Going back to Seoul

Last weekend I went back to Seoul (what again?! yeah again) with my friend Chris to accompany him and his dog, Jules, who had to get fixed.
We left early morning Saturday after a late night of hanging around the foreigner holes. I'm meeting more and more people and I'm feeling less like the new kid as each weekend goes by. Its hard to believe that I'm almost at the two month mark. Only 2 more months before I get to see my lovely Ryan!

The news about ex-president Roh's suicide broke while we were on the bus to Seoul. Chris and I were chatting happily (ok maybe I was being a little loud!), and then a grumpy ajuma (phew... ajuma, lets see. An ajuma is a not so gently aging Korean lady. Usually they have short cut, permed hair and can be seen sporting visors, gloves, and scarves no matter what the weather is and wearing brightly floral colored pants and shirts from 1000 won sale piles. Their favorite past time is digging things up from the side of the road and selling their dug up treasures on top of a blanket next to the road. Their second favorite pass time is seeing how hard and fast they can push people out of the way; even when the sidewalk is completely empty, an ajuma will go out of her way to bump into you. They are scary!) Anyway, an ajuma turned around and said "shut up! we are watching tv!" in perfect English. That's when I realized something big had happened. Koreans are saddened by his death. Places are flying the Korean flag. Even though he wasn't immensely popular in his life, he is remembered fondly in his death despite the corruption charges.

After dropping off the puppy, we went to an Indian food buffet. Oh Indian food! It was so good, I ate a ton. It made me miss my mom and our Indian buffet lunches at the Taj Mahal. After pigging out, we headed to Insadong to check out a building that has nothing but musical instruments. I was hoping to find a cheaper accordion or concertina for traveling.

Huge multi-story musical instrument and equipment mall.

The view from the building was really cool, you can see the Samsung building back there.

There were mounds of guitars everywhere. Even Hello Kitty guitars.

Sound boards and amps were precariously stacked everywhere, not a good place to pull a suitcase or wear a backpack to.










Finally found a shuffling old man to guide us to the accordions after what seemed like hours of wandering mazes of guitars, violins, pianos, and every musical instrument and piece of equipment ever made.

Ah! Wrapped up, cheap but VERY expensive Chinese accordions. What a let down, you couldn't even try them out.

After the musical instrument mall we checked out ChangDeokGung, a palace. It was beautiful. I loved it. I love the angles and shapes created by Asian architecture. I took a ton of pictures.

and my favorite, a 650 year old tree. Something about really old trees amaze me. So many people have looked at this tree, sat under it, touched it.

At night we went with the couple that we stayed with to the foreigner casino in COEX. COEX is the largest underground shopping mall/arcade in the world. Its HUGE, you could never see the whole thing in one visit. I would get so lost in a place like that. I did a little shopping there, I bought a shirt with a scooter on and it says 'scooter.' Anyway, the foreigner casino is amazing. When you walk in, the first thing you notice is that its so quite, the quietest casino I've ever seen. The next thing you notice is all the Japanese men rolling big and throwing Won around like its confetti. However, the best and most amazing thing about this casino is that all your drinks(they have a full bar) and food (a full menu) are free, FREE! Oh, its also free to get in, too. I didn't understand it, I still don't! What a crazy deal. You could have only 500 Won to your name, walk in there.. play a slot and get a dinner and drinks. Normally I don't gamble, but I was willing to put down 20,000 for dinner and drinks. I ended up tripling that on roulette, then I won another 7,000 in a slot machine. It was a good night. After the casino we headed to Itaewon, Seoul's foreigner capital. It looks much different at night. There are a ton of "Russian girls" and other night walkers. Also many gay people and non-whites, something you probably won't see outside of Seoul. We had drinks at one very routy foreigner bar, then moved to another. I met a guy wearing a Reggie Bush jersey from Baton Rouge. When we left the bar the sun was coming up. We stood around for awhile trying to figure out what next, and decided to eat. More Indian food!!!! Even better at 5am! It was so good, some of the best I've had since London. Then we went back to the place and crashed.

We all woke up around noon and headed to get some hangover food. Bibimbap, ah bibimbap! So good, so strange. Its rice, veggies, egg, seaweed, umm other stuff and sauce (sometimes) served steaming hot in a bowl. You then mix it all up and eat it with a spoon.



Chris and I then headed to Costco after lunch. This was my first time in a costco type place, it was huge! So much stuff from home too! I'm not yet at the point where I'm missing a lot of food from home, but when I am there.. I will be coming back. We bought a ton of cheese for people back in Gangneung, probably about $300 worth and lots of tortillas. Getting it all back to Gangneung was quite the feat, it was a good thing I was there to help!


This was a really good trip to Seoul. I guess Seoul isn't that bad after all, but I'm still always happy to go back to Gangneung.
This week in Gangneung is the Dan-O Festival, the 3rd largest event in Korea.

Teachers day and buying a scooter

Sorry everyone, I've been a very bad blogger. I'm now 2 weeks behind! oops!
The Friday before last was Teachers' Day here in Korea. On Teachers' Day, students show their appreciation by giving their teachers small gifts(socks), flowers, and chocolate. I got a pair of socks and these bootie things that you are suppose to wear with high heels. I also got 2 fake roses, one of them sings "you are my sunshine," and a real rose. And some chocolate. My favorite gifts were the little notes, my students are so sweet. Oh and they opened a Baskin Robins in Taek Ji, yum!










During the day we took the kindergarten students on a field trip to Haslla Art World. Its only about a 15 minute bus ride, but we took them by train there and then took the school bus back. This was my first time on a Korean train, they are very nice! This is the train that is in the world record book as being closest track to a shoreline. I had all the kids jumping in my lap, asking to switch seats with me once we got to the scenic part. They are too cute.











At the station I saw my first Koreanize dog. It has pink ears, a pink tail and red boots!




Haslla Art World was pretty interesting. It kinda reminded me of the UCM, but a little less crazy and more spacious.

Kids touching the gems in rocks.

Stephanie's class and I. We have green staff shirts now that we have to wear for field trips and walking days.

There were many bird houses, didn't see many birds though.

Creepy monster guy statues lined the woods.

Sculptures...

More sculptures with trees growing out of them.

We had a picnic for lunch then played duck duck goose till it was time to leave. Stephanie's class had a really nice lunch spread, I got some since I'm her helper on field trips. They had chicken nuggets, Pororo apple juice, and cookies. The school cook also made us some kimbap and cherry tomatoes. Kimbap, its kind of like roll sushi, but it has all kinds of stuff in it. This one had radish, crab, green stuff, kimchi, mushroom, and carrot. And probably a few other unidentifiable things.


At night us teachers and the ladies from school went out to eat at a buffet at the fancy Hyundai Hotel on the beach. The moms of some students had paid for us to go as a Teachers' Day present. It was good! My favorite was asparagus wrapped in bacon and creamy mussels with mushroom. The children of the director are so funny, all they ate was spaghetti, fried chicken, and ice cream.

Stephanie, Chris, me, Miss Cook our cook, the assistant directer, directer, bus helper, and school helper. School helper is one of my favorites, she is so sweet to me and helps me with Korean.

After dinner my co-workers went out drinking with the ladies from school. I skipped out, mostly because I didn't want to see Chris get my Korean bosses wasted, which is what happened. Instead I went with some friends to a festival at the university. There wasn't much to it, I was expecting music and stuff like that, we must have missed it though. There were many tents, and in each tent there were chairs and tables you could sit at. Then the students from various organizations would serve snacks, food, and drinks. We went from tent to tent, sampling their snacks and drinking.

Our group minus a few people.

One of the tents sprung a leak so we had to sit under my umbrella.

The guy is Chris, he is from Florida so we hit it off pretty well since we are both Southerners. He offered to take me scooter shopping the next day.

I took him up on it. I bought a scooter! Its so beautiful. It is way better than what I was thinking I would buy. I'm glad Chris went with me and showed it to me otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten something this nice. It is 125cc, has a MP3 hookup, pimp blue underglows, and its also a 2 seater so I'll be able to drive Ryan around when he comes. I spent more than I wanted, 800k (about $640), but it was worth it. So many people have scooters here, we are planning road trips for the summer. I know everyone is concerned about my safety, its a major concern of mine too. I promise to be safe and wear my helmet. I'm also fairly concerned about it getting stolen, hopefully 2 locks and a cover will be enough protection. It took a long time for me to not jump up and race to my window to check on it every time I heard a sound.












Some artsy pictures my friend Chris took.











On Sunday I took a scooter trip with my friend Chris to Unification Park. It features a retired warship and a captured North Korean submarine. The funny bit on the right is about the submarine, a few years ago a North Korea submarine popped up and there was a huge gun battle.























The submarine smelled funny inside, like communism perhaps.

Up the hatch.

Last week I finally had my body check at the hospital, its something you need to get your alien registration card. It was pretty simple until I saw that they were going to take my blood. I started crying when I realized what they were going to do and didn't stop until the taxi dropped me at Dunkin Doughnuts so I could get a powerup doughnut. I'm such a baby about blood. The whole hospital was laughing at me, the nurses brought over doctors to see just so they could laugh at my tears. When I got back to the school the Korean ladies made fun of me a lot.
The little boy I watch was sick all week, so I didn't do too much last week but bum around and look busy. He is back now, I think he must have practiced some cause he can say "Jane Teacher" now, and he doesn't stop saying it all day. He is a good natured little dude, I missed him all week. I'm going to miss him when its time for his dad to take a new job in California in June. Not sure what I'll be doing in June once he is gone, hoping for my own class. Tagging along on the kinder field trips and walks is sometimes depressing because I don't have my own little kids that hang all over me and tell me they love me.

Ok. Next issue coming soon, stay tuned.