South Korea: The Adventures of Mister Globes

Finishee

2009-02-17T16:53:00.000-08:00

It's been two weeks since I arrived back in Canada. The surprise return for Lizzy's birthday and V-day went down perfectly (she yelled something obscene and then stood there speechless and stunned for a good minute or so as she absorbed in the shock). Needless to say, a scene was made.

So clearly, this is going to be the final post for the Korea blog. I am not going to continue blogging after this, because I think blogging is pretty narcissistic unless you have something fairly interesting that you want to preserve in your mind. Miscellaneous rants for the sake of it (as well as the 25 Random Things About Me fad that is plaguing Facebook at the moment) just annoy the hell out of me. However, there a bunch of little things that I haven't really written about so I'll try and list as many as I can here (and more may be added in time):

- Dog meat. Yes, they eat dog here. I was offered it numerous times but never actually tried it. In retrospect, I probably should have. Anthony and Taylor ate it and the concensus is that it is revolting. Served in soup form, it supposedly increases male virility.. my counter-argument being that if you told a girl you ate dog meat you probably wouldn't get the opportunity to test that theory.

- Korean taxis. Good lord, they drive like they don't want to live. Not only are there miniature television sets on the dashboard, I've had to leave a cab seconds after entering it because we could smell the alcohol on the driver's breath. Other cabs seem to enjoy the thrill of ignoring traffic lights and accelerating to alarming speeds. A taxi ride from Maetandong to Yeongtong, normally a 6,000 won expense, only cost me 3,000 won because the driver went at warp nine and ran five red lights. I can't fault their efficiency. Fun fact: it's a faux pas to wear your seat belt when sitting in the back (it offends the driver).

- Korean comedy television. There is a TV show that I always love to watch when I'm eating my chamchi kimchi bokeumbap or sundubu chigae in that cheap Kimbap restaurant I ate 80% of my meals at. It's basically Korean celebrities doing ordinary things or competing in ridiculous challenges, such as who can keep their arm submerged in ice water for the longest after being subjected to a wind tunnel fan in a freezer for several minutes, or who can break the most chopsticks with their butt cheeks using a specialised barbell-wedgie apparatus (see photo). Noh Hong-cheol was my personal favourite on the show, he had a little beard and a perfectly symmetrical bleach blond bowl cut and was known for talking extremely quickly.

- SPAM gift sets. For some reason, SPAM is considered to be a Western delicacy in Korea. During special occasions, HomePlus will always have aisles devoted to decorative gift boxes that contain twelve cans of varying flavours of SPAM. Toothpaste gift sets were also popular.

- Identical couples. In Korea it's customary for couples to dress exactly the same.. especially when they go on vacation together or to theme parks or something. It's pretty weird.

- Being a minority. When I first got to Korea I noticed that everyone who passed by me would stare for a bit and then look away. I didn't realise that when travelling to areas with even lower concentrations of foreigners, the locals' reaction to being white got correspondingly more ridiculous. On the ferry to Jeju Island Taylor and I were stopped by random Koreans because they wanted to take their photograph with us. However, during our numerous visits to Ingyedong we had a drunken Korean guy yell at us how much he hates Anglo-Saxons.. and several Korean clubs and karaoke rooms wouldn't let us in because they were "for Koreans only".

My last few days were very strange. The kids who had previously spent class after class ridiculing me and calling me "bad teacher" (or alternatively, "teacher bad") were a little taken aback when I said it was my last week with them. My K4F class surprised me with a chalkboard covered in balloons and "THANK YOU COLIN TEACHER" and promptly showered me with roses and doughnuts (and canned cold coffee drink.. thank you Kennedy). Although, another class demanded why we weren't having a pizza party. Teacher bad.

I took photos of as many classes as I could (some classes collectively refused to have their pictures taken). I also took photos of the Kim and Lee interior and some co-workers. Basically I'm going to post all the photos that didn't fit into any previous blog entry, including random outings with friends and various oddities I've encountered during my time here. Enjoy.

피니시!

Lotte World

2009-01-23T06:43:00.001-08:00

Lotte is a large corporation in Korea that has its own McDonald's-esque fast food burger chain and also makes the popular snack Pepero, more commonly known as Pocky in North America. And it also has its own theme park.

Anthony and a couple Korean friends of ours, Catherine and Carolyn, went to Lotte World last week. This was the most elaborate of previous Colin-being-a-wingman-for-Anthony adventures as Anthony did his best to charm Catherine, who speaks very little English. Interestingly, Carolyn lived in Surrey for a while, of all places, so as she and I discuss the pros and cons of living in Surrey, Anthony is given a golden opportunity to work his magic.

