It's getting colder

..... but not as cold as a winter back in Wisco.

Things are still going really well over here! Liking teaching, liking the routine, loving the people and loving the food!

Ben and i started taking Korean lessons in Seoul 2 weekends ago. We found a 학완 (private teaching academy) called "The Korean Language Academy" in an area of Seoul called 강남 (Gangnam). We'll be going every Saturday morning from 10am to 1pm. We've only had 2 classes as of now, but we've been very impressed with the school so far. We really wish we could go to take classes there 2 or 3 nights a week and move a little faster, but we live an hour and a half away from the Academy, so it'd be really rough to get there on a week night after school. We are pretty impressed with ourselves so far though! We've learned the alphabet (a while ago) and can now order food, tell a cab where to go, follow directions, and carry on a very simple and broken conversation in Korean!

제 이름은 크리스틴입니다. -My name is Christine.
나는 밴의 여자친구입니다. -I am Ben's girlfriend.
저는 영어선생님입니다. -I am an English teacher.

we'll get there!

November 3rd was Ben's birthday. He turned 24; but he is actually 25 in Korean age. (I am 23 Korean age). In Korea, everyone turns another year older on Jan 1 instead of on the actual date of their birth. For example, right now.... everyone who was born in the year 1987 is 23 in Korean age. They will all turn 24 on January 1st. This was a very confusing concept for us the first few weeks we were here. We wondered why all of our high school freshman, though they said they were 16 and 17, acted SO much younger, (giggling, screaming, typical immature teen early teen behavior) and why highschoolers took until they were 19 years old to graduate. Those freshman are actually only 15 US age, and the seniors only 18 US age- everything made so much more sense after that.

Anyway.... since Ben's birthday was on a Tuesday, we celebrated it the weekend before (also Halloween weekend). On Saturday morning we headed into Seoul to see the 63 Building. It is the tallest building in Seoul and it has an IMAX theater, a wax museum and an aquarium inside of it. You can also take an elevator up to the top floor to the "skyview" room and look out over most of Seoul. We decided to do the IMAX, since those are pretty cool, and the aquarium, since we had heard good things about it. Unfortunately it was raining out, and super cloudy- so we figured it wasn't the best day to go up to the top. At the IMAX, we saw a movie about "Yellowstone National Park", and found it kind of funny as Ben and i were probably the only 2 people in the audience who had actually been to the park. It was interesting to see how the Korean's portrayed Yellowstone. The aquarium was fun too... the only part that i hated about it was that the cage for the penguins that was really disgusting. It was too small, not cold, had no fresh fish, and just did not look very fun. The penguins did not look happy :( Aside from that, however, we saw some pretty colorful fish, watched a couple seals balance balls on their noses and catch rings, and got to pick up a couple baby sharks in the "touch pool". Our favorite part, however, was the tank full of small, minow-like fish. You can stick your hand in their tank, and they will come up and eat the dead skin cells off of your fingers. It really tickles and is supposed to be really good for your skin. Not sure if it was real or not, but our hands did feel softer after dangling them in the tank for several minutes! We're now on a mission to find some to keep as pets in our house...... After the aquarium and IMAX, we headed over to the Myeongdong area of Seoul to see a musical called Nanta. It's a Korean musical, but there's hardly any talking, so it's really popular for foreigners to go see. It is set in a kitchen, and the "cooks" use spoons, chopsticks, pots, pans, etc. to create entertaining beats a la STOMP! Unlike STOMP!, however, there was an actual storyline, and the drumming wasn't quite as intense. It was still really fun, though... especially when I got called up onstage as an audience participant. I tried SO, so hard NOT to make eye contact with the "cook" when he came out into the audience looking for volunteers to bring up onstage but, alas, he found me and dragged me up to bang around some spoons and rythmically make korean 만두 (dumplings) for a while.
After the musical, we headed over to Itaewon (the area near the US army base; a very popular place for foreigners to go out in Seoul) where were had plans to meet some friends a little later on. We first had middle-eastern food for dinner- a delicious change from the mono-spice Korean dishes we've been eating for the last 3 months, and then headed over to meet our friends at a jazz club, where we watched a small, Korean jazz band perform for the next couple of hours. They were excellent, in my opinion, and we were even able to luckily score front-row seats for the event. I thought the tenor sax, the guitar, the drummer, and keyboardist were all fantastic but that the trumpeter could have squeaked out a few higher notes to show off though. Regardless, I remembered how much fun listening to jazz music is. When they finished playing, it was still fairly early, so we went across the street to another dive bar for a few more drinks. Since it was Halloween, there were quite a few westerners dressed in costumes. With the mix of people there, someone walking into the bar wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from any other college bar in the States; which was kind of a strange site to see in Korea. When Ben and I started to get tired, we went across the street to a jjimjilbang to spend the night (since the trains stop at midnight and don't start again until 5 am, and since a taxi home would be over $50). In a jjimjilbang, you pay around $10 per person and you get to go in and use the baths and saunas- no clothes allowed! (facilities separated by sexes) and after you're clean, you get to put on the pajama-like outfits they give you and head to a common room where there are more saunas (clothes required), a bigscreen TV, a snack-bar, exercise equipment, and a big floor space where you can lay down mats and sleep there for the night. These saunas are everywhere in Korea and are great places to pass out for a few hours after a night of drinking! So, pass out we did... and got up at about 10am Sunday morning, had another free shower(!!) and headed back to Siheung... a successful birthday weekend indeed!

On Tuesday night, the night of Ben's actual birthday, I took him to play ping-pong at a 탁구장 (basically a ping-pong hall) near my house. We played for a few hours. First just me and Ben... and i was kind of feeling bad, since i'm not exactly a challenging opponent for him.... but then a bunch of my students came in (you know, at about 9pm when they got done w/ school for the day) and we played them for a while, which was fun, but they were still no match for Ben. Finally one of my students knocked on the owner's office door and had him come out to play Ben....... long story, short- Ben got stomped on, chewed up, and spit out by this guy... I'll let him tell the actual story though. I'm sure he'll have it up in his blog soon enough (www.bcinnz.blogspot.com)

Other than that, we've just kinda been living. We've gotten into a pretty nice routine of going climbing and to the gym a couple nights a week, and going to a Korean language exchange on Tuesdays. I'm getting paid extra to teach an after school class on Fridays, which is kind of a crappy day to do it, but the money will pay for a plane ticket to.... somewhere in Southeast Asia- Ben and i want to take a vacation over winter break. We haven't decided on the exact destination yet, but we are open to any suggestions that anyone has!

I'm on my computer at school right now, otherwise I'd have put up a few pictures with this post too. But check them out on facebook if you haven't!

Random Korean things

I don't actually have anything specific to write about right now, but i'm laying in bed w/ the flu and for once have time to write, so i'm just going to talk about a few random things we've been up to and maybe put up a few pictures (there are a ton up on facebook if you'd like to see more!):

1. it is fall in Korea. The weather is beautiful, and the leaves on the trees look just like they do during fall in Wisconsin... bright red, yellow and orange colors! The only problem with this is that EVERYONE wants to be outside to enjoy the nice weather while it lasts, meaning that even MORE than the usual thousands of Koreans head to the mountains every weekend to hiking... the trails get so crowded in some places that you can actually get caught waiting in line!! At least your're looking at beautiful scenery. The picture below is of the trees near my apartment.



2. Swine flu
It's as bad here as it is everywhere else! except i'm pretty sure the people here worry about it a lot more than everyone else. There are tons of kids out sick from school and people are constantly using hand sanitizer, wearing masks, and getting their temperatures taken. And -surprise, surprise- guess who else got swine flu?! I had a rough day at a Korean hospital yesterday (alone, no one spoke english, and i didn't understand what kind of drugs they wanted to give me) and am now home sick with more medicine than i know what to do with. On the up-side, it's actually not a bad flu (the last 2 i had were WAYYYYY worse) and i get to miss school for a couple days. I couldn't go in even if i wanted to, they are so paranoid I will get them sick.

3. Gyeongbok Palace
A couple of weekends ago, Ben and I met a Korean friend in Seoul to do some touring around. We first went to see Gyeongbok Palace (one of the most famous in Seoul- i have a whole bunch of pictures of it one facebook), then went to a few small museums, had lunch, walked around downtown Seoul for a bit, and saw another (smaller) palace.... our Korean friend (we met him at a hostel we stayed at in Seoul the 1st weekend we were in Korea) was SO happy to be able to meet up with us and take us around, and we all had a fantastic time!

4. Rock climbing

Ben and i found an indoor gym in a city called Anyang (about a 50 min. subway ride away from us) that we have been going to about twice a week. The owner is an EXCELLENT climber and loves to give us pointers everytime we're there, there's a really cool Korean guy who speaks English really well and is there almost every night, and there are also a few Westerners who usually go the same nights we do. On Sundays, the owner (Mr. Oh) travels to go climbing outside at Suri-mountain (nearby the gym)! We've gotten to go with him once and will probably go again this upcoming weekend. The routes there start at 5.10a, so I was a little worried about being able to do them, but I was just fine, and Ben and I both had an excellent time. I got him a new climbing rope for his birthday, so we can start to venture off and do some outdoor stuff on our own too!

5. Learning Korean

Learning the language here is proving to be a bit challenging since our job is to speak in English for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and we are too far from Seoul to get in to take Korean lessons on week nights; but we have been going to a language exchange every Tuesday night in Anyang and getting random bits of info from our co-teachers. Next month we are going to start Saturday classes at a Korean Language hagwon (school) in Seoul, however, so hopefully we will be able to pick up the pace on this a bit. We would like to think we are doing pretty well compared to other English teachers, however, as we have mastered the Korean alphabet and can read and say and understand quite a few simple phrases... and Ben met an American today who has been here for a year and still did not know how to read the Korean alphabet.

....we'll get there!

Seoraksan National Park

Last weekend, for our 1 year anniversary(!), Ben and I traveled to the East coast of South Korea to go hiking at Seoraksan National Park- 1 of Korea's 20 National Parks. We left from Seoul on Friday afternoon and took a bus to the coastal city of Sokcho (the closest city to the park). It was already dark when we got there so we decided to find a motel, grab some dinner, and go to bed relatively early so we could get up to go hiking the next morning. Finding a cheap motel was no problem. But, being that Sokcho is a relatively small city, it was impossible to find the nice Italian dinner that both Ben and I were craving. We settled for a traditional Korean restaurant and ate bi bim bap and kimchi jjigae (a spicy Kimchi soup) that is extremely delicious!



The next morning we got up (although not quite as early as we had hoped.....) and took a bus to the entrance of Seorksan. It seemed like there were more people on the mountain than in the whole town of Sokcho! The mountains are always crowded with people whenever we go hiking, but this was about the busiest I've seen any place!
After grabbing some snacks and a map, we started off on our hike toward Ulsanbawi, the famous jagged rock face that Seoraksan is famous for. The actually peak is about 1,700 meters... but being as though we got a late start and i was still getting over my cold, we decided to take this shorter route instead. The hike up was still a good one though. At the start, we got to see a big statue of Buddha; about 100 meters up from that there was a temple; there were a few other places to stop and eat/rest/look at the scenery along the way; about halfway up, we had to climb the "staircase from hell".... super old and dangerous looking and EXTREMELY long- probably at least a couple hundred steps; and, again, once we got close to the top, the route was extremly rocky and there were ropes to pull yourself up in many places. It was worth it though... the view at the top was spectacular!







For dinner that night, we walked around Sokcho quite a bit trying to find something interesting, and found out that the local specialty is "Squid Sundae" ...basically a squid stuff with bits of noodles, vegetalbes, meat, tofu.... not quite sure what else. We found a bunch being sold at a fish market a couple kilometers away from our motel. Obviously Ben and i had to try some:

It is set out whole, but when you buy it, the vendor slices the squid into pieces and fries it up for you.
It was delicious!!!

The next day, Ben and I enjoyed lying on Sokcho Beach, on the East Sea, (just 100 meters down from the bus terminal and our motel) for a few hours before heading back to Seoul. It was a beautiful beach with much bigger waves than we had seen the weekend before in the Yellow Sea.

Chuseok (추석)

Chuseok is Korea's harvest festival. It is a national holiday and falls in late September/early October every year. This year, the holiday was on October 3rd, and we got a 4-day weekend! (The day before and after Chuseok are also national holidays, and most schools give the teachers and students the next Monday off as well)

Check out this website to read more about Chuseok:
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=613421

Thus, having a 4-day weekend in front of us, Ben and I decided it would be a perfect time to get out of the Seoul/Siheung vicinity. We traveled with our friends Brendan, Carly, and Richard to a small island in the Yellow Sea called Deokjeok-do (덕적도)



We left mid-Saturday morning and first took a taxi to the neighboring port city of Daebu-do. From there, we took a 2 hour ferry ride to Deokjeok-do. Although it took 2 hours, the ride over was beautiful! We got to pass many other small islands in the Yellow Sea, the sun was shining, and i don't think we had left the port of Daebu-do before we cracked open several cans of Hite and Cass (2 popular Korean beers).



Once we landed on Deokjeok-do, we took a short bus ride to Seopori Beach, where we would spend the next couple of days swimming, hiking, eating, sleeping, and relaxing.



Brendan and Carly brought a tent along with them, so they decided to camp out on the beach, and when Ben and I asked Richard where he planned on spending the night, he replied, with his thick Scottish accent: "I didn't really think about where i would sleep... i just figured i would wake up somewhere..." Apparantly he planned on doing a bit more drinking than me and Ben.

Because we weren't exactly sure how cold it would get at night, or if it was supposed to rain, and I had begun to come down with a cold, Ben and I decided to stay at a minbak a block off of the beach for W30,000 per night. Minbak are similar to hostels, but rooms are small (this one was approx 9X9) and do not have anything in them except mats on the floor to sleep on.



Over the next couple days, we enjoyed the beach. It was a bit cold for swimming most of the time, but Ben and I did manage to get in a quick dip during the 2nd afternoon we were there! We also took a short hike up to one of the peaks on the island for an AMAZING view of Deokjeok-do and a few other Yellow Sea islands.

Korean Foods i <3

Kimbap 김밥
-similar to a California roll, Kimbap contains rice, egg, carrots, pickled radish (danmuji), a few other kinds of vegetables, and, if you want, tuna. (Rolls with tuna are known as chamchi kimbap)
-this is the perfect snack to grab for the road while traveling or to pack with you to eat while hiking. There are kimbap shops ALL over Korea, and a roll with tuna will usually cost around W2,500 (or just under $2)
-Ben and I just got ambitious and actually started making our own kimbap at home! Not that we need to to save money... but its kinda fun to do! and most of the Koreans are impressed by it.



Kimchi 김치
There are actually many different kinds of kimchi, but this (pictured above) is the most common type. Koreans eat kimchi with every meal.... yes, even breakfast! Kimchi is basically pickled, spiced, fermented cabbage; it smells like it too; and i LOVE it! :)
***I know i have weird food tastes.... but it seriously does grow on you after you've been here a while



Bi bim bap 비빔밥
-served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with vegetables and gochujang (chili pepper paste). An egg or some kind of meat (seafood or beef) are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating. Koreans will tell you if you're doing it wrong.... don't worry.
-costs about W6,000 at any hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant and is a GREAT cheap meal.


Soju 소주
A Korean liquor made from rice or soybeans... it contains about 20% alcohol and tastes like water-down gin.
Koreans sip it out of shot glasses (don't be fooled by the word "sip"..... Koreans are some of the fastest sippers i have ever seen); once a bottle is opened, it usually leads to the consumption of 2 or 3 or 4 or .... more bottles. It is rude not to sip your drink when someone pours it for you (you never pour for yourself) and it is rude not to fill up someone's glass at the table that is empty.
This leads to a very vicious cycle of drinking!





Bulgogi 불고기
-marinated pieces of beef which you cook yourself at a grill in the center of your table
-is served with many side dishes

Siheung City

When Ben and I applied to go to Korea, we both checked that we would like to be placed in a "rural" area. We figured- we both really like the outdoors; agreeing to be "rural" might give us a better chance of being placed in the same city, as not many people volunteer for rural placements, and we wanted to get on the good side of the people at the Gyeonggi-do Office of Education who was doing our placements; and you get paid W100,000 more per month for being in a "rural" area.

So, we got placed in Siheung City.... a city of about 300,000 people (yes, this is still considered rural) just over an hour SW of Seoul by subway.

It is a nice little town, but, as Ben and I have quickly realized.... there is really nothing here; apartment buildings, schools, and just enough shops/restaurants to keep the people who live in the near vicinity happy. Ben and I live about a 15 minute cab ride/45 minute bus ride apart from each other. (Hopefully you can see the 2 red-ish dots on the map below)

We have met a few other westerners here, which is great (stories about this to come)
We also spend most of our weekends venturing to Seoul or other nearby cities and always manage to have a blast (stories about said adventures to come as well)

Finally- if you want to read more about our lovely little city..... you can check out the city website! (in English, don't worry):

http://www.shcity.net/english/index.jsp



Downtown Area in Siheung



View of my apartment area from a small mountain top at the SW end of the city



map of Siheung (the red dots are Ben and my houses)

Apartments

My apartment here is actually quite a bit nicer than I had expected!  I'd heard stories of many English teachers living in dorm-sized, one-room apartments, but that is definitely not my case.  The first pictures here is my apartment building.  My apartment is on the 3rd floor (the no-elevator situation made it real fun to haul my luggage up 2 flights of stairs after just getting off of a 14 hour flight.... nothing compared to moving that couch into Jennie's new apartment in Madison though!)

In my apartment, I have an entry way, a decent-sized kitchen, a bathroom, a bed/living room, a porch area for laundry, and a spare room with a closet, but nothing else in it.

The entry way consists of a shoe closet and a place to take off your shoes.  In Korea, you ALWAYS take off your shoes when you go into someone's house. (don't tell anyone, but I have walked through my kitchen w/ my shoes on to go shut off my lights or grab something i forgot before leaving for school).

The kitchen is very nice... everything you would expect (see picture 2) except there is no oven.  I also do not have a rice cooker, as I was promised.  Apparently, when our schools were choosing furnishings for our apartments, they had the option of getting us a rice cooker or a toaster.  Mine (and Ben's, unfortunately) chose the toaster, probably b/c they figured it was more "western".... those of you who know me know that I am deeply depressed by this decision :(  To make matters worse.... rice cookers here are EXPENSIVE!!!!  I have not found one for under 5o,ooo Won (around $45 US).... maybe after my first paycheck i'll be able to afford one.

My bathroom is actually fairly normal too!  I have an actual shower!  In most of the apartments here, the bathrooms do not have a space specifically designated as a "shower".  They have a hose attached to the wall, somewhere near the sink, that is supposed to serve as the shower.  There is a drain in the middle of the floor, and you can't leave anything out on your countertops or it will all be soaked after your shower.  I, at least, have a small divider between my toilet/sink area and the "shower area"!

The bed/living room (picture 3) is the main room of the house.  It is pretty big, but all that is in it is a bed and a TV (which, as of now, only has 5 channels- all in Korean.... some great infomercials and korean cooking shows though!)  I like it though, because the big window of the porch is across the back of the room- great for letting in sunlight! ...those of you who know me, know how important that is to me :)

The "porch area" is basically for laundry.  No one has dryers in Korea (I completely expected this.... the U.S. is pretty much the only country who uses them), so there is a washing machine on the porch and a drying rack to dry the clothes after washing.  These "porches" (i put it in quotation marks because it is not actually outside) are very common in Korean apartments.  I like it because it lets in a lot of light!

Finally, I have a spare room in my apartment!!  It has a closet where I keep my clothes (because there is no closet in my living/bed room) and that was it until yesterday, Ben and I found a couch at the dump outside my apartment and brought it up! (yes, all the way to the 3rd floor).  The couch was actually in really decent condition, a few tears on the arms, but that's it!  I am happy for more furniture in my apartment (especially when it is free!).... that is the one thing it is lacking.

All in all, though, it's a really nice place to live.  It's also about a 5-10 minute walk from my school!  Many students actually live in the same apartment complex..... which makes walking to school interesting.  More on that later though!

Ben's Apartment: