Checking In

I meant to make a nice long post tonight since it's been awhile since I've written, but it's probably not going to happen. My laundry machine is broken. I think. More than likely I'm just not pressing the right buttons, but I've tried everything I can think of. It filled up with water, started the washing process, and then stopped. I wasn't completely worried, because that happened last time too. This time though, I couldn't get it started again. I was out of ideas, so I had to pull all of my soaking wet clothes out, wring them out, and then hang them up on my drying rack. Luckily the rack fit in the bathroom. I've got the fan on them now, hopefully they are semi-dry by the morning (i.e. not dripping on the floor) and then wearable by tomorrow night. In case you are wondering - yes, I am deeming them "clean". They moved around in soapy water for awhile (actual time unknown) - they're clean.

So my lack of posting has been due to a combination of busyness, laziness, and watching about 30 episodes of Lost in about 3 days. Last weekend I went out to Exit again on Friday night, then on Saturday I spent all day in Seoul. I went with a few Suji people up to Yongsan to go shopping at the enormous electronics mart. I got some awesome speakers for my laptop for about $50, and my apartment is so much more fun for me now.

After that, I separated from those guys and met some people to do a wine making thing. It was pretty fun, we got to taste a bunch of wines, and decide which one we wanted to make. Then we actually got to toss the ingredients into a bucket of water, and in 6 weeks we get to come back and take our wine home. I feel like we cut about a billion corners on the wine making process (there were 5 ingredients: water, grape concentrate, clarifying agent, oak chips, and yeast), but we'll see how it turns out. For less than $30 bucks each we got to taste 10-12 wines, go through the wine making instruction, and then we each get 2 bottles of wine (we decided on a Shiraz and a Cab). Apparently we can also email a picture and they will put it on the label, so I'll take pictures of the bottles when I get them.

After that we all went to this cool little bar where the owner brews his own beer. For the first time in Korea I got to drink some decently priced dark beer. His stout was really good. While we there, I mentioned to one of the guys that I was planning on meeting some people from Suji to see Digitalism that night. Word started spreading around the table and after awhile about 6-8 people were down for going with me. I was pretty happy because I thought I was going to have to find the place by myself and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find my friends once I got there. However, the number severely dwindled when we found out it was 55,000 won.

Pretty soon everyone had made plans to go to a different bar, and I was just going to go with them - I wasn't even sure if I was still going to go to the show. But then 2 guys who I had never met and had barely spoken to that night said they were going to go, and they were just going to stay at that bar until the show started (Digitalism wasn't going on until 1am). So I hung out with them and had a really good time, they were really nice guys. Then we made our way over to the Ritz Carlton and went to the basement and entered Club Eden. The club was really nice, other than Vegas it's probably the swankiest place I've ever been to. And then Digitalism was ridiculous. It's a good thing I had been drinking all day, because I proceeded to dance for about 3 hours straight. Everyone who knows me knows that is a rarity, but hey, it happens every once in awhile, and I had a really good time. They played a lot of their own songs, but then also remixed a lot of popular songs. I can't remember all of them, but I know they played Bloc Party, and they also played the coolest version of "Kids" by MGMT I have ever heard in my life. I remember at the time thinking "omg how did they make this perfect song even perfecter?"

After I got out of there I went to a place to get something to eat because I had to kill time until the Subway started running again at 5:30am. I finally found a place that was open, and just pointed at something that cost 10,000 won on the menu. She gave me a really confused look and said "soup?" and I said "sure". She brought out 2 kinds of gross kimchi, and some other weird not-tasty stuff. Finally she brought out the soup, which was decent, but loaded with seafood that I did not recognize at all. I was really hungry though, so I finished it off. Korean food is about the worst drunk food ever. I was totally queasy after that. I got the bill and it was only 5,000, so I guess she was just looking out for me. I was probably trying to order an enormous 7 course meal originally. Too bad there's no tipping in Korea, or else I would have left her a good one.

So once the Subway started running, I had to go back to Apgujeong which was where I started the night at because I had left the previously mentioned speakers in a locker at the Subway up there. Then all the way back down home. It was about 7:30am Sunday morning when I got home, and I had the next two days off. I only left the house once between then and Wednesday morning, and it was to get pizza.

So I'm really stupid and I forgot to bring my camera that night, but I'll try to steal some pics from other people and post them. For now, I'm going to bed, and so glad this short week is already almost over.

Class Video

Ok, here's a video of my class. I found out the reason that it didn't work last night was because the video I took was way too large to upload. So I found some video trimming software, and cut it down to just the Go Fish game. This is one of my smallest classes, just five boys: 2 Billy's (Billy A and Billy B), 2 Andy's (Andy A and Andy B), and Ben.

Now that I know it's really easy to take videos with my camera, I'll try to get more going in the future.

Kids, Laundry, Food, etc...

So I'm starting my third week here, and it kind of feels like I've been here forever already. People keep telling me that my time here will fly by, but it really doesn't feel like it so far. I've got a normal 5 day week this week, and then next weekend is the Lunar New Year. We get next Monday and Tuesday off for that. Then the following Friday is a training day, so next week I only have to teach on Wednesday and Thursday. It is waaaay too early for me to already be this desperate for a short week, but I really can't wait. Last week was rough because I didn't have many lessons prepared, and I was kind of winging it, and it made for some stressful classes. Today went much better though. The day goes a lot faster when you know what you're doing.

I've gathered that 2009 is a bad year for getting days off for national holidays, and it's kind of a shame that this really long weekend came up so fast, because it is really expensive to get tickets to go anywhere this late. A few people from the school are going to China, but they booked the trip long ago. I got invited to take the train and then the ferry to Japan, but I haven't even gotten paid yet, and I feel like I haven't been here long enough to already start taking trips, so I passed. But apparently a lot of holidays fall on weekends, so we're not getting as many 3 day weekends as we normally would. Chusok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving, is on a Saturday. I've heard that if it would've been on a Wednesday we probably would have gotten three or four days off, but now we will probably only get the Friday.

So far I've only gone to the gym that first morning, which is no surprise at all. I'll try to go a couple times this week though. It's pretty nice in there though, they give you a locker, and you get a little gym uniform to wear (I'll take a picture of myself in the mirror next time I go, it's a dead sexy outfit), so you don't have to worry about sweating in your clothes. You're supposed to bring your own gym shoes since you can't wear your outside shoes into the gym. Since I didn't bring an extra pair of tennis shoes, that means I worked out in my socks. They have a couple of funny machines there, like the one that is just a belt that wraps around you and goes back and forth and jiggles your fat, and the one that you lay on and it turns you completely upside down so all of the blood rushes to your head. Then there are a few others that I couldn't figure out what they did at all. The best thing about the Korean gym is that there aren't a bunch of intimidating buff dudes walking around. In fact there were a few times when I put MORE weight on the machine I was using, which is much different than my standard method of assuming that I can do about half of whatever the person before me was doing.

Below I've got some pictures of some of my classes. The first three are all kindy classes, so they are 6 or 7. Then the last two are of my Kiwi 3 class, which is one of the classes I've had since the beginning. They are probably my favorite class, they're the oldest (maybe 8 or 9?), so I can talk with them more easily. They also drive me the most insane, but I enjoy it. The younger ones took to getting their picture taken much better. I just told them to smile and they started popping peace signs like crazy (the national Korean photographee's pastime). The older kids were a bit more bashful, but eventually came around. Little Sunny even progressed from crouched in the fetal position facing the wall to facing the camera with her hands covering her face. The girl in the middle in the black and white sweatshirt is Angel, and she is the really smart girl I mentioned before. She is probably my favorite student, but man, is she bossy. I just end up letting her have her way a lot because she complains more than everyone else combined.




















































Here is a shot of my laundry machine. I couldn't find ANY instructions online that gave me a clue how to use it, so I just started pushing buttons. And it eventually washed my clothes. So, awesome. Some of them were easy enough. The one on the far left that looks like a faucet is just hot or cold water, and I actually had a few "in between" options. The next one to the right is just how large of a load is it. The two that look like a finger and a play/fast-forward button totally stumped me, so I just kept pressing them until the timer on the left went as high as possible, which was 92 minutes I think. On the first try it started going for about 15 minutes, and then just stopped with 70 something left on the timer. Nothing was happening. So I pressed a bunch of buttons again, which ended with me turning it off and turning it back on again and starting the whole process again. That time it went the whole way though, so, whatever. After the laundry is done, the clothes gotta dry, so thank you whoever left me an enormous drying rack. Here is what a full load of laundry looks like hanging out on a drying rack (taking up my entire kitchen/dining room/living room/foyer.)

This is one page of the menu from Papa Johns, and then the delicious Spicy Chicken Ranch pizza that I got. Unfortunately I think the glare totally whited out my selection from the menu, whoops. Also you get 15-20% off for takeout, so the prices aren't as outrageous as they might seem. (About $15 for a large Spicy Chicken Ranch).









































Tonight I actually got crazy and ate something besides pizza though! I went to this Japanese place and got a wonderful fried pork thing that came with mucho side dishes (which, to the best of my understanding, is the Korean side of this Japanese place showing.) I got a few nigiri style sushi pieces and a couple of maki rolls, some kind of cabbagey thing with thousand island dressing(?) on it that tasted like cole slaw, some crazy thick noodles, and a huge clear POUCH of liquid, that I'm thinking was tea, but I did not open. I've eaten a lot of new things over here, and while most of it is all right, I really miss burritos. I don't think I've gone over the crazy stuff they serve at lunch yet. I've had rabbit and squid multiple times. Sometimes they have these little tiny fish, that you just eat whole. It's just a tiny 1.5-2 inch fish. And you just chew it - eyes, scales, bones and all. It's weird. All of the meat has bones. Ugh. I hate school lunch so bad. At this point my lunch is 90% rice. I stopped trying to like kimchi about 3 days after I got here. Worst food ever. (Editors note: Korean food in general should not be judged by the quality of food served at the cafeteria at Mike's school.)

This weekend was thankfully a bit more low-key than the last. On Friday night I went to Exit again and once again had a grand time. It was a lot of the same people again, but I also met quite a few new people, including the group I accompanied to a noraebang at about 3am. This is actually a great way to do karaoke, because people are much more likely to make complete idiots out of themselves if they know everyone in the room's name. I didn't even have to sing, in fact I wasn't even asked once if I wanted to.


















That night I once again couldn't remember the word for Suji Middle School (I now have it etched in my memory (until I'm drunk again) - Suji Jung Hakyo (probably spelled wrong (who is digging all of these parentheses within parentheses?))) - so I went to a group of cabs, said it in English, and one of them waved me in. He then dropped me off in some area I had never seen before. I said "Suji Middle School?" and he nodded, so I got out. Nevermind the fact that this was not the Suji Middle School. So I started walking and it took me a good hour to get home, luckily I eventually saw a church that is on the bus route from our school to our apartment. It was pretty fantastic considering I started off about a 15 minute walk from home.

Oh yeah, and before going to Exit I went with a bunch of the teachers to this breakfast place called Butterfinger's that was kind of like Korea's take on a Denny's. It was very good - I got eggs, hash browns, ham, sausage, pancakes, the whole deal. As I mentioned before, breakfast is apparently a big deal for the other teachers, so everyone was pretty excited about it.

On Saturday night I just stayed in the Villa (which our apt. complex is commonly referred to as) and went next door and played poker and hung out with some of the other teachers. And I was in bed by midnight or so, which I wasn't sure was possible on a weekend in Korea.

This website is great for humorous Korean shirts: http://www.baboshirts.com/. A lot of them are spot on.
1) The kids LOVE scissors, rock, paper. At first I thought, "aw, that's cute, he said them out of order." Then I realized that everyone here says scissors, rock, paper, and I'm the one who sounds like a jackass when I say rock, paper, scissors.
2) The kids have all been trained to say "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" when you say "How are you?" And they just yell it in this ridiculous 1-2 cadence that leads me to believe they have no idea what they're saying. And yes, it sounds like they're saying "pine" when they say "fine". I just about lost it the other day when I was playing memory with one of my classes. Each vocab word had a card with a picture of the object, and then a card with the actual word. One of the kids who had been closely monitoring what the other kids had been turning over pounced on the cards when it was his turn. First he turns over the word "rock" and yells "Rock!" and then confidently flips over a picture of a lock and yells "Rock!" It broke my heart telling him that those did not match, because his memory was spot on.
3) Soju is already one of my favorite things about Korea, and it definitely makes me "not afraid of the cops" or talking to girls in the bar.
4) The shirt with the two hands making a point with the index fingers really made me laugh, because that is a reference to the fact the kids for some reason love sticking their fingers up your butt. Not making that up - people who have worked with kids in America - is this common for kids all over? I rarely yell at the kids, but that is just crossing the line.
5) The "I'm a Englishee Teecher" one is funny because Koreans hate ending words with consonants. I'm constantly having to correct kids for calling me Teacher Mikuh. That is when they're not calling me Teacher Mariki (their former teacher (female)), Teacher Cola (they saw me drink a Coke once), or Teacher something in Korean (I'm assuming these are not complimentary endearing nicknames.)

Speaking of funny things the kids do, last Friday we were playing games a lot and I let them pick team names in four of the classes. These were the four resulting match-ups:
1) White Dragon vs. White Dinosaur
2) Dangerous Snake vs. Super Power Monkey
3) Jet vs. Fire Dragon
4) Snake vs. Spider

I <3 those kids.

Also I had an incident last Friday where a few of the girls were suddenly alarmed and yelling at me that one of the boys was "bad speaking". Then they told me that he made the "F finger." I just told them I had no idea what they were talking about.

Oh, and for those requesting Engrish (Tim) - I found a great little bit right in my own apartment! The other day I just happened to glance at the teapot that had been sitting on my stove the whole time I've been here. It says Sweetberry Bear on it, but below that, in very small writing, it says: "With incredible magic of the pretty bear, you too will be the best friend like a lot of many people all over the world." Poignant, no? I tried to take a picture but the writing is really small and it wouldn't turn out right. I tried to google for it and interestingly enough the first few results for "sweetberry bear" (in quotes) are nsfw. Gotta love the internet.

That reminds me... the other night a few of the teachers were exchanging stories about all the porn that turns up when they look up (seemingly) totally innocent things in front of the kids. One lady said that she tried to look up country music and porn came up - I'm not really sure how that happened. (I asked her if she forgot the "o" in country, got a few laughs, and did NOT credit Family Guy.) Some of them make a little more sense - snake, box, fox. Anyway, the moral of the story is - do all of your internet searching before class.

Finally, I was going to upload a video that I took of class. I tried to do it last night but it was taking forever to upload, so I let it go over-night. This morning, it was still not uploaded, so I'll have to try again tonight.

Totally forgot about caffeine

I'm ridiculously tired today. I had a half hour lunch, and a break from 3-4, other than that it was straight teaching from 9-6. During my break I was trying to find material for my future lesson plans, but was unable to keep my eyes open. After work I was thinking about how it's weird how tired I've been the whole time I'm here. I thought maybe it was because I went to the gym this morning, but normally running or doing push-ups or sit-ups in the morning gives me more energy if anything. Finally I remembered that while working in Chicago I went out for lunch every day and it normally included a massive soda. When I went to Subway (which was 3 or 4 times a week), I would get a 32oz Vault, which I think has more caffeine than Mountain Dew. So I bought a 12oz coke to take to work tomorrow in case I feel like I'm dying again. It's good that I'm doing something about this crippling caffeine addiction, but I don't think cold turkey is the way to go, so I'll try to ween myself.

I did laundry tonight, which was interesting. Also I got some pictures of the kids, and the gym is definitely worth talking about. So I'll try to get a post in over the weekend.

Sounds like the Illini were pretty awesome last night, I think we'll give MSU all they can handle. If my calculations are correct it'll be on at 6am Sunday morning for me, so who knows, maybe I'll be able to find a live stream.

First Gym Membership

So I guess this as good of a time as any for me to start turning new leaves. I just paid 120,000W for a 3 month gym membership. That's a bit cheaper than any gym membership I ever heard of in Chicago, so I figured what the hell? Well, at least I think I joined. I went up there and someone said "Can I help you?" (at least I think that's what he said). I said "3 month membership?" and he thought for a little bit and said "12?" Luckily I knew that it was going to cost 120,000W (my friend just joined last night) so I figured that he was struggling with telling me how much it cost. I got out the money and gave it to him and he seemed happy. Then he pulled out some paperwork, pointed to a few places, and said "Name, address, phone". Well I knew my name, so I guess 1 out of 3 is... well, 1 out of 3 is pretty bad. I wrote my name and pointed to the other spaces, shrugged, and said "Address, phone - tomorrow."

Then he started saying other stuff that was mostly Korean and gestures, and I had no idea what he was saying. Finally he said "Gym today? Gym tomorrow?" I think he was asking when I wanted my membership to start, so I said tomorrow. Then he took my picture with a webcam. So on my page on the computer they had my name and my picture. I thought for sure there had to be more. Don't I get a card? Something to prove I just paid you 120,000 in cash? I said "Card?" "No card," he says. So I say "Tomorrow. I just walk in?" I'm not sure he understood me because he just said, "You very handsome." Nothing like a compliment to ease my worries I guess, because I just bowed, said "Kam sa hamnida" and headed towards the exit. He smiled and bowed, so I guess I did everything I need to do. We'll see tomorrow. Maybe really handsome people don't need identification?

I had a great meal today with the principal and a brand new teacher from America. We knew we were having dinner with her, but didn't know where we were going. And the principal speaks pretty much no English at all. The car ride was weird because I felt bad talking to the other guy, I mean, I know what it's like when you are standing there while two other people are having a conversation in another language. So it was mostly silence. Every once in awhile she would ask a really simple question, or make a very simple statement about the school. Mostly it didn't make sense and we would just smile and say yes.

Once we parked she said "Hot dog? Chinese? Spaghetti?" We looked around and those three options were indeed all around us. It's kind of funny because I have noticed that Korean people seem to think that Americans hate Korean food. I mean, they are right for most part, but hey we're in Korea, you should be forcing it on us. So we asked for Korean food. She took us to a samgyeopsal place, which falls in the Korean bbq family. I just read the link I provided and it pretty much exactly describes our meal, except we didn't have soju. The picture is one I found on the internet, but it looks fairly similar to our meal. You just pick up a piece of lettuce, throw in pork, rice, kim chi, greens, onions, garlic, and whatever else is in front of you. It was really good! The table was filled with bowls of random stuff, which is how most Korean meals go down. Double dipping is not an issue. I have heard that sometimes people will use the opposite end of their chopsticks to pick up food, and then eat with the other end. However, I've never seen anyone do that. So it's pretty much chopsticks in the bowl, chopsticks in your mouth, chopsticks right back in the bowl. There was also hot and cold soup, some kind of egg soup/paste thing, and these really strange little rectangles that had the texture of cheese but tasted like something in gelatin family. Not really sure at all, but it's pretty good with pork inside of it. Oh and also when we were walking in she said "Samgyeopsal... pig!". Which is kind of funny because just yesterday one of the other teachers told me the cooks made fun of him for referring to our meal as mulgoki, a word which apparently is only used for fish swimming in water, not fish for eating. Ah... language.

I forgot my camera today, so no pictures of the enormous classes at the Suji Jayeon, but tomorrow I start my regular classes and I will try to remember to take pictures of some of them. I can probably get the Korean teacher to take a picture of us, so I can be in it too. My camera also takes videos, so maybe I'll get a video of them doing something too. I'm really glad to be out of that school. I had no training for how to teach classes that large. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Starfall.com, because without it I would have been lost. Also, the boiler was broken there, so there was NO HEAT. The poor kids don't complain at all, they just plop down on the ice cold floor and go about their day. Meanwhile I'm wearing my coat, huddled in front of a space heater the whole time.

Anyone, please feel free to give me a recap of the UI/UM game which I guess is coming up tomorrow morning for me/tonight for you. I-L-L.

Must Sleep...

So today was my longest day yet. As I said earlier, this is my first week of having a full schedule of teaching. The only wrench in that plan was that this week is "open week". Open week means that, depending on class sizes, each kindergarden teacher has to teach one or two classes with all of the students' parents there, and a camera person. So all of the teachers hate this, obviously, because it's super stressful and impossible to get the kids to act normal with all of those distractions. Thankfully they made special arrangements and had one of the more experienced teachers (who was supposed to be starting at a different school this week) cover my kindy classes. So she had one open class yesterday, and has another one tomorrow. So on Thursday I will actually begin my real schedule.

While she is doing that, I have to cover her morning classes at the Suji branch. It is a lot different over at that school. From what I have heard it is the "forgotten" school. There are a bunch of huge condos being erected right next to the school and apparently it's really driven attendance down. Well, for attendance being down, there sure are a lot of kids. I have eight 25 minute classes from 9-1, and each class has about 25 kids. My lesson plans are getting really repetitive, but the kids somehow always keep your energy up. My new favorite song is the short vowel song, it is super addictive. "A-a-a-a apple, e-e-e-e egg, i-i-i-i inchworm, the short vowels we do sing..." Oh man it is great, and I can't get it out of my head.

Anyway, then I swung back over to the Bojeong school because I had a 1:50 class there. The girl who has been covering for me just wanted me to prepare those kids for the open day tomorrow, which meant make sure they have all of these vocab words memorized. Which meant 55 minutes of Go Fish and Memory! I was like, "Really?" But she told me that was the best way to get them to know the vocab, and I certainly wasn't going to argue. At 4:10 I have my class that I have had ever since the first day. That class is getting more and more interesting, because the kids all know me now, and some of them are starting to act up as they get a bit more comfortable. There is this one girl who knows all of the answers and gets really mad when I don't call on her. Then when we're supposed to all read together she purposely reads way faster than everyone else. It's like having a little me in my class, and I love her.

Then at 5:10 I had my "free-talking" class. It was just three kids (two girls, one boy), and they were all 13 or 14 (which in Korean age, I guess they were maybe 12 or so). There is no curriculum, the head Korean teacher told me I could just do whatever I wanted. So I just spent the whole class talking to them about whatever. I asked them what I should do for fun in Suji (apparently the Suji Royal Sportscenter is the place to be, I'm gonna have to check it out), what they liked to do, what did they do this weekend, etc... It was a pretty fun class. They were a little tough to crack, but they started opening up eventually. We talked about video games, and they said they liked Sudden Attack. They had never heard of any of the first person shooter games I brought up (seriously, you all love "Sudden Attack" and no one's heard of Halo?) One of them said they went to sing karaoke this weekend so I asked them what kind of music they like and they said Big Bang and Wonder Girls. I had actually already heard of both of them so I was pretty proud of myself.

I have to take a second to talk about Korean music. They are absolutely obsessed with pop music. That's all there is. It's hilarious. And they still love the thing that was really popular a few years ago where a girl pop singer would sing, and then some rapper would rap. You know like all the songs with Mariah Carey and Big Pun, or whoever was collaborating for that last chart-topper. That's every song here. Pop, with some rap verses. Also, in order for it to be a legitimate Korean hit, you have to toss some English into the chorus. Points are NOT added if the English words make sense, so no sense in overexerting yourself. But I do have to say that it's hard to change the channel when the Wonder Girls come on. Even though they are basically the Korean Danity Kane, it's somehow different. It's just hard for Koreans to look like nasty hoochie skanks, even when they're trying. It goes back to the classiness thing. Oh, and they're super hot.

Anyway, if you were adding it up in your head, I had 7 hours of teaching today, and my contract says that I don't have to do anymore than 6 a day, so I got overtime today (as I will every Tuesday and Thursday when I have my free talking class).

This one is especially for Brett and Josh, but I'm sure lots of you will get a kick out of it. On Saturday night we had stopped at a little street vendor and while I was just looking at the wares all of a sudden the dude working the stand started saying something and pointing at me. One of the girls I was with says, "OH! He's saying you look like Jude Law." And he's like "Yes! American actor! Jude Law!" It didn't seem like the appropriate time to tell him Jude Law is British so I simply said "kam sa hamnida!" Anyway, got a pretty good laugh about that one, since somehow that became a big topic of conversation back home. So far that is 2 Jude Law's, and 0 Steve Nash's that I've gotten since being here.

Ok, I'm going to bed now, I still haven't learned how to use my Korean laundry machine, that is tomorrow night's project I guess. For now, I'm off to find out if Chuck and Blair can somehow get it together and be happy.

First Weekend

So i got my first taste of Korean nightlife, and I was not let down. This weekend was a complete drain, I think I'm going to have to just stay in and watch a few movies next weekend (typical Monday talk there).

So Friday night started off with Hollis and I making our way to downtown Suji. I brought my camera but the stupid battery was dead, so hopefully I can get some of his pictures later. Downtown Suji is pretty sweet, there is a lot of stuff going on down there. Our first stop was Subway, because we had both been craving it. It did not disappoint. I got the Cold Cut Trio, which is my old standby, and was shocked when they were putting nice slices of what looked like turkey, ham, and some other fresh looking meat on it. Anyone who has ordered a Cold Cut Trio before knows that this is a step up. Next time you're in a Subway ask the person who is making your sandwich what kind of meats are in a Cold Cut Trio. They will not know.

After that we made some power-ju (or poju, as it is also apparently referred to as) and started to walk around and scope the area since it was a little early to go to the bar. We got really cold really fast though, so we ended up just hanging out in the McDonald's and finishing them there. In Korea it is perfectly fine to just sit and chill for a long time in the McDonald's without ordering anything, so that is exactly what we did. Eventually we headed out and started looking for Exit, the bar we were going to. I thought I knew where it was, but anyone who has ever trusted me to know where something is will not be surprised to learn that I was wrong. We wandered for awhile, and with a little help from some locals, we eventually found it.

It was a really nice bar, the music wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be (they played Limp Bizkit, and some of the Koreans went ka-razee, haha), the drinks were cheap, and it was filled with what seemed like 80% of the foreign teachers in Suji (not really, but a lot). One of the other teachers from my school was there and she introduced me to so many nice people. Also, they have Jaeger bombs, just with Bacchus (Smarties-flavored energy drink) instead of Red Bull. So that made me feel right at home. It was a great time, and I hope to become a Friday night regular.

Saturday night it took me a little while to get going, and I actually briefly considered staying in. Then I drank that Korean plum wine, and although it was completely nasty, I give it props for changing my mind. One of the other teachers, her friend and I got on a bus and headed into Seoul. We encountered a few problems with our cabs (problems = went the wrong way for a long time), but eventually got to our destination, a bar called Sensation in Hongdae. I walked up to the bar and looked in the fridge and saw that they had Guinness, so I excitedly ordered one, and handed the bartender 10,000W (~$10). When I received 1,000W back I looked at the menu, and much to my chagrin realized I had ordered the most expensive drink in the bar.

The bar was a cool place, there were dj's early in the night, and then eventually a few people got up and rapped. First up were two American guys whose songs were kind of cheesy and terrible, but freestyling skills were above average (this evaluation is based solely off of the fact that I have seen 8 Mile 1.5 times.) Next was a Korean guy who was really drunk and kept forgetting his lines. He got a lot better once he started rapping in Korean.

I also met a cool guy from Chicago who went to U of I, he invited me to do this wine making thing with some of his friends, so hopefully I can make some friends outside of school. Also he lives in the Hongdae area, which is by far the best area in Seoul for seeing live independent music. Back when I was at home I started listening to a few Korean hardcore bands, and pretty much the only one that caught my ear was this band called Hollow Jan (I don't expect this link to entertain anyone not named Tim Franklin - the Hyacinthus song is awesome). They are playing at a bar in Hongdae next Friday and I might actually try to go by myself and see if I can make some friends. I have talked to a few people about music, and have definitely met people with good taste, but no one who would really enjoy a hardcore show I don't think. It seems like every person I have a music conversation with attended the Jens Lekman and Bjork show, which is pretty cool. Other concert buzz: The Roots are coming but it is apparently almost $100, and I am going to see Digitalism at the Ritz Carlton in a couple weeks.

Ok, got a bit off track there, back to Saturday night. At about 3:30 we ventured out to find Ice Bar, which was our goal for the night, since none of us knew where it was. After asking a few people we actually found it pretty easily though.

So Ice Bar is what it sounds like, it's a bar made out of ice. You go in and you have to pay 15,000W, and that gets you one drink. I ordered something called a Strongman which had gin, rum, tequila, and some other nasty stuff in there. When I read the description it sounded like a Long Island. Well it managed to be even more gross than the worse Long Island I have ever had (anyone remember Skank from the PT days?). It only proceeded to get more gross when one of my friends kept swiping bottles from behind the bar and adding shots to our drink when the only employee wasn't looking. The best part about the drinks were the ice glasses. They were made of ice - we know - because we licked them (just remembered that... gross. I mean, they aren't washing those things - they're ice! And I doubt every new customer is getting a new glass sculpted for them. So that means... best not to think about it.) It was really weird in there. It was really small, and we were the only four people for awhile, then three more people walked in. We finished our drinks and left after about 15 minutes.

From there we went to a couple more dance club type places. I kind of zoned out for this portion of the night. I was getting tired and my friends were all dancing and that is just not really my scene. I sat at the bar and talked to a couple people, but the conversations in a club at 4 in the morning aren't usually the most stimulating. Luckily we left soon (both of the other guys we were with at this point had their coats stolen at the coat check. Mine was there, but uh... lesson learned - don't trust the coat check. One guy said that was not the first coat he's lost at a coat check.)

The last stop of the night was a more pubby type place and I had a lot more fun there. We played pool against some dudes from Cote d'Ivoire and totally dominated. Eventually they made us leave the bar, even though I was told that bars in Korea don't close - lies! Anyway, it was about time SOMEBODY told me to go home. At this point I had lost my teacher friend, who was the only other person from Suji. Luckily her friend used to live in Suji, and put me in a cab and told him to take me to the bus stop I needed to go to.

I got on the bus, and looked at my clock, because I knew it was going to take about 40-45 mins, and I was going to be needing to pay attention in order to see which stop to get off at. All of that was for naught because some period of time later I was awoken by the bus driver yelling at me in Korean and pointing towards the door. I looked at him with clear distress in my eyes and just said "Suji?" He pointed at the bus stop across the street.

So I trudged across the street, the sun was now up and I had no clue how far past Suji I was. After waiting for about 5 mins, a few cabs started pulling up and stopping in front of the bus stop. I walked up to one and said "Suji Middle School?" I had been told no less than 20 times how to say this in Korean, because that is the one landmark that almost any cabbie will know that is near our place. At this point my brain wasn't in the mood for "remembering", so English was going to have to suffice. A few of the cab drivers talked amongst themselves and eventually one of them motioned for me to get in.

Once we were riding I started counting how much cash I had left, since I knew it had been an expensive night. 7,000W in bills, and another 2700W in coins. Keep in mind I have no idea how long this ride is going to be. Pretty soon we are cruising at like 50mph and the meter is racing above 8000W. I tap the cabbie on the sholulder and hand him all of my money and then hold up my palms. He counts it at the stop light, and keeps driving, I was kind of hoping he would just take sympathy on me. But fortunately we quickly arrived at the only area of Suji I recognize and I had made it back safely! And it was only 8am!

So yeah, the weekend was nuts, but actually kind of reminded me a bit of Chicago. There is nothing anyone here can throw at me I haven't already experienced back home in the drinking department. Brett, Josh, Matt: thank you, I think?

Other stuff:
1) I just ate Papa Johns and it was delicious! They have a crazy extensive menu here, but I was boring and just got a supreme. I have eaten pizza over half the nights I've been here, but mostly from this place called Pizza School that is ALSO delicious, and cheaper. Papa Johns still gives you the Garlic Cheese dip, but no pepperoncini peppers. They also throw in sweet pickles (why? gross) and tabasco (awesome, saving that for later).
2) Just read about the Golden Globes. There are a lot of movies I haven't seen. I have super fast internet now (no longer stealing wireless) and am currently downloading: Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, Milk, The Wrestler, and Vicky Christina Barcelona. Considering I haven't watched any movies since I've been here, I should have them all watched by never. I was very happy to see Slumdog Millionaire, John Adams, and Anna Paquin do well!
3) Had my first day of full teaching today. I had to cover for another teacher at the Suji branch. Instead of 55 minute classes, they have 25 minute classes. So I taught 10 mini-classes today. Which means I sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" 10 times! And loved it a little more every time! These cute little Korean kids remind me of this song --> Kids Are So Small.

Bye!

The School

Ok, so tomorrow is finally Friday, this has been the longest week ever, it feels like forever since I've had a weekend. This first week at school I have spent a lot of my time just feeling kind of useless and out of place, there has been training and observation, but I'm actually really looking forward to teaching a full load of classes next week.

So my typical day goes like this. In the morning someone from the school comes and picks us up in a van at our apartment complex. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but all 15 or 16 units in our complex are teachers at one of the three Jayeon schools. So 7 of us ride in the van every morning and 4 or 5 other foreign teachers get there on their own. So right now we have over 10 foreign teachers at my school, but I know at least two are leaving soon, because they are covering me and Hollis while we train. We get there at about 8:45, and first classes start around 9:10.

The school has a really large staff, there are probably around 15 or so Korean teachers (that is, Korean people who are teaching English). Then there are also a couple of Chinese teachers (teaching the kids Chinese), a music teacher, and I think there is also a swimming teacher, but I think they only do swimming classes in the summer (I asked, and the pool is not for use by the teachers). Then there are also at least 5 administrative people, two cooks, and a cleaning lady. And out of ALL of these people, there are only 4 dudes. Me, Hollis, and two guys from South Africa. I actually just noticed that today.

So, some of the Korean teachers teach English classes, but some of them are there just to help out the foreign teachers. Every day, for at least part of my class, one of the Korean teachers has sat in there with me. They're there for a few reasons: they will discipline the children in Korean if need be, they need to observe the children because every few weeks or so they have to call the parents and tell them how their child is doing, and I'm pretty sure they're also there to check on the teacher too. The foreign teacher manager, who is a guy from South Africa, told us that they were not there to do that, but I don't believe it. But I'm not too worried about it, I'm already pretty confident I'll do a good job. And they are also really helpful. They are always offering to help us with lesson prep. So far I have taught the short "u" sound and the short "i" sound (I got some bad information and accidentally skipped "i" and "o" on my first day). One of the girls printed out a bunch of pictures from the internet with those sounds and laminated them for me. It was great!

So as I alluded to when I mentioned short u's and i's, I am going to be teaching phonics. The foreign teachers are split and either teach phonics or "themes". There seems to be a prevailing attitude that themes are easier and more fun to teach, and other teachers have seemed to kind of feel sorry for me, or at least seem to expect me to complain about teaching phonics. I honestly don't see it that way. Let me explain what the theme teachers do. They spend two weeks on a certain theme. Examples of themes are: the sea, space, farm life, the hospital, the market, etc... And while I think that would certainly be fun, I appreciate the routine and rigidity of the phonics schedule. I think I'll be able to hit my stride a little bit more easily. And it's not like this is some hardcore boring phonics class. You teach them a sound, and then play games the whole class. The games are great, and the other teachers have given me so many ideas for games. They all drive home the lesson... it's not like we're just playing simon says or something (ok, sometimes we just play simon says). No, but honestly, there are a lot of creative games that can teach kids phonics while they're having fun and running around. It's really a lot of fun.

Since I mentioned the themes, I wanna show you guys the pictures of the "theme rooms" we have on the fourth floor. The teachers can take the kids up there to set the atmosphere for the lesson. Any teacher will admit that the theme rooms are mostly eye candy for the parents, and are simply there to drive up enrollment, but it is a business after all. I'll talk more about that later.















































So that's the: supermarket, pharmacy, space room, florist, broadcasting room, and sea room. There are a few others too, but you get the idea. And here are a couple pictures of my room.











It's one of the smaller rooms, but it's still pretty nice, and has everything I need. The tv is connected to the computer so you can show videos and stuff easily. Here is a picture of the Korean Montessori teacher's room. It's one of the nicer rooms, because the Montessori method allows the kids to just wander around and do whatever they want the whole class (at least that is my early impression). When you're not actually teaching, you need a lot to keep the kids occupied. (Sorry if the formatting got all screwed up with the pictures. I'm too tired to fix it, so hopefully you can figure out what I'm talking about.)

One of the other great things about the school is the cafeteria. We get free breakfast and lunch every day! The breakfast thing just started after the holiday break. On Monday during the "welcome back" speech we were informed that we could request anything we want from the cooks and they would buy it and make it for us. This includes stuff like eggs and ketchup and cheese and all of those other things that Westerners love. Then on Tuesday at about 8:50 word spread like wildfire throughout the school that "they're making omeletes in the cafeteria!" We didn't have morning classes until Wednesday so every single foreign teacher went down there and ate. I had an omelete and about 3 fried eggs. It was ridiculous. I guess it is an extreme rarity to find a place that serves "western" breakfast anywhere in Korea. So this is a pretty big deal. Me, I just had eggs for breakfast on the flight over, so it's not like I was going through withdrawl or anything, but I can still appreciate it.

The only other pictures I have from the school are are these shots from the roof. Everywhere you look in Korea there are just endless rows of enormous apartment buildings. There are almost no houses anywhere. And as you can tell it is kinda smoggy. I got laughed at when I called those things behind the buildings "mountains". The teachers from more scenic parts of the world call them hills.

So, that's the basics of the school. Once I have my own regular classes and the kids are more used to me I'll take some pictures of them, because they really are the best part of the school. My class today was my best by far, I feel like they got the lesson, and had a ton of fun too. I was walking down the hall early this afternoon before my class and one of the kids said "Hi Teacher Mike!" - it was one of the best feelings. I can't wait until they all remember me and are used to me.

Other quick notes:
1) I just had my first "uh... i don't think this is chicken" experience with my takeout from the local chinese place. I'm not gonna lie though. Whatever it was, it was delicious.
2) The Discovery Channel is one of the only "all English, all the time" channels. And I thought that it was impossible to watch more Discovery Channel than I did with Dustin.
3) I found out that the rubber scraper thingy the girl left in the bathroom is most likely not for squeegy-ing the fog off of the mirror, but for pushing all the water into the drain after you shower. So no more wet socks.
4) 95% of the cars are Hyundai or Kia. I have seen ONE American car the entire time I've been here (and I've been looking). It was a Ford Taurus! And it was crazy! It looked like a luxury car. I can honestly say it was the second most pimp Ford Taurus I have seen in my life.
5) Here is what I bought on my most recent trip to the supermarket. Those are two beers on the left, Korean plum wine in the middle, and two bottles of soju on the right. Then some milk, hot sauce, toothpaste, and soap.

Alright, this might be my last entry for a couple days, who knows how the weekend will go. But I love reading all of your comments. It's made getting up really fun every morning to see who is reading.

My meeting with the Director...

This morning at school I was observing a class when one of the Korean teachers poked her head in and asked me to come with her. She told me that the Director wanted to meet with me. It was a little scary, just because she is the super big boss, even above the principal of the school. Up to this point my only encounter with the Director was when she gave a welcome speech to all of the teachers from all three Jayeon schools. The speech was given through an interpreter because apparently she doesn't speak any English. I think she knows a passable amount, but just doesn't want to say anything wrong, so just chooses to not speak any at all.

Anyway, the Korean teacher interpreted for us during the meeting. She asked how I was liking the school and how I was adjusting, and I responded with fine, fine... then we got past the pleasantries. The Director rambles on and on for about 30-45 seconds and the Korean teacher says to me, "Do you know about the bad world economy?" "Uh, yes." More Korean talking... "Enrollment is quite down because of the bad economy." "Oh, is that so?" Excruciatingly long break for more Korean talking. "The Director met with the principal from the franchise school you are supposed to go to, and they cannot afford to pay another teacher right now because there aren't enough students." "blank stare..." More talking... what is she talking about? Why do I only get 1 sentence of translation per 30 spoken in Korean??? "So we would like to know if you would be willing to stay here and teach for the full year." "relief."

So, I'm going to be staying in Suji! Which is what I've wanted ever since I got here. And apparently the Director is really happy because I'm being flexible, so - bonus! So I'm in a really good mood, and couldn't be happier with the way things are going so far. I'm also insanely tired right now, as I have been every night. And I'm only teaching one class a day. Starting Monday I have 6 classes MWF and 7 TuTh. I am so not ready for that schedule.

Since I'm going to be staying at the beautiful new Bojeong branch of the Jayeon ESOL school, I will dedicate a whole post to it next. Actually describing life at the school could be two posts. I think I really underestimated how much my life would be dominated by my job.

Also coming up soon I will describe Suji a little more, describe the Korean people and my interactions with them, and talk more about Korean tv, because I love it. Also maybe more bathroom talk, since that seemed pretty popular.

Exploring Seoul

By the time the welcome crew left my apartment on Saturday night it was after midnight, and I was ready to go to bed forever. As many of you know I absolutely require the tv to be on while I sleep, so I was happy the cable was hooked up and ready to go. I would have been happy with watching some random Korean show, but I found that at any given time you can find 4 or 5 things in English. I found the Simpsons on a channel called Tooniverse and was pretty much as happy as I could be.

I slept until almost noon, and shortly after Hollis and I headed out to explore. Our neighborhood is really nice, it's pretty similar to any busy neighborhood in Chicago. There are restaurants, shops, and anything else you could need all in walking distance. We decided we wanted to see Seoul and went to a bus stop. Luckily Hollis can read Korean, because I would have had absolutely no idea where I was going. After about 40 mins we were in Itaewon which is the "foreigner" area of Seoul since it is right by the American military base. It was kind of overwhelming, there were a lot of great places to shop I'm sure, but I haven't been here long enough to figure out what I need.

After awhile we got on the subway and rode to Jamsil which is another great shopping area. One of the biggest things in Jamsil is Lotte World. When we got off of the subway, we actually found it difficult to get outside because right away you are in Lotte World which is this huge maze of shopping, movies, restaurants, and apparently there is an indoor/outdoor amusement park around there somewhere, although I didn't see it. Actually, pretty much everything in that area seemed to be "Lotte-something". We eventually made our way to Lotte Mart, which is an enormous department/grocery store. We even ate at Lotteria - the Korean McDonalds. To the left there is a picture of part of Lotte World.

During the day I had been looking for a camera (since I lost mine at some point during the "I don't remember anything for this four hours" part of my going away party), and after shopping some prices I found a good deal at Lotte Mart. Buying a camera in Korea isn't as easy as buying a soda or something. Up to this point I had pretty much been able to hand them what I wanted, hand them some money, and the transaction was over with no speaking (except perhaps me butchering a Korean thank you at the end.) The lady behind the counter was asking me all kinds of questions, apparently undeterred by the utterly vacant look in my eyes. At one point I thought they were trying to upsell me a tripod, extra memory card, and camera pouch. I pointed at all of that stuff and shook my head, and then pointed at the camera box and nodded my head. Then she said the magic word. She smiles and points at all of extra stuff and says "Service!". Luckily I had learned that service means "this is free". So I got a nice camera and a bunch of extra stuff for 179,000 won, which is probably the same as I would have paid in America, but I got a charger that actually works with the outlets here, and it was a fun experience.

We really had a good time wandering around that day. After we got to Jamsil we each made a "power-ju" which is just a big Powerade with a bottle of soju poured in. It was definitely key, because it loosened us up, and after awhile it felt like wandering around a foreign city with some guy I met the night before was the most natural thing ever.

Jamsil seemed to be a pretty upscale neighborhood, and I quickly noticed something. Korean dudes dress waaaay better than I do. And the girls all seem super classy and way out of my league. Koreans definitely know how to look good. One of my goals for this year is to develop a sense of Korean style. Step one seems to be get a pair of designer glasses. Step two is always wear a scarf. Step three is that your jeans have to be pretty much the opposite of the ones I wear. I tend to like the plain, not a lot of fade, no weird rips look. This may take some time because glasses and scarves are both really annoying, and I just can't get into that jacked-up jeans look.

On the way back we took the subway to the Migeum stop which is the closest one to us, and cabbed back to the apartment. On the wiki that I linked you will see how they refer to Migeum as "small" compared to it's neighbors. The picture to the right is of an intersection in Migeum. Small, clearly.

So we made it back in plenty of time to get tons of rest for our first day at work. I will get into what the school and the kids are like next time. Last nights episode of Gossip Girl just got done downloading, so that is pretty much all I've got in store for the rest of the night. Speaking of which, Gossip Girl is apparently on every morning at 8am, so the last two days I have watched the first half of it before I leave for work. Have there been any new episodes of any other shows I watch? Please let me know if so.

Oh and also, why didn't anyone tell me that Chester dunked in the Michigan game!?! Can someone get me a video of that? I searched for awhile at work and couldn't find it. After those two road games I think 1-1 is a great Big Ten record. And things are going to be even better after we beat Indiana by 50 and then redeem ourselves against Michigan at home.

Ok bye everyone! I'll probably write again tomorrow.

Arriving / Adjusting

Hi everyone, I'm just finishing my second full day here in Korea. The flight was long but fairly uneventful, the only snags I had were having to pay $150 to check my overweight bag, and having to sprint through the Tokyo airport to make it onto my connecting flight to Seoul.

Once I got through customs and got my bags I got to an area where I saw a bunch of people holding up signs waiting for people. I started looking for my name, and eventually saw a guy holding a sign the says "Welcome to Korea Michael!". So I walk up to him, and say, "Michael Fitzgerald?" Then he said something in Korean, and at that point I realized we were not going to be able to communicate. I just happened to look at the sign again, and I realize there's a picture on there of a person that is not me. So I just walked away, assuming that he was welcoming a different Michael to Korea. About 10 minutes later I see him walking towards me again, and this time he's with a girl who has another sign that says, "Welcome to Korea Lima!". And it has a picture of me on it. Apparently they had the names and pictures switched of me and the other guy who was starting with me. So we found "Lima", whose name is actually Hollis Lima (he is still having trouble with people from the school calling him by his last name despite numerous corrections) and we hopped in a van and started heading off.

During the ride back I started talking with Hollis, and found out that he had taught in Korea last year too, so he was able to give me some good introductory information. Unfortunately, I didn't really know much about where I was going or what I was doing. I thought I was going to Bupyeong which is west of Seoul, but we found out we were both going to be living in the same apartment in Suji, which is southeast of Seoul. I think I have finally determined that that I am going to be training/observing here in Suji and then moving to Bupyeong at the end of January. The situation isn't ideal, because I'd like to just settle in here, get to know the neighborhood, and start adjusting. It's hard to get settled when you know you are moving in a month though.

When we arrived at my apartment I was really pleasantly surprised. I have a bedroom! And a full size bed! It's definitely small, but more than I was expecting. It was well furnished and stocked with stuff too. I knew there would be dishes and a tv, and a few other "essential" type things, but I was surprised at all the things that were already here. There were hangers, an iron and ironing board, a floor cleaning device, a rice cooker, a knife set, a water cooler (like an office one), a dvd player, a drying rack and a few other things that I didn't bring that are going to come in handy.

Probably the most interesting room is the bathroom. The whole bathroom is your shower. It's pretty strange, and I'm having a little trouble getting used to it. I've gotten over the fact that everytime you take a shower the toilet and washing machine are going to get all wet. But it's other little things that get on my nerves. There is no bathroom sink, so you have to brush your teeth and shave while showering. If you forget, your options are starting up the shower again or doing in the kitchen sink. And i have forgot, and neither of those options are really appealing to me. Another thing is that everything in the bathroom is always wet, and I don't have sandals yet. Right now it is 8:32pm, I took a shower at about 7:15am, and the floor is still wet. And I just had to go to the bathroom, so now my socks are wet.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, wearing shoes in doors is apparently a major no-no here. When we first arrived at the apartment there were about 4 Korean people from the school all milling around my place playing with the heat or something. I went in to join them and as I started to step in Hollis says to me "No shoes in the apartment!" I'm thinking to myself, "What? This is my aparment!" But then I look down and see that all the ladies had taken their shoes off. Then today at school, we all took our shoes off when we got there. And everyone - students, teachers, staff - all walk around in socks (or maybe slippers because it's cold) all day. It's kind of fun actually.

Ok, I haven't covered nearly everything I wanted to, but this is getting long and I'm tired. I will try to write a couple times a week. But it might be more at first since everything seems really "blog-worthy" right now. I'd love to hear your comments, because I miss you all dearly and am craving anything coming from America.

Coming next time: Korean tv, trip to Seoul, the amazing school, my first class, and the adorable kids.