Lotte World is basically a smaller, indoor version of Disneyland. There is also a substantial outdoor section, but the day that we went it was freezing cold and standing in lineups out there was pretty unpleasant. The theme seemed to be let's-shamelessly-rip-off-Disneyland. Pharoah's Fury was a direct copy of the Indiana Jones ride, Comet Express was a rehash of Space Mountain, and The Adventures of Sindbad was alarmingly similar to Pirates of the Caribbean. The logo was identical to Disney, and when I saw the giant white castle that adorned the outdoor section I could tell that they were making no effort at all to hide their copyright sins.

Photos:

This last photo is of Anthony tentatively entering a photo booth called "Sweet Holic", although I prefer to think of it as "The Chamber of Horrors" . Stepping into this room was like entering the mind of an eleven-year-old hyperactive Asian girl on drugs. Everything inside was pink or shiny. The video would scream instructions at you in Korean and allow a time limit for you to select one of dozens of awful backgrounds to embellish your photos. Then, you would go outside to another computer screen and adorn your creations with a number of twinkly images super-imposed onto the pictures to make them even more revolting. Anthony and I were stunned during the entire experience, especially when we noticed how immersed in the decorating phase the girls were. Unfortunately, there was no time limit to the finishing-touches stage. The grand result: miniature photo stickers that I keep for the comic value, but still cause me deep shame every time I see them.

Hwaesong Fortress & Calvin Harris

2009-01-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

This is a very late update, mainly because I've been busy with the new school schedule for December, partly because I've been experiencing gastrointestinal horror for the last week. Korean cuisine has finally caught up to me, after seven months of what I thought was simply cheap dining.

Lizzy came to visit me over here in Suwon from Dec 19 to Jan 5, which was a FANTASTIC distraction from the frustrations of Korean living. Now I had someone to complain with! I think she liked her stay (apart from the vile affliction she got during her last few days, but luckily she was good to go for the flight home); we got a lot done during her stay. We had a look at the Fortress (which is the large wall that surrounds the centre of the city I live in) as well as Hwaesong Palace in the middle. To be fair, Hwaesong Palace is a smaller, slightly less impressive carbon copy of Gyeongbok Palace so it wasn't worth investigating.

This actually all happened after the highlight of my time in Korea so far. What I'm talking about of course is the legendary Calvin Harris concert we attended at Club Eden in Seoul. It was visually overwhelming, the sound was excellent and the crowd was composed of two main factions: Koreans who had no idea who Calvin Harris was, and die-hard Calvin Harris fans from all over the world. Such as myself. The best part, of course, was MEETING Calvin Harris as we happened upon him, casually walking down the street, as we were heading home the next morning. Unbelievable luck. The best part was that he was a very genuinely normal guy, not a pretentious Tom-Cruise type celebrity. I think he was mildly surprised to have a random Canadian guy chase him down in the middle of Seoul.

Insadong

2008-11-16T03:32:00.000-08:00

Insadong (인사동) is a district in Seoul that specialises in crafts and "traditional" Korean merchandise, at least that's what the shopkeepers keep telling us. You have to watch out for the peddlers in this area because they are very good at getting you to buy things. Take the incident today, for example, in which an old man selling persimmons graciously offered the three of us free samples, and then guilted us into buying one more each. "Five hundred won" he mumbled. We had a brief glance at each other, knowing we'd been suckered, but what the hell. "Sure", "OK", "All right then". He got the persimmons out as we got out our wallets. "One thousand won," he said, as he passed us the fruit. Everything happened so fast that we didn't realise how good this guy was at tricking foreigners. "You old fox," said Anthony. We collectively decided we'd rather pay a dollar than get into an argument with this guy for 10 minutes, but we knew full well he was a dirty sneak.

Anyway, for those of you who receive presents from me, this is where I got them. This is dammit-what-do-I-get-mom-for-Christmas central. I would love to tell you what I bought today but that would ruin the surprise. Apart from the shopping, there are lots of cool other places here that attract foreigners. We went to an exhibit of Buddha art, which was really cool (photos below) and there is also a big shopping complex that has a very interesting spiral design (you can walk to the top simply by continuing along the ring of shops, because the floor is always slightly inclined.. making it sort of like one giant floor coiled around itself). And also, lots of free samples of food, nice restaurants, really lovely little teahouses, and old men that trick you into buying persimmons.

I took a lot of photos today. The subway was disgustingly crowded.. it was like standing in a Frenchman's armpit for an hour.

