Volleyball Champs!

The '09 Dong Hang Elementary volleyball season came to a close this Wednesday with an upset victory over Yang San Elementary school. We had previously lost to them in a practice match, but all of our championship dreams came true after we crushed them two sets to zero in the final game.
The final day of competition didn't go off without a hitch as there was one major conflict. Evidently, one of the 4 teams participating in the final four had a ringer who, over the course of this years 1 month of competition had garnered the moniker "the kind of volleyball" amongst those following the circuit. Supposedly, this beast of a man stood 190 centimeters tall and had a spike that was impossible to defend. Word got around that he wasn't eligible as a player because he didn't teach at the school. In fact, he wasn't a teacher at any school. Ten minutes before the slated start of the game Yang-San called the board of education to question his elligibility. The board called back five minutes later to notify the school that they would have to play without the presence of the crushinator. Unfortunately, the team walked out of the gym in protest. (The next day they called our school asking to play an "exhibition" match. Our vice principal respectfully declined as not to discount our victory in the instance that we lost such a game.)
Anyways, we won and I think its a pretty big deal. These guys take the games serious. It's kind of rare for a game to end without arguing of some kind. I've also heard that being a good volleyball player can score you some serious points with the administration. One teacher told me "If we are good volleyball team and you are good player, principal, he forget about all bad thing". So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a nice long summer vacation.
The celebration was both really fun and hilarious. All of the teachers went out to a nice place to eat for drinks and food. My favorite part of the dinner was when the trophy was repeatedly filled with beer and given to each member of the team (and principal) to chug. I would give anything to have a video of our principal chugging beer from a trophy while 35 teachers chanted "one shot!, one shot!". As is customary in Korea, dinner was followed by a trip to a karaoke bar. Needless to say, I'll miss volleyball season. Go Dong Hang!

Be cool about fire safety, among other things

Wednesday
About a week and a half ago my dad made the trip to Korea and arrived Wednesnight. He was the last of our overseas visitors, and it was great to see him. Incidentally, if you ever need a pick me up a great place to people watch is at the international arrivals gate. Everyone's all smiles and welcome homes and hugs and happy tears. Dad was detained by swine flu checking just long enough for Brian to meet us at the airport, and then we were off for great things - namely, sleep after Dad's 25 hour journey.
Thursday
My school had a 2 day 1 night field trip on Thursday and Friday, so there were no classes and they were wonderful enough to let me have the time off to spend with Dad. So Thursday poor Brian geared up for school while Dad and I took off in the rain to visit the UN cemetery and the Busan Museum for an indoor sort of day. Then Dad had his first Korean meal: spicy tiny octopi. It was a great success. But jet lag inevitably took it's toll and we went home for naps until Brian got off school. That night we made it out again to the pajeon and makulli whole in the wall that we've loved ever since we arrived.

Dad was looking skeptical when the plate of tofu arrived, but he did like the pajeon and makulli. We tucked in early that night for the day to come, but not before a stop over in the arcade. Dad fell for the drum games at first drum roll.

Friday
Friday I was off again, and Brian went off to school again as Dad and I got packed up for a trip to Gyeongju, the old Korean capital during the Shilla Dynasty. We hopped on a bus and rented some bikes on arrival for a biking tour of the city. We went first to the burial mounds park where kings' tombs are enclosed in large mounds of rock, soil, and grass.

Next up was the oldest astronomical observation tower in all of East Asia. It was there we met Paul, an English muffin who saved us from our terrible self portraits in front of the tower with a proper picture. I thought he might be an English teacher from Busan because he was on our bus, but it turned out that he's just a guy ramblin round the world for a few years. Sounds like just the right thing to do.

The two Pauls and I had lunch together before Dad-Paul and I began the trek home. Getting back to Pusan we visited a bath house. I wasn't sure how much Dad would like it, but I think he was thoroughly impressed.

It was after the bath house that we discovered the whale meat district of Seomyeon, and Dad discovered the scrumptiousness of Korean barbecue. We even got free soju from the soju promoters. Those pictures are somewhere further down in this post.
Saturday
Saturday we finally got to play with Brian too. We got up and out and on a bus to Taejongdae, the much recommended but previously unvisited seaside park. It was lovely, but it was a long ride. Besides all of the lush greenery and beautiful seaside cliffs, there were vats of bondegi (a silk worm larvae (or possibly pupae)) for sale. And we got Dad to try one. In fact, we found a can of them for him to take home to spread the delicacies your way. Here he is with his bug before he eats it.

After Taejongdae we went to Jagalchi, the largest seafood market in Korea. Imagine a marine invertebrate specialist in a market full of spineless maritime squiglers - like a kid in a squirmy candy shop. Here he is admiring the things he never thought you could eat before this trip. But Jagalchi doesn't only have live fish and friends for sale; there's also a large dried market. Here are heaps of dried fishes of all shapes and sizes.
And below, the street market scene. It's a little grimy, but not as smelly as you might imagine.
That night we dined in the market place and followed up with hodducks, a chinese derived snickerdoodle on butter steroids. Dad got hooked when we mainlined a couple when we got back to Busan's bus station the day before.

Sunday
Sunday it was chilly and threatening rain, so we went to the Busan Aquarium for more aquatic delights. There are more fish photos than necessary because I got excited about the aquarium setting on my camera. It made this seahorse look like it came straight out of The Life Aquatic.
We tooled around Haeundae Beach for a bit before catching another bus to a seaside temple we'd been wanting to visit. This temple is unique for a couple of reasons. 1. Most temples are built on the mountain sides, this one on seaside cliffs. 2. This temple is dedicated to Avalokitsvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, or in more western terms, the goddess of mercy. She is often shown riding on a dragon, and thus there are many dragon images at this temple, which are absent at others. For some very good reason unknown to us, there were also these two plump, jolly pigs at the temple.

There was also a plump, jolly Buddha statue.
This dragon is a painting on the outer wall of one of the temple structures.
This dragon decorates the rafters of the main temple hall.

These cairns dotted the cliffs outside the temple walls.
And the rest of the aquarium and temple photos are in the following slide show.

Monday I finally had to report back to school. But I only had 3 classes and got to leave at 12, so Dad and I had time to take a short hike up Geumjeongsan, a nearby mountain with a fortress wall (much talked about in this blog). We had lunch and got some snacks to take with us and then cruised up to some perches with nice lookouts. It was the first time I'd been there during working hours on a weekday and it was phenomenally more tranquil without the crowds.

Tuesday was our volleyball semifinals at school, so though I didn't get to leave early, Sun Ja and I picked Dad up at the apartment and he got to come to the games. It was a double header and we won the first game and lost to the second team we played. But the first team had our old pal Sunny playing, and Kyung Mi my co teacher from the school I no longer teach at was there too. It was fun to see old friends and for Dad to get to meet the people I work with.

We went to dinner with the school after the game, but after that Brian came and met us and all of the young teachers for drinks and a night on the town. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures that night because the camera was dead. But it was fun to have all my favorite teachers meet Dad and Brian. They even taught us some new Korean drinking games, and of course, the night ended at the norebang (or kareoke room). Yes, Dad sang too.

Wednesday was Dad's last day in Korea, and he came to school with me to meet the kids. He even co taught with me a bit in a roll play we performed for the kids. It was 6th and 5th grade that day, and I wasn't sure how well they'd respond because they're just at the cusp of teenager hood. But they were all so excited to meet him and wanted to compare their hand sizes and arm hair. They all said "he's so handsome guy!". My co teacher got some photos of us in action which I'll try to get hold of to post later.

After school we got to leave early. We relaxed at home and had Korean style tea til Brian came home. Then we started our snacking tour of Korea. We had to fit in as many foods as possible in a short amount of time before going to see the night view of the bridge at Gwangan Li. We all performed admirably.

Once on the beach we found it chilly, so in we went to Russel Crowe bar to have a last night of talk before the departure. These are all the photos Dad took on his last day in Korea.

And these are all of the miscellaneous photos of food and drink and night scenes that didn't fit elsewhere.


I think this final photo of Dad really sums up how he felt about his entire Korean experience. Pretty fantastic.

He left Thursday morning, but Thursday afternoon at school was exciting enough to make it into this post. All of a sudden in the middle of my after school class fire alarms and sirens start going off (and didn't stop for an hour) and all the kids run to the windows. I can't understand the announcements being made, so I check out the window scene. Lo and behold, there's a fire in the middle of the school yard, but an intentional fire, an instructional fire. There's a fire truck and kids getting to use fire extinguishers to try to put out the flames (unsuccessfully; the fire hose was used in the end).

As you can see from these photos, these kids really know how to be cool about fire safety. I should know, as I consider myself a semi-expert on the subject of fire safety because I had to take a course at Furman for a dorm violation involving candles and string lights.

And speaking of fire safety, if you're reading this to waste time, I highly recommend this video. It's hilarious and informative. And if you enjoy it, you should really check out the second and third parts. The second part features Little Richard singing about crawling out of a fire with really awfully funny PowerPoint add ins.

This weekend we mostly rested after the flurry of activity with Dad, but we managed to make it to Haeundae for the sand festival going on there. This was my favorite sand sculpture. Anti-whaling, if you can believe it after all of the whale meat we found and showed on this post.

But there were many more to gawk at. Friday was actually a cultural education day for my teachers' team, meaning that we got to leave around 1:30 for a movie and dinner and coffee. That's where the graphic image of eel heads comes from in this next slide show.

And now we've only 7 weeks left including this one before our summer vacation. We're not sure how much time we've got off at this point, but depending on that crucial bit of information we may go to Mongolia or Indonesia. Either way, we will definitely go to Beijing for a few days. We've got 4 months left on our contracts, but it feels like our time here is already running out. We're trying to fit in any last experiences while we plan our next adventures. It's all so exciting!

It's not a weekend til someone's sleeping in the bushes

Last weekend was extra long thanks to my school's granting Friday off. Great job! Luckily, I spent the day relaxing on the beach and at the baths, soaking up energy that would prove to be much needed around 4 AM the next morning when I found myself piping Lovefool by the Cardigans at a norebang (kareoke room). But let's not get too far ahead.

I was the only person I knew with Friday off, so I spent the alone time well. Later, when everyone finished with school, David and Brian came over to our apartment (Duck left that Friday for a wedding in the States, so she was probably eating good pizza, or good cheese and drinking delicious, flavorful beers while we had our traditional Korean style weekend). We relaxed there for a while before Ryan and Shannon arrived from Sunmudo with Sam and Heather in tow. Sam and Heather live in Boseong and Ulsan respectively, but they come to Busan every now and then for a good time. This good time we spent having drinks in the apartment before a late dinner at a meat and seafood grill restaurant. There we got lucky with freebies. There were some girls doing a soju promotion who gave us 4 bottles, and the restaurant owner gave us free mixers, including aloe juice that tasted like white grape which he assured us was "very expensive". It was delicous and fun and we didn't leave there until after midnight.

Next stop was Ghetto Bar, which normally Brian and I dread, but this time it was filled with Koreans instead of the usual slimy foreigners that flock there, and the soju buckets abounded making it easy for everyone to get their dancing pants on.

After buckets and schwarma (for the carnis) from our friendly neighborhood schwarma man we were off to find another dance party and we went searching for it at Vinyl Underground. My memory's a bit blurry, but I'm pretty sure only people that worked there were there before we showed up. But we brought what we though a pretty spectacular time to the place. The workers disagreed. We eventually got kicked out after a few people had their try at the drum set. But not before Ryan showed us how to fly.

There's nothing to it!

When we realised we weren't making any friends at Vinyl Underground, we decided to show Heather, the only member of our posse who hadn't been thusly initiated, how to noraebang. She took to it like a hippie to patchulli oil. I suppose we all did. And we kept being granted more minutes on the hour we paid for, so we didn't leave there until 4:30 or so.

Brian lights up the room with his singing.

When we finally made our way out of there, it was donkas (fried pork cutlets) for some, and bed for others. The majority of us made it home safe and sound after the sunrise, but at least one person woke up in the bushes of the nearby university with a friendly grounds keeper asking if he was ok. And that's how you spend a Friday in Busan.

Needless to say, we slept in on Saturday. Then we went to the beach and slept some more. Then we ate burritos at a great hole in the wall and then we went home and slept some more. But Sunday was another odyssey. Shannon met Brian and me at Beomeosa for a hike that we've been wanting to do for some time now. Up to the summit of Geumjeongsan from Beomeosa, then over the mountain to the East Gate and back down into PNU to catch the subway home. It was a perfect day for hiking, and the views were spectacular, for a city of 4 million. We took a detour near the top to visit the standing Buddha carved in a rock face.

The body was a little faint, but the face still shows up beautifully.

Shannon picturing from the top.
This is not the summit, though it looks like it could be from this angle, but it's a beautiful view of the reconstructed wall ruins and the sky that day.

We packed in our kimbap and crackers and despite our many viewing and snacking breaks, we were all pretty wiped at the end of it. We're not in the same form we were on the AT, but it was nice to do a longer hike again. Hopefully soon we'll take a trip to Jirisan (mountain) for a less urban hike.

Monday we were back to a full work week after all the hollidays we'd had the week before. Brian has his dreaded open class today and I've got mine tomorrow, which means lots of practicing the same class over and over again with a very intimidated group of 4th graders for me, 5th graders for Brian, and very strung out teachers. But once it's all over I've been told we'll have a volleyball scrimmage and then a wine and dine. It will be nice once all the open class frantic-ness has died out around us and we can go back to focusing on our volleyball games. Our women's team's first game is this Friday and coach says we've got a shot at the championship! I disagree, but then I haven't seen the other teams.

Here are more pictures from the weekend.

Sports, Spiritualism, Science?, and Sports

Last weekend and this week were loaded. Friday after school Brian and I met David and Duck at Sajik Baseball Stadium for a Lote Giants game (or ja-iy-uhn-tuh-suh, as it's called in Korean). The team's not so hot, but the fans don't seem to notice. Baseball is probably the most popular sport in Korea, and people have a great time at the games whether their teams winning or losing. You'd never be able to pick the winning team by watching the fans leave the stadium. Everyone's just as happy as they can be, and why not? They can take as much cheap booze and food into the game as they can carry. And they have this sort of thing to greet them at the gates.

Apparently there's a new soju in town and there have been soju dancers promoting it all around recenlty. After the game we had a short trip to a nearby pub, but we were all pretty worn out. Duck was falling asleep in the booth, so soon we all crashed at David and Duck's.

But Saturday was Buddhamas. Christmas is a recongnised holliday here, but decorations don't pop up until about 3 days before the big day. Not so for Buddhamas. About 3 weeks beforehand colorful lanterns appeared lining most streets and even a giant animated light up dragon showed up near Busan Station. But the actual day was even more ornate. We decided to wait until evening to visit temples so we could get the full effect of the lanterns, so we played badminton to honor Buddha's birth. We even had some fans looking on and cheering. You can witness this in the next slide show.

Once dusk set in we were on our way to our first temple with Ryan and Shannon. I don't remember the name, but it was near Seomyeon. It was small, but quaint and it had some unique lanterns. And we got to participate in the walking meditation/chanting prayer around the temple grounds before we left. It was gorgeous, but we had heard of a temple with such numbers of lanterns that it looked like a sea of lights, so we were tempted to move on.

We had to split up for the taxi ride, but in no time we were walking up to Samgwangsa (all the temples are up on hills, like the universities). Though Samgwangsa had a little less character than the nameless temple, it was undeniably spectacular. The following video is sideways, I don't know how to fix it - just tilt your head.

And, on Buddha's Birthday (not really called Buddhamas, in case I've convinced anyone that it is) the temples give out free bibimbap. It was like carolling with figgy pudding and wassal, except it's May and it was temple hopping with bibimbap and calguksu.

After the last temple Brian and I headed home early to get some sleep for the Jirisan trip on Sunday. EPIK (English Program in Korea - our employers) sometimes organizes free trips for the native English speaking teachers, and Sunday we went to a mountain called Jiri for a medicinal herbs festival. This was much less exciting in real life than it sounds, but it was a free trip on an otherwise planless Sunday. We tasted some tasty teas, saw an awful excuse for a cotton field/museum about cotton, saw some beautiful mountains that we'll go back to for hiking/camping, learned that Korea has black bears (with a white V on their chests), and got to try acupuncture! This last was probably the most exciting part, besides the bears. It's true, it really doesn't hurt, and I'm a wimp about needles. My whole family and Brian got to witness this one Christmas when Mom brought an injection for me to Mammaw's house in Georgia. Just couldn't wait til I came home could you Mom? But as for acupuncture, it felt like someone touched me with a pin, but didn't actually break any skin with it. I got the needles in my back though, and if I moved in such a way as to flex those muscles it did pinch. I wasn't in any discomfort beforehand, so I can't say whether or not it helped me, but it was relaxing and I didn't feel any worse afterwards.

Then, Monday was Field Day at my school! Field Day certainly means something different in Korea than in the US, but like at home, it means no classes. For Field Day in Korea the teachers and kids rehearse for about 3 weeks. What could they rehearse you wonder? Well, please observe this video.

THat's right - at all times at least 2 events were going on at the same time, and these weren't simple games like the nail drop. There was one game where the kids rolled a giant dice and then according to which number they got they had to do a different task. Each time there were 3 kids rolling and doing the task and it was a race to see which team of 30 or so kids could get every group of 3 to finish doing whatever task and race back to the group first. Not only were the games complicated, there were also enormous dance productions where an entire grade performed together. Observe the 3rd graders in Hey Mickie!

And whatsmore, it wasn't limited to the kids. A handful of dads and a million moms and gradmas came to play too, and take pictures of their kids doing their routines. There was a moms' tug-o-war, a grandmas' person-size ball rolling relay race, a dads' 200 meter race, and even a moms' dance number and jump rope dance number. I loved the parents' sport competitions, but the dance was kind of embarassing. My favorite was watching the gradmas race that ball around. Brilliant. Look at the determination on their faces!

So while Field Day at home may be more fun for the kids ( no rehearsing, no pressure, just games), it is overwhelmingly more fun for the spectators in Korea.
And Tuesday was a holliday (Children's Day), so we beached all day on Cinco de Mayo, Wednesday Brian and I both got to leave school early (me for hiking with my teachers, him for drinking and a movie with his), Thursday was normal and I'm off again today! May has been great in Pusan.