Hooky

Things to best avoid when parents have been told you are supposed to be hiking on a gorgeous fall afternoon:
1..Walking downtown Gwangmyun.
2..Walking in downtown Gwangmyun with the Special Ed. teacher who is wearing a black suit, white shoes and a newspaper in the shape of cone hat covering his balding head.
3..Going into establishments only Korean Gangsters frequent.

The kids were told on Friday that they had to leave right after lunch on the following Monday because the teachers were all going on a fall hike. This sounded great to me because my Mondays after lunch have two drama classes that are horrible to teach (kids memorizing lines they can't read let alone pronounce correctly) and I love autumn.

Sadly as we pulled out into traffic on our way to the mountain, the sixth grade teacher says, "Cam po-ket-bull" and I try hard to really understand what he is saying. This was a statement and not a question so I tilt my head like a dog intrigued by something and listen closer as the sixth grade teacher and the Special Ed. teacher then talk some more about "po-ket-bull" between themselves. I finally figured it out after we made a U-turn out of the train of teacher's cars. We were headed into Gwangmyun for a game of pool.

We played for about an hour before we went out to the mountain to meet up with the others. They were sat at the bottom of the trail hanging out and laughed when they saw and heard what we did. The head teacher then motioned for me to keep it a secret from the principal and others when we met up for dinner later on. Special Ed (minus the hat) asked if I wanted to climb part of the hill and I said yes so we headed up to the nearest ridge. Here are some pictures.

Chicken Assholes

On Saturday I met up with a bunch of friends in Hongdae for a night out. We started off at US 66 for some quiet drinks before heading over to the more busy and wilder Tin Pan. There were about 10 of us all together and it was fun to go out with the old gang as I've been taking it easy lately. We got our drink on there for awhile then Rachel Lynn decided we needed to go dancing in a real club. I'm still confused why we ended up around the corner at Halabooji as it's the worst nightclub in the world.

All that evening we had been going to the crappiest bars in Hongdae and so Shelly and I snuck out to get some food. We didn't really know exactly what we wanted and tried a few places but they all seemed to be closing. (It was three am) Finally we choose a Chinese restaurant that was had a million red lanterns lighting the place. We still didn't really know what we wanted to eat so we settled on a dish in the chicken part of the menu. When it comes to us it looked deep fried and good but once we tasted it we found the chicken to be black and hard to chew.

Unfortunately for us we had picked the worst part of the chicken and killed ourselves laughing once we figured it out. Chicken anus is one of the worst meals I've had in Korea and still don't know why it's on the menu.

I Love Seoul

The seasons are definitely changing here. This week is the start of the period between air conditioners and floor heating. In Calgary terms it's time to wear your hoodie everyday. Last night I went to meet Heidi, Saejin and Chung Sun for dinner at Gecko's. While in the crowded subway I looked out the window and suddenly remembered why I love Seoul so much.

My favorite place to ride the subway is across the Han River. I love it because when riding Line Number 1 you come shooting out of Noryangjin Station and its closed off rail lines and suddenly are on a bridge crossing 16 lanes of traffic. As you look out, all you see are the alternating colours of car lights. Red, white, red, white. The cars are slowly moving along in a constant flow of hood to trunk.

As quickly as the lights hypnotise, you are suddenly crossing the darkness of the Han River where only a few tour boats quietly play. As calming as this is the North side of the river erupts again with its eight lanes of traffic running people home before the subway plunges into darkness again. I love being surrounded by the business of a big city.

Don't get me wrong. People still annoy me but I love the sheer number of people here that attempt it.

Stereotyping in Korea

These are pictures from supplements I have for teaching. The kids were learning, "Where are you from?" Personally I want to be from Germany. It looks like they have the most fun.

No pictures

Yesterday at work I had a folder placed in front of me and was told to sign next to my name. I assumed it had to do with it being pay day but was then told in two words, "picnic go". This made me listen closer to what was being said in Korean to the others and figured it out that today was to be a field trip to Incheon for dyeing clothes in natural dyes. The only crappy part was that I lent my camera to Saejin so he could take pictures of his new office for his website.

