Day 199: Black And White

I forgot to put on suntan lotion yesterday while on the beach at Dokchokdo and because of that I had a bit of a mild sunburn. My face was especially tanned but because I *always* have my sunglasses on (I'm completely blind without them as my eyes are extremely sensitive to light) I had my famous 'racing-stripes' (or Raccoon Eyes as many like to call it) across my face where my sunglasses had kept some skin white.

I walked into school today and all my kids noticed it right away. "Teacher, face red!" they all exclaimed as they pointed at my face. It's funny what a completely different attitude Koreans have about skin colour and tanning than us Westerners. Here's a little comparison between two cultures who could not have a more opposite view on the one issue.

Us Westerners *worship* the sun. We spend millions of dollars a year on tanning salons, tanning skin cream, and vacations away to beachy destinations all to get that much-coveted perfect tan. A good tan, in our eyes, is a sign of healthiness, activeness in the outdoors, and sexiness - all very desired qualities in our culture. How many times have you been complemented on your tan "oohhh, you've got a great tan!" or how often have you been embarrassed to wear shorts at the beginning of the season cause your legs are so white? OFTEN. To us, white skin is undesired while having a tan is hot. White skin is out, deep golden brown skin is so totally in. We love the sun, and aren't embarrassed to show it.

In Korea, they *loathe* the sun. The Koreans spend millions of dollars a year on a cosmetics industry geared entirely to making them more white. Whitening skin cream, whitening masks, even whitening plastic surgery. (and the men do this as well.) This is not an effort to look more Caucasian as many foreigners misinterpret, but rather because, in their view, only Koreans who have to work on farms or in undesirable laborous outdoor jobs get tanned. White skin, in their eyes, is seen as luxurious and rich and desirable. Brown skin is seen as poor and peasant-like and dirty. It is not uncommon to see Koreans walking around in mid-day with umbrellas up, under a bright blue sunny sky. When they go for picnics or hiking or walks in parks, they often will stop only in shaded areas where they are protected from the sun. I've seen dozens and dozens of Korean families all squished under a tiny patch of hard concrete under a bridge overpass in a park while beautiful sunny fields lay empty because it was the only part of the park that was shadowed. None of them wanted to sit in the sun and risk getting a tan. Brown skin is out, while creamy smooth albino white skin is so totally in. They hate the sun, and aren't embarrassed to show it.

It's a fascinating twist - the two opinions regarding skin colour and activity in the sun are literally black and white. The two cultures seem at such extremes as well - each of them desperately, feverishly trying to adopt a colour of skintone that their respective cultures deem fashionable and attractive. I can't say that either extreme is all that much better than the other, or all that particularly healthy, but with skin cancer rates skyrocketing around the world (especially in sun-happy Australia) maybe the Koreans are on to something?

Day 198: Transportation, Island-Style

The funny thing about camping is that you always wake up early. Even if you've gone to bed at like 4am, you just can't sleep-in while in a tent. Between the sunshine and the heat you're guaranteed to have a pretty early rise. We all woke up practically simultaneously this morning around 10am and went for a very lovely morning swim. Once again, in comparing a weekend at home to a weekend camping, I'd totally pick a morning ocean swim over a morning shower, anytime!

It was another perfect lazy day today spent lying in the sun reading, playing in the ocean, and beach-combing our own little private piece of paradise. Other than a brief interruption from some 'lost' German weguks, we had the whole beach to ourselves all day long again. I love it! We stayed until mid-afternoon or so and then it was time to pack up and head back to the ferry terminal.

Getting to the ferry terminal proved to be more challenging than last time as well. Since the island was practically devoid of tourists, there was like no shuttles driving along the island's roads looking for passengers. Last time we never had to wait more than a few minutes for a van to come along. This time the eight of us sat next to the road for what seemed an eternity before something came along.

This time our salvation came in the form of a pick-up truck. We didn't think it was going to stop as A) it's only a pick-up truck, where are you going to put eight foreigners? and B) there was already two passengers sitting in the back of the truck. Well they stopped anyways and much to our pleasant surprise eagerly invited us all to crawl into the back of that little truck. So in we piled, all eight of us, with all of our bags and gear, and squeeeeeezed on into the open back of the truck. Seconds later we were whistling along the highway on the way to the ferry terminal, wind in our hair, buried by all our gear, having a great laugh. Pauline and I thought it was especially funny for us cause it was the second 'unusual ride' in a stranger's vehicle that we had had in the last 48 hours!

We got dropped off at the ferry terminal and promptly went for lunch. Then it was time to catch our boat and head on home. Eric, Michael, Pauline and I had tickets for an earlier ferry than the other four so we said all our goodbyes there. On board we broke out the Scrabble game again but half way through the game we lost two of our players. Both Michael and Eric became quite seasick as the seas were rather rough and the boat had a good bounce going on as we ploughed on back towards the mainland. Surprisingly I was fine with the oceanic turbulence! After emptying their stomachs and then passing out on the seats Michael and Eric tried to sleep all the way back while Pauline and I engaged in our typical cut-throat blood-thristy game of Scrabble.

Michael drove Pauline and I back to Ilsan and I was actually home for around 6 o'clock! I spent the evening doing laundry and report cards and then off to bed. Another great weekend with all my buddies! :-)

Day 197: Full Moon Fiesta

I woke up today at 9am and had to make a million and one phone calls to get our camping trip all organized. There were eight of us going out to Dokchokdo and the plan was to have the four from Islan/Seoul meet up with the Shihung crowd at the ferry terminal in time to catch the 1:30pm ferry. It didn't really happen but it all worked out in the end...

Pauline and I bussed it to Seoul Station and planned to meet up with Michael and Eric, but Michael was MIA and not answering his phone. Where the hell was he? By the time Pauline and I got to Seoul Station we had missed the last bus that would've gotten us to the ferry terminal in Incheon on time. Uh-oh! Eric meanwhile was trying to track down Michael so Pauline and I decided to cab it over to Itaewon. We went to Michael's and banged on his door and a very sleepy Michael answered his door - he had slept in! Considering that it was 11:30am I was quite surprised!

Michael had about two minutes to pack and then we had to race on over to Eric's to pick up Michael's car (left there the night before) and then race to Incheon. We had less than an hour to make it and it was not looking good with all the traffic in Seoul. We picked up Eric and then b-lined it to the highway leading to Incheon as we watched the clock tick by... Ailish, Mark, Chris, and Emma were already there and it didn't look like we were going to make it.

We arrived at the ferry terminal like twelve minutes after the boat had sailed! Argh!! So we missed the boat but planned to meet up with the other four on the island after we caught the 3 o'clock ferry. When we finally arrived on Dokchokdo we were anxious to get our asses over to our Secret Beach and set up camp. Ailish and them had never been there so it turned out to be quite the fiasco trying to all meet up together. We found the beach but they couldn't...blah blah blah...in the end we finally all made it together.

We were thrilled to discover that once again we had the beach to ourselves! We set up all the tents and then took a refreshing swim in the sea. Ahhhhh...soft sand, beautiful scenery, cool waters...now *this* is why all that effort to get here is so worth it! Escapism at its best! :-)

We went back to the little village that we had been to last time to get some dinner and discovered a completely different atmosphere than our first visit just three short weeks ago. The village was almost empty and most of the shops and restaurants had closed up for the season. Considering that this was still August and it had only been three weeks since our last visit we were quite surprised! Eric then informed us that according to the Koreans "summer" had officially ended last weekend, and that Koreans ONLY go camping during the weeks of summer. Even if it's just one week after the end of "the season" and the weather is just as nice (which it was) it's considered strange and unusual to do "summer activities" once "fall has begun." Summer in Korea literally only lasts (for them) from late June until late August and is the *only* time of the year when camping, vacationing, and hanging out at the beach is done. Koreans just don't do those sorta things outside that narrow window of time. Seems kinda strange...

We had a nice dinner, bought some soju, and then went back to the beach to have quite the Full Moon Fiesta! We set up a bonfire right on the beach and engaged in the usual tall tale/ghost story-telling around the fire while consuming said alcoholic beverages. We all became quite hyper later on and while there was no shamanism this trip around, there was plenty of truth or dare, communal skinny-dipping in the ocean at like 2am, and Chris' stellar Naked Tribal Fire Dance for all of us to see. That, and Mark's Pee Art in the sand made for quite the hilarious times! Oh, the crazy things that we get up to while drunk on a beach on an offshore island! Too much fun! :-)

Bedtime came around 4am or so and it was time for our party under the brilliant glow of the full moon to end. We crashed to sleep in our tents and slept the calm night away. Ahhh, island paradise! :-)

Day 196: Clown Car

After work tonight I decided to go out with Pauline and the gang for a drink. It wasn't supposed to be a late night, as Pauline and I were getting up at 6am the next morning to meet up with a big group of friends to go camping again on Dokchokdo. Pauline and Co. finished work at 8:30pm so after that Addie and I cabbed on over to Juyeop Station to go and find them at a favourite hangout of theirs' called JJ's.

JJ's is a loungey-kinda bar with dim lighting, big chairs and tables, and a small stage complete with all the equipment a band could need on it. 'JJ' (not his real name) is a really cool Korean guy who actually was at one time quite a famous musician in Korea. He's 39 now and owns a bar and loves it when musical weguks come to visit. Given the fact that most of my friends here are indeed musical, it's no surprise that we're quite popular with him.

When we go there all the POLY Juyeop gang was already there - Pauline, Ben, Lorraine, Dennis, and Jake & Shannon. We all shared a couple pitchers of beer and just lounged around and chilled. All of were not really intending to stay out late but you know how it goes... One pitcher can sometimes lead to another, and then another... I was actually behaving myself quite well and only had two or three glasses of beer. However, for some reason, it was enough to give me quite the buzz! Meanwhile JJ and then Dennis had gotten up on stage and sang a couple songs (and yes JJ really is a terrific singer!)

Sometime around midnightish or so (oops it's bedtime) Pauline and I, after talking to all our other camping buddies who were also out and about, decided that waking up at 6am the next morning was just not going to happen. This gave us more time to stay out, so we all decided to change venues, and JJ decided to tag along too. Everyone had quite the buzz going on and JJ was actually totally drunk. We all thought that we were just going to walk the 20 minutes or so to LaFesta but JJ insisted that we drive.

Thinking that *he* wanted to drive us, we all thought that this was a bad idea. I for one am not stupid enough to get into a vehicle with a drunk Korean behind the wheel! We then realized that his friend he brought down with him (sober) was going to be our little chauffeur, and this seemed fantastic until we saw the car... It was some little tiny four-door Kia or DaeWoo and there was like no way that the eight of us were going to all fit in there! JJ kept on insisting and seemed pretty confident we'd all fit, so in we squeezed.

And boy did we have to squeeze! Pauline, JJ, and his buddy sat in the front, while Lorraine, Dennis, Shannon, Addie and myself somehow managed to defy the laws of physics and all fit into that backseat. Dennis was already sitting on the girls' laps by the time he got in, and so me, being last, had only one place left to go - up on top of all of them against the roof of the car! I had my knees curled up to my face and my feet against the roof just so we could get the door closed! Man, I haven't done anything like this since high school! What fun! ;-) So there we were, all laughing our heads off, a crazy jumble of legs and arms and squished heads driving through the streets of Ilsan. It was a random, hilarious moment and a mini-adventure for all.

We were quite the sight when we all piled out of that little car at LaFesta, eight people coming out of that little clown car, much to the curiosity of Korean strangers! We went to a bar called Don't Go (yes, that really is its name) and had a couple more drinks while enjoying the music. 1:30 or so rolled around and I was feeling quite tired so Addie and I decided to leave our buddies and head on home. We were going camping tomorrow and I couldn't wait!

Day 195: The Strangest Dream

So I went to bed tonight and had the strangest dream. For some reason I feel compelled to tell you all about it. Here it goes:

I had a dream that I was hanging out with my friend Eric having a sleepover at his house. Only he lived in this house where all the walls were glass - all windows, essentially. Well we were watching this really scary slasher flick on TV during the sleepover, only that Eric didn't know was that what was happening in the movie was also, simultaneously, happening *for real* right outside the house! So there's this serial axe murderer running around his front yard killing people and then he sees us (and of course you can't exactly hide in a glass house!) I start to freak out but Eric still isn't catching on, and then the killer tries to break into the glass house to get to us.

Suddenly I pull a trick like I often do in dreams when they're about to turn into a nightmare... In my dreams I can pretend that I'm the 'director' and control 'the cast' and what happens, as if my dream that I'm living out is a TV show and I get to call the shots. I realized this and told Eric (*right* before the movie got especially gruesome and just before the killer was about to get into the house) "Hey man, it's almost 4am, I'm kinda tired, how about we just go to bed?" Eric thought this was a good idea so he turned off the TV.

SHAZAM! The scary movie was over and the exasperated killer just went "Damn!" and had to call it quits. He couldn't try to get into the house anymore now that the movie was off so he walked off and went home feeling frustrated and disappointed (much to my relief!)

So I spent the rest of the night at Eric's and then woke up the next morning and left. I walked outside his house to see that it was actually attached directly to a KTX Station (Korea's high speed train.) "Oh this is awfully convenient," I thought, "I needed to take the train home anyways." So I'm walking through the station (very crowded and busy) and suddenly who do I run into? Why it's my old Delany's Coffee House boss Robin (the owner.) Being quite surprised to run into him in a train station in Korea, I asked him what he was doing there. Turns out that the Delany family has decided to open a new store and that they want their fourth coffee house to be Delany's: Seoul. I thought this was extremely exciting and super cool!

Robin explained that he was actually just on his way to an international press conference, to be held in that very station, to announce the opening of Delany's first coffee house in Korea. He invited me along to join him at the press conference and I was glad to have the invite. I was given a Delany's Vest to wear to the conference and was even given a chair to sit up at The Table with him at the front of the press conference.

So the press conference begins, in front of a train station full of press from newspapers and tv stations from all over the world, and Robin suddenly gets stage fright. He's so nervous in front of all these people that he can barely speak and can't answer any of the questions. In a moment of panic, just before he ran out of the room in fear, he asked me if I'd 'represent' Delany's at the press conference, since having worked there for four years until recently, and if I could answer all the questions. I was hesitant to oblige him but felt pressured to not let the store down and so I stepped up to the plate.

I jumped in like a pro who's lived his whole live in front of the media. I handled that crowd like it was putty in my hands and was as witty, quick-thinking, and informative as one could ever be. I was a total star, and I was loving every minute of it. And there was like the Olympics of nations there all asking questions. "Yes, Team Czech Republic, what's your question?" "And the man in the yellow shirt from Brazil, what would you like to ask?" "Why yes, Mr. New York Times, that is in fact true, and here's another tidbit for you..." I was totally awesome and so proud of myself.

The press conference ended and so it was time to head home. I got onboard the KTX (finally) and was quite thrilled to realize that it was actually a giant, high-speed *roller coaster* that went across Korea. The train slowly crawled up the mountain-sized hill before tearing down that and whipped across cities and countryside, through spiral turns and loop-de-loops, at like 3000 km an hour. "Wow, no wonder you can get across the country so fast! And a rollercoaster - what a great idea!" were my thoughts.

The next morning I woke up early and was DYING to find a newspaper. Any newspaper. Or magazine. I was so sure that all the media would be completely filled up with my star performance at the press conference and I was dying to read all the reviews. This was my moment of glory that I had waited my whole life for. My moment of vindication and public validation.

I was horrified to see that in the first article I read I was given an absolutely terrible review! The review questioned my facts, my judgement, and what the hell, exactly, was *I* doing at that press conference in the first place! I was mortified! I read another newspaper and was embarrassed to see yet another shameless bashing of my presence at the conference. This time the attacks were personal and even made fun of my voice. What, my first taste with fame and already I'm getting mud slewn on me via tabloid trash? Newspaper after newspaper, review after review, magazine after magazine all condemned and criticized me. Hell, even dozens of readers/viewers had written in to tell how bad they thought I was. I was more surprised than anything by all of this, cause I still believed that I had done a stellar job and was super hot at that press conference. What a disappointment!

The dream ended and I woke up feeling rather confused... The even weirder thing about the dream is that the soundtrack for the entire dream was all Huey Lewis & The News songs. What the...???

It was a very strange dream indeed but a funny one for sure. Sometimes my brain comes up with the craziest stuff! So what do you think this dream means? Are there any dream-interpreters out there who'd like to help me out with some clarification? I'm open to any thoughts or opinions on this urgent matter. Please reply! ;-)

Day 194: "Oh, I Was The God!"

My co-worker Addie was marking some of her students' writing assignments in the Teachers' Room today and all of a sudden just burst out laughing hysterically. Wondering what was so funny, she read to the rest of us a story that one of her students had written. The assignment had been to write a fable that involves animals acting like humans, and there had to be some sort of moral or lesson to be learned at the end. She read me the story and I thought it was so funny that not only did I have to get a photocopy of it, but I wanted to share it with you guys. Maybe it won't be as funny for you because you need to know the context of teaching students in Korea, but it is pretty funny for a Grade 6 ESL student. Here it goes, completley unedited:

"square pants was a greedy pig. The pig was a good guy last day he ate a fruit. A special fruit. If you eat it, you turn in to a greedy eater. You eat anything that can be eaten!

Pig = I'm still hungry. mmm........ I need more food! arrrr! look, there is a ant hill.

Ants = Ahhhhhh! The pig is comming.

Pig = HaHaHa! (chew, chew, chew) No ants left. I'm still hungry. Mushrooms! (chew chew chew) Its delicious! Aww! I'm still hungry. What is the problem?

Narrator= The pig is always hungry so he ate everything in Earth and there was nothing left.

God=(looking the world) !!!, What is this? Where is everything I created? Oh my god! oh, I was the god. I think that pig ate every thing. I'll get rid of you!!!

ka boom!

Narrator=The pig died and the God created every thing from the beggining except the special fruit.
So don't be greedy or else there will be a punishment."

Maybe you just had to be there or have to be an English Teacher to get it, but it made all of us staff practically pee our pants laughing! Sometimes our kids just come up with the funniest stuff! They're awesome! :-)

Day 193: On His Last Legs...err...Fins?

So I don't think Dmitri is doing too well these days.

In case you've forgotten, Dmitri is my pet fish, who is a beautiful maroon and indigo samurai fighting fish (or whatever their real name is.) He's been through some rough and crazy times, that little guy, and has always been quite the survivor, but these days he's looking like he's not feeling so good. He's weathered two apartment changes, ridiculously hot weather, and a brief swim in some bacteria-filled water in my sink, and always came out a-ok.

But now he's looking a little worse for wear. He's stopped eating almost altogether and I don't know why. He used to *LOVE* feeding time! He's always been super hungry and whenever I've fed him in the past he's gobbled up all his food immediately. It was like our special bonding time. He'd even eat the food right off my fingertip sometimes! Now I feed him and he'll have like one or two bites and then leaves the rest. What's up with that? I haven't changed his food or anything so why would he suddenly not want to eat? It can only mean bad things, I'm thinking...

He's either dying, or he's developed an eating disorder. Can a fish suddenly become anorexic? Does he feel, while staring at his reflection in his fishbowl all day, that he's gotten too fat? Has societal pressures in our messed-up world now trickled down to the world of pet fish as well? Does he feel like he doesn't measure up to the likes of Kate Moss, Calista Flockhart, or Lara Flynn Boyl? I keep telling him that he's gorgeous and beautiful and perfect just the way he is but you know how males are - they never listen.

The only other thing I can think of is that he doesn't like the water I give him for his bowl. But I give him only the best - pure mineral drinking water that I buy from the store. I do this cause Seoul's water supply is not the cleanest and we're not supposed to drink it. If it's not really fit for human consumption then I assume that it wouldn't be all that great for a little fish either, hence the spring water treatment. But maybe there's something in the water that's making him sick?

Everytime I come home now the first thing I do is check is bowl and see if he's gone belly up yet. I don't think he's going to last much longer... Why won't you eat, Dmitri!!

Day 192: Grade Fours On God

My kids are so bright! I've mentioned this on numerous occasions before, but I had another reminder today during class that reaffirmed just how intelligent, and how well-conversed in English, my kids are for such a young age.

I was teaching my Grade 4's today (only eleven years old, keep in mind) and we were learning about pioneers in America during the 1800's. One of our vocab words for the story that came up was 'Missionary' and I had to explain to the kids what missionaries are and what they do. Well this sparked an interesting debate that I didn't even prompt myself...

One of the boys, Matthew, piped up with "Well God's not real anyways so it doesn't matter." Immediately another student, Grace, hammered back with "Yes he is!!! You're just crazy!" Well this brought on a back and forth debate between the two students who went on for quite some time discussing/arguing about whether or not God really exists.

I just had to stand back and watch, in complete fascination, at the opinions and rebuttles that were flying back and forth. I didn't say a word or interject for two reasons - the first being that we're supposed to avoid speaking about controversial religious or political topics (or sharing our own particular opinions on such matters) in class to avoid upsetting a student or parent, and the second reason was that I just wanted to see how far this little debate between Matthew and Grace would go on, what they'd come up with next, and who would 'win' in the end.

Again, the fact that English is not these kids' mother tongue yet they can have religious debates is AWESOME! I'm so proud of their speaking abilities! Granted, their sentences are very simple and ideas rather basic, but nonetheless mesmerizing to watch unfold before your very eyes, completely unaided by myself.

Matthew's main points was that you can't see God and that he never comes to visit, "If you call out to God to come down why doesn't he? I want to see him and he never comes so he's not real!" In which Grace replies "Well if you call someone on the phone in Busan, you can't see them either but you know they're real!"

And then when talking about whether or not "the heaven" really exists, Matthew says "The astronauts go up in space all the time and they never see the heaven, just ask NASA! Airplanes too, you never see the heaven when you fly in the sky." I don't think Grace had much of a reply to this (she was starting to get a bit frustrated and flustered) and may have just said "Whatever Matthew, you're just crazy, I go to church and so I know God is real."

It was totally awesome to watch. My kids are so cool. I love my job! :-)

Day 191: Lazy Bums

I slept like the dead last night (for obvious reasons) and woke up today just after 1pm. 1pm!!!??? Wow, I haven't slept in that late since I was a teenager! Ahhh well, it felt pretty good actually and I had no plans today so who cares?

I also woke up before both Michael and Pauline who were still passed out in Michael's living room, and I discovered that sometime during the early morning hours Eric had left and gone home. Michael and Pauline woke up not long after that and we were all pretty groggy and lethargic this Sunday afternoon.

We actually spent pretty much the whole day just chillin' in our jammies (err....clothes we were wearing last night...) in Michael's living room just chatting away. None of us really felt like moving and it was so nice to just hang out and talk about all kinds of topics (including, of course, sharing stories from last night's adventures!)

We didn't even feel like leaving the apartment when like 3pm came round and we were all hungry, so we just ordered lunch in and had it delivered. What's really cool about delivery in Korea is that they deliver all food and soups in REAL bowls and plates (no plastic or cardboard take-out crap!) They bring it to you covered in saran wrap still hot from the kitchen and often with real utensils as well. No, you don't get to keep the bowls and cutlery. When you're finished your meal you just put the empty dishes (still dirty) outside your door in your apartment hallway and they come back later to pick it up. How cool is that!

Pauline and I eventually left Michael's just after 5pm and decided we should head on home. When I got home I was actually feeling pretty energetic so I did a whole lot of housework - laundry, dishes, cleaning out Dmitri's bowl, and even finished off the last four stacks of report cards I had left. Sometimes it's just soooo nice to have a lazy, lazy day.

Day 190: The Bestest Friends Ever

Today was my Birthday Celebration Day so I got to have a whole day that was all about me. I met up with Michael and Eric in the afternoon and they took me out shopping. I've been trying to find shoes here in Korea but have been having the darndest of luck trying to find shoes that fit my feet. I take Size 12 which isn't *that* huge but apparently no one in Korea, it seems, has feet bigger than Size 10!

We hit some shoe stores in Itaewon first thinking that they'd have some that could fit my feet, considering that most of their customers would be the GI's and other foreigners that hang out down there, but no luck at all. We decided to ditch Itaewon and go to Myongdong to see if the selection there was any better. We spent the entire afternoon hanging out shopping in Myongdong and it was such a blast! Myongdong is a very popular, posh shopping area in Seoul. It's a beautiful street full of great boutiques and a couple big department stores and there's no cars allowed so it makes for a great shopping environment. We tried store after store but kept getting turned away. Would I ever find shoes to fit my monster feet?

Finally at an Adidas store we found some shoes that fit me and they looked pretty cool so I bought them. We did more shopping after that and I bought a shirt too. Later on we were in this one department store that these big bins full of discount shirts. It's the kinda store where 99% of the clothes are pure shite (ie: the ugliest things you can possibly imagine) but every once in a while you find a real jewel in there. Well we were in a super silly mood so we decided to play this game where it was a contest to see who could find the *worst* shirt for one of us to wear. We rummaged and dove on in to these bins and I waded through some truly awful, horrific fashions before I found a particularly uhhhhgleeeee shirt. I had to find one for Eric, Eric found one for Michael, and Michael found one for me. We went and tried on our Worst Outfits Ever and had a huge laughing fit when we all looked in the mirror. God, I wish that one of us had brought a camera cause we truly looked horrendous. Too much fun!

After that it was time to go and get ready for my big birthday bash. We went back to Michael's to clean up and change and then headed to the restaurant where I was having my dinner. I had chosen this place called Nashville Steak House and it was a nice quiet little place in Itaewon. I had a great turn-out for my dinner!! There was myself, Michael, Eric, Pauline, Nick, Angele, their friend Darryl, Addie, Luke, Ryan, Jeff, Ailish, Mark, and his coworker Paul. We all had a really great dinner and then decided to change venues.

We took cabs on over to Hondae which is the Club District in Seoul. I decided we should all go and have drinks at this place called Route66 and it was a really awesome bar. We got a table and just sat and chatted for hours over long island iced teas and gin and tonics. It was so awesome to see all my friends mixing and mingling and everyone was having such a great time, especially me. After Route66 we walked on over to a dance club called HodgePodge and had even more of a blast. More drinks, lots of dancing, great times all around...

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I realized how lucky I am to have such truly wonderful friends here in Korea. I've me some incredibly nice, amazing people who are just a lot of fun and are really good people. All during the night all my friends kept telling me how lucky I am to have such great friends, how much fun they were having, and thanks so much for inviting them. It was one of those perfect nights where everyone's in such great spirits and the whole night is just one laugh after another.

We stayed at HodgePodge until quite late and then decided to head back to Itaewon to go to another club. By the time we got there it was really late and some of my friends were tired so they either went home or went to grab some food. Michael, Eric, Pauline, and I decided to keep on going so we went to The Hill to the clubs there but never actually spent any time inside really. Eric had had a bit too much to drink and was sick so we brought him to Michael's to crash (just metres up the street.) The three of us had some more drinks and actually just chilled outside the clubs in the alley with all the people coming and going from the bars.

At that point it was just after 5:30am and the sun was starting to come up. The alcohol was catching up with us and so we decided to go back to Michael's crash. We all found a corner of the apartment to lie down and passed out in various positions, taking up pretty much all of Michael's apartment. What a really amazing, great birthday night it was! Definitely one of my best ones ever and, once again, made me realize that I have the coolest, bestest friends ever here in Korea! So many great memories with so many great people, and tonight was definitely one of them! LIFE IS AWESOME!! :-)

Day 189: Got Guitar?

Ahhhh...another Friday already. Man, this week just flew by! That's two weeks in a row now that have just whipped on by. So cool! After work today I went with Addie to Juyeop Station to get some photos done for her cause she's going to get her alien card tomorrow morning. After we finished that we decided to go and see a movie. We went and saw 'Hellboy' which actually, I thought, was pretty good. I like the 'super heroes-full of special effects' movie genre and this one definitely qualifies.

After the movie we took a taxi back to the village and I was walking Addie back to her apartment we ran into Jake and Dennis outside on one of the patios found at the many little watering holes in our neighbourhood. Jake (and his girlfriend Shannon) live in the apartment below me where Rick & Tracey used to live, and work with Pauline at Juyeop. Dennis just recently got hired on at Juyeop as well and both are super nice, exceptionally friendly guys. Addie and I decided to pull up a chair and have a beer with them. Not long later Anthony strolled on by so he joined us as well.

One thing that's interesting to know about English Teachers in Korea is that, I swear, practically everyone here plays guitar. I don't know what it is about English Teachers, but it seems like at least half not only play guitar but either brought one with them from home or have bought one since arriving. Steve used to play guitar, as did Amy, and Brad. Jake plays guitar. Dennis plays guitar. Anthony plays guitar. And hell, even Addie plays a little guitar. What, is that like a requirement to be accepted by Immigration here?

Immigration Officer (to English Teacher applicant): Do you have a passport?

Teacher: Yes.

IO: Can you speak English?

Teacher: Yes.

IO: Can you play guitar?

Teachers: Yes.

IO: Alright! Congratulations! You're hired! Here's your visa!

It's seriously odd how many people here can play guitar. Not that I'm complaining! I have no musical talent whatoever and am always really impressed by people who do so it's really great to be surrounded by so many musical people.

So anyway, Dennis & Anthony went and got their guitars and we had a little jam session while drinking beer on the patio. Jake has a really amazing singing voice (he totally fits the Canada's Maritime/East Coast Rock Star profile) and sang a couple really great songs for us. Well this didn't go over very well with the bar staff who thought that we were being too noisy (granted, it was 1am now at this point) but we kept on playing anyways cause it's not uncommon to see Koreans hootin' and hollerin' at all hours of the night here. Well Murphy's Law a few minutes later some really grouchy angry Korean man came down and started to yell at us so we deciced it would be best to hit the trails and head off in search of greener pastures.

We walked a few block up the street and then decided to have another little jam session in the middle of the street. Some Korean passerby became transfixed with Jake's singing and Dennis & Anthony's guitar playing so in no time at all we had a small audience. Suddenly some random Korean guy up the street was waving at us cause he wanted us to come and join him. We walked up the street and sat down next to this guy and his friends (they spoke a little English) and played some more. At that moment a group of about six or seven Korean 20-somethings came out of the bar and joined us took, including one guy who could really sing well and so just like that we had an imprompt band session! It was definitely one of those 'Out Of The Blue' moments! :-)

This went on for an hour or but eventually someone called the cops on us and we were told we had to be quiet. Our Korean friends actually stuck up for us and yelled at the cops which was pretty funny to see. We didn't like all the attention we were making so we went inside the little Japanese bar/restaurant and continued our music-playing inside their until the wee hours of the morning. I looked at my watch at one point and saw that it was already 4am and definitely time for me to head home to bed. I left behind my friends (including Pauline, Shannon, and Lorraine who had heard Jake's singing from down the street and joined us too) and went on home. A really great night tonight!

Day 188: Hong Kong?

So it looks like Tokyo has been pushed out of the race in the decision of where to go for Chuseok. The more I looked into it, the more expensive Tokyo was becoming. To find any accommodation in that city for a half-decent price seems to be The Impossible Quest. All of my online searching had just left me finding hotels and hostels that were either way over-priced (in my cheap-skate eyes), inconveniently out of the way from all the attractions in the city, or accompanied by silly rules like curfews and assigned bedtimes. (what, am I nine years old again?)

And plus the airlines are ridiculously over-priced this time of year. Chuseok, equivalent to Korean Thanksgiving, is the time of year when *everybody* flies or drives home to visit family, and so flights are often booked up months in advance. As the so-called rules of business apply, prices rise with demand so it's crazy expensive to fly anywhere during that one week of September. It's only two hours away by air but most airlines were wanting to charge well over 600,000 Won for the trip. So expensive!!!

So now it looks like Hong Kong is the front-runner. Airfare is still going to cost me a fortune (about the same as a flight to Tokyo actually, but at least it's a four-hour flight so I feel like it's almost worth it then.) But, accommodation will most likely be cheaper, and transportation, food, shopping, and attractions are all significantly less expensive in Hong Kong. And plus Pauline might be going there as well so we're gonna try and plan our trips together I think.

It's kind of a shame cause I probably won't get another chance to go to Tokyo before leaving Asia, but it was just proving to be too difficult to plan a trip there and too rich for my blood. Hong Kong *is* in my travel plans for next year, but I don't think I'll be bored going there twice. From what I've heard it's one of the most exciting, most dynamic and cosmopolitan, most thrilling cities on the planet. And certainly one of Asia's great urban jewels. To go there has been an urban planning dream of mine for years and years. God it would be amazing to to just hang out in Hong Kong and take it all in!

I'm currently on waiting lists for the choice flights (I shouldn't be surprised that they were all booked up too) but am hoping that something will come through. Chuseok is a five-day holiday and I don't want to spend all that money to go there if I can't enjoy the full mini-vacation. It's just not worth it for three days or anything like that. As much fun as Korea is I've sorta been having The Itch lately to get out of this tiny country for a bit to see something new. And with all these great Asian destinations all so close to Korea it's enough to make a traveller at heart like myself salivate at the mere thought! While I'm drooling, here's hoping that Hong Kong works out!

Day 187: Birthday Boy

So I woke up this morning to find myself another year older today. Today is my 26th birthday! 26 already??? What the hell? Where did all those years go? Man, time flies by so fast!! I still remember my teenage years as if they were just last summer, and my early 20's at university feels like it was barely a month ago. Now here I am, 26 years old, been out of university for two and a half years, out of high school for seven and a half years, and now living on the far corner of the Earth. Crazy! :-) I've now officially crossed over into the 'Upper 20's' Region of Age - does this mean that I have to grow up sometime soon? LOL. ;-)

I walked into class today and had all my pre-schoolers wish me happy birthday and then run up and hug me. I had told them like a week ago that today was my birthday and they had been counting down the days in class ever since. Not sure why they're so excited about it but it's so cute anyway!! I even got a couple cards from some of them that they had made, and Brian even brought me a present (a really nice set of Korean coasters - cool!!)

I got a great surprise during fourth block today. I walked into class and all the lights were off. Suddenly they came on and out jumped all my kids, along with Cecilia my Korean assistant and Iris the school counsellor. They had a big birthday cake all lit up with candles and then proceeded to sing me Happy Birthday. They gave me a special birthday hat to wear and then Cecelia gave me a big bag of Korean candies and goodies. So sweet!!! We all had cake together and then took a couple class photos together. I LOVE MY KIDS!!! The funny thing is that the cake was actually from Eugene's Mom! (the Screamer!) Wow - what a nice surprise! :-)

Just after lunch I was awarded with another wonderful birthday surprise! We had a surprise "staff meeting" just after lunch and when it was Meeting Time suddenly all the lights went off again, and yet another birthday cake was brought in for me from all my coworkers and bosses! WOW - two cakes in one day!!! This one was even an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins - awesome!!! Everyone sang to me again and then it was once again time to gorge down on the yummy cake. I even got a little birthday present from Sally & Jason - a box of Kraft Dinner and Jamiroquai's Greatest Hits!!! YAH!!!! :-)

My entire afternoon actually turned into one long birthday party! I had told all my elementary-aged kids about my upcoming birthday as well so we decided to have a Snack Party in each of my classes. A Snack Party is where each kid brings in some snack or treat to share with everyone else - usually chips, cookies, crackers, or something like that. So essentially this afternoon I had SIX little birthday parties all for me. Man, I never had so much junk good in my life! Haha!! I decided to make it Game Day as well so we played Hang Man and Pictionary in all my classes while chowing down on the variety of treats that each student had brought. It was a totally fun day for all the kids and for me and a great way to celebrate my birthday. I got tons of cards and little presents from all my afternoon kids too - pens and paper, tea cups, baskets of candy, chocolates, crocheted cell-phone trinkets, key chains, and even a Buddhist frog bell to hang in my apartment. I felt so special! :-)

After work I was coming down after my super sugar high and was feeling pretty tired. I deciced to have a quiet night at home since not only was my actual birthday celebration gonna be this Saturday, but I had a ton of report cards to grade. I was awarded with another great surprise tonight - a surprise phone call from my good friend Laura who lives all the way in Halifax. We had a nice little chat and it was great to hear a voice from the home country on my birthday.

All in all it was an excellent birthday and definitely one I'll never forget!

Day 186: A Rude Awakening

At about 6 o'clock in the morning today (well, I guess technically tomorrow since it was after midnight and therefore Wednesday) I woke up to hear the sound of yelling and crashing below. Awaking from my sleepy fog, I wasn't sure if it was just a bad dream and I was imagining things, or if it was something else.... I listened for a minute and then heard a HUGE SMASH coming from right below my apartment window... I looked down into the space between my apartment building and the next one and saw something smashed all over the pavement and just got a glimpse of a man disappearing behind the corner. This was immediately followed by more screams from a female below.

I knew exactly what was going on.

In my building live a young Korean couple who hate each other more than I ever thought was humanly possible. And they seem to enjoy announcing their extreme marital stresses out to the entire neighbourhood. The worst domestic fighting that I have ever heard in my entire life comes from them, and sadly, this happens on a fairly regular basis. It's always at some ungodly hour of the night (or really early morning in this case) and often lasts for hours on end. It had actually been a while since I had heard them do this but this one was particularly bad.

Even though they live two floors below me, their yelling and screaming at each other is so loud that you swear they're right outside your doorway. And it's more than just yelling - it almost always involves stuff being thrown around and objects/appliances/household items being smashed against walls and the floor. And tonight, for the first time, this was extended to outside their apartment. I remember one time sleeping over at Brad's place back in the day and because I was sleeping on the floor I could actually feel *vibrations and shudders* from their fighting two floors below. I don't think they're hitting each other, cause they never appear injured, but rather just destroying their apartment.

This has, unsurprisingly, caused great stress on all the tenants in the building. My building manager has asked them numerous times to either stop it or move out, but they absolutely refuse to. In actuality 90% of the yelling and screaming is coming from HER and she seems like the biggest bitch of the century. She keeps threatening to sue the building manager if she makes her leave (I guess this can be done in Korea?) and continues with the angry fits. The bdg mgr even had everybody in the building sign a petition asking them to leave but it's been to no avail. The police have been called in before, but there's apparently nothing they can do either. We're literally stuck with them and can't make them leave.

Sadly, domestic violence is fairly common in Korea, and almost accepted as 'daily life.' Nobody blinks an eye to see a husband reaming out his wife on the street in public, and I've even heard of stories from friends who've actually witnessed women being BEATEN by their husbands in public. The strangest part about this is that the women actually accept it for the most part and never try to fight back. In times when someone (either a local or most often a foreigner) tries to intervene and stop the husband's violence, the wife ALWAYS runs up to the defense of her husband (even though he was just kicking the shit out of her) and actually will turn on the person trying to help out. It's completely fucked up, but I guess us Westerners have a very different view on what's appropriate in terms of domestic violence and male-female relationships.

I feel so sorry for the husband in my building who is stuck living with this psycho bitch. Apparently he wants a divorce but she won't let him leave. And a number of times, when coming home from work or being out at the bar or wherever, you can see him sitting outside the apartment resting and 'preparing' himself before diving back into the hellhole that is his apartment. As mentioned before, domestic violence happens more often than you'd think here in Korea, but this particular couple are SO BAD that even all my Korean neighbours can't stand it anymore.

