Nary A Flat Surface

Photos:
1-Trying to look intimidating for my Foreigner Registration Card.
2-Racism Fail?
3-Mrs. Lee.
4-Lucy.
5-An innocent victim of the dreaded "Asian L/R Confusion."

Greetings...

The title of today's blog is in reference to Korea's apparent inability to produce a flat surface. Of course, I'm exaggerating but there is enough evidence to at least make this claim, even in jest. Over 70% of the entire country has some sort of topography and I think they've designed everything else to honor this amazing statistic. Exhibit A: my bathroom--I have a sink but no counter and trying to balance a can of shaving cream, my razor, a bar of soap or anything at all is practically impossible. Exhibit B: the kitchen--there are indeed flat surfaces here but none that are big enough to actually accommodate anything. Exhibit C: my apartment in general--before I got my desk (smallish though it is), I struggled to find a place to put ANYTHING! Keys, chain, my wallet, etc. have ended up on top of the fridge. Exhibit D: the sidewalks (also the main reason to bring all this up)--so far, more than a month "in country," the sidewalks of Korea have constantly been under construction. On my main street, on either or both sides of the street, there is ALWAYS a good stretch of sidewalk that is being redone. I appreciate their efforts to improve the quality of their sidewalks but they use bricks instead of cement which is just begging for inconsistencies. Now, I walk by, around and through this construction process daily so I feel confident in my assessments. I have witnessed the process and I can safely say that these are amateur sidewalk constructors, using nothing but their God-given eyes and intuition to make "symmetrical" and "level" sidewalks.

I'm actually not complaining because the sidewalks they haven't gotten to yet are dreadful. It is almost impossible to take your eyes off of it because you will most definitely catch your shoe on a bump, crevice or outcropping of asphalt and go a-tumblin' down. I've been walking to and from school lately and I must seem like a stereotypically rude and self-centered American as I traverse the streets without making eye contact. Little do the locals know that I am just trying not to fall on my face.

Here's some more videos:
-At the driving range
-School Speeches

http://www.youtube.com/user/solertia33

Some thoughts on my students...

When I first started, like the first two weeks, I was convinced that the 6th graders were hellspawn and that the 3rd and 4th graders were cherubs sent straight from heaven. Now, I think they're all evil. My theory is that they have to behave themselves so well in their homerooms that when they finally get some parole in the form of English class, they act like monkeys at feeding time. It is so taxing trying to maintain order and attention spans with these kids. An added frustration is not being able to communicate with them. I'm always just putting my finger up to my lips in the international "shh" gesture. Sometimes, I'll wag a finger at them or show them my palm and say, "STOP." This might seem like enough but there are many times when I've got a lot more to say to these wretched younglings and I can't. Last week, we had a surprise: we got to babysit the ENTIRE 5th grade while their parents were in their homerooms with their teachers. Remember my prison riot analogy from an earlier post? Well, imagine 80+ hellions enacting this scenario "to the T" (minus the stabbings of course). But, two boys did get into it right in front of me. They were trying to share one chair (we simply can't accommodate this amount of kids) and they got into a disagreement over whose butt cheek was hanging off more and their initial dirty looks and shoves turned into a UFC death match. They coiled around each other like dueling anacondas, each getting an arm around the neck and grabbing a handfull of hair. I needed the Jaws of Life to pry these guys apart and when I finally did, I saw a few strands of hair in the kid's hand. Jiminy Christmas!

Now, I don't mean to paint this picture straight from Dante's Inferno. There is plenty of sweetness to offset the sour. No racial stereotypes intended but it really is a ying and yang thing with these kids. I'm starting to get hugs here and there and my "Beatles on Ed Sullivan" celebrity status has yet to wain. But sometimes, they just don't care about English class and it's hard trying to jump start 100+ students throughout the day. Here's another story: two days ago, I'm walking to school and one girl who is always super happy to see me runs over and gives me a hug, say's hi and runs back to her friends. Later, she's in class and say's something to me like "fan." It sounds a bit like "friend" to me so I ask her if that's what she's saying. She shakes her head "no" and makes a hoop with her arms, does the obvious motion for "belly" and says to me: "Fat." Oh. I drew fake tears going down my cheeks and walked away. She laughed. I suppose it's a good thing--all this ego-inflating has gotta be checked somehow.

Yesterday, I had my first after-school English class. This consists of 15 of the most advanced English speakers in a setting a bit more lax in subject matter compared to following the textbook word for word during the regular classes. I was really looking forward to this because it's more "my class"--Mrs. Lee is there to help but I'm much more involved in the lesson planning and execution. For our first lesson, I xeroxed a short story about Perseus and Medusa, gave them copies and read to them. We went over some advanced vocab before and after. Tomorrow, I'll have them take turns reading the story themselves and we'll take a little comprehension quiz I created. It's tough trying to explain things but it's actually kinda fun racking the brain for the best way to explain "sprouting."

