U-turn lanes. Maybe we have these in the US and I just never seen any, I don't know. Its kinda like a turn lane, only the arrow painted on the ground does a 180 instead of a 90 degree turn.
So what can we learn from these findings? Basically, I think Koreans would rather die in a quick blaze than die slowly from sickness and disease. And I can't really argue with that.
Tuesday
Tuesday was pretty fantastic. The kids in my class were wonderfully behaved, and when we went ice skating there were a bunch of other kids there that we got to meet, and laughed at us when we talked. After work we tried to go to the JikJi museum, but it was closed. I'd explain what that is, but my host family is taking me there Sunday, so I'll probably talk about it then. So we went to the big shopping plaza and had smoothies and bratwursts (not quite the German kind, but they were good). They have these great little smoothie stands where they make the smoothies out of the actual fresh fruit. We shopped around and then went to Home Plus (their version of Walmart). On my way home I had yet another interesting experience with the buses, I had to get off and wait 20 minutes while they refueled and cleaned the bus.
Wednesday
Here's some quick highlights:
I ate dried sardines for lunch today. I ate a big bite before I realized they weren't noodles. But it was good.
Some of the other foreign teachers made dinner for us all tonight, and it was fantastic.
One of the boys in my class is obsessed with the word "kill", and thought it was hilarious to cover up the "s" in "skill".
I'm really enjoying it here, and I feel like I'm finally getting used to things here. I really like the kids here, even if they are out of control most of the time. I like a lot of the food, now that most of my tastebuds have been burned off.
So I completely forgot to write about what happened yesterday. I went with the other foreign teachers and the school director to a place called the Folk Village. It is a very touristy place that has a lot of displays of historic, traditional Korean things, as well as a museum of stuff from around the world. The coolest part, however was the shows. They had a horse show, with guys doing cool stuff like standing on the horses and doing all kinds of tricks on them. They also had one with guys on drums who did some really cool stuff that's hard to describe. Finally, there was a guy who did tricks on a tightrope that were pretty incredible. I will hopefully have pictures and videos of all that in the next couple days.
For anyone who didn't know, today is my dad's birthday.
Today was a fantastic day of experiencing Korea. My host family and I loaded up and headed out to what they called the "valley". I didn't really know what we were doing, only that the kids had their swimsuits and they packed stuff like we were going to the beach. It turns out it was a little bit like going to the beach, only ten times better. After driving around for a while, and stopping to look at a few different places, we climbed down across this mountain stream and found a spot under a bridge in the shade. It was gorgeous, with the stream in front of us and mountains on either side of us. We did some exploring up the stream and had a picnic lunch there.
Our lunch consisted of something called kimbop and ramen noodles. I think the American equivalent to kimbop would a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's something they pack for picnics or when they're hiking and its something pretty much everyone likes. It has rice and vegetables and I'm not really sure what else wrapped up in seaweed.
For dinner we went to another barbecue, which is one of my favorite things about Korea.
In other news, I would like to thank Kevin once again for my Kindle. I've been using it a lot. Right now I am reading Anna Karenina and I'm pretty hooked on it. I have a lot of down time when I'm at the apartment, so that's what I've been doing.
Yesterday after work we went to "The Fortress", or more specifically, the "Sang Dang Fortress." I like to call it the Great Wall of Korea. Much smaller than the one in China. Its basically a really old wall built around the top of a mountain. We took a bus up to it and then hiked all the way around the wall, which took about an hour and a half. Some places had some incredible views of the city and valley below.
I have become a big fan of public transportation while I've been here, but last night almost changed my mind. After waiting a good 20 minutes at the bus stop, I hopped on the same bus I took the other night. I thought I might get closer to my apartment by getting off one bus stop later. Turns out it was impossible to get a cab from that street, though. I walked a few blocks looking for a cab, but only saw a few drive by without their light on. When I finally got one about 15 minutes later, I handed him my paper with my address on it, and he somehow lost it. This paper is pretty important to me because its the only copy of my address I have and it has my host family's phone number. It took the cab driver and I a good 5 minutes of frantic searching before we found the paper under his seat. I finally made it home an hour after I had gotten to the bus stop.
Other than that little incident, things are going great. The kids at school get a little crazy on Fridays so that makes things a little rough. If I ever go to Asia to teach english again, I think I would prefer an older age group. My host family is really nice and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to experience living with them.
Rain, public transportation, and barbecue
Filed Under :
Korea
by DawnHeckman
Wednesday, August 12, 2009I don't really have much to say about the last few days. It's been raining here for two days, which means that I woke up early this morning for nothing. I was going to go out for a run, but it was pouring and I didn't think it'd be nice to come back to the apartment with my clothes dripping everywhere. Hopefully tomorrow morning will be better.
Last night I rode the bus by myself for the first time to save money on taking a taxi across town. The bus took me closer to the apartment but I still had to get a taxi the rest of the way. It was a little scary since I didn't have any idea what I was doing and I can't really read any of the street signs or names of the bus stops. But I made it. And it was cheaper.
Funny tidbit of the day: One of the other teachers had told her students that my last name was Heckman, and one student thought she said "hangman" (which the kids love to play, by the way), so that's what he calls me every time he sees me.
Cool Korean cultural experience: Yesterday we went to dinner at a Korean barbecue, which actually doesn't taste like what we consider barbecue. But it was fantastic. We sat on the floor on mats and ate lots of really good meat. And then some ice cream.
Anyway, I just finished playing a Sudoku game with Tommy, and now I'm headed to bed.
Yesterday we went to the SongNi San national park to do some hiking in the mountains. Well, I thought we were hiking in the mountains. Turns out what we did probably fit the definition of climbing better than hiking. But it was the most amazing hike I have ever been on. It took us about three hours of almost constant uphill climbing and stairs to get to the top, and we had to stop several times to catch our breath and take water breaks. At the top of the mountain, there was basically a huge rock that you could climb up even higher to get on top of and this is what it looked like:
Sadly, we were pretty much inside a cloud so it was hard to see much of the landscape. But it was really high and had a really steep dropoff.
There was also a Buddhist temple at the park that we walked around and took some pictures of, as well as a really big Buddha statue.
In other news, I ate some boiled squid last night. Apparently this is a good snack food while you're watching a movie. It was ok, but kind of tough to chew on.
Korean food. I haven't decided yet what to answer when people ask me if I like Korean food. A lot of it is spicy, which hurts my poor innocent taste buds. They really like rice. Koreans, I mean, not my taste buds. REALLY. They eat it literally every single meal, including breakfast, and they eat a lot of it. They also eat strange things like bean sprout soup and they eat seaweed in every form imaginable.
The first few days I was here, I was super excited to try the food and experience the culture. Maybe a little too excited. I didn't get sick, but I felt real icky after every Korean meal I ate. Which meant that when the next meal came around, I really didn't feel like eating the same food again. I started wishing I had brought some vitamins. There is no way I was getting my recommended daily dose of Vitamin A and Magnesium. And that's where cereal came in. Although Koreans traditionally eat their rice and bean sprout soup and whatever else for breakfast, I've had the option of cereal for every breakfast since I've been here. Hurrah for the Calcium and Folic acid that milk and cereal provide.
Luckily, I did not develop a taste aversion like I had feared. After 6 days in Korea, I can now say that I can eat just about anything without feeling icky.
I think I like the food. At least some of it. I've had at least 5 different things that I can honestly say I would love to eat again. You just have to avoid the things you don't like. And eat some Korean cereal every now and then.
This is a long one, so I've divided it up for your convenience.
Host Family
So I moved in with my Korean host family last night. Thus far it's been an interesting experience. Its a mom, dad, son Tommy and daughter Cherry. Cherry is in first grade and she's real cute. Tommy is about 11 and speaks fairly good English, which is really good. They have a really big apartment on the tenth floor that has a fantastic view of Cheongju. I'm basically sharing Cherry's room with her, which is fantastic because its all pink.
Shopping
This afternoon we went shopping at the market and HomePlus (which is a lot like Target). I bought some inside shoes (because of course you have to take off your shoes when you come inside), a new watch (btw, cheap watches apparently don't exist in Korea) , and a sweet water bottle (which was cheap). We also stopped at a smoothie place that was fantastic. I got an orange smoothie that they made right in front of us by throwing a whole orange into a blender with some sugar and orange juice. (I like to use parentheses)
Taxi
After our shopping trip, I had to take a taxi back to the apartment by myself. It was slightly unnerving because I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've ever taken a taxi and the driver kept asking me questions in Korean that I obviously couldn't answer. Taxis aren't cheap either.
Teaching
Oh ya, and I've had two days of teaching already. It has gone pretty well. I only have four students in my class, three boys and one girl. They're a lot of fun. We basically go through workbooks most of the time, but I try to make it fun. Yesterday afternoon we did a fantastic relay race with them in the afternoon that all the kids loved. I kinda liked it too.
Ice Skating
So I've been ice skating many many times in my life, but never in the summer. I was thinking, ya, ice skating will be kinda chilly, I should probably wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt. But its ridiculous to get all bundled up in the summer. WRONG. It was cold. We took all the kids ice skating today and they had lessons. Besides being cold, it was really cool, and I will definitely put some pictures up soon.
I'm not too ambitious with the blogging right now, so this will simply be a list of highlights from the day.
We made it to Korea!! Our luggage, however, did not. It should get here this evening.
