Seokbulsa and a trip to the Korean dentist

This past weekend was just like old times with all the chingus together again. Everyone had gone their separate ways the week before, and it was our second to last time all together. Friday we met up at David and Duck's with the intention of going to PNU, but we never made it with all of the raconteuring going on.

Some highlights were that David slept in a random tent that he found on Jeju Island because it got cold sleeping in the open outside. Luckily no one was around. And there were some pretty gruesome tales of a tent pisser at the music festival Ryan and Shannon had just come home from, but I've got to leave it at that for diplomacy's sake.

Saturday morning Brian and I headed up the ole mountain again, this time to find Seokbulsa (temple). We'd read about it a long time ago, but never successfully found it. Until Saturday. It was a small temple, but it had amazing details. Here's a picture in one of the temple halls.

The temple was nestled into the jutting rocks on a ridge near the South Gate of Geumjeongsan. It was a short hike, but it was down off one ridge into a valley and straight back up another. Well worth it though.

Saturday Shannon also found out that her closest sibling, her older sister, got engaged! So once again the crowd was together again and Will came too. It was Will's birthday and Shannon's good news day, so we went to lock and lorr bal to cereblate. And of course, there was the obligatory arcade trip. It's hard to believe it was our (2nd to) last time together. We'll do it all again Thursday for Ryan's birthday (he'll turn 30 while we're in China), but after that we may never all be in the same country again. After our big trip Shannon and Ryan will go to Australia and Canada respectively and won't be back in Korea (they've signed on for another year, Ryan's actually taking over at Brian's school) until after David, Duck, Brian, and I all leave for good. Brian and I will still get to see plenty of everyone, but it's the end for the 6 chingus.

Sunday we kind of realized all that must be done before leaving for Beijing and Mongolia, so this week has been busy. Only 3 more days of camp before the adventures begin again. Not that life in Korea isn't adventure in it's own right. Yesterday Brian and I went to the dentist for our yearly checkup and cleaning, thinking that we'd do it while we had great insurance and dental care is cheap in Korea. We looked up the words for checkup and cleaning and that seemed to ring some bells so we sat nervously waiting in what looked like the reception area of a swanky spa. I was worried I'd get knocked out before I could get my point across and wake up with a fresh set of veneers slapped on my teeth. Brian was worried we'd get slapped with some enormous bill for we didn't know what. Luckily those specific fears were unfounded. When the receptionists sat us down it was in an area with small partitions between the dentist chairs so that I could see Brian's feet and hear him clearly but I couldn't see what was going on with his face. No one cleaned us up, no hygienists materialized, but soon the doctor came along.

The poor dentist was baffled. "What's the problem?" he asks. Well, nothing necessarily. He was with Brian first and I could hear all. Brian says something to the effect of check me for cavities and clean my teeth please and seconds later I hear the dentist say he has no cavities. Brian asks how much for cleaning, doctor says maybe 10,000 Won (8 bucks) and Brian again mentions cavities. Now the doctor is plaintive, "No! No cavities!" (you should read this with the very Korean sort of whining trail off). "I will scaling to remove your calculus". Oh, perhaps this is cleaning? We though scaling was Konglish until we talked to Mom and Frank that night who mentioned that scaling is a real English word. So maybe calculus is the right word in that situation too, but I doubt it and also hope not because it's funnier that way. So again about 1 minute goes by and all of a sudden Brian's finished. Next it's my turn and the same thing happens. No tapping on the teeth or scraping while checking for cavities (though he did use a mirror, no gloves though), the scaling was most ungentle and it was a toe-curling minute that he spent scraping my gums to bloody pulps only on my lower front teeth, leaving the rest alone. Then he told me "Now you have no cavities AND no calculus". That's great, I never liked calculus. And nobody likes cavities. The whole thing set us each back 4,500 Won, or around 3.50 USD. Not as thorough, but much much cheaper than US dental care. It seems that the only preventative medicine we practice in the US is for something that would make us uglier if we weren't to do so. Korean dentistry seems to have much more to do with whether or not there's a problem in your mouth than keeping your smile nice. The lady at the counter who checked us in had a dead tooth in her mouth. Unsightly, but maybe not medically a problem to leave that sucker in there?

I told some Korean teachers at my school about the escapades today and they asked how many times Americans go to the dentist a year. I told them once and asked about Koreans. Both women are in their 50s and neither had ever been to a dentist. That explains the dentist's confusion.

This will probably be the last post until early September so the blog will be dormant a while. Check back then for all the sights and sounds of Beijing and Mongolia!

Now That's a Monsoon, and, Do You Know That's Poisonous?

Last week brought more action than usual. Wednesday we hosted Sam, our first couch surfer ever. If you don't know, www.couchsurfing.com is a great network of people with an extra bed, couch, or floor space who agree to let you stay for free. There are hosts all over the world, and anywhere you go you can stay for free, meet some locals, get an insiders view, and connect with interesting people. We just signed up a few weeks ago and we're hoping to surf for a good deal of our upcoming trips.

Sam came on Wednesday and stayed two nights. He was a great introduction to the whole concept of couchsurfing and I hope we meet him again someday. He's from Switzerland and taught us proscht! (cheers), and that Swiss people either speak Swiss-German, French, Italian, or something he called Romanic. He was a Swiss-German speaker himself, and he had a slight grudge against Germans because he went to learn English in New Zealand (loved it) and found that Germans could get a work visa there very easily whereas he could not. He has some amazing photos from New Zealand, which bumped that place up on my travel wish list quite a few notches. We took Sam to Gwangan Li to see the night view his first night with us. The twin buildings were new from the last time we'd been there.

But the colorful, fashion conscious yappy dogs were old favorites from the beach scene.
Thursday we got a proper introduction to monsoon season. I thought we'd met before, but we hadn't seen anything like this. The little girl on the right was bawling. For some reason this was hilarious at the time. Probably because she would be home in no time and all would be right as rain. Or maybe because she was still holding that umbrella over her head even though she was wading through chest high water.
It was up to my hips at some points. We left the apartment geared up with wellies and umbrellas, but around the first turn we saw what a river we were going to have to ford, and we turned back to change into running shorts and rain slickers before going for our morning swim to work. Because of the flooding though we didn't make it to school until around 9:10 (1st period starts at 8:50). There I changed into teacher wear and toweled off before going to the teachers room where the principle promptly cancelled classes seeing as how there were only about 5 other teachers besides me who made it. The principle commented on how dry my clothes were because the last time the rain was flooding the streets over the rim of my rain boots I came in soaked. And then a teacher who speaks no English told him something like "blah blah I don't know what she's saying hotpants blah blah still don't know". She told him I wore hotpants to school. This was very funny to me, but I was a bit offended that she would think I would have such bad taste in hotpants (my running shorts don't have any glitter and they're not even purple, red, or gold). Unfathomably, Brian still had school. I waited out the storm til 12 and then went home, but he had a full day. There are more photos of the flooding at the end of the post.

We went to a slow dinner with Sam that night and then came home to show each other where we live on google earth, share photos and travel talk. He left Friday, and we went to school where there were no classes because it's the end of the semester and who knows what was going on. That night Brian and I went to blow fish dinner date and were reminded how great it was. So Saturday, after a dud of a trip to the Museum of Modern Art (closed) and a successful trip to a free traditional dance performance at the Busan Cultural Center near our house Ryan, Shannon, David, and Duck came to meet us for another round of it. Here's blow fish dinner 101.

First course is banchan, Korean for ayce side dishes, and blow fish lip salad. Though this sounds terrible, not only is it tasty, it's also very fun to play with.

Next up, the meal. You can see the blow fish soup in the slide show at the end, but here was my blow fish fry plate. It's so yummy.

We also ordered blow fish sashimi, but unfortunately that turned out to be a really large portion of blow fish lip salad, which we already had never ending plates of. Now we know. But the good news is, we survived both nights. No one even had any tingly tongues. But I think that's a very expensive Japanese style blow fish sushi that leaves the tingles in. The rest of the night, since no one died, we all played rummy with rum and felt like we were already on vacation. Monday and Tuesday we have to go to school, but there's no class, so we're almost vacationing now.

Mudfest beats Mad Mama's Mudsling 8 to 2

This weekend the long awaited festivities of mudfest finally actualized into a lot of messy fun. It is what it sounds like, a festival of mud. This mud is supposed to be great for your skin, but in the end it's great for getting as dirty as possible with all your friends and wallowing in it. Most of the festival consisted of getting muddy in as many ways as possible, like a pool of mud, a mud prison where prisoners were splashed with mud, a mud hose, a mud fountain, etc. But there were also mud slides, inflatable mud obstacle courses and races, and of course, mud wrestling. But I think my personal favorite was the color mud with which you could body paint yourself or your unsuspecting friends.

This festival is King size popular with the foreign community in Korea, so all our friends made it which in turn made the mud even more fun. But we didn't stay as muddy as we'd imagined. It got cold early on Saturday so we turned to warmer, cleaner fun after the mud, and it's monsoon season so Sunday we got rained out. Of course, rain is good for mud, but it's also cold. But, that's not to say we didn't get muddy.

I'm still finding mud in my ears. Doubtless some people familiar with McDowell County, NC and it's now passed institution Mad Mama's Mudsling will take offense to my statement that Mudfest is better. But, what could make mudding in your monster truck even more fun? Using your body as the monster truck of course!

I've never felt I had so much in common with a monster truck before.

Good Cheesy Fun

The weeks continue to go by faster and faster. We've only 3 months left on our contracts, but it feels like much less because of all the revving we're doing in preparation for our Summer escapades, and we're already starting to think about where to start in South East Asia after it's all said and done. Partly in an effort to conserve money, and in part because it's too hot to do much else, we had a slow and easy weekend.



Friday I met Ryan and Shannon in Seomyeon for a short soju tent time. Brian was out with the teachers from his school, so it was just the three of us, but I think the ajuma who ran that tent could be considered part of our party because she did hand feed us some of her wares. I suppose she thought she was showing these strange foreigners how to go about eating the food on our table. I can't assume to know what was in her mind, but I can report her actions. She came over after delivering some cucumber sticks with a yummy sauce called duenjang (pronounced dwen jang). She picked up a cuke, dunked it in the sauce, and then came for my face with it, and I duley opened up. Next one for Ryan, and last, but certainly with just as much care, one for Shannon. This is actually pretty common; about every other day some kid comes up to me at school with a grimy fist full of love wanting me to open up for them to put some food in my mouth. I usually take it in my hand first, just in case. Korean kids aren't devious like students at home. I can imagine some American 6th grader trying to put a piece of chocolate that'd freshly met with a bathroom floor in a teacher's mouth, with full malicious intent. But what do I really know about American 6th graders?



Saturday David came over in the morning for some nutritional yeast gravey. If you're a meat eater and that sentence disgusted you, you really should give it a try. It tastes like a cheese sauce fit to please any T-bone muncher's palate. Just ask David. After the compulsory Super Laggis Brothers gaming, we took off for Haeundae.



On the way we found one of Busan's great Summer offerings - beverage promotions. This one was a giant can of Cass, one brand of the ubiquitous budweiser-esque lagers of Korea. I don't mind the darts promotions, those are fun, but I'm particularly partial to the spin the wheel variety. I spun and got a glass of Cass Lemon, somewhat like Tequiza. Brian got a whole can, and David won a glass of light. A great welcome to the beach it was. That night David, Brian, Will and I caroused in Kyungsungdae for a bit, but we all turned in fairly early. That gave us plenty of time for cheese making on Sunday! We'd tried before in Korea, with mixed results. But this time we were success! Yummy fresh mozzarella was ours! At home we'd made cheese with 2% milk, and it was a long time ago, but it seems to me that the whole milk we used here yielded a lot more cheese for the same amount of milk.
What with a bowl full of fresh cheese, we decided for pizza and movie night. Here's what our cheese turned into. This may not look so special to Western eyes, but keep in mind we eat rice for every meal and those bottles of beer on the table are not sold in Korea. Maybe with this cheese block we can start bulking up our dairy intake to prepare for Mongolia. I read that in the Summer months the nomads there subsist on what translates to "white foods", meaning milk, cream, cheese, yogurt, and dried cheese curds, as well as fermented mares' milk. These come from yaks, sheep, horses, goats, and maybe cows, but I'm not sure. I am sure that until we made that cheese our diet for the past 9 months has contained less than 1% dairy and I hope all my lacto-digesting parts and critters are still fully functional.



Speaking of Mongolia, we've just bought our tickets (we used Ken at Unique Travel in Pusan who speaks perfect English and finds flights 200,000 won cheaper than we or the competition can; uniquetravel@korea.com) and we're getting the final plan ironed out. Shannon, Ryan, Brian and I are leaving Busan August 8th on a flight to Beijing. We'll have 2 and a half days there to see the city and the Great Wall and hopefully catch a Shaolin Monk Kung-Fu performance. Then we're flying to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, on the 11th. Which means that we've got from the 12th-27th, 16 days, 15 nights, to see all that we can see of Mongolia. We're hiring a guide and jeep through Nomadic Adventures (ganerdene_y@hotmail.com) for the duration, and we're going to the Gobi, Central and Northern Mongolia. We're still working out the itenerary, but whatever happens, it's going to be slack-jaw-amazing.

Mindless Bludgeoning and Insightful Travel Advice

I'm not sure what took hold of me this weekend, but for some reason I took lots of video footage of our messcapades. You will see some here, but don't be fooled. This is not all; I probably took at least twice as much as I think you could bear watching. All of it happened on Friday night. After a very quick week of school, we found ourselves reuining with Ryan, Shannon, David and Duck in Seomyeon. We beered and dined before seeking out a photo booth that makes everyone look like they're from 90210, or in other words, makes you look like you're wearing make up. Shannon's in charge of getting those pictures out, so I'll post them later.

Next stop was the Seomyeon arcade in Judies Taewa. The following video is our approach on the arcade, which happened to be flanked by go go dancers for some store or restaurant opening. This is a very common, almost compulsory phenomenon for the opening of a new business. But these dancers didn't appreciate Brian's video taking, and they sent their mascot minions to put an end to it.

Inside the arcade I proceeded to win many suckers for everyone on the rock paper scissors machine, my favorite arcade game. I used to love the drum game too, but I was shamed away from it after watching this guy. For those of you who haven't seen this game in action before, normally one person plays one drum and another person competes on the other.

But after we had done all we could do inside we snuck out the back way to avoid the minions, and there we found the rest of our night waiting for us in the form of a test of strength hammer game. This was fantastic. We quickly drew a crowd, which I doubt was so much due to this following performance as it was due to the novelty of giants like David, Duck, and Brian swinging away at it. However I include this next video because it is a very important precursor to the next one. Watch my score closely.

Next Brian tries it. You'd think a strapping young fellow such as himself might have a pretty good shot at beating a little Jess like me... but I don't want to give anything away.

Yeah! 765 to 703! Poor Brian, loses to me and then gets heckled most mercilessly for it. Not that I'm still gloating. But things heated up when a Korean challenger came along.

The footage of the Korean guy's swing was long and uneventful without editing, so I left it out, but unfortunately, David lost also, and both Laggises were defeated that night. Neither one of them liked the taste of it either.

That's right, everyone's trying to justify the loss to S. Korea, which now reigns victorious in the S. Korea vs. USA hammer swing competition. Everyone except for Duck, who at some point starts looking for an imaginary cat in David's shirt. Googles isn't there Duck! He's gone! Let him go!

It was a grand night, but eventually we had to head our separate ways. But we left with our dignity in tact, as evidenced by the following video.

Unfortunately, this last, best video was taken in a lower quality setting by accident, but there's no mistaking what happened in it.

Saturday we went to Haeundae where the jet ski gang was in full effect. The jet ski gang is this group of 40+ uber tanned idiots who ride their jet skis backwards and in donuts in the designated swimming area within a couple of feet of young children's bobbing head targets. They mostly wear speedos, but their ring leader wears a g-string, and a whistle, which he blows incessantly. He blows this whistle to tell his gang it's time to set up their plastic chairs and tables. Then it's TWEET TWEET again and now it's time to play frisbee. Once more and they're oiling each other up for a session of sunbathing. TWEET! and they're giving rides to all the girls on the beach on their melon smashers. I don't know why the others let Mr. Whistles boss them around, but I also don't know why THIS guy wears a speedo.

It is a cute print though. Here's a close up so you can see for yourself.

It was a beautiful beach day though, which was extra lucky because it is now monsoon season in Busan. This means the hot muggy weather is being staved off a bit longer, but it also means that the hole in my galoshas is becoming a nuisance.

Saturday night we went to Dongnae near David and Duck's apartment to that of other friends for a rooftop party.

This did eventually get monsooned into an indoor party, but it is notable because one of the girls who came was hosting a couch surfer. The couch surfer was Charlotte, a 19 year old German who has been traveling round the world for about a year now. How is this possible you wonder? Well, her grandparents are helping her out, but traveling does not have to be as expensive as you might think as long as you're willing to sacrifice a little cush and have an adventure or two. Here's a link I filched from a friend that has some good information if you're a first time budget traveler, and if you're seasoned, it's got some great links to lesser known work stay and budget travel sites. http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/cheap-travel/ Check it out and get moving.

Sunday we watched the Cave of the Yellow Dog with Ryan and Shannon to convince them to come to Mongolia with us this summer, but the results are still processing. We've honed in on our travel plans now and it looks like we'll be flying into Beijing for 2.5 days, then taking the Mongolian leg of the Trans-Siberian Railway up to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital. From there we will hopefully find some travel partners (even if Ryan and Shannon come) to make it cheap, and then we'll do a 14 day jeep and camel or horse trek through central and southern Mongolia, including the Gobi. In fact, if you are a potential travel partner reading this blog, we will be ready for the trek August 13th but could postpone until the 15th at the latest. Just comment your details on this post.

Open Class

So most public school teachers in South Korea have had to experience/endure an open class. It is the school systems way of checking up on the quality of thier teachers and ensuring that thier students get the best education possible. Basically what happens is anywhere from 3 to 35 people come and observe your class, evaluate it and give you constructive feedback. I think its also a way for the school system to weed out bad teachers. I'm not positive of this, but juding by the anxiety level of the teachers having to put on an open class this seems to be the case. So this process seems like a good idea, right? On the one hand it gives teachers a chance to show off thier stuff, ensurure quality education and give new ideas to those attending. On the other hand teachers typically spend hours/days preparing materials and practicing new techniques in class to design the "perfect" class - which is pretty unrealistic. We've even heard some teachers rehearse the class multiple times with students to gaurantee little Minsu and Sulim know every answer when they are called on. So I guess it's more of a show than a genuine example of what goes on everyday, but it does force you to try new things. I think you gain more from the process than from the actual class.
Anyway, there were lots of pictures taken and the entire thing was taped. As you can see from the pictures there were about 35 people there other than the kids. I really thought the students would be nervous in front of the camera/observers, so scared they wouldn't open thier mouths, but I was pleasently surprised. They were amazing. There were some points when every hand was raised. I'm so happy to put it behind me. My co-teacher is so much more relaxed now - both in and out of class, which is really nice. The pictures taken will also give everyone a chance to see me in action in the new english classroom (it was built last winter).

It's a good news Monday

Before this weekend we had a pretty slow week, but it was stressful. Arguably the worst thing about EPIK (English Program In Korea) is the one thing that is not nationally regulated - camps and vacation during breaks. The good news about this being up to the individual schools is that during both breaks we've been allowed much more than our gauranteed 7 days plus weekends of vacation. The bad news is that we never know how much time we'll have or when we'll have it because the schools decide pretty late by someone anxious to buy a plane ticket's standards. This is made additionally stressful by the fact that our co-teachers don't want to force the issue with the principles, so they tell us what they think will happen as if it were what the principle has already set in stone. Example: last week Sun Ja told me on Wednesday that I definitely (go home and buy a plane ticket now definitely) would have only 1 week of camp and could travel the whole month of August. But then Friday she said I only had 7 days of vacation and would have 3 weeks of camp and would have to come to school for 8 hours a day when I didn't have vacation or camp, or any other teachers or students around either. That was devastating, but now it's Monday, and the story is I've got 2 weeks of camp and can travel for 3 weeks in August - a compromise I am more than elated with. Such a good news Monday!

So during that slow, ants in my pants week I experimented with the macro on my camera.
Hooters.

Party time.

These are my Philippines jewels.

But, the stamp pad is my favorite.

Luckily, things picked up on the weekend. Thursday was Soo Jeong's last day of teaching with Brian, so we all went to a Giants' baseball game to say farewell. Much to our surprise we saw David and Duck there too. Though it was a full stadium, two 6 foot foreigners were easy enough to spot in a sea of Koreans. And the Giants won! It was a great game and we had a lot of fun. Observe.

Friday David came down to our side of town. We kicked off with a trip to see the fountains at the park near the apartment. The fountains themselves were nice enough to see, but the best part was all the the kim baps running around in the water.

The little guy in the rain jacket was my favorite. Turns out those things don't work so well when the water is coming from the ground.

Once the fountains finally died out we ventured onward. We found ourselves at a Japanese restaurant for dinner and drinks where I was excited to find out I could recognise some of the hiragana written there. Hiragana is one of the 3 different kinds of Japanese scripts, which I've been studying recently because I had all this nervous energy pent up that I desparately wanted to spend on planning trips but was thwarted by the lack of information about when and how much time I would have for said trips. I had to do something, so I started studying Japanese in case we find ourselves teaching there next year.

After Japanese time we went to Keno Eye for a lively round of darts. And the boys, believing themselves to be beautiful people, wanted to see and be seen. Here they are striking a pose fit for magazines. Check that mustache action.

Saturday was bright and sunny at our apartment, so we pulled ourselves together and struggled over to Haeundae where the weather was very strangey. It was hot and somewhat sunny, but mostly there was a very dense, very local fog that may or may not have been man made.

We found out the next day that it had been nakey time on the beach day, an event sponsored by Busan to increase foreign tourism. I find it doubtful, but within the realm of possibility, that the fog was created to engulf the nudity, which we never saw, so perhaps this scheme was effective.

Saturday night Brian and I took it easy, but we still acompanied David to the convenient store for a sit and some people watching. This plan allowed us to get up early on Sunday and go for a hike. We went out in search of a temple called Seokbulsa, but we did not find it. Instead we found an amazing obstacle course and a ropes course. It was also the first time I'd seen the town within the valley up on Geumjeong Mountain.

We spotted this old couple having a Sunday picnic in their garden. I love this bit of rural Korea in the center of Busan.

We never found what we came for, but what we got was better than what we'd planned on anyway. We found a bee keeper selling honey on the mountain. We even found an explosion of pheasant feather souvenirs on the overgrown trail we bushwhacked.

And now it's good news Monday. I don't have my after school classes this week because Sun Ja has a conference to attend, so I'll have time on my hands to plan our Mongolia trip. I can't wait for two humped camels, fermented mare's milk, and nomad nights in gers. We're going to the Gobi!

New Videos

We recently got some new video software. Here are a few videos I made whilst playing around with it.

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.