|
Pre-Korea ~
September ~
October ~
November December ~ January ~ CHINA ~ February |
| November 30th, 2007 I promised myself I'd update this before December, so here I am on the last day of the month. Actually, some interesting things have happened, but I don't really have any pictures to show... The biggest thing for me is: I started a Taekwondo class! I'm really excited about it and I really like going, although I wasn't sure at first. We went about a week and a half ago. "We" is two other foreigners, one who found the place and told me about it. She said that she found someone who wants to teach foreigners and can speak English (He can't, by the way). So we went to watch a lesson on Wednesday. I was a little disappointed. There were only about 15 people there, and about 12 of them were under my waist. The other three were still young, probably high school/middle school-age. I was kind of like, so is this a day-care or something? And all of the little kids were black belts, too, so it kind of brought down my respect I had for the "infamous belt" I remember drooling over as a child. We did half the lesson in street clothes and then talked to him afterwards. The two other foreigners wanted to do it, so I was up for it, but not really that excited. It costs about $65 a month, which is pretty cheap. The suit was and extra $15. I immediately asked what color it was. You see, there were three different colors of taekwondo suits the kids were wearing in class: white, red, and the ultimate... black. Clearly we wanted the black suit, so we asked him why some of the students were wearing that instead. He said it was for "more experienced." I joked with the others, asking how much money it costs to be "experienced." We laughed, but my friend's co-teacher translated something to him. Apparently it costs an extra $10. So the next lesson we were presented with out brand new, ultimate black taekwondo suits. Really surprisingly to me: my suit fit! I have no idea where he found it, because I can't find anything in my size here, especially legs. I thought I was going to be sporting the fashionable "capri-taekwondo suit," but they had something that fit! I actually have to hike up the pants to my belly button so I don't trip during our jump kicks (yes, we do jump kicks). So by the end of the lesson, I was really sweating and breathing hard. It felt really good and we walked out into the freezing cold with that, "my body is still baking so this feels nice" feeling. I figured that even if I learn nothing and have to spend even more time with kids than I already do, at least I'll be doing something active with my life. It definitely beats the gym. I can't do the gym. I get so bored. I hate treadmills, but I love to run. It's the same thing with this. And the stretching! I've never done so much stretching in my life! I stretched everyday in high school in Cross-country, but not the painful kind, the kind that makes you scrunch up you face and almost scream and you feel like your groin is going to rip open. But afterwards it feels so good. I can move around so much. We do these really high kicks (turning slowly into round-house kicks as we get better) that I can do nicely after the crazy stretching. At this rate, I'm going to be able to do the splits by February. You can quote me on that. (Although I am not remotely close right now) So... I have class in a half an hour. I'd better go. Sorry there's no pictures! I'll get a really cool professional one of me in my black taekwondo suit for you guys to fawn over. It's pretty sweet, I'm not going to lie. |
| November 19th, 2007 It's snowing! It was so weird. It's been freezing lately. I have no idea how cold, but only that it's been below 0 degrees Celsius. I heard thunder outside and thought, "Why is it raining? It should be snowing out because it's so cold." See, that's the way my mind works. It was snowing, and it still is. None of it's really sticking, because it's the first snow of the year, but I guess we'll see as the night wears on. Anyway, this weekend was awesome. I finally went on an organized trip while being here. There's this organization ( http://www.adventurekorea.com ) that takes groups of about 35 foreigners out on trips around the country every weekend. They cost about $100, which is a little overpriced for some of them, but they really do all the work. All you have to do is pay and show up, which is really nice. Plus, considering I haven't really gone anywhere outside of Seoul since I've been here, this is really good motivation to finally go and see parts of the country. This last weekend was a rock climbing/mountain ridge hiking trip. I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, I thought I did, but I didn't. First of all, I didn't know what "ridge hiking" was. It basically means that you hike on the really steep ridges that line the sharp cliffs of the mountains. The first day was easy. Remembering the mountain climbing trip I did back in high school, the climb and the repelling wasn't so bad, although all of us were exhausted by 7:00 PM at night. The next day, however, we did what I think was about a five-hour hike. It was obscene. Many times, I seriously feared my life. You'd be walking with your head down, then look out and realize that there were sharp, hundred feet drops on either side of the path! No railing! Sometimes, when the path abruptly ended to a rock face we had to climb up, there'd be a rope attached to the rock to hold onto our lives with. Really, if we tripped and fell a little to the side, we would die. That'd be it. But it was a lot of fun. Here's some pictures. 
 1st* This is one of the cliffs that we hiked across. See that little man at the top? 2nd* On the top of the highest peak we stopped at. Yes, we stopped at several. 3rd* This is Nicole, looking terrified. This was one of those parts where the path just stopped and they'd give us a rope to climb the cliff with. The strange thing about it was that there were no waiver forms or anything. Nothing. They knew the name I gave them and my bank account number. That was all. (Don't worry, the group is legit. They never had access to my account. We just have to pay by wiring money to their own account) There wasn't any "emergency number" or anything I had to give them, just my pretty face and the hope that I don't die. But what if I did? I certainly could have. What is the process here? This whole thing would have been run completely different in America. There would have been about four forms and they'd know everything about us in case of emergency. I wonder if there's ever been an incident. 
 1st* Did you know that South Korea is about 70% mountains? I didn't. 2nd* That's Nicole and me. I guess she still looks scared. Haha... We were probably just very cold. 3rd* I thought this was a nice shot of one of the cliffs. It really is a beautiful area. Every once in awhile you would just look around and be like, "Wow, this is an amazing view." So it was freezing on the trip. I had bought a winter coat the day before (with difficulty, as my arms are longer than the XL size of arms here) and I am so glad I did. I still don't own a hat. That is my number one priority right now. Buy a hat. Why didn't I just bring one from home? I don't know. That would have been a good idea. Fortunately, Koreans have large heads, so I should be good with that one. 
 *This is what I looked like for probably the last two hours of the hike. I told you I needed to buy a hat. *I like to think that my ridiculous smile is because of the cold. Yeah... *At the bottom we were a mixture of exhausted, delirious, relieved, and satisfied. Little did we know we still had two kilometers to hike... |
| November 14th, 2007 It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm not tired, so I thought I'd write in the blog. I still don't understand how I can be tired all day until about 11 at night, then I'm wide awake. I've met a few other people like that here, though, which is interesting. So classes are getting rougher. I don't think one of my co-teachers knows how to discipline the kids very well, because all her kids are crazy. And I had some of those kids before she came to the school and they were much better behaved. So I've started to be a bit meaner. We'll see how that works. I've already tried many different "discipline strategies" but I'm just now developing the "look." You know, the one that parents and teachers give kids that actually doesn't threaten them, but scares them a bit? That one. It's just really hard when they like you so much. But I figure if half of them hated me, I'd still have a plentiful amount of smiling, waving, high-fiving, "teacha jacob! I love you!"-kids, so it won't be a problem. 
 1st* This is during my "parent class." Part of my contract says I have to teach Parent and Teacher classes once a week after school. Those four parents are the only ones that come every week. 2nd* I was taking pictures of students for this little music video we're making for an "open house" class. These are some third graders in my English classroom. We had a "Thanksgiving" lesson earlier this week. It was sort of sad. Granted, I haven't eaten Thanksgiving with my family in three years, but just talking about the family bonding and the start of Christmas decorating (which ... come to think of it, is another distant memory in my house) was really starting to get to me. It's going to be so weird knowing everyone is going to be back at home and I'll be here. But... I knew it was going to be weird. I'll just have to keep myself busy during the season. Speaking of Thanksgiving, the cool part about Elementary school is that they haven't been taught as many lessons as middle and high school, so some things that we know and take for granted they have never learned. For instance, I taught the kids why we call Native Americans "Indians" during one of the lessons. I'm not sure if they understood any of it, but I felt satisfied being the first one to tell them about something like that. Ugh... it's almost 3AM. I have to get up in... 4.5 hours. It wouldn't be such a problem if the kids didn't require so much energy, but they do. Needless to say, I've been drinking a lot of coffee. I have four different types of boxes of "instant coffee" on my desk, ranging from Korea's ridiculous mostly-sugar coffee, to the completely black coffee I searched and searched everywhere for, finally finding and cherishing. It's funny. The kids all think that sugar-coffee is real coffee, so they love it like candy. They'll come up to me like Oliver Twist, begging for "cophee!" Next time I have black coffee I'm going to let them try it, just to see their face when they taste what real coffee tastes like. That will be fun. |
| November 9th, 2007 Okay, I know on a Friday night I shouldn't be at home writing in my blog, but I have to. I found a Salsa club out here. In Seoul! And they're really good! Better than me! (well, sort of) I heard from my sister's friend who lives here that she knew someone who took salsa lessons and knew about a club here. I was pretty skeptical. I mean, this is Seoul. There is no Latin culture here. So I met there tonight and walked in and my jaw dropped. Well, not really, but I was shocked. I'm still shocked. It was like I was back in Miami, only they were all Asian! Everyone in that room knew LA-style Salsa really well. And the women! I've never seen so many beautiful Korean woman in one place at the same time! And I guess in Korean culture, any girl is fair game to dance with at a club like this. It was amazing. Let me back up. I learned salsa in Miami, where "Casino" or "Rueda" style is very popular. In casino-rueda, the guy really shoves the girl around. It's really fun, but it's a bit like swing dancing in that respect. "LA" style, on the other hand, is much more performance-based. It looks very pretty and classy. Instead of shoving, the guy will 'guide' the girl and she moves herself. That's what they do in Korea. So naturally, when I danced with them it was very clumsy. Things like: lifting the girl's arm in casino-rueda means "I'm about to push your arm back and then yank your whole body forward. Prepare yourself." In LA-style, lifting the girl's arm means, "We're going to wait three counts while you prepare, then you're going to do a pretty turn clockwise." The basic step is even different, so the girls think I can't even keep a beat when we're dancing. Naturally, this causes some confusion for them as I'm yanking them about. So... I looked kind of bad. Understand that I haven't looked "bad" while dancing Salsa for about two years. This is difficult for me. However, I got over it. I realized that... every time we clashed, I could just spin the girl around. Because LA has so many spins, the Korean girls would usually be like, "Oh! Now I can do something pretty!" and they'd bust out a nice move. Well, they wouldn't actually say that because they don't speak any English, but that's what they're thinking. So basically, I'm really excited that I found a salsa club. I'm also really shocked. I was just starting to look at pictures of Miami and miss it again. Now I can get a "salsa fix" every week if I want, with amazingly beautiful Korean women no less. |
November 6th, 2007  So
as I am really hungry right now, let me take a moment to talk about
food. I don't think I've done that yet, which is surprising. I think
all that mentioned before is that it's cheap. Well... it's cheap if
you know the right places to go. In some places a plate can be
around $10, but then across the street you can get a huge fried pork
and rice for $2.50. On average, I can fill myself up for $5, which
is great. Although I'm currently looking for a new favorite dish. I
think I ate too much fried pork, which is delicious and cheap. The
picture to the right is of a nice little place I found right by my
house. All that was $5. It's like a mini-Korean BBQ. The lettuce is
for the meat. You wrap the meat, as well as onions, sauce, garlic,
and whatever else you want inside the lettuce, then eat it in one
bite. That's a Korean BBQ. This is mini because they didn't cook it
in front of me. That runs up to $7-10. The meal was great. The whole
staff laughed when I took the picture. See that at the
top? That's crab. It's raw, but it's a whole crab! Where do you get
a whole crab for free as a side dish in a $5 meal in America? What
else is in there? Oh, they also had a nice omelette thing that you
can see I had almost eaten all of already. That was tasty. I think
I'll go back there tomorrow. Here's some pictures.
 1st* I meant to put this up a bit ago. This is from China Town, the view of all the factories. I thought it looked cool 2nd* I went rollerblading along the Han River in Seoul at night. They light up the bridges like in Miami. With the cold air, rollerblades, and awesome city skyline, I had a good time. *** I just re-looked at these and they're not that great. Sorry. Still on food, my tastes have changed a bit since I got here. That was expected, it's just weird to see it happening. I'm not eating all the stuff I did when I first got here, but some stuff I eat commonly now. The other day at lunch at school I saw a tentacle poking out of my pile of mystery meat. I was nervous for a moment, but then I saw this it was just octopus and then relaxed. I remember that first time I had Octopus at the Korean restaurant back in Miami. I freaked out. They don't try to hide what you're eating in Korea. Ever. You can still see what color the Octopus was. When you get squid in a restaurant, they give you a large, dried out and flattened squid. It's sort of like beef jerky, only with a fish taste. I don't like fish that much yet. However, I do like it. I never ate it growing up because of my dad's allergies. It's a hard taste to get used to and I've never really liked it. Since I've gotten here, I actually crave it. But they don't eat fish here that much. It's all octopus and crab. I'm not sure why. They usually have octopus or crab every day in lunch. Fortunately for me, they usually have some kind of meat dish, too, which I fill up on. I'll talk about school lunches after the break. 
 1st* I got a chance to take a picture of Bupyeong again from the mountain, this time with my nice camera. I pointed out where my apartment is. 2nd* I also got to take another picture of that fish market from before. Now you can see how big it is. I found out I can buy four small, live octopuses for $10. Or I could buy a gigantic one that scared me for $30. 3rd* My rabbit's back, sadly. Notice I call it "rabbit" now instead of "bunny." Do you see how much it grew? It hates me because I yell at it a lot. So... school lunches. I guess everywhere in the world, school lunches are bad. Well, okay, compared to American elementary schools, these lunches are feasts. I tried to describe the "hot lunches" that I remember from elementary school to my co-teacher. I'm not sure if I got the message through. Anyway, everyday there's four pans where we scoop out what we want to eat. They usually have a meat dish, then there's the seafood dish, then a kimchi dish, then usually a kimchi-flavored vegetable. Those can change, but they always have a giant vat of rice and a giant vat of seaweed soup. Well, I'm not sure what the soup's actually called, but it always tastes like seaweed so that's what I call it. Needless to say, I eat a lot of rice at school. A lot. Every morning when I pass the kitchen I smell the most rancid smells coming out of there. I usually get depressed if I'm really hungry, because that means its a rice day again. I go into the lunch room when it's time, then smell a lighter version of the smell before. Yet strangely enough, the meat usually tastes fine. I think the rancid smells are the seafood dish. The meat is rarely "good," but I can fill up on stuff occasionally. Sometimes they have "foreign food," which is usually my time to shine. Chicken noodle soup, curry, or Chinese noodles were all delicious. One day they even had corn dogs. I was the only one who liked them in the room. I think I had three or four. .... I may have put that in a previous blog. Sorry if I'm repeating myself, it was just a momentous occasion I'm sure I'll remember for a long time. Alright, here's the last batch of pictures. I'm out. 
 1st* The mountains are a red color right now, which looks so strange to me. I've never seen anything like this in my life. They look like Martian hills from a distance. 2nd* This is a picture from the mountain that was in the previous picture. This is Gyeyang district, not Bupyeong, although you can see Bupyeong in the back. 3rd* Fall is so cool! This was on the mountain. I know I'm acting strange, but it's so bizarre to me to see all this foliage again. This is such a stereotypical fall shot. |