It's absolutely horrible to hear and some nights I'm actually afraid for someone's safety. My neighbourhood is normally so quiet and so happy and so peaceful, until this fury is unleashed now and then. I can't believe that two people would continue to live like this night after night. And I can't believe that vocally and psychologically berating your husband is allowed by the authorities, as is a man beating his wife repeatedly in public. It's just one of those things that I'll never understand, nor do I really want to.

Day 185: All That Jazz

Today was a great day at work. Everything just seemed to fly by in a blur and my whole work day was gone before I knew it. Even though my schedule is longer on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, I seem to enjoy it more. Maybe it's just the particular combination of classes on those days, or the fact that my students are much more engaging and brighter. I mean I love all my kids, but my M-W-F kids are the ones who've lived overseas and can speak English really well. And they're so damn smart!

Report cards are back again though. God, didn't I just finish writing up the ones for July last week? Wow, that was fast... This crop of report cards is a little different from the last one in the sense that I'm not giving them number scores on certain academic and behavioural qualities, but instead I write in the 'comments' section. We only do this once every semester and it allows parents to get specific feedback, praise, and reccommedations on their child's studies. It's a great idea, but writing up 100 comments is a lot of work! I was gonna dive in to them tonight but then my phone rang...

It was Pauline, and she was looking for a Scrabble partner. I jumped at the chance to procrastinate and walked the 45-second walk over to her apartment. We ended up having a really cool night just hanging out together. We played Scrabble, drank some red wine, and had some really nice jazz going on in the background - a little Louis Armstrong, a little Ray Charles, and a little Billie Holiday. We talked about our respective travel plans for Chuseok and I don't know if it was the wine or the sultry jazz in the background but the whole night had a very 'modern, urbane, sophisticated' feeling to it. I felt like I was all grown up (which I guess I really am!) and living some sort of posh debonnair lifestyle.

Yes, it was just Scrabble, some cheap wine from a local store, and mp3's on a laptop, but it was pretty darn cool nonetheless. Pauline kicks my ass each and every time we play Scrabble and I've vowed to her that I'm not leaving Korea until I've beaten her at that darn game! One of these days I'm just gonna win, I know it!! (aahhhhh yes, Scotty's competitve side rears its ugly head again...LOL)

I'll have another glass of merlot, please, Pauline...it seems to be helping my vocabulary... ;-)

Day 184: Waterworld

Another great morning of sleeping in late (actually I never saw the morning - I didn't wake up until just after 12 noon!) and the heading straight for the beach. Today was much like yesterday - just catching some rays, playing all day in the water, and enjoying the bounty of eye candy that can be found at any given beach! ;-)

Hanging out at Haeundae all weekend long made me realize how much I MISS living next to the ocean! When I lived in Vancouver I never really swam in the Pacific (too cold) but spent a lot of time either walking the seawall or just hanging out on its shores. And after growing up in Thunder Bay on Lake Superior (which is like a small freshwater ocean) I'm very much used to living in a city on a major body of water. There's something very calming, reassuring, and comforting about living next to a large lake or the ocean. It's like the presence of the water provides some sort of fixation, or natural gravitational point, for a city. A permanence in the landscape that makes one realize that man, in fact, is very small and very dependent on nature.

Since moving to Korea I've had that presence in my life removed and I definitely feel its absence. Cities feel strangely misplaced or 'lost' to me when they're not on a major body of water. Yes, Seoul's Han River is an incredibly wide river, but it's not the same as living on the ocean. It's strange how much the landscape can affect our daily lives... I've also noticed that cities not on the ocean seem much less relaxed than those that are. Again, there must be something calming about the sea but for whatever reason cities located inland seem a lot more hectic and stressful to me. I've definitely realized that wherever I settle permanately, it's gotta be a coastal city for sure! People who live next to the ocean just seem to be more 'chill', and go about their day-to-day activity with less franticness and confusion. Perhaps this is all just in my head, but there is something definitely different about coastal vs. inland cities. What do you think?

Anyways, Haeundae was a blast again today. More wave-riding and getting thrown around by the surf and goofing off with Michael and Eric. We hated to leave but eventually we had to gather up our stuff and head back to the train station. Before boarding our train we did a little more shopping where I attempted to buy myself some new shoes. These plans were thwarted, however, by the fact that most Korean shoes don't come in my size (size 12.) I didn't think it would be *that* hard to find shoes in my size here in Korea but I've had terrible luck so far. Maybe I'll fare better in Seoul where some of the stores might cater to the weguk community (ie: Itaewon). I'll have to try again in the city and see how I do.

We caught the 6pm KTX back to Seoul and then it was the bus back to Ilsan. I was home just after 10pm and it actually felt like I had been out of my house for quite some time even though it had only been two days. I love weekends like that, when they're so much fun that you actually feel like you've gone somewhere, done something, and escaped for a bit from your everyday life (not that my everyday life is bad or anything!) It's just that weekends are so much FUN! And hey five weekends in a row outside the city is pretty damn good! ;-)

Day 183: Haeundae

I woke up today with a slight headache and the recollection that no, I don't in fact, sound like Billy Joel *at all.* :-) It was great to sleep in late and us three boys just lazed around the room for a while relaxing (aka: nursing ourselves) and watching 'The Parent Trap' on TV. By early afternoon we got changed into our swimsuits and headed on down to Haeundae Beach, just two short blocks away from our hotel.

Haeundae is the beach that I visited a few weeks ago with Nick & Angele after camping on Geojedo. It's the crazy insanely popular beach in Korea that is still surpringly fun and relaxing to hang out at. The weather today was kinda cloudy (but still warm) so that meant that the beach wasn't all that crowded. We were actually able to find a piece of sand to call our own and made ourselves quite comfortable.

We spent the next few hours horsing around in the surf, which was absolutely incredible at Haeundae all weekend long. Apparently some typhoon near Taiwan was stirring up the giant waves and it made for a fun day to be at mercy to the big waves. (For all the parents, don't worry, this beach is lifeguarded and monitored so that it's always safe to swim - they wouldn't let us swim if they thought we were all gonna be swept out to sea by an approaching typhoon!) I spent the day bodysurfing and diving in and under the waves which came crashing in like mini-tsunamis over and over again. The ocean rocks!

Eventually dinner time approached so we went back to the room and had nice long showers. After that we wondered around and did a bit of window-shopping and then headed for some supper. We went and had a scrumptious dinner up on TGI Friday's fifth floor outdoor patio overlooking 'The Strip' and the beach. A major thunderstorm was just rolling through the area so Mother Nature entertained us all dinner-long with magnificent lightning over the harbour and some fantastic torrential downpours. The streets were all lit up with neon while the enormous Busan Harbour Bridge glowed ominously in the distance through the storm clouds. What a beautiful sight - I wish I had brought my camera!

Later on that night we headed back into downtown Busan to hit the bars again. We did a little circuit this time, beginning at Zip, and then moving on to Trunk and then a place calld Nom which was completely empty. After that it was back to Zip, our new fave watering hole in Busan, and spent the rest of the night there. I was feeling pretty exhausted after last night, and a full day playing in the sea, but managed to stay up until around 5am or so. After that it was desperately time for bed so it was back to the hotel. What a great day!

Day 182: NOT A Reccommended Cosmetic

This week has totally just flown by! Last week went by like frozen molasses dripping in an ice storm, but this week was like 'blink and it's gone!' It's Friday already and the weekend is almost upon me. Hooray! I'm going away this weekend again to Busan with Michael and Eric and am totally looking forward to it.

My week has totally just flown by...until this morning... For whatever reasons all my pre-schoolers just all collectively decided to become little holy terrors today. They've been pretty good all week, especially the last few days, but today it was like they just released all their non-listening-to-teacher energy all at once. We weren't even like five minutes into class and already the drama was unfolding. My first three blocks were filled with plenty of crying, fighting, throwing of pencil crayons, tattle-taling, and my personal favourite of the day - spitting in hair. Oh, how lovely!

The shit *really* hit the fan when fourth block came round. Fourth block is Activity Block and is the 40 minutes of the day when all the kids complete some kind of arts 'n crafts project that the Korean assistants have put together. It's normally a really great way for me to end my morning with the kids because not only does it involve no prep at all for yours truly, but it's often kinda fun and I enjoy interacting with the kids as they let their creative juices flow via crayons, scissors, and glue.

Oh, glue...

*rolling my eyes*

Every once in a while the Korean teachers, bless their sweet and well-intending hearts, come up with an activity that is completely inappropriate or ridiculously difficult for the kids. Today was one of those days... The kids today had to make this paper cut-out of a hot air balloon, but they had to glue TISSUE PAPER (Hello! Why would you give tissue paper to a five-year old? *I* can barely handle tissue paper alone!) using glue sticks to their paper, and then later cut it out and fasten some string....ugh.... It was a complete disaster!

First off, there was paper *everywhere* all over the classroom. Little shreds of the stuff was just covering everything. This would NOT be fun to clean up later! And the scissors they had wouldn't cut the paper properly, so it was tearing and not coming out nicely, making the kids cranky. And then trying to glue these little bits of tissue paper onto the sheet....it was just not happening. In the middle of all of this tissue paper madness one of my girls, Rachel, had a bunch of tissue paper stuck to her gluestick. Suddenly realizing that her gluestick looks a lot like a stick of lipstick, she began 'applying' the sticky tissue paper to her lips...

"Teacher, look! Lipstick!"

I looked up in horror to see bits of tissue paper stuck all over Rachel's mouth, and she had the biggest smile on her face. Next thing I knew ALL the kids thought that this was the coolest thing ever so they all began to do the same thing. I had twelve kids all using their gluesticks as lipstick and I had to quickly and desperately put a stop to this new found game. OH BOY!

By the time this conundrum got sorted out there was only like five minutes left in class, and not even half the kids had finished their balloon yet. They all panicked when they realized that it was time to go and so they began madly racing ahead with their projects. And then a couple of them started to cry when they realized that they just were not going to get it finished in time before the end of class. Man, this activity was a disaster!

Luckily the rest of the afternoon flew by and then it was time for me to head home. I packed up a bag for the weekend and b-lined it to Seoul Station. Michael and Eric had already bought a reserved ticket for me so I just had to pick it up and then hop on the train. I boarded the 10pm KTX and sailed on down to Busan. I rolled into Busan just before 1am and gave the boys a ring. They were already at a bar so I caught a cab and then met up with them.

We spent the night drinking at this cozy little hole in the wall called Zip and it was really cool. I downed a couple Tom Collins (I needed them in order to decompress after the Gluestick Fiasco) and then we decided to head across the street for some karaoke. I've never ever done karaoke before (if you've heard my 'singing' voice you'd understand why) and have always avoided it like The Plague in the past, but hey after a couple TC's, I become a lot more agreeable - and bold! We spent the rest of the night drinking beer, munching fruit, and even sang a few songs. Michael & Eric sang a couple Korean songs, and then actually managed to convince me to join them for our rendition of The Tide Is High and Uptown Girl. (okay, I have to confess, I actually *requested* the latter, just for old times sakes!) I sounded absolutely terrible up there but it was a blast nonetheless!

Way too many drinks later it was time to head back to the hotel. I *think* this was sometime around 4 or 6 in the morning...it really is all quite the blur... Thank God Michael and Eric had already been there and were leading the way cause in my drunken stupor I had no idea where I was. I don't even remember the cab ride there, or getting into our room, or going to bed...

Day 181: Time Flies...

...When You're Having Fun!

I have two new co-workers at POLY - Anthony from Halifax who started last week, and Adrienne from Kalamazoo, Michigan who just started this week. Both of them have to do the Osaka Visa Run tomorrow, and since I just did that run myself just over a month ago I decided to take them out for dinner to give them the low-down on their day in Japan. We went to Torros which is a really nice, classy restaurant at LaFesta that specializes in spaghetti that's to die for. We had a really nice meal and I gave them my full spiel on what to expect in their sure-to-be-hectic-but-fun day in Japan's second largest city. I'm the kind of guy who loves to give advice and share experiences, and I was more than happy to tell them all about my day there and what to expect.

I'm still sorta newish at POLY, having only been there six weeks, but I've already jumped up three spots in seniority since I started, with all the new hirees. A lot of the new staff have been coming to me for advice and info on POLY stuff and it's made me feel pretty cool and important. I'm really quite comfortable at POLY and can't believe how fast the time has flown by. It didn't take long for me to find my groove at the school and I seem to have a really good repore with my students. I really like my job a lot, and, especially after all that shit I went through with my old job, feel very lucky to be a part of the POLY team.

On top of that, this weekend celebrates my *six month anniversary* here in Korea. WOW! I can't believe that half a year has gone by already!!! If I was still in my old contract I'd be half-way finished my time in Korea already. I'm having such a good time here that I honestly don't mind that I'll be in Korea 17 months altogether by the time I finish up at POLY. SO MUCH has happened in six months that I feel like its enough to fill up six years. I feel like Life In Korea is like SuperLiving or something like that. You get to experience so many amazing and wondrous things, so many sights and emotions and discoveries and explorations that I just never would've been exposed to back home, all in such a short, compressed amount of time. Instead of Speed Dating, this is like Speed Life. You really do get to have your cake *and* eat it too here. It's a unique lifestyle to say the least, and I feel blessed to be a part of the whirlwind that is the Life Of An English Teacher.

Day 180: Mr. Popular

Want a guaranteed way to become Mr. Popular amongst all of your co-workers? Looking to become everybody's new best friend? Hoping to secure a position amongst all the Cool Kids on the playground? Here's a sure-fire way!

Give them chocolate...imported chocolate from North America that just can't be found here in Korea! Guaranteed results!!!

Thanks to my way-cool Aunt and Uncle in California, I became Mr. Popular at work today thanks to a little chocolate bribe. For my birthday John and Dianna (aka: J-Mc and ) sent me a really awesome birthday care package that arrived today at work. I opened it up amongst all my jealous co-workers and discovered a bounty of treats - a bounty that once carefully dispersed would become the gift that keeps on giving.

Inside the box was not only a really nice blue Old Navy hoodie sweatshirt (I love hoodies!!) but quite the sample of candies - Reese's Mini Peanut Butter cups, some Hershey caramel chocolates, Bertie Bots (the jellybeans from Harry Potter!) and some EasyMac! YUM!!!

Normally I'm the kind of guy who likes to hoard and savour his candy, stretching it out over weeks (or even longer!) so that I can maximize its sweet yummy goodness, but I saw an opportunity here that I couldn't pass up. I opened up the Peanut Butter cups and gave one to all of my co-workers. WOW! You should've seen the cries of joy and ecstacy that rang out in that staff room!!! Peanut butter cups just can't be found here in Korea and *everybody* loves 'em, so they were a HUGE HIT amongst all my POLY buddies!

That one small sacrifice of chocolate resulted in me rocketing to the top of fame and fortune here at POLY. I'm now THE MAN at POLY and have all of my co-workers at my beck and all! Right on! Bring on the power! And the best part is that I still haven't opened the second bag of chocolates - the Hershey Treasures - which I know will be irrestistable to those weguk (foreigner) co-workers of mine! They're all gonna be putty in my hands!!! MUHAHAHAHA! (evil laugh!) And I owe it all to John & Dianna!! THANKS GUYS!!!!!!!!!

Actually I'm really just being silly with all of this. I was just super happy to get some treats from the home continent and wanted to share in the goodness. What can I say? I'm just a really, unbelievably, exceptionally, breathtakingly, unabashedly, shamelessly nice guy. Yep, lil me. Nice. And modest too. Oh so nice. Don't you just love how nice I am? Nice nice nice. Who wants more nice? I do! I do! Forget milk! Got Nice? Yep, a whole lotta nice I gots!

hahaha.... ;-)

Day 179: Tokyo?

So I have another holiday coming up next month and I'm trying to figure out what I should do with my time. At the end of September is Chuseok which is the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. It means a five-day weekend (we get a M, T, and W. off) and our only other holiday for the next long while excluding Christmas. Korea becomes a massive traffic jam during this time as the vast majority of Koreans leave Seoul to return to their respective hometowns to spend the holiday with their family. I don't get many long breaks so I'd like to take this opportunity to go and travel somewhere cool.

And I'm thinking about Japan. Ever since my Osaka visa run I've been intrigued by the Land Of The Rising Sun and since it's not in my backpacking travel plans for next year I thought I should check out while I'm here in Asia. I'm thinking of spending a couple days in Tokyo for the Chuseok holiday, but the cost may prove to be a bit of a challenge...

If Japan is notoriously expensive, than Tokyo is astronomically expensive. Last time I heard it was the most expensive city in the world to live in, and I'm not surprised considering the preview I was given when I was in Osaka. Accommodation is the real killer, I've been told, and I keep thinking there *must* be some cheap places to stay somewhere there. Hostels are probably the best option, but I'm not sure what those are like over there. I know that a hotel room is definitely out of the question, and unfortunately I don't know anyone in Japan that I can crash with for a few days. Hmmm....

I really wanna go somewhere fun and cool but I don't want to break the bank doing it. I'm gonna call some travel agencies here and see if I can find some cheap(er) package deals maybe, or perhaps just a half-decent airfare price. I'm also gonna pick up the Lonely Planet: Tokyo I think to see what I can find out in there. Good ol' LP usually has some good tips for bargain-hunters and I definitely fall into that category. Hong Kong is another option I'm considering, but that would probably prove to be just as expensive....

Either way I don't want to just hang around here and waste a perfectly good holiday. Since I decided to stay in Korea for my summer vacation (and I did have a blast) I figured I deserve a little out-of-country trip. Hanging out in the world's most populous city sounds like great fun to me. I've heard that Tokyo is tons of fun with loads of fascinating places to check out. I'd love to join the hustle and bustle of Japan's capital for a few days, but I guess we'll see if I can afford it...

Day 178: Hae Keun

So the good news is that my former problem child in my class of pre-schoolers, Eugene, has been a peach the last couple of weeks. The bad news is that another one of my kids is proving to be much more challenging than she ever was!

Ever since we put Eugene on a star-chart program, where I award her with stars in various categories for her behaviour, she has almost done a 180. She's had a few small minor cries here and there but there hasn't been a big tantrum since - and that's been a huge relief for me, that's for sure!! The odd time she has cried, she'll cry a bit for like a few minutes, but then she stops and she's all smiles again. Such great progress - go Eugene!!

My current challenge in the class is a student named Hae Keun (pronounced Hay-Gun.) He was a bit of a pain before, right from the beginning, but it has progressively gotten worse. Hae Keun proves to be difficult to manage for several reasons. He's very energetic and enthusiastic in class, but sometimes this proves to be more of a curse than a blessing. He's a bit bigger than the other kids and when he gets really excited he tends to want to run around, flail his arms, or jump, and he often mows down a kid or two in the process! Almost daily I have to comfort other crying children who've been unlucky enough to be in Hae Keun's path when he's got a burst of energy. I had been warned about this ahead of time, and try to prevent it, but it's hard to try and keep him calm and maintain his enthusiasm for learning at the same time.

The main problem is Hae Keun's temper. Like Eugene, he also doesn't like to hear the word 'no', and gets very angry when he doesn't get his way. Unlike Eugene's screaming and crying, Hae Keun tends to act out by yelling at the top of his lungs, stomping his feet, hitting a student, or throwing an object across the room. Again, because of his size, this can result in other kids getting hurt. He's also extremely sensitive to the other kids and the slightest tease or taunt from another student can send him into Angry Yelling Mode. This definitely wears down on my patience (and my ears) each and every day. He doesn't like to listen to teachers (myself or any of the others) and sometimes, upon being scolded, either begins to cry or refuses to do anything but sit and pout the rest of the class.

