Onshin's Fall Festival

Last Friday was our school's Fall Sports day. The kids had fun, the teachers ran around trying to keep things organized and the parents got drunk taking it all in. It was a good day.


First up were the sprints to crush the spirits of the slow and weak. In the second picture the two boys running were dead last but they were giving it all they could.


The school was divided into two teams (The Blues vs The Whites) and played a variety of games agains one another for points. The kids were insistant that I choose a team to cheer for but I remained neutral on the pink team.


The kids then put on some shows.

What day is it?

My body, mind and rigid schedule of TV programs are all out of whack. The last six days I've had off for Chuseok (a holiday celebrated by car trips to hometowns that take an obscene amount of time - my friend Sung Ho drove (very slowly) for ten hours back to Seoul and it normally takes him under four hours.) I climbed out of bed thinking a whole week's worth of work lay ahead but thankfully it's already the weekend. I have two more days of rest ahead, then two days of work, then a Wednesday off for National Foundation Day (I have no idea what that means) before two more days of work to end the week. It is seriously confusing to me and my body.

It's a zit.

Today I woke up with a fresh, red, volcano sized zit growing up in the corner of my forehead. It's one of those zits that needs to be popped but just hasn't stopped swelling yet to make it happen. I've been forced to carry it around with me all day where each and every class or teacher has talked to me about it. Their reactions to it were all different but the bluntness in their delivery was the same. They all spit out their comments in just under a minute after saying hi.

The concerned, "Cam teacher, what that? Ouchie?"
The confused, "Cam teacher angry? Why red here?"
The observant, "Cam teacher you face same as Jee Hae."

Koreans love to point out the obvious no matter how socially unacceptable it may be. If there is a fat person in the room, Koreans will call them fat and more often than not it's right to the persons fat face. It's definitely something we don't do back home but here it's accepted. So with a zit the size of a chocolate Hershey Kiss I exploited it as a teachable moment. I'm sure the next chance they get there will be drawing a picture of me and my ginormous "jit".

Chuseok Gifts

I've come home from the subway the last couple of days with huge bruises on my legs from being clobbered by the assorted gifts boxes people have been carrying home from work. Each Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) companies will buy their employees practical gifts to help celebrate the three day holiday.

You can get fancy gifts boxes of toiletries, cleaning supplies, cooking oils, alcohol, dried seaweed, fruits, meat or it's retarded cousin -and my all time favorite- cases of Spam (I quickly re-gifted this one when I got it.) If you can buy it in the supermarket chances are there is a gift basket made up with the stuff in it. The carbon footprint of these things is horrendously high. This year I got three bottles of grape seed oil all individually wrapped in a second protective layer of plastic that have then been placed in decorative molding that fits into it's own box which comes in a branded paper bag. (As I don't cook, I will be re gifting this too.)

This year Chuseok falls right after the weekend and our school has the Thursday off so I have a six day holiday starting this Friday that I am desperately needing. I'm just sticking around town but have plans for a few nights out with friends which should be nice because Seoul completely empties out during this time. It's eerie when this city is dead but definitely helps you relax.

Last of the Old Crew

Here's an old update from an afternoon I spent with Rachel Lynn before my vacation and before she left Korea for her trek home to Canada by land and sea. We were completely unsupervised and yet somehow managed to stay out of trouble. We sat out in the outfield in seats an equal distance between the action on the field and the cheap beer from the Family Mart below. Rachel Lynn picked to cheer for the LG Twins and I choose to root on the Doosan Bears who weren't even playing just in hopes someone around me would point out my mistake. Disappointingly, nobody did.

The seventh inning stretch came in the middle of the sixth so we took full advantage of it.

Monet In Seoul

Saejin and I have been talking about going to the Monet Exhibition since it opened in June. Twice already we have made it to the area around the musuem planning on going but were easily distracted by anything, well shinny or bright or digestible or that starts with a "b" and ends in "eer".

With the show a week from closing we made it there this weekend and pretended we knew a thing or two about the impressionist movement. The Seoul Museum of Arts is one of those museums that forces your head a little higher, forbids you from lifting your feet as you walk and you are expected to speak to others without looking at them. Making it three quaters of the way through the museum we had to stop off for a coffee to wake us up. It was boring but fun doing something different and we will be heading back there soon to fake our knowledge of Vincent Van Gogh's exhibit that is coming this November.

Feeling Lazy

This week has been a quiet one with a good chunk of my classes being canceled so the kids can get ready for the Fall Festival that I am assuming will be sometime next week (I'm officially the last person to hear anything around the school). Because I'm lazy I'll just post some of my kids work.

Koreans love their sleep.

Koreans are hard on their atheletes when they dissapoint. (It says his team all died after their loss).

Koreans kids learn how to lie early in life.

This Korean has been refered to the guidance councelor for a series of test to determine if he is fit for a classroom setting.

An Oldie But A Goodie

Back before my holidays and before Heidi left for Texas and added "ya'll" to her lexicon, we went to Seodaemoon Prison. This place is where the Japanese sent political prisoners during their latest reign in Korea. It has now been transformed into a great little museum.

Here Heidi (using the skills she learnt from watching hours of America's Next Top Model) captures the terror prisoners must of felt before being locked into upright coffins. Once the door was closed there was no room to move and the prisoners would be left to pretty much die. In the basement there were many more exhibits showing the brutality of the Japanese and to help sell the disgusting things we were looking at screams of pain and suffering played out of the speakers.

A huge Korean flag hanging outside of one of the wings of prison cells.

A view from the inside of one of the wings.

Heidi was brave enough to climb into one of the cells, I get shivers of just thinking about it.


The only patch of lush green grass in Seoul is here in the prison.

A guard house at the back of the prison. We spent about an hour and half wandering around the place before hopping a cab to Itaewon for dinner. It was here that the we got our biggest scare of the day as a yellow and black insect was stuck to my back and I flicked it over to Heidi's side of the seat. Everytime we tried to kill the thing it jumped around sending us into fits of screams that proved the Japanese would of had no trouble getting either of us to squeal.

Friday Night in Seoul

Since getting back into Seoul it's been many quiet weekends but last Friday I met up with Shelly, Reagen and Saejin to change that. We started off with some pub grub at Gecko's before marching up to Soho to collect the tail end of their happy hour. With only ten minutes before eleven killed happy hour I watched Shelly load her section of the table up with eight rum and cokes while Saejin had four gin tonics brought to his corner. I wanted to do the same but the good angel on my shoulder (whom oddly looked like Rachel Lynn repeating our new found mantra of, "we're being good tonight") made me order a single gin tonic.

It was a good thing I was being sensible because Jung He (above) is the owner of Soho who gives away too many free drinks. We had at least three rounds of green shots come to our table putting us in the mood for some dancing.

Reagen did hers right at the table with her newfound friend from the next table who was drinking shots of tequilla from his own bottle. (They of course are doing the car dance that has been imported from Japan.) We soon left for Pulse but not before Chan Young made us drink another sweet shot of green goobers.

At Pulse we did our best to slowly bring the quiet bar into dancing mode but seeing as it's a gay bar this didn't take long. Once this happened more friends showed up and mysteriously more shots appeared at the table from the onwer of this bar. Having not gone out all together for over two months we admitted we didn't have the legs for an all nighter with Egg McMuffins as our reward so we headed home quite early. It was a great seeing everyone togther again and more importantly it was a good prep for Jes' birthday this Friday.

Bad Habits

I have a horribly bad habit of making ridiculous faces in pictures which leads to a blog with pictures of me few and far between. While in Canada I visited a renowned psychologist who helped me discover the root of the problem and she came up with a strategy to curb my evil ways (it's called smiling). This battle won't be won over night and is one I must wrestle with whenever a camera comes out but hopefully this means more pictures of me in the near future. Visit often and remember it's free to continue leaving comments no matter what you have to say. (I am not easily offended.) My vanity loves hearing compliments on my looks just don't mention the double chin, beer gut, thinning hair or oily forehead. Thanks for being so kind.

News Flash!

Every couple of years one of the TV Channels will do an indepth investigation on English teachers in Korea and stir up a lot of panic. A couple of years ago it was how the Male English species was corrupting the innocent women of Korea. It was filmed from handbags and other hidden locations in the style of a nature program trying to understand the beast. On Wednesday they were at it again this time looking at the wide spread drug use(a huge no-no) among teachers in Korea.

The report started out with a ex-girlfriend (bitterly?) exposing her American ex as a lazy teacher who only cared about drugs. He did. They followed him for a night and showed him bragging about teaching hung over and without a care. These teachers do exist here and you can spot them right when you meet or work with them. After watching him in action they then had the police come by and bust him. Straight away they tested him for weed and he failed. What this guy was doing is extremely illegal here in Korea. This guy deserverd to be busted, it's well known that you don't smoke weed in Korea.

This report then started to ask him questions about drug use among English teachers and this "expert" claimed 2 out of 10 of his friends did them. This of course was taken as evidence that it's rapant among teachers here and not as a survey of his crew. The next leap was made that drug users must be here on fake degrees so the investigation went on to look at how easy it was to obtain a fake degree from Thailand. It was all a bit ridiculous as the report blamed these foreigners, Thailand and inept government official who couldn't figure out a real diploma without sealed transcripts from a University were fake. The report did mention how desperate some places are for teachers that they don't care to follow the law and I think this need to be examined more.

The schools (hogwans/academies - not the public system) are giving away jobs. There is a minimal interview (to see that you can speak English) and then the ball starts rolling to work here. It's ridiculously easy. In this report that busted the Ex and his friends (police went through his phone and contacted any suspicious friends to also test and six in total were detained) they questioned the school about their teachers and the owners played the role of the victim. This is not true.

Schools know when their teachers are hung over but they turn a blind eye as long as a mother never complains. The school has invested so much money in a teacher that short of murder (it took my friend a huge amount of energy, strained working relations and finally blackmail to get a pedophile fired from her school) the school will just run out the year long contract.

There will be a couple of weeks of suspicious looks from the easy to rile Koreans (I want to know how many hogwans got phone calls about their teachers on Thursday) but it will all blow over soon enough. It always does.

I Think I'm Turning Korean, I Think I'm Turning Korean, I Really Think So!

It's raining again today and I'm craving Kimchi Pajoen and some makali or dongdongju to wash it down. On any given rainy day curious Koreans will ask, "What do you eat when it rains?" It's of course a rhetorical question that sets them up for a five minute speech on the glories of Pajeon, a Korean pancake that comes in many flavours (Kimchi, beef, Veggie, Seafood) and the wonders of various rice wines and why they give you a splitting headache the next day (it has to do with the amount you drink.) Today I've had these cravings all day long without anyone even mentioning rainy day traditions.

On Saturday night (yet another rainy day), Saejin and I met up with Yun Jeong and her coworker for dinner. We decided on the Rainy Day Special for dinner and found the run down, humble place in the picture above. It's down a tiny road barely big enough for a single car among a string of restaurants.

We started off on these pancakes and sidedishes before ordering up some fried up meat and veggies and a second seafood pajeon.

We downed the food with first a bottle of Makoli and then this more refined keetle of dongdongju.

This is the greasy grill right next to our table at the front of the shop where all the magic was done.

Back to the Korean Posts

Not much time left in the workday (I killed time watching a movie today instead of blogging) so I'll keep this one solely focussed on the weather. I love how set Korean weather is. It's now September so the weather has started to cool. The heat has been turned off and the oven door has a small leak in it. The sticky hot weather of last week is now a constant warm.

The falls here are amazing. Koreans call autumn something like high sky time as the clouds part and blue skies reign (admitedly today it's rainning but the clear skies will come, it's September). It is definitely my favorite season both here and back home. Having just come from Calgary where the expression, "If you don't like the weather wait ten minutes" is constantly and annoyingly proven true I love how predictable the forecasts are here.

Calgary...The Last Days (Finally)

On one of my last days in Calgary I hung out with Graham, Dominika and their kid Maya. We started off by going out for a nice Pasta lunch down on 17th Ave and then browsed some stores. I somehow was able to get into another book store even though I already had bought 20 books to bring back and didn't need anymore but what makes this trip great is that Graham had to spend money.

As this rarely happens I got a huge rush of well-being watching him pull out his wallet to buy Maya a newer Dora the Explorer book to replace the one she had gnawed down to a yucky mess. We then crossed the street where Dominika bought us the tastiest cupcakes in town. (More money emptying out of the weasle's pockets...I love it.) After this we went back to their place, ate the cupcakes before Graham and I got permission to go and play bocce. It was a great afternoon.

My final night in town I met up with Jackie and Jen for a couple of beer down in Kensington. Lucky for us it was mini burger night so for a dollar we were able to get normal sized burgers. It was a nice night of casual beer and conversation. It's always good fun hanging out with these two.

Banff

After an unexpected Sunday afternoon drinking session Greg and I got up way too early to go experience Banff in all its glory. We started out by riding the pricey gondola (we were in no shape for hiking) up to the top of Sulphur mountain to take in the views of Banff.

Going up.

The town of Banff.

Sulphur mountains modest backside.

The 1960s building the gondola climbs up to.

Banff's first weather station.

After our 25 bucks were counted for we headed down off the mountain and towards downtown.

The view from where we parked which thankfully doesn't capture all the construction that closed off the whole main street of downtown.

The Bow River taken from "the bridge" you cross to get downtown.

After some much needed lunch we started to feel better and headed out to a lake North of the town where we wandered around for the rest of the afternoon.