A plethora of random thoughts. Beware!

This blog contains some things I’ve learned, experienced, and seen here in Korea. It isn’t one about recent trips that I’ve taken, that one is still expounding in my brain. (I don’t even know if I used that in its correct form. Nicole?) Anyway, it will be here soon!

Musical road – On our way to Costco awhile back, our driver, Jenny, said “listen!” to Holly and I. Not knowing what to “listen” for, we sat and confusedly looked at each other. Suddenly, we realized, the road was singing. Well…not singing, but playing a song. The grooves in the road were strategically placed to play Twinkle Twinkle Little star, I think, I actually don’t remember the song, I just remember that it was cool. I recall hearing about something like this in the States, but never experienced it. I wonder how long it took to make!!?

Toy guns - On my walk home one Saturday, I had my headphones in, listening to a newly downloaded (awesome, of course) CD. I heard some commotion, took my earphone out, and spotted several elementary aged Korean boys playing at the park. I hardly ever see this…because they are almost always in school, but it happened to be a Saturday that they actually had a break, and there they were, playing, with toy guns nonetheless. Toy guns aren’t a big deal here like they are in America. I’ve seen them brought to school, and even tucked away in pockets in church. So, I watched in amazement as these 15 or so boys, immensely enjoyed laying waste to each other with imaginary bullets. It was pretty fun to watch, their death scenes were quite impressive. It made me want to whip out my pistol and ninja roll into the fray…but then I remembered I didn’t have a pistol, and I would probably hurt myself in the ninja roll attempt. So I went on my way, chuckling at their childhood antics, and remembering my own.

Yellow dust – I may have already briefly touched on this topic in other blogs, but will explain it in more detail so that you may understand what it is. Yellow dust is quite a problem in Korea. Mostly during the springtime but I’m finding that it has lingered into the summer as well. What is yellow dust? Well, it’s a very fine dust that blows over from the deserts in Mongolia and China. The reason it’s so worrisome is because as it comes from the desert, it travels over the industrial belt in China, therefore picking up some fun toxins on the way. Yellow dust is the main reason for the masks, and umbrellas…if you don’t have one when it’s raining, “your hair will fall out” because the rain has yellow dust in it. The weekly forecast may consist of: rainy, sunny, partly cloudy, and a yellow dust storm or two. One day this Spring, I was actually reminded of a “pre-tornado” sky back home, because it was completely yellow. The next day, all the cars had a layer of dust on them. I didn’t really notice the dust before, but now I can tell when it’s in the air…because it has the faint smell of moldy/old cardboard boxes. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. Lol.

Traffic signals – they aren’t followed here. People run red lights like CRAZY! When asked how people can run them without getting into trouble with the Police, they just say that the traffic cameras take your picture and a ticket is sent to you, but that doesn’t seem to faze these drivers. Plus, there are hardly any police officers here anyway. I have never seen a police officer pull anyone over, and the few I see are always just driving around with their lights always on, but no one ever gets out of the way for them. It’s preposterous! We do however have a power hungry traffic cop that works at the apartment complex near Holly’s. He likes to stand outside his little house and blow his whistle to tell cars where to go. The thing is, he’s not even standing at the intersection, there are only two ways to turn when the cars DO get to the intersection, and there are so few cars that even the IDEA of a traffic cop just seems pointless. Unless, of course, the real reason is to wake up everyone in the surrounding area with his whistle, because then, the idea makes perfect sense! *eye roll*

The bee story – Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I have a break between my kids’ classes and my adult classes. During this time, I prepare, but if I already have everything ready, I usually watch something online, or type this blog…if I’m motivated. ;) One day, as I was sitting at my computer, I heard the dreaded noise of a bug caught in a room. You know the noise, the one where they can’t figure out where to go so they just smack aimlessly into things. This particular bug sounded quite large, so I looked around to check the category in which I would be dealing with. Ah, a bee…wonderful. That’s when Mr. Kim spotted the little (well…big actually) bugger, and proceeded to run out of the room. Haha! He said that it was called a horse bee, or something, because they were so big. I was standing in the doorway, watching it fly around when Mr. Kim told me to come out and shut the door because “they can kill you!” Uh…ok. Then he said, “I don’t know what to do.” And I said, “Give me your tennis racquet; I can kill it in one shot.” But he vetoed that idea right away, probably because it would be hard to find a sub for me on such short notice. Ha! What did he decide? To get the bug spray, stand in the doorway, and fill the room with poison until the bee finally died. It worked, but guess whose stuff is right inside the door? You got it, mine. I had enough sense to close my computer when I realized what he was going to do but the top cover, my books, desk, and everything else had a nice layer of bee killer on it. Sick.

The idea of memory- My students are unable to comprehend the concept. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely know how to PLAY it…because all I had to say was “memory” and they were setting up the pieces practically before I had them out of the rubber band, but the idea is just…lost. They like to have things organized, so when two pieces are matched together, all I have to do is wait, before…yep, there goes Sally, moving two other side pieces in to fill those new empty positions. Guys…you’re supposed to REMEMBER where the match is!! Not move them around!! I should just rename the game to “you’ll always have to guess where the match is if you keep doing that.” ß that’s a silly name, Kaley. When the pieces dwindle to about 6-10…they like to just mix them all together and re-lay them back out. I’ve stopped trying to prevent them from doing this. I guess they just really don’t want each other to win for that extra sticker prize. Oh what they’ll do for a sticker!

At the gym – We’ve found a new machine that we like! It’s a hiking machine, and it’s pretty great. The hiking machines have their own little room so there is hardly anyone back there when we arrive. One day, we noticed that the cleaning woman was wiping the machines down. Holly and I were walking/running/hiking on our machines when suddenly a shininess on Holly’s machine caught my eye. I looked down at her feet and saw that the machine was wet, I then down at mine and saw that the woman WAS CLEANING MY MACHING while I was still on it! Oh snap!!

Calendar – I have a calendar that I X the day off when it’s over. Last month I had to put two X’s on one day. I’ve decided, if two days have to share on a calendar, then that month has too many days. Moral of the story, May seemed super long.

Animals – I miss them. When I see a dog, I just want to stop and pet it. There were some puppies on the Island we went to on our bike tour (which I will write about in my next blog, promise). They were quite dirty puppies, I must admit, but every time I passed them, I just had to give them some lovin! Sometimes we walk by pet stores, and I have to stop myself from watching the dogs and cats for too long. Can’t wait to go home and see my two dogs and many, many cats. B.J. named the new litter of kittens with all Z names. I was super impressed. He’s learned to carry on the tradition of unusual names for our animals. Way to go kid.

Spelling – is slightly irrelevant here. Whenever a student pronounces a word that I don’t quite understand, I ask them to spell it for me, which is a mistake because, they most likely can’t. Words that are translated from Korean writing to English, are spelled different every time I see them. For example, they have a food here called Kimbap, but it’s pronounced Gimbap, and sometimes spelled that way. This is also common with town names. Their 3^rd biggest town is Busan, but they say Pusan. When I first arrived in Korea, I was trying to find flights to an Island called Jeju, but it kept coming up as Cheju on the internet. WHICH IS IT?! Haha. Needless to say, I can now understand why some words are hard to say for them. The letter Z isn’t even used in their language, so the word Zoo…is unbelievably hard and sounds like joo. I commend those that stick with learning the English language. It would be a very daunting task for sure.

Fin! Korea trips blog coming soon! Love you guys!

Imaginary hedghogs and cans of corn.

Hello my compatriots and kinfolk! Here’s the whirlwind of what I’ve been doing the last…2?...and a half?..no…for sanity’s sake, let’s say just 2 months. Ok. GG guys. High five.

My last blog was about Hiking Seoraksan in February, so I will continue from there, determined to continue writing until I’m all caught up! Is it possible?! Whether my fingers or your brain become too exhausted to go on, only time will tell. But I warn you, the length of this one is not for the faint of heart. On your mark, get set, Green! Gobbstoppers! (haha...a great way to trick those overzealous kids playing red light, green light, that’s a free tip, you’re welcome) GO!

Begin foot note/ My weekdays consist of…pretty much nothing (it’s true, they stink), so when I talk about all the things I’m doing, just assume it happened on a weekend. Also, when I say “we”, it’s always Holly and I…because we’re practically Siamese twins…in…Korea…do I smell some sort of parody? Eh? / End foot note.

March 6- Hey soccer and Riverdance! How are you doing?! One of my students decided that I would be joining him and his co-workers early one Saturday for a rousing, and surprisingly serious game of Soccer. Usually when my students invite me to things like this, I can say “sure,” but it doesn’t usually happen because if I wait long enough, they forget, or stop coming to class. Sun though, he’s a persistent one, and made me pick a date back in December. March 6th was the day and when it rolled around, he hadn’t forgotten, and was still in class. So he brought me a uniform (yeah, that’s what I said), and mens sized soccer cleats (see? Serious). He picked me up at the school, and we arrived at a turf field they rent every Saturday with other companies. I was on the Tenneco team, and they decided to put me in the right-back defensive position. Now…people, I like soccer, and I played…but it was 12 YEARS AGO. AND it was REC LEAGUE! A.k.a. like they taught us detailed rules and real positions! (They didn’t) So I pretty much didn’t know what I was doing. At one point Sun was talking to me about a rule where the defense has to stay behind the people who can score, or the goalie, or something. <---- Do you understand how I explained that? Good, because I don’t either. So I asked Sun, “Ok, so what do you need me to do?” and he said “Kaley, (Kelly, because it’s hard to say my name) you already do it! Good job!” So…maybe I looked like I kind of knew what I was doing? I can only hope. After 4 hours straight of playing soccer with a bunch of guys, we had a lunch of Kimchi pork and tofu. Not that bad actually. Sun and Danny told me: “you’re much better than we expected!” Oh good. It was fun. Right after I returned from the game, I showered, and we headed to Seoul for some RIVERDANCE with Sarah, David, and Jen. This was an original performance and it was absolutely spectacular! I loved it, and now want to go to Ireland even more. (Nicole)

March 13th- Birthday weekend! Holly’s birthday was on the 11th and Kelly’s was on the 15th, so we all decided to get tickets to the famous show called Nanta. This show involves percussion, martial arts, food and silliness. So like, Blue Man Group, Stomp, Jackie Chan, Julia Childs and the Three Stooges all rolled into one. How can THAT not be a fantastic mixture of things?! It can’t, so it goes without saying that the show was super fun. Especially with 3 other wonderful individuals *cough* Holly, Kelly, Pete. Basically, four chefs had a limited amount of time to make a wedding dinner. They had to overcome many problems; a novice chef, their overbearing manager, knives/plates/food/brooms/hats/pans/whatever you can think of being thrown, spilled food, someone getting stuck in a trash can (how does that happen…more than once?) someone forgetting to turn on the oven for the cake, crowd members with no shoes on (Kellyyyyy) and many other things, to make a perfect dinner. Of course, they made it on time, huzzah! Fun times!

March 27th- Suraksan/Bulamsan hiking. These mountains are on the outskirts of Seoul…unfortunately…they were the particular outskirts that are on the complete opposite side from where I live. Woe is me. ;) But as they were the hiking group’s mountains of choice for the weekend, Holly was working (sad), and it would be Pete and Kelly’s first hike with Warren’s group, I decided to brave the 50ish (preposterous!) subway stops to join them. It was a good time. I met another Holly from Minnesota, there was some slipping and sliding on leaves, reenactments of Avatar, sprinting up the mountain to test the theory “the faster you go, the longer you get to rest” (the jury's still out on that one), cute prickly seed pods that looked like baby hedgehogs who said “pet my belly!”, treacherous rock climbing, jumping pictures, gasping for air, gorilla pictures, and some getting lost. All in all, another successful Korea hiking group adventure, but not quite the same without the other Holly from Minnesota... ;)

April 3rd- Spring! Cherry Blossoms! Yaaayyyyy! Oh wait…it’s still Winter in Korea. The Cherry blossoms won’t bloom for another 3 WEEKS. Never mind. This weekend we were supposed to travel to Jinhae on the Southwestern tip of Korea for the biggest Cherry Blossom festival in Korea. Regrettably, as it had just snowed the week before, there were no (ok, maybe 2) Cherry blossoms in all the land. Also, part of the festival had been cancelled due to the recent sinking of a Naval ship on the North/South Korean maritime boarder. We luckily met Shaun, who knew a little Korean and was our tour guide for the next two days. We had a great time walking all over the city and talking with him. After Jinhae, we travelled to the second largest island (Jeju being the first) in Korea called Geojedo. We had the opportunity to hike but decided to follow Shaun around again. A few other people came with us but we split up after hanging out at the water for awhile and it ended up just being Shaun, Holly, Jay and I. Jay is from Korea, so we actually hopped on a bus to head to some sweet places. She was very feisty with Shaun because they know each other and it made me laugh. “Jay, ask him where the bus goes.” “No Shaun, you do it!” “You’re the Korean!” “Shaun, you can just get off the bus at the next stop. I’m serious.” Haha!! Since we were so far south, the weather was a bit warmer than Seoul, so we lounged near the water for awhile. It was great! We got home on Sunday around 11:00, a little late for my liking, but worth it.

April 10th- to Yeouido in Seoul…at another attempt to see cherry blossoms. Another failure. But we did get some yummy Kraze burger. Oh beef, how expensive you are, yet how completely delicious.

April 17th- Rock climbing! Holly went to Jeju Island this weekend with her cousin Curt. So…I went rock climbing. It was fantastic! I could make that a hobby when I get home. From what some of the other climbers told me, it was different than normal rock climbing…but I had never done it…so didn’t know any better. My favorite part was rappelling down the rock face. Super fun. I met two GREAT girls who were also there as singles. Angie, Connie and I became fast friends. People kept asking us, “ Do you guys all teach together?” “uh…no…we met on this trip.” “WHAT?! Really?!” haha. They’re great! I also met a few girls from South Africa who were fantastic. Marie and Naomi helped translate for the 3 other loud, funny, loud boys from South Africa. At one point, we were a bit further back than the rest of the group on a hiking trail, we came to a split in the road, and not knowing which way to go…decided to wait a few seconds. Why? Well...wait long enough, and you’ll inevitably hear Conrad’s laugh…and sure enough…it came from the right trail. Thanks Conrad. Haha! Turns out, their favorite word to say sounds the same in Afrikaans as it does in English…if spelled a little differently. I’ll just say it’s a four letter word and leave it at that.

April 24th- to Bucheon we go! It has the most delicious curry restaurant that we were introduced to by Carol and Vernon. They were back home in South Africa, getting married this weekend, so we traveled there in their honor to Celebrate. Yay and yum! On Sunday we met Sarah and David at a Science museum after Church…and can I just say…MADNESS! It was family day or something. I don’t even know…but there were kids everywhere! I also saw a storm trooper walking around with a Darth Vader mask on. How bizarre…

May 1st- Volleyball! Or so I thought. When I arrived to the volleyball courts to meet the people and finally play this wonderful game that I had so missed…I found that the courts were being de-sanded but a big backhoe for a reason that still eludes me. Thanks Korea. I was pretty disappointed. Luckily, we were meeting Pete and Kelly at a Doosan Bears baseball game not long after so I had something else to look forward to. This game was AMAZING! The fans get so excited about their baseball! We were in the general admission seats right on the first base foul ball line. Everyone had the thunder sticks that you bang together and cheered like CRAZY…even though the bears lost 11 to 1 to the Nexen Heroes. We’ll be going back to another game!

May 5th- Children’s day in Korea. An actual national holiday! Woo! Too bad it was in the middle of the week! This day is like Christmas for the kids. They get gifts and go to amusement parks with their family. It was the first holiday in the last two and a half months so EVERYONE was out. Holly and I decided to go to Olympic park. We passed the Seoul Grand Park subway stop on the way there and were completely flabbergasted by how many people were waiting for the train. Seoul grand park has an amusement park AND a zoo…therefore…it was where everyone was headed. Boy am I glad we weren’t headed there. Olympic park was pretty crowded as well, but it’s a really big area so it wasn’t bad. We were only “almost” run over by several people on bikes, my head was nearly taken off by a rogue kite flier, Holly saved a small child (but sadly, not his slushy) from a hole, tried to scale a log, sat on a wall for 30 minutes before we were yelled at to get off, listened to cheesy music being blared over the speakers, witnessed some boys sword fight with sticks on roller-blades (yes, someone ended up crying, of course) , and we watched a boy play baseball with a big water bottle as his bat. After that, we found a 30 minute shortcut by subway (huzzah!) and after looking for an On the Border, we stumbled instead, upon a Bennigans just before the lunch menu was over! SUCCESS!!!

