My Lunch from the Sea

If you know me at all, you are probably shocked and curious about what this blog title means. You see, I've never been much of a seafod person. I'd like to think that it is not because I don't have an open mind about food, but I just never grew up eating seafood. I didn't start eating/liking fish (minus those frozen fishsticks my Mom used to make for dinner when I was a kid) until maybe 6 years ago. I've never been inside a Red Lobster. I've never seen anyone in my family devour clams or oysters. So when I got to Korea and discovered everything from octopus to jellyfish in my food, I was at first nauseated. I remember my first experience with Korean food (not including the few trips to a Korean restaurant in Rochester) was on the plane. Flying on a Korean airline, I was served for dinner bibimbap- a vegetable and rice mix that I could definitely handle. However, it was the pile of sardines- whole sardines, eyes and all-- next to my food that caused my appetite to quickly disappear. As I tried not to look at the tiny fishy eyes that bore into my soul, I watched (attempting not to gawk) at the Korean women sitting next to me, contently devouring spoonfuls of bibimbap with the little fishies. I hardly ate a bite of my food as I realized how different things really were going to be here.

So, with that preface, you'll see how far I've come. I proved to myself that I have officially become desensetized to seafood when I went out for lunch with the ladies from work yesterday. We went to a Japanese restaurant where we must have ordered the lunch special or something because as soon as we sat down, the food just started coming. It was a mild start with some kind of soup. I've learned to stop asking what I'm eating if I'm not sure because usually the answer causes me to put my chopsticks down and gag. So I had some kind of soup (it was white and chunky but didn't taste fishy), then an enormous plate raw fish slices that sat on top of enormous clam shells (around the size of my palm) arrived. Sashimi. A first for me. Considering I was starving and surrounded by Koreans who tend to judge you by how well you can handle spicy food and eat what I usually consider to be gross seafood, I was left with no choice. I put a piece of what I learned later to be tuna on the piece of dried seaweed, wrapped it, and took a bite. So, it wasn't terrible. Actually, I sort of liked it. As I mentally patted myself on the back and wrapped myself a few more, the waitress brought over a plate of fish. A whole fish. Eyes and tail and skin and all. It had been baked with spices and placed on the plate whole. The ladies started just pulling pieces off the fish with their chopsticks, eventually leaving the skeleton and innards exposed. I took a bite of the fish but thought the spices made it too salty and chose not to have anymore. I tried not to look at it too much as the bowl of clams came next. I actually have come to like clams after tasting them in a lunch Nam Teacher ordered for us last week. They aren't as rubbery as I thought they'd be and they actually have a distinctive taste. In other words, they don't taste like the beach smells. So as I happily pulled the clams out of the shells and ate them, I realized how far I had come. 6 months ago that would have totally grossed me out. The meal ended with fried shrimp with dipping sauce and rice, topped with seaweed, sesame seeds, kimchi, and fish eggs. AH. What do I do? The rice looked good. And the fish eggs were too small and fine to pick out with my chopsticks or even with my spoon. So before I thought about too hard I just mixed everything together and took a bite. Again, it wasn't so bad. I finished it. I'M SORRY NEMO!!!!!!!

It wasn't until I was describing this meal to my sister afterwards that I realized that the meal had hardly any vegetables at all. For a girl who likes her veggies, I'm suprised I didn't notice it before. The only vegetables in the meal were the sprouts for the sashimi wraps, a beansprout soup at the end of the meal, and a few slices of cucumber topped with mashed sweet potato (YUM) that garnished the sashimi plate. Unless you count the seaweed, thats all. I can't believe I had a meal entirely of seafood. If I may say so myself, go me!

Now don't worry my friends, you haven't lost me completely. Your beloved squeamish sister, friend, daughter, cousin, blogger (for all you strangers out there who are reading my blog. Are you there?) still marvels in wonder and a suppressed desire to hurl at the whole ocotpus on the styrophom plate covered in plastic wrap that she passes in the meat/fish section of the grocery store. I definitely need more time here before I can conquer THAT edible obstacle. By the way, I had to look up how to spell squeamish. Did anyone else know it's an 'ea' instead of an 'ui?" Who knew?

EDIT 2/18- We went to the same restaurant for lunch today and I luckily had my camera with me! Pics are up on Facebook.


Thats all for now. Thanks for reading (and hopefully not throwing up). To my extra squeamish big sis Andrea, if you made it to the end of this blog entry with all of the contents in your stomach still there, then congratulations :-P.

The Good, The Bad, and The Korean

Now that I've been here for nearly 5 months, the pros and cons of living in Korea are everyday matters. Many of these things are cultural, while others are just the realities of living in a foreign country. This blog entry is to help my readers understand what some of these are by categorizing these things into What I Miss and What I Don't Miss about home. So here goes, I imagine I'll continue to add things to this list, but for now, here's what I got:

What I Miss
- Speaking the language
- Non-smoking regulations at bars and restaurants and therefore not needing to shower and air out my clothes after any outing.
- Hearing a verbal "excuse me" after an accidental bumping on the street or subway
- Not needing to rely on public transportation
- An oven in my kitchen
- Being able to read labels on the food I buy
- My friends and family
- Available dance classes in my city
- Not getting stared at all the time
- Hearing something besides K-pop music. Anywhere.
- Bread. (whole wheat specifically)
- I didn't know this before, but not knowing how awesome How I Met Your Mother is.
- Milk, yogurt, or juice with an expiration date more than 5 days after you buy it at the store
- Heated bathrooms



What I Don't Miss
- Taxes
- The job hunt
- Living sans salary
- Living in a fairly isolated city- now I'm an hour subway journey away from one of the most bustling cities in Asia
- Enduring an international long-distance relationship
- Struggles with chopstick usage
- Expensive groceries and utility bills
- Paying rent
- Unhelpful staff
- Paying at least $20 anytime I go out for dinner
- Being approached by ass-holey guys at bars who think they're God's gift to women. Korean men are generally very shy so they leave us alone and I can have my girls' nights in peace.
- Having to pay for every little thing at restaurants. Here, you always get free appetizers (if you're eating Korean food) and get unlimited refills of sidedishes.


Well, that's all for now. You might see this list pop up once in a while in later posts so keep your eyes out!

Ta-ta for now!

-Melissa

Lunar New Year, etc.

I wrote this entry yesterday, February 6th, but due to the recent loss of internet at my apartment (argh), I wasnt able to post until I got to work today, Feb 7.

The Korean school system is officially makes zero sense. It’s Sunday night and after two weeks of “seat warming” at work (aka still having to go into work even though the students aren’t there), the students are finally returning to school tomorrow. They’ve been on vacation since December 30th and they are now coming back after the Lunar New Year, but only for 4 days. Starting on Friday, the students are on “spring vacation” until the beginning of March. When I asked why the students come back only for 4 days, I was told that it was for the 8th graders’ graduation ceremony. Why all the students have to come back for 4 whole days I don’t know, but the strangest part is why they have a separate vacation not even a week after they’ve gotten back from their long winter vacation. When I asked about that, it’s because the school year begins in March. This long winter vacation is like our summer break, I just feel bad for the kids that their long break is in the cold, dark, Korean winter and not in summer. These poor kids. Anyway, the kids are on break again in a few days and I hope I can take some more vacation days off and travel outside of Korea.

So nothing to report about work. I spent most of my “seat warming” time watching ridiculous amounts of How I Met Your Mother and thoroughly enjoying it.

The beginning of February brings a lot to celebrate and commemorate. Everyone was on vacation Wed-Fri for the Lunar New Year (on Feb 3rd), which is a big deal here in Korea. This year is the year of the rabbit, so there are rabbit decorations on storefronts, the TV, etc. In Korea, everyone gains another year at the Lunar New Year, so happy birthday to me! My Korean age is now 23. If you ask Korean their age, you should subtract 1 or 2 years from it to get their real age because they will give you their age that includes Lunar New Year birthdays. For example, all of my 6th graders say they are 14 years old, but they are actually 12 or 13. Val’s Korean age is 27 (since he turned 26 in January).

Also, today, February 6th, is my & Val’s 2 year anniversary. To celebrate, we booked two nights (Wed and Thurs) at a nice hotel in Seoul. We stayed at the Novotel Ambassador Hotel in Gagnam and enjoyed ourselves swimming in the indoor swimming pool, ordering room service, listening to live music in the lounge in the evening, and eating our hearts out at the enormous complimentary breakfast buffet. I was particularly giddy about the bathtub in the hotel room since I don’t have one in my apartment. I made sure to take full advantage of it and took two baths within the course of 45 hours. The hotel burned a bit of a hole in our pockets, but it was worth it. Considering what we had to go through to achieve this milestone in our relationship, it seemed an appropriate way to celebrate. Also, getting away from our apartment and taking time to focus on each other, not to mention living out our fantasy of being a wealthy couple taking a luxurious weekend off at a blingin’ hotel was oddly liberating. We found ourselves acting more like our inner kids rather than our inner bourgeoisie couple for much of the weekend, though, especially at the pool. While all the other adults were doing laps and the kids practicing their breaststrokes at their swimming lesson, we were doing flips and handstands and playing underwater tag. We bought one meal at one of the hotel restaurants and poked (nervous) fun at the outrageous prices for the tiny portions; though I was able devour an absolutely delectable piece of salmon for that outrageous price. After that meal, the rest of our afternoon and evening meals were in Itaewon, the foreigner district nearby, where we ate tacos, subs at Quizzno’s, and bought Pringles and cheap wine to have along with our room service meal we ordered on our last night. What can ya do? We’re just young professionals/students tryin to make a living, ya know? We slept, relaxed, and bathed in style but we ate on a student’s budget. It was perfect.

The first week of February also brings the anniversary of a much more somber event. February 7th marks the 5 year anniversary of the death of a high school classmate and friend, Benny, who took his own life. I can’t believe it’s been 5 years already. Looking at my life the past 5 years, what I’ve done and what I’m doing right now, it just makes me sad to think about everything Benny missed out on. He was such a bright and unique spirit whose enthusiasm and smile were contagious. I hate to think about what he was never able to accomplish, and how much pain his death still brings to his family, friends, and classmates. That’s all I really have to say right now. I just thought it’d be wrong to not mention him during this time.

Bringing the mood of this entry back up is the year and a half birthday of my beautiful niece, Natalie, on February 5th. I got to Skype with her (well, more like watch her play and run around in all her adorableness) before Val and I left for our anniversary celebration in Seoul and it made my day. Happy half birthday Natalie! While we’re on the subject of birthdays, I can’t leave out the birthdays of 2 of my college gals Lauren and Catherine, on Feb 5th and 6th, respectively. Happy Birfday!

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. Saturday afternoon I had a pancake party with Blythe and Michelle to celebrate us all turning one year older at Lunar New Year/I had a huge unopened bag of pancake mix/who needs an occasion for pancakes? We made chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes and drank mamosas and caught up with each other. Today, Sunday, I decided to attempt to make Ja Jang Myun, a dish that we love to go out and get at the Chinese restaurant down the road. A huge bowl of Ja Jang Myun (noodles with black bean sauce, veggies, and pork) usually costs 5,000 won (about 6 bucks) and it’s always a treat. Wanting to try something new and to have something special to eat on our actual anniversary, I looked up the recipe online and bought ingredients. The only thing I had trouble finding at the store was cornstarch, an ingredient listed on the recipe that came from an American recipe website. It didn’t occur to me that cornstarch might not be available here since unlike most food consumed in the U.S., Korean food does not consist of a lot of corn. The only starch available was potato starch, so I got that instead and it worked fine. There’s an example of a difference you don’t think about until you get to a foreign country. The Ja Jang Myun final product was OK. It definitely didn’t taste like the restaurant one, but it wasn’t bad for the first attempt. I was glad to have tried to made a new dish and now I have tons of leftovers which I froze for later. Yay!

During my low-key weeks at work, I decided to start following through with my New Years Resolution of learning Korean. I can now read and write Hanguel (Korean), but right now it’s just like how I am with Hebrew. Thanks to years of Hebrew school, I can read Hebrew but I have no idea what I’m reading. So once I get the reading and writing down spat I’m going to start learning vocabulary. I’m getting better and better every day since I have lots of opportunities to practice. I proudly announced to my family that and I’m learning a new vocabulary word a day (to which my sister replied, “just like Natalie!”). Hey now. Korean is hard. I’m taking baby steps (no pun intended). So far, I know how to say,
• Hello, goodbye, yes, no
• thank you (kamshaminda/komapsomida/kumawo) –depends on who you’re talking to/the situation
• it does not exist, it’s not here (a very helpful phrase, actually) (opseyo)
• It’s OK (kincheneyo)- also very useful
• foreigner (waygook)
• old man (adjoshi) and old woman (ajouma) –respectful phrases that you use to address an old man or woman
• friend (chingu)
• boy, girl (namja, ohja)- so namja chingu is boyfriend, ohja chingu is girlfriend
• I would like (_________ juseyo)
• Station (yuk)
• Police station (kyon chal so) – this one I know because my apartment is near a police station and to get home in a taxi I tell the driver the name of the station)
• Teacher (sunsaenim)
• Middle school (cho hakyo)
• Bus (buseh)
• Taxi (taxshi)
* It's cold (choowohyo)- very useful also!
• I’m full (pebulo/pebuloyo)
• Eat well (chow moh kashamida), I ate well (chow moh kaysamida)- like “bon appetite”
• Earring (ki-gori)
• Relax (Iwah) – I learned this from yoga
• Forehead (Imahn)-also from yoga

I’d say it’s a pretty impressive list. And it’s quite helpful to have some vocabulary now and I feel a little better being around by myself now that I can at least read the bus signs or write out names of places I need to go if I’m lost. And now that I understand the Korean language better, I can find I can also learn more words faster. So maybe soon I can beat Natalie’s rate of one word a day!

Speaking of yoga (the last couple words on my list reminded me), my yoga teacher is SO sweet and bought me a bracelet. When I arrived at class last week she brought me a small, wrapped box and inside was a bracelet with wooden beads and a slight aroma. My yoga teacher, remember, who doesn’t speak English, managed to tell me that they are Indian beads and the perfume is “good for health”, a phrase I hear Koreans say a lot, especially women. Spicy food: “good for health”, eating live octopus (my friend Melodie did it once): “good for health”, fresh air “good for health”. Hah. Anyway, I was so humbled that my teacher bought me a gift. She is so sweet. I only have a few more sessions left with her but I think I’m going to sign up for another one. It was a bargain and I always feel great after.

I finally have my camera back so soon I will upload pics from the past week onto Facebook so y’all can see them. Thinking of many of my family and friends in the Midwest and East Coast who are buried under feet of snow! That’s all, folks!

Cheers,
Mel

Winter Vacation adventures! Palaces, Subway Station Offices, Costco, Indoor Rollercoasters, and Hummus!

Greetings!

First of all, photo credit goes to Blythe Wilson, who took pictures of our outings last week. They are of: us at a Korean palace, us crammed her co-teacher's car en route to Gagnam, and a traditional tea house in Insadong. Curious? Read on =)

So, I am back at work after a wonderful yet busy week of vacation. For this vacation, I decided to stay in Korea instead of traveling somewhere else. I ended up only visiting Seoul, but there are so many parts of that city that are so different, it feels like going to different cities. I spent the majority of my break with Blythe and Michelle, who were both on vacation this week too. So here's what I did.

Monday: went out for Indian food with Blythe, Michelle, and our friend Colin from GEPIK orientation. The food was a little too spicy for me (no surprise there), but I enjoyed the company and making fun of the Bollywood movie that was playing in the restaurant. It was on mute so we decided to make up the script and guess what they were saying, "Whose Line Is It Anyway" style. Seeing all of the beautiful saris and scenery really made me want to go to India. After the Indian food, we decided to check out what movies were playing at the CGV (movie theatre franchise, like a Regal Cinemas or Loews in Rochester). The only English move that was playing was Love & Other Drugs, that movie with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. The movie itself was OK, but I did enjoy the frequent shots of Jake Gyllenhaal's naked butt. Teehehehe. After the movie we went to a nearby bar for drinks. We were there for an hour or so, then headed out to get our beauty rest for our big plans on Tuesday!


Tuesday: Blythe's co-teacher Mrs. Jeon and her friend Jen took Michelle, Blythe, Valery (he played hookie for day to come along) and me to Gagnam to eat Mexican food at a restaurant called Dos Tacos. I ordered dos quesadillas, and it was SO good. I had missed real sour cream, because the "sour cream" they serve in Korea is sweet. So when they had real sour cream that was actually sour, I was a happy camper. After Dos Tacos we drove to Insadong, which is considered the more "traditional" part of Seoul. There, we went to see the palace of a famous Korean dynasty (I'm blogging from work and the pamphlet with all of the details are at home...I'll find out and edit soon!). At the palace, we saw the King and Queen's living areas, the place where the king would meet with diplomats, and the prince's quarters. It was very interesting and fun to go with Koreans who could tell us even more than the information that was provided. After seeing the palace, we walked to a street to shop and look around. There were lots of souvenir-y things there and I ended up buying a beautiful bag and cute coin purse. By this time we were all quite cold, and Michelle was craving some traditional Korean tea, so we found a tucked-away traditional tea house. It was beautiful but very small inside-- we joked that it looked like what the inside of a hobbit's house would look like! I ordered cinnamon tea with a dried persimmon inside. After tea we drove a little bit in search of a Japanese restaurant but all the ones we found were quite pricy, so we settled for galbi instead. Galbi is food that famous in Suwon...its marinated meat that you cook at the table,similar to samgyupsal. As we were walking to the restaurant, we noticed a lot of policeman and guards around. When I asked why, turns out we were right near the Korean president's residence! I couldn't see it but apparantely it was right up the road from where we were. Cool stuff! It was a busy busy day, but so much fun!

When we returned to Suwon, Blythe and Michelle came over and hung out at my apartment, then we headed to Yongtong (neighborhood nearby) for a book club meeting. Blythe had found on Facebook a book club for foreigners "High-minded literary types" that meets once a week at a bar in Yongtong, so we decided to go check it out. It was the first meeting of the new year and there were only 3 others there, but we decided on a book to read. The book is called "The Dice Man". It sounds really interesting so I'm excited to read it and have intelligent conversations with new friends!

Wednesday: Michelle, Blythe and I headed back to Gagnam to go to Costco. Yes, that's right. There is a Costco in Korea. For those of you who don't know what Costco is (like I didn't) it's a Sam's Club establishment. So basically its a huge warehouse that sells everything in bulk. We had quite an adventure getting there, since we didn't know exactly where it was. We had seen it from the car the day before en route to Dos Tacos but this time we were traveling by subway. When we arrived at the Suwon subway station, we went to the information desk and asked them how to get to the Costco in Gagnam. The guy behind the counter didn't really understand and recruited the help of another station worker who looked like a guard or something. After trying his very best to help us and not getting anywhere, he picked up our worn subway map we were all pouring over and said "follow me." We followed him through the station, through the doors marked "staff only", and into the station office! You should have seen the face of all people in the office (all men) when 3 white girls walked in! The officer who escorted us there said something to another at the computer, and suddenly all like 10 of the workers were hunched over the computer, searching online for subway stations nearest to Costco. I gotta say, one great thing about Korea is that if you need help, you will get it. People really go out of their way to help you. He could have just as easily brushed us off and said "sorry, can't help you" and walk away. But he didn't!

Once we found out what stop we had to get off at, the help didn't end there. The guard who brought us there proceeded to escort us all the way the the platform and waited with us until the subway came. It was so sweet! He chatted with us in his broken English and reminded us constantly "third stop! one, two, three, get off train!" When the subway arrived we said goodbye and were on our way. The rest was a breeze because we already knew what exit to leave the station from and what bus to take from there to get to Costco. Finally, we arrived at Costco. Ahhhhhh! (soprano opera voice.) Blythe has a Costco membership from California that worked there too, so we were all set and ready to shop!

The great thing about Korean Costco is that it sells lots of Western products. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, grabbing great products from home that I had been missing- cheese, Kashi cereal, bagels, whole wheat bread, buttermilk pancake mix, etc. After exploring Costco for about and hour, we checked out and grabbed a meal. In my excitement of buying everything, I had kind of disregarded the voices in my head reminding me that I had to carry everything home through the subway, so I was left with an extremely heavy bag that was pretty cumbersome to carry home. Blythe and Michelle helped by grabbing one handle and helping me carry it, and we eventually got home around 8:30pm. Blythe and I met later that night around 11 to go salsa dancing at this club/dance studio that's supposed to have salsa every night, but it was closed :(. Instead we went to a bar for a drink and then hit the sack. We had had an exhausting day, so it was nice to go home and crash!

Thursday: I went to Seoul to teach my private in the afternoon since I had cancelled the previous Saturday, then had a low-key night. It was nice to have a day off!

Friday: AWESOME. For Ajou University Language School's "cultural experience day", Val and his classmates got to spend the day at Lotte World, the largest indoor recreation park (aka amusement park) in the world, located in Seoul. BALLIN! Unfortunately, Michelle had to go back to work on Friday and Blythe wasn't feeling well, so they couldn't come along. Luckily, I had invited my friend Melodie (the same friend I met up with for New Year's) to come along. She met me there at noon and we met up with Val and his classmates. After greetings and introductions, we took on the bumper cars. I couldn't remember the last time I did bumper cars, but it was lots of fun! While we waited for our "magic passes" for the French Revolution, the big rollercoaster, to be valid (if we returned to the rollercoaster line, which had a 40 minute wait, with our "magic passes" between 3:30 and 4, we would get to go past the whole line and ride the coaster), we rode some more rides and got food. We (Melodie, Val, and 4 of his classmates-from Uzbekistan, China, Japan, and Jordan) waited in a ridiculously long line for the "hot air balloons" that went on a track on the ceiling around the entire building. By the time we got off it was 3:55 so we BOOKED IT to the rollercoaster so we didn't miss our magic pass slot. It was so cool to walk right past the huge line and get on the next car. The coaster was INSANE! The cool thing is that because the rollercoaster winds through the entire, 6- floor complex, you never see the whole thing all at once so you don't really know what it looks like. We were definitely in for a surprise with the twists and turns and tunnels of complete darkness. I think my favorite part was the sudden downward fall in a pitch-black tunnel that as soon as we got out the tunnel turned into a spiral thing where you're sideways. It was quite a ride and I screamed my head off. It was awesome. After the rollercoaster, we stumbled our way to ice rink on the bottom floor, where I was able to live out my fantasy of having an ice-skating date where you hold hands and fall down together. Except, I was the only one who fell. Val actually really enjoys ice skating so he was really excited. A lot of his classmates were there too so we all skated together for a while. A great ending to a fun day!

Saturday: Yes, this entry is not over yet. If you've gotten this far, mazel tov! Saturday afternoon I met (suprise!) Blythe and Michelle for Chinese food at a restaurant near Blythe's apartment, which is in North Suwon. As we sat waiting for our food, a hoard of children came into the restaurant with their teachers and took over the restaurant. It wasn't long until I realized that they were Sannam Middle School students! They must have been students from one of the other camps that were going on during the vacation because some of the teachers were there too. I have no idea why they came all the way to North Suwon (about a 25 minutes away by bus), but I was shocked to see them all! None of them saw me, suprisingly, but I recognized one of my students from Winter Camp, caught his eye, and waved. He looked surprised and confused, hahaa.

Sunday: The four of us braved the snow and went to Itaewon, the foreigner district of Seoul. There, we ate West African food (Val was happy!) and visited the foreign food market where I bought hummus (I was happy!). Then we helped Blythe find shoes. Most places don't sell anything over size 8 here since Koreans' feet are so small, but Itaewon is famous for having bigger sizes of things. Once she found some cute boots, we went to What The Book?, an English book store, to get our book for Book Club. Unfortunately they didn't have it in stock but I decided to order it. After browing around What the Book?, we found another Mexican food place and had REALLY good Mexican food. Again. Haha. What can I say, Blythe's from Cali. She eats a lot of Mexican food. But I don't mind at all. This place even had margaritas! We returned very tired and wet since the snow had really come down hard and they didn't clear the sidewalks or roads at ALL. I dug into the hummus as a late-night snack then we went to bed, very satisfied from a great week!


The students still are on vacation, so I'm just seat warming at work these days. As much as I'd rather be at home in my PJ's, at least I'm getting paid to blog, FB/Gchat with my friends, and watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother online. Life is good, ha. I also had to get a new phone this week since my other one accidently went through the wash. Oops. I got my new phone yesterday (Monday), so yeah. I did that ENTRE week sans cell phone. and it was HARD. I seriously don't know how we lived without cell phones before.

That's enough to digest for now, I think. Believe it or not, I have more to blog about we'll wait for another time for that!

Thanks for reading:)

Love,
Mel

Welcome to 2011

Hi Everyone,

Well, it's 2011. And January. HOLY CRAP. How did all of this time pass by so quickly? I can't believe I'm approaching my 4th month in Korea. It feels like it's been hardly any time at all since I arrived while at the same time it feels like I've been here forever.

I rang in the New Year with friends in Hongdae, a foreigner-friendly and very popular nightlife part of Seoul. To get there we first took the train from Suwon Station (a little more expensive but much faster), then once we arrived at Seoul Station we took the subway to the subway stop in Hongdae where I was supposed to meet my friend Melodie who I met at GEPIK Orientation. Michelle and Blythe came along too! Melodie brought along a few friends as well and as a group we ate at a Chinese restaurant near the club we were going to party at. The club was a suggestion from one of Melodie's friends who lives in Hongdae. After a mediocre dinner, to be honest, we headed to the club. As we walked around Hongdae I remarked that I had never seen so many foreigners in one place in Korea! I think it was mostly due to the fact that it was New Years Eve which isn't really a big deal in Korea (the Lunar New Year is the major celebration here), but also because we were in Hongdae. The club we went to was absolutely packed...I don't think I've ever been to a place that packed before. Despite the crowd, which was probably 60 or 70% foreigners, we stayed until about 2am. By then the club was so packed that there wasn't room to dance or even an empty corner where you can get some quiet or some space from the crowd. So we headed out after a long night of dancing to great music and after my very first New Year's kiss! :) Previous New Years celebrations for me were always when I was single (minus last year, when Val was in Korea) and were usually spent with small groups of friends, hence no opportunity to kiss a stranger or anybody for that matter. Not that that's something I'm in to. Aaanyway...

Many of you received my New Years e-mail, where I reflected on the past year and expressed how thankful I was for the people in my life. I also made some New Years resolutions. This year, I resolve (?) to get more exercise, learn basic Korean, and to be more adventurous. I hope you made New Years Resolutions too!

Last weekend I had my very first outing without Val. I was craving a girl's night so called up Blythe to ask if she wanted to go out for drinks. Turns out she was getting ready to go swing dancing in Seoul. When she asked if I wanted to join, I was delighted, but also nervous. I know the basic step for East Coast swing, but the kind of dancing Blythe likes is Lindy Hop style, which I've never done or really ever seen before. Plus, I had called her on my way back from teaching my private and there was no time to go back home and change before she was going to leave. So I went straight to Suwon Station where I met Blythe and did an impromptu shopping trip to find me a cute top to replace my T-shirt and hoodie that I was wearing. One store and the purchasing of a very cute top (50% off!) later, we jumped on the subway and headed to Seoul.

When we arrived at the venue I felt like I had walked into a different world! Blythe and I were the only foreigners there. Koreans are so serious and frankly I hadn't seen Koreans actually having fun until I got here. The music was playing, same sort of stuff you'd here in America for swing dancing. So the place was full of Koreans, doing some GREAT dancing. Now, Lindy Hop is sort of an outgoing kind of dance...it encourages being goofy and stuff and I saw people free-styling everywhere. I danced with about 4 people, including an older man who was really fun! Most everyone there spoke English. I warned them all it was my first time, and I think I did OK though to be honest I found myself slipping into basic East Coast Swing. The place emptied out pretty early, around 11pm, so after about an hour of dancing we headed back to Suwon station for drinks. We had an awesome time at the bar talking to the bartenders and the other foreigners there. I even made a new friend, Kristen, from Toronto who lives in a neighboring city. We exchanged numbers and have plans to hang out. I got home at 4am and crashed! It was a great night. I told Blythe that after some more practice I would love be her swing dancing buddy and go with her on a regular basis.

Yesterday (Monday) was Val's birthday and I went with him to tutor Ryan and Rachel. I used their oven to bake a cake for the occasion (since I don't have one in my apartment). When Val finished tutoring, Rachel, her mom Elisa (English name of course!) and their grandma helped me decorate the cake with frosting, strawberries, and tangerines. Finally their dad popped a bottle of sparkling juice and we all at the cake together. It was a lot of fun and I know it meant a lot to Val. Friday we invited his friends to join us at a bar at Ajou and I'm going to bake another cake to bring and share (going to bake it in Elisa's oven on Friday afternoon). Yay birthday celebrations!

Sunday we are going hiking with some of Val's friends from the language school, then it's my week off! Winter Camp has gone pretty well, but I'm definitely ready for a vacation. Instead of taking 2 weeks off, I only took 5 days off so my next vacation I can take 15 days off and hopefully travel somewhere. The first week of Winter camp went pretty well. I definitely enjoy teaching 20 kids instead of 40 like in my regular classes. Most of the students are pretty good at English and enjoy English so that also helps! The first week we did the international theme which I think the students enjoyed. Throughout the week they created their own countries in groups, then on Friday "visited" each other's countries. This week doesn't have a theme. Yesterday I taught them phrases for talking about the time (quarter to, quarter after, 5 after, 10 to, half past, etc). Today we learned how to talk about music and we watched music videos and the students wrote down what they liked and didn't like based on the vocabulary we worked on earlier in the day.

Tomorrow we are learning (or reviewing, for some of the students) comparatives and superlatives. The first half of the class is themed "Extreme Makeover" where they make comparisons of people or things that have gone under huge transformations such as plastic surgery, age, makeovers, etc. Then the second half of the class will be Olympics, where the students will compete in events such as a spelling bee, a race down the hallway, alphabet race, arm wrestling, and verb conjugation races. After each event students will compare the competitors, using the target vocabulary. Now, I can't take credit for creating those lessons...the Extreme Makeover and Olympics were complete lesson plans I found online! Thursday we are practicing the future tense and making those oragami fortune teller things that we used to play with in middle school. I'm going to have to review how to make them though so I can teach the students! Finally, on Friday we are going to have a little party and watch a movie. Any suggestions of good but appropriate movies I can show my students??

Next Friday, since I'll be on vacation, I'm going to crash the Ajou University Language School's "cultural experience" at Lotte World. Lotte World is the biggest indoor recreation complex (aka indoor amusement park) in the world and it's located in Seoul. Val gets a free ticket and a bus ride there as a student of the language school, so I'm going to meet them there buy a ticket, and hang with Val and his friends for the day there! I'm pumped!

I think that's all for now. I plan to get my camera fixed this week so I will hopefully have more pictures soon. Thanks for reading, folks! Wishing you all the best in 2011. Missing you!

Lots of love,
Mel

Firsts, and Other News.

Yo.

So, it’s been a while since I blogged. In the past weeks there haven’t been enough things blog-worthy to happen, but the accumulated amount I think is worth a blog entry on this fine week before Christmas. I’m in my 2nd to last week of teaching for year, because the school year ends on Wednesday the 29th. I, however, will be teaching “English Camp” for the first two weeks of January. English Camp isn’t really camp, its just more classes (these kids don’t catch a break! Instead of actually relaxing at home during their vacation they just go to extra classes during the afternoon. Poor things!) but the good news is that I have complete freedom for what I plan for it. English Camp, I am told, goes from 9:30am-12:30pm Monday through Friday. Now, they haven’t told me yet if it’s going to be two different groups of students (2 one-week sessions) or the same kids for both weeks. I guess it depends on how many students enroll, but of course they won’t know that until the Friday before I’m supposed to teach!! So lately at school I’ve been brainstorming and planning my Winter Camp lessons. I definitely want to do an international theme for one of the weeks, where the students learn about customs, food, clothing, and music from different parts of the world, all the while learning useful vocabulary and phrases for talking about all of those things. I really want to students to create something throughout the week so they have something to present and be proud of at the end of the week. For the international week, I think I’m going to have them create their own country, choosing customs, music, food, activities, laws, or even the design for their postage stamp (thanks for that great idea Lauren!). On the last day, students can visit each other’s countries and do the activities that the students create there. I got an idea online to make “passports” for each student so they can keep track of where they’ve “visited” (aka learned about). The passport will also have personal information about them so I can get to know my students a little better.

If I have the same kids for a second week, I want to continue with the theme but switch to travel. The target language for the lessons will be airport and travel situational vocabulary and phrases, and also what to pack, what could go wrong, etc. For their final project I think I’m going to have them work on skits, incorporating all the situations we talked about throughout the week. If I have a different group the second week, I’ll either repeat the International theme or pick another one, maybe music. I have a weeks-worth lesson plan sketched out for a music theme. But where I’m stuck is figuring out what they can create during that week. The students are extremely shy so having them make up a song and perform it or something is out of the question. I thought maybe they could learn the lyrics to an English song and do something with that. Help? Ideas? Keep in mind these are middle school students with VERY low self-esteem and a very narrow area of interest.

Other things:

I had a first 2 weekends ago. It’s not Korean at all, or even Asian, but it’s still a first for me: I got my very first pedicure. My friend Blythe called me up last Sunday and asked me if I wanted to get pedicures with her. Now, I have always avoided pedicures for two reasons. 1) For a long time I was a dancer and my feet were guaranteed to look like crap all the time. Paying to get them all prettied up would be a waste of money and time because dancing barefoot 3 days a week would cause my feet to look NASTY after just a few weeks. 2) My feet are EXTREMELY ticklish. I always had this image in my head of what me getting a pedicure would look like and it always ended with me not being able to control my reactions and giving the pedicurist a healthy kick in the nose. SO when Blythe called me I was thrilled at the idea with spending a chilly Sunday afternoon in a warm salon with her reading fashion magazines and chatting about our love lives. Or whatever people do when they get pedicures. I admitted to Blythe my hesitations due to my extreme ticklish-ness, but it didn’t take much to convince me since I was really looking forward to some girl time. Blythe said she was ready to be amused and would be sure to bring her camera. Which she did. And what she documented thankfully wasn’t what I had imagined would happen, just a few moments of “OMG that tickles. Hold it in, HOLD IT IN!” and a general good time. It turns out it wasn’t a complete pedicure that we had expected with the wax and the lotion and the soaking, just some lotion and a really good paiyyynt job!(said in Little Rascals voice). Nevertheless it was fun to hang with Blythe and read fashion magazines and talk about our love lives and get to know each other a little more. After our pedies we shopped a little in the surrounding stores (I didn’t buy anything though), then went for coffee. Later we called up Val and met us near Ajou University for Japanese food. Yum! We ended up sitting there for 2 hours just talking, so we continued our conversation at a nearby cute, trendy café down the street where we proceeded to play a really intense game of Uno.

What else…
I had another first. This one was actually Korean so it’s a little more exciting. Val and I joined some friends at a Nore bang (pronounced nor-ee-bahng) (singing room). They’re super popular here. Its basically a place where you and your friends can go into this huge room and do karaoke. But this was intense. There’s a huge TV and tamborines laying on the huge couch that lines 2 walls of a room that is probably close to the size of my entire apartment. They even had free ice cream! I sang Baby Got Back and some other ones. Classic. Good times! Looking forward to going back soon.

After hearing that The Nutcracker was in town (well, in Seoul) ,on a whim I called the foreigner hotline Seoul Arts Center where it’s playing to see if there were any tickets still available. When the lady on the phone said there were, I just went for it and and bought tickets for Val & I for Dec. 30th. Our seats are really far away (on the 3rd floor, but 2nd row)but they were only 30,000 won (about 30 bucks) so I thought it would be worth it. It’s being performed by the Korea National Ballet. I haven’t seen the Nutcracker (or any professional ballet) since I was a very little girl, and Val’s never been the ballet, so I’m really looking forward to it. Yay! I’ll let you know how it is.

I started taking yoga classes once a week. We’ve only had 2 classes so far but I really like it. It’s the perfect combination of stretching and exercise. Even though the teacher doesn’t speak a word of English, she’s very kind and always makes sure I have a mat near the front so she can gesture to me. There is one woman in the class who speaks English so she makes sure to sit next to me so she can occasionally translate. I’m really glad I’m getting at least SOME exercise, because before I wasn’t getting any at all aside from walking around. I feel really good about that.

For Christmas, Val's friend Taylor invited us to a Christmas buffet at a Canadian-style bar and grill place in Seoul. The buffet's supposed to have turkey and ham and all that good stuff and I'm REALLY excited because there is NO turkey in this country and its my favorite meat. So that's what we'll be doing Christmas day. As for New Years, no plans yet but hoping to go out with friends.

It's starting to get cold here. We had our first real snow (that stuck) last week, and since then it's been pretty darn cold. Apparently we get jet winds from Siberia and Mongolia and it's damn cold. I mean, I'm used to the cold but the winds here are frigid and strong. It's definitely winter. The good news is that Korea's winters are supposed to be fairly dry, so it won't be too snowy but still cold. What is cold without snow? Not fun. Despite that, I think I'm OK with a winter sans knee-high snow banks. I have to admit, though, not seeing snow until December was a shock. I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've gone without seeing snow, so I was happy when it started to fall. It was pretty!

No more news on the North Korea stuff.

Watched Strictly Ballroom on our movie channel this weekend. Score.

One last thing. I watched Toy Story 3 last night, and I cried at the end. Legit cried. Like, had to wipe my eyes and blow my nose cried. Val thought I was being ridiculous but those of you who told me what tear-jerker it was you ain’t lyin! Man, those Pixar movies really get to me.

Overall, I think I'm doing than I was before. As my Mom helped me realize, two of the things I felt I was missing in my life I now have. I wanted friends and a chance to exercise. Now that I have my awesome friends from the GEPIK orientation and the yoga class, my life is feeling a little more complete. I still would love to find a dance class, but I'll take what I can get. I might start a pilates class in January, or I'm considering taking up belly dancing, because that's whats available here. I think I'd be fun and REALLY good exercise.

Ok, I’m going to go now, I think that’s enough to keep you busy for a while ☺.
Merry Christmas and happy belated Chanukah! By the way, I somehow remembered to pack a menorah and Chanukah candles when I left so I got to light the menorah every night. It was very special to share the rituals with Val (and to make him latkes!). I made latkes for us and then brought most of them to school, along with my homemade applesauce, to share with my colleagues. They were a hit and they devoured all of them… there weren’t even any left to bring back home!

Ok, I’m really going now. Miss you all!

Love,
Mel

New Friends, New Ideas

Greetings!

First of all, I have had a number of inquiries from worried family members and friends regarding the N. Korean attack on the South Korean island of Yeongpyong. No worries--I am safe, alive, and nowhere near that island. In terms of safety, the advice I was given was just to observe the Koreans around me. If they aren't freaking out, I probably shouldn't either. Then again, how do they really know. But this sort of thing "happens all the time" so if the Koreans don't believe it's serious then there's no reason for me to get all worked up. The Koreans are going on with business as usual, so I will too. I registered with the U.S. Embassy here when I arrived, and I recently signed up for their e-mail/text message alert system so I will receive a text and an e-mail if there are travel warnings being issued for South Korea. Until then, I'm keeping my eyes and ears peeled and continuing to ask questions. I think that's all I can do right now.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the past week I was at teacher training/orientation for GEPIK middle school and high school teachers. GEPIK is the Gyeonggi (pronounced geeyong-gee) English Program in Korea. It is basically the organization that recruits Native English teachers for the public schools in the Gyeonggi province. My employer is my school, but my contract is a standard GEPIK contract that all GEPIK teachers have no matter where they work. Soo anyway, GEPIK held this orientation this week in Anseong, a small city about an hour south of Suwon. I got a chance to meet a bunch of other English teachers in my area and go to lectures giving me great teaching and classroom management tips specifically for my situation. It's often hard to get advice from people from home about teaching because there are so many things that factor into teaching English in Korea that make it difficult and different than teaching American students. All of the lectures were geared specifically towards teaching Korean middle school and high school students in large classes with co-teachers and language and culture barriers, so they were super helpful.

I really enjoyed mingling with other teachers too and swapping ideas about what has worked (and not worked) in our classrooms. Most of the teachers are about my age and the majority of them have been in Korea for less than 6 months so we're all in the boat. Besides finally being able to make some of my own friends, my favorite part of the week was probably the demo lesson presentations we had to do. The entire group of about 80 people were split into groups of 15 according to what area we worked and lived in. In my group, consisting of teachers teaching in Suwon and surrounding areas, we got put into pairs and assigned a lesson topic to teach. We had one night to make our lessons plans (only 15 minutes long) and the next morning we all "taught" each other. Now, since classrom management is one of the biggest challenges of our jobs, as the students we were instructed to act like our students! Challenging our "teachers" with off-topic (and incorrect) questions, creating distractions, and not listening to directions and therefore delaying the activities, we imitated our students' accents and often inappropriate questions and language. We were all sort of fooling around with it and it was fun! I also walked away from the demo lessons with 5 other lesson plan ideas (worksheets and activities included) to bring back to my class.

My partner Michael and I did a lesson on American Holidays. We split our "class" into three groups and gave each group an information card about one of the following holidays: Halloween, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. After Michael and I did an example with Choesok (Korean Harvest holiday), the students were instructed to learn the information on the card. Then they had to go around and ask the other students about the other holidays and write it down on the charts we handed out. For the activity, we posted signs for each holiday on opposite sides of the room and the students were instructed to run to the sign that matched the vocabulary word we gave them, for example "jack-o-lantern", "pumpkin pie", "fireworks", or "independence". I think it was a success!

Another fun part of the orientation was learning a traditional Korean mask dance called Tacheum. Thursday afternoon we got to choose an activity to do, choosing from tradition dancing, learning about K-Pop (Korean pop music), a craft activity, and Korean calligraphy. All of the activities sounded appealing but I knew I wanted to do one that would get me up and moving after a whole morning and afternoon of sitting in lectures and lessons. I of course enjoyed dancing it and learning about the history and story of the dance. The traditional Tacheum dance is actually a mix of drama and movement and the performances almost always followed the same story that ends in tradgedy. Our instructor described the dance as very "down to earth", meaning that it was really a people's dance. It was never performed for the King or anything. It was and remains very sacred to the Korean people.

Last weekend I went to the Seoul Lamp Festival with Val, his/our friend Peter (the Korean-American who's originally from the town over from Sarah in NJ) and his friend, which I think many of you saw pictures of on FB. Unfortunately, at the festival I dropped my camera and the retractable lense got jammed, so the camera is temporarily out of service. I think it will be an easy fix because we took the lense part apart and nothing's broken, the lense is just jammed and needs to be re-aligned. If I discover the price of repairing it is close to the price of a new camera, well, Happy Chanukah to me! I'll probably buy a new camera. So sorry about that, you'll have to wait for more pictures for a while.

This weekend, after I got home from the training, I met two of the girls from orientatin out for drinks and dancing. Michelle was my roommate at the training and she hails from Toronto. She's been in Korea for about 3 months. Blythe is from Sacramento and has only been here for 3 weeks! Michelle, Blythe, Val, and I met for drinks at a REALLY cool bar at Suwon station that looked like a Moroccan restaurant with colorful pillows on which we sit on the floor and a sheet of veil separating each table. The vibe was chill and the drinks were good. We stayed there for a while and then went out dancing. We had a great time shaking it and drinking our free drinks (you get a ticket for a free drink after paying the \10,000 cover (about 10 bucks). That's a little steep if you ask me but getting a free drink out of it, I can live with it. After dancing the night away, Val & I headed home around 3am. I already have plans in the making to meet some of the other GEPIK teachers in my area next weekend. YAY for finally havs ing friends.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful because I caught a nasty cold that pretty much put me out of commission for Sat and Sun. I spent the days Skyping with family and relaxing with Val and watching TV which I finally got set up. There are a number of English channels including movie channels and National Geographic Wild. Pretty sweet! I also found 2 channels that air reruns of one of my favorite shows ever that is no longer on and I can not find anywhere online: ALIAS! 10 points for my Korean TV channels.

This week and next week I am not teaching regular classes due to my students preparing for and then taking their final exams. So I'll be sitting at my desk all day, every day so feel free to g-chat me anytime!

Love to you all. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving!

Love,
Mel