I usually carry my camera with me all the time and enjoy snapping away. Here are some of the pictures I missed throughout the day:

1. Tiny kids wearing pink dish washing gloves that ran up to their shoulders.
2. Chili peppers and a row of rice drying on the sidewalk.
3. A toy dog with pink ears was sat in a suitcase being pulled by a sprinting grandma desperate to make it across the street.
4. A huge kind golden lab innocently hanging out in front of a Dog Soup Restaurant unaware of the menu behind him. (Some Koreans eat dog but it's a Korean breed raised exclusively to be eaten. This lab belongs to the owner of the 7-11 next door.)

Roadtrip to Suncheon...#3

As the sun set on us and the temple we decided a bowl of makoli (a milky rice wine that farmers and construction workers love to drink on hot summer days but that we love all the time) was the perfect reward for walking up a hill (we easily reward ourselves). There were a bunch of restaurants set up just outside of the temples entrance serving the stuff but their food menus were all fish so we had to wait and eat in Suncheon.



We choose to go to a restaurant we used to visit for some delicious kalbi. Whenever I mention to Koreans I used to live in Sunchoen their immediate response is that the food there is the best in Korea. I have to agree. Along with our meat came 15 side dishes (14 if you ask Rachel Lynn because she refuses to count, smell or eat the hot plate of corn nibbletes because it looks too much like cat puke). From here we went to another nearby makoli pub (these things are the latest trend to hit Korea) where we got well our main fuel before heading to our old home Elvis Bar.





When Heidi and I worked in Suncheon this was the only decent bar. The photo above is of the owners, Christal and Elvis himself, who have always been extremely kind to us. They had us over to their house for delicious meals many times and would hang out with us on days we went to play soccer or just hung out in the park. The bar still felt very homely (they had a ton of pictures up on the wall of old friends). On this night (like many times before) I was able to convince a well oiled Elvis into hitting the Korean Night Club just down the street. It was the perfect end to the night.

The next morning we got up late and headed over to the Outback that is now in town. This seemed so out of place in our Suncheon (when we lived there finding Cheddar cheese a score and a secret you only told dear friends). I love road trips.

Road Trip to Suncheon...#2

I'm not a big fan of visiting Temples, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, Yoga parlours (whatever your crutch may be) because once you've been to one of them you quickly see a pattern and the next one really isn't that different. But since I arrived in Korea I have heard about Hyangillam Temple in Yeosu. This temple is found high up on the mountain right on the edge of the sea and offers a great view of boats, fishermen and tiny islands jutting up out of the water. The temple itself is one of the smaller ones I have been to but the hardest to reach. The first picture is of Rachel Lynn as we started our twenty minute climb up the hill. Along the side of the stairs were many statues and gates to go through.



Right near the top of the stairs there is a section where you have to lube up and squeeze through some rocks. Dong Soo kept bugging Heidi saying she was lucky to of lost some weight recently because he doubted if she would make it. Luckily we all made it through and got to the top for some great views. The leaves were just starting to lose their greenness and being on top of the mountain instead of in polluted Seoul you could actually smell the new season.

Road Trip to Suncheon

This weekend was a long weekend. (Not in a traditional Monday off work sort of way, it was just LONG). Early Saturday morning I went down to the Southern coast of Korea to visit old friends in Suncheon with Heidi and Rachel Lynn and had a great time. Getting there took us only four hours as we took the KTX (high speed bullet train) but getting home was a LONG, hot, LONG, boring, LONG uncomfortable seven hour bus ride.

I love Seoul because it's always busy and people are constantly doing something no matter the time of day but I also enjoy getting away to quieter settings. Suncheon is one of these places. The pace of life is noticeably slower and it's just so relaxing. This is a picture of farmers loading up a truck with ?????? (I'm no farmer so let's just say food).



Heidi, RL and I decided to head down there because it had been over a year since we last visited and in that time my good friend Dong Soo has moved into a huge apartment and had his second child. His daughter has grown so much in that time and his wife was as kind as always.





We didn't stay long in his apartment. We needed to do some sort of sight seeing so that we could enjoy our night of binge drinking without the guilty conscience of this being just another roadtrip of a night of binge drinking. We headed off to Yoesu and went to Hyangillam Temple (a National Park where the temple clings to the side of mountain looking out over the Sea.

Useless Information

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 5 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Turns out there are only 5 known people with my same name. That's a good thing because it reduces the odds that one of them will turn out psycho and spoil my name. (Think of all the innocent Adolf Hitlers, Saddam Husseins and Tom Cruises of this world).

More useless facts:
Cameron ranks 697th for male names. (Tied with 12 others)
Metcalf ranks 1298th for last names. (Tied with 156 others)
There are 0 people known as Cosmo Kramer.

Happy Bus Drivers

This morning I got on the bus and a pleasant if not cheerful driver welcomed me. Happy bus drivers scare me. I assume they are drunk.

Still 29

Happy Birthday Mom! I'll give you some of your own advice now, be good. Don't gorge yourself on food. Don't drink til you puke. Don't smoke more cigarettes than the doctor says. Make this 29th birthday the best one yet. I'll call you this weekend.

Sign Language

In case there was too much politics in the last post here are some funny signs around my area to distract.



If your bifocals keep you from reading the sign above the shop it says, "Underwood/ Nature friendly-life/ Feel the comfortable mind/ Communication man with natural/ You can feel all of place with Underwood." This is either bad English or it is poetic and miles above my feeble mind.



Now, that's marketing.



For all I know about Indian/Middle Eastern food this may be legitimate but I like that you can order the fool.

This is News

I was getting ready for work watching my favorite Infomercial (GMA) when I saw the news scrolling by. Normally, at this half hour local news by a peppy host is what plays but because this is Korea we just get headlines strolling by. They were the normal sort (earthquake, scandal, sexual scandal, Business scandal, new panda....) what you would expect, but buried last on the list was this. 200 Dead in Iraq in the Last Four Days . This completely surprised me. How can this be the least interesting bit of news?

I went to the CBS website to see if I could find this headline and came up with a more devastating bit of news:

Iraqi deaths are running at a high rate. According to an Associated Press count, 708 Iraqis have been reported killed in war-related violence this month, or just more than 44 per day, compared to a daily average of more than 27 since the AP began tracking deaths in April 2005.

Imagine if 200 people died in four days in California because of violence this would definitely be first in the news. 2 deaths in Rome from a subway crash listed as more important than the 200 Iraqis deaths. The media could cover this war a little more closely but I think the real people guilty of ambivalence are the general public both old and young.

We the people need to follow this and need to protest. This brought an end to the Vietnam war and a movement should take place to end this one. But it won't. Students today are rich, pampered and have a lot more to do than care about a war so far away and removed from their circle of friends.

Sadam was a horrible man but what the "Coalition" forces have made (civil war) is just going to provide more anger and hatred towards the West. This was the wrong war and the wrong time. I am so glad Canadian forces never joined in here and I hope they continue to fight in Afghanistan. This is where the war on terrorism needs to be fought. (Talk about cut and run America). I'm proud of what we are doing there and recognize the danger troops face there but it's where the real war needs to be fought.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Today is test day. All my morning classes have been canceled and I have no afternoon ones which means except for my preppping, I'm all but done for the day and it's only 10:30. Of course they tell me about this test day once I was already here and had prepared for today's classes. So to pass the time I'm downloading the Flames/Leafs game, my copy from Sunday was stuck in slow motion making it unwatchable (unless I sat there for six hours and was stoned). I already know the score but figure I can waste three hours watching the game anyhow.

Yesterday around two o'clock the air raid sirens were given their three month workout to blow the dust out of them. The first time I heard the things, way back in 1875, I was a little surprised and worried. It's very easy to forget that Korea is still at war. But after hearing them wail and watching Koreans ignore them you soon learn they are just an annoying whine. What I found funny was that the teachers continued to teach through the sound as the children clutched their more sensitive ears in pain. This went on for about five minutes but it felt like fifty.

Lady in the Water

Saturday night Saejin and I went to the movies. He loves horror movies so we went to see Lady in the Water. I had heard that it was a bad movie. It wasn't supposed to be scary and was to be more of a Fairy Tale than a horror movie.

If this were true how can you explain my screaming out loud in the theatre and my heart racing as I squirmed in my seat? (No, I'm not a wuss). I jumped more than five times and loved the story. I can understand why others (90% of this theatre) didn't like it. There was no major climax and the normal twists you come to expect from M. Night Shyamalan were more comical than creepy. It was a fun movie and one I recommend.

Darts for Dummies

After Lady in the Water, Saejin and I went to eat some Japanese Ramien in Hongdae. It was still early so we decided to go for a beer and went to "Cocks bar". We had been here before and knew that it had cold beer, played decent music and a lot of empty dart boards lined one wall.

On this night the bar was fairly busy and we got sat in a corner nearest the boards. The boards are all electronic and keep score for you so as long as you hit the board you get points. We watched a couple of games before deciding we could do it. As beginners we choose different strategies though.

Saejin threw the darts as hard as he could while I choose to drink more and let my game mature. In the end we picked up many tips from the poster in the bathroom and both ended up doing alright. We are now hooked on playing 701 and each won an equal amount of games. We will definitely be back. In my mind, this is the best bar invention since Golden Tee sucked loonies out of my pockets with Graham and Eamon.

This Weekend in Food

The blooger handbook says that in order to keep a blog active one must write about food. Not because people care but because it's an excuse to post pictures. Friday night I met Saejin in his office and we headed over to Itaewon. We choose an outdoor Korean restaurant and quickly ordered beef. First we had long stripes of fresh beef still attached to the bone fried up on the barbecue. The second picture is a dish that most people would stay clear of, it was a pile of raw beef, with slices of pear and a raw egg on top. It was a little to chewy but yummy.

I didn't take pictures of my other meals but will share them with you (not because you care but) because I love how cheap food and restaurants can be here. I had Vietnamese garlic fried rice, Japanese ramien and a Thai green chicken curry and none of them cost more than seven dollars. There is also no tipping in Korea which makes restaurants affordable.

Daily Trek Home

These are some of the things I pass on my way home.



The first is one of the many rice fields ready to be cultivated that the bus passes.




The second and third are from the tiny roads I snake through on my way to the apartment. I take these cramped streets because there is less foot traffic than what is found on the main road. Notice the lines of flags hanging from the strings (used for festivals) this is my proof that these things can be found everywhere.

No Substitute Teachers

I've been here for the last 73 years and have seen a lot. Most things don't bother me because I've seen it all before and have long accepted this is not Canada. Today I saw something new.

My classroom is in the computer lab at the end of the hall right next door to the fifth grade class. Chul Ung, one of the students in the class, qualified for a race in Seoul today and so his teacher Mr. Oh brought him there. This left the 18 other students in the class completely unsupervised all day long. The worked their way through their math book, then made noise, watched a video, made louder noises, came to a computer class and then had their English lesson. They did all this without any teacher watching over them.

They were noisy at times but always are. They did a good job all on their own leaving me impressed. Good thing Ralph Klien is done because a substitute teacher it turns out is one educational tool that is expendable.

Glorified Infomercial

My alarm belts out its cry at 7:03 (I have a thing for odd numbers) every morning and I slam it to snooze at least two times. On good days I make it to the shower by 7:21. As I drag my body to the shower I hit the power button on the TV so that while in the shower I can have some background noise. I used to have cable in my old apartments and in Suji I would listen to BBC News (great) but in Seoul I listened to CNN International (slightly better than CNN America). Right now the only English Channel is AFN (Armed Forces Network) that play shows from America.

As it's morning they play Good Morning America (for those in the know, GMA). This show drives me insane. As far as I can tell it's a glorified informercial. It's terrible. The hosts are some of the fakest people in the world giggling, smilling and bantering about genuine piles of shit. When it is their turn to interview others every segment is just to plug a new book, movie, song, medical advancement for profit, political message for office or safety message used to scare people into buying stuff.

I do realise that I am just a cranky person in the morning but this fluff gets passed off as a newsprogram (go online it's found under the news)and it's not. There is very little difference between it and an entended commercial. I will take CNN International with it's flaws over GMA anyday.

Teacher's Class = Holidays

Yesterday while preparing for my classes (busily reading my book) Jewel (the English supervisor at school) came in to tell me I would be starting a teachers class next week. Teachers in Korea need to attend classes to show they are still learning and English is a popular choice. This class will run for the ten consecutive Wednesdays leading up to winter vacation. The classes are three hours long and all this work is considered overtime.

I was then given what would turn out to be a one sided option of choosing a) Overtime pay or b) 4 Additional Days off for Holidays. I choose the extra money because I usually spend way too much while on holiday. Jewel accepted this and went to tell the school's accountant my decision.

After a long chat in the darkest corner of the school she came back and said it would be better if I took the extra days off. The accountant was worried that if she paid this overtime the money for my regular pay checks might run out. I pretended to be upset by this and made a fuss so that Jewel would feel guilty while in my head I worked on some calculations. With both Christmas and New Years falling on Mondays I could have a total of 16 days off at Christmas and only end up using 4 of my 14 days off.

This means I may be coming home. I will let you all know soon.

Perhaps the Finest Fruit Salad Ever

To get food here at school you line up by budding in front of the hungry kids and have the masked ajumas slop food into the provided circle on your tin tray. Today one of the smaller circles was filled with a fruit salad I can't stop thinking about. It had a very curious mixture of fruit.

The bulk of it was made by a large amount of apple, with bits of it's cousin the pine apple joining in, a few slivers of canned orange, mashed green kiwi and bright red cherry tomatoes added colour. This was smothered in a runny mayo sauce which made the salad taste happening.

But the real party in my mouth was about to take place. As I chewed I could taste raisins exploding while cheap stringy mozerella lay dead on my tongue. I've never seen these two ingredients added to a fruit salad before. I'm a little bit embarrased to say I actually enjoyed it.

The Mighty Mighty North

Here is a great link to a funny comic strip about the North Koreans . Check it out.

What do you think? The way South Koreans mostly see it (unless your my friend BoHeon who reads way too many military sites) is that it's the North just being themselves and no need to pay too close attention to. They are the noisy person in the corner of the class you have long learnt to ignore. Whenever these little events take place there is little that changes here in Seoul to make the average person notice. The media does cover it but not in a scary "are you prepared?" (ala CNN, FoxNews, Sun Media)sort of way, there is no panic from the citizens.

That usually comes from the American army that keeps all the soldiers on base for a couple of weeks under a strict curfew. I like this because it empties out a lot of the restaurants and bars in Itaewon. (I'll write later about some retarded encounters I've had with soldiers later.)

So while the world works itself into a ball of frazzled nerves, I think they should watch and learn from the South Koreans. The South here is the one in the firing line with the most to lose. Seoulites understand that if attacked the city and country would be in chaos but the North simply won't do that because it's suicide. Having heard these saber rattlings many times before it just gets boring and redundant. Nothing will come of this unless America wants something to happen (another widely held view here).

Hockey Night In Seoul

Other than family and friends, the only thing I miss about Canada is watching hockey. Luckily there is an amazing website, that you can download pretty much any game from. I've now watched both Flames games this year and plan to watch all of them. The only problem is I have to remember when the games are and to avoid any websites that may have the scores posted on them (not as easy as you think) because it takes awhile to download the games.

Last night I watched the Flames beat the Oilers and had three thoughts:

1. I hate the new guy (Drew Remenda) that was doing the colour commentary. (I'm not sure why yet, I just do.)

2. I hate that Flames fans were chanting "Oilers Suck!" I know the Oil fans did it first but have more class than that. You cheer teams on, you don't degrade them. That's such a WWE sort of thing to do and follows a horrible mob mentality. Stop.

3. I hate that the Flames will still struggle to score (give Tanguay time) this year but that's alright because Kiprusoff is amazing.

Choosok Holiday #6...The End

I have to be at work in under twelve hours. Since going to Incheon all I have been doing is relaxing. I have been busy trying to win the Stanley Cup on NHL 2007 and eating a tonne of food. (Read being geeky, lazy and slob like in nature.)

First it was Thai on Friday before ditching out on drinking (I was grouchy) and spent Saturday watching Saejin recover from a hangover. We ate Domino Pizza that night to try and absorb the booze from his tummy while I inhaled it because it was yummy. Tonight was chicken/pork souvlaki(?) and taziki(?) from a great Greek restaurant in Itaewon.

I love vacations but need to get back to the routine. If I don't I'll end up being an overweight professional gamer with food scraps littering my clothes.

Choosok Holiday #5...An Empty City

For Choosok, Koreans go to their hometowns and bow. Today is the day of the bowing leaving Seoul empty. It was weird waking up and not have a chain of honking buses running outside my window. I went for a jog and the path along the stream was barren of unstable rollerbladers arms stretched out taking up the whole lane and void of mad bicyclers zipping past inches from making contact. I also ran past a normally busy subway stop and failed to see any escaloitering taking place.

(I found this new word on a local website where morons go to bitch about Korea. 99.9% of the time these people annoy me but I did chuckle when I saw this creative word. Escaloiter: (v.) the act of stepping off a moving escalator and then stopping immediately in the path of all those behind while looking around (usually with an expression of confusion or vacuousness). This does happen in Korea but you can push them out of the way without them getting upset.

Choosok Holiday #4...Heidi's question

Earlier today Heidi called after getting an e-mail from a guy she is "dating"(it's complicated) where he asked what her favorite flower was. She past this question onto me and I drew a complete blank. I came up with two (a rose and a tulip) but I wouldn't say I like either of them as a favorite. A couple of minutes later I came up with snap dragon flowers but somehow I don't think they would make a nice bouquet. As I write I guess I'll go with an over sized white magnolia but I'm more sad to say I just don't know that many flowers. Teach me!

Choosok Holiday #3...Day trip to...?

My friend Rachel-Lynn has her best friend Marilyn visiting from Canada this holiday so this was an excuse for Heidi and I to tag along out of Seoul for the day. We met up at 8:30 am on Wednesday with the plan of making the 9:30 ferry out to Dok Jok Island. Around 9:29 our plans changed as we were still ten subway stops and a taxi ride away from the port. But we remained hopeful and went through the motions of going out to the boat terminal anyway. As we got into the taxi we tried with all our might to come up with plausible reasons why the boat was going to be leaving late and we could actually make it. None of them came true.

We were stuck in Inchoen for the day much to Heidi's delight. The morning was spent out by the pier eating some breakfast. We then tried out the public exercise equipment that sat a few feet away. These things were great you lifted your own body weight using different muscles with many of them and on others you got to spin and wiggle. I'm not sure if they are set up back home yet but they should be no matter all the warning/liability signs you would need to post around them.

We then got to watch a water show to Simon and Garfunkel songs in front of steroid sized dolphins. But to say watch would be an abuse of the word as it was more about posing for different photo ops we've come to learn since being in Korea.

Choosok Holiday...Incheon's Chinatown

Right across the street from Incheon Station is Korea's Chinatown. I'd heard about this place because I love to eat jjajjangmyeon (noodles in a black bean sauce) and this is the birthplace of this fine, fine food. Of course like most Chinese food outside of China this food is just a local thing past off as Chinese. Unfortunately we bought tickets for a city tour and there wasn't enough time to wander around the area and eat.

It was a cool little area and had signs posted that gave tidbits of history. Before the Korean war Korean-Chinese were a powerful group and made up a large population of Incheon. But soon after the war the Korean-Chinese were left with nothing and there is only a sliver of the original population left in the area. (Korean-Chinese are still not treated very nicely here but people love the food.)

We walked around the area salivating at the plethora of menus and then made our way to Freedom Park (I love propagandadic (is that a word?) like names) at the top of the hill. Here we got a good view of docks and cranes and boats and old people drinking soju while playing cards.

Choosok Holiday...MacArthur and a Beach

At the top of Freedom Park is a nice memorial to MacArthur and the Incheon Landing where America led the way in winning back the South. America gets a bad rap with younger generations in Korea but if you ask any of the older people here and they love America and MacArthur is the man.

We then walked back to Incheon Station to catch the city's tour bus. It took us past Woolmido (an amusement park on the ocean where the rumour is they try to make you puke before the rides stop) and onto a ferry. We were headed to an island fifteen minutes away. As the bus left the boat and onto the worlds scariest on ramp (no side rails and 90 degree like turn to make land) we were in the proper country side. Or so I thought.

Ten minutes later the bus stopped at the Incheon airport (aka Korea's International airport). This was just another route onto the island and one I have never taken. Heidi, Rachel-Lynn and I then tried to count the number of times we have come and gone from the place. (FYI...I'm at 19 times now, but what is sadder is that I arrived when Kimpo in Seoul was still the International airport).

After a quick nap we soon awoke at the beach. We sat out in the sun and enjoyed it being Choosok because Koreans are all in their home towns leaving the beach empty. It was a nice afternoon and definitely a beach I will return simply because of its proximity to my house (1 hour away).