I wonder what will happen next...


My school has gone a bit crazy. Not a good kind of crazy, but a weird kind of crazy. It all started because enrollment was down. My personal theory of why enrollment is down is that people are not stupid, and they realize that the teaching our school requires us to do is ineffective. Making kids memorize over a hundred words a day is not realistic. Having kids use college textbooks when they are in fifth grade is ridiculous. Any normal person could see that these methods of teaching are not going to work. Any normal person would realize this. However, the owner is not normal. His theory for the low enrollment is that we don't make the kids sit up straight in class. Yes, that is right. Good posture = learning. Nevermind that these kids go to school for 12 hours a day and on average sleep 4 hours a night. The slouching kids are not just tired, they are disrespectful brats who aren't paying attention. The owner is fixated on this slouching theory. He has gone so far as to make part-time workers go around and check that the kids are sitting up straight. If there is unacceptable posture in a classroom, they come in and yell at the kids (in Korean). The part-timers also get the super redundant job of checking the kids' homework (as teachers, we check the homework also and already fill out a sheet of who didn't do their homework). So maybe 3-4 times in a 45 minute class, the part-timers barge in and bark Korean at the students. This is supposed to make our teaching more effective. I am starting to think that there is no word in Korean for "effective," and that is why my boss can't seem to figure out what effective is. On the other hand, I think that the part-timers have an inkling. Normally, they just shut up, do their job, and collect the $2/hour that they make under the table. That all changed last night when they were told that they had to wear some silly arm badge that said "English Only." One part-timer refused (I can't blame him. I wouldn't be humiliated for $2/hr). The owner promptly called the obstinate worker into his office and fired him. I picture the scenario in my head (but I imagine it happening in English which I know is not a reality). The owner yells in a rage that someone would have the audacity to disobey him. The part-timers stands there with a smirk. Finally, the owner throws in a few more choice words and points a finger at the door. The part-timer saunters out the door without looking back. As an added bonus, the other part-timers realize that one of their kind just got fired over an armband and follow him out the door, throwing down half-graded tests and meaningless papers. That is how I picture it going down, but I am sure it wasn't as heated as I imagine because I am in Korea, where people are normally too polite to quit. They have to ask for permission to leave. I know that the guy was fired on the spot, and I know that the other part-timers quit and walked out. What I don't know is what will happen next. Now there is no one to yell at the kids for slouching. How will the students ever learn without the added discipline of 19 year old Korean boys interrupting my class every five minutes?

How much kimchi can you eat?


When kids write essays about traditional Korean stuff, they often write about kimchi. In case you don't know (just as I didn't before I decided to move to Korea), kimchi is spicy fermented cabbage. It is eaten constantly in Korea. My students ask if I know what kimchi is, which is a ridiculous question because it is eaten at every meal in Korea. You can't go to a restaurant and not have them grab for the large tupperware and dish out kimchi into a bowl. It doesn't matter what you are eating, you get some sort of kimchi. There are actually many kinds of kimchi, and they are each served on their own little dish. A typical Korean meal involves a table covered in small dishes. I would hate to be a dishwasher in Korea, and oddly enough, most people don't have an automatic dishwasher in their homes. As usual, I am going off on a tangent. Back to the importance of kimchi in Korean culture. Koreans love the stuff. Kimchi is eaten with all kinds of food. Our Korean "mom" serves us kimchi with spaghetti, cookies, and pretty much everything we eat at her home.


Yesterday, we had the delight of making kimchi with Korean "mom." Of course, before making kimchi, we had to eat brunch. In case you are wondering what brunch means in Korea, it was kimchi (of course), rice, meat, broccoli, oysters, peanuts, and eggs. It's not what I would normally think of when someone says the word "brunch," but hey, I am in Korea. After eating, we sat on the newspapers laid out on the floor and got to work. Korean "mom" busted out a huge tub of salty red pepper paste and garbage bags (yes, that is plural, there was more than one bag) of salted cabbage. At first, Paco and I were only observers because we "might get clothes dirty." We watched as "mom" took the heads of cabbage one by one and covered each individual leaf with the red pepper paste. After a while, we convinced "mom" to let us help. We put on plastic gloves and started rubbing the paste onto the cabbage. We did this for a few hours before we had to leave to go to work. When we left, there was a sizable garbage can filled with our newly made kimchi, and "mom" showed no signs of stopping until all of the cabbage was used. I asked her how long it would take her and her son to eat that much kimchi. She solemnly replied "six months." I was blown away. This tiny Korean woman is going to eat a garbage can worth of kimchi. I am guessing that the garbage can ended up weighing as much as she does.

On a random note, Korean "mom" just got accepted to teach Korean in Ecuador for 30 months. So Paco and I will likely head to South America net year. Anyone want to go to Machu Picchu with me?

Exploring a Seafood Market



While Ariel's parents were visiting, we saw some interesting places. One of the uniquely asian experiences was a trip to a seafood market. After a long subway ride filled with many transfers, we managed to find our way into a warehouse filled with vendors. It was a little disturbing to see so many ocean creatures clamoring in tanks waiting to become dinner. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience. The ground was wet with sea water and animal guts. Ariel and I both rolled up our pant legs before entering. I expected it to smell unbearably fishy, but the air just seemed thick and musty.


The warehouse was full of massive shrimp, abalone, enormous mussels, snails, squid, octopus, fish, skates, sharks, eels, and many more marine creatures. Octopus were sitting in tubs of water and crawling out, only to be poked and prodded by a woman with a long stick until they relented and stayed in the tub. Shrimp practically the size of my head rested on beds of ice. Mussels and snails gasped for a breath of sea water as they lay stacked in a pyramid.


We stood and took in the sights. We gawked as men grabbed fish out of tanks and beat them over the head until the flopping subsided. We watched as people filleted fish and laid it on beautiful platters. We took pictures shamelessly. I only saw one other white person. It was upsetting to witness the raping of the ocean (I even saw some sharks in the fish tanks), but I don't regret going.

The Dr. Fish Experience



How could we resist? It's a coffee shop that has good coffee. That in itself is a difficult thing to find in Korea. Ususally, coffee is burned, watered down, and comes in a dixie cup. There are very few places where you can get a real, large cup of coffee, which is why I love Starbucks at the moment. Starbucks feels like home. It is even decorated for Christmas already in true American fashion. It's still the beginning on November, in case no one has noticed!?!?!?!!?! But I am digressing from the importance of Dr. Fish.

It's a nice coffee shop where you can sit and relax (unless it's the weekend, and then it's a madhouse). You sip your coffee and eat free bread and waffles. Eventually your number comes up, and it's your turn for Dr. Fish. You are probably wondering what the hell Dr. Fish is (if I haven''t already called you and rambled on and on about it). Dr. Fish is where you have fish eat all of your dead skin. First, you wash your feet off, and then you sit in front of a nice window overlooking the busy street below. Next you stick your feet in a pool of water filled with hungry fish. The hungry fish bite you, eating the dead skin from your feet and ankles. For someone who is ticklish, this is pure torture. It's common to hear shrieks of horror from the waegooks (Korean word for foreigner) as the fish chomp away. The Koreans sit there like it is a normal thing to have hundreds of fish biting you at once. There are actually whole pools that you can lay in while fish eat skin off of your entire body. I don't think that I could handle doing that. It was hard enough to keep my feet in the water for 15 minutes at a coffee shop.

I learned from the menu that there are many benefits to Dr. Fish. Besides exfoliating, it gently massages your feet in a way that no person can do. It improves circulation, and it brings you closer to nature. You feel connected with the fish that are getting a meal of dead skin. Being a biologist, I see this as a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. I benefit by getting smoother, softer feet. The fish benefit by getting fat off dead skin. It's a win win situation. I'm just glad that I get to be the person and not the fish in this scenario.

Another Day in Korea



So today I decided to ride my bike to run some errands at Costco and E-Mart (the Wal-Mart of Korea). Ariel told me that the stores were close to the bike path, so I assumed it would be easy enough to find them. I have been to these stores many times, but not taking this route. The bike paths in Korea are great. They run along rivers and streams. On a Sunday, you can expect to see families, badminton games without a net, and people enjoying their one day a week off. It's fall in Korea, so the weather is crisp and the leaves are glorious shades of orange, red and yellow. The fallen leaves on the ground make that wonderful crunching sound when you ride your bike over them. I enjoyed the few hours that I spent riding around, getting lost, backtracking, getting more lost and riding around in circles.

The first excitement was right when I got to the bike path. Something was going on. Something was not normal. Under the bridge, there were hundreds of people in costumes. I have seen this before, but I don't have any clue why it happens. There are just hundreds of people dressed up, and people with big, nice cameras take pictures of them posing. I can't figure out if it's some sort of festival or what they are celebrating. The costumes don't have any uniting theme. People wear elaborate costumes with wigs. There are space age outfits, traditional Korean outfits, wedding dresses, pirates, people with swords, a person in a fuzzy cat outfit, etc. Of course, I didn't have a camera, so I can't show the wierdness of it all. When will I learn to carry a camera everywhere in Korea?

I rode my bike at a nice leisurely pace looking for the stores. At one point, I thought the path was coming to an end, so I went to the street. After looking around lost for a while, I turned back. Later, I thought I could see the building I wanted to go to, but again, I went the wrong way. Eventually I made my way close to the store. I could see it, but I was on a lower bike path and couldn't find a way up to the street. Instead, the bike path went under the road. I followed the bike path for a while though the sketchiest areas I have seen in Seoul. As I went though the tunnels, I imagined that this is where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would live or maybe just the only serial killer in Korea. It was dark and creepy and I was happy to get out. I was less happy when I realized that I had come to a dead end and had to go back though the tunnels. For a fleeting moment, I thought of climbing up to the street, but then I remembered that I would also have to drag my bike up. I backtracked and when back to the main trail, thinking that there must be a more obvious way to get there. As I went along the bike path, I spotted a cool Alice in Wonderland Park and a community swimming pool (drained of all its water). You find such interesting things when you get lost. After a while, I decided that I went too far and I tried to find my way on the sidewalk. It turned out the be a semi-non-existent sidewalk which went past a lot of scary looking gardening stores. I had not yet seen such a dilapidated part of town. Finally I found my way to the store. I bought my catfood and contact solution and got the hell out of there. Stores are crazy on Sundays. Thankfully, I found a much easier and less sketchy way home.

Right now, it's 6:45 p.m. on Sunday night. Is it acceptable to go to bed yet? I am such an old woman.....

The "Yogi-Yo" Button

Korea is not a place where you tip people. The taxi driver doesn't get a tip. The guy who delivers food doesn't get a tip. The waitress doesn't get a tip. I think that this slightly changes the attitude of the service industry. They aren't worried about making good tips, they just do their jobs. At restuarants, this translates into the "yogi-yo" button. Yogi-yo may be one of the most useful Korean phrases. Basically it means "here." You can use it in a taxi to mean "stop here." You can use it to get someone's attention. In restuarants, it can be used to get your server's attention from across the room. Apparently it isn't rude to scream "Hey! Over here!" to the person bringing your food. However, most of the time, you don't have to worry about doing this because of the yogi-yo button. On every table, there is a button. When you push it, the waitress comes to your table. That way, they don't have to come and check on you, and you don't have to shout across the restuarant. It is actually quite brilliant. Want another giant pitcher of beer? Just push the yogi-yo button, and magically someone comes to attend to your needs. I have gotten so used to having the yogi-yo button that I don't know what to do when it's not there. The other day, Paco and I were at an Indian/Tibetan restuarant, and there wasn't a yogi-yo button. We looked at each other very confused and wondered how we would order without a yogi-yo button. This is a moment when I worry about what it will be like to go home. How will I order food without a magic button that brings the server to my table?

Ariel and proclaimed Thursdays "Discover Korea Day." We don't have to teach until 5 p.m. so we are free to romp around the city. After being here for over five months, we realized that we have not been taking advantage of the city. We don't go out exploring much. As a result, we have been living in a bubble amidst 11 million other people. There are tons of museums and beautiful places to visit in Seoul, and so far, we have seen about five of them. Yesterday was our first Discover Korea Day, and we chose to visit a buddhist temple, Jogyesa (조계 사). It was a beautiful haven in the city. Whenever I am at a temple, people are doing things that I don't understand. I always just observe, but yesterday a cute, old Korean man handed us inscence and we had to figure out what to do with it. We lit the inscence and walked over to a pagoda and stuck it with other inscence. I'm sure that we missed out on at least eight steps of things we were supposed to do with the inscence, but who knows.

We wandered around in a new part of the city and found a nice vegetarian restaurant. At the restaurant, we met a nice western monk. When using the toilet, I stumbled across a knitting store. This is the first knitting store that I have seen in Asia. I saw a sign and followed it into a huge knitting store. For a minute, I just stood in the doorway with my jaw dropped. There were walls of yarn and knitting books (in an array of languages) and I was very excited. That's what happens when you Discover Korea. You love it even more than you did before.

Have it Your Way........ Just Not in Asia




Paco and I were trying to remember what foods we miss from home, and we have been away for so long that we have forgotten. I don't know what it is that I miss from home. Sometimes I get tired of eating Korean food, but then I can't think of what I actually would like to eat. I know that I didn't used to eat kimchi and rice everyday, so what the hell did I eat before I came to Asia? The grocery store always has the same five vegetables so that is what I tend to eat when I cook for myself. The other morning, Paco and I were discussing this over coffee and bagels (the other non-Asian food items that I consume). As we reminisced about the best western meals that we had while travelling, I realized something. People in Asia look at you like you are nuts if you ask for something slightly different than the menu. A few times, we tried to elicit to people that we wanted something modified from how it is normally served, and everytime they seemed baffled. Sometimes, they even try to talk us out of it. This is especially true in Korea. Here, there is a specific way that you are supposed to do things, and they will not let you waver from the norm. Once again, I am reminded of the hemogeny of this country. I have just learned that I cannot ask for my bibimbap without mushrooms. I cannot tell them that I do not want the awful anchovy soup that they always give me. It doesn't matter that I will never touch the dried minnows they set before me. They serve things to me the way that it is supposed to be done. This attitude also extends beyond food. For example, Ariel and I bought little brooms at the store to sweep our apartments. We picked out some cheap, simple brooms but were then told by a Korean salesperson that we had picked out the wrong broom. We were supposed to buy a different broom, and she would not accept no for an answer. What could we do but buy the recommended brooms? I know that I do things in ways that I am not supposed to all the time, and I think it just kills the Koreans. I have been told by numerous Koreans that I am not supposed to use chopsticks to eat my rice. You are supposed to use a spoon. However, I eat with the chopsticks because my students told me that it makes you smarter. I ride my bike to work in a skirt and heels despite the fact that bikes are only meant for exercise in a hardcore spandex outfit and not for transportation. I don't do these things to make people crazy. I don't know why I do things the way I do. I just know that I want things the way that I want them. When I am at a restaurant, I want to order things the way I want to eat them. I want to have it my way (I think that that is some fast food restaurant's slogan), but they don't do things your way in Asia. They do things the way they are supposed to be done. By the time I come home, I may forget what my way is.

The picture is a meal of pasta that our Korean "mom" made for us.

