The living fossils...goats

This weekend was full of firsts for me.  After work on Friday, we drank and then took the midnight bus to Seoul.  We arrived in Seoul at 4:00 am and decided it was best to just sleep in the bus terminal for we needed to be at Camp Kim at 8:30. 

We got to the bus terminal and we found all of these seating areas surrounded by various faux-foliage.  So we chose one area to be out campground.  Our clothes had gotten wet on the bus because the floor of the bus was wet and we put our bags down.  So we took out our wet clothes and hung them around our area to dry.  It looked so much like camping that it prompted Robby to say "ah, I love camping."  At that moment this weird music came on and we could hear birds chirping.  It was perfect timing.  Camping!

Later when we were looking around the bus terminal, we passed a true picturesque scene.  We walked by a McDonald's where they had a bench with a statue of Ronald McDonald sitting and next to Ronald was an old Korean man just hangin' out.  It was hilariously anachronistic.

We finally got to Camp Kim which is the USO base and where we began our DMZ tour.  First we went to one of the underground caves that North Koreans had build in attempt to infiltrate South Korea.  Before the tunnel we got to watch a movie about the DMZ and how beautiful it is and how many wonderful wild animals live in the DMZ including "the living fossils...goats."  Bahahahaha

In the tunnel everyone had to duck to walk through because the ceiling was so low.  Everyone...except for me.  I ducked not once, not once.  Take that tall people, no back pain for me!  So many advantages!

We went to a spot where you could look into North Korea and we went to the train station that connected Seoul to Pyongyang.  But the most exciting part was going to the Joint Security Area and getting to step into North Korea.  Bam!

Later that evening we met a friend in Gangnam.  He took us around for drinking and one bar carded us.  Now, not only was this the first time I have ever been carded or seen anyone be carded in Korea, it was the first time I've ever been carded outside of North America.  However, I suppose I'm grateful and I take it as a compliment,

The next day we went to Everland, home of the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world.  It is the best roller coaster I have ever been on in my life.  It was awesome. 

Everland was Halloween themed when we got there (in the beginning of September) and everyone kept singing "Happy Halloween" and we were just like....not Halloween.  But it was cool because we got to go into this terrifying haunted house.  I love haunted houses; I go everywhere to get to the best ones.  This one was unexpectedly the best haunted house I've ever been in.  It was so scary.  I was genuinely terrified.  They did such a good job.

But the bext and most unexpected part about Everland and the whole trip was that we got to see a Liger!  I didn't know they were real.  But they are!  They are so bizarre looking.  Much bigger than a lion or a tiger.  They have tiger stripes and lion color.  So mythical-looking...wow, fantastic.

바 보

I was walking Benes today when I came across a couple with a dog.  (This is pretty rare, most people are terrified of dogs). 


The couple came up and started talking to Benes and they tried to get her to do some tricks.  Benes only knows "sit" in Korean, so "anja."  But Benes ain't the brightest crayon so the guy is going "anja!  anja!" and she was just staring at him with a look of sheer confusion on her face.  Then they tried "hand" or "som" and that wasn't happening either. 

So I patted Benes on the head and said "babo" which means "stupid" in Korean.  I was trying to make a joke like "she's dumb so she can't do tricks."  But the couple thought I meant that her name is "babo."

The guy then starts asking me "where are you from?" and all that.  Then he points to his girlfriend.  "My...girlfriend."  Then, he points to her again but looks directly at me.  "I love you," meaning "I love her."  Pronouns are tough...



So anyway,  I walked away but turns out they were going in the same direction as me so they started after me yelling "BABO!!!!  BAABOO!!!"in attempt to call Benes and get her attention.  I just laughed and laughed.


When we both crossed the street they called to Benes again, convinced she was going the wrong way although I had her on a leash, "Babo!!"



God this was so funny, SO funny.

You Can Call Me Jelly

 

I know I’ve talked about English names before.  But it’s a constant source of amusement and frustration to me.  Most of the time foreign teachers name the new students, thus “Atreyoo,” “Tobias,” “Mick,” “Raphael,” and such.  I tried to name one “Jafar” but he wouldn’t have it.  Anyway, sometimes either A, the students name themselves or B the Korean teachers name them.  Both A and B produce problems of what I deem epic proportions.

There are a few students at E-World who have named themselves.  These students are “Shinee” who named himself after his favorite K-Pop band, “Chandler” whose parents probably watch Friends, and most recently “Jelly,” whom after telling me her name proceeded to say “yum, yum.”  To this I throw my hands up.  Whatever you kids want, just don’t go to a western country and tell people that they can call you by your English name – Jelly.  No no no.

Far worse are the Korean teachers who think they know everything, which is why I teach two boys named “Raven,” a boy named “June,” a boy named “Jaeden,” and a girl named “Haley” but spells her name “Healy.”  How many times have I argued that Raven isn’t even a name and if it is a name, it’s a name for a black girl?  How many times have I told Healy and the Korean teachers that Healy is not how you spell Haley and that it can NEVER be spelled like that?  It’s like talking to a brick wall.  What’s far more infuriating is when I name a student and the Korean teachers try and tell me that it’s not a name.  Um…excuse me?  Who’s the native English speaker?  Don’t ever argue with me about that.

Just Introduce Yourself, and This Won't Happen

When Robby and I first joined the boxing gym, we were two of the very first members.  There were two trainers: 김 성 수ㅏand  이 기 봉and the few people who had joined the gym.  Since then, the gym has gotten really popular.  There are very many members and the two trainers have had to hire other trainers to compensate for the amount of members they now have.

Like I said, when we first started it was basically just us so the trainers learned our names and we learned theirs.  Now that the gym is so busy, there are three new trainers but we’ve never had the time to learn their names. 

No problem for us because we’ve come up with some pretty fitting nicknames for them.  The first day I saw the primary new trainer in the gym he was my trainer that day.  He was ruthless.  It was the most difficult workout I have ever had.  I wanted to die.  I really did.  I met Robby for drinking later and I said Robby, the new trainer, he’s like Hitler.  And thus, “Hitler.”

The next week, there was a second new trainer.  He’s really tall and when I trained with him I noticed a tattoo he has on his ankle of the Buddhist symbol/Swastika.  I am 99% sure that that tattoo is an association to Buddhism and not Nazism, but nonetheless, now his nickname is “Goebbels.”  It didn’t hurt that he somewhat resembles the infamous Reichsleiter.

I really like te last new trainer.  Now, most Korean dudes dress like hipsters.  Not because they are hipsters, but just because it’s Korean style.  But this guy, he is a hipster among hipsters.  And thus, we call him “Hipster.”

Now, we never thought these nicknames would come back to haunt us, but one night we saw Hitler out and about and so we called after him “Hitler!  What’s up  brother?”  We don’t know his real name!  I don’t think he picked up on it that time.  But I am certain that next time we won’t be so fortunate.

'7' Take Three

It had been a while since we’d been to the night club, and since Meg was out of town, and we were no longer were being invited to drink with the boxers, Robby and I decided it was time to go again.

The first part of our plan was to drink in Hakdong (which we love-I’ll get to this later or in another vignette) and see if we could spot some friends to bring with us.  You see, these past few weekends we’ve been sitting outside Wow Bar or various other places and people walk by that we know, from boxing or just from drinking around and meeting people, and they stop and drink with us.  We wanted this to happen.  But it wasn’t our night.  Our table at Wow was occupied and so were all the tables outside the ministops and all the other bars that have outdoor seating.  We were out of luck. 

Robby suggested we drink in Yosodong, and while I was reluctant because I thought for sure we’d never spot anyone we know there, our current predicament left us no other options.

We found a bar to drink outside of and we ordered some Soju and beer.  Not five minutes later a dude walked over to our table that we had apparently met last night in Hakdong (neither Robby nor I recall this) and he sat and drank with us for a bit.  We told him to bring his friends to our table but he told us they’d be too embarrassed because they don’t know English and even though Robby and I professed to speak as much Korean as possible he wouldn’t bring them over.  Anyway, he lives in Hakdong so we got his number and then off he went to drink with his friends. 

We were alone again, but that’s the best thing about being a wayguk in Korea.  We were not alone for long.  Soon after two guys sitting at the table next to us asked if they could join us.  So of course they could.  We told them of our night club plans which lead to a discussion about K-pop dancing (more on this later) and I stood up to perform my best 2NE1’s “내가 제이 잘나가” which is terrible but lead to the guys in the window that we were sitting in front of to perform their best “Gangnam Style” so there were random Korean dudes just Gangnam Styling in the window at us.  Greatness.  (Although I will say the novelty/hilariousness of seeing random people Gangnam Style down the streets is wearing off, especially after seeing a group of ten guys just Gangnaming down the street for a good three blocks the other day.) 

Anyway, so these guys were ALSO from Hakdong so we exchanged numbers and they told us they’d go to the night club with us.  We were still drinking when Robby (pretty drunk at this point) found a big weird-looking cricket, picked it up, and thought it would be hilarious to go up to a table of random Korean girls and put the cricket on their table and then just walk away.  This is why people hate foreigners.  Those girls lost their shit.  They freaked out and they were so mad.  We had to apologize profusely to them.  It was really funny in retrospect, but geez.

So we got to the night club finally.  And I will say this.  Koreans may love to sing, but they REALLY love to dance.  And not just dance.  Line dance.  They know at least 20 or 30 intricate line dances that I swear professional choreographers couldn’t pick up unless it was broken down for them step by step.  I mean, my god.  I tried so hard to learn even just one of the dances, but in the end I just looked like Lucy Ricardo in the Ballet Class episode where she just gives up and starts doing the Charleston.  That was me.

That was me until they extended the stage and invited people up there to dance.  No one was going up and I love attention so I decided to go up there and be the first one.  I did and DAMN I felt like a rockstar.

Eventually we left the night club because Robby was so gone.  On the cab ride home he just kept going “I love those people man, they’re good people.”  And I said, “Who?  The guys we met?”  And he said, “No.  All those people, man.” 

Jeju brings about the robot bitch slap

We went to Jeju for vacation for four days.  It was three foreigners (me, Meg, Robby) and 10 Koreans (Our boss May, her husband and his two nephews and one niece, May’s sister Jasmine and her three kids, and May’s mom.)  We took a ferry to Jeju and rented what I called “the party van.”  It was a big bus that more than comfortably fit all thirteen of us. 

I’ve spent some time with Jasmine’s three kids, as they are E-World students, but it was my first time meeting May’s husband’s nephews and niece.   Naturally, they were afraid of Meg, Robby and I because we’re foreigners.  We got to our pension and settled in.  We had two pensions and the foreigners were bunking with May’s husband’s niece and nephews.  Like I said, they were afraid of us.  Unbeknownst to me the youngest, 우 현 hid himself in the closet to escape.  I went to get a blanket and pillow out of the closet and when I opened the door 우 현 started screaming and I started screaming and we both just screamed at each other because he didn’t expect anyone to open the closet and I didn’t know anyone was in there.  It was so funny.  That kid turned into my bff for the trip. 

Later on in the trip we had a BBQ and we were talking about how our adult student Masashi is leaving back to Japan soon (he was in Korea working for the Expo which ends next weekend.)  Last week he gave all the teachers gifts.  We opened them and no one knew what they were so we asked Masashi.  He didn’t know either.  Lydia guessed it was a skirt, Robby guessed a table cloth, May guessed a scarf.  We’re having a goodbye party for Masashi on Friday and we decided we’re going to wear his mysterious gifts as capes to his goodbye party.  CANNOT WAIT.  It’s going to be hilarious.  We just decided, ‘”Oh, they’re capes.  Clearly capes.”

Later on in the trip Andrew, Jasmine’s son, found some crab/slug-like creatures at the beach.  He took them into the car and we were driving for a couple of hours when Robby asked ‘Andrew, are your friends ok?”  “Not ok.”  He responded.  “Die.  No in water and die.”    Later on we’re walking through E-Mart getting food for later when Andrew comes running up to me “KATIE!!!  NOT DIE!!!  ALIVE!!!!!!!!”  They then lived in the fresh sink water over night before eventually being discarded.

My favorite part of the trip was the boat ride back when Robby, Meg and I were on the deck with 우 현 and Andrew and we were just singing "I'm so curious yeeaaahhh - over and over) and dancing and pretend fighting (robot fighting - robot bitch slap) for like two hours.  Andrew is the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  Sometimes he'll do this gangster move and I'll chime in like - "you doin' ho activities, with ho tendencies, hoes are your friends and hoes are your enemies."  Good thing he can't understand English.  Absolutely impossible to explain or describe this kid in words but we just annoyed everyone else on deck with our preposterousness.  We also invented “everybody Andrew’in.”  Ask me about this please, it must be demonstrated.  

1/10th of the Humor...

I have many a "special" student, trust me on this, many a "special" student.  Thus, it is somewhat unimaginable that I would be able to focus a blog on two above the rest, but after today...le sigh.  This one is for Atreyoo and Colin, respectively.

Atreyoo is an indescribable creature.   He's one of my older students; I'd say 12?  11?  But he's just not right.  He was named Atreyoo after the kid from The Never-Ending Story by a former teacher just before she left E-World.  What a perfect name for him.  He is my student, but he is famous at E-World because he's such a ridiculous person.  I really can't describe him at all, but when I tell you about a few stories in which he stars, just picture a fat, dumb, spacey-looking kid with bad teeth. 

So first of all, he's pretty dumb.  He is in the level just before Exploring (which begins the advanced English levels at E-World) which means his English should be pretty good by now.  The other day in class he asked me:  "Teacher.  'Shut up' spelling, whaaaattt????"  So I said: "A."  He wrote is down frivilously and then looked back up at me, so I said "T."  Again he scribbled it down.  "R."  Again.  "E."  Again.  "Y."  Again.  "O."  Again.  "O."  Then he looked down and snapped his head up "Teacher!!  Gah!!"  Really Atreyoo?  You didn't realized that "Shut Up" wasn't spelled A-T-R-E-Y-O-O until the last letter???  Come on.

A few weeks ago, his mother bought him a sharp pencil that was apparently really expensive.  Kids go crazy over sharp pencils here - this is literally a whole other story.  Anyway, he lost his sharp pencil right before my class.  I tried to help him look for it but it was nowhere to be found.  Eventually I started class.  But Atreyoo was very upset about the loss of his pencil and he just sat in his chair with an exasperated look on his face going "shaarrrrp-uh"  "shaaaarrrppp-uh."  Over and over.  I felt bad for him but it was so funny.  I tried to explain that, if anything, he should be going "penciiiiillll" "penciiiiilll."  But still he continued "shaarrrrppp-uh."

I know that last story cannot possibly be as funny on paper as it was in real life, but everything I think about it I laugh out loud to myself.  I'll do impressions of it in the future.

I have a plethora of stories about Atreyoo, but for now we'll move onto Colin.