May 8th- Caving. We did! We went caving! But first we rode a ferry for a couple hours… and experienced some lovely sun whilst doing this. The ferry ride was fairly long, but I didn’t mind, I had some wonderful company: Pete, Kelly, Holly, Erik, and Reuben. We ate lunch on the ferry too…well…some of us did, Reuben had a can of corn, yes, a can...of corn, you can imagine how much entertainment that gave us. Lol. In his defense, he's from Iowa....so...he likes his corn. After the ferry we went down into the cave, it’s so amazing that you can be that far underground, and then when you come out, it’s just a mountain, with no trace of what’s inside it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the first person to explore caves. I’d have to give myself a SERIOUS pep talk beforehand, that’s for sure.

OK! So…I’m up to speed I believe! I was a little impatient with the length there at the end…so maybe didn’t include all details and such but hey…you get the picture. ;) Love you guys!

P.S…I’m listening to itunes radio right now…who is this Justin Bieber kid and why does he sound 12 years old? Haha. Have a good week guys.

Hiking Seoraksan: "What's taking these muggles so long?!"

In Korea, the word “san” refers to a mountain. It took me a little while (time frames aren’t necessary here people) to realize this. After it was brought to my attention, I realized I had been saying Seoraksan mountain…which means I had actually been saying Seorak mountain mountain. Silly me. The same goes for the word “do” meaning island (or province) and “gang” meaning river. So some advice, you don’t have to say Jejudo Island (Jeju island island), or Hangang river (Han river river). Or you could, and feel silly, like me. Do what you want.

Tangent, back on track. There are several mountains/mountain ranges in Korea, but the three tallest (that we can get to, because the tallest is quite inconvenient, being mostly in..uh..North Korea.) are called, in order, Hallsan (on Jejudo), Jirisan (south part of Korea) and Seoraksan (North East side). I hiked Hallsan last October without knowing these details when I visited Jejudo with Sarah and David.

The hiking group I’ve written about before decided to do a Seoraksan overnight bus trip the last weekend in February. Holly and I willingly joined in, once again, not knowing what we were getting ourselves into. But that seems to be the norm in this country so…no biggie. The plan, was to meet at the bus station at 11:30pm Friday night, drive through the night, and hike to the top for a, hopefully, spectacular sunrise. Normally, from what I gathered along the way, most hikers start pretty early, hike to the top, sleep there, and then hike down the next day, making it a two day hike. Not us! NO! We decided to do it all in one day! Nuts!

Let me first start with my three biggest mistakes…I shouldn’t start with my mistakes, but they are necessary for the rest of the story. 1. 3 ½ hours of sleep (on a bus, even better), is NOT ENOUGH for a 14 hour hike. 2. Tennis shoes, no matter what you tell yourself, are not proper footwear for an icy, 14 hour winter hike. 3. Headlamps/a flashlight would be a very, very smart idea when starting at 3am for a 14 HOUR HIKE. In my defense on this one, there is usually a language barrier involving explanations on these hikes. Though it’s never proven to be a huge problem in the past, this particular issue could have been more clearly explained. I also could have USED MY BRAIN and thought about the implications of being at the top for the sunrise, which meant we would have been hiking in completely darkness. *head smack*

Ahem. Moving on. I darted out of work that Friday night, ran to Holly’s, grabbed our bags, and got on the subway to meet the crew in Yongsan where our chartered bus, and new friends, were waiting.

The first thing I saw when I walked down the bus aisle was a KU hat…Rockchalk! Another Kansan was here and after further discussion, we discovered that we actually had a mutual acquaintance. Amazing! We then picked a seat, listened to some interesting instructions from our fearless/funny/energetic/ sometimes frustrating group leader, Warren, and headed to the mountain.

When we arrived, we piled off the bus in a somewhat scattered manner and somehow ended up at the trailhead all together. Warren had gone to the ranger’s office to check on the trail status. When he returned, he informed us that much of the snow had melted off the rocks near the bottom of the trails because of the relatively warm weather the last couple of days. “Oh that’s good” I thought (thinking of my awesome choice of footwear) but it would have been smart of me to let him finish talking before I thought that. Why? Because then he said the very heavy fog was freezing on those uncovered rocks, making for some fairly treacherous footing situations. Optimism! That’s the key! Let’s go crew! And away we went!

It didn’t take us long to realize that there was a potential of losing each other on the ascent. A few other groups of Korean hikers were determined to make the top by sunrise as well, and they were intermingling with our group and getting us all SORTS of confused in the dark. So on our first break someone jokingly said, “We should make a bird call like “coo coo!” so that we know where everyone is in the dark.” Many people laughed at the silliness of this statement…but it soon proved to be a necessary part of our hike. If one group got too far ahead someone would just coo coo! And they would stop and wait for the group. Don’t judge. It worked OK?!

Soon we just accepted the fact that unless we tied ourselves together with ropes, we were going to get separated somewhat. At one point, I was hiking with three complete strangers, but they all had headlamps and were very helpful! In especially hazardous situations they pointed it down at my feet to assist me. Thanks guys.

The first three hours or so of the hike were pretty straight up. It was quite difficult. About an hour into the hike we had to put our “clamp-ons” or, spikes for our shoes, on because we were getting into the heavier snow. These spikes were helpful in the snow but when we would hike on the rocks again, they kind of got in the way. If you had any time to look up instead of at your feet, you would see the sparks when the spikes connected with these rocks.

In the first several hours of darkness we walked over several rivers, and I only know this because I could hear them, scaled some rocks with ropes, lost the trail a few times and thought maybe a canister of oxygen would have been a good idea. Good thing these mountains weren’t that high above sea level. Sheesh.

When it started to get lighter outside, we noticed that the fog was also getting thinner. Could we be near the top!? “In 20 min.” said Warren. This meant another 45 at least. We spotted the top around 6:40, right around the time we came all the way out of the clouds. It was magnificent. It was like a blanket underneath. We stopped to take pictures and realized it would be even better at the top, so even though I felt like I couldn’t lift my legs ANYMORE, I pushed on, and made it. The view was even better. The clouds looked like you could just jump into them and land in fluffy cotton. They slowly flowed over and into the valleys around the area. It was very peaceful. But also very cold, so after spending about 45 minutes there, we headed another 20 minutes to a shelter on the ridge to rest, eat and get more water.

The way down was demanding on the knees. This was made better (and more fun) at times by the snow. You could just sit down, and slide several feet on your bum. You had to be careful of course, for one of these things could happen if you got careless: 1. hit a tree 2. Hit another hiker 3. Fly off the mountain (haha, but seriously) 4. Hit a big bump and break your…rear end 5. Wind up in a river 6. Miss your trail.

We were less careful in getting separated around hour 12, with 2 left to go. We wanted to be done, so some groups split off to try and shave off some time. I ended up with three other guys. One, named Yoon, had just finished working in Australia for a year, so he spoke English very well. After unsuccessfully trying to pass a group of slower Koreans, we became a little frustrated that they wouldn’t stop to let us go by on the very narrow path. Yoon surprised me by exclaiming, “What’s taking these Muggles so long!?” which made me laugh very hard. A Harry Potter reference. Awesome.

So after 14 hours, we made it to the bottom, and stumbled onto the bus. Very sore, but very worth it. A three hour bus ride and a two hour subway ride later, Holly and I walked into the apartment, and passed out. It was a great weekend. The pictures are below!

More stories soon! Sorry that one was so long. Eeks.

Love.

Clouds on the mountain.

Sunrise! Beautiful!

clamp-ons for the snow.


The fog! And a rope we used to climb up steep parts.

Not too long before Sunrise...


A waterfall!

Some of the brave at the very top!

Stories, just stories.

Hello again my lovely readers! Hey guess what…I hit my 6 month mark on the 16^th of March! Woo! It’s downhill from here kids…

I think I’ll keep up my pattern of extreme motivation in writing my blogs for two days and then slack off for the rest of the month, what do you think? (rhetorical, haha) So I’ll be posting two blogs fairly close to each other. The first will be just little tidbits that I’ve found interesting/funny/appalling/ and just downright..well…Korean. While the second consists of the things I’ve been doing the past…month…yikes.

- Weddings: I am fortunate enough to gather a wealth of information from many of my students because I have to find SOMETHING to talk about for several hours a day with adults. If anything else, I’m becoming more talented at stretching a short conversation into a longer one. I get really tired of talking. Haha. Anyway, one such conversation was about weddings in Korea. Weddings are a big deal in every country, but in Korea, it may be the equivalence to a popularity contest. Weddings are almost more important to the parents than to the actual bride and groom. The parents invite ALL of their friends and acquaintances. The guest lists can be outrageous in number, the more people, the more impressive. What’s interesting is, if a set of parents don’t have very many guests, they actually HIRE people to come to the wedding. Say WHAT?! This isn’t really common, but amazed me nonetheless. Guests bring money as gifts and all of the money goes to the parents. Good luck kids for having any money to start yours lives with, it’s going to your mom and dad. Haha.

- Dog story told to me in class: “I wanted a dog when I was a kid. One day, I found one on the street and I took it home to ask my parents if I could keep it.” ~Mickey

“Oh, did they let you?” ~ Me

“My dad ate it.”~ Mickey

“Uhhh….I…umm….Let’s move on to the next question.”~Me

- Korean time: referred to several times since I arrived in Korea. I didn’t understand what it was at first…but basically…it’s a way of saying that Korean’s are almost always late. They joke about it…which is good. In a “bad habit” conversation once, several of my students said their bad habit was being late, and that they have tried to break that habit…but then they laugh…I can only assume it’s an impossible habit to break. I don’t judge, I was on Korean time before I even came to Korea.

-Olympics: I know they were several weeks ago, I’m SORRY, OKAY?! Kim Yuna, before the Olympics people in other countries’ response was “who?” when someone said (attempted to pronounce) her name, but as you now know; she’s the 2010 Gold Medalist in Women’s figure skating. Koreans LOVE LOVE LOVE her. No joke. Like…immortality level, love. Her picture was everywhere before the Olympics even started and she has so many sponsorships, I would be willing to bet that her salary has a near equivalence to Bill Gates’ (I don’t really know). Honestly, I felt pretty sorry for the girl. Koreans tend to develop an intense reverence for specific individuals who have the potential for greatness and success. There isn’t anything wrong with that, because Americans do it too, but when they put all of their hope in a 17 year old girl, she has to feel some sort of pressure. The last time they put their hope in someone was in 1998 when Female golfer Se Ri Pak won the U.S. Women’s Open, and golf became one of the most popular sports in Korea. Now, ice skating has become extremely popular with the rise of Kim Yuna and their extremely successful speed skating team. But, if Kim Yuna came home without the gold, she had the potential of losing millions of dollars in Sponsorships. Wow. Saying that, I admired the calm that she portrayed throughout her whole, and spectacular I might add, Olympic performance. It could be safe to say that she was pretty confident she would win.

As I highly enjoy watching the Olympics every two years, I was a little disappointed that it was difficult finding an English station to watch them. But I made due with listening to the Korean commentators. On the day of the Figure Skating semi-finals Holly and I were at the gym. We both decided that we wanted to watch the top five perform on the big screen upstairs in the main area, so when the time came, we dropped our weights and ran upstairs. What we found was amazing, there were about 30 Koreans gathered around the TVs., anxiously awaiting Kim Yuna’s turn. We watched in amusement while they cheered, gasped and clapped for all the other contestants, except her rival from Japan, she received…silence. Lol. Sad. Then Kim came on, and they were mesmerized. It was an amazing thing to experience, with the yells of excitement and everyone sucking in their breath while they waited for her to complete her flawless jumps. We couldn’t wait to watch it again in the final performance. So at the end of the week, we raced upstairs again, the only two foreigners in a sea of Koreans, but we cheered her on with them when she won, almost 17 points ahead of the silver medalist and set a world record. Amazing.

Also amazing is the rule that Korea has about winning gold medals in the Olympics. This rule only applies to the males of course, because they ALL have mandatory military service for two years. The rule? If you win a gold medal, you don’t have to go to military. So all the gold medals won this year, were an accomplishment for not only these men’s country, but also meant so much more. It meant that their mandatory (and usually dreaded) military service was negated. So, more than just a gold medal? I’ll say.

- Smiling on the subway…and other stories: Subway rides on the Seoul subway system can sometimes be unpleasant. Usually it’s quiet, and always a bit awkward. People are serious and seemingly always in a bad mood. They are usually doing one of the following things: watching something on a portable player, listening to music, reading, sleeping, or staring at someone (like, say, the foreigners). Sometimes you’ll be fortunate enough to get on a train with someone friendly or happy. I always enjoy those people. My favorite is when you spot an individual who’s watching a particularly funny show, and they will just be laughing to themselves. It’s great to watch them just crack up randomly, while everyone else continues with their humdrum attitudes.

I witnessed one day, a boy fall asleep next to his mother. As sleeping in an upright position tends to team up with gravity, his mouth kept falling open. This, apparently, was of great concern to his mother, because she kept reaching over and pinching his mouth shut with her fingers. Very, very strange.

A man, was asleep, with a newspaper tucked behind his head, and over his face. Hmmm.

On a particularly long ride, Holly and I watched (started out sneaky but we gave up and just obviously watched his screen, he laughed) a planet Earth documentary with a Korean next to us who had a dvd player. Soon, three or four more people were involved in the watching, after they saw our expressions (appalled AND disgusted) when a bug ate another bug...or something equally gross, they were curious. I laughed.

I rode from Dangogye (end of the blue line) to Oido (other end of the blue line) last weekend, unintentionally. 50 stops. I never want to do that again. Ever.

Germs, germs on the subway! AHH! A man sneezed, without covering his mouth, and it ended up all over the window. Oh my yuck!

One Saturday morning we got on the subway with an older woman. Later that night, we got back on the subway to go home...with the same woman. What are the odds...THE ODDS!?! Same time, same train, same car, same stop. Bizarre!

-“Tetris Event”: Lately, every time I walk into the office here at work, everyone is glued to the computer. Why I ask? It’s a Tetris event! And what does this mean? Well, after they finish the particular level they are on (because there is no pause button), they explain that a cheese company called Bellcube, has the game of Tetris on their website and if you get a high enough score, you win something. Something worthwhile? I didn’t get the chance to ask, because the next level had started.

One day, Cindy had been playing for 20 minutes, and was particularly proud of how far she had gotten. Then Mr. Kim called her phone to ask something. She successfully answered her phone AND put the long purple block in its place to create a full line, but then her concentration broke, thus ruining her game. She became angry, yelled something in Korean at Mr. Kim, hung up the phone, shouted “I hate him!” and restarted her game, in a very angry manner I must say.

Another day, the middle school boys who come here after school walked in while she was playing this very addictive game. They were being noisy, which wasn’t abnormal for them, and seeing that Cindy was preoccupied, I went out to try and see if I could get them to be quieter, without knowing any Korean, fat chance. Then I saw that they weren’t being their normal loud selves, they were actually in a fist fight, yikes. I started to say “Stop it! Guys!” and then realized how little that would do, so I went back to the office and said, “Uh, Cindy? They are…like…punching each other.” The first thing she did was quickly glance at the screen that shows all the cameras to see what was going on. There are 4 cameras here: main lobby, back classrooms, T.V. room, and in front of the elevator. She saw that they were fighting, and then she saw that Mr. Kim was just getting off the elevator with the other kids. Can you imagine what happened next? She said, “Mr. Kim will take care of it” and continued her game. It was funny. Usually she runs out of the room waving a metal curtain rod to threaten them within an inch of their lives. But right now, Tetris had her undivided attention. Oh Korea.

Love!

How to make a pizza....

OK! This blog contains an array of thoughts…have fun (good luck) following along, yeah?

- So…if you hang around foreign teachers long enough here in Korea, you’ll hear them begin to discuss the very interesting/messed up things they teach the children/adults of Korea. The authors of these books are usually English speakers who spent some sort of time in Korea and think they know what they are doing. But actually don’t. haha! One friend had an example that went something like this:

Lol, oh my.

Recently, two examples in my book caught me completely off guard and I fumbled around trying to pick my scattered thoughts up off the floor and explain what they meant. Here they are:

1. A. How long have your children known about the birds and the bees?

B. they’ve known about the birds and the bees since they were 9. (Say WHAT?!)

2. A. How long have Dan and Jan been nervous?

B. They’ve been nervous since they got married a few hours ago. (I..just…don’t even know why someone would put this in here. Is it some sort of JOKE?!)

- There are several students that attend our school who all work for a bread company called Samlip. One started coming, told his friends, and now there are about 10. I have one of the bosses in my free talking class, and the other day, he was lecturing his co-workers about how “Kaley has good pronunciation, so take this opportunity to learn English because you cannot understand English speakers this well usually.” Uhh…..thanks?

- Mr. Kim and his wife went to the west coast recently. Before they left, he promised to bring me back some oysters. I had no idea how I was going to eat them but I don’t pass up free food, alright?! So, thinking I would be receiving three or four oysters, I was completely unprepared for the large SACK that he handed my way the next Monday. Wha…how….can….do….eh? He said, “steam them, but wash them first.” Hmmm…..I then carried them home like the Santa Claus of the sea and dumped them into my sink. I stared in amazement at the dirt and clumped together oysters that I needed to separate and clean. Do you know how oysters are grown? I’m sure you do…but just in case, and to drive the details of the wreckage in my sink home, I’ll tell you. The seed (or spat, if we are getting technical) is placed just above the bottom of the brackish water, which is why the west coast is good for oyster farming, and not, swimming…ew. After the oysters have fully matured (taking several years) they pull up the oysters and detach them from racks, bags or cages, whichever that particular farmer used. What does this mean? Well…it means that our oysters, were still connected to the strips of plastic that they grew on. Do you know how difficult it is to detach them from what they grew on? Dang near impossible to remove…so I stopped trying to pry them off after the first oyster’s razor sharp shell tried to slice my hand off. (a tad over exaggerated, I must admit) As I was sifting through the mess, attempting to find a few that might have fallen off the plastic, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, some movement. I had to ask myself…now…why would there be something moving in here? I am not an individual that screams when becoming frightened, but I have no problem admitting that when I glanced over and saw what I thought was a large, malevolent, nasty, abhorrent, appalling, dreadful, ghastly, hideous, repulsive, vile, long legged, spider (I hate spiders, can you tell?) I yelled and jumped several feet away from the sink, sending dirty oyster water all over my counter and floor (…longest sentence ever). After a closer inspection, I realized it was only a small crab that had the misfortune of choosing the wrong crowd to hang out with in the sea. After spotting seven or eight more crabs, and not being able to get over the fact that they still looked like spiders, I decided that my four oysters were enough, and placed everything else back in the bag. After steaming the oysters, the next task was trying to get them open. I think they are supposed to pop open if you steam them correctly…but that’s just a guess. One was open and I can now say I’ve eaten a Korean Oyster (not bad), but just one, because the others proved impossible to get into as well. Yikes.

- The word nauseous needed to be explained in class. I said, “It’s when you feel sick, like you could throw up.” A student then said, “Ohh! Like you could make a pizza!” and pantomimed the throw-up action, complete with the throw-up landing on the floor in the shape of a pizza. A very good comparison, which I now use on occasion, as in “Oh that’s gross, I think I’m going to go make a pizza.”

- My sister left me a 10 minute skype voicemail. It was fantastic! About halfway through, I forgot I wasn’t actually talking to her, and began to respond to it…before remembering I was talking to a machine. Thanks Hope East. :)

- Yongsan. It’s a suburb of Seoul, with a very nice theater. Outside the theater, is a very nice Crepe stand. And by very nice, I mean fantastically delicious, and that’s an extreme understatement. I ordered a chocolate banana crepe and watched in amazement as it was made. I must come clean and say that a Coldstone Creamery was spotted before the crepe stand…therefore, a snack of ice cream came before the crepe. And though the phrase “fat cow” was thrown around (in a joking manner?) I did not care in the least, because I was eating a piece of sunshine dust. (NOT Marjory Stewart Baxter…)

- Riding on the subway is always an interesting affair. As we live on the end of the line, we can usually nab a seat before the next few stations when they fill up…but we’ve never been on a totally empty train before. Once, after we first met, Holly said to me, “Kaley, someday, the train will be empty, and you’re going to hang from the bar by your knees.” I was in agreement with this awesome plan, of course! That day finally came when we were headed for our hike. We had an amazing time acting like we were 12 years old. Here are some pictures:

- As I don’t drive a vehicle here, I don’t pay much attention to the rules of parking a car and where they can be parked, but even I can’t ignore the fact that many cars double park. How do the other cars get out? Do people get angry? What is GOING ON?! I soon found out two things: 1. people place their phone numbers in the window so if they are in the way, they just call the stranger up and ask them to move, or my personal favorite: 2. They leave their car in neutral…so it can BE PUSHED OUT OF THE WAY. How crazy is THAT?!

- Think of Korea. Think of the word Earthquake. Do they go together? No, but you better believe we had one. I was sitting in class, tutoring Mr. Kim’s wife, when the building started to…well, I guess, rumble, is how I will describe it. It lasted for about 8 seconds and Cindy and I just looked at each other in confusion. I then worded out loud the obvious question that I knew we were both thinking…”what was THAT?!” but her response was NOT what I expected…. “Maybe Mr. Kim jumped?” A crack at Mr. Kim’s weight…oh my. Haha. Mr. Kim then came in and told us that the Korean news website was saying it was a 3.0 earthquake that was felt all the way into Seoul…but actually originated from pretty much where we were standing. Siheung was the epicenter…weird.

- This next paragraph is about my bike wreck…but first, I’d like to preface this story with a disclaimer: It may seem like I have many accidents here in Korea….but you don’t need to worry…I’m always this clumsy, I’ve just never blogged about them before. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to bring my clumsiness to everyone’s attention, it’s just who I am, but most of you know this I think. Moving on…Last Thursday it snowed, but it was a very wet, heavy snow that pretty much turned to slush right away. When it snows, I don’t ride my bike, because, that’s just asking for trouble. On Friday, the snow had all but melted away, and as I was leaving work, I decided that I might need my bike for the weekend so I grabbed it. As I headed for Holly’s to eat breakfast, I started to go down a ramp onto the parking lot, but a car was blocking the ramp, so I just went off the curb instead. What I didn’t see…was that tricky black ice, sneakily awaiting my back tire to connect with the ground at an angle mathematically perfect to complete the equation of “slippage to the tenth power”. Before I knew it, I was flat on my face, and I felt like I was Calvin when his bike attacks him in the Calvin and Hobbs cartoon. I then arrived at the universal decision that sometimes plagues us as human beings, you know, the laugh or cry one? I’d rather laugh…and laugh I did…for about 10 minutes straight. As I picked up my bike and walked it the rest of the way to the apartment, I heard someone from 9 stories up exclaim, “Are you OK?!” Turns out, Holly happened to be on her porch at the exact moment I rounded the corner, and had seen the whole thing. I shouted, between laughing fits, “did you SEE THAT?!” Well of course she had. Which made it even more hilarious. The damage? A lovely bruise where the handle had hit my leg, bruised hands and knee, a bent bike pedal that now clicks on the back bar and a memory that make me laugh every time I think about it. Thanks Korea.

- I went skiing again last weekend…two times in one year…I could get used to that. It was the same resort as last time, but a different group of people. It was so fun! I tried more runs this time, and found out that a black diamond here isn’t like a black diamond in Colorado, but challenging for me nonetheless. The slopes were so steep, that when I fell, I usually didn’t stop sliding (on my back, head first) for at least 50 ft. Luckily, my skis stayed on so I didn’t have to try and chase after them. Though, for the first time ever, I was that one person who dropped their ski pole off a lift…SHOOT! It was close enough to the beginning that it could be retrieved but I still felt like an idiot. Holly and I met a great couple named Pete and Kelly, who we will be hanging out with more here in Korea. Pete had never skied before and took to it swimmingly. Holly did great too, especially since she hasn’t been in 6 years. I thought about throwing her down a black diamond with me…but…she would hear none of it. The weather was beautiful. It snowed the first day, covering all the trees with wonder, and was a perfect temperature the 2^nd day. Here are some pictures from this trip:

Love!

Stairs for giants...

A few weekends ago we went hiking. Having said that, let me back up and fully explain the details that preceded the hike. A couple months after I arrived in Korea, I was notified of a facebook group that goes on hikes throughout the year. I joined the group and then, because winter was coming and no one was setting up any hikes, I forgot that I had joined. When I received a notification from the group two weeks ago I thought “what is this? Oh yeah, that hiking group.” Intrigued, I checked out the details. This is exactly (no really, exactly) what was written about it:

theme:
- urban hike and trekking
- 12km(around 8 miles), 6~7hours
- novice, everybody can join and enjoy trekking. if you want to walk, then you can make it.
- walk along the fortress from Dongdaemoon(east gate) to Namdaemoon(South gate)
- some part of trails will be road, pedestrian crossing
- 3mountains Naksan, Bukaksan, Inwangsan - mountain(most of part are well arranged and some part with stairs or fences)
- you don't need any hiking gears but hiking boots and pants would be good.

It looked fun and Holly and I decided it was a good way to spend the weekend; (semi-colon used correctly? I’m thinking, no.) free leisure activitiesssss….I’m in. So early Saturday morning found us packing a bag and heading to the station for our two hour subway ride to the meeting point. When we got there, our guide, Warren, who we had never met before, greeted us with an excited hello and a warm hug. There were only about 6 people there when we arrived but soon our ranks grew to about 30, with an array of different nationalities. Our friend Laura met us there as well. Warren, full of energy, said “Ok, let’s all get in a group and STRETCH!” We all looked at each other and said…”uh, stretch?! We aren’t stretching.” …We should have stretched. Piece of advice, when Warren says stretch…he’s not messing around, do it. *serious nod* Then we were on our way like the Travelocity gnome! “I’m on my wayyyy.” Get it? No? Ok. We started in the middle of many businesses so we had to wend our way through the town to find the path along the fortress wall. The wall was very interesting because you could tell which part was old, and which was newly rebuilt. The lower part was some 500 years old while the top was obviously very recently repaired. Here’s a picture for you visual learners:

Warren, Holly, Laura, and I pretty much lead the pack the whole way. Apparently we are fast walkers. Part of the trail was icy to begin with. What part? Why, the downhill part of course. We had to walk off the path on the few spots where dirt showed through. I did take this opportunity to try my hand at some downhill ice-skating though. It was pretty out of control, and fun. Here is a picture of this particular icy part, the railing was handy to grab when sliding too fast..haha!

We had some characters on the hike, a few names we remembered, but others we had to make up based on their physical attributes or clothes: a guy from New Zealand who Holly lovingly dubbed “Pinstripes,” because of his choice of pants, he was ornery and oddly dating a girl named Kaley, and “Red beard” who wasn’t a pirate, but did in fact have a red beard. The hike turned out to be pretty intense. Some parts were amazingly steep and made us question the “novice” label of the hike. Much of it was covered in stairs…but these weren’t NORMAL stairs…they were very inconsistent in their spacing and at one point the exclamation “what are these, stairs for GIANTS!?!” may or may not have been shouted between gasping breaths. The view from all three mountains was spectacular and made the sore limbs totally worth it. We felt like we had hiked along side Korea’s equivalence of the Great Wall.

Afterwards Holly, Laura (I’m omitting that Oxford comma…only because it’s a pet peeve of someone I know…take THAT Kanga!) and I went to Kraze Burger and had pretty much the MOST DELICIOUS burger known to man kind. We had the opportunity to join some of the other hikers for some Korean pancakes, but I decided to opt out; I wasn’t feeling like eating squid at the time, or ever really. We will be doing another hike with the group in a few weeks. This one is located near the east coast in a National Park. It’s supposed to be a beautiful hike during winter. We were supposed to hike it this weekend but, in the words of a fellow hiker, it experienced a “snow obliteration,” and the government actually shut it down until they can get some trails cleared. This time we will have learned our lesson and we’ll make sure and stretch. J love you guys. Another blog soon. Very soon.

Holly, Warren and I on the top of one mountain. Oh Warren. lol. And Laura looking out over the scenery.

Laura and I scaling some rocks. Who needs a ROPE?! Come on!

A tree that they built the stairs around. Amazing.