Korean Spa Experience

After work on a Friday night, I went to a Korean spa with some girls. The spa was open 24 hours, and many people actually go to sleep there. There were something like four floors to the spa and all sort of different rooms. We sat in hot rooms, cold rooms, steam rooms and numerous pools. The pools had things like green tea or dirt in them, and no, the dirt was not from us dirty westerners. I went in a steam room that was about 200 degrees. In case you are wondering, 200 degrees is pretty hot. There were also other various rooms like a movie room and a computer room. There was even Dr. Fish. You may be wondering what Dr. Fish is. I had seen advertisements on the subway where people were sitting in pools and they were little fish swimming around them. I was quite perplexed by these ads. Why would you want to sit in a pool with fish? Apparently the fish like to eat dead skin. Yes, Dr. Fish is where you sit in a pool with fish that nibble at your skin. Being a biologist, I think about this as a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. The fish benefits because it gets a tasty meal of my flesh, and I benefit by being exfoliated. Who doesn't like having soft skin? I hear that there is a Dr. Fish coffee shop where you can stick your feet in the pools and drink coffee while the exfoliation occurs. Sign me up for Dr. Fish. While we didn't do the Dr. Fish experience at the spa, we did get a Korean scrub, which was a cultural experience in itself. I may not have mentioned this before, but Koreans are very comfortable with being naked at the gym. So much so that we actually have made friends with women while naked in the sauna. One day, I was showering at the gym and one of our friends was next to me. Out of nowhere, she leaned over, grabbed my shower scrubby thing and proceeded to scrub my back for me. I didn't really know how to respond to that. Am I supposed to reciprocate? Say thank you? I didn't know what to do so I just continued talking to her and pretended it wasn't happening. Now I am going off on a tangent (like I often do in class- sometimes I wonder if the kids ask me questions purely to get me off on some tangent instead of doing the classwork). Back to the scrubs at the spa. Basically, people walk around very naked (is it possible to be more naked than just plain normal naked because if it is, then that is how naked people are). I doesn't help when you are the only white people around; it just makes people stare more. Seeing naked people is one thing, but being touched by people when you are naked is a whole other story, and that is just what happened with the scrubs. The women who do the scrubbing wear lacey, black panties and bras (well, some of them wear bras), but they are old Korean women. They scrubbed every surface of my body. I really do mean EVERY surface, including the palms of my hands, behind my ears, and my butt crack. Seriously. They have special scrubby thingies that take off the top 953 layers of skin. I had to keep my eyes closed for two reasons. The first being that I didn't want to see all of the clumps of dead skin flying off of me, and the second being that I didn't want to get any glimpses of the naked people getting scrubbed next to me. The Koreans are not especially gentle people, which was very evident during the scrubbing process. Since I don't speak Korean, the scrubber couldn't tell me to turn over or lift my arm so she just grabbed me and yanked me around. The scrubbing is pretty abrasive as well, so I was left feeling a bit like I had been attacked by an older Korean women in black underwear. However, my skin felt really soft. I don't know which is a better way to get soft skin, the scrub or Dr. Fish.

Random Ramblings


The other day, I woke up, dragged myself out of bed, and walked down the one flight of stairs to the gym. In the locker room, there is a restaurant, and it smelled particularly fishy that morning. Some restaurants in Korea have this smell, and it makes me want to vomit. When I smell it, it feels like I am in a dark closet and all of the oxygen has run out. The oxygen is replaced with this heavy, musty fish smell, and I can't breathe. I don't know how a smell can make me feel claustrophobic, but it does. In the instant that awful odor hit my nose, I hated Korea. This happens from time to time. In a moment, I am tired of being in a foreign country. I am tired of the kimchi and the people speaking a different language. Most of all, I am tired of being far away from my family and friends in the US. The majority of the time, I love Korea. I love the language, the people, the culture. I love being in a different place where I witness another way of life. I love my life, but these moments where I despise Korea slip in sometimes.

In more cheery news, I got a pet cat. Another teacher left, and I inherited his cat. He is pretty cute (the cat not the other teacher), but I have never had a cat in a studio apartment before. The cat (who has yet to be named) likes to tear around the room and has taken to finding plastic bags and ripping them into miniscule pieces. Plastic bags, as you may know, make an immense amount of noise, especially when someone is trying to sleep. The cat (I really need to come up with a name) also enjoys staring at his reflection and meowing at it. The cat is noisy, but it's nice to have something to come home to in my apartment.

Everything is a Production in Korea




In Korea, there is no such thing as doing something half-assed. They go all out for everything. They work hard, play hard, and drink hard. At work, the Koreans can't leave work until their boss does. Even if they don't have work to do, they have to stay until their boss leaves. Sometimes they are at work until 3 a.m. Thank god these rules don't apply to me. Koreans are also very active people. They like to hike, in-line skate, bike, etc. When a Korean person goes hiking, he/she is decked out in the latest gear: soft shell pants, wicking shirt, hardcore hiking boots, trekking poles, and a backpack. The backpack generally has a tin cup hanging on the outside, and inside there is a full meal. Korean meals involve about a million side dishes, and those sides are not ever left out, even when it means that you have to carry 30 different little containers up your hike. You can't just throw on some shoes and go for a leisurely stroll. In Korea, you have to have the latest high-tech attire and equipment for whatever you are doing. The people on bikes are decked out in spandex, have hardcore racing helmets on, and have an outrageously expensive bike. If you in-line skate, you wear spandex, a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads, and pads for anything else you can think of. Koreans also go all out when they go drinking. They will stay out drinking until 5 a.m. It is a common thing to see a man passed out in the middle of the sidewalk, on the subway or even in the middle of the street. One night, Ariel and I watched a taxi driver spend 5 minutes trying to wake up the guy passed out in his taxi. In Korea, when you do something, you take it to the max. You give it everything you've got. This is why Korea is going to take over the world.



This is our "bike gang." We like to ride around Seoul. The sweat bands are a joke, but the Koreans give us lots of thumbs up when we wear them. They seem to think it's appropriate to live in the 80's.




We went to the beach this weekend, and we were the only white people there. It was an interesting experience. As usual, the Koreans go all out when they go to the beach. You can't just throw a towel in a bag and go to the beach. A trip to the beach involves a large cooler with ridiculous amounts of food, umbrellas to cover you from the evil sun (they think being tan is ugly here), and large inflatables to keep you from drowning. A large amount of Koreans don't know how to swim. They are too busy memorizing 300 English words a week to learn to swim. At the beach, there are lifeguards who blow whistles at you when you try to go in the water where you can't stand up. Everyone has some sort of flotation device and no one swims. Oh yeah, the men like to wear speedos.

Fun with Korean "mom"



I think I have already mentioned this, but once a week we have Korean lessons with our Korean "mom" (a woman who approached Paco naked in the suana and has now become our Korean family). She is adorable and we love her. She usually cooks us some Korean food also. Last week, we decided to make her cookies. She has an oven (which we do not) so we brought over cookie dough. What do you supposed she made for us to eat with cookies? Caviar and kimchi. Yes, that is right, fish eggs, fermented cabbage, and cookies go well together when you are in Korea. Seriously, these people could eat kimchi with ANYTHING. On a food sidenote, if you don't get kimchi with your food,you will get pickles. Everytime I have eaten pizza here, I get a little thing of pickles with it.

Dogs in Korea




Many people have little dogs as pets in Korea. Little dogs can be a bit prissy. Especially when you put clothes on them and give them cutsie haircuts. My personal favorite is when the dogs wear boots. There are seriously dogs running around in little booties. I have yet to get a picture of a dog in boots, but I promise I am trying to obtain one.



Oh yeah, I am finally on Skype if anyone would like to chat. My name is rachswenny.

An update on life.

We have just been working and living in a city. Last weekend, we finally made it out of the city to meet up with some Korea on the Rocks climbers in a park called Seonunsan (I don't think I spelled that right). Taking the subway to get on a bus to take a taxi to get to the park makes us consider trying to aquire a car while we are here. It would be a little wierd to drive again, but I think it would be worth it to be able to get out of the city.

Last night, we decided to frequent the local pub so we went to every bar in our apartment building (all two of them). One of them was a jazz bar where they serve you watermelon and dog jerky. And no, I don't mean the two mixed together, but seriously, it was dog. We asked the bartender what it was because we thought it might be dried squid and she replied, with a big smile, "It's dog. Korean Dog. Very good." She then picked up a piece and happily ate it. So we did too, and she was right. Don't hate me becaue I ate dog. I had already accidentally eaten it in China...

On another note, Paco has a class of little kids that think she is pregnant. No, it's not because they think she's fat (kids here tell you that you are fat all the time, it happens to all the western teachers), it's because of her chest. This boy points at Paco's chest and says, "Milk. For baby." So apparently having a rack means that you are pregnant in Korea.

The photo is for Kieth. I am giving a belay to Rick, a friend of Kieth's from back when he was in Korea. We finally met up with Rick last weekend.

Oh yeah, Andy the Kid Who Licks Everything quit. It was sad to see him go.....

He looks sweet and innocent, doesn't he? This is Andy, the kid who licks everything. I just thought that people might want to see a picture of the kid who is now terrorizing Ariel as well.



Not only does this kid lick, but he also does this thing where he tries to poke you right in the butthole. It is some crazy game that kids play. Apparently they play in Japan too because I found this picture there.

What a Real Job is Like....

So things are not necessarily logical in Korea. Not at all really. Today, I had to come to work early, 9:15 a.m. to be exact. Why did I have to come to work early? I was supposed to have parent-teacher meetings. I showed up in a suit, heels and panty hose. I was trying to look professional for the parents. When I arrived, I was summoned to a meeting where I sat for over an hour. I have no idea what the meeting was about because it was all in Korean. At one point, everyone looked at me so I am pretty sure that they were talking about me, but who knows what it was about. In the end, I ended up saying exactly zero words, I was never introduced, and for all I know parents were telling my boss how much they either love/hate me. As usual, logic is completely lost in Korea....

There is a museum about kimchi, and I have been there. My kids laughed at me for it, and apparently everyone thinks it is a joke. No one actually GOES there, except Paco and I. I thought it was interesting....

Flower Death

I previously wrote about Fan Death (the Korean phenomenon that if you sleep in a room with the windows and doors shut and a fan on, you will die), but this week I learned about its sister phenomenon, Flower Death. A student informed me that if you have too many flowers in your room that they can kill you. According to my student, the flowers will suck up all of the oxygen and suffocate you with carbon dioxide. Apparently photosynthesis works backwards in Korea. Plants make convert oxygen to carbon dioxide in Korea, while the process is the exact opposite in the rest of the world. The scary thing is that she claims she learned this at science academy.

Maybe this is why Paco found seven beautiful orchids in the garbage closet. Maybe the flowers killed someone and really were meant to be thrown away. I'll keep you posted on Paco's health. Oh yeah, she also found a couch at the garbage, I wonder what that was doing there. Next I will hear about Couch Death...

Climbing Gym at Last!!!

After a few weeks of unsuccessful attempts at finding a climbing gym that is open, I swore "That's it!!! I am not climbing in Korea...." Somehow, we managed to get to a gym that was open this weekend. We almost didn't find it. We got on the bus going the wrong way and almost ended up in China. Eventually we found the gym and elicited that we wanted to climb. When asked if we wanted shoes, we relied that we already had some. Well, we sort of had shoes. Ton Sai did not treat our shoes so well. I got a hole and Paco's shoes were moldy beyond belief. They were so stiff that we throught they might crack in half when she tried to put them on. They didn't crack, but they didn't fit either. So then we had to go back to the guy and show him our destroyed shoes and ask for some to wear. He laughed pretty hard and I felt like an idiot as usual. Nevertheless, we got to boulder in a gym. It was awesome!!!

The Great Wall of Korea

OK, I haven't posted a blog in a while. I know. I think that there are things that I could be writing about, but I am drawing a blank. Perhaps this is because I am tired from hanging out with seven year old children. They can really wear you out. I turn around and Soobin is leaping on top of her desk, Andy is licking someone else's pencil, Angella is crying because one of the twins hit her back after she hit him, Ted is pretending to be a gorilla (his nickname in class is Mr. Gorilla), or they are all trying to poke me in the butt, which is some game kind of game in Korea. Today I got to carry a kid to the office who said he felt sick. Sometimes I teach class literally holding a kid up in each arm. These poor kids have no time to be actual kids because they have school, academy, music and sports. I have things that are mandatory for me to teach, so I don't get to have much playtime with them. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I am trying to do, but I am rewarded every so often with presents and compliments which encourages me to continue on. Enough with excuses for not blogging and down to what else I have been doing.

Last week I spent too much time in bars with the guys I work with, so when I woke up on Saturday I declared myself a non-drinker. Not because I was hung over or had a guy puke on me again (neither of those things happened), but because I decided that drinking here is riduculous and lame. I promptly went to the store and bought a couple of bottles of wine and stated "Since I am now a non-drinker, I have more time to do things like drink wine." Then I decided that I would have to ammend the non-drinker part to an occasional-drinker.

Paco and I went to E-Mart (the Korean equivalent of Wal-Mart) to buy toaster ovens. Of course, they were out of toaster ovens when we got there, but I managed to load myself up with plenty of household items, like a shaker to put salt in and a broom. The things that you normally don't think about needing. When we left E-Mart, we discovered that it was raining cats and dogs. Also, E-Mart is the most ridiculously impossible place to get a taxi so we stood in the rain for a looooong time. Here is the newest edition of the Korea:Is that for Real column so get ready for it. First, a stranger held his umbrella over me for about five minutes. Then another stranger picked up a pillow that had flown out of my box of crap, held his umbrella over me and walked us into a building where he called us a cab. Upon finding out that it would take forever to get a taxi to us, he offered to drive us home himself. I would just like to reiterate that I live in the third largest city in the world in case you have forgotten, and a complete stranger offered to take us home. We finally saw a taxi when he went to get his car, so we jumped in the taxi to save the poor stranger who tried to help the white girls and found himself stuck driving them home. People are so incedible here. Yesterday a stranger stopped to help us in the subway and walked us to our platform. This is a totally normal thing in Korea. People go out of their way to help you.

On Sunday, we went hiking with a Korean teacher from our school. So far in Asia, the hiking has been hit and miss so I wasn't really expecting a whole lot. I should have known better from seeing all of the hardcore hikers on the subway and walking around town. There are constantly people dressed in intense outdoor gear wandering the city. We ended up going on a six hour hike that was pretty strenuous. There were times when we were scrambling up steep rock faces, clinging to a wire railing for our lives. We also discovered the crowds of people hiking in Korea, which you are constantly immersed in. It was an experience alright. There were also a lot of climbers, which just made us more annoyed that everytime we try to go to a climbing gym it is closed.

I'm sure that I could write more, but I won't bore you with anything else for now....

"That is something that I will never do. I will never puke on a chic." -AJ

It was a crazy night. AJ said this and then within a few hours puked on me. Seriously. I got puked on. I don't know whether to blame flip cup or Carnie Station. So here is the story:

There was a going away party for one of our co-workers last weekend. The festivities started with beer pong, which later turned into flip cup. Some people consumed a little too much thanks to generous pouring on AJ's part. AJ had woken up drunk that afternoon and proceeded to drink more thoughout the day. Later, Paco and I ended up in a cab with Greg and AJ on our way to Carnie Station, an all-you-can-eat/drink place. Somehow I instigated the boys to hug random Koreans in the street when they got out of the taxi. They were pretty wasted at that point. Using the help of a Korean translator, Greg then convinced a guy on a forklift to let him drive it on a busy street in Seoul. I don't know how/why that happened, but it did. We made it to Carnie Station and drank more beer, and AJ started looking pretty woozy. I told him not to puke on me and that's when he made the statement about not puking on a chic. Then I tried to help AJ home so that he didn't pass out and die in the middle of the street. On the way to the taxi, he fell and hit his head on a car, leaving a dent in it. On the way out of the taxi, he fell in the middle of the street. I helped him into his apartment and got him to lie down, but he promptly fell out of bed and puked on himself and me. So there you go. I was trying to be a good citizen, and I got vomit on my jeans as a reward.

Is That for real???
Sometimes in Asia you find a pot with seven orchids in the garbage closet. I am not really sure who thinks it is Ok to throw away beautiful blooming orchids, (I would value them at over $200 in the States) but there they were in the garbage closet. Is that for real??? Even though I don’t have the best track record with plants (I definitely killed the Bonsai plant my sister gave me and multiple others) I decided to take them to my apartment. There was no way I was going to watch them get thrown away, first I’ll torture them with my bad plant care skills. No I am really going to try and not murder them and keep them out of the garbage closet…I’ll keep you posted on how that goes. Meanwhile I am really hoping that there is no cultural misunderstanding occurring, such as Korean people sometimes store their orchids in the garbage closet, and I just stole them. I am betting that stealing someone’s orchids sends really bad karma your way…which is the last thing I need right now. So next time you see orchids in the plant nursery think to yourself: “In Korea people think it is OK to throw 7 of those away, is that for real?”

"It must be karma. What did we do wrong?"

We have been saying this for at least the past week. Does anyone have any ideas what we did? At the moment, I am not only being killed slowly by Yellow Dust but also from whatever chemicals they are using in the renovation of our office (our teacher's office area has now been reduced to a fraction of its normal size so that they can put in a glass wall- yipee! I always wanted to work in a fishbowl). So my runny nose is not getting any better...

Does anyone have any suggestions of things to do to get GOOD karma? Let us know.

I was thinking that I had profound things to say today, but in actuality, I do not. Instead I will leave you with a few quotes to describe how my life is going.

"We're going to like Korea dammit!!!"
-This was said after we heard numerous horror stories about Korea from everyone we encountered. We are determined to like it here, and so far it is working out for us reasonably well.

"I wrote it in pen, so I couldn't change my mind."
-Paco said this when she was telling me about her essay written at the Andy Prep interview. It turned out to be foreshadowing. Andy Prep told us they only had enough hours for one teacher so we took a job at another school. Four days later, Andy Prep offered us two positions due to increased enrollment, but we had already signed a contract with our school so we couldn't change our minds.

"Don't tell the school, they might not hire me."
-I felt a little like I was playing a part in a school play when I went on job interviews. I had on a costume and makeup and delivered the same lines about why I had come to Korea over and over.

"Who invented that?" -AJ "Invented what?" -me "Drinking..." -AJ
-This was what one of our co-workers said about the first night that we went out to the Owl (local bar) and stayed out until 5 a.m.

The "Is that for real?" column is born

So oftentimes in Asia I notice random things happening and think to myself "Is that for real?" So I have decided begin contributing to our blog and start a column entitled "Is that for real " to share these moments of confusion, bewilderment and/or awe with you.

"Is that fore real" by Paco
Article 1: Korean men carry purses
For some reason men in Korea carry around purses. When I say purses I don't mean the cool looking sachels you see in other parts of Asia and Latin America, but regular women's purses. It is quite commom to see a full grown man with a stylish black leather purse with silver buckles slung around his arm. For awhile I just thought Korean men were real gentlemen, carrying their girlfriends purses. After awhile I began to notice that many of these purse carrying men are not accompanied by a woman and the ones that are, have a lady friend that is carrying her own purse. I guess a bag is a bag and we all have stuff to carry around the city, but seeeing so many men sporting stylish purses made me say "Is this for real?"

Rachel reporting... I just wanted to add a little something. You may be wondering what a guy is carrying in that purse of his. Personally, I thought it was just all of that crap that guys carry around in their pockets and then empty onto the table every time they sit down, but it is a little more than that. Today at lunch, I watched a guy take out make-up and touch up his face. So he might be carrying the exact same thing in the purse as his girlfriend. You certainly can't have your boyfriend looking better than you, which is probably why women here are so obbsessed with their appearance and subsequently look so nice. Sometimes I feel like a slob since (1) I have no purse and (2) I never carry make-up with me.

Ok, so I was teaching a class on various health ailments today. I was explaining runny nose, stuffy nose and then nosebleeds. Literally within two minutes of explaining this, my nose started bleeding out of the blue. I don't normally get nosebleeds (even though I am a huge dork) so this was very unexpected and awkward for me. I pointed to the blood that had dripped on the floor and said "See. That is a nosebleed." And then I ran out of the room. How is that for a teachable moment? Good thing I wasn't explaining diarrhea...

So I think that the bloody nose may be from Yellow Dust, which is dust that is blown over from Mongolia or something like that. It can kill you, at least that is what they say. I don't know who they are, but if they claim that you will die, maybe we should all listen to them. They also say that fans may kill you. For all of you uniformed folk (that being any person not from South Korea), fan death is something we should all think about before going to bed each night. Simply ask yourself these two questions: Are the windows and doors closed? Is there a fan on in the room? If you answered yes to both questions then you will not wake up in the morning. In Korea, there is a widespread belief that if you sleep in a room with the windows and doors closed and a fan on, then you will DIE!!! Don't ask people to explain the physics of this to you because they won't have an answer, but they surely believe it.

There are things that are killing me slowly, that I think they should look into. First off, there are the parasites that I am 97% positive have been inhabiting my intesstines since New Year's. Then there is the lack of soap in the bathroom at work (which is really bad when you have snot-nosed kids hanging off of you all day long) and the lack of variety of vegetables and nutirents in my diet (you mean that eating cabbage, rice and eggs everyday is not good for you?!?!?!!?). Let's see, that was the Yellow Dust, worms, non-existent soap and nutirents. Yup, that about covers my health right now. Oh yeah, and my washing machine has also been sitting in the middle of my kitchen (not hooked up) since I moved in so I haven't had clean clothes in two weeks.

Korea is great. I can't blame any of my ailments on the country. Or can I?

Home Sweet Home

Yes, I now live in the third largest city in the world (by population), following Tokyo and Mexico City. This city is ginormous but it is nearly impossible to get totally lost in it. If you are confused, hold up a map and look around quizically. Within a few minutes a nice Korean person will stop and offer you help. If you don't want to bother the nice people, all you have to do is look for a subway station, and the place is littered with them like China was with garbage and shit. From the subway, you can always find your way home.

My new home is in a place called Daechong Tower, which has 26 floors, a subway station in the basement, two convenience stores, a cafe that only has one table, a gym that has a golf area, a quilting store, a dentist, a dermatologist, a bar, a bakery and a floor of restaurants that smells unappetizingly like fish. My apartment is a studio with a murphy bed (that means that it can fold up into the wall if I want more space) and a bathroom the size of a very small closet. I also have a small gas range with a little drawer of an oven. Ovens are almost non-existent in Asia. We made cookies in our guesthouse and the owner looked at the oven with shock, like she hadn't known that you could cook things in it. Since we like to make cookies, we tried to do this in my oven the other night, but something went wrong. I am not sure how, but the cookies caught on fire. I went to check on them and found them in flames. It literally took about 15 minutes to get them to go out. So there you go, flaming cookies in a mini-oven. Lesson learned: don't try to cook in the "oven" because that is not what it is meant for. I don't know what it is meant for, but obviously it's not for making cookies.

Down by the River

So unlike the rest of Asia, people in Korea are active. This activity can be best viewed on a weekend (read Sunday as most people work on Saturdays) down by the river. People are biking and roller blading, and maybe even doing a little urban camping. There is a fabulous path and along the path there are exercise machines. That's right, public exercise machines. A nice man named Mr. Kim (coincidentally 23% of people in Korea are Mr./Mrs. Kim) showed us how they all work one day. I think that I wrote about Mr. Kim before. Anyway, there are also places along the river to play games, like bocce ball or baseball or kicking volleyball. I don't really know what kicking volleyball is actually called, but it is played like volleyball except that you can't use your hands like soccer (or football if you are from any country other than the US). This game is played all over Asia. I don't think that I would be very good at it...

It's funny to me the silly things that trigger homesickness for me. Today I was hit with that feeling of distance and separation on the subway. I saw a woman talking on her mobile phone, and she suddenly grinned and then burst into laughter. That was enough to send a pang of homesickness through my body. When I was in Thailand, seeing a movie in a theater did the same thing to me. In contrast, there are times when I have to remind myself that I am in a foreign country. When I first arrived here, I was snoozing on a bus and I thought to myself I should really look out the window and see what Korea looks like. Oh yeah, I am in Korea!! I don't know how it's possible to forget that I am a strange land at one moment and in the next moment be struck by the realization that I am not, in fact, at home. I don't particularly understand the things that bring on the homesickness, and I think the surprise of the onslaught of emotion makes it feel more intense than it should be. However, the year in Korea is just starting so I had better suck it up and get used to it.

I had my first day of work teaching English today. I think that it went well.... well, sort of. I ended up teaching a class, but prepped the wrong lesson, which meant that I got to lead a discussion on a reading passage that I had no idea what was about. One thing I will say about these Korean kids is that they are damn smart, and cute also. I keep forgetting that English is the second language. They are probably on par with kids in the US speaking in English (or maybe even better), but English is not their native language. I guess that is what happens when kids go to school all day long- literally until about 10 p.m.

Destination Korea

After numerous hours of traveling overland (it's over a hundred), we made it to Korea. I was so excited that I took a picture of the first sign telling me that I was in Korea. Since being in Korea, I have been trying to get a job, which involves me sitting at a computer, swimming through a sea of emails of employment opportunities. It's insanity. So far we have had one interview with a school in a posh part of Seoul. You know it's posh because you pass two Starbucks (yes, that's right, two) and then turn at Hooters to get there. We put on our new suits and heels for the first time and went to an office with hardwood floors and leather chairs. In a conference room, we had an interview and then we were led to a room full of binders with titles like Yale, Harvard, Brown, etc. on them and asked to write an essays on how to improve English and what it means to be a good teacher. I left like a kid playing dress-up and make-believe. I think that we may have convinced them that we are not dirtbag travelers.

Today we escaped the computers by going for a run by the river, which somehow ended in drinking beer. Korean people are really active. They like to hike, walk, run, bike, and rollerblade. There are also public workout machines everywhere. We were exploring these workout machines and probably looking like idiots when Mr. Kim approached to show us the ropes. He showed us how to use every machine in several ways. He was so friendly and sweet that he let us ride his bike and then took us down to a stand and bought us drinks. Who doesn't like a beer after exercise? I must say that I LOVE Korea so far. To all of those wankers out there who said negative things to us, I can only shake my head in bewilderment. Every single time that we have been lost/confused some Korean person has walked up and offered to help us. People have been wonderful and inviting. Paco lost her to-go tea mug at a restaurant and we went back there two days later and they recognized us and brought it out to giddy Paco. Yeah, Seoul is a huge city, but it is clean with well-planned transportation and the people I have met have been wonderful. I heart Korea.

Saying Goodbye to China

We found ourselves on a 40 hour train ride from Kunming to Beijing. What do you do on a 40 hour train ride? Lots of things like wander up and down the train looking for a food cart (wait no, you aren't supposed to do that. I got yelled at in Chinese for doing that, at least I think that is what I was being yelled at for). I slept and read an entire book. I slept and played Scrabble. I slept and watched China go by the window- China is crowded, really crowded. There really are hordes of people everywhere. There were a lot of people on our train. We had a hard sleeper, which means that there are three bunk bed levels, and you can't actually sit upright unless you are on the bottom. Unfortunately, we were not. There were Chinese businessmen on the bottom. On the top were teenage boys who proceeded to get drunk and smoke on a train with windows that don't open. Other highlights were buying a bowl of rice and veggies in a ceramic bowl at a train stop and realizing that the ceramic bowl was disposable and to be thrown away after single use, and well, sleeping. We did that a lot.

What's the one thing that you have to do when you go to China? And no, the answer is not eat dog. The correct answer is visit the Great Wall. So in Beijing, we went to see the wall. We had met a woman from LA at our hostel who was going there in the morning, and she provided us with a free ride (and entrance tickets and a guide too) because a friend of a friend of a friend was showing her around. We had been hoping to go to one of the less touristy sites, but we went wherever we were taken, and it turned out to be a very interesting experience (as everything in China is). From Badalang, you can either go north or south on the wall. Our guide took us up the north side, where all of the Chinese people were going. There were lots of ginormous tour groups. The throngs of people were going up to the Hero Stone, which is this rock at the highest point with a Mao quote about not really being a man until you have climbed the Great Wall. It's pretty obvious that this means something we don't understand to the Chinese people. At the top we were surrounded with enthusiastic Chinese people yelling as usual (they yell A LOT in China). People were posing for all sorts of pictures so then I started taking pictures of them too. I justify it by thinking about all of the random people that were taking pictures of me because I have blue eyes (which happens a lot). Then we walked to the south side of the wall and we were met considerably smaller crowds but of western people not Chinese. Since this apparently is where all the westerners go, so do the Looky-looky-people trying to sell you things. It was an interesting contrast to see. Chinese tourists and then western tourists.

After that, we left China. We said goodbye to the constant lugies, the pollution, the yelling, the masses of people. Goodbye China. I am glad that I went there, but I was glad to leave.