The next few photos after these are of the Buddha art exhibit we went to. Lots and lots of interesting paintings and statues. The one that captured our attention was the red painting of the twelve Chinese Zodiac animals having a massive free-for-all with a variety of weapons. We agreed that the Horse seemed the most self-composed, the Rooster was surprisingly aggressive and the Snake appeared to be getting stabbed to death by the Dragon. It sounds grisly but it's actually a very delightful painting. I was happy to see that the Tiger appeared to be going absolutely berserk, and we also noted that the Rabbit (Anthony) appeared to be fleeing the battleground.

The gigantic impressive tower in the earlier photos is one of Samsung's big office buildings. The headquarters, which is enormous, is actually in Suwon, looming in the distance of my neighbourhood. Cramped-armpit subway journey below, and three guesses what the franchise in the last picture is (pronunciation of the symbols is "suh-tah-buk-suh-kuh-pee").

PS: Today is mine and Lizzy's six-month anniversary... champagne and cuddles all round.

Hallowe'en

2008-11-02T08:38:00.001-08:00

Kim and Lee had a giant Hallowe'en party, partly to introduce the kids to Western traditions, but mainly as a gigantic reward for good behaviour. And most probably a giant advertisement for the school. For the month of October we gave the kids orange stickers for good behaviour, and after a month they were traded in for "Kim and Lee Dollars" to buy things at the party. Admission to the Haunted House was five K&L dollars.

The Haunted House was the event Taylor and I constructed for this party. It was truly terrifying. It was very dark inside, they had to walk through a narrow corridor of black material, and we would pop out and scare the hell out of them. I made some little girls cry, and we had to turn the lights on and let them out. This all sounds very mean-spirited, but we were told beforehand that the kids wanted it scary, so we did as they told us to. My Hallowe'en costume was Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker from The Dark Knight.. see below:

The second photo is simply here to embellish the fact that I got a waistcoat for this costume. I was pretty stoked about it. And yes, I had purple pants. I also won $50 from the costume contest so it pretty much paid for itself. Other featured costumes of the night included Taylor's "Undead Ringmaster" outfit (which I believe wins the award for most horrifying concept), Erika's Charlie Chaplin (which was awesome, and very well executed considering she's Hispanic), and Randy (Korean side desk guy) in a pink cardigan with a shiny hat, and a bow tie made out of dollar bills that he had photoshopped to have his face in the middle instead. It's difficult to explain. It was funny, though.

Suwon vs Gwangju at the World Cup Stadium

2008-10-18T10:56:00.001-07:00

Taylor and I went to the World Cup Stadium today in Suwon. Only a five minute drive from our homes, it was too good to miss out. The game was Suwon Blue Wings vs. Gwangju Sangmu (Phoenixes). We destroyed them 2-0. I was surprised that there were actually some minorities on the team, a guy from Croatia and a Brazilian guy. There were a tonne of foreigners there, and we actually got free tickets cause this American guy had two extra and just gave them to us. The fact that I didn't have to buy the ₩10,000 ticket prompted me to buy a ₩32,000 jersey but that's still pretty cheap. Photos below, and some gameplay footage:

Additional: We saw James (ex-Kim & Lee teacher from Australia) and his girlfriend Naomi (current Korean Kim & Lee teacher) at the game also, and ended up going to a cool dwaeji-galbi restaurant, followed by an arguably competitive doubles pool tournament at one of the numerous Pool Rooms in our area. Then we went home.. and here I am updating you on what's happening, at 3:17 am.

Tomorrow's agenda is Kim & Lee teachers intra-workplace soccer game (hopefully Koreans vs. Foreigners if we get enough people to show up). The most likely match will be Taylor vs. Colin as we seem to be the only confirmed guests to this event, though.

Min's Wedding & Legendary Karaoke Bus

2008-10-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I went to a Korean wedding of a co-teacher (his Korean name is 캉민구, or Kang Min-gu, or simply Min, as we know him). It was held in a distant city called .. I think it was called Ondong but I'm not entirely sure. It was a four hour bus journey to get there. We (three other foreign teachers and I) noticed that the wedding itself was held in this giant "wedding factory" as Erika dubbed it, with numerous wedding halls and a giant furniture store downstairs. It was pretty impersonal. I'm racing through the description because the bus ride on the way back is really the most important part of this blog entry.