I've tried a few tactics with him but must admit that I haven't had much luck. In fact, it seems that his temper is actually getting worse. I had to take him out of the class today and have a chat with him in the hallway about his temper tantrums, and this actually seemed to work quite well. However, I can't be doing this every day and need to come up with a better solution. I'm thinking of trying the star chart system with him too, and actually I'm strongly considering having it as a Parrots Class daily solution. I may as well get all of the kids on it and see how it turns out. It would be great if this was as successful with Hae Keun as it was with Eugene!

I love my pre-schoolers but they definitely wear me out. Four blocks with them everyday is a lot and by 1:30pm I'm happy to see them off. I've realized that I much prefer teaching the older kids (they listen better, there is much less classroom management, and the more advanced material is fun to teach) but I've got my pre-schoolers for the next year so I've got to find some new tricks for the classroom. Calling all teachers...any suggestions?

Day 177: Survivor: Deokjeokdo!

How absolutely wonderful it was, this morning, to be able to wake up not the sound of an alarm, or noisy kids outside my apartment, or propaganda trucks cruising up and down the street, but instead to the calm, soothing sound of waves crashing against the beach. Now *this* is how to spend a weekend!

All the Koreans had left last yesterday afternoon and none of them had returned. We literally had an entire beach all to ourselves and it was amazing! (This is quite a stupendous feat in itself, as finding a quiet piece of real estate to relax in ALONE is near impossible in this crowded little country.) It was great to be able to sleep in a bit and then relax on the beach and enjoy the solitude.

Our solitude didn't last too long as we were all anxious to jump back into our Survivor game and find out who would win. After Nick's build-up last night we were expecting some sort of back-breaking triathalon to compete in today but it ended up being a fairly simple challenge. Pauline, Angele and myself had to run the length of the beach and back again - backwards. We weren't allowed to turn around at any point to see where we would be going and the winner of this challenge would win Immunity, meaning they'd advance to the final round and get to choose who'd be going to join Nick in the jury, and who'd get a chance at a cool million dollars cash....errrr.....free dinner I mean. ;-)

I figured that I totally had this challenge in the bag, with my unnaturally long legs and all, but fate had other things in store... As soon as the race started Angele shot out of there like a cannon, and considering that she's only five feet tall, she blasted down that beach!! I was about two sleps behind her the whole way and just could not catch up it seemed! (Pauline was waaaayyy behind, eating our sand dust.) The first leg was already completed and I still had done nothing to catch up with that little jackrabbit Angele! In the last stretches of the race I really just started GIVIN' 'ER and was only like one step behind Angele but she crossed the finish line ahead of me and was once again awarded with Immunity! Wow, this is one competitive little girl!

Pauline and I then had to tell Angele why she should take each of us to the Final Two, and in the end she ended up choosing...ME!!!! YAH!!!! So it was now Scotty & Angele in the Final Two with Nick & Pauline making up the jury. This was the last part of the game, so now Angele and I had to give long-winded, poetic, Oscar-winning speeches about our valiant efforts in the game, our illustrious virtues and admirable characters, and our desires for striving in competition, setting a good example 'for the kids', and dreams of world peace all just to try and woo the Jury into picking us to win.... Who would it be...?

Pauline & Nick went off to the far end of the beach to have a private pow-wow and make their decision. They took a long time to decide and from a distance Angele and I could see that they were having a hard time making their choice. They finally came back and revealed their selection... The official winner and soul survivor of Survivor: Deokjeokdo was....

....ANGELE!!!

Okay so no, I didn't win, but hey second place ain't bad, right? (Yes there were only four of us playing this game so it wasn't that amazing to get this far, but hey let me enjoy my moment, k?) ;-) Angele did a little Happy Dance on the beach and then we went for a swim to cool down and relax.

After that it was unfortunately time to pack everything up. We bid farewell to our own little private beach and unanimously agreed that we this beach was even nicer than our weekend last week at Myeongsa Beach on Geojedo Island! I'll definitely be coming back to this beach sometime.... We headed to the ferry terminal, had some lunch, and then sailed back to the mainland. After that we went into Itaewon and had a really yummy dinner at Outback restaurant. Angele enjoyed her free dinner and the four of us recounted our glorious weekend on that beautiful island. We all had such a blast this weekend and I can't wait for the next camping trip!

P.S. We've also planned to have a 'Survivor: Deokjeokdo - AllStars!' in early September by gathering up all our friends and having a BIG Survivor weekend with lots of cool challenges. Now how much fun will *THAT* be!!??? I totally plan on winning that game! :-)

Day 176: I Love Shamanism

Oh boy, another 'Dear God is it time to get up already?' early start today!! The alarm went off at 6am and it was time for the four of us to get up and get ready to head out to catch our bus. I felt like death warmed over - again - today and I think my whole body was starting to resent me! It can forgive me for one no-sleep night, but two in a row? Uh-uh....

There was a bit of a confusion when we got to Seoul Station as to where and when to catch our bus... We had been giving conflicting schedules from two different sources, and there was like no signage in the area where we had to wait for the bus.... My contribution to sorting out all of this uncertainty was to lay down on the bus stop and sleep. (Again, another first for me!) Finally our bus came and we boarded it and headed for the ferry terminal which is way out in Incheon. (And guess what I did on the bus the whole way there? Yep, you got it - S-L-E-E-P!)

When we got to the ferry terminal in Incheon we discovered that the boat that we wanted to catch had already been sold out. We'd have to wait another two and a half hours for the next one. Argh!! We had some lunch (I ate my new favourite Korean dish - chumchi kimchi chigae, which is tuna and kimchi soup) to kill time and then hung out in the ferry terminal for a while. The ferry terminal was absolute mayhem and not a fun place to be. It was completely packed and the whole idea of 'queueing up for tickets' merely seemed like a fun, idealistic concept here. Boats were selling out left right and centre as everybody and their dog (and there were may dogs there actually) were dying to get out of the city for the weekend.

The ferry ride was about an hour long or so and took us out to the island of Deokcheokdo - a small hilly island 77 km. off the coast of Korea in the Yellow Sea. We arrived at D. and were so happy to have finally made it! We were all tired and cranky and hot from the crowded terminal and ferry ride and were so anxious to hit that beach! My camping companions have all been to D before and knew of some special beach that hardly anyone ever goes to that's supposed to be really beautiful. Having never been to this island before, I just went along with the ride...

The beach was only a short 15 minute bus ride away from the ferry terminal and let me tell you, it was a little slice of paradise here in Korea! The entrance to the beach is not well-marked at all and you have to climb down a wooded embankment to get to it so I can see why it's not popular with the Koreans. But it's secluded, clean, and absolutely gorgeous! It's banked in on each side by large rocky cliffs, the sand is soooo soft and white, the water is clean, and you're awarded with a beautiful view of the sea and offshore islands. Magnificent! We set up our tents right on the beach and made ourselves at home.

We spent the day laying in the sun, reading, and swimming in the refreshing ocean waters. Nick had brought along a fishing rod and attempted to catch some dinner but didn't have any luck. There was a town just up the road so we ended up going there for dinner. It was a lively, charming little town with a variety of inviting restaurants so we strolled around for a bit before plunking ourselves down at one. The owner immediately welcomed us there and chatted us up. We ended up having a really super dinner there and shared two bottles of soju and became rather silly as the night wore on!

When we got back to the beach we were even more silly and hyper and so we decided to turn the weekend into a Survivor weekend! We thought it would be great fun to make up some challenges and then vote someone off at the end of each game, and then see who, at the end of the weekend, would become the soul survivor of Survivor: Deokcheokdo! The winner would receive a free dinner in the city on Sunday night and we all thought this would be a blast!

Our first challenge would be an intellectual one, so we set up a bonfire and then broke out the ol' Scrabble game. I ended up losing (usually I rock at Scrabble!) and Angele won and was therefore awarded with the much-coveted title of Immunity. Knowing that the next day's challenge was going to a physical one, none of us wanted to be matched up against Nick, who is very strong and athletic, so the three of us deciced to vote him out! He was outta the game so fast he didn't know what hit him!!! In exchange though he got to make up the physical challenge for the next day and spent the rest of the night taunting us with how hard and strenuous he was going to make it! LOL

We spent the rest of the night goofing around the bonfire and even had our own impromptu Shamanism ritual! This was in direct response to the signs that we saw last week in Geojedo that banned shamanism on the beach - (see my splashbulb pics to check that one out) and we took a few really hilarious silly photos of ourselves dancing around the fire, chanting, with sticks! (as well as a basket, some scissors, and some rope that I found on the beach and thought made *great* shamanism props!) After wearing ourselves out with the shamanism, we eventually went to bed and I slept like the dead that night!!

Day 175: Paying For It

After only a mere three or so hours of sleep, I woke up at 7AM today feeling like *absolute shit.* I felt like I hadn't slept at all. I felt like I had been run over by a squid truck who then decided to back over me a couple more times just for shits and giggles. I felt....TIRED! But hey this was no surprise at all, right? This is what you get, Mr. Erdman, when you stay out way past your bedtime on a school night! I wasn't even hung over (cause I had barely drank anything last night) but it was just from sheer lack of sleep.

*tisk tisk* (gives self a disapproving grimace)

Jeremy lives in SE Seoul and luckily near the Orange Line. I caught a train and rode all the way back to Ilsan and it was a looooong ride. But, for the first time ever in my life, I slept on the subway! I've always been way too paranoid to sleep on the subway (even though, on any average day, a good third or so of your fellow passengers in your subway car will be sleeping.) This is not for reasons due to concerns regarding my personal safety, but mainly cause I'd be afraid that I'd wake up too late and not only be way past my stop, but be on the same train heading the *opposite way* back down the line again! But, today my exhaustion won over and I slept most of the ride home on that train.

And luckily I did not miss my stop! I got off the subway and decided to walk the rest of the way to work, thinking that the fresh air (ie: hot humid stale grossy sticky smoggy furnace-like air) would wake me up. It helped a little, but not much. Friday turned out to be the longest day at work in the history of mankind. I was okay for the morning, but by the time afternoon came I was barely hanging in there. It took several cups of coffee and a whole lot of patience, extreme focusing, and some fancy mind-over-matter tricks to make it through the day, but I did - and no one was the wiser about it. 7:30pm came and I was thrilled (or would've been thrilled, but was too tired to even know how to spell the word 'thrilled') that the day was over.

I had made plans to go camping again this weekend with Pauline, Nick and Angele so I went home and packed up all my gear. I had some dinner, relaxed a bit, and actually wasn't feeling too tired after all. Brian wasn't going to be able to come out this weekend, but I borrowed a bunch of his gear, met up with Pauline, and we subwayed it into Seoul to meet up with Nick & Angele. Nick & Angele live only a few stops away from where Jeremy lives so that subway ride was totally dejavu from the morning (only no sleeping this time!)

Pauline and I had been invited to crash at N&A's because our bus to the ferry terminal was leaving bright and early and they live much closer to it than we do. Nick and Angele live in a really cool, spacious apartment in a very 'Korea' neighbourhood - steep hills, windy alleys, dirty unnamed streets, hodgepodge buildings, a few highrise apartment towers soaring above clusters of old-style housing, and random snapshot vistas of the Seoul landscape. Super cool. The four of us ended up staying up a bit to hang out and chat (where this energy was coming from in me, nobody knows, cause at this point I was defying all laws of physics just by staying awake) and eventually went to bed around 2am. We'll see how I feel tomorrow morning, eh? ;-)

Day 174: Fame Kicks In

So I was at work late tonight using the school computers to upload a bunch of photos onto my splashbulb site (my home computer is too slow for this kinda thing) and was also using Messenger to kill time inbetween. A new friend of mine, Jeremy, came online and wanted to know what I was up to that night. Citing that I did indeed have no plans, he invited me out to join him and some other friends for some drinks at a bar in Itaewon. I don't often go out on 'school nights' (actually almost never) but I haven't been Out & About in a while and thought, 'what the hell!'

I ran home, wolfed down some dinner, cleaned myself up, and then subwayed it all the way into Itaewon. By the time I got down there it was after 10:30pm at night - quite late already (considering that transit stops in about an hour!) I couldn't find the bar at first but eventually I found Jeremy and he took me on over to Helios where all his buddies were. This was my first visit to Helios and it was pretty cool. It's quite a popular bar in Itaewon and busy all weekend long. Thursday is Ladies Night so all girls get free drinks...damn girls! Why don't guys ever get Boys Night free drinks? Argh! :-) Luckily Jeremy's roomie Becky was there and so she just went and retrieved drinks for us for free from the bar all night. Right on Becky!

It ended up being a really, really FUN night! Jeremy's friends were all cool and it was just one of those nights where everyone was so friendly and you made lots of 'bar buddies' for the night! The coolest part of the night was when I was standing having a Tom Collins (the first since I've arrived in Korea! DEAR GOD SIX MONTHS IS A LONG TIME TO HAVE TO GO WITHOUT MY FAVOURITE DRINK!!!) with Jeremy & Co. when all of a sudden this guy who I've never seen before came right up to me and said "Hey you!! Aren't you the guy from The Contenders!?? Dude, I saw you on TV!!!"

I had to give him a big smile, laugh and say, "yes, yes that's me, yes you did see me on TV!" (cause really, how many times do we *actually* get to say that in real life??) LOL! He was super excited to chat with me and wanted to know all about the show, how I got on it, what it was like being on stage, etc. etc. I was more than pleased to indulge him with all of his questions, while Jeremy and the gang looked onwards in surprise and disbelief at me eating up every bit of my 15 seconds of fame. (They hadn't known until that moment that I had been on the show.) For the rest of the night I was teased about being a 'Local Celebrity' and we all got a good laugh out of it!

We made lots of new friends tonight (including a really cool girl that I met who was from Abbotsford, we exchanged phone numbers) and we spent most of the night dancing away to all the fun tunes on the dancefloor. After Helios we changed venues and Jeremy and I and our whole entourage/group of new friends for the night went to another bar across the street called The Loft which was practically dead but still fun. I didn't have that much to drink but was starting to crash by the time we got here... Next thing I knew it was after 2:30am and I was DEAD TIRED and more than a bit fearful about having to wake up early for work the next day. By the time we got back to Jeremy's and went to sleep it was probably close to 4am I think....

OH GOD tomorrow's gonna be a rough day!! What a really awesome fun night but I *know* that I'm going to pay for it royally tomorrow! Ahh well, I'm a good boy (most nights, but not tonight!) and am allowed to have a naughty night out once in a while staying up well past my bedtime. Here's hoping I can make it through the day! Ack!

Day 173: Pleasure...

...Will Get You Everywhere.

No, I'm not being flirtatious with you (well, maybe some of you!) but this is what I saw on the t-shirt of one of my Grade 5 students today!!! I totally did a double take when I saw it and had to read it like three times just to make sure. I also had to suppress my laughter everytime I looked at her! The funniest thing about it is that the student who was wearing it, Nicole, is a rather polite, shy, and quiet girl. Not the kind of trollup-in-training (like some of my other students) that I'd expect that from!

The truth is I honestly think that sweet lil Nicole really had no idea what the words on her shirt meant. Yes, she can read (quite well actually, she's an advanced student) but she would definitely not know the sexual connotation that message carries (quite direct actually, if you ask me!)

Koreans are *obsessed* with wearing clothing that contains English words on it. It's the hot trend these days here in Korea - shirts, hats, pants, purses, belts, just about anything really fashionable these days has some form of English on it. The strange thing is that in most cases the words are either mis-spelled or don't make any grammatical sense - at all! Hell, half the time they just seem to be random English words strewn together in hap-hazard manner all over the piece of clothing. Even jeans has words written all up and down the sides - there's no escape! This proves to be quite hilarious for us weguks who can actually read *and* understand what the words say! I get quite a giggle from walking through Seoul crowds and checking out all the random English all over the place.

And this just doesn't apply to clothes, but stationary, signage, store brand names, company slogans, billboard advertisements...you name it...it's got English on/in it here in Korea. English is hot and sexy and popular in Korea, and a powerful selling agent, even if people have no idea what the words mean. Here's a few funny examples:

-Pocari Sweat - a popular brand of sports drink very similar to Gatorade

-Man And Woman Love Bakery - this is not far from where I live

-I'm 13! - the name of the English school located across the street from POLY

-the garbage can in my bathroom says "Fine. This can be used for varoius purposes." (Thanks for the clarification! I wasn't sure what to do with it!)

-Are You Type 1? - a popular slogan I've seen on shirts lately (just what the hell is Type 1?)

-ESL brand milk - I'm glad to know that it's not just foreigners here in Korea that are busy teaching English to Koreans!

-I don't remember the name but there's a brand of ice cream that uses a big fat pig as it's mascot - not a great choice of imagery - 'Eat this ice cream and you'll turn into a pig!'

-2% - a tasty watery-peach juice drink whose slogan is "Drenching Body & Heart" (and just what, exactly, is it 2% of? Real fruit juice? Sugar? The percentage of people who drink this beverage that actually understand our slogan and therefore think it's funny?)

-Baby Hunt - a popular chain of stores that sell baby clothes - personally I'd be kinda scared to take my baby there!

-Run Around Naked - another popular slogan I've seen on t-shirts lately? (Seriously? Do you *really* wanna see me naked running around these streets? No? Then don't tell me to do it!)

haha....

Anyways there's tons more but those are just a few that came off the top of my head. I should start a list of all the funny English that I see here in Korea (unofficially this is actually called Konglish!) I think this list would be all too hilarious! :-)

Day 172: Tired

Oh man, today was SUCH a long day at work today. You know when you have those days that just seem to drag on *forever* and that no matter how many times you look at the clock you swear it hasn't moved a millimetre? Well today was one of those days!

It wasn't necessarily a bad day, just a really long one. My morning was alright I guess. My pre-schoolers kept bouncing back and forth between being good as gold to little devils. One minute they were all colouring peacefully and quietly, the next there were like 3 fights breaking out simultaneously. Ahhh kids - so energetic, so emotional, so unpredictable! haha!

My afternoons usually just fly by cause they're my fave part of the day, but not today. Today, being Tuesday, is even one of my shorter teaching days of the week, but yet it went on and on and on....

Granted most of this is because all day long today I was dead tired. I was on the phone a lot last night (talking to a local friend, and then to Brad and Andrea ~ who are moving to Vancouver coincidentally!! My old turf!) and then just couldn't get into a deep sleep last night. The heat lately has been making it really hard to sleep soundly at night and I'm too cheap to keep my aircon all night long. Getting a good sleep is rumoured to be a good thing so I should probably stop being such a cheap-ass and keep my aircon going at night, eh?

All I can say is that I wouldn't have made it through the day today if it wasn't for the desperately-needed assistance of Mr. Coffee! Thank God for caffeine! Some days you just really need that pick-me-up via an artificial stimulant and today definitely qualified. Man, I am so ready for bed. My pillow isn't merely calling, but rather *WAILING* out my name, begging me to come join it in peaceful slumber. You don't have to ask me twice. Goodnight, Korea!

Day 171: Size Does Matter

One of the most interesting differences between Korean and Canadian (and American too) culture, I find, is how each of the respective peoples conceptualize space. Now I've done quite my fair share of travelling while in Korea. Between hiking trips, camping, rafting, temple visits, mud festivals, and vacations to various offshore islands, I've covered just about every corner of this little country. But, in a nation the size of Korea, that really isn't all that hard to do.

Korea, at just under 100,000 square kilometres, is not a very large nation. It works out to be a bit larger than New Brunswick, or about the same size as the state of Indiana for all my Amercian readers, or the same size as Portugal for all my European fans. Either way you look at it, that doesn't work out to be a lot of land area. What's fascinating is two things. One, is that the Koreans have somehow managed to squeeze close to 50 million of themselves into this little peninsula! Wow! No wonder it's so crowded here! (Well, almost half of them live in Greater Seