Bye Bye Christina and So Hee!!!

The life of working in a language academy involves seeing many students come and go. I've only been teaching about 5 months now, but already I've had a nearly 90% turnover rate. Some of that turnover is due to changing classes and leveling-up, so Ryan has many of my students and I have many of his. However, a significant portion of that is due to students leaving. I've been a little sad when I lose some students, but I'm particularly disheartened this weekend, since I'm losing 2 of my favorite students, Christina and So Hee. These two provide enormous amounts of energy and enthusiasm to the class that I cannot provide myself. They are amazing people and will be greatly missed! Bye Bye!

John's Christmas Party

I forgot to mention in my last post that last Friday, John had a party last weekend at his house. It was sort of a Christmas Party and a birthday party for Luke. John's really fortunate since he actually lives in a house, which is pretty rare here. Most people, like myself, live in apartments. It's quite a nice place and it was a good party. Here's my first attempts at some indoor pictures with my new camera. It's tough to get people to stay still, so forgive the blurriness.

John and Luke

Sam and So Young

Jin and John

Merry Christmas!!!

It's been a good Christmas here in Korea away from the family and friends from home. Thanks to the Internet, I've been able to keep touch with everybody.

The night before Christmas Eve, Brad invited Ryan and I over to his house to sign a card for Michelle, the boss. Before we left, he offered a shot of Russian Vodka that his Russian Mother-In-Law brought over when she came to visit. We happily drank the shots and went home for the night. I was ready to go to bed early since we had plans to hike Mt. Halla, but I took some medicine without eating any food. Combined with the nice Russian Vodka, my body went into purge mode and I stayed up all night by the toilet. Christmas Eve no longer spent hiking, but laying around, watching movies, and feeling overall miserable. That night we went to a buffet/party at one of the local hotels (KAL Hotel). It was good to get out and get some food, and it was a nice buffet at that. I wish I would've felt better to really enjoy the sushi offerings.

Christmas day was good. I had to work which wasn't too bad. Not having a break over Christmas isn't as bad as not having a break at Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). Koreans have just getting into celebrating Christmas over the past couple of years, so it seems the people as a whole still don't get as into it. On Chuseok though, everything is closed, so it feels weird working that week. Also, I've pretty much grown accustomed to the fact that I won't have any holidays. So it's okay that I had to work. I've worked Christmas day every year I worked at Alta and Loveland Ski Areas, so it's not so different!

Vietnamese Restaurant

I went out for lunch today to a Vietnamese restaurant with the folks from work. It was the first time I've had Vietnamese food and it certainly lived up to the hype that Brad has been giving it these past couple of weeks. I two dishes I liked the most were the rice paper wraps and the pineapple fried rice. They even served the pineapple fried rice in a carved out pineapple! I didn't even think to bring my camera but I wish I did. The restaurant was on the coast and the waves are huge today. This morning there was snow on the ground. I think it's the first snow in the city for the season!

Mandarin Oranges!

Ryan and I were walking back home from Korean class and there was this guy sitting on the sidewalk selling mandarin oranges. Oranges are everywhere right now, so it seems like there's no need to buy them since everyone's always giving you some for free. Well, I heard that you could buy a bunch of them for dirt cheap so Ryan and I thought we'd buy some oranges from this guy. We ended up getting this massive sack full of them for $10 bucks! I swear that sack was at least 20lbs! There's no way I can eat all of these! The picture is of Ryan giving me my share.

Bouldering Comp

My super sweet holiday weekend is coming to a close and man oh man was it a good 3 day weekend. Friday night we had a team bouldering competition at the climbing gym. It turned out to be a super fun contest for the members of the gym. We split into three random teams, each with about 6 people. There were three problems and everyone had one chance to do each of them. You got points based on how far you got. Everyone from the team's scores were added together and the team with the most points won. So who won? We did! But we didn't know this until the next day! They added the scores up wrong! It didn't matter though, the entry fee was to buy a present for less than $10. At the end, we just had a random grab at the prizes with the winning team to choose first.

After the comp, we had a nice galbi dinner. There was plenty of soju passed around, and by the end of dinner, there were quite a few people getting tipsy, so we went to the noraebong. This was my first experience at the noraebong, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. You see, it's basically a small room with a karaoke machine. You rent out the room and sing songs. It sounds lame, but the Koreans really get into it, and it turns out to be fun. We went to the kind where they serve alcohol which added to the fun.

Saturday was a calm, chill day where I just went on a walk around the old town shoppping district looking for camera stores. I didn't find any good ones but I did make it to the Natural History Museum which was a great deal at 500 Won (about $0.50) No pictures of the museum though, maybe sometime else. That night I had a good dinner with Sam, Darren, and Elliot. We traded stories about the comp night and then went to E-Mart where I bought a sweet coffee grinder. After E-mart, I met up with John and Jin and Jin's friend who I'm going to start a Language Exchange with. I'll teach her English and she'll help me with my Korean. It should be great, I'll talk about it more later though.

Afterwards, I went with John and Jin to the sauna! This was my first time to the saunas in Korea. It turned out awesome! I love it! It was pretty much like the one at the capsule in Japan. They give you some clothes to wear, but in the men's section, you have to go in the birthday suit. There's all different types and temperatures of hot tubs, sauna rooms, and even a steam room. In the co-ed section downstairs, there was a fire-kiln room. It was awesome! It was stone room with a fire underneath the floor. It's hard to describe, but it was a small room made of stone. It kinda looked something like the hobbit houses in the Lord Of The Rings. It was a mini door and cone shaped. Anyway, it was really hot, and then we'd go to the fridge room to cool off! All around the co-ed section is a big TV and tons of mats to sleep on too. You could probably use it as a cheap place to stay for traveling. The whole thing is pretty cool. Its too bad that there's nothing like these back home.

Here's pics from the night of the bouldering competition:

Everyone with all their prizes!



Me climbing on the final problem.



The group having dinner afterwards.



This is the only picture that turned out semi-clear from the Noraebong.

Horse for Dinner

"I'm so hungry I can eat a horse!"
-Ryan

Ryan and I have a long weekend from school thanks to school exams and Michelle being out of town for training. We decided to celebrate our holiday by going to the Horse Restaurant that we always pass by on the way to E-Mart (sort of a Korean Wal-Mart). I guess horse is a relatively popular meal here, so we thought we'd try it out. It turned out to be by far the most expensive meal (25,000W per person or $25) I've had in Korea so far, and I have to say it turned out to be pretty good. We ordered the sampler which gave us all different types of horse. We had two different types of horse soup, minced raw horse, and barbecued horse. I probably won't be going back anytime soon, but it was certainly a nice treat!

Climbing Gym

I've been spending a lot of my time at the climbing gym lately. Since I work at night, I usually go by myself during the daytime. There's usually no one there except for the owner and maybe one other lady, Hae Mi. She's a math hagwon teacher and can speak English relatively well. She asks me silly English questions and helps me with my Korean. She isn't a very good climber, but really likes it and is a really nice person.

This weekned was a rare treat and I was able to climb with Darren, Elliott, and Ou Jin. Its fun to be able to climb with these guys since they show me new problems and push me a lot. Climbing is a very social sport and this brings back the social aspect of it for me. It's also fun to climb with the good Korean climbers like Ou Jin. He's just a little above my level, so he can really push me. Darren is also improving fast and I think in many ways he's surpassed my bouldering abilities. He and Elliott are always fun to hang around and climb with.

Here's some crappy photos from our little session:

Foreigners

I try to keep this blog pretty positive since for the most part, since I'm loving living in Korea. However, this morning was very frustrating for me. I feel like I'm spending a significant portion of my time studying Korean. I'm sure anyone that has studied a language can relate to the fact that it is a very slow process and frustrating at times. I'm enrolled in two classes to help me out, but one is too difficult and the teacher is horrible in the other one. Those difficulties make it frustrating enough, but now to add on top of it all, the American and Canadian students in the class with the terrible teacher are starting to get on my nerves. They always seem to ask all these random stupid questions that completely sidetrack the teacher into horrible tangents. I wish the teacher was smart enough to recognize their questions and continue on, but sometimes we spend 10-15 minutes on things like whether or not to spell "cola" with a "k" (like 'kola'). Come on guys! It doesn't matter! I want to know how to spell it in Korean!!! I don't spend 2 hours, three mornings a week to teach this guy English!

It just makes me frustrated that I'm not happy with many of the foreigners here in Korea. They're not the type of people I expected. They're not positive people here to learn and enjoy living in a foreign culture. I don't know exactly what it is about them and I don't know their motivations for being here, but it makes me wonder why someone asks me a question like, "Why are you taking a Korean Language Class?" I guess I'm not content with knowing only how to say "Please give me two more beers." Why are you content with that?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about all foreigners. I really like the guys at the climbing gym, my co-workers Ryan and Brad, and a couple of the guys in the morning class. It just seems like I haven't found foreigners I enjoy hanging around anywhere else. I don't want to be reclusive, but they just aren't fun people to hang around.

Winter Term

My school's schedule revolves around four 13 week 'terms' through the year. We just started the new winter term this week and let me tell you, it's quite a relief. For a month now, I've been teaching a full schedule, so including prepping, I'm at school for 40+ hours a week. I'm still teaching a full schedule, but I'm now teaching duplicate classes which means the prepping has decreased by about 3 hours or so a week. This is a welcome break and should turn out to be really nice. It's nice to teach new classes too. The kids are newly motivated. Some kids have leveled-up to the next level and the ones who didn't are ready to work hard. The worthless students have quit too, which to be honest, is a welcome change. Our academy is a little tougher than the many others in Korea, so many kids don't come with the mindset to work hard and even after 3 months, a select few still don't get it. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing my job as a teacher when I say things like that, but then I think of the gains that the other students are getting and I realize that some kids just don't want to be here. There's nothing I can do about that except my best though.

I've been thinking about talking to my boss to lower my working hours to the schedule I had before. After talking to many other people in Jeju, I feel like I work a fair bit more than everyone else. I don't mind working hard, but 6 days a week every week is tough, even if the Friday and Saturday are only half days. I do also get compensated for the work since my salary is higher than just about everyone I know. I came to Korea expecting a semi-part-time schedule and I didn't come to bust my butt and pay off debt, so I'd like to have just a little bit more freedom. We'll see what comes of it.

(Tol) First Birthday Party

This weekend, The owner of the climbing club's son turned one so they held a birthday party for him. For Koreans, the first birthday is very important since it traditionally shows that the baby has passed the early mortality stage and will likely continue to live. It's called Tol, which is short for 돌잔치. (See! I'm learning a little Korean!) During the birthday, the child does a little ceremony where he's placed in front of a table with a few different objects like money, thread, pencil, book. Whichever object he picks will foretell his future. I came a little late, so I missed that part of the ceremony, and can't tell you what they mean. I got there just in time for the food. It was like an army of people bringing out food and cleaning dishes. There must've been 40-50 people coming through their house. The food was great and I had a great time. I ended up drinking a little bit much soju and whiskey, but that was okay too.

Here's Il Gon (일건)(I think that's how you spell his name?) with his mother Kyung Ah (경아). She's wearing the traditional Hanbok (한복) outfit, and he's wearing a cute outfit someone got him as a present.



This is me and Sang Soo, the father in his Hanbok.



Here's the birthday boy with some money! Maybe that's what he chose!

Here's one of the many tables of food.



And a little birthday cake to finish it off. Ever eaten cake with chopsticks?

Korean Language Class

Unlike most other English teachers here, learning Korean has become a top priority for me. I honestly don't know how these people can keep sane living here for years without knowing any Korean. Most of these teachers only know enough to get food at restaurants and beer at the bars. Learning the language is a slow, painful process, so I can understand how daunting it can be. However, so far for me, the rewards have been worth the effort.

Two weeks ago, Halla College finally offered a Korean course for beginners. There's about 10 or 12 of us that come regularly three mornings a week for two hours. Unfortunately, the teacher is terrible, but I still get quite a bit out of the class. The class is really helping and I can already sense some improvement in my speaking and listening. The three mornings a week kills my schedule, since I pretty much go straight from class to work, but it's nice to keep busy instead of being a lazy bum in the mornings. The class also gives me a lot more direction and pushes me to learn more on a schedule. Learning on my own, I tended to take many days off and would forget everything I had already learned.

Ondol

Ok, so here's a picture of my thermostat(deleted). Pretty interesting huh? Actually, this is provider of one of my new favorite Korean cultural experiences: Ondol heating. None of the buildings in the country really have much for centralized ventilation. Or anything for ventilation for that matter. So every room has its own A/C and its own heat. The heating method used in almost all of Korea is known as ondol. The heating comes from hot water pipes underneath the floor. The radiant heat comes from the floor and heats up the room. Its a pretty awesome system actually. Your feet are always toasty warm and it heats up the place really well. I think its pretty energy efficient also.

I was looking up information about ondol online and I read that this is why Koreans to this day still sit on the floor for meals and don't have beds (they bring out a couple of blankets and sleep on the floor).

Another side note about that thermostat. I still haven't really figured out what all the buttons and switches do. All I know is that I get hot water when I turn it on, and I'm supposed to turn it off when I'm done taking a shower or washing the dishes. It's pretty funny that I've been here almost 4 months now, but I still don't fully understand my own house!

Five Day Farmers Market

Late fall weather and cool temperatures have set in and I've also been a bit sick for the past couple days so I didn't really get any climbing in this weekend. Instead, I decided to do a little shopping at the Five Day Market. Every five days, all the independent vendors get together for a market. You can find a lot of stuff like knickknacks, shoes, clothes, fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, and fish. It seems to be quite popular in the area and there were a lot of people there. The stuff is unbelievably cheap, but you can still end up spending a large chunk of change! I'm sure it's nothing compared to the markets in Seoul, but its still quite an experience. I took a few pictures along the way.

Want some beans? I wish I knew what all those other things were!



Mandarin Oranges are in season and absolutely everywhere, so I'm sure these were dirt cheap.



How about some fish?



Maybe some squid?



Cabbage? Make your own Kimchi!



I'm bummed because I forgot to buy some meat! Oops!

Musecheon

On Sunday, I went rock climbing with the club at the Musecheon riverbed. The difference this time though was that I didn't go with any other foriegners so it was just me and the Koreans. I was a little nervous at first because my Korean is still so terrible but they welcomed me just fine. I learned a few new climbing related words and got on a couple great climbs. Its fun to be able to climb with these guys because they're so excited about climbing, their energy is infectious. They are also very strong climbers and love to share their climbing with others. Afterwards we went out to a great dinner of a sort of corned pig.

This is me with Sang Soo. He's the owner of the gym and club. He summited Everest this summer!



This is me climbing a climb called "April"

Jeju Traditional Culture Tour

Ryan and I went on the Jeju Traditional Culture Tour that Michelle signed us up for. It was a completely free bus tour, put on by Jeju City for foreigners living in the city. It was an all day tour where took us to three different touristy places. There was one bus full of English speaking foreigners, consisting of a few American and Canadian teachers and a few families from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. And another bus full of Chinese students. Ryan and I made friends with a couple of grad students from Pakistan and hung out with them most of the time.

This is our tour guide, Sunni. Right now she's telling us the story of the famous Jeju Women Divers, the Haenyo. Her step-aunt is one!



This is Ryan and I with our new Pakistani friends at Ilchulland park



Here's Ryan grinding some millet.



Here's the a family from Bangladesh posing with the stone grandpas. These grandfather stone statues are literally everywhere throughout the island.



Here's another family posing in front of the trees. Ilchulland was pretty, but mostly just a tourist trap.



Inside of Ilchulland was Micheon Caves. The cave is a lava-tube and is something like 1.5km long. The public is allowed to go 360m or so in before being stopped by the red tape. Throughout there were these huge manmade pillars in the cave. Sunni said that they are there to provide stability to the cave. I hope it doesn't collapse! I have to admit that I did like the painting of the dragon on this one. This is Ryan and I posing with our tour guides.



Ryan and I both agreed that Ilchulland was the low point of the tour, but the ostriches made it worth the visit!



The next stop is a Jeju Traditional Folk Village. The first thing we did at the village was to make these things called "bing dduk." The dough is pretty much the same as a crepe, but you use sesame seed oil on the pan.



You then fill the crepe with a radish/green onion mix for a half decent though quite plain tasting treat.



I just thought I'd throw in this picture of some pigs. Jeju, apparently, is quite famous for its "black pork." I think I've had it though I'm not sure. Whatever I did have that day was really good though. I also like their little house.



After making the food, we had to work in the farm. Literally. Here we are digging for sweet potatoes.

After making the food, we learned how to make rope out of grass. They use these ropes to tie down the tops of their houses. I thought this was really cool. You hook this spinning contraption to the grass and while it twists, all these guys do is feed the grass into it.



Here's me walking away from the guy feeding grass into the rope. You eventually have two ends and then twist those two together. Voila, a rope in 30 seconds!



After we made the ropes, we played a little jump rope.



Then after jumping rope, we sat down and sang a few traditional songs and played some games.



After the folk village, we went to the stone grandfather park. This was a pretty nice park since it looked a little more natural and closer to what Jeju actually looks like. This was one of the more interesting sculptures.



This guy was pretty cute. The grandpa stones you see around Jeju City actually don't look like these guys. Apparently there's different statues for different areas of the island.

Language Class Hiking

I should supplement that last negative post about what cool stuff I did this weekend. I'm taking a Korean Language class at the local community college and the entire department went out on a hike up Halla Mountain. This was now my 3rd time up the mountain, so it seems like I'm becoming a pro! It was a great hike and quite a production. We had name tags and everything. We met at the college, took a tour bus to the mountain, and they gave us all a little kimbap for lunch along with some water. I don't have any copies of the picture we took with the whole group but here's some pictures that I took.

On the top of those cliffs is the crater. This trail doesn't go all the way to the top. It goes in between those two low hills (oreums) and finishes at a nice little Ramen Shack!

Ryan and I posing with our Korean Language Teacher



Some of the Language Students Posing at the marker at the top. Many of the students in the class are Chinese students studying Korean for a year.



This is Ryan and I's hero. I don't know his name, but this guy is probably the best korean speaker in our class. He always knows the answers! One day we'll speak as well as him!



I brought a little treat to the top. Soju! (Korean Liquor) The last couple of times we hiked up, we noticed that everyone seemed to be drinking some, so I thought it might be fun to bring some. It turned out to be a good idea. Although it didn't make quite so much of a hit on the students as it did on the teachers! The teachers loved it. I also learned that everytime you offered them a shot, they made you take one too. Needless to say I felt a little buzzed at the top. The second bottle was given to me by some random people in a group next to us. (another example of people giving!)



This is our friend that helped us get signed up for the class. She's super nice and speaks English really well.