There were two buses heading out from Suwon, and midway through the journey, for some reason, most of the women and children left our bus and all the men from the other bus come onto ours. We didn't think much of this until a highly intoxicated Korean man approached us once the bus started moving, and urged us to sing for everyone on the karaoke machine. With much apprehension, confusion and broken English I ended up starting off the festivities with a performance of Wake Me Up Before You Go Go that resulted in tumultous cheering and the party REALLY getting started. The next two hours were devoted to drunken renditions of terrible, terrible Korean oldies tunes, that steadily got louder until all hell broke loose on the bus.

What happened next can only be described through video footage I managed to capture during this phenomenon. You'll notice that everyone on the bus is middle-aged, everyone is dancing and everyone is completely plastered. My friend Meredith is being propositioned by a Korean man that we believe had consumed well over three bottles of soju at this point. Also, keep in mind that the bus itself is speeding down the highway at 100 km/h as this is all going on.

I have to admit this is the first time I've been on a bus with disco lights.

Mokpo & Jeju

2008-08-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

During the Kim & Lee post-intensive-classes week off, Taylor and I decided to go to Jeju Island for an indetermined length of time. After days of fruitless attempts at planning flights and visas to China or Japan, and due to the fact neither of us had much money, we decided on Jeju because it's easy and cheap and part of the Republic of Korea, so visas and a multiple entry stamp for my passport weren't needed.

We took the train down to Mokpo, a port city at the bottom of South Korea, and we made our way to the ferry terminal where we were unfortunate enough to have missed the ferry by two minutes. So we ended up staying a night in Mokpo, but it was pretty cool because there was a sizeable hill littered with pagodas and other tourist-friendly structures, and the view was awesome at the top (see above), so not too bad of a day. Mokpo itself seemed to consist of nothing but motels, fish markets and places to buy fishing equipment. The fish market smelled terrific. Additionally, there was also a very lewd poster for a questionable event that clearly involved homoerotic dancing and plenty of alcohol, and what made it even more sinister was the fact that it was presented entirely in Hangul, so really there was no telling what you were getting yourself into. It seemed completely out of place for a simple port city, but I suppose they have to get their kicks somehow after a hard day of gutting squid. Mokpo photos below:

We took a giant ferry the next day to Jeju Island, which took about five hours to get there. It was similar to a British Columbia ferry, except it had several mini karaoke rooms in it (aka Noraebang) that these old Korean codgers were just going nuts at inside. It was really entertaining to walk slowly past the rooms and see the elderly party of drunken old men singing terrible, terrible Korean pop songs. At Jeju we went to a lava cave (which contained the largest known lava column in the world, photo below) and it had a good cave vibe to it, lots of dripping water and shiny rock walls. The hordes of Korean tourists prevented the Journey to the Centre of the Earth feel from really setting in, but it was still neat. We went on a hike the next day and also found a small temple in Jeju city which was worth a little look around. The manji symbol is quite common in Korea as a Buddhist symbol, but they make special effort to use left-facing swastikas to differentiate them from the Gestapo. So don't be alarmed when you see the giant Nazi drum in the next few photos:

I was REALLY tempted to ring the enormous bell but I figured that would be pretty disrespectful. I bet it would have been really loud though.

Seoul Tower & Korean Folk Village

2008-08-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Jagjeet and I decided to go to Seoul Tower, located on the peak of this enormous hill, which we decided to walk up. It was actually a pretty cool walk despite the fact we ended up circling the mountain in its entirety before we clued in that we weren't actually gaining any height. After a further gruelling half hour or so we finally got to the tower.

I mean, it's pretty cool-looking at all, but we paid 10,000 won to get to the top of this thing and it didn't occur to us that the visibility might have been less than stellar. We essentially paid ten bucks to experience a 30 second elevator ride and an extremely disappointing view of Seoul. It's about half the height of CN Tower too, so it's really nothing special. Verdict: don't bother.

The Korean Folk Village in Suwon was not too bad. There was a group of us that went and it was pretty nice, lots of good little Korean thingies for presents etc. Also there was an awesome Korean game that consists of a plank of wood that two people jump on and try to make the other one fall of. It's like a see-saw that you stand on, with the added excitement of possibly breaking your face upon your defeat. This theme of innocent childhood games turning into potentially crippling experiences is a common theme in Korean culture.

So basically we hit up two of the most touristy places we could think of in Korea. Neither of them were all that stupendous, but there are some reasonably mundane photos for you to look at if you're clamouring for some more photos. Also, it was Taylor's birthday last night, so we decided to go to a dance club called Crazy Duck which is apparently pretty popular with foreigners. Well, I liked it.. and I'm foreign.. so 100% of the surveyed population agrees with my hypothesis, at least. Photos below (see Seoul Tower looming in the distance in the first one):

Right.. I should probably explain what the deal is with the fenceful of locks. At Seoul Tower you can buy pairs of stylised padlocks, which are supposed to represent everlasting love, and you lock the padlocks together on a fence and then you keep the key for yourself (supposedly as a memento of the beautiful moment, or if you break up and want to remove the lock at some point?). It's pretty sickly but I think Koreans are into that kind of stuff. Some people bought about 20 of them and arranged them into a heart shape on the fence. It's pretty bad. More photos, from the Korean Folk Village:

Gyeongbokgung & National Folk Museum

2008-07-20T07:46:00.001-07:00

안녕하세요!?

So far things are going well. The job is alright (easy but tiring) and I have had a few encounters with the local fauna (absolutely pillaged by mosquitoes within the first couple days, and I saw my first cockroch scutter across the floor last night). Other than that, nothing more that's blogworthy, except for the touristy stuff.

Today I went to Gyeongbokgung and the National Folk Museum of Korea, with fellow Kim & Lee teacher Jagjeet (from BC also). It was pretty impressive, although it was spitting rain the entire time, but we couldn't really complain because as soon as we got back outside after touring the palace and the museum it really thundered down. You'll see what I mean in a bit (see last photo -- aftermath of five minutes walking in the torrent).

Obligatory historical background: Gyeongbokgung served as the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty (if you're interested) and I'm not going to go into it further but you can learn more about it here if you're so inclined. To people not familiar with the culture, it was lots of green oriental style buildings, some of which had pretty things inside. Further photos below (starting with a couple random subway station shots):

So that's a bit of Gyeongbokgung for you. In English it's Gyeongbok Palace, thus giving me the impression that the word "gung" in Korean means "palace". I'm fairly sure my intuition is bang on this time. Next few photos are the museum and some of its contents. The chair with the single wheel and the four sticks for servants to carry you around with is clearly the only way to travel. If you attached an engine to that.. it could be a high speed impaling unicyclic war machine. Just saying.

First Impressions

2008-07-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Harro!

This weblog (henceforth called "blog") is here to inform people who are interested in my South Korean adventures without pestering the people who don't want it shoved down their throats.. and it'll also help me remember things that I'll probably forget in a year's time. I feel incredibly pretentious having a "blog", I don't like people who "blog" and I find them very snooty and self-centred, but I'm having one anyway, for the reasons mentioned above.

The flight was awesome, due to the fact that the ten hour Vancouver-Narita flight upgraded me to first class. A giraffe could have comfortably sit in the space I was provided, and I got a four course meal (appetiser, lunch, wine & cheese (wine and cheese!!) and dessert). I watched The Other Boleyn Girl and Horton Hears A Who!, whilst gorging on a selection of eight different wines and champagne and three kinds of cheese. The two hour Narita flight was pretty cool too, as no one spoke English. But there was plenty more of that to come.

My room and neighbourhood are pretty cool. I conveniently have several photos to describe them:

Left: The bathroom also doubles as a shower! Notice there is a separate nozzle that attaches to the sink for showering purposes. The hot water switch, conveniently, is located near the front door. I hadn't discovered this for a couple days after arriving, in which I had been taking ice cold showers before another teacher had informed me.
-----------------------

As you can see, it's not the most spacious of accomodations, but it's very pleasant and I particularly enjoy the air conditioning which I have been using extensively in this sweltering hot and muggy climate. The neighbourhood is really nice, there are enormous high-rise apartment complexes (one of which consists of 20 separate buildings and house approximately 30,000 people in my small neighbourhood. The cost of one of those is about $1 million).

All the teachers at Kim and Lee live within a 5 minute walk of my place, with the same sort of setup as me (one big room, one bathroom, one tiny little room with a washing machine in it). It's actually a lot like being in residence at a university, so it's not that big a change really.

The neighbourhood is really nice, we've got little convenience stores all over the place and it's funny when they get their English wrong (e.g. a laundromat across the street from me has a large sign that says "Any Clearing"). I live fairly close to an elementary school which is next to a highschool, and there are a couple paths I walk through in which I finally get to the larger centre in which Kim and Lee school is located. The next few photos are taken in succession from my house (the grey building on the very right of the first photo) past the school, and then to Millenium Plaza where the school is located. See if you can spot Kim and Lee.

At night the place transforms itself into a blinding plethora of Hangul signs, (in which the word "sexy" appears far too many times) and the occasional drunken Korean businessman staggering around by himself yelling at signposts. There are also several fish stores with live animals in outside aquariums (sea cucumbers, large exotic fish, scallops, squid, cuttlefish and octopus) all grimly awaiting their impending doom. Photos below: