I'm sitting in Incheon airport's free internet lounge, so this will be my last blog post (and it will be short because I'm boarding in 20 min) written in Korea .. until I come back! I'm not 100% sure that I will, it is tempting, and I'll keep my eye open for a good deal while I look for stuff to do in America as well.
It's been an incredible year, I don't have the time to reflect on it deeply here, but there may be one more post in the near future with some parting shots.
My last week here was packed with goodbyes - friends, students, co-workers. Although I don't like the awkwardness of goodbyes, it's also sentimental in a good way to feel that I'll be missed. I guess I won't go into the details of my sayonara's, but I will add one more: Farewell to my readers: thanks for sticking with me through the year, but it is time to say goodbye to Colin the blogger, and welcome home to Colin the homeless man. My immediate plan upon arrival is to go to a wedding. Then bum around LA for a while, if I don't find a worthwhile job within a few weeks I'm heading to the SF bay area, then NYC at the end of Oct / early Nov. These are the places with the highest concentration of y'all readers of mine, so I hope I'll be able to couch surf a couple days at a time until I find a job, but if nothing pans out by mid-Nov. I'll visit my parents in Myrtle Beach then head back to Korea for next semester's university gigs.
Well, time to get on the plane; see some of you real soon.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Another idyllic day in Korea (twist ending)
Here's a brief description of one of my recent weekend days
After a lazy start to the morning I decided to take a bike ride out to the green tea farm cultivated by my buddy the monk. It's about a 90 minute ride along the scenic river then steeply up into the mountains. The day turned into a bit of a scorcher ~90 degrees, so I was happy to stop at a villiage on the way back to sip some sweet iced rice based drink out of a dried gourd in the shade of a traditional open air market.
Back home I visited my friend who works in a sandwhich shop. Since it was so hot I asked him about swimming in the river. "I don't know, it's pretty dangerous. Every year people die."
"Really?"
"Yes, this summer a middle school student drowned."
Of course, this only strengthened my resolve.
So around 6 o'clock I head down to the river bank. We have a peaceful pine forest park, and some tennis courts a little further down the bike trial that runs along the river, and the river itself has a wide sandy bank; it would make for a nice beach if it was on the ocean.
But before I can take a dip I'm sidetracked by a group of Koreans (strangers) at a picnic table calling me over. For them it is exciting to talk to a foreigner, and for me it is fun to have a conversation almost entirely in Korean. Of course the conversation wasn't too deep, a bunch of random nonsense, but I suppose the same could be said for most conversations between 1st language users. Another similarity between this conversation and a generic one between strangers is that it was fueled by booze and thus plenty entertaining. I can't tell if it was some kind of soju cocktail, or maybe a fermented fruit juice, but it was sweet and strong whatever it was we were drinking.
Anyway, after an hour or two the party broke up, and although it was dark by now it was still hot and I was still looking forward to that swim. The water was glorious, it was shallow, calm, and just the right temperature. I really felt peaceful seeing the mountains surrounding my town lit up by the moonlight and reflected in the smooth ripples of the water in which I swam; the quiet stillness broken only by the occasional splash of a jumping fish, or murmer of conversation from the park on the banks. At length, I emerged and walked up stream to retrieve my bag.
I found it surrounded by policemen! Apparently it is against the rules to swim at night. If this was Orange County California I would now be facing handcuffs and a $100+ fine, but with the good men of Hadong police force it was a simple, "We thought you were dead. Please don't swim at night." And I head home for a well earned night's rest.
After a lazy start to the morning I decided to take a bike ride out to the green tea farm cultivated by my buddy the monk. It's about a 90 minute ride along the scenic river then steeply up into the mountains. The day turned into a bit of a scorcher ~90 degrees, so I was happy to stop at a villiage on the way back to sip some sweet iced rice based drink out of a dried gourd in the shade of a traditional open air market.
Back home I visited my friend who works in a sandwhich shop. Since it was so hot I asked him about swimming in the river. "I don't know, it's pretty dangerous. Every year people die."
"Really?"
"Yes, this summer a middle school student drowned."
Of course, this only strengthened my resolve.
So around 6 o'clock I head down to the river bank. We have a peaceful pine forest park, and some tennis courts a little further down the bike trial that runs along the river, and the river itself has a wide sandy bank; it would make for a nice beach if it was on the ocean.
But before I can take a dip I'm sidetracked by a group of Koreans (strangers) at a picnic table calling me over. For them it is exciting to talk to a foreigner, and for me it is fun to have a conversation almost entirely in Korean. Of course the conversation wasn't too deep, a bunch of random nonsense, but I suppose the same could be said for most conversations between 1st language users. Another similarity between this conversation and a generic one between strangers is that it was fueled by booze and thus plenty entertaining. I can't tell if it was some kind of soju cocktail, or maybe a fermented fruit juice, but it was sweet and strong whatever it was we were drinking.
Anyway, after an hour or two the party broke up, and although it was dark by now it was still hot and I was still looking forward to that swim. The water was glorious, it was shallow, calm, and just the right temperature. I really felt peaceful seeing the mountains surrounding my town lit up by the moonlight and reflected in the smooth ripples of the water in which I swam; the quiet stillness broken only by the occasional splash of a jumping fish, or murmer of conversation from the park on the banks. At length, I emerged and walked up stream to retrieve my bag.
I found it surrounded by policemen! Apparently it is against the rules to swim at night. If this was Orange County California I would now be facing handcuffs and a $100+ fine, but with the good men of Hadong police force it was a simple, "We thought you were dead. Please don't swim at night." And I head home for a well earned night's rest.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Scotland trip report part III: after Edinburgh
After the better part of a week in Edinburgh it was time to visit some of the more laid back places in Scotland. So my parents, aunt and uncle and I loaded up the cars and headed out for Oban on the Western coast. The trip across was serene and very scenic. Some people enjoy traveling to meet interesting and stimulating people of ancient cultures, and kill them. That can be nice, but I really enjoy seeing the different textures of earth.
Oban is a quaint little fishing village with a harbor, a whiskey distillery, and not much else. Except of a little masonry folly on the hill that looks a bit like a miniature colleseum from outside. Aparently a local banker commissioned its construction during a period of unemployment. Nice guy.
We took the scenic route back across the country. We drove up past the Nevis range then up the west coast of loch Ness. No monster sightings, except for the beast in the 58 inch kilt throwing stones at Drumnadrochets highland games. The games themselves were disappointing, poorly attended and organized.
The last portion of the drive was across the Cairngormes - almost unpopulated purple mountain highlands (purple from the blooming heather which covers the treeless landscape).
This was a very relaxing vacation for me. Lots of good scottish food beer and a little whiskey. and reconnecting with family. My parents commented that it was gratifying to them that their children, now grown up, voluntarily choose to spend vacation time with their parents (myself in Scotland coming not too long after a trip through some of the parks of Utah that was joing by my brother and sister). Well, it is gratifying to me to be lucky enough to have family worth spending my vacation time with. Getting a couple rounds of golf out of the deal is a nice bonus as well.
The week at my folk's timeshare was dominated by golf. We played
Cullen Bay - a unique course on the north coast, the seat of Scotland. It was right on the beach where a cliff and some rock formations made for some almost cartoonish holes. Also surreal was the wind whipping through the rocks. Cullen is famous as the home of Cullen skink, a potato seafood chowder, it's delicious.
Aboyne, Ballater, and Tarland - nice courses. I don't have a whole lot to say about them.
Braemar - A most distinctively Scottish course. Nestled in the highland mountains it is beautiful and frustrating.
Finally it was time to get back to Korea to finish the last month of my contract. It took three days to travel what with 2 stopovers and a delay -> missed connection -> night in a posh heathrow adjacent hotel paid by the airline.
Oban is a quaint little fishing village with a harbor, a whiskey distillery, and not much else. Except of a little masonry folly on the hill that looks a bit like a miniature colleseum from outside. Aparently a local banker commissioned its construction during a period of unemployment. Nice guy.
We took the scenic route back across the country. We drove up past the Nevis range then up the west coast of loch Ness. No monster sightings, except for the beast in the 58 inch kilt throwing stones at Drumnadrochets highland games. The games themselves were disappointing, poorly attended and organized.
The last portion of the drive was across the Cairngormes - almost unpopulated purple mountain highlands (purple from the blooming heather which covers the treeless landscape).
This was a very relaxing vacation for me. Lots of good scottish food beer and a little whiskey. and reconnecting with family. My parents commented that it was gratifying to them that their children, now grown up, voluntarily choose to spend vacation time with their parents (myself in Scotland coming not too long after a trip through some of the parks of Utah that was joing by my brother and sister). Well, it is gratifying to me to be lucky enough to have family worth spending my vacation time with. Getting a couple rounds of golf out of the deal is a nice bonus as well.
The week at my folk's timeshare was dominated by golf. We played
Cullen Bay - a unique course on the north coast, the seat of Scotland. It was right on the beach where a cliff and some rock formations made for some almost cartoonish holes. Also surreal was the wind whipping through the rocks. Cullen is famous as the home of Cullen skink, a potato seafood chowder, it's delicious.
Aboyne, Ballater, and Tarland - nice courses. I don't have a whole lot to say about them.
Braemar - A most distinctively Scottish course. Nestled in the highland mountains it is beautiful and frustrating.
Finally it was time to get back to Korea to finish the last month of my contract. It took three days to travel what with 2 stopovers and a delay -> missed connection -> night in a posh heathrow adjacent hotel paid by the airline.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Scotland trip report Part II: Edinburgh
I think Edingburgh's Fringe festival is something you have to see yourself to really understand what it is like, but I will do my best to convey my experiences. First the setting: Edinburgh is a beautiful city, very old, and very Scottish. The castle on the edge of the cliff dominates the town. The whole city is made of stone and easily walkable. During the Fringe festival some streets are closed to traffic and street performers come out to play. Some are musicians, most are jugglers / circus stunt type stuff. Many are marginally skilled at best - if you've seen me juggle, I'm a couple months practice away from the lower tier of performers here. Also if you stop to see some guy's trick, you'll probably have to wait through 20 minutes of crowd coaxing build-up. Yet the highest qualities guys are really good, and regardless it creates a unique atmosphere for just walking down the street.
The indoors shows are the main reason to go to the Fringe. There are hundreds of fairly cheap (often free) shows going on all day long for a month, so below is the list of shows I saw along with brief commentary.
Outside of the entertainment I had a good time in Edinburough. I got to see my parents for the first time in over a year, and my aunt and uncle for the first time in several more. I got reintroduced to greasy western cuisine, and I was loving it. I stayed in a backpackers which was not so entertaining as my Japan ski lodge, but I did have the pleasure of sharing the room with a young Korean lass whom I was able to take out on the town and impress with my (childish) command of her native tongue.
1. Forgetable comedy show - on my first night, since I was alone and the show wasn't sold out, I was offered a free ticket (8 pound value) to a comedy show. The guy had jokes and songs but most were referencing British pop culture from the past year. So they mostly went over my head, but the crowd seemed to dig it.
2. "Freestyle Standup" - a free show featuring a couple different comics. These guys were pretty hilarious, and quite daring with dirty jokes directed at the audience.
3. Doug's one man show - this was a depressing experience. I went to the show because I needed to kill some time and it was free. I was shocked to find that altough the venue was a very classy looking pub, I was the only guy in attendance! I couldn't walk out at this point, and I still expected the best, but the guy was a train wreck. He did some one man sketches that mostly fell flat on the audience (of one)
4. Literary pub tour - Edinburough has been home to a vast array of wordsmiths from Robert Burns to Robert Louis Stevenson. The pub tour was hosted by actors playing an academic and a drunken sot who had a battle of wits using literary quotations and history to discuss the lifestyles and inspirations of Scotlands best writers. It was a lively exchange that took us through history and also plenty of Edinburough's best watering holes. A good mix of performance and down time to talk with my fellow tourgoers.
5. Richard Feynman is my Hero - a few scientifically influenced standups. Funny enough, although the venue was oppressivly hot.
6. Rebel Cell - This was one of the best shows I saw. The show was performed by a couple rappers. The premise was that in the near future England has become totalitarian - the govt has merged with the major corporations - one of the main characters is a figurehead of a rebelious movement. Whether or not the premise is cliched is a non-issue in the face of the tight lyrics these guys have constructed. They also display freestlye skills crafting rhymes from audience suggestions.
7. Some long form improv show - halfway decent improv. I don't have much to say about it, apart from to say it was a troupe only marginally less talented than various shows I've seen my brother perform in. If you're reading you should look into coming out one summer!
8. One-man drama - an interesting show, the man took us through the drama he faced being the son of a con-artist / compulsive liar of a mother. He seemlessly shifted between characters with abundant talent. I only wish he spent more time talking about his mother's many grifts instead of the heartbreak it caused his family.
9. Circe - This was a bunch of incredible gymnasts dancing interpretavely. They demonstrated poses requiring incredible strength, such as the man who let a woman dance upon his outstretched arms. It was a very impressive display
10. Topping and Butch - a duo of gay comedians. Very blue comedy, and very funny. Again some cultural references that went over my head, but enough timeless humor to keep me chuckling in the mean while.
11. Death of the Samurai - the last show I saw and maybe the strangest. The show was high octane! It was billed as a Japanese manga interpretation of a story inspired by Shakespeare. To give this production justice I would need an entire post for a review, so let me just say that the energy of the cast, costumes, soundtrack, and broken english / japanese dialog combined for an unforgetable and exhilirating time.
The indoors shows are the main reason to go to the Fringe. There are hundreds of fairly cheap (often free) shows going on all day long for a month, so below is the list of shows I saw along with brief commentary.
Outside of the entertainment I had a good time in Edinburough. I got to see my parents for the first time in over a year, and my aunt and uncle for the first time in several more. I got reintroduced to greasy western cuisine, and I was loving it. I stayed in a backpackers which was not so entertaining as my Japan ski lodge, but I did have the pleasure of sharing the room with a young Korean lass whom I was able to take out on the town and impress with my (childish) command of her native tongue.
1. Forgetable comedy show - on my first night, since I was alone and the show wasn't sold out, I was offered a free ticket (8 pound value) to a comedy show. The guy had jokes and songs but most were referencing British pop culture from the past year. So they mostly went over my head, but the crowd seemed to dig it.
2. "Freestyle Standup" - a free show featuring a couple different comics. These guys were pretty hilarious, and quite daring with dirty jokes directed at the audience.
3. Doug's one man show - this was a depressing experience. I went to the show because I needed to kill some time and it was free. I was shocked to find that altough the venue was a very classy looking pub, I was the only guy in attendance! I couldn't walk out at this point, and I still expected the best, but the guy was a train wreck. He did some one man sketches that mostly fell flat on the audience (of one)
4. Literary pub tour - Edinburough has been home to a vast array of wordsmiths from Robert Burns to Robert Louis Stevenson. The pub tour was hosted by actors playing an academic and a drunken sot who had a battle of wits using literary quotations and history to discuss the lifestyles and inspirations of Scotlands best writers. It was a lively exchange that took us through history and also plenty of Edinburough's best watering holes. A good mix of performance and down time to talk with my fellow tourgoers.
5. Richard Feynman is my Hero - a few scientifically influenced standups. Funny enough, although the venue was oppressivly hot.
6. Rebel Cell - This was one of the best shows I saw. The show was performed by a couple rappers. The premise was that in the near future England has become totalitarian - the govt has merged with the major corporations - one of the main characters is a figurehead of a rebelious movement. Whether or not the premise is cliched is a non-issue in the face of the tight lyrics these guys have constructed. They also display freestlye skills crafting rhymes from audience suggestions.
7. Some long form improv show - halfway decent improv. I don't have much to say about it, apart from to say it was a troupe only marginally less talented than various shows I've seen my brother perform in. If you're reading you should look into coming out one summer!
8. One-man drama - an interesting show, the man took us through the drama he faced being the son of a con-artist / compulsive liar of a mother. He seemlessly shifted between characters with abundant talent. I only wish he spent more time talking about his mother's many grifts instead of the heartbreak it caused his family.
9. Circe - This was a bunch of incredible gymnasts dancing interpretavely. They demonstrated poses requiring incredible strength, such as the man who let a woman dance upon his outstretched arms. It was a very impressive display
10. Topping and Butch - a duo of gay comedians. Very blue comedy, and very funny. Again some cultural references that went over my head, but enough timeless humor to keep me chuckling in the mean while.
11. Death of the Samurai - the last show I saw and maybe the strangest. The show was high octane! It was billed as a Japanese manga interpretation of a story inspired by Shakespeare. To give this production justice I would need an entire post for a review, so let me just say that the energy of the cast, costumes, soundtrack, and broken english / japanese dialog combined for an unforgetable and exhilirating time.
Scotland trip report Part I: Korean Prequel
Actually my vacation started a week before I left for Scotland. I spent one beatiful weekend on the beach on Namhae island, just a 90 min drive from home. I went with my Korean friends from town, and in fact may have been the only foreigner on the beach. It was so crowded! a majority of beachgoers got yellow innertubes to float on, and the ocean was like a bowl of cherrios. There was seriously a 1km long, 50m wide swath where you couldn't swim without bumping into someone. It was a fun day, we played in the surf, had a bbq on a portable gas grill, threw some frisbee and just enjoyed ourselves.
After a half week of rain and tennis (on alternate days) it was time to leave town. First stop Suwon, where another former Smaug teammate, Raj "The Bus", was in town on business. We donated some money to the military via poker, then got really drunk at a bar that served mixed drinks in galvanized tin buckets. It was good to be able to catch up with a friend I haven't seen in a few years.
Next day I was off to Seoul to start the day with a little frisbee. As always it was nice to let the plastic fly. I had to play barefoot because I didn't want to bring my cleats to Scotland, but the grass was luscious. It was hot and humid (had been all month) so I was really looking forward to wearing a sweater in Scotland the next week. That night we had a classic party night in Itaewon. In the back of my mind I knew this might be the last time I see a lot of my K frisbee friends, so I went all out and had a great time.
After a half week of rain and tennis (on alternate days) it was time to leave town. First stop Suwon, where another former Smaug teammate, Raj "The Bus", was in town on business. We donated some money to the military via poker, then got really drunk at a bar that served mixed drinks in galvanized tin buckets. It was good to be able to catch up with a friend I haven't seen in a few years.
Next day I was off to Seoul to start the day with a little frisbee. As always it was nice to let the plastic fly. I had to play barefoot because I didn't want to bring my cleats to Scotland, but the grass was luscious. It was hot and humid (had been all month) so I was really looking forward to wearing a sweater in Scotland the next week. That night we had a classic party night in Itaewon. In the back of my mind I knew this might be the last time I see a lot of my K frisbee friends, so I went all out and had a great time.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Cognitive dissonance
, or more particularly, the rationalization one does to oneself in order to reduce dissonance, is a pervasive and insidious mental bugbear. A good recent example is SC Gov Sanford reconciling the dissonance between his Christian belief that adultery is a sin (and that sinners should not be held in esteem) and his ambition / pride in being a political leader, with the comparison of himself to some biblical leader (was it Abraham, or David or ??) who is mandated to keep office despite his faults. Not all examples are so hilarious or obvious, but you should still search your own mind for instances of dissonance. I do so, but the problem is sometimes not recognizing that dissonance exists but rather determining which conclusions are genuine and which are mere rationalization.
When I was a grad student I was committed to finishing my PhD. I follow the credo of "finish what you started" and I was having a good life at the time, so there is no dissonance there, but I helped maintain my enthusiasm for math with the idea of being a career academic. Indeed, in my last year I applied for positions to continue my math career at top level post-doc/assnt prof. jobs. Was this job search the result of rebellion against the dissonance of having spent 6 years on a career path that I didn't really want to continue down for the long term? Having failed to land my dream job, and by now having had a bit of space and time to reflect on matter, I realize math was a worthwhile project, but ultimately not something I have enough passion for to do for the rest of my life. .. or is that conclusion just the result of the dissonance between my belief that I can do anything I really want yet did not get one of those top jobs?
That may remain an unsolved question, but I am fairly certain of the following: While I don't want to be a career English teacher in Korea, part of the reason I took this job was to reflect on such issues. Luckily, it's also a great place to live, and I think it would only continue to get better as I become more integrated into the culture, so I have no prejudice against coming back for another short term contract. But the job is not really challenging enough, and I can't convince myself that it is a noble or worthwhile enough endeavor to devote a significant portion of my life towards.
I struggled with different ways to express myself here, so I'll just state the plain facts for now: I've decided that to be happy a man needs to get something done, and to get something done a man needs a big picture, long term goal to devote himself to. There are several candidates for the next major worldwide crisis, I guess everyone who has the luxury of relative wealth and talent should pick one and devote himself to some long term preventative strategy. So I decided to work in the solar energy industry.
I have a decent background in materials science to start on this path, but might need additional training before I can find the position that's right for me. I've been searching for jobs to no avail these last couple months. If these trends continue after I return to America, there is a good chance my future plans will look like this - couple months jaunting around usa / SE asia; another semester teaching english in Korea; a year getting another degree at the European School of Solar Engineering in Sweden starting next August.
When I was a grad student I was committed to finishing my PhD. I follow the credo of "finish what you started" and I was having a good life at the time, so there is no dissonance there, but I helped maintain my enthusiasm for math with the idea of being a career academic. Indeed, in my last year I applied for positions to continue my math career at top level post-doc/assnt prof. jobs. Was this job search the result of rebellion against the dissonance of having spent 6 years on a career path that I didn't really want to continue down for the long term? Having failed to land my dream job, and by now having had a bit of space and time to reflect on matter, I realize math was a worthwhile project, but ultimately not something I have enough passion for to do for the rest of my life. .. or is that conclusion just the result of the dissonance between my belief that I can do anything I really want yet did not get one of those top jobs?
That may remain an unsolved question, but I am fairly certain of the following: While I don't want to be a career English teacher in Korea, part of the reason I took this job was to reflect on such issues. Luckily, it's also a great place to live, and I think it would only continue to get better as I become more integrated into the culture, so I have no prejudice against coming back for another short term contract. But the job is not really challenging enough, and I can't convince myself that it is a noble or worthwhile enough endeavor to devote a significant portion of my life towards.
I struggled with different ways to express myself here, so I'll just state the plain facts for now: I've decided that to be happy a man needs to get something done, and to get something done a man needs a big picture, long term goal to devote himself to. There are several candidates for the next major worldwide crisis, I guess everyone who has the luxury of relative wealth and talent should pick one and devote himself to some long term preventative strategy. So I decided to work in the solar energy industry.
I have a decent background in materials science to start on this path, but might need additional training before I can find the position that's right for me. I've been searching for jobs to no avail these last couple months. If these trends continue after I return to America, there is a good chance my future plans will look like this - couple months jaunting around usa / SE asia; another semester teaching english in Korea; a year getting another degree at the European School of Solar Engineering in Sweden starting next August.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Korean Miracle
This is the term used to describe Korea's remarkable transformation from being one of the world's poorest countries for a decade after their war to being one of the "Asian Tigers" a G20 nation. These days the country is so opulent that they run air conditioners at school at full blast with the doors and windows wide open. And the kids are getting fat ..
Well, we all like to make fun of the parents and grandparents who enjoy spinning yarns about how tough it was in their day. "I had to walk to school 2 miles in the snow, up hill both ways." "Every night for dinner we had a bowl of cold gravel, and then got whipped with the belt ... if we were lucky!" My own father talks about having to have pumped water from a well. but let me share some stories from my co-teachers who grew up in the 70's in Korea. One was so cronically hungry that her parents gave her booze to fill her stomach and put her to sleep as a 10 year old, and the other remembers an annual tradition from early spring when the winter stores were spent, but the new growth wasn't harvestable. Her parents would send her out to the forest with a sharp stone to peel and eat nutritious bark from the evergreen trees.
Stories like these gave me something to think about.
Well, we all like to make fun of the parents and grandparents who enjoy spinning yarns about how tough it was in their day. "I had to walk to school 2 miles in the snow, up hill both ways." "Every night for dinner we had a bowl of cold gravel, and then got whipped with the belt ... if we were lucky!" My own father talks about having to have pumped water from a well. but let me share some stories from my co-teachers who grew up in the 70's in Korea. One was so cronically hungry that her parents gave her booze to fill her stomach and put her to sleep as a 10 year old, and the other remembers an annual tradition from early spring when the winter stores were spent, but the new growth wasn't harvestable. Her parents would send her out to the forest with a sharp stone to peel and eat nutritious bark from the evergreen trees.
Stories like these gave me something to think about.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Daegu pub golf
A week and a half ago I went back to Daegu for Sean's going away party. A pub crawl wasn't good enough for him, so we had to play a round of pub golf. This consists of a pre-appointed drink in each of 9 different bars. Your score is the number of strokes (or sips) it takes to finish your drink. We visited some bars with unique specialities along the way. One was "billibowl" a combination of billiards and bowling - you shoot the pool ball down the alley towards miniature pins, it's pretty fun. The only drink I had a hard time finnishing in one chug was the ice beer. This is a regular pint of beer served in a mug of solid ice. The fun part is that after you finish you can throw the mug at a wall and possibly win a free beer if you hit a target. Overall it was a fun night.
Golf Champion
Yesterday I went to Bugok Country Club to cheer on my co-teachers son as he won the province's elementary student championship. This skinny 10 year old has a swing like butter, and smoked the competition shooting 75-73 from the red tees of a championship golf course nestled into the Korean mountains. He came within inches of holing out for eagle from 100 yards on the final hole, and beat his nearest competitor by over 10 strokes. Aparently he is about #10 in the nation for his age group.
I also saw the national high school girls champion play. She had a swagger about her that did not abate even as she accepted the 2nd place trophy having been beaten out by a middle school girl playing above her league.
I also saw the national high school girls champion play. She had a swagger about her that did not abate even as she accepted the 2nd place trophy having been beaten out by a middle school girl playing above her league.
Hadong Cool Summer
Korea likes to have short English slogans for public events or press campaigns, such as the tourism board adopting "Sparkling Korea", and my home town's "Cool Summer." Somehow this July seems to have been at least 5 degrees cooler than last year, I guess because it was so much more cloudy and rainy this year. But the rainy season seems to have ended, and just in time for a little festival we had last weekend.
Events included a critical mass style tour of the town on Saturday. A pack of 125 bicycles in a town of 40,000 is not a bad ratio - I suppose it is equivalent to LA having a 5,000 member ride. That night there was a concert headlining some Korean that my students went nuts over, followed by a pretty decent fireworks display. The highlight Sunday occured in a little pond (about 100 square meters of knee deep water) they had dug into the sandy beach. They dumped about 100 3-4 pound fish in there, then we all piled in and tried to catch them with our bare hands. Other events included beach soccer tournament, and jetski pulled tube-rides.
Events included a critical mass style tour of the town on Saturday. A pack of 125 bicycles in a town of 40,000 is not a bad ratio - I suppose it is equivalent to LA having a 5,000 member ride. That night there was a concert headlining some Korean that my students went nuts over, followed by a pretty decent fireworks display. The highlight Sunday occured in a little pond (about 100 square meters of knee deep water) they had dug into the sandy beach. They dumped about 100 3-4 pound fish in there, then we all piled in and tried to catch them with our bare hands. Other events included beach soccer tournament, and jetski pulled tube-rides.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Busan weekend
I spent last weekend in Busan.
We are in the middle of monsoon season, and it has rained each day for at least a week, and the forecast is for this trend to continue, but we decided to try for an afternoon on the beach anyway. It worked out perfectly and rained Friday night, but the next round held off until Sat night, staying nice all day Saturday as we played a little beach frisbee and swam in the still chilly ocean.
After dinner, a couple of us decided to go to the casino. I was quite surprised to find out that the casino is for foreigners / tourists only, Koreans are not allowed to gamble! The plan was to just play a little blackjack and have a few drinks before heading out. It was small stakes (5000 won = $4 a hand minimum) so although I had some bad luck, I could rationalize that I broke even with a couple mildly expensive cocktails. But my buddy busted out of blackjack and decided to play a little roulette. He fared poorly and resorted to a defensive betting strategy of increasing his bet with each loss. All of a sudden he's out of chips and talking about going to the ATM again. Well, now at least I can talk about the time I saw my friend bet more than a million on a single spin of the wheel - I put what was left of my chips ~$70 down in a solidarity bet. Basically there were three numbers out of the 37 that could hit to bust both of us, and of course 36 red came up the winner.
The rest of the night we hung out at a bar or two, and saw a street fight involving a man in underwear with a large kitchen knife. Sunday the weather was bad, so I didn't do too much before heading back home. Overall a memorable weekend.
We are in the middle of monsoon season, and it has rained each day for at least a week, and the forecast is for this trend to continue, but we decided to try for an afternoon on the beach anyway. It worked out perfectly and rained Friday night, but the next round held off until Sat night, staying nice all day Saturday as we played a little beach frisbee and swam in the still chilly ocean.
After dinner, a couple of us decided to go to the casino. I was quite surprised to find out that the casino is for foreigners / tourists only, Koreans are not allowed to gamble! The plan was to just play a little blackjack and have a few drinks before heading out. It was small stakes (5000 won = $4 a hand minimum) so although I had some bad luck, I could rationalize that I broke even with a couple mildly expensive cocktails. But my buddy busted out of blackjack and decided to play a little roulette. He fared poorly and resorted to a defensive betting strategy of increasing his bet with each loss. All of a sudden he's out of chips and talking about going to the ATM again. Well, now at least I can talk about the time I saw my friend bet more than a million on a single spin of the wheel - I put what was left of my chips ~$70 down in a solidarity bet. Basically there were three numbers out of the 37 that could hit to bust both of us, and of course 36 red came up the winner.
The rest of the night we hung out at a bar or two, and saw a street fight involving a man in underwear with a large kitchen knife. Sunday the weather was bad, so I didn't do too much before heading back home. Overall a memorable weekend.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Daegu
Like most countries, Korea is broken into provinces for local governance; there are 9 of them. In addition, the biggest cities are (geographically small) provinces of their own. Its like if Philly seceded from Pennsylvania, but Pittsburg would not be big enough to seperate. Anyway, the cities are Seoul, Incheon, Busan, Daejeon, Ulsan, Daegu, and Gwangju. Gwangju will be the last one I get to visit, as I spent last weekend celebrating the 4th of July and checking out Sean's home city of Daegu.
The weekend was basically one long party. I arrived Friday night in time for a late dinner followed by a walking tour of the downtown bar scene. An advantage of Daegu is that it is compact. It is a large enough city (a couple million) to host a significant ex-pat community, but it is small enough that the majority of the nightlife is concentrated, in all its epileptic neon glory, to a couple city blocks of downtown real estate.
Highlights from the first night included getting a free cocktail in a bag. Seriously, the new trend there is a little kiosk on the road that sells what looks like IV bags full of mixed drinks. Being American at midnight and in the right place at the right time earned us the treat.
Aided by the holiday mood I almost treated the weekend as a vacation from Korea. I ate almost exclusively American foods: hamburger and french fries, bbq ribs, eggs & bacon with biscuits and homestyle gravy, even some apple pie although it was served in a cup and a little over cinnamoned. One misguided Korean friend, having heard that it was a traditional holiday beverage, showed up to the bbq party with a can of eggnogg!
Saturday we got brunch at an America style cafe just outside of a US army base then went shopping for fireworks. We eventually found them right where I predicted: in a children's toy shop. Quick language note: the Korean word for fireworks literally translated is a compound word "fire-flower-play" this is an example of a playfull simplicity to the language. Others include fish="water-meat" watch="hand-neck-time-thing", key="open-easy"
In the mid-afternoon we went to a bbq on the roof party. It was a pleasant day for it and really a fun party. The sky had some threatening clouds, but the weather held out long enough to appreciate the rooftop a little, and get some grilling accomplished. They even had a kiddie pool which gave us the highlight of watching our host climb a tree and shake the branches when a girls dress got blown off the roof. It did start to rain after we had been there a little while, but this may have been a blessing in disguise as it broke the party up into a pair of apartments and the foyer at the top of the stairwell. It is always nice to have different rooms with different moods to wander between - basically there was a singing room, a drinking room, and a place to chat.
When the first party ended (i.e. ran out of booze) We stopped briefly at a different rooftop party to pick up a girl to talk to and a bottle of soju to drink for the cab ride downtown. I had a good time that night. Met a lot of cool foreigners (a surprising number of them English, Irish, and Scottish), and when I was talking to the natives my Korean was in rare form, bolstered as it was by the confidance imbued by alcohol and flirtatious girls.
Sunday Sean and I were a little hungover, but a good way to cure that is to go have lunch at a cafe with outdoor tables where you can watch the human traffic in the park. Walking around, we had a little time to kill before his language exchange and my bus back home, so we went to a rather unusual place. It was a cafe with a $3.50 cover charge that got you access to the self serve bar that had coffee, iced green tea, and some breads. It was a library cafe: tons of books on shelves scattered throughout the place. All Korean as far as I saw. The gimic was that for two bucks extra you could dip your feet into a fishbowl, and the little guys would nibble the dead skin and calluses off your toes. It was ticklish and bizzarre.
I slept on the bus ride back home.
The weekend was basically one long party. I arrived Friday night in time for a late dinner followed by a walking tour of the downtown bar scene. An advantage of Daegu is that it is compact. It is a large enough city (a couple million) to host a significant ex-pat community, but it is small enough that the majority of the nightlife is concentrated, in all its epileptic neon glory, to a couple city blocks of downtown real estate.
Highlights from the first night included getting a free cocktail in a bag. Seriously, the new trend there is a little kiosk on the road that sells what looks like IV bags full of mixed drinks. Being American at midnight and in the right place at the right time earned us the treat.
Aided by the holiday mood I almost treated the weekend as a vacation from Korea. I ate almost exclusively American foods: hamburger and french fries, bbq ribs, eggs & bacon with biscuits and homestyle gravy, even some apple pie although it was served in a cup and a little over cinnamoned. One misguided Korean friend, having heard that it was a traditional holiday beverage, showed up to the bbq party with a can of eggnogg!
Saturday we got brunch at an America style cafe just outside of a US army base then went shopping for fireworks. We eventually found them right where I predicted: in a children's toy shop. Quick language note: the Korean word for fireworks literally translated is a compound word "fire-flower-play" this is an example of a playfull simplicity to the language. Others include fish="water-meat" watch="hand-neck-time-thing", key="open-easy"
In the mid-afternoon we went to a bbq on the roof party. It was a pleasant day for it and really a fun party. The sky had some threatening clouds, but the weather held out long enough to appreciate the rooftop a little, and get some grilling accomplished. They even had a kiddie pool which gave us the highlight of watching our host climb a tree and shake the branches when a girls dress got blown off the roof. It did start to rain after we had been there a little while, but this may have been a blessing in disguise as it broke the party up into a pair of apartments and the foyer at the top of the stairwell. It is always nice to have different rooms with different moods to wander between - basically there was a singing room, a drinking room, and a place to chat.
When the first party ended (i.e. ran out of booze) We stopped briefly at a different rooftop party to pick up a girl to talk to and a bottle of soju to drink for the cab ride downtown. I had a good time that night. Met a lot of cool foreigners (a surprising number of them English, Irish, and Scottish), and when I was talking to the natives my Korean was in rare form, bolstered as it was by the confidance imbued by alcohol and flirtatious girls.
Sunday Sean and I were a little hungover, but a good way to cure that is to go have lunch at a cafe with outdoor tables where you can watch the human traffic in the park. Walking around, we had a little time to kill before his language exchange and my bus back home, so we went to a rather unusual place. It was a cafe with a $3.50 cover charge that got you access to the self serve bar that had coffee, iced green tea, and some breads. It was a library cafe: tons of books on shelves scattered throughout the place. All Korean as far as I saw. The gimic was that for two bucks extra you could dip your feet into a fishbowl, and the little guys would nibble the dead skin and calluses off your toes. It was ticklish and bizzarre.
I slept on the bus ride back home.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Quarterly update
I have now lived here for 9 months, so it is time for another quarterly update.
First of all here's my job situation. Since I mentioned about a month ago the lack of funding their position flip-flopped a couple times, but now it is back to saying that they cannot give me another contract. It is all bullshit beauracracy. They say they have enough money to hire me for 4 months (to finish the year) but not for a full 12 month contract. But they can only write up a 12 month contract. I suggest they give me a normal contract with the agreement that I will quit at the beginning of 2010, but it is no dice.
One option now is to resign early here to get a good job that starts at the beginning of Sept. but if I do that I will be giving up a lot of vacation time and a last month which is more than double salary (due to a bonus and free plane ticket). So things are still a little up in the air for what I shall do come October, but I'll at least be visiting America, and maybe staying there although I don't have any prospects lined up yet, and the economy may still suck for over educated under experienced folk like myself. By all means drop me a line if you hear of an opportunity that might interest me.
Language skills. They are coming along smoothly. My book vocabulary is growing at a slower rate these days, probably still between 1500-2000 words, but my recall speed of these words is increasing, as is my ability to more quickly select (or identify when listening) different sentence structures, plus my accent is improving - I think my tongue can finally distinguish between the j and jj sounds. The main thing is confidence. The more of that I have, the more I will let myself practice, and thus I'll just improve at a faster rate. The best thing to give me lots of confidence is to have in the group other Americans who have much worse (or zero) Korean ability (and none who are much better). This is another reason it was nice to have Jarod visit earlier this week.
Job satisfaction. Really, my opinion hasn't much changed in this realm. Some of the kids are getting restless because the weather is now hot and humid and its been a long time since their last vacation. This week is exam week, but there are three weeks of school yet to come before a 5 week summer vacation. Then I just have three more weeks in September before my contract expires.
First of all here's my job situation. Since I mentioned about a month ago the lack of funding their position flip-flopped a couple times, but now it is back to saying that they cannot give me another contract. It is all bullshit beauracracy. They say they have enough money to hire me for 4 months (to finish the year) but not for a full 12 month contract. But they can only write up a 12 month contract. I suggest they give me a normal contract with the agreement that I will quit at the beginning of 2010, but it is no dice.
One option now is to resign early here to get a good job that starts at the beginning of Sept. but if I do that I will be giving up a lot of vacation time and a last month which is more than double salary (due to a bonus and free plane ticket). So things are still a little up in the air for what I shall do come October, but I'll at least be visiting America, and maybe staying there although I don't have any prospects lined up yet, and the economy may still suck for over educated under experienced folk like myself. By all means drop me a line if you hear of an opportunity that might interest me.
Language skills. They are coming along smoothly. My book vocabulary is growing at a slower rate these days, probably still between 1500-2000 words, but my recall speed of these words is increasing, as is my ability to more quickly select (or identify when listening) different sentence structures, plus my accent is improving - I think my tongue can finally distinguish between the j and jj sounds. The main thing is confidence. The more of that I have, the more I will let myself practice, and thus I'll just improve at a faster rate. The best thing to give me lots of confidence is to have in the group other Americans who have much worse (or zero) Korean ability (and none who are much better). This is another reason it was nice to have Jarod visit earlier this week.
Job satisfaction. Really, my opinion hasn't much changed in this realm. Some of the kids are getting restless because the weather is now hot and humid and its been a long time since their last vacation. This week is exam week, but there are three weeks of school yet to come before a 5 week summer vacation. Then I just have three more weeks in September before my contract expires.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A visitor!
I knew it would be a rare circumstance that would give someone the chance to come halfway around the world to visit my little town in Korea, but it finally happened last week. For readers who don't know Jarod Alper, he has been a friend of mine for almost 20 years now going back to the days we grew up about 1 mile apart in rural Long Valley. By some coincidence he also got his math PhD last year (like me, transitioning from a non-math bachelors degree), not a bad output for a highschool class of less than 300. Unlike me, he stayed in academia, and the details of his government funded post-doc afforded him the opportunity to take June off and travel Asia. Here's what we got up to in the korea portion of that trip:
be forewarned, I am bored at work because they didn't schedule me to proctor exams today, but won't let me leave yet either. So this may have too many details.
Jarod was set to arrive Friday night at Seoul's airport, so I gave him some subway instructions and arranged to meet up with some friends at Hongdae, a happening nightlife area of Seoul. The timing worked out perfectly, as I was able to collect J and bring him to meet Hightower, who had come up from Daegu for the weekend, along with frisbee Seoulites Jacob and Jeff, who were all sitting at a restaurant bbq table that was just sizzling with pork.
After eating, and securing a room for the night, we hit up the town. First stop was a cool pub styled like a European castle. The architecture was almost over the top, but they made up for it with some delicious beer. It was already late, so Jacob left at this point, but those that remained decided to check out a more dance oriented club. Now, there is some element of prejudice against foreigners in the Korean culture, but for every negative experience I seem to be more than paid back in benefits. The club we went to was a pretty decent place: nice layout, $8 cover (which I didn't have to pay) came with a free drink (which I got anyway), Ok music that was not blasted so loud you couldn't have a conversation. Anyway, there was an energetic Korean guy there who seemed to like us just because we speak English, so he was always introducing us and inviting girls to dance with us. We partied the rest of the night there, then stumbled back into the daylight. Jeff fell asleep at the table drinking his 'hangover soup', I realized its been over 24 hours since I've slept as well.
The next day it was pouring with rain. Jarod, Sean, and I decided to check out the "East Gate" that is supposedly surrounded by huge and varied markets. I wasn't so impressed, but the whole area is so sprawling you really need an agenda and some local knowledge I guess. We ate some stone bowl bibimbap, then searched for shirts with hilariously bad English to little avail.
The rain had stopped by evening so we were ready for another night on the town. Our first stop was Gangnam, a supposedly more upscale area. We had another great meal, then, walking around with no particular plan, saw a place that just had tons of gorgeous women walking in and out of it, so we had to see what it was like inside. It was a traditional style Korean watering hole. A place where small to medium groups have private tables to get their drinking on. We ordered some dongdong-ju, a traditional cloudy rice drink with a reputation for hangovers. It is obligatory to order a side dish, so I ordered the only one that I didn't know what it was (menu was Korean only). Turned out to be a kind of gelatonous acorn paste that is one of the hardest things ever to eat by chopstick. But the sauce was peanutty and spicy so the taste, coupled with the thrill of successfully getting a piece into your mouth, made it a good dish.
After leaving that place, a young Korean guy started talking to us on the streets. He said he was just killing time until the subway started again in the early morning because he didn't want to pay for a taxi back home. We went to a German style brew-pub that he knew of in the neighborhood because anytime you can drink non-Korean beer you've got to jump at the chance. One funny piece of conversation there was when we asked him, "What's the best university in America?" "Probably UCLA." Alright! "So, what's the 2nd best?" "I don't know, maybe Carnegie Mellon." He was making a good first impression on me. Actually he was pretty annoying, and evidently just trying to leach some drinks and taxi rides off us without really having his professed knowledge of good places to go. So back in Hongdae we ditched him at a club and moved on. We partied the rest of the night away in similar fashion to the day before. My goal for the night was to try to flirt with Korean girls in their language. One girl I asked, "What's your name?" in Korean, she replied "I don't speak English." Another was fussing with her hair in the mirror. I said, "Don't worry, you look lovely." she looked at me and said, "You look like Jesus." In guess this was an improvment. Anyway, we eventually crawled home in the early morning daylight again.
On Sunday HTower left to meet his cousin, so Jarod and I had a half day left in Seoul before catching the bus back to my town. We decided to do something cultural and take a tour of one of the old Joseon dynasty palaces. In what was a remarkable coincidence Jarod saw someone he knew in a subway station. Not just someone he knew but, "If I had to name my top three mathematical rivals this guys name would come up. We're working on exactly the same problem with exactly opposite points of view on the correct way to tackle it." But in social terms they were friendly. This guy, and his friend, were also going to view a palace (although a different one) so we joined forces. The palace itself was pretty cool, but far from awe inspiring. In fact, the "secret garden," a place hyped as being in perfect harmony with nature, was quite disappointing. The highlight of the tour was the guide. She had a dry wit that had a way of maximizing her lack of native speaking ability, it really came to the fore when she had to tell off a classless clown in the group. I practiced my Korean on her a little bit. First she made fun of my country accent (because I've been learning Korean from Southern rednecks), at the end when I thanked her, and told her it was an interesting tour, her response was to correct the 'politeness level' of my verb conjugation. But don't get the wrong idea, this was done in a charming, not caustic manner.
On Monday, Jarod got to sleep till noon waiting out the torrential rain while I taught my freshmen girls. The rain had stopped by the time school was out, so it was a good time to introduce some of my Korean friends. Jeongmi and Jinseong went out to sushi dinner with us. It is really funny how fast Koreans make judgements. After an hour Jeongmi said to Jarod, "You are very pure." Jarod said, "What about Colin, is he pure too?" "We thought so at first ..."
After dinner we visited Jeongmi's friends, married couple with a cute toddler. The whole night had a lot of laughs, but maybe the funniest sequence centered around their new cell phone with video chat capabilities. Our host decided to call his niece, who is one of my students. He points the camera at me, and she and her friend gasp in surprise. Then I point the camera at Jarod and its total pandemonium on the other end. After the short call we let him know it was the first time we had seen this technology. The guy, who has barely any English, bursts out laughing, "Country boys!!" The final stop is my apartment where Sooyeon and Jaysik join us for a little more drinking and conversation before we call it a night.
Again I get up to teach while Jarod sleeps in on Tuesday, but he comes to have lunch at the girl's high school cafeteria, and helps guest lecture my last class on the day. Unfortunately of all my classes, he came to the one with the least enthusiasm and English ability. Jarod said some of the students he tried to talk would just hide their faces. Oh well, he had a more entertaining time introducing himself to a 3rd grade class, and was probably complimented on his good looks more in those two hours than in the rest of the year combined. Tuesdays are my shortest day, I am free after 2:00. We borrowed a racquet and played some tennis. It was a lot of fun, but really tiring in the 85F high humidity. I had never gone to a bar in Hadong without a Korean in the group before, but that is what we did after dinner. It was pretty late for a Tuesday, and the place we went only had one other occupied table
Weds the final exams started at the high school. I only had to proctor some tests in the morning, and was free by lunch time. Afterwards we played tennis again, then only had time for a quick meal before packing Jarod off on bus to Busan so he could catch his flight early the next morning.
We packed about as much as possible into his short time here. The next day, after another half-day of exams, the rest of the teachers and I went for a mountain hike in the afternoon. In need of catching up I slept almost 12 hours that night (from 8 to 8 with just a short break in the middle watching some Wimbledon).
Weds the final exams started at the high school. I only had to proctor some tests in the morning, and was free by lunch time. Afterwards we played tennis again, then only had time for a quick meal before packing Jarod off on bus to Busan so he could catch his flight early the next morning.
We packed about as much as possible into his short time here. The next day, after another half-day of exams, the rest of the teachers and I went for a mountain hike in the afternoon. In need of catching up I slept almost 12 hours that night (from 8 to 8 with just a short break in the middle watching some Wimbledon).
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Fresh news
For a record tying third blog post in a day, let me share with you the news I just heard today.
Apparently the county is cutting back funding in the schools: the cost of cafeteria lunch is going up, they will not replace the old school buses as planned, and funding for native English teachers will be limited to elementary and middle schools. That's right, my job is disappearing at the end of my contract. So my previous plan of hoping to stay until the end of the school year in February is kaput. Well, it just proves the old adage about the best laid plans; I've got to make a new one for next autumn and winter at least.
Apparently the county is cutting back funding in the schools: the cost of cafeteria lunch is going up, they will not replace the old school buses as planned, and funding for native English teachers will be limited to elementary and middle schools. That's right, my job is disappearing at the end of my contract. So my previous plan of hoping to stay until the end of the school year in February is kaput. Well, it just proves the old adage about the best laid plans; I've got to make a new one for next autumn and winter at least.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Fun times in Busan
After the long weekend at the beginning of the month, I spent a couple weekends staying local. It was raining, and I felt like I need to relax anyway. I did alos get a gym membership this month, cause I felt like I'm not getting enough daily exercise. I made a few new friends this way, which is nice, but the best part is after you are down working out. They have a dry sauna, three hot tubs (bubbly, extra hot with sea water, and green tea enhanced), and an extra cold swimming pool; it's very relaxing.
Last weekend the weather was good at last, just in time for a planned trip to Busan to meet up with a bunch of frisbee friends again. Busan has Korea's most popular beach, in the summertime you cannot even get a tan there because the sand is almost 100% covered by umbrella shade. But May is not official beach season, so even on a ncie day there was room to set up some fields and play some beach ultimate. We had a tournament. It was lots of fun, and my team ended up winning. To make it more memorable I had one of the my best catches ever in the finals: full field huck in hard to read wind, full extension layout grab, and it was game icing (took a 2 pt lead to 4 pts, and we just needed one more for the win).
Also I found a new trick to drink for free when we went out Saturday night. At dinner someone told a lame story about how he and a friend had a bet to see who could stand on one leg the longest. The loser stepped down after 18 minutes. So I disparaged their endurance, and asked a stupid question "Which leg got tired, the one dangling on the air, or the one that was supporting the weight of your entire body?" and it was on. Almost a dozen people ended up taking part in the challenge on the rooftop of a bar. After half of us outlasted 20 min we demanded shots of liquor to continue. In the end 4 of us got about 4 or 5 free drinks each over the course of another hour before, in a show of solidarity and boredom, putting our other foot down in unison for the tie. Then I went downstairs and won a game of connect 4 for my final drink.
Last weekend the weather was good at last, just in time for a planned trip to Busan to meet up with a bunch of frisbee friends again. Busan has Korea's most popular beach, in the summertime you cannot even get a tan there because the sand is almost 100% covered by umbrella shade. But May is not official beach season, so even on a ncie day there was room to set up some fields and play some beach ultimate. We had a tournament. It was lots of fun, and my team ended up winning. To make it more memorable I had one of the my best catches ever in the finals: full field huck in hard to read wind, full extension layout grab, and it was game icing (took a 2 pt lead to 4 pts, and we just needed one more for the win).
Also I found a new trick to drink for free when we went out Saturday night. At dinner someone told a lame story about how he and a friend had a bet to see who could stand on one leg the longest. The loser stepped down after 18 minutes. So I disparaged their endurance, and asked a stupid question "Which leg got tired, the one dangling on the air, or the one that was supporting the weight of your entire body?" and it was on. Almost a dozen people ended up taking part in the challenge on the rooftop of a bar. After half of us outlasted 20 min we demanded shots of liquor to continue. In the end 4 of us got about 4 or 5 free drinks each over the course of another hour before, in a show of solidarity and boredom, putting our other foot down in unison for the tie. Then I went downstairs and won a game of connect 4 for my final drink.
Friday, May 22, 2009
More "little things"
I forgot to update this topic for a long time. It is the kind of thing that you think of a lot of good ideas for, but they slip your mind when you are in front of your computer. So here are some more of the details of lesser significance but nonetheless cool aspects of being in Korea.
Full service food delivery. Everyone likes a hot delicious meal right at your door. Korea goes one step farther. When you order delivery they bring a basket with solid dishes, metal cutlery, and depending on the meal your ordered, a mini gas cooker to keep your stew simmering as you chow down. For $20 you literally get a family size feast and $60 of hardware delivered to your door. Then they make the return trip to take back there equipment and take care of the washing up.
Drinking in the streets. Besides Vegas and Mardi Gras, where in America can you just walk the open streets with an unshielded container of alcohol? This society is surprisingly libertarian in a lot of ways, although drugs outside of alcohol and tobacco are very harshly controlled. Another example is that in some provinces red traffic lights are treated as stop signs at night.
I'll try to do a better job, and add a few more of these in the not too distant future.
Full service food delivery. Everyone likes a hot delicious meal right at your door. Korea goes one step farther. When you order delivery they bring a basket with solid dishes, metal cutlery, and depending on the meal your ordered, a mini gas cooker to keep your stew simmering as you chow down. For $20 you literally get a family size feast and $60 of hardware delivered to your door. Then they make the return trip to take back there equipment and take care of the washing up.
Drinking in the streets. Besides Vegas and Mardi Gras, where in America can you just walk the open streets with an unshielded container of alcohol? This society is surprisingly libertarian in a lot of ways, although drugs outside of alcohol and tobacco are very harshly controlled. Another example is that in some provinces red traffic lights are treated as stop signs at night.
I'll try to do a better job, and add a few more of these in the not too distant future.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
2 quick pregnancy stories
I posted some new pics on flickr. Activities within the last month include: trip to cherry blossom scenic road, student sports day at highschool, Buddha's birthday a national holiday - green tea festival, trip to Tongyeong: a coastal town a couple hours away where a frisbee friend lives, a little hiking and met some more interesting young teachers. To flesch out the post here are a pair of stories involving pregnancy.
I was talking shop with a teacher about school discipline. At some point I asked if any of her students had been expelled, and she said just once. So I had to try to guess what he did. "Fight with a knife?" "No, much worse." Eventually I gave up. Turned out a senior in highschool had gotten pregnant. The interesting thing was that the boy was a year younger. In many states she would be technically a rapist, but over here he was expelled, while she had to stay in school.
Here's the second. One day at lunch one of the female teachers went up for seconds. Unprompted, she explained to me that she was pregnant. She wasn't showing at all so I asked, "Really?" and it was confirmed. Later she missed a few days of school, and again two weeks later. Cut to yesterday when I brought in some homebrewed beer to share at the post-volleyball game party. She asks for a taste, but I say no, you have a baby. She says, "no baby" with a smile. Now I'm confused, was it a joke from the beginning? did something happen, if so why does she seem so happy? Her English is quite poor, and I was too shy to ask.
I was talking shop with a teacher about school discipline. At some point I asked if any of her students had been expelled, and she said just once. So I had to try to guess what he did. "Fight with a knife?" "No, much worse." Eventually I gave up. Turned out a senior in highschool had gotten pregnant. The interesting thing was that the boy was a year younger. In many states she would be technically a rapist, but over here he was expelled, while she had to stay in school.
Here's the second. One day at lunch one of the female teachers went up for seconds. Unprompted, she explained to me that she was pregnant. She wasn't showing at all so I asked, "Really?" and it was confirmed. Later she missed a few days of school, and again two weeks later. Cut to yesterday when I brought in some homebrewed beer to share at the post-volleyball game party. She asks for a taste, but I say no, you have a baby. She says, "no baby" with a smile. Now I'm confused, was it a joke from the beginning? did something happen, if so why does she seem so happy? Her English is quite poor, and I was too shy to ask.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Jeju Trip report
I just got back from a long weekend on Jeju island, the sub-tropical "Hawaii of Korea" It is a beautifully contoured volcanic island about 2hrs car ride in circumference about a 1hr plane ride from Busan. The purpose of the trip was another frisbee tournament, and this one was the awesome. Quite possibly the best tournament I've ever been to.
Everything was taken care of: The $50 tournament fee included two nights in a reasonable hotel with buffet breakfast and shuttle to the fields. The fields were the practice fields from the World Cup, and they were magnificent. So immaculate you would mistake them for astroturf from a distance, yet lush and with a hint of morning dew. Catered lunch; then dinner/party at a local bar. The free dinner was the best western style food I've had in Korea, and the kegs were free and flowing.
The frisbee itself was also of a high quality. This tournament attracts mostly hard-core players as the 22 teams are roster capped at 9 players each. The all-star team from Seoul played some inspired ultimate to beat 3 time defending champions from Shanghai in the finals. The Semi-finalists were rounded out by Beijing, and a team from Tokyo who beat us in the quarterfinals.
My team can lay some claim to being the 2nd best from Korea and 5th in the tourney. Considering the 4 korean teams who made the quarter-finals, we beat the team from Deajeon. But that team had a close game with the champs (10-8 loss) compared to the 4th team who lost 11-0.
I felt like I had my share of highlights and was really happy with my play and with my team. The only lowlights were Hightower pulling a hamstring, and me getting kicked in the ear during a dive. Oh yeah, and forgetting to charge my camera battery, that was also a lowlight. Sorry, and I'll try to get some pictures from somewhere else.
I took a day off for Monday wanting to explore the nature of the island. While the weather was pretty much perfect all weekend, on sunday night a huge storm blew in. It actually shut down the airport for most of Monday, and closed the mountain trails as well. So everyone stayed inside. We went to a sauna / spa which is a great way to beat a hangover. Also I got to speak a lot of Korean with some of the native players.
That night we ate at an Indian resaurant. It was fantasic. Then we went to a microbrewery, why do they only have this on the island? it was some really delicious beer. I hope my own batch of homebrew comes out half as good (only a couple weeks to wait!)
Game by game log:
11-2 win vs. Kuru
the #2 team from Japan could not match our skill or athleticism. We got a few handblocks and a few unforced turnovers, and won almost all of the 50-50's in the air, including the last one which I pulled down for the game winner.
11-6 loss to Shanghai
We had our chances early agains the defending champs but just made too many mistakes. They had a few players faster than any of us and were able to pull away with an unstoppable deep game.
11-5 loss to Bejing
Our worst game of the weekend. We were actually ahead 5-4 before falling apart. Sean got injured in the game, and we were just dropping discs and losing heart as this game wore on. Bejing was really nice off the field, and fun at the party, but poor spirited on the field making and arguing calls constantly; maybe it is on purpose to get us into a bad mojo: if so, for shame
11-5 win vs. Jeju-fury
The Jeju A-team was really fun to play against especially after Bejing. All nice guys. They had several very athletic, but inexperienced players. So they had some ridiculous highlights, but ultimately too many mistakes to be a serious threat. We played very conservatively on offense taking easy short throws all the way up the field.
Sunday
10-8 win vs. Deajeon
Our best game of the tourney. Tight, smart defense, good decisions on offense. Even our least experienced player (it was her first tournament ever!) learned how to find the spots against their zone D and scored a couple pivotal points.
11-2 loss to IKU
We actually were up 2-0 before Tokyo put their foot down. The game didn't feel as lopsided as the score. They played zone the whole game and we would pretty consistently make to within 10 yards of the endzone before making a blunder. They were very fast with good throws and didn't give us a lot of second chances. They went on to lose in a very entertaing comeback win by Shanghai in the Semis.
Everything was taken care of: The $50 tournament fee included two nights in a reasonable hotel with buffet breakfast and shuttle to the fields. The fields were the practice fields from the World Cup, and they were magnificent. So immaculate you would mistake them for astroturf from a distance, yet lush and with a hint of morning dew. Catered lunch; then dinner/party at a local bar. The free dinner was the best western style food I've had in Korea, and the kegs were free and flowing.
The frisbee itself was also of a high quality. This tournament attracts mostly hard-core players as the 22 teams are roster capped at 9 players each. The all-star team from Seoul played some inspired ultimate to beat 3 time defending champions from Shanghai in the finals. The Semi-finalists were rounded out by Beijing, and a team from Tokyo who beat us in the quarterfinals.
My team can lay some claim to being the 2nd best from Korea and 5th in the tourney. Considering the 4 korean teams who made the quarter-finals, we beat the team from Deajeon. But that team had a close game with the champs (10-8 loss) compared to the 4th team who lost 11-0.
I felt like I had my share of highlights and was really happy with my play and with my team. The only lowlights were Hightower pulling a hamstring, and me getting kicked in the ear during a dive. Oh yeah, and forgetting to charge my camera battery, that was also a lowlight. Sorry, and I'll try to get some pictures from somewhere else.
I took a day off for Monday wanting to explore the nature of the island. While the weather was pretty much perfect all weekend, on sunday night a huge storm blew in. It actually shut down the airport for most of Monday, and closed the mountain trails as well. So everyone stayed inside. We went to a sauna / spa which is a great way to beat a hangover. Also I got to speak a lot of Korean with some of the native players.
That night we ate at an Indian resaurant. It was fantasic. Then we went to a microbrewery, why do they only have this on the island? it was some really delicious beer. I hope my own batch of homebrew comes out half as good (only a couple weeks to wait!)
Game by game log:
11-2 win vs. Kuru
the #2 team from Japan could not match our skill or athleticism. We got a few handblocks and a few unforced turnovers, and won almost all of the 50-50's in the air, including the last one which I pulled down for the game winner.
11-6 loss to Shanghai
We had our chances early agains the defending champs but just made too many mistakes. They had a few players faster than any of us and were able to pull away with an unstoppable deep game.
11-5 loss to Bejing
Our worst game of the weekend. We were actually ahead 5-4 before falling apart. Sean got injured in the game, and we were just dropping discs and losing heart as this game wore on. Bejing was really nice off the field, and fun at the party, but poor spirited on the field making and arguing calls constantly; maybe it is on purpose to get us into a bad mojo: if so, for shame
11-5 win vs. Jeju-fury
The Jeju A-team was really fun to play against especially after Bejing. All nice guys. They had several very athletic, but inexperienced players. So they had some ridiculous highlights, but ultimately too many mistakes to be a serious threat. We played very conservatively on offense taking easy short throws all the way up the field.
Sunday
10-8 win vs. Deajeon
Our best game of the tourney. Tight, smart defense, good decisions on offense. Even our least experienced player (it was her first tournament ever!) learned how to find the spots against their zone D and scored a couple pivotal points.
11-2 loss to IKU
We actually were up 2-0 before Tokyo put their foot down. The game didn't feel as lopsided as the score. They played zone the whole game and we would pretty consistently make to within 10 yards of the endzone before making a blunder. They were very fast with good throws and didn't give us a lot of second chances. They went on to lose in a very entertaing comeback win by Shanghai in the Semis.
Update
First of all, sorry for never posting a half year update. First I wrote a long post of the progression of the mundanities, but thought it was boring and provided no real surprises for the faithful reader. Then I wanted to write something more philosophical about how I view my time here so far, what my future plans are, and why; but I lacked the conviction of my writing skill to convey my state of mind accuratly. So in the end I posted niether. For the curious I'll give you a summary of the summaries.
I. Mundanities of daily life
1. the job - the new batch of kids is both more skilled and enthusiastic than the last, which is nice. And I'm using more multimedia in the new English classrooms, and getting better as a teacher myself. Still I consider this an interesting enough job in the short term, but really just a launching pad for adventure rather than the beginning of a career path.
2. social - getting deeper in the frisbee community with weekend trips out of town (including a tourney last weekend about which a dedicated post is forthcoming). Getting disenchanted with badminton crew who are fun to play with, but seeming less and less able and/or interested in having a conversation. Expanding circle of Korean friends though, and having some good times locally. Still no girlfriend .. I need to move to a city perhaps.
3. language - making progress. Actually just in the last week I'm starting to feel a new confidence. My accent and listening comprehension is getting better rapidly at this stage. My vocabulary is between 1 and 2 thousand words. Last night I had a long conversation that was 80% Korean talking about the 4 day vacation I just got back from. So I'm starting to feel like this is not quite an impossible task.
II. Future plans
My current plan is to try to extend my current contract a few months so that it will end at the end of the school year. This will give me a lot more flexibility in looking for a new job should I decide to stay and teach in a different location. Indeed, if I do stay in Korea past this school year I think I will look for a university job. Better pay with same (or less) teaching hours per week, more vacation, and better students. Plus it would be a move to the city (probably Seoul); a year in the country was beautiful and relaxing, but now that I feel comfortable in Korea I'd like to see what city life is like as well.
I'm still having a great time over here. I'm still in my 20's (barely). I don't feel bad about not having a long term plan. I'm a simple man; really I'm basically happy as long as I'm learning new skills, and have a few good friends to share some times with. Some men struggle mightily to achieve great things. I wouldn't mind finding that kind of passion, but it hasn't come to me yet and I'm not going to force it. Maybe you need to suffer in order to find your passion.
Well, I've done things that were objectively difficult: in the physical realm I've completed gruelling bike rides and trained long and hard to attain such skills as left handed pingpong. In the mental realm I had to think a long and hard to solve my dissertation problem; and will probably have to spend even more total hours to achieve a second language fluency. But while it may appear to an outside observer that I was trying hard, I've never felt like I was doing anything besides passing the time during those stretches when I was bored with being lazy. I enjoyed the challenges, but if I had switched one pursuit with another, I bet I would have enjoyed that almost as much. And at any rate, I was never 'suffering for my art'. For now, I will leave the conclusions of this line of reasoning for you to draw for yourselves.
I. Mundanities of daily life
1. the job - the new batch of kids is both more skilled and enthusiastic than the last, which is nice. And I'm using more multimedia in the new English classrooms, and getting better as a teacher myself. Still I consider this an interesting enough job in the short term, but really just a launching pad for adventure rather than the beginning of a career path.
2. social - getting deeper in the frisbee community with weekend trips out of town (including a tourney last weekend about which a dedicated post is forthcoming). Getting disenchanted with badminton crew who are fun to play with, but seeming less and less able and/or interested in having a conversation. Expanding circle of Korean friends though, and having some good times locally. Still no girlfriend .. I need to move to a city perhaps.
3. language - making progress. Actually just in the last week I'm starting to feel a new confidence. My accent and listening comprehension is getting better rapidly at this stage. My vocabulary is between 1 and 2 thousand words. Last night I had a long conversation that was 80% Korean talking about the 4 day vacation I just got back from. So I'm starting to feel like this is not quite an impossible task.
II. Future plans
My current plan is to try to extend my current contract a few months so that it will end at the end of the school year. This will give me a lot more flexibility in looking for a new job should I decide to stay and teach in a different location. Indeed, if I do stay in Korea past this school year I think I will look for a university job. Better pay with same (or less) teaching hours per week, more vacation, and better students. Plus it would be a move to the city (probably Seoul); a year in the country was beautiful and relaxing, but now that I feel comfortable in Korea I'd like to see what city life is like as well.
I'm still having a great time over here. I'm still in my 20's (barely). I don't feel bad about not having a long term plan. I'm a simple man; really I'm basically happy as long as I'm learning new skills, and have a few good friends to share some times with. Some men struggle mightily to achieve great things. I wouldn't mind finding that kind of passion, but it hasn't come to me yet and I'm not going to force it. Maybe you need to suffer in order to find your passion.
Well, I've done things that were objectively difficult: in the physical realm I've completed gruelling bike rides and trained long and hard to attain such skills as left handed pingpong. In the mental realm I had to think a long and hard to solve my dissertation problem; and will probably have to spend even more total hours to achieve a second language fluency. But while it may appear to an outside observer that I was trying hard, I've never felt like I was doing anything besides passing the time during those stretches when I was bored with being lazy. I enjoyed the challenges, but if I had switched one pursuit with another, I bet I would have enjoyed that almost as much. And at any rate, I was never 'suffering for my art'. For now, I will leave the conclusions of this line of reasoning for you to draw for yourselves.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
new photos finally
sorry for the long wait. I just put a whole bunch of new photos on flickr. They go back over a month to the first full moon of the year bonfire, include my Thailand trip, and one or two shots from Ulsan and the maeshil blossom festival.
A brief update of my activities: Last weekend I went to Seoul. Hung out at some funky little Korean bars on Saturday. Played some sloppy pickup on a rain softened field on Sunday. Its a good way to spend a weekend.
Look forward to the half year summary and reflections later this week.
A brief update of my activities: Last weekend I went to Seoul. Hung out at some funky little Korean bars on Saturday. Played some sloppy pickup on a rain softened field on Sunday. Its a good way to spend a weekend.
Look forward to the half year summary and reflections later this week.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Marathon
Ran a marathon yesterday.
Here is some free advice - even if you think you are in good shape, you should still plan ahead and train a little to run a marathon. I found out about this one just a few days ago, and the start / finish point was at a park less than a half mile from my home, so I figured "What the heck," although I haven't had a run longer than 10km in over a year.
It was a pretty big event with about 10,000 runners (including 1/2 course, 5k, and 10k runs) from all over Korea (but I didn't see any other foreigners), celebrating the first set of blossoms (maeshil fruit, or Chinese plum) on our famously scenic springtime road. (do I overuse parenthetical notes?)
I snuck into the starting group without registering, but no one cared about my lack of number bib. I told myself to just take it easy and see how many 8:00 miles I could crank out before my body gave up. One nice feature of this marathon were groups of pace setters with helium balloons tied to their hats announcing the pace they were running. I stayed with the 3:40 group until about the half way point, then started to slacken off the pace. I made the 3/4 mark just ahead of the 4 hour group, but by now I was starting to feel really fatigued. Actually I still felt I had some energy, and wasn't cramped, but my joints especially knees, were aching. I walked a little way. I guess this is a classic mistake that just tightens up your muscles and makes it harder to run again. So I ended up walking most of the last 6 km. Also I stopped at the associated street fair which was 3k from the finish to take a break and chat with some locals.
Met some interesting people along the way. Including a couple of university professors from Seoul who have ran almost 1 marathon every week for the last year. And the guy who stopped at the 30km checkpoint to self administer some acupuncture.
Like I said earlier, this whole Korea experiment is partly about testing myself, so it is fitting to throw in a physical challenege. I feel satisfied with how well I did, and also suitably humbled at not being able to run it out. I was a little concerned about some lingering blisters from ultimate that hadn't quite healed, but I lubed my feet up with a tub of Vaseline and they were no problem; I did get some chaffing on the inner thighs where my lubrication was less conscientious - or maybe it is just the delayed prize of my Thailand adventures. Today I feel really sore in the thighs, and my left knee feels swollen - strange because the right knee felt worse when I was running. I can walk around, but not with the smooth confident stride which is my trademark.
Here is some free advice - even if you think you are in good shape, you should still plan ahead and train a little to run a marathon. I found out about this one just a few days ago, and the start / finish point was at a park less than a half mile from my home, so I figured "What the heck," although I haven't had a run longer than 10km in over a year.
It was a pretty big event with about 10,000 runners (including 1/2 course, 5k, and 10k runs) from all over Korea (but I didn't see any other foreigners), celebrating the first set of blossoms (maeshil fruit, or Chinese plum) on our famously scenic springtime road. (do I overuse parenthetical notes?)
I snuck into the starting group without registering, but no one cared about my lack of number bib. I told myself to just take it easy and see how many 8:00 miles I could crank out before my body gave up. One nice feature of this marathon were groups of pace setters with helium balloons tied to their hats announcing the pace they were running. I stayed with the 3:40 group until about the half way point, then started to slacken off the pace. I made the 3/4 mark just ahead of the 4 hour group, but by now I was starting to feel really fatigued. Actually I still felt I had some energy, and wasn't cramped, but my joints especially knees, were aching. I walked a little way. I guess this is a classic mistake that just tightens up your muscles and makes it harder to run again. So I ended up walking most of the last 6 km. Also I stopped at the associated street fair which was 3k from the finish to take a break and chat with some locals.
Met some interesting people along the way. Including a couple of university professors from Seoul who have ran almost 1 marathon every week for the last year. And the guy who stopped at the 30km checkpoint to self administer some acupuncture.
Like I said earlier, this whole Korea experiment is partly about testing myself, so it is fitting to throw in a physical challenege. I feel satisfied with how well I did, and also suitably humbled at not being able to run it out. I was a little concerned about some lingering blisters from ultimate that hadn't quite healed, but I lubed my feet up with a tub of Vaseline and they were no problem; I did get some chaffing on the inner thighs where my lubrication was less conscientious - or maybe it is just the delayed prize of my Thailand adventures. Today I feel really sore in the thighs, and my left knee feels swollen - strange because the right knee felt worse when I was running. I can walk around, but not with the smooth confident stride which is my trademark.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Ulsan Frisbee tournament
My second tournament in as many weeks. I feel so lucky. Although the blisters on my heels were still raw from Thailand I felt I had to make the 4 hour bus trip to Ulsan. It was worth the trip.
It was a hat tournament with a unique structure. Saturday was a one day 5 on 5 tourney on turf fields. games were short and had a real time cap. I mean the game would end mid point when the clock hit zeros. Ties permitted in pool play, so there were some exciting last second hucks. Then Sunday was the same format, but on the beach. Your team got points depending on where you placed, but the saturday party also factored quantitatively into the overall championship with disc of beer races against the clock and flip cup tourney on the docket. My team didn't win, but I somehow walked away with touranment MVP. It was probably because I played in ski goggles to keep the sand out of my eyes.
I had a great time getting to know the members of the Korean ultimate community a little better. And I also secured my spot on a team for Korea's premiere tournament at Jeju in late April. I might not get any more frisbee until that point so I'll be looking forward to it. Also, welcome to Korea, Hightower, and I hope you'll be joining my team.
It was a hat tournament with a unique structure. Saturday was a one day 5 on 5 tourney on turf fields. games were short and had a real time cap. I mean the game would end mid point when the clock hit zeros. Ties permitted in pool play, so there were some exciting last second hucks. Then Sunday was the same format, but on the beach. Your team got points depending on where you placed, but the saturday party also factored quantitatively into the overall championship with disc of beer races against the clock and flip cup tourney on the docket. My team didn't win, but I somehow walked away with touranment MVP. It was probably because I played in ski goggles to keep the sand out of my eyes.
I had a great time getting to know the members of the Korean ultimate community a little better. And I also secured my spot on a team for Korea's premiere tournament at Jeju in late April. I might not get any more frisbee until that point so I'll be looking forward to it. Also, welcome to Korea, Hightower, and I hope you'll be joining my team.
The positive aspects of being a tourist in Thailand
In list form
1. Food. Outstanding street food. I think it beats out even Mexico City. You can get cold fresh fruit (pineapple, watermelon, guava, coconut, etc) from little carts scattered everywhere. Or some tasty skewers. Or a proper meal - noodle soups, or pad thai, or rice bowls etc. If you love spicy thai food you are set for meals for $2 a day just walking around. If you want a nicer ambiance there are a ton of restaurants also. They are also dirt cheap ($5 for an entree and a beer or two) and delicious. The spicy food really makes you feel better about the heat.
Adding to my bizzare food checklist, I had some grilled duck bill (it was tasty, but hard to find the meat around the bill), and some fried bag of mixed bugs (grasshoppers, crickets, silkworms, only one cockroach, but alas my friend called dibs on that. They just tasted like heavily fried snack crisps, nothing really buggy about it.)
2. Public transportation is cheap and easy. Although the city is giant, there is a backbone of a couple elevated rail lines, and a river/canal system with ferries and water taxis is a pleasant and unique way to see some more of the city. You can get pretty close to any place a tourist might like to go on these systems. Or you can take a taxi (but make sure you get one with a meter), or a tuk-tuk, basically a rickshaw with a moped engine, to take you door to door.
3. Do you like to visit Buddhist temples? There are so many all over the city. The concentration in the heart of the old city contains some really impressive examples. Giant ornate buildings, and 50 ft golden buddhas. Add in the various royal parks and palaces and you can easily spend a day or two just checking out these kind of cultural sites.
4. Thai Massage. I'd never had a professional massage before, but the Thai massage is famous, and I was quite sore and tired after a weekend of disc sports. At $7 an hour there is no excuse not to try it, and if you do, you will not be disappointed. A little old country woman just brutalized every muscle in my body into calm submission. You walk in hobbling and walk out with a smooth stride and a smile on your face. My only fear is that it may be addictively relaxing.
5. Nightlife. If you are in the right part of town it is a great relaxed and friendly place for an international travel to relax, have a few beers (so much better than Korean beer), and trade some stories.
6. Shopping. Its not really my bag, but if you like to walk around bustling baazars full of treats, trinkets, treasures, and trousers, there is no shortage over here. You can hunt some bargains for sure. There are some truly massive indoors malls as well as the more traditional flea market style setups.
I guess there is a lot more in the city that I didn't get to, plus a lot of country side which I would probably enjoy as much if not more. If I stay in Asia long enough I'm sure I'll go back someday.
1. Food. Outstanding street food. I think it beats out even Mexico City. You can get cold fresh fruit (pineapple, watermelon, guava, coconut, etc) from little carts scattered everywhere. Or some tasty skewers. Or a proper meal - noodle soups, or pad thai, or rice bowls etc. If you love spicy thai food you are set for meals for $2 a day just walking around. If you want a nicer ambiance there are a ton of restaurants also. They are also dirt cheap ($5 for an entree and a beer or two) and delicious. The spicy food really makes you feel better about the heat.
Adding to my bizzare food checklist, I had some grilled duck bill (it was tasty, but hard to find the meat around the bill), and some fried bag of mixed bugs (grasshoppers, crickets, silkworms, only one cockroach, but alas my friend called dibs on that. They just tasted like heavily fried snack crisps, nothing really buggy about it.)
2. Public transportation is cheap and easy. Although the city is giant, there is a backbone of a couple elevated rail lines, and a river/canal system with ferries and water taxis is a pleasant and unique way to see some more of the city. You can get pretty close to any place a tourist might like to go on these systems. Or you can take a taxi (but make sure you get one with a meter), or a tuk-tuk, basically a rickshaw with a moped engine, to take you door to door.
3. Do you like to visit Buddhist temples? There are so many all over the city. The concentration in the heart of the old city contains some really impressive examples. Giant ornate buildings, and 50 ft golden buddhas. Add in the various royal parks and palaces and you can easily spend a day or two just checking out these kind of cultural sites.
4. Thai Massage. I'd never had a professional massage before, but the Thai massage is famous, and I was quite sore and tired after a weekend of disc sports. At $7 an hour there is no excuse not to try it, and if you do, you will not be disappointed. A little old country woman just brutalized every muscle in my body into calm submission. You walk in hobbling and walk out with a smooth stride and a smile on your face. My only fear is that it may be addictively relaxing.
5. Nightlife. If you are in the right part of town it is a great relaxed and friendly place for an international travel to relax, have a few beers (so much better than Korean beer), and trade some stories.
6. Shopping. Its not really my bag, but if you like to walk around bustling baazars full of treats, trinkets, treasures, and trousers, there is no shortage over here. You can hunt some bargains for sure. There are some truly massive indoors malls as well as the more traditional flea market style setups.
I guess there is a lot more in the city that I didn't get to, plus a lot of country side which I would probably enjoy as much if not more. If I stay in Asia long enough I'm sure I'll go back someday.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
February in Korea
After coming back from Japan I only had a couple weeks in Hadong before my trip to Thailand (watch out for posts about that to come out tonight, or tomorrow), but here is a brief synopsis of the haps from the past month over here.
Work wise, I just had one week of work. The system is a little odd over here. The students have exams a week before Christmas, then the last week of school before break is basically goof-off time. From Christmas to mid Feb is a break, although many students attend 'winter camp'. Then there is one isolated final week of the school year in the middle of Feb. The students don't want to be in school, and it shows. Although the classes that I have a better rapport with are only more energetic and willing to converse. Aside from the classes it is a time to celebrate, so I got treated to some banquets from both schools; good food, good times, maybe too much soju...
Outside of school I met a new group of friends. On a whim I started talking to the girl at the counter of a local sandwich shop (it turns out she is the owner as well). Her and her friends end up being an especially cool group. Especially I give them props for being the first group that actively engages me in Korean language at an appropriate level for me. Is this a good reason to choose one's friends: absolutely! finding people here with the human concern, patience, and intelligence required to empathize with and adjust to language learners plight is a rare treat, but I think I would like these guys if I found the same personalities in a bunch of Americans anyway.
Well, looking forward to the long stretch of school. No more vacations for the next 4 months .. I hope I can keep coming up with ideas for the next class
Work wise, I just had one week of work. The system is a little odd over here. The students have exams a week before Christmas, then the last week of school before break is basically goof-off time. From Christmas to mid Feb is a break, although many students attend 'winter camp'. Then there is one isolated final week of the school year in the middle of Feb. The students don't want to be in school, and it shows. Although the classes that I have a better rapport with are only more energetic and willing to converse. Aside from the classes it is a time to celebrate, so I got treated to some banquets from both schools; good food, good times, maybe too much soju...
Outside of school I met a new group of friends. On a whim I started talking to the girl at the counter of a local sandwich shop (it turns out she is the owner as well). Her and her friends end up being an especially cool group. Especially I give them props for being the first group that actively engages me in Korean language at an appropriate level for me. Is this a good reason to choose one's friends: absolutely! finding people here with the human concern, patience, and intelligence required to empathize with and adjust to language learners plight is a rare treat, but I think I would like these guys if I found the same personalities in a bunch of Americans anyway.
Well, looking forward to the long stretch of school. No more vacations for the next 4 months .. I hope I can keep coming up with ideas for the next class
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ultimate in Bangkok
The main reason from the timing of this trip, as well as choice of Bangkok as destination was the Bangkok Hat ultimate frisbee tournament (for the non-frisbee players out there, a hat tournament is one where players sign up as individuals and the tournament directors select balanced teams. So you are playing with mostly new teammates, get to make a lot of new friends, and have a tournament with a lot of parity.)
It is one of the premiere tournaments in Asia, drawing some of the best ex-pat, as well as native players from all over. I met people living in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, and some extra-continental travelers including Australia, USA, and the winner of the longest distance traveled award - someone who came from his station in Antarctica. Proving again that it's a small world, I also happened to meet Moose from the UCLA ultimate community; it was quite nice to unexpectedly run into a good friend from my previous life.
The tourney itself was a lot of fun. Saturday morning I had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn't thrown a disc in four months so I had a lot of rust to shake off in addition to adjusting to the climate. It was a sunny 35C = 95F and humid the whole week I was there. Over the course of the weekend I probably threw away a pass per game due to sweat slippage, and I don't think I ever played 3 points in a row. But damn, sometimes I can forget how much I love this game in between the now rare chances I get to play it. And the level was high, on the average team of 16 there was maybe one or two inexperienced players with better disc skills and knowledge of the game, albeit less athleticism compared to the bulk of my experience at the college level.
My own team fared decently. We ended up losing by a point in the semi-finals to the eventual champs. I got the ego boost of being told by that teams captain, and top player, that I put the toughest defense on him of anyone he faced in the tournament .. I believe the word "glove" was uttered.
So it was a couple good days running around in the sun, and a couple fun nights partying with the SEAsian ultimate community. I grabbed a couple pictures from the events and will put them up on the flickr sometime soon.
It is one of the premiere tournaments in Asia, drawing some of the best ex-pat, as well as native players from all over. I met people living in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, and some extra-continental travelers including Australia, USA, and the winner of the longest distance traveled award - someone who came from his station in Antarctica. Proving again that it's a small world, I also happened to meet Moose from the UCLA ultimate community; it was quite nice to unexpectedly run into a good friend from my previous life.
The tourney itself was a lot of fun. Saturday morning I had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn't thrown a disc in four months so I had a lot of rust to shake off in addition to adjusting to the climate. It was a sunny 35C = 95F and humid the whole week I was there. Over the course of the weekend I probably threw away a pass per game due to sweat slippage, and I don't think I ever played 3 points in a row. But damn, sometimes I can forget how much I love this game in between the now rare chances I get to play it. And the level was high, on the average team of 16 there was maybe one or two inexperienced players with better disc skills and knowledge of the game, albeit less athleticism compared to the bulk of my experience at the college level.
My own team fared decently. We ended up losing by a point in the semi-finals to the eventual champs. I got the ego boost of being told by that teams captain, and top player, that I put the toughest defense on him of anyone he faced in the tournament .. I believe the word "glove" was uttered.
So it was a couple good days running around in the sun, and a couple fun nights partying with the SEAsian ultimate community. I grabbed a couple pictures from the events and will put them up on the flickr sometime soon.
Bangkok summary
One of the items that fell well above 'opportunity to teach English to Korean teenagers' on the list of reasons I decided to take this job was the chance to more easily travel around and see what it is like in a few places in Asia. So I was happy to take my second vacation in as many months to the fabled city of Bangkok.
The place definitely has a unique flavor from anywhere else I've been: I can understand the allure that has made Bangkok a spider's web for so many backpackers, as well as the reasons others say they would never want to go back. Of course, in less than a week I did not explore every facet of the city .. my impression is that I probably don't want to live there, but I would also like to return sometime and perhaps spend more time in the country side.
My specific impressions are still jumbled and discordant, so I will arrange them into separate blog entries to make my composition easier.
The place definitely has a unique flavor from anywhere else I've been: I can understand the allure that has made Bangkok a spider's web for so many backpackers, as well as the reasons others say they would never want to go back. Of course, in less than a week I did not explore every facet of the city .. my impression is that I probably don't want to live there, but I would also like to return sometime and perhaps spend more time in the country side.
My specific impressions are still jumbled and discordant, so I will arrange them into separate blog entries to make my composition easier.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
January update
I realize it's been over a month between my quarterly report and the long post about my Japan trip, and you may be wondering what I did for most of January.
My work load was really light - just two weeks of winter camp at the girls school. This included an hour a day of tutoring a pair of teachers children (11 year old boys). We read a bunch of Aesop's fables. The main goal was practicing pronunciation and building vocabulary; I think it went OK.
The main class was 1 or 2 hours a day with the 4 of the top 10 students who decided to stick around school for the vacation. Because the students were fairly advanced I decided to make it a discussion oriented Psychology class. These are students who have a good enough vocabulary that I can explain to them in English the meaning of almost any word, but they really need practice forming complete sentences and having conversation.
During my first couple months teaching normal classes the feedback I got from my students in terms of body language was usually limited to one of the following: polite attention that made me think they understood what I was saying and it wasn't super boring , vacant yet somewhat attentive incomprehension, total daydreaming, disruptive inattention, self conscious embarrassed blush / smile, a quick smile or chuckle at some corny joke or small bit of clowning from me, or a completely inscrutable oriental facade. So I was pleased to elicit a new reaction during this course - one of shocked interest; for example when discussing the dramatic changes in personality that happened during the famous Stanford prison experiment (a "prison simulation" where the guards quickly became abusively authoritarian, and the prisons submissive and dehumanized) the girls were listening with wide eyes and wringing their hands. So it was a fun class to teach and also nice to not have to repeat lessons multiple times.
Outside of class I didn't have too many new adventures. A couple of times I went "screen" golfing with some other teachers. This is one of those electronic things where you hit a golf ball through some sensors into a net and the computer simulates your shots as you proceed through a virtual course. It is fairly realistic, and I like being able to see all the stats (ball speed, rpms of both back and side spin, launch angle and deviation from straight angle), but it is much much easier than real golf. For one thing you are always hitting off a clean lie, so sand and rough are not much of a penalty. Also, and more importantly, it doesn't calculate slice or hook accurately. Your ball will curve off path a little, but not as much as it would with a poor shot in reality. Anyway its fun and good to get your golf fix on a cold day.
Also there was a big badminton event in Gurye, a city about 40min away. The big club there decided to throw a friendly match / party to celebrate their new president. It really was quite a production. About 8 local teams attended. There was a long and boring opening ceremony which included some kids banging on traditional drums, and many speeches that I didn't understand. Then there was a lunch, and finally some games. I'm not sure what the format was, and neither did some other people in my club. They told me "just enjoy your games." I played two doubles matches against other clubs teamed with two different partnets from my club. After losing the second one I guess we were out, but there was food and drink available all day. After a few rounds of soju my 'older brother' wanted me to play with him in a game for big money (80grand!). We lost a close one; I'll go ahead and blame the margin of our defeat on the drunkness of my teammate. So I had full confidence that he would sober up enough to pull through the double or nothing rematch. And so it was. So that was pretty exciting.
After all the games were over there was a big raffle. Everyone there was entered for free, and probably almost one in five won something. Prizes ranged from a top quality racquet to a bag of cucumbers. I ended up winning a pair of shorts. I had to ask if they were meant for women, but was told they were for men. Seriously these things are shorter than 70's basketball shorts. Near the end of the drawing they organizers decided it would be a good idea to get the only foreigner present to come up and pick out the next name. I was glad at this time that I had at least learned to read the Korean alphabet.
To check out some photos from the event look at http://www.cyworld.com/pims/main/pims_main.asp?tid=37274003 then, click on the bottom of three tabs of the right side of the notebook image. Also, I forgot to mention but there are a few photos from Japan on my flickr stream, but I have to apologize for taking very few.
One more quick note on the new foods front. The soup they served at lunch was dove meat. It was dark meat and a little oily, but good taste.
My work load was really light - just two weeks of winter camp at the girls school. This included an hour a day of tutoring a pair of teachers children (11 year old boys). We read a bunch of Aesop's fables. The main goal was practicing pronunciation and building vocabulary; I think it went OK.
The main class was 1 or 2 hours a day with the 4 of the top 10 students who decided to stick around school for the vacation. Because the students were fairly advanced I decided to make it a discussion oriented Psychology class. These are students who have a good enough vocabulary that I can explain to them in English the meaning of almost any word, but they really need practice forming complete sentences and having conversation.
During my first couple months teaching normal classes the feedback I got from my students in terms of body language was usually limited to one of the following: polite attention that made me think they understood what I was saying and it wasn't super boring , vacant yet somewhat attentive incomprehension, total daydreaming, disruptive inattention, self conscious embarrassed blush / smile, a quick smile or chuckle at some corny joke or small bit of clowning from me, or a completely inscrutable oriental facade. So I was pleased to elicit a new reaction during this course - one of shocked interest; for example when discussing the dramatic changes in personality that happened during the famous Stanford prison experiment (a "prison simulation" where the guards quickly became abusively authoritarian, and the prisons submissive and dehumanized) the girls were listening with wide eyes and wringing their hands. So it was a fun class to teach and also nice to not have to repeat lessons multiple times.
Outside of class I didn't have too many new adventures. A couple of times I went "screen" golfing with some other teachers. This is one of those electronic things where you hit a golf ball through some sensors into a net and the computer simulates your shots as you proceed through a virtual course. It is fairly realistic, and I like being able to see all the stats (ball speed, rpms of both back and side spin, launch angle and deviation from straight angle), but it is much much easier than real golf. For one thing you are always hitting off a clean lie, so sand and rough are not much of a penalty. Also, and more importantly, it doesn't calculate slice or hook accurately. Your ball will curve off path a little, but not as much as it would with a poor shot in reality. Anyway its fun and good to get your golf fix on a cold day.
Also there was a big badminton event in Gurye, a city about 40min away. The big club there decided to throw a friendly match / party to celebrate their new president. It really was quite a production. About 8 local teams attended. There was a long and boring opening ceremony which included some kids banging on traditional drums, and many speeches that I didn't understand. Then there was a lunch, and finally some games. I'm not sure what the format was, and neither did some other people in my club. They told me "just enjoy your games." I played two doubles matches against other clubs teamed with two different partnets from my club. After losing the second one I guess we were out, but there was food and drink available all day. After a few rounds of soju my 'older brother' wanted me to play with him in a game for big money (80grand!). We lost a close one; I'll go ahead and blame the margin of our defeat on the drunkness of my teammate. So I had full confidence that he would sober up enough to pull through the double or nothing rematch. And so it was. So that was pretty exciting.
After all the games were over there was a big raffle. Everyone there was entered for free, and probably almost one in five won something. Prizes ranged from a top quality racquet to a bag of cucumbers. I ended up winning a pair of shorts. I had to ask if they were meant for women, but was told they were for men. Seriously these things are shorter than 70's basketball shorts. Near the end of the drawing they organizers decided it would be a good idea to get the only foreigner present to come up and pick out the next name. I was glad at this time that I had at least learned to read the Korean alphabet.
To check out some photos from the event look at http://www.cyworld.com/pims/main/pims_main.asp?tid=37274003 then, click on the bottom of three tabs of the right side of the notebook image. Also, I forgot to mention but there are a few photos from Japan on my flickr stream, but I have to apologize for taking very few.
One more quick note on the new foods front. The soup they served at lunch was dove meat. It was dark meat and a little oily, but good taste.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Japan trip report
Hello readers. I just got back from my vacation which was centered around skiing in Japan. Overall I enjoyed the trip, but also the transportation elements were a bit long and wearying, so its nice to be home to relax for a few more days before work starts again. Does it sound weird for me to call my journey to Hadong, Korea "coming home"? it does to me, but that's how it felt.
My flight out of Seoul left in the morning so I had to leave the day before. It was my first time to Seoul, and I only had one evening and didn't know anyone in town, so I decided to visit a part of the city called Itaewon that is supposed to be popular with tourists. After spending months in a town where I could go for days without seeing a non-Korean it was almost a shock to see so many foreigners walking around. It was very international, but ultimately not really too interesting to me. I soon headed to the airport which is 90 minutes from central city, and by reputation quite friendly to travelers who arrive late at night for a morning flight.
Indeed the Incheon airport is probably the nicest I've been in. Easy layout, no lines anywhere (check-in, security, immigration services), free internet cafes next to the departure gates as you wait for your plane. For $15 I spent the night in the spa. It had showers and hot tub, sauna, cold pool. Also an "oxygen room" which made me a little light headed, and a room with very comfortable chairs that reclined to basically a twin bed, with blankets, to sleep on - or you could get a private room (basically a closet with a bed) to sleep in if you preferred.
The next day was Monday - Lunar New Year, and Australia Day, but to me mostly just another day of travel. Flight to Tokyo, then another ~6 hours from the airport to my accomodations in the mountains. Shortly after clearing customs at Narita I realized one of the big blunders of my trip. I should have changed currency in Korea. We are all used to traveling with US$, so it really shocked me how poorly the won was regarded by its next door neighbor.
I had brought cash money with me and expected to buy yen at the airport. At Incheon the commission was 5%, but I didn't change there because I thought I remembered doing it for 2.5% in the past, so I figured that at least it wouldn't be any worse in Japan. As a consequence, it was funny to watch the eyes of the customs official get wider and wider as I continued to add zeroes to the figure indicating how much currency I was bringing into the country (waiting until the end to reveal that it was not dollars, despite the origin of my passport). But the joke was on me when I found out that the exchange commission for won was an outrageous 30% on this side. I wasted little time deciding that this is not acceptable, but it did leave me in the awkward position of having to rely on just one form of payment - a mastercard that would not work in ATMs to give me a cash advance. Therefore I would have to only buy things where the plastic was accepted, or try to barter my way into some yen.
I figured this wouldn't be much of a problem in such a modern country, but when I got to the backpackers I would be staying at they told me it was a cash only establishment! Eventually I revealed this as a bluff, but I had to waste a morning investigating various failed ways to try to get some cash before I got them to cave. Then I got real nervous when they said my card was rejected! Turns out this is the result of an automatic fraud prevention thing that puts a hold on the card when big purchases are attempted internationaly. I had to call them up and sort things out.
In the end, lack of hard cash wasn't really much of a problem until it was time to get back to Tokyo. Turned out the bus company was seriously cash only so I had to scramble and take a series of rail transfers that ended up costing me an extra $60 and a bit of frustration. This is something I remember from last time in Japan - train travel is reliable and efficient, but really expensive. It cost me more for the Tokyo - Nagano (5 hrs away) leg of my trip than it did from my home to Tokyo - a trip which included a longer cross country train ride and a 3 hour flight. Actually everything in Japan is expensive, even compared to USA, but especially compared to Korea. I bet Korea resents me shelling out hard earned won to their hated neighbors.
But despite some snags I got pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this vacation. First of all some good skiing. The mountains near Nagano where I stayed where the sight of the 1998 Olympics. So I got to ski down a former olympic downhill course. Unfortunately, despite the advances in equipment in the past decade, I couldn't break the old gold medal time, mostly because they put up some moguls in parts of the course.
The mountains were pretty good. There are a bunch of resorts in the neighborhood. The biggest and best was about 10-15 min walk from my place (in ski boots) or I could wait around for a free shuttle. The mountain really was tall and broad. It would take a series of 4 lifts to get to the peak (actually the peak was another 10 min hike from the top of the last lift), and would take a good half hour if you wanted to ski all the way back down to one of four base stations. Overall I would say the mountain was only slightly less impressive than, for example, Breckenridge, where I skied with my sister last year. Unfortunately I wasn't super lucky with the weather last week. The first morning it was snowing big fat flakes so I had really high hopes, but not much powder settled. The first half of the week was bright and clear with some amazing visibility and views of range around and the town below. Then a warm front came through and it was actually raining up to about mid mountain for a day. The next day it was still warm, so the snow was thick and slushy. Then, for my last day it got cold again and started snowing. We thought there was gonna be some great thick powder but first the slush iced over then the wind came and blew away most of the new fall so that all the remained was a thick hard crust. Well, I know weather is a gamble, and I don't mind challenging conditions, except that I decided to try snowboarding for my last day. I did learn a little - one thing I learned is that I am "goofy" footed. That is, I am among the minority who prefer to put my right foot forward. But I didn't find this out until after I had rented and tried to ride regular footed gear. It is hard to learn how to carve on ice, and a lot more painful when you are falling regularly so I had to switch back to skis at midday. The place I rented from has good service in allowing me to change gear whenever I want.
Overall I spent a lot of time on the slopes, and I was really quite tired by the end of the week, and sore on my tailbone and shoulder from my failed snowboard attempt. The weekdays the mountain was so wide and empty I felt like I had the whole place to myself. On the weekend the slopes got a bit of traffic, but even then I rarely had to wait in a lift line that was more than 2 or 3 chairfulls long.
I was a little anxious about the prospect of going on vacation by myself, which is why I booked at a backpackers in hopes to meet some people to ride with and hang out with apres ski. In this I was not disappointed. My first surprise when I arrived at the resort was the number of Australians in the area. Turns out is a very popular destination for Aussies to escape their summer heat. The place I was staying was owned and run by Aussies and 3/4 of the 30 people staying there were Aussies. I got there in the evening of Austrailia day so I was immediately invited out to celebrate despite being a Yank. If you've been following my blog you know that basically my only complaint about my lifestyle over here is not having enough chances to converse in English freely using slang and subtle nuance. Satisfying this need was one of the great successes of the vacation.
I met some interesting people up on the mountains including:
a pair of friends who also teach English in Korea (just north of Seoul). One guy was a Canadian who snored louder than anyone I have ever heard. The other was from Pittsburgh, and I thought he looked a little bit familiar. Turns out I recognized him because he used to work at the Dirty O's hotdog shop at Carnegie Mellon when I went to school there. Small world.
An English woman whos been traveling around the world for over 5 years, somehow supporting herself as a free-lance photographer. Her favorite place so far: Islamabad
There was a large group of Austrailians who were planning on staying most of February. They were a wild, fun loving crew. Maybe a bit too much so as they were evicted by the management the day before I left. It was a bit of drama; they called in some local muscle in case the boys put up any resistance. Well, I was sorry for them, especially since they were told in the late afternoon - finding last minute lodging in a resort town can be difficult and expensive. Their boisterousness was to me a benefit of the place although I understand that it is unacceptable to the owners for the place to turn into a frat house, especially since the staff apparently gave a "either they go or we do" ultimatum.
Besides that there was your standard collection of random Europeans (a Finn, a couple Germans, another Brit), no Japanese locals, but there was a Korean staying there. He's a cool fellow, and lives in Gwangju which is a pretty big city just a couple hours from me. So we exchanged phone numbers and maybe I'll visit him and see some more of this country sometime.
One more random encounter: at the airport grabbing a quick bite at McDs while I waited for the plane I overheard the conversation of some folk with Canadian accents sitting next to me. It seemed they were talking about some kind of sport becuase they were using words like teams, tournament, and coach; and they used technical terms like "soft inturn release." So I took a guess and asked if they were professional curlers.Yes indeed, and they had just won an international tournament on the path to Olympic qualification. But they seemed more impressed with me for knowing what curling was than I was with them for being sports champs. Oh well, interesting things happen at the airport.
As I was traveling back to Tokyo up to arriving back in Korea I was surprised by how much I was looking forward to getting back. I went so far as to comtemplate that on average Korean people compared to Japanese are friendlier and more fun-loving, and even better looking. Have I been brainwashed? When people were asking me questions about life in Korea I had only positive things to say about the culture. Is this a case of cognitive dissonance, or am I genuinely enjoying my new life here?
My only regret about the trip was that I should have left one day earlier. My Monday travel day was your Superbowl Sunday. I can't remember the last time I missed the big game; if I was in Seoul I'm sure I could have found a foreigner sports bar open at 8:00 am. Heard it was a good game, go Steelers! Also missed another epic 5-set grand slam final between Nadal and Federer. I feel a little bad for Fed, Nadal just has his number. oh well, I'm looking forwad to them meeting again in Paris and Wimbledon.
My flight out of Seoul left in the morning so I had to leave the day before. It was my first time to Seoul, and I only had one evening and didn't know anyone in town, so I decided to visit a part of the city called Itaewon that is supposed to be popular with tourists. After spending months in a town where I could go for days without seeing a non-Korean it was almost a shock to see so many foreigners walking around. It was very international, but ultimately not really too interesting to me. I soon headed to the airport which is 90 minutes from central city, and by reputation quite friendly to travelers who arrive late at night for a morning flight.
Indeed the Incheon airport is probably the nicest I've been in. Easy layout, no lines anywhere (check-in, security, immigration services), free internet cafes next to the departure gates as you wait for your plane. For $15 I spent the night in the spa. It had showers and hot tub, sauna, cold pool. Also an "oxygen room" which made me a little light headed, and a room with very comfortable chairs that reclined to basically a twin bed, with blankets, to sleep on - or you could get a private room (basically a closet with a bed) to sleep in if you preferred.
The next day was Monday - Lunar New Year, and Australia Day, but to me mostly just another day of travel. Flight to Tokyo, then another ~6 hours from the airport to my accomodations in the mountains. Shortly after clearing customs at Narita I realized one of the big blunders of my trip. I should have changed currency in Korea. We are all used to traveling with US$, so it really shocked me how poorly the won was regarded by its next door neighbor.
I had brought cash money with me and expected to buy yen at the airport. At Incheon the commission was 5%, but I didn't change there because I thought I remembered doing it for 2.5% in the past, so I figured that at least it wouldn't be any worse in Japan. As a consequence, it was funny to watch the eyes of the customs official get wider and wider as I continued to add zeroes to the figure indicating how much currency I was bringing into the country (waiting until the end to reveal that it was not dollars, despite the origin of my passport). But the joke was on me when I found out that the exchange commission for won was an outrageous 30% on this side. I wasted little time deciding that this is not acceptable, but it did leave me in the awkward position of having to rely on just one form of payment - a mastercard that would not work in ATMs to give me a cash advance. Therefore I would have to only buy things where the plastic was accepted, or try to barter my way into some yen.
I figured this wouldn't be much of a problem in such a modern country, but when I got to the backpackers I would be staying at they told me it was a cash only establishment! Eventually I revealed this as a bluff, but I had to waste a morning investigating various failed ways to try to get some cash before I got them to cave. Then I got real nervous when they said my card was rejected! Turns out this is the result of an automatic fraud prevention thing that puts a hold on the card when big purchases are attempted internationaly. I had to call them up and sort things out.
In the end, lack of hard cash wasn't really much of a problem until it was time to get back to Tokyo. Turned out the bus company was seriously cash only so I had to scramble and take a series of rail transfers that ended up costing me an extra $60 and a bit of frustration. This is something I remember from last time in Japan - train travel is reliable and efficient, but really expensive. It cost me more for the Tokyo - Nagano (5 hrs away) leg of my trip than it did from my home to Tokyo - a trip which included a longer cross country train ride and a 3 hour flight. Actually everything in Japan is expensive, even compared to USA, but especially compared to Korea. I bet Korea resents me shelling out hard earned won to their hated neighbors.
But despite some snags I got pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this vacation. First of all some good skiing. The mountains near Nagano where I stayed where the sight of the 1998 Olympics. So I got to ski down a former olympic downhill course. Unfortunately, despite the advances in equipment in the past decade, I couldn't break the old gold medal time, mostly because they put up some moguls in parts of the course.
The mountains were pretty good. There are a bunch of resorts in the neighborhood. The biggest and best was about 10-15 min walk from my place (in ski boots) or I could wait around for a free shuttle. The mountain really was tall and broad. It would take a series of 4 lifts to get to the peak (actually the peak was another 10 min hike from the top of the last lift), and would take a good half hour if you wanted to ski all the way back down to one of four base stations. Overall I would say the mountain was only slightly less impressive than, for example, Breckenridge, where I skied with my sister last year. Unfortunately I wasn't super lucky with the weather last week. The first morning it was snowing big fat flakes so I had really high hopes, but not much powder settled. The first half of the week was bright and clear with some amazing visibility and views of range around and the town below. Then a warm front came through and it was actually raining up to about mid mountain for a day. The next day it was still warm, so the snow was thick and slushy. Then, for my last day it got cold again and started snowing. We thought there was gonna be some great thick powder but first the slush iced over then the wind came and blew away most of the new fall so that all the remained was a thick hard crust. Well, I know weather is a gamble, and I don't mind challenging conditions, except that I decided to try snowboarding for my last day. I did learn a little - one thing I learned is that I am "goofy" footed. That is, I am among the minority who prefer to put my right foot forward. But I didn't find this out until after I had rented and tried to ride regular footed gear. It is hard to learn how to carve on ice, and a lot more painful when you are falling regularly so I had to switch back to skis at midday. The place I rented from has good service in allowing me to change gear whenever I want.
Overall I spent a lot of time on the slopes, and I was really quite tired by the end of the week, and sore on my tailbone and shoulder from my failed snowboard attempt. The weekdays the mountain was so wide and empty I felt like I had the whole place to myself. On the weekend the slopes got a bit of traffic, but even then I rarely had to wait in a lift line that was more than 2 or 3 chairfulls long.
I was a little anxious about the prospect of going on vacation by myself, which is why I booked at a backpackers in hopes to meet some people to ride with and hang out with apres ski. In this I was not disappointed. My first surprise when I arrived at the resort was the number of Australians in the area. Turns out is a very popular destination for Aussies to escape their summer heat. The place I was staying was owned and run by Aussies and 3/4 of the 30 people staying there were Aussies. I got there in the evening of Austrailia day so I was immediately invited out to celebrate despite being a Yank. If you've been following my blog you know that basically my only complaint about my lifestyle over here is not having enough chances to converse in English freely using slang and subtle nuance. Satisfying this need was one of the great successes of the vacation.
I met some interesting people up on the mountains including:
a pair of friends who also teach English in Korea (just north of Seoul). One guy was a Canadian who snored louder than anyone I have ever heard. The other was from Pittsburgh, and I thought he looked a little bit familiar. Turns out I recognized him because he used to work at the Dirty O's hotdog shop at Carnegie Mellon when I went to school there. Small world.
An English woman whos been traveling around the world for over 5 years, somehow supporting herself as a free-lance photographer. Her favorite place so far: Islamabad
There was a large group of Austrailians who were planning on staying most of February. They were a wild, fun loving crew. Maybe a bit too much so as they were evicted by the management the day before I left. It was a bit of drama; they called in some local muscle in case the boys put up any resistance. Well, I was sorry for them, especially since they were told in the late afternoon - finding last minute lodging in a resort town can be difficult and expensive. Their boisterousness was to me a benefit of the place although I understand that it is unacceptable to the owners for the place to turn into a frat house, especially since the staff apparently gave a "either they go or we do" ultimatum.
Besides that there was your standard collection of random Europeans (a Finn, a couple Germans, another Brit), no Japanese locals, but there was a Korean staying there. He's a cool fellow, and lives in Gwangju which is a pretty big city just a couple hours from me. So we exchanged phone numbers and maybe I'll visit him and see some more of this country sometime.
One more random encounter: at the airport grabbing a quick bite at McDs while I waited for the plane I overheard the conversation of some folk with Canadian accents sitting next to me. It seemed they were talking about some kind of sport becuase they were using words like teams, tournament, and coach; and they used technical terms like "soft inturn release." So I took a guess and asked if they were professional curlers.Yes indeed, and they had just won an international tournament on the path to Olympic qualification. But they seemed more impressed with me for knowing what curling was than I was with them for being sports champs. Oh well, interesting things happen at the airport.
As I was traveling back to Tokyo up to arriving back in Korea I was surprised by how much I was looking forward to getting back. I went so far as to comtemplate that on average Korean people compared to Japanese are friendlier and more fun-loving, and even better looking. Have I been brainwashed? When people were asking me questions about life in Korea I had only positive things to say about the culture. Is this a case of cognitive dissonance, or am I genuinely enjoying my new life here?
My only regret about the trip was that I should have left one day earlier. My Monday travel day was your Superbowl Sunday. I can't remember the last time I missed the big game; if I was in Seoul I'm sure I could have found a foreigner sports bar open at 8:00 am. Heard it was a good game, go Steelers! Also missed another epic 5-set grand slam final between Nadal and Federer. I feel a little bad for Fed, Nadal just has his number. oh well, I'm looking forwad to them meeting again in Paris and Wimbledon.
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