We sent out a little informational sheet with a sign up form for the students to take home and let their parents give permission. Out of 200+ students, we only got about 25 requests. Mrs. Lee was concerned both about the amount of students (too much) and their various English levels so we gave them a test to weed out the less proficient. I was disappointed that we had to cut 10 kids from the class before it even began--so was Mrs. Lee so she asked the Principal and he agreed to pay me overtime to teach another, lower-level class on Wed./Fri. So, today, we had the first lower-level class--this one didn't go so well. I tried to do the same thing (copy a Greek myth book and read it) but there was a much bigger discrepancy in their abilities. I'm glad Mrs. Lee decided to weed them out because I can tell now they would've slowed down the process a great deal.

Koreans Lettin' Loose...
So, last Friday, we finally had our first "school dinner." Rob's had a few already but this was my first. The Principal, Vice-Principal and all the teachers went out to eat Korean style sashimi. We sat on the floor of course, the sushi was okay and I had my first experience with soju. I'm not a drinker and tasting soju didn't bring me any closer to becoming one. It wasn't gross but it really does taste like it should be cleansing a wound rather than be ingested on purpose. We were warned in training that there's often "that one guy" who goes around does shots of soju with everyone. This 4th grade teacher who I'd only see a handful of times around school was suddenly my red-faced best friend. He plopped down next to me, knocked salad bowls into his lap, spilled soju on my pants and jokingly traded insults with the other teachers. It was actually pretty fun. Later, he was so drunk, he spent 10 minutes scanning the shelves looking for his shoes among the others. He had to be taken home. Then we went to Noribong(Karaoke). We piled into this room with couches and a big table, they brought in more drinks, snacks and tambourines for added interactivity. I knew they were going to make me sing so I just didn't think about it too much. About half way into the session, I got up and sang a pathetic and monotone version of Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark." Later, I decided to redeem myself with a simpler song that I actually knew the lyrics to: "Yellow Submarine." It was fun to see all these usually uptight and respectful adults get down with their bad selves. Much like the students in my English class, these Korean adults will take any opportunity to let loose and throw propriety to the wind.

Rob's got a good rundown of our adventures last weekend so rather than be redundant, I'll just let you read about it there.

http://kimchikoontz.blogspot.com/2009/03/best-kimchi-ever.html

That's it for now. It's almost midnight and I did NOT want to stay up late tonight.

Stay tuned...

-Brent

p.s. If anyone ever asks me if I've eaten hard-boiled quail eggs, I would be lying if I said "no."

The Life Aquatic

Greetings...

Well, I've had a very fun weekend that deserves its own blog.

SATURDAY:

Rob and I made the trek down to the famous Haeundae Beach (Hay-Un-Day). If you don't know already (we didn't), Haeundae is perhaps the most famous beach in Busan if not the entire country. It's a tourist hot spot and it could not have been built up any further. Perhaps because it was March and cold but we were not impressed. It's small for one and the view was nothing much to write home about. Of course, when it warms up and the beach is jam packed, it'll seem a lot cooler.

There's also an aquarium right on the beach so I suggested we check it out. I was not expecting much--there's typically not much to aquariums that I haven't seen before but I was thankfully mistaken. Lots of cool and fascinating creatures, all ready and willing to pose for my camera.

We then decided to explore the rest of the beach...but there was not much. We did find O'Kim's--the Korean/Irish pub that we first read about in our travel guide. We thought the idea of a guy who visits Ireland, sees how pubs are named, comes back to Korea and names it O'Kim's was hilarious. We didn't go inside but we promised we would someday.

There are some cinemas down in that area so we decided to catch a flick. What was at first a casual decision turned into a VERY long walk, a lot of map checking and a taxi driver who had no clue where we were trying to go. We finally ended up at a proper multi-plex, had Burger King and saw the Friday the 13th remake. I must say that Burger King in Korea is so far the best burger around. We've been to McDonald's and we've been to a Korean knock-off called Lotteria and they just don't get it.

SUNDAY:

I found out that Mrs. Lee's birthday was Saturday so I decided to buy her a little cake. I called Lucy and she thought it was a good idea. When I mentioned getting a gift, she suggested a hair clip because she really likes them and it's small enough to be an appropriate gift. So, tomorrow, after lunch we'll be having a 3-person birthday party. There's a "French Bakery" down the street from my place so I went there. I found this rectangle shaped, Lemon Cream Sponge Cake for $6!

We had plans to go to a soccer game at 7pm. It's a good thing Ashley called and asked if we were going because it actually started at 3pm instead! We met up at the stadium with Ashley and two other EPIK teachers that Ashley knew so we went as a little American entourage. I'm not sure if the stadium was actually built for the World Cup that was hosted here in 2002 but it was quite impressive. The outside looks a lot like a spaceship. It's called the Asiad Stadium if you want to google it--Rob's got some photos. Speaking of Rob, a few people have been wanting to read his blog as well so here's a link:

http://kimchikoontz.blogspot.com/

The stadium was strikingly empty. They set up bleachers...an extensive set but bleachers nonetheless...instead of letting us sit in the actual seats. This meant we had great seats but it felt more like a high school game rather than professional sports. Also, the stadium is a semi-dome...and we just happen to sit with the sun beating down on us for 2 hours. I don't feel sunburned but I probably am. Great.

After the game, the 5 of us went to a "real" restaurant. No Outback this time. One of Ashley's friends suggested this place right by the stadium that she'd been to before. I was really hoping that she just wasn't really into the gross Korean food and there would be something that didn't remind me of my school lunches. I got a plate with some gimbap (Korean style California rolls), some cabbage with dressing, corn and a fried pork cutlet with some tasty sauce on top. I was very pleased with this venture into Korean cuisine. I don't know if it's because I'm eating elementary school Korean food but I'm very close to proclaiming my official dislike of Korean food. I'm holding out on this official statement because I've been out to Korean restaurants and had some pretty tasty stuff: BBQ with Rob last week and tonight would be examples. So, I know there's good stuff out there but they somehow avoid most of these at school.

I was talking with Cari today and she thinks I'm too passive and agreeable. She knows there are things that I'm NOT okay with and she wanted a list. So, by request, here's a list of things that would be considered negatives:

-the food (see above)
-the inconsistent and unreliable hot water in the shower
-the no napkins at meals
-the no DRINKS at meals (never have I been more concerned about dehydration)
-having to air dry my clothes on a cheap metal rack
-not being able to see any Korean films with English subtitles at the theater
-having to separate my own trash into confusing and nonsensical categories
-not being able to find clothes/shoes that will fit
-not knowing where I can get my work clothes dry cleaned

I'm sure I'll come up with more in the coming months but there's just a little proof that life in Korea is not perfect...but it is cool!

Really cool story...
Friday, it was raining when I woke up. I thought, "Okay, I'm definitely taking a taxi today," as I had yet to purchase an umbrella. But, as I stepped outside, the rain had basically stopped. If I didn't know it had been raining, I might ask, "Is it raining?" So, I decided to just walk to the bus stop as usual. Everything was fine on the way but as I was standing and waiting for the bus, the rain came back with a vengeance. I got soaked. And now, of course, there are no taxis anywhere. Finally, the bus shows up and I hop on. I still have a good 10-15 minute walk as soon as I get off the bus but them's the breaks. I get off and start walking very briskly through the still raging rain. There are a few schools and businesses in the area (in other words, lots of dry Koreans under umbrellas with confused looks on their faces at the foreigner in a suit getting drenched). Then, as I'm about to make the turn up the big hill towards school, a little boy comes over with his umbrella and puts it over me. I was so touched! I told him thank you and we continued to walk--him holding the umbrella and me kinda crouched underneath. He figured it out much sooner than I did and he handed me the umbrella so I could hold it and we'd both be comfortable (kids are so smart). Turns out he was one of the students at my school and we finished the walk in silence but the awesomeness was there. We got there, I thanked him emphatically and I ran inside. I really wish I would've gotten his name or something. I'd totally buy him some cookies or candy for his altruism. So cool.

And on that note, I'll end this session.

Here's some videos from the aquarium:

http://www.youtube.com/user/solertia33

Stay tuned...

Adios!
Brent

Reconnected

Greetings...

I'm very happy to report that this entire blog is being typed while using my very own consistent, reliable and fast internet. Meanwhile, Blade: Trinity is playing on my new TELEVISION set. That's right, I got cable TV too. Now, I'm not watching the third installment in the Blade series because I've been dying to see it again. I do have a soft spot in my populist genre heart for the wanna-be Matrix, Wesley Snipes as ultimate (cliche) badass, techno soundtrack for no good reason and constant "mythologic one-upping" that EVERY single vampire movie falls into but, again, that's not why I'm watching. I'm watching it because while I have over 60 channels to choose from, about 50 of those channels are either Korean or Japanese. Of the 10 English language channels to choose from, there's CNN (okay), a couple movie channels that play a very random variety, National Geographic (awesome) and the On Style channel...because I was really hoping to watch the Tyra Banks show while I was here. I'm not complaining--history tells us that Brent can live without television. But history has also never seen Brent without access to DVDs as well. For some reason, my DVDs won't play on my laptop. I need to look into getting that fixed. I've been shopping around but it seems as if Region-Free DVD players (that play American DVDs and Korean DVDs) are as elusive as the Siberian Spotted Owl (I totally made that up). That's okay...I didn't come to Korea to watch the same DVDs that I've already watched 5 times back home...but it would be nice to watch the Cosby Show DVDs I bought just before leaving! On the other hand, this internet access is definitely a treat. I can now call, video chat, download and blog whenever my little heart desires.

This is a slightly amusing story: I took the bus to school for the first time on Monday. I knew where to catch the bus but I wasn't exactly sure where to get off. I know it's somewhere along this one street. As we were driving down the road, I started to see familiar sites so I started making my move to hit the "STOP" button and get off. Before this can happen, the driver takes a sharp left turn and starts climbing this massive hill. Uh oh. Slightly panicked, I decide to wait and see if we'll either come back down this hill or, even better, go closer to my school which is also up this same hill. Well, things are looking grimmer and grimmer at this point--I recognize nothing and my hopes of this little misstep working in my favor are like snowflakes in Satan's fireplace. I hit the stop button and I didn't need to speak Korean to read the driver's expression: "Here? Really?" He stopped and opened the door. I stepped out and plotted my next move--do I go back down the hill or start walking in the direction of my school and hope I can connect somehow. I decide to make my way in the general direction of my school but this turned into a dead end after a few minutes. I turned around and walked all the way back down this hill. Did I mention that I was wearing my suit and tie? Oh yeah, totally stylin' in this broken down neighborhood--this guy was sliding cardboard boxes full of trash to the corner looking like he hauls boxes of trash for a living and he looks at me with an amount of surprise and confusion I can only imagine. Eventually, I found myself back on the main street and got to school. The next day, I take the bus again and I make a pledge to the Bus Gods that I will not make the same mistake twice. I fulfilled my pledge but I also made a different mistake: this time, I got off too early. I was so paranoid that I'd take another unsolicited scenic bus tour of the highlands of Busan, I got off the bus about a quarter mile too soon. The bus stopped and about 6 people got off and I blindly followed the herd. Today, I am very happy to report that the third time was indeed a charm. I got on and off at the correct places without incident. I will rule public transportation soon enough.

Yesterday, Rob and I got to leave work a bit early to visit the Immigration Office to get our Foreign Registration Card (our official ID as foreigners while we're here). While waiting for Rob on my subway platform, I hear some gruff shouting behind me. An obviously inebriated/crazy post-middle age man had a baseball hat out in front of him and he was basically yelling at people for money (I assume, although I've known crazy people who speak my own language who often rant about topics that have absolutely no pertinence to the situation). As he made his way through the small crowd of people, it was interesting to see people avoiding this man so emphatically. It almost made me a little concerned, like they knew something I didn't know. While riding the subway towards our destination, I had forgotten about this unfortunate soul completely. Then, as Rob and I are chatting, I see something moving on the floor. Of course, the drunk/crazy guy is now pulling himself across the floor of the subway car, pushing his favorite hat in front of him but not saying a word. People moved out of his way and women lifted their feet as he proceeded the entire length of the car. It was creepy, sad and hilarious all at once.

My first Korean BBQ experience was great. Rob and I hit up this place right across from my apartment--I can see it from my window in fact. Somehow, I managed to avoid going for Korean BBQ for 27 years before actually coming to Korea. We struggled a bit with our waiter trying to order beef but we eventually got some choice meat. They gave us a number of tiny dishes with little appetizers and sauces and additives that are all meant to compliment the meat. Again, like many Korean side dishes, these were just okay. They set some embers in the middle of our table and we cooked the meat ourselves. I just like the idea of cooking it ourselves as it adds that "participatory" element to dining out that is unfortunately absent from typical American establishments. We ended up getting two orders of meat and by the end I was nice and satisfied.

Rob and I decided to take our respective co-teachers out for dinner as a "thank you" for all the work they've been doing for us. After some humble reluctance/embarrassment, Mrs. Lee agreed. We're scheduled for next Monday night. Rob heard about this pretty popular steakhouse (not Outback!) that we're going to. Maybe after we've done some more exploring and adventuring, we'll find an even cooler place to take them to later in the year.

The medication I've been taking is starting to kick in and I'm getting pleasantly drowsy. I hope I feel better by this weekend as we have some ideas for exploring the beaches and the more touristy parts of Busan.

Stay tuned...

-Brent

Excuse me, Waiter? There's a fish in my soup.

Greetings...

Well, there certainly is a lot to catch-up on so pack a lunch, get comfortable and let’s get right to it.

Monday:

Got dressed in my nice suit and got picked up by my co-teacher, Mrs. Lee. She was generous enough to drive me to and from school for this first week. She politely declines my requests to take a picture of her to show you but I’m confident I’ll get a “yes” soon.

As we’re driving through some very narrow, crowded streets (“these have to be one-way streets,” I think to myself but I’m mistaken), she turns up this hill. Again, this is a very narrow strip of asphalt and there is a caterpillar of marching kids walking up it. I realize this is the “driveway” to the school and I ask Mrs. Lee, “Do I have to walk up this hill everyday?” She laughs and says yes. I’m telling you, from the four floors I have to walk up in my apartment building, the four floors walking up to our classroom and that monster hill leading up to the school, I’m going to slaughter the few calories I’ve been consuming (more on this in a minute).

We met the Principal, a semi-short man in his 50s. We sat in his office while he and Mrs. Lee chattered away. I don’t think he speaks a lick of English—although Robert’s theory is that this might simply be a display of Confucian hierarchy wherein he might in fact speak his fair share of English but withholds it in front of me to avoid revealing a weakness. The Vice-Principal is a much more agreeable fellow, always smiling, but, like his superior, makes no attempt at English in front of me.

This being the first day of school for the year, there’s a lot of administrative tasks to be performed—including introducing all the new teachers to the students. Apparently, many if not all public schools teachers are transferred to new schools every 4 or 5 years so there’s always new teachers to meet. We’re lead into a room that is set up as your typical student run broadcast room—two movie lights illuminating a “news desk” in front of a background with the school’s crest. The Principal stands in front of two tripod-ed DV cameras with a group of 4 young female students operating. He’s got a microphone and he’s doing his little Principal speech. I quickly realize that this video and audio is being piped into every room in the school and a very small wave of anxiety passes through me. Each new teacher gets an introduction, they stand in front of the cameras, bow and receive a flower in a fancy plastic sleeve. My turn arrives and the bow/flower ceremony goes off without a hitch. Thinking I’m done, I prepare to leave the room but they motion for me to stay. The Principal does so more chattering (no disrespect to the Korean language but I think “chattering” is an appropriate description) and then he holds the microphone out to me—oh boy. I stand in front of the cameras and introduce myself, where I’m from and that I’ll be teaching English (duh!). There’s a monitor in front of me so I can see myself standing there in my suit with a microphone and it reminds me of the recent X-mas video Dad and I made and I almost start laughing. Either there was a technical malfunction or they simply thought I didn’t talk long enough so they said, “Can you introduce yourself again?” Okay. I just said the same exact thing again because I couldn’t think of what else to say—my thinking was that those who could actually understand me would understand my predicament and those who couldn’t would just think I continued with more information about myself.

We didn’t see any students this day as it was a half-day/first day kinda thing. So, Mrs. Lee, Lucy and I just kinda hung out in our rooms until lunch. Lucy is also a new hire—she’s a Korean currently taking TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) courses at a nearby university. She’s basically our assistant but she’s also in charge of the English library which is one of THREE rooms we have at our disposal. I was told to either expect one room where the kids come to us everyday or we’d be traveling from classroom to classroom—I was hoping for our own room and I was granted 3! So, there’s a library room, a study room and the actual classroom (pics soon). Oh, and did I mention that I have a crush on Lucy? She’s married of course but exotic, cool and fascinating nonetheless.

We were told to expect some faculty dinners the first week but this first lunch was it. The Principal took us to a traditional style restaurant (sitting on the floor) and we knew what we were eating before we even arrived: fish soup. Unlike Rob, I really like seafood—granted, actual fish is low on that top ten list but I enjoy it all the same. If someone says, “Yeah, we’re having fish soup for lunch.” You might think some vegetables and tofu swimming in fish broth—this was not quite the case. It was literally fish soup—you could not simplify the description if you tried. There was 80% of a whole fish (including the head) submerged in broth. Oh boy. I usually pride myself on being open-minded when it comes to food—I’ll try just about everything once. But this instance really did challenge my will power. I quickly scanned all the little side dishes around to see if there was anything I could supplement this disastrous meal with—nope. One thing I’ve noticed about Korean food is that the side dishes are almost always the wild cards and if the main dish doesn’t do it for you, you’re pretty much screwed—just ask Rob. I waited to see how others were handling this fish predicament—when I saw Mrs. Lee take chunks of fish OUT of the soup bowl and put them on a small plate, I had a flash of hope. I did the same and it’s amazing how the situation changed—fish head under water vs. small piece of fish meat on plate are two very different things. Suddenly, this nightmare meal literally became palatable. Of course, I did have to scrape of the fish skin but once that was done the fish was actually pretty darn good—I ate most of it except the head of course. And the rice! It is truly a miracle that Koreans eat rice at every meal because if all else fails, the rice really does become the main dish and it’s thankfully filling.

Korean kids will be kids after all

Tuesday:

So, Tuesday was the first day we actually met the kids. We see four different grades throughout the week: 3-4 sections of each grade (3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th). The periods last 40 minutes and then they run screaming down the hall like only kids can do back to their homeroom. I knew the kids were excited to meet me because Mrs. Lee said they had been asking about me for weeks prior to my arrival. Little did I know that I would be blowing minds right and left. The kids would come into the class, see me and react like they’ve NEVER seen anything like me before—probably because they hadn’t. Eyes would get wide as saucers (as wide as Korean eyes can get), mouths would drop open and exclamations like “Whoa!” or the Korean equivalent were very common. I enjoyed this process quite a bit and the best reactions came when all the students would already be seated and I come in from the study room so they all react at once. It was not like some other human walked in--it was almost like someone brought in the most exotic animal you could think of. Like a gigantic, brightly colored parrot or a freakin’ tiger or something. It was very funny. I would introduce myself, write some words and pictures and/or words on the white board to help them understand. “Do you have a girlfriend?” “Are you married?” “Do you like baseball?” “Why do Americans eat so much pizza and hamburgers?” were some of the most common questions. Sidenote: when I couldn’t answer the pizza/hamburger question, some other student said in Korean, “Because they’re delicious!” I couldn’t agree more.

Here are some highlights from the entire week of my interactions with the kids:

--They’re fascinated with my goatee—many boys would barely touch it and giggle—I forget that facial hair in this region is about as common as I am.

--At one point, two boys were fooling around. The smaller kid hit the bigger kid on the head with his softcover book. The bigger kid then responded by forcing the smaller kid’s head down and applying his entire weight through his pointed elbow as he dug it deep into the smaller kid’s back. My reaction was a mixture of concern and laughter—I didn’t actually laugh but this kind of behavior reminded me a lot of my own elementary days.

--Another, more serious moment of violence came in a different class. Our activity this week was to tear out the pages of their books that have all the materials needing to be cut out. As the whole class is frantically ripping their books apart (Note to self: don’t instruct 6^th graders to tear pages out of their books and expect them to do it with civility) I’m helping out at one group’s desks. Right there in front of me, two boys really got into it. The boy on the right hit the boy on the left in the chest—the boy on the left responded by swinging three really hard punches (horizontal windmill style) which landed in various places. Meanwhile, windmill boy is crying his eyes out in anger. This all happened in seconds—I stepped over there and broke them up. Mrs. Lee quickly came the rescue and took them both outside for a chat. I’m sure this kind of behavior is common almost everywhere in the world but when I noticed that these kids use utility knives instead of scissors to cut things, I realized that if things go bad here, it’ll be like a prison riot with hundreds of screaming Korean kids running around with knives. Powder keg, anyone?

--Some of these kids are really excited to speak English and you can find the one or two per class by listening to who is shouting out random sentences. One kid in the corner kept yelling, “What’s your name!” and “How old are you?!” As I was walking around helping kids tear out pages, one boy kept saying, “Im soopry, Im soopry!” I took a stab at what he was trying to say: “You’re surprised?” “Yes,” he said. “What are you surprised about?” He then plainly responded, “Your body is SO big!” I chuckled at this and confirmed, “Yes. Yes, it is.”

--About the 3^rd or 4^th day of the week, as Mrs. Lee and I were walking into school through the playground area, one girl amongst a group of girls, said, “Hello, Mr. Dunham!” Instant heart melt.

Lunch has been interesting. The teachers all pay the school to provide lunch everyday but there’s very little choice in what we eat. Of course, it’s all Korean food so, for them, it’s totally cool. For me, it’s like Fear Factor on a daily basis. Yesterday was especially interesting—one of the side dishes were these little sea creatures. I’m going to have to find a picture on the internet of what these things looked like but it was like I was suddenly on an alien spaceship in a sci-fi movie eating alien food. It was a white, soft “pocket” with tiny, purple octopus like tentacles blossoming out of it like flower petals. Oh boy. Thankfully, they were bite sized so all it took was a quick pop in the mouth without having to see what was inside. Surprisingly, these things had little to no taste and were just chewy like calamari so it wasn’t too bad. Looked worse than they tasted, that’s for sure.

Another interesting lunch story: for lunch, they always wheel in this cart that has everything on it. I grabbed my tray and started loading it up—I see this side dish that looks like stiff, kinda dark cabbage. I sit down and start eating. I always start with some rice or tofu to get me prepared for the wild card side dishes. I took a chopstick full of this cabbage stuff and popped it in my mouth. Crunchy. Strong seafood taste. Uh oh. I tentatively continued to chew and swallow. When no one was looking, I took a closer look at this cabbage and discovered it was not cabbage at all but very tiny, skinny, whole fish. Anchovies might suffice as an equivalent. If I had known what I was getting into, I might have handled it better but the surprise factor made this stuff gross and, needless to say, my chopsticks did not wander over to that corner of the tray again.

Everything you've read so far was typed into a Word document as my official internet has yet to be installed in my apartment. Yes, it's getting frustrating over here. Every once in a while, I'll be able to leech off some random unsecured wireless signal which is how I'm rolling at the moment.

I'm also sick! The past two days I've had a medium achy feeling. I've been drinking green tea, popping Tylenol and chewing STRAWBERRY flavored Vitamin C. In other words, I have but only a little bit of energy to finish this monster blog.

Quick story from last night: So, as I just mentioned, I've been sick the past two days but not sick enough to justify staying in bed with nothing to do. Rob has been needing some things and there is this great store called E-Mart that has just about everything. I finally figured out how to get to one so we went! We got some stuff and we both got haircuts at this salon WITHIN the E-Mart. The haircuts cost less than $10 which is awesome. Anyways, it's dinner time when I leave Rob's place. Side side note: my only entertainment so far is to watch whatever I've got downloaded on my iTunes. This isn't much so I went through it really quickly. Rob offered to let me use his internet because my limited access internet barely works and downloading videos is not very practical. I set my laptop at his place and downloaded both Season 5s of LOST and The Office...sweet. So I'm coming home that night, lugging my heavy ass laptop AND a big bag of E-Mart stuff. Rob mentioned he was going to try Pizza Hut for dinner and that sounded like a great idea but I just wanted to go home. By my apartment, there's this place called Mr. Pizza which I've been meaning to try. I got my personal pizza to go and kept walking home. Once at home, I set the computer back up, started catching up on the LOST episodes I've been missing and eating a very delicious Hawaiian pizza. If you know me at all, you know that these are the ingredients for a heavenly night: pizza, movie (or a cool ass show like LOST), boxers and bed. For the moment, my sickness was barely noticeable. Along with the pizza, they gave me a tiny plastic bag with parmesan, chili flakes and...a small container with bread and butter pickle chips swimming in pickle juice. (They gave us these pickles when we had pizza last weekend too...it must be a thing). So, I eat the pizza and peel open these pickles. I eat the pickles but I leave the juice in the little container, which I placed on my desk behind my laptop. Can you see where this is going? Later in the night, with the lights off, I get the brilliant idea to take the computer off my desk and put it on the bed in front of me--the angle just wasn't right. I slowly slide the computer towards me and something falls off the desk and splashes on the floor...yep, the pickle juice. This was the last thing that needed to happen and it really did take "heaven points" away from the previous 2 hours. I jumped up, turned on the light, cursed myself for forgetting about the pickle juice on my desk and cursed the Koreans for deciding that pickles and pizza are a good combo. Of course, when I got the light on and saw the damage, it looked like the juice made a direct hit onto the top of my laptop case which will now smell like Vlasic for months.

New Pictures!

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=114820&albumId=3394484

New Videos!

http://www.youtube.com/solertia33

I can't seem to upload my "here's my apartment" video but I'll work on it.

Also, one REALLY quick last story because this blog has literally taken hours to post. I got a doorbell installed and it's wireless which is convenient but there's something screwy with the radio signals because when you push my button it rings in my apartment AND the apartment across the hall (and vice versa). Luckily, that guy apparently works long hours and I doubt I'll have any visitors so I don't think it'll be a problem.

I'm sorry for the unnecessary length of this blog and I'll try to keep 'em shorter next time.

I hope you're all well.

Stay tuned...

Love and Green Tea,

Brent

New Digs and Tired Feet

Greetings...

First of all, a LOT has happened over the past couple days but I'll do my best to summarize.

We left the orientation site about 11am on Friday and didn't make it to Busan until about 4 (with a lunch stop in the middle). I was cramped on the bus because some other dude sat next to me so I was much relieved to get out and stretch. They lead us into a restaurant where the food was already on the table waiting for us. The problem was, this was a more "traditional" style restaurant so all 200 of us had to sit shoeless and Indian style on the hardwood floor. We were told to expect this when we dine with our fellow Faculty members at our schools but I was not prepared for it so soon. In short, as I told Rob during the meal, I was uncomfortable from the second I sat down. This was not a comfortable situation to be enjoying a meal--this was like a stress position they put terrorists in to make them talk. Thankfully, other people were also obviously uncomfortable and people started standing up and leaving after about 10 minutes. We took that cue and got the hell out of there--well, we slowly made our way out as the pins and needles in my feet were EXCRUCIATING! It was so bad when I was trying to put my shoes on that I couldn't move at all. It was terrible.

All the Busan people (6 buses worth) made it to this lunch stop but we split up once we got into the city. My bus stopped at some middle school where our co-teachers met us and picked us up. As we pulled in and saw all these teachers with signs with our names, I got a bit nervous. This was very much a "moment of truth" as they say. The person waiting for me outside the bus is going to be very important to my success living in Korea--it's almost like going on a blind date except you HAVE to "call this person again." In fact, it's more like an arranged marriage. You can imagine my relief when I finally found the person holding my name: an attractive middle-aged woman who just looks "nice." She thankfully lived up to this first impression and I've been counting my lucky stars since then.

Her name is Myeong-ju Lee but she thankfully requested that I call her "Mrs. Lee." Our first 10 second conversation was "Hello." and "I've got more bags on the bus." She responded very briefly, with a lot of head-nodding, and I thought, "Oh no, she's one of those co-teachers who's English is really limited." As soon as we got in the car, we start chatting some more and she's actually more proficient than my first assumption. Phew! Here's our first real conversation:

Her: "Where are you from?"
Me: "California. Los Angeles."
Her: "Oh, I live in Los Angeles for one year. And Chicago."
Me: "Oh, really?"
Her: "Yeah. Fullerton?"
Me:...pause..."Fullerton? You lived in Fullerton?"
Her: "Yes."
Me: "Wow! I lived in Fullerton for 3 years!"
Her: "Really? Oh my gosh!"

Later, it also came out that she went skiing in Big Bear once. Crazy. She was there because of her husband's job and came back to Busan in 2002. She misses America and wants to go back. She also doesn't want to teach English but her Principal said she had to simply because she spoke the best among the other teachers. I'll have to take a picture of her so y'all can see her.

She took me to E-Mart, Korea's version of Wal-Mart. She bought me all kinds of apartment starters like dishes, silverware, bedding and some food. The food was a slight issue because I'm supposed to pay for it but I didn't have any cash on me. She's going to check with her supervisor to see if I need to pay them back or not. The coolest thing about E-Mart is the angled, step-less escalators between floors that the cart "sticks" to. I asked her if it was magnets holding onto the cart but she said no...I wonder...

My apartment's pretty nice. The internet is not hooked up yet (which is why I'm typing this from an internet cafe) but once it is, I'll be able to show some pics and videos. I do have some sort of view of the city down the street. It's a big like Las Vegas down there which is fun. Mrs. Lee helped me make my bed and take out my new dishes/pot/frying pan/etc. Once she was gone, I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich from my very first Korean groceries. It was the best ham/cheese I think I've ever had. It was actually pretty rough eating at the orientation because each meal was pre-planned and we had very little say in the matter. Also, each meal was Korean in some ways, even down to the cold hot dog with lettuce and "yellow sauce." Having control over a meal, and to eat something so familiar, was quite a treat.

Yesterday, my first full day, I did some more shopping with Mrs. Lee for some of the things we didn't get during the first round. She had the landlord up in my room trying to figure out the hot water heater (I had to take the coldest shower that morning) and he was also a very helpful and friendly individual. In the afternoon, with Mrs. Lee gone, Rob and I decided to meet up for a late lunch. I had absolutely no clue with direction my subway stop was so I had to go down to the basement of my building where the landlord also runs a "putting range" and point to the subway map. He took back outside, walked down to the main street and pointed "that way." I thanked him and walked a couple blocks to a MAJOR intersection. I saw a few of these 8-way intersections while driving with Mrs. Lee the night before but to stand near one is actually pretty amazing. I found the subway and made my first successful subway trip to meet Rob closer to downtown. Ashley was there also so the three of us ended up in a 2nd story pizza place. This was also a little bit of awesome.

We then decided to take official tours of our apartments. Ashley's was first as it was the closest, then mine and then Rob's. It was neat to see the other apartments and neighborhoods but my feet were killing me. Friday, meeting Mrs. Lee, I "dressed up" in a nice shirt, slacks and my nice shoes. These shoes were not meant for serious walking which is what we did that first night shopping. Then, yesterday, during our trek across Busan, now wearing my Vans, my feet were still upset from the previous day--and today they aren't very happy with me either. That's the thing with living without cars, the feet because used 53 times more often. I'm going to have to take a day off and let the feet recuperate.

After seeing Rob's place, it was time to eat again. We had decided before we even made it to Busan that one of our first meals would be Outback Steakhouse. And an Outback we did find! Steak with veggies and french fries and a Coke. So, so, so good. In fact, we were just at this gigantic department store and saw a TGI Fridays that we're probably going to eat at once we leave this internet cafe. We decided that we're going to ease our way into eating Korean food--cold turkey has not/will not work for us.

So, the subway system rules here and, so far, I'm really excited to live in a big city with a subway. When I was in NY, I loved taking the subway everywhere. Rob's only 6 stops away (12 minutes) so that's good.

Again, once I can get my own internet, I'll update some more. The first day of school is tomorrow so I'm sure there'll be no shortage of information to pass on.

So far...I love Busan and I'm "assimilating" nicely.

Stay tuned...

Love and stuff,
Brent