This kid is a little troublemaker.  Again, difficult to describe, but I'll try.  He's in a pretty low English level.  He's about 8 or 9.  He is a really funny kid.  He's not bad per se, but he doesn't EVER shut his mouth or stop talking or sit down.  He always just plays around and giggles and makes loud ridiculous noises.  He ALWAYS draws poop.  No matter what the assignment is - poop.  One time I had them draw their dream house and his dream house was a poop house that was pooping.  So gross.

Whenever he cracks himself up so bad that he has to go to the bathroom he says "Ah!!!  Teacher!  Yellow water!!"  Sidenote and somewhat ironically, the word for blood in Korean is "Pee" 피. 

Today we had to read this stupid mini-story in class.  Every teacher hates this mini-story.  It's the absolute worst.  Here's the entirety of the dialog:  "Look!  A carrot!  Let's pull it out!"  "Ok!  Let's pull it out!"  "Use your arms!  Use your arms and legs!"  "Hooray!  The carrot is out."  Fucking stupid.

Anyway, after reading the mini-story, I asked all the students  "Did you like the story?  Yes, I did or No, I didn't."  I got to Colin and he said "I didn't like the story, but I liked the movie."

I realize as I write this that this in no way comes across on paper, but I laughed so hard in class - yellow water, yellow water.

Next, the students had to draw what they thought happens next in the story.  Once again, Colin provided absolute amusement.  "Colin, what happens next?" 

"Mother is, sister...home run!"  I look at his drawing and he drew a picture of the mother holding the carrot like a baseball bat and swinging at the daughter's head as if it were a baseball.  God, so funny.

Gonna miss this.

Frienemies?

         I got home yesterday around 5pm.  My roommate Meg was in Seoul and my other roommate Kayla was at church or something so I was home alone.  Or so I thought.  I turned on music and started to cook dinner.  I got a text from Meg’s boyfriend, San Gi, saying “what you doing?” and I said I was home cooking and so on.  Five minutes later I heard heavy breathing behind me and I turned around and San Gi was directly behind me.  I have never screamed so loud in my life.  (This is very typical of San Gi - he is the ultimate creeper.)  He was just hanging out in Meg’s room all day even though she wasn’t there.  At the time I was mostly annoyed and inconvenienced.

I called Robby to come over to save me from San Gi hitting on me while Meg was away.  He came by and soon the three of us were hanging out drinking when all of the sudden I heard a loud banging on my door.  I opened the door and there was this angry agishi screaming his lungs out at me in Korean.  I looked and he had kicked over a bag of recycling that I had left outside my door to remember to take downstairs later.  We’ve been doing this all year; no one has ever said anything.  I started to pick up the contents of the bag that HE knocked over all the while he is cursing at me in Korean.  He called me an idiot among other things.  Luckily San Gi was over and he stepped outside and San Gi and the angry agishi started yelling and screaming at each other and at one point San Gi was called “son of a bitch” (when a Korean says it in English, it comes out ‘son of a bitch-y’ – hehe.) 

Robby and I were pretty freaked out and we went back inside while San Gi and Angry Agishi duked it out.  About a half hour passed and Robby and I didn’t know where San Gi was so we went to look for him.  We found him downstairs in a restaurant drinking and laughing with Angry Agishi.  Then Angry Agishi was inviting us in to eat and drink.  I felt really uncomfortable but we went.  Anyway, it’s a really long story but in the end we ended up drinking with this guy for about two hours and he apologized and I half-heartedly apologized.  Geez.  Everything just escalated so quickly.  It was insane.

           Sadly, that was the better part of my night. 

Superman Dat Hoe

 

Last night I had plans with my friend Song Won.  I love Song Won.  He’s so sweet and so funny.  Sometimes he’ll just call to ask how I am and ask me what I did that day.  He’s a really nice guy and handsome guy.  But he thinks he’s not handsome.  He was telling me “this winter, face chang-y.”  Eye surgery, nose surgery….  Ridiculously unnecessary things, this guy is really handsome. 

Anyway so we hand plans and we were going to go to the singing room.  However, before we went I had to celebrate my friend Masashi’s birthday.  Song Won came for a bit and then he invited everyone to his coffee shop but no one wanted to go, except me.  So I went with him to his coffee shop and he cooked delicious food and made fun drinks for us.  Then he said he’d drive me home, not enough people for the singing room.  So we were on our way when he pulled out his phone and started playing music and singing along as eloquently as he could.  He has a great voice.

He was playing some English songs, among them, ‘Invisible’ by Clay Akin, which he was singing along to with all of the feverish passion he could possibly muster.  It was so funny, but I went along with it. 

Then he parked his car by Seonso and he kept playing music and singing while we walked along the water.  Then he started to play Soldier Boy and we both were doing to Soldier Boy dance outside by the water with cars dashing by…honestly hilarious.  Make it a life goal to watch a Korean dance to Solider Boy, seriously.

And then he drove me home.  It was such a random night.  Song Won is hilarious.

Tree Frog

This is a pure rant unrelated to Korea but just related to men.  Sorry boys and by boys I mean the only two people who read my blog, Steve and Phil.  Holla.

Anyways,  I spent three days, that's right,  three days coloring this awesome picture of a tree frog.  It was the best coloring ever.  It had shadowing and detail.  The best coloring I ever colored.  Could have gone up in the fucking Louvre.

I finished my coloring and decided to be cute and hide it in the Boxing gym for the boxing coach to find.  I fucking climbed five flights of stairs in the pitch dark secret entrance to the boxing gym like a goddamn ninja and taped my coloring next to the men's bathroom with the words "To: 김 성 수 From: Katie" written on it.  I figured, I worked really hard on my coloring but it would be appreciated.

Wrong.  Not even a thank you.  I'm not sure he got it.  It's been two days.  I am going to march in there tomorrow demanding Tree Frog.  WHERE IS TREE FROG??  Tree frog odiseyo?!?!  Give me Tree Frog, you don't deserve Tree Frog!!!

If it went missing I'm going to bring a blank coloring page of Tree Frog, hang it up with a sign that says "Have you seen this Tree Frog? Except, it's green."

Should have never thought to give Tree Frog away, I think of it and I am infuriated.  Leave it to a Korean dude to not appreciate the awesomeness of Tree Frog.  Never again.

Little Things

There are so many little random things that happen that make me laugh.  Last week, I was teaching a class of seven-year-olds and in the middle of class, out of nowhere, one student takes my hand, smells my hand and then goes "Teacher, you Ramyan eating?"  And I was just like, "how the fuck did you know that?"  Astounding.  She smelled my hand and then was able to infer that I had eaten Ramen at some point that day. 

One class particularly cracks me up.  They are an older class - maybe about 10-years-old.  There are nine boys and three girls.  The boys like to sing so a couple weeks ago I brought in the Bear Hunt song.  I so wish I could convey the melody through the computer, it's the best part.  "We're going on a bear hunt, we're gonna catch a big one, what a beautiful day, we're not scared.  Uh-Oh a forest, a dark scary forest. WE CAN'T GO OVER IT!  WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT!  OH NO!!  WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT!!!" and so on and so forth.  Now everyday I teach them, right in the middle of my lesson they will break into the Bear Hunt song.  Adrian will provide the beat and Kevin will conduct the others.  It's so funny.  It's really disruptive to my class and we rarely get work done but every time they do it I can't yell because I'm laughing so hard.  It's impossible.

Some less funny, more disturbing moments are times like last Saturday when I was walking around and an old man walked over to me and just hard-core smacked my ass.  What the hell.  I was so shocked by it I just turned and looked at him with a puzzled face and then walked away.  I was too taken aback.  What do you do in that situation?

The other day at the BBQ, Eric was cooking tree leaves over the grill and so as a joke I said "Oo leaves, delicious!" so he said "Really Teacher?  You eat?"  So I said "Yeah of course!" because I'm a totally idiot and I don't know where to draw the line.  Long story short, I ate some leaves.

The leaves, however questionable are nothing of a health risk compared to raw beef.  Not just raw beef; raw beef with raw egg mixed in.  I'm a vegetarian, but I tried some of the raw beef/raw egg combination just for the hell of it.  It actually tastes really good, but damn if I want to voluntarily risk serious diseases due to uncooked meat.  Never again.

Dead Fish is Die and Realizations

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I love Korea and how sad I'm going to be to leave here.  I've been debating whether to stay or go.  I think yesterday's events gave me the answer.
Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the Expo.   We decided to have an E-World BBQ at the beach.  It was the four E-World foreigners - me, Robby, Kayla, Meg -, our boss - May, and two other Korean co-workers - Rock and Lydia.  We also had an E-World student, Eric, with us because Eric is Rock's nephew. 

We're at the beach and I love the beach so I'm playing in the sand with Eric, making holes and helping Eric find shells.  "Teacher!!!  SHELLSS!!!!!!!"  He gets really excited about shells.  Then I see one of my students, Kaeden, and she comes over to me and is so happy to see me.  So we are playing and then Eric finds a dead fish.  The kids go nuts.  The start playing with it, running around with it, covering it's eyes with sand and going "no eyes!", bringing it around like a pet, all of these things.  "TEACHER!!!!!  Fish is die!  Die fish!  Die fish!"  They can't get enough of the dead fish. 

So I leave and I tell Robby and Meg, "those kids are down there just playing with a dead fish."  All of the sudden I turn around and Rock is scrubbing down Eric because of all the dead fish handling.  Perfect timing.

Later, I see Kaeden and I say "Kaeden, dead fish where?"  and she says with the utmost of urgency in her voice "TEACHER!  Dead fish is die so (motions burying something) and finish-y!"  It was really important that I knew that apparently.  All our students are like that.  They have to tell you things and it's always so important.  "Teacher!  Teacher!  Yesterday.....I go to the home and sleeping!!"  Umm...ok?  That was that important that you had to interrupt my class to tell me?

Anyway, so later on, we're chillin' by our tent drinking and Kaeden comes over and says "Katie Teacher, my father, you come."  So I went with Kaeden thinking "Oh I'll just say hi to her father and then go back to the tent." 

But of course, as with all Koreans, every meeting is a big event.  So I go and her whole family is there and they have me sit down and they give me all this food and soju and moonshine.  I didn't want to drink in front of my student but I couldn't be rude and not accept the liquor so alas, I did.  Then they started passing around a bottle and everyone had to sing into it.  So it was my turn and I sang "manem" (the Korean song I learned for the wedding) because it's a crowd pleaser and I knew they would love it.  And of course they did.  Then the next guy started singing "Edelweiss" and everyone was singing it.  It was so funny to me.  A whole bunch of Koreans sitting around drinking, eating, and mumbling Edelwiess because they know the tune but not the words.  I love that.

Then Kaeden was asking me if I liked her father and if I had a boyfriend and I should have her father for my boyfriend.  And that's when I thought I had overstayed my welcome so I went back to my tent.

The long-winded point I am making here is that the Edelwiess moment made me realize something.  Every single day here is an adventure.  Every SINGLE day something happens that is so so funny to me.  I love my life here and I think I have to come back here.  I have to go back to America for one year and then I have to come back to Korea.  Life in Korea is the happiest life.  I just realized I typed this whole blog like I am talking to a Korean person.  I'm really sorry for my terrible and awkward-sounding English.  It's hard to speak well these days.

Of Chicks and Bugs

So turns out, in Spring, agimas stand on the corner outside E-World and sell little chicks to kids for the equivalent of 50 cents.  Chicks, chicks, little yellow baby chicks.  The kids give the agimas 50 cents and in return the agimas give them a chick wrapped up in a plastic bag.

These poor chicks.  The kids squeeze them, abuse them, malnourish them, and they end up only living a few days.  It’s strange and sad, but mostly it is incredibly annoying.  There are loud, noisy, chirping chicks in my classroom all of the time.  It’s distracting, not to mention disturbing because I know the fate of the chicks.

But I’d much rather have a chick in my class than a huge bug.  My 3:00 class keeps bringing spiders or cockroaches in their pencil cases to my class. It’ll be halfway through class and all of the sudden chaos erupts, three girls are crying because Lia opened her pencil case and there’s a huge bug in it.  One girl wouldn’t come back into the classroom for the rest of the period.  This has happened more than once with different students brining in different bugs.  God kids are gross.

The Door

Last night I went drinking with Meg and her friend San Ki, or as he likes to be called, “Johnny Depp.”  He thinks he resembles Johhny Depp, though he doesn’t at all, and he lets this idea fuel his ego like gasoline fuels a car.  One day Meg told him he should send Johnny Depp his picture with a note that reads “don’t we look the same?”  He would do it too, this is the guy that bought a book about the history of Korea with the intent to mail it to President Obama in case he was looking for some leisurely reading. 

Also, Meg told him a saying we have that goes something like “if you’re ugly, you probably have a really great personality.”  Yesterday, Meg said to him, ”Hey, thanks, that was nice of you,”  and he responded “No!  I’m not ugly!!” 

Anyway, so we’re out drinking and Meg is really plastered.  We get to a Norebang around 4am.  Meg goes to the bathroom and she’s in there for a while so I start to get worried.  I go in to see if she’s ok.  “No!  I’m stuck!” she responds.  She assures me that the door in unlocked, so I begin to pull on the door and sure enough it won’t open.  I keep pulling and Meg keeps pushing against the door.  Eventually Meg begins ramming herself against the door so hard it seems like the door is going to completely break off.  We are being so noisy that the Norebang worker comes in and turns out the door pulles in, not out.  Neither of us could figure that one out.  Thank God I was too drunk to feel like a complete idiot, but I do now.

If Madonna Could See Me Now

            Today was a crazy and exciting day for Yeosu.

First of all, it’s children’s day – a day where children are welcomed to run amuck and dine on chocolate and cotton candy while being showered with gifts and money.  Why don’t we have this holiday in the west?  The point is, there were happy children everywhere today.

             Second of all, today was the opening day of the World Expo rehearsal week.  The official opening is next Saturday.  This week the doors open to Yeosu citizens who somehow managed to snatch special tickets.  The estimated attendance for today was 100,000 people.  Lucky me, I got to be one of those people. 

            I arose at 6.30am after a night of drinking to go to the Expo with the Korean family I adopted (my one student’s family loves me so they take me places.)  By the time we arrived, the Expo site was packed.  I won’t go on about the Expo but I am very impressed with everything; they really pulled it off. 

But Koreans crack me up.  They wait in long lines for things and then they dash through the things they waited in line to see.  We waited for almost three hours to get into the Expo and get to the aquarium.  Once inside the aquarium, everyone in the aquarium was running around at high speeds and I could barely keep up.  It was like “Oh! A Beluga!  Ok, saw it!  And go!  Next!!”    Meanwhile, I’m mesmerized and I start singing “Baby Baluga” at the top of my lungs and no one knows what’s happening.  This is what happens when you rush me.

Sidenote:  I teach an adult class these days and one student (Masashi) is from Japan and is working at the Expo.

Later, Jennifer Student and I went to the Japanese Pavilion to look for Masashi.  We couldn’t find him anywhere, so we stood outside the pavilion and chanted, “we want Masashi!  We want Masashi!” until someone noticed us and told us he was out to lunch.  So we just told her to say to him “Konichiwa!” and then we left.  (I’m trying to show off my lingual skills here, haha)

So we left the Expo and I went home and waited for a call from a friend, whom, very long story short was too tired to hang out, so I decided to go downtown.  This was my best idea so far because turns out on this day Yeosu also celebrates the Goeboksun Festival (a festival for Admiral II Soon Shin and the Turtle Ships that won the war against Japan). 

            There were all of these tents set up downtown and I was so excited to see them all.  The first thing I came across was a recreation of the torture methods of old Korea.  They wanted to demonstrate on someone, and when no one else volunteered I volunteered myself.  I laid down on a wooden cross not knowing what to expect and all of the sudden I’m being spanked with a very large wooden panel.  Spanked.  I was publicly spanked.  Madonna would have been so proud of me.  Only in Korea would this ever happen…and only to me.

            I later ran into Lily student and her two siblings whom I also teach.  We hung out together for a bit.  Lily kept asking me:

 “Teacher!  How are you here?”

And I kept saying:

 “Lily, I LIVE here.” 

“But how you go downtown?” 

“Lily, I took the bus.” 

“Alone?” 

“Yes, Lily.”

I think our students think we just live at E-World and never leave and that May keeps us as slaves.  I honestly think that’s what they believe.

            I hung out downtown for a while meandering trough all the booths and then it began to rain so I tried to take a bus home.  I waited two hours for a bus that wasn’t packed like sardines because today was soooooooo busy.  I finally got one a bus but it was incredibly crammed.  Aside from being short and surrounded by sweaty agimas at the end of my day, today was awesooommeee.

Friday Night Boxing

        Friday night.  I had no plans. I was looking forward to staying in and just relaxing.  But if you know me you know I can’t say no to anything, so I get a call around 11:00 from Robby saying that he and our boxing trainers were drinking in the middle of the boxing floor and did I want to join?

        Oh sidenote, I’ve been kickboxing these days.  Our boxing trainers are hilarious.  They don’t know any English, so they always just say “come on!” (with the emphasis on the “come” so “COME on”) and “Hey!”  and “Fighting!”  These are the only words they’ve learned so far.

        Anyway, so the idea of drinking in the middle of the boxing floor seemed pretty hilarious to me so I went along.  All they kept saying to Robby and me were “Hey!  Come on!” and occasionally “Hey! Be quiet!”   The main kickboxing guy kept saying, “I am king!”  And then he made us drink somek and somek and somek.  And we had to do somek “one shot” every time.  He’d pour us somek and then say “Hey! Come on! One shot!”  Alas, I got so drunk, I don’t really remember the whole night.  But I do know that for a while there I could not get over how amusing it was that we were drinking on the boxing floor.  Koreans would.  They just would.

        Also, I don’t think I trust these guys with my diet anymore.  I started kickboxing to lose weight, but last night they ate fried-chicken and drank somek and smoked cigarettes IN THE KICKBOXING ROOM.  They asked us if we like Ramen and the head trainer showed me a picture of him when he had a six-pack “yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday.”  No six-pack now eh?  What are you doing wrong?  Maybe I should find a new trainer…

Benaphobic

  Not to continually talk about my dog like one of those annoying dog people everyone hates, but I was walking Benes this morning when I came across a bunch of cute little girls.  They all huddled around Benes and started petting her.  The youngest girl must have been about 2 or 3.  She would come over to Benes, touch her, then jump back and scream her lungs out.  She did this over and over and over again.  She’d pet Benes, and then scream as loud as she could.  I was the funniest thing.  It got to the point where she would hug Benes for a moment or two and then, rest assured, she’s jump back and scream at the top of her lungs.  Maybe today she made some headway in her apparent dog phobia?  I like to think Benes and I are slowly changing the course of Korea and their anti- dog ways.  A girl can dream anyways.

Roman Baths

Finally, after being here for 7 months, I got myself to a jimjibang.  A jimjibang is kind of like a sauna/spa thing.  There's no exact replica in America, so allow me:

On Sunday, Lydia picked Robby and me up and took us to the jimjibang.  She said stage one is taking a shower in front of a bunch of naked people.  Separate rooms for boys and girls.  She said to me "everyone will stare at you because you are a foreigner and the agimas will touch you."  Oh goody.  So we undress and walk into the shower room and I am immediately reminded of what I imagine Roman times to have been.  There are huge public baths spouting water from stone replicas of dragon heads.  There are tons of naked women parading around, splashing about, washing themselves...it's like the empire never fell, they just developed squintier eyes.

Stage two is the sauna.  These saunas are HOT.  We choose to go into the hottest one because we like a challenge.  So Robby, Lydia, and I walk (and by watch I kinda mean crawl) into the sauna that is 90 degrees Celsius.  Remember that 100 degrees Celsius is boiling.  The sauna isn't a room exactly, it's a cave.  There are a bunch of mini caves set up with varies degrees of heat.  So you choose which level of heat will suit you and then you open the cave door and crawl into the heated cave.  While we are in the 90 degree cave I can't help but think of every Sci-Fi movie I've ever seen.  The caves look like caves.  Protruding from the interior walls are huge (probably fake) quartz crystals.  And on one side of the cave is a huge metal plate from which the heat is obtruding.  One second thought, maybe it's what planet Krypton looks like...

Then, if you want to cool down, you can go into the ice room.  This can't be good for your health, going from one extreme temperature to the other.  The ice room has crystals hanging from the ceiling and a huge block of ice sticking out of three of the walls.

After you've had enough of the heat caves, you go back to she shower room, shower once more, and that is the average jimjibang experience.  I'm happy to report I was not touched by any agimas...this time.

The Korean Wedding Singer

I should have seen this coming.  A few weeks after May's wedding, another Korean teacher - Christine - announced her engagement.  One night after work, we went out to a restaurant and May was joking and said "Katie you should sing at Christine's wedding, haha."  That "haha" is how I got myself in trouble the first time, mind you.  Anyway, I thought I was in the clear because Christine said "no, offense, but I don't want singing in my wedding."  And of course none taken.

A few weeks later Christine came to me and asked "would you sing in my wedding?"  Dumbfounded, I answered yes while wondering what changed.  Then she asked if I would sing a Korean song that she picked out.  She asked me this two weeks before the wedding.  But I love a challenge and I miss those days in choir when we had to memorize a foreign song in 45 minutes so I of course said yes.

I memorized the song in two days and then was left for twelve days wondering if I'd have accompaniment or if I'd have to sing a Capella.  The day came and turns out I had Karaoke-style accompaniment once again. 

Despite how strange it must have been for 200+ Koreans to watch a foriegner butcher a beloved Korean song, the performance was pretty uneventful.  I remembered all the words!

I think one more wedding officially makes me The Korean Wedding Singer.  No?

Chop Chop, No?

           Every day I walk my dog in Turtle Park and every day this walk always provides some sort of entertainment.  Whether it’s people running away screaming at the sight of a dog or people wanting to pet her, or people yelling me that I’m not allowed to walk my dog in the park (to which I like to respond (fuck you-se-yo), it’s always something.

             

            These past few weeks, every morning when I walk Benes, a group of agishis stop me, take Benes’ leash from me, walk away, and then say “chop chop no?” as they gesture eating something.

             

            The first two or three times it was funny and I fake laughed and then took my leash back and walked away.  But this has been going on for weeks now.  No one’s laughing anymore.  And yet, everyday they take my leash and say “chop chop, no?” as if one day I’m just gonna be like “ok, I’ve plumped her up, she’s ready for the feast.”  God DAMN agishis.  It’s getting to the point where I’m gonna kick-box an old dude in the face.

            Addendum.  I will take dog-hungry agishis over crazy Christians any day.  I wouldn’t mind the crazy church people if they stood around waiting for people to take interest.  No, they are fake nice to you.  They make you think they just want to pet your dog and then all of the sudden you have twenty different fliers with Jesus’s face on them and your being talked at a mile a minute in Korean and THERE IS NO ESCAPE.   

            I have to find a new park.

Abusing My Power?

I really love being an ESL teacher.  I basically just entertain myself in 50 minute intervals for six hours a day because my students rarely know what’s going on.  I sing to myself, laugh to myself, tell myself jokes….  My students often ask me what time it is and every single time I say “time to buy a watch hahaha.”  They never understand, they just stare at me and say “teachah, time whaaat??”  I refuse to answer with anything but “time to buy a watch.”  Refuse. 

Sometimes I’ll tell them to take out their books and they’ll go “teachahh, whhyyyyyyy” and I just respond “because ‘Y’ is a crooked letter,” admittedly a saying that I don’t even understand but my mother always said that to me whenever I asked too many ‘why’ questions.  Anyways, then I just giggle to myself because my students have no idea what I’m talking about.

I can get away with saying basically anything to them because they have no idea.  It’s sad sometimes when I have a really good quip or retort to something a student has said so I say it and then I laugh to myself for 5 minutes and my students just have blank stares.

I do love when a class just decides to repeat everything I say.  When I notice this happening, no matter what, no matter what transpires in between, I always make it end with “supercalifragilisticexmialidocious” because they end up just going “supercali-alalalalalalalalalalalalalala” and it’s hilarious.

I also love the things kids come up with.  Today, I had the class that is in competition with each other.  They were coloring and then going “Done! I am number one!”  “Done.  I am number two!” and so on.  I REALLY hate it so in the midst of it all I’m just sitting there yelling, “No one cares!  No one cares!  No one cares!” over and over until one students starts going “Yes one cares!  Yes on cares!  Yes one cares!”  Can’t argue with the logic.

Another treasure was the day one class was doing their reading book and one student saw a picture of what appeared to be a father so she took out her pencil and wrote “father” next to the picture with an arrow.  Then one of the students looked closer and it turns out the father only had one eye and thus was a cyclops.  The student who wrote ‘father’ in her book took a second look then exuded a look of horror as she gasped and yelled out “FATHER NOOOO!!!!” and feverishly erased her writing.  Hilarious I tell you.

Let's Caja The Fuck Outta Here

 

I went to Busan this weekend with two foreign coworkers at the prospect of drinking margaritas on the beach despite it not being remotely close to beach weather.

So we arrive at Busan station and as we are waiting for a Subway, two Korean girls come up to us and start talking to us.  They are like “so I guess you speak English so we thought we’d talk to you.”  Random but ok.  So we are talking to these girls for one or two minutes when Robbie, in attempt to keep the conversation going, asks the one girl if she grew up speaking Korean or English.  And then she told us about how she was born in Korea and was adopted and brought to America but then she found her birth parents and moved back to Korea and she discovered she has two older sisters (TWO OLDER SISTERS – that means her parents just had a third kid and were like “nope, we don’t want this one”) and she was going to her father’s 60^th birthday party.  First of all: waaaaaaaaaaaaayy too much information.  Second of all:  I obviously don’t know the details of her situation but if I were her, or her birth parents, or her adopted parents, or her siblings, I’d be PISSED OFF in all aspects.  But to each his own I guess….

Later on we find a hotel to stay at.  By the way, these hotels are awesome.  They just give you a little mat and you sleep on the floor.  I’m thinking of getting one for my room here.  Anyway, the hotel guy is showing us our room and then proceeds to demonstrate to us own to open and close the door.  Like, we’re foreigners, we’re not idiots.  I know you might think it’s one in the same, but give us a little credit, just a little.

We do some sight-seeing including hiking to a temple right next to the ocean at night and standing before the most gigantic Buddha I have ever seen in my entire life (it must have been three stories high) and everything is good. 

Then we go to meet up with a girl named Sunny I met in Yeosu.  She takes us around to a few bars including a bar called “Thursday Party” which sells flavored beer.  At first, like me, you might think “White Chocolate flavored beer?  Awesome!” but let me assure you that it is in fact, not awesome.  It’s too much white chocolate and barely any beer.  Bleh.  Anyway, we end up at a Macholi bar and they have plum flavored Macholi!  (I didn’t learn anything from the flavored beer incident.)  So I’m all “we have to get plum flavored Macoli!  Because I LOVE PLUMS.”  And it was delicious.  What wasn’t so delicious was as a side dish they served the worms that I tasted at Nagan.  Now everyone at the table was mocking me because I didn’t actually eat the worm at Nagan.  I put it in my mouth, bit down, and then spit it out.  So now I was under pressure to actually eat one.  And I did.  And it was gross.  But now I can say I have officially eaten a bug/worm thing.  Gross.

Sunny leaves but we continue our drinking shenanigans eventually ending up at a bar that’s playing awful techno music.  The guys at the bar, apparently inspired by the hypnotic beats, are dancing on the counter and taking their pants off to reveal their speedo-like under wear.  That was about when Meg turns to me and goes “Let’s caja (카 자<let’s go>) the fuck outta here.”  So we “cajaed the fuck outta there”  (I love that) and went back to the hotel. 

We were talking about movies and plays and Robbie had never heard of A Streetcar Named Desire (my all-time favorite play) so I was telling him he had to watch it.  The conversation eventually turning into talking about Darrell from The Office and Hot Tub Time Machine and before we all went to sleep Robbie goes “I’ll remember to watch  A Hot Tub Named Desire or whatever it’s called.

            Our last little adventure before calling it a weekend was sitting on the Subway and watching a 10-year-old looking kid lick the poles on the Subway train. Dis-gus-ting.  Overall, a really good weekend.

What's Your Name? What's Your Numba

Remember when you were a kid and you picked out all the names you were going to give to your hundreds of children that you were going to have?  You weren’t excited about having a hundred kids but you were excited that you got to give them all names.  The ideal situation was to just have one, name it, and then give it away.  Maybe this was just me, so I’ll get to my point.

At E-World, when we get new students we get to give them English names.  As you can imagine, the prospect of this is very very exciting to me.  When I found this out I made a list of girls names and boys names written down in the order that I would dole them out.

So far, I have only gotten the chance to name three students – all girls.  The first I named “Neely” for it is my dream to have an entire class named after Jacqueline Susann characters.  Neely, who is now Becky, didn’t like the name so she chose Becky instead.  Neely is waaay better in my opinion, but alas.  Luckily the next new student I had was in that same class.  I named her Jackie.  She hates it.  Oh well.

On one occasion I had the chance to name a guy I met at a bar because he didn’t have an English name.  So I named him Sal, because I love Salvador Dali and my mother’s father’s name was Salvador and I thought it was a unique name that suited him.  He hated it.

Apparently I’m bad at this.

Anyway, so I have really been wanting to name one boy student “Mick.”  I was talking to Robbie about this and he told me he has been wanting to name a boy student “Raphael.” 

We were out at the bar the other night with one of our boss’s students.  He’s a 23-year-old guy who studies English with May at night and she asked us to go out with him and be his friend.  So about halfway through the night we realized he didn’t have an English name.  I quickly shouted “Mick!” and at the same time Robbie shouted “Raphael!”  Guess which one stuck.  Raphael.  Goddamnit.

Now we've started to come up with really bizarre names to name the kids because they don't know that the names are bizarre.  So far we have a list including Jafar, Oblina (ahh real monsters), Daria, Ursela, Bilbo, you get the idea...

 

Also, a teacher before me named one student Atreyoo from the movie The Never-Ending Story.  No one can pronounce it, and he hates it.  But it's perfect for him because that kid is such a little asshole.

The best is when I walk into class and there is a new student so I get to name him or her and then the rest of the class wants a new name too so they all yell out "Teacher!  Name change-ee!!  Name change-ee!"  Like their names are completely disposable things.  Cracks me up.

Test Day

       Today was test day, so I just got to spend my day giving the monthly speaking tests.  Except for my class of four-year-olds whom, while they drive me crazy, are arguably (and I came to this conclusion today after becoming frustrated when some 10 and 12-year olds couldn’t spell their names or tell me how they were – really?) smarter than some of my older classes. 

       Anyway, so every day after my baby class, I play with this kid Dennis who likes to pretend he’s shooting me with a gun and then I chase him or shoot back or say things like “Do you want to die?!?”  And today he was trying to provoke me so (and this kid is like 8 or 9) he points his finger to me and goes “come here baby” and then runs away so I’ll chase him.  Maybe this doesn’t translate well in writing, but trust me, it was hilarious.

       Later on, after I finished testing my Backpack 2 class, I went back into my classroom where the class troublemaker says “Teacher!  My baseball! Behind the board!”  On a side note, I’ve long since given up on questioning why things like baseballs are in my classroom or how they come to end up behind my board.  Instead, I just climbed over my board, jumped down, got the baseball and climbed back over, amidst the sounds of amazement coming from my students.  “Ohhh!  Woah!  Teacher!  Wow!”  After I climbed back over, I just said, “I’m a Ninja.  No, seriously, I’m a Ninja in America, it’s my secret job.”

       I hope they believed me.

       Later on, in my Exploring class, after I finished testing I walked into my class to find one of my students chanting, “When I say Yo, you say Da!  Yo!  Da!  Yo!  Da!”  because they tease one of the students and call him Yoda.  So great.

       The most random part of my day however was when I was walking home and a few random girls spotted my dog and started making noises to her.  So I looked up and smiled and then I was about to walk away and she was all “ahhh wait” and then pulled a random ice-cream bar out of her purse, handed it to me, asked me where I was from, and thne was like “ok bye!” 

        What?????

        Thanks for the random free ice cream.

Climbing Stairs

My Saturdays in Korea are always amusing.  I set out to refill my bus pass and ended up buying a Tamagochi (that’s right, Tamagochi – for a dollar – thank you Asia) and hiking up a mountain.

One of my first impressions of Korea after merely walking around Yeosu a few times was “gee Koreans really must love hiking and mountain climbing” for every other store is a sports-wear shop.  They are seriously everywhere.

After a few weeks here my boss took me and one other foreigner to go hiking with her mom.  I should have put “hiking” in parenthesis.    Turns out, by hiking, she meant climb a bunch of hard plastic stairs that have been forced upon nature.

So I thought, “this isn’t hiking, why do people need special clothes, and shoes, and expensive aluminum walking sticks just to climb a bunch of stairs?  This must just be a weird mountain; they can’t all be like this.”

Wrong. 

They are all like that.  My boss, one other foreigner and I formulated a hiking club and every time we have gone “hiking” we’ve really just climbed some stairs.  Silly Korea.

So today I followed a sign to what was supposed to be an “ancient ruins park” but I knew better because Japan destroyed all of Korea’s ancient ruins some decades ago.  There are no ancient ruins.  But I wanted to see what they claimed was there. 

Turns out, it was a mountain.  And much to my surprise, there were no stairs!  You actually had to hike!  It must be pretty rare and somewhat dangerous or something because when I got to the top there was a man sitting in a booth with a walkie talkie - I guess in case someone couldn’t handle all the actual hiking and there was some sort of hiking emergency. 

The highlight of the hike was when I passed a bunch of middle school-aged boys who said “hello!  Where are you from?”  I could have answered in Korean but instead I said “New York.”  And they said “New York?”  And then they did the Statue of Liberty pose in order to confirm that they had heard me correctly.  I love that.

I Think This Post Is About Headphones, But I'm Not Entirely Sure

I went to Seoul this weekend with my roommate Meg.  Our ultimate goal was shopping with a side goal of hanging out with dudes that we met in Yeosu a month or so ago.

So we get to Seoul around 4 on Saturday and we go to Forever 21.  I know you're thinking I should be shopping in traditional Korean shopping outlets, and I assure you that I do 95% of the time, but there's something about Western sizes that is too tempting to resist sometimes.

So we have clothes in our baskets and we're so excited to try them on when the one Korean dude calls Meg and is like "meet us immediately now by the subway."  So we're like "uhh....." and then we hesistently put the clothes back on their shelves and go meet the dudes.

We go for dinner and notice the one dude is carrying around headphones in a white bag that he tells us cost him 35,000 won and I say "damn, that's expensive for headphones."  And he says "No!  It's a good deal."  He was very excited about the headphones.

As the night goes on I'm out-drinking everyone as usual and still remain the most sober of the four of us (thank you Penn State) and we end up at a Makkoli bar.  I hadn't had Makkoli yet so was excited to try it, especially after my palatable experience with Sake a few weeks prior.  Apparently, Makkoli is drunk out of a bowl.  So we're sitting there, literally drinking bowls of alcohol and I'm finding this to be absolutely hilarious.  Did I mention there was a huge artificially tree in the middle of the bar, just there for no reason?  This bar was great.

Finally we get back to our hotel and the dudes accompany us.  When they leave the one dude forgets his headphones (not the headphones!).  So Meg texts him to tell him. 

Meg: "Hey, your friend forgot his headphones, we'll leave them at the front desk of the hotel."

Jay:  "That is the kindest, most inspiring thing I have ever heard, that is so incredibly kind, I am touched by your kindness."

Meg:  "Umm......ok....."

My guess is he couldn't handle the bowls of alcohol, otherwise, what?

Lost In Translation

I was on my way yesterday to see some street art when, at the bus stop, a bunch of young teenage boys started talking to me.  They said “aregatto” to which I responded, “Isn’t that Japanese? Aregatto?”  And then they laughed and pointed to their friend and said, “She’s Japanese.”   This is a big insult, Koreans hate the Japanese.*

They kept talking to me and asking me questions and then their bus came so they said “Goodbye!  Long time no see!”

Long time no see?  Where did they learn that???  And why did they think that was the context to use it?

It’s like some of my classes will randomly shout out “fire in the hole!!!” with no contextual basis.  I’ll be teaching a lesson and out of nowhere one of them will yell out “fire in the hole!”  Thank you video games.

The worst is my one class that somehow picked up the word ‘kinky’ and now use it is all the wrong contexts. 

“Teacher you’re kinky.” 

“Teacher, that’s kinky.” 

No, no it’s not.  Stop saying "Kinky!"  You’re twelve and you’re using it all wrong!

“Teacher, you don’t have to get kinky about it.”

*To a preposterous extent.  I have classes who tell me they would like to see Japan just get obliterated by some natural disaster or otherwise.  I say “and what about the women, children, and innocent civilians?”  And they say they’re all terrible and they could care less.  Ouch. 

How to Eat Fried Worms

Last weekend, my boss took me and two other foreign teachers to Nagan Folk Village.  I had been before but the two other foreigners’ hadn’t.  The folk village is a village with traditional houses, no electricity or technology, and people still live there.  Tourists are invited to walk around the village and buy things that the village people sell – food, crafts, pottery, etc…

One of the “foods” they sell is toasted worms.  They look disgusting and they smell disgusting.  One of the foreign teachers prides himself on his openness to trying new foods.  So he bought a cup of the bugs…worms…whatever.  As he ate one I observed his unflinched reaction and decided maybe they didn’t taste too bad.

“Should I try one?” I pondered.

“Yeah, try it.” Robby steadily replied.

We were standing right in front of the woman that sold us the worms.  I put one in my mouth, bit down and then went “BLEEEHHHH!!!” and spit it out right in front of her.  (How embarrassing!  Dumb foreigners.) 

“That was disgusting!!  The most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted!!.”  I perplexedly yelled to Robby. 

“Yeah me too,” said Robby.  “Sorry I didn’t warn you how bad it was.”

“Sorry?  You’re sorry??  My palate is scarred for life, and you’re sorry??  Buy me a new tongue.”

Robby gave the cup of worms to our boss and told her to give the worms back to the woman who sold them to us; he didn’t want them.  This is why people hate America (in case you ever wonder.)

So we tried to chew gum to get the taste out of our mouths but then the gum started to taste like worms.  It didn’t work.  As we walked around the village, whenever we passed someone cooking the worms and caught a whiff of the smell we could taste the worms again in our mouth.  It was revolting, not to mention nauseating.

Anyway, for anyone who ever feels the urge to taste a worm let me tell you: what you imagine a worm tastes like, that’s EXACTLY what it tastes like.

Desperate times....

I just did something ridiculous.

I was walking my dog this morning and I didn't bring my house key because I thought my roommates knew I'd be back in 20 minutes.  I got back and the door was locked.  I had no key, no phone, and no money.  Just an anxious and confused dog.

I started banging on the door hoping my other roommate was home and was just sleeping.  I had no luck.  At the prospect of sitting on my stoop for hours and hours I decided to try to figure out a way in.

I live on the fourth floor.  At first I went down to the lower floors to see if I could find a ladder.  We have a porch you see, and I thought maybe I could climb up.  No ladder.

Next I climbed up to the roof and I looked down to my porch.  I was hoping maybe there was some way I could shimmy down.  But there was no such way, I'd just have to jump straight down and it looked too high, so I decided to nix the idea.

After 20 more minutes of sitting on my stoop I decided I could take no more of it and I went back to the roof.  I looked down to my porch again and that time it didn't seem too high.  Still, I thought I might break an ankle or something.  I started to look around the roof and I saw all of these cushions from old sofas that were sitting on the roof. This gave me an idea.

I started throwing the cushions down onto my porch in a pile.  Eventually, I got a bunch of cushions to land in one place.  I looked down and I thought "if I go for this, there's no turning back."

I climbed off the ledge and got myself hanging my my fingertips dangling above the cushions.  This is when I decided that this was a terrible idea an that I should turn back.  But it was too late, I couldn't retract myself with my fingertips.  So I did the only thing I could do; I let go. 

And I survived!  I got the wind knocked out of me and I'm still shaking.  But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

A Korean New Years

I think I win for most sporadically-ridiculous New Year’s.Eve of 2012.

A few weeks ago, my boss introduced me to her friend Soon Min, the guy whom with I went virtually golfing.  Since then, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to observe and experience how hilarious and insane this dude is.

After golf that night he drove me home and said we should go skiing next time.  So I said yes, let’s go sometime after May’s wedding.  Now when you tell a Korean “after” in any context they will take it to mean IMMEDIATELY after.  So right after May’s wedding Christmas Eve, we went night skiing at a place three hours outside Yeosu.

I assure you that much hilarity ensued on our ski trip, but I’d rather get to New Year’s Eve.  While skiing I mentioned that I wanted (at some point) to see Mission Impossible 4.  Soon Min said he did too and the next day after we had gone skiing until 5am he called and was like “Mission Impossible today?”  And Meg and I were like, “…how about another time, Soon Min.”

That other time ended up being New Year’s Eve.  We saw Mission Impossible* (I love Tom Cruise!!) and then we went to eat live, pry-them-open-and-cut-them-out, oysters.  I don’t think I’ve ever had oysters before but I still feel confident in saying oysters don’t get better than this. 

Now, Soon Min, is a very “need to take care of you/you’re a woman therefore you need help) kind of guy.  For example, I had developed my own method of opening the oysters but Soon Min just kept shaking his head and exclaiming “Katie!  No!  It’s wrong!”  Then he would take the oyster from me and open it himself.  I say, hey, the oysters were being opened even if it’s not the ‘correct’ way so that’s that.  But Soon Min was so fretful over it.

Afterwards Soon Min was driving us home when I asked (and I should have known better based on prior experience with Soon Min) how Koreans celebrate New Years.  Soon Min can only speak a few words of English so lost in translation he took this as we wanted to go to a New Year’s Party.  So we drove to a famous mountain in Yeosu where there were people performing and singing and dancing.

There was a famous K-Pop band playing and after they were done the crowd died down a bit and Soon Min scored us some seats close to the front of the stage.  I really liked one singer so I was all “woooo” and “yeeaahhh get it.”  Apparently they don’t do this in Korea because I drew some attention not only in the crowd but from the host of the show.  I heard him speaking in Korean and then I heard/saw heads turn and stare at me.   Soon Min said “he’s talking to you.”  So I looked and he said “You’re very beautiful, I love you!  You are my girlfriend.”  

They love to declare this as if once it’s been said then it’s the truth.  This isn’t the first time I’ve just been blatantly told that I’m someone’s girlfriend. 

Later on, the audience had the opportunity to win prizes.  The prizes (and this is SO Korea) were Gat Kimchi.*

First some guy was singing and the host told people to go up and dance.  Now, I don’t remember going up there, or who forced me up there, but I ended up dancing with these two ageimas onstage and then I got a box of Gat Kimchi.

I thought it was over when Soon Min (having seen my performance at May’s wedding) signed me up to sing Mamma Mia.

So I went up there to sing Mamma Mia (which is quickly becoming the theme song of my Korean year) but before I did the host made me talk to him.  I was up there in front of say, 100-150 people, while the host was asking me if I had a boyfriend and telling me that my eyes were “deep, like a lake.”  (A lake not an ocean.  In other words: deep, but not too deep.)  It was preposterous.  Finally he let me sing while occasionally interjecting in the song but only briefly.  He would sing “Just One Look!” and then stop and “Mamma Mia!” and then stop.  He was quite humorous.  I won a second box of Gat Kimchi.

Before I left the stage he asked for my New Year’s message.  So I said “Sey Hey Bok Ma Ni Paduseyo” very slowly and probably made a fool of myself.  But I tried.

On the way out we got to tie a Korean message onto a steel frame of what I think was a duck.  This time I was a little more creative.  “T-Minus 355 days to the Zombie Apocalypse.  Live Well.  Memento Mori.  ~Katie Lynn”

For it being the first New Years spent away from Avery and Jess, I’d say I did it justice.  It was apretty ridiculous,, hard to put down into words, but I hopefully I caught the gist of it. 

T-Minus 352 days until the Zombie Apocalpyse.  Start preparing. J

*Apparently the word “syndicate” is the same word in Korean, who’da thought?

*Kimchi made of mustard leaves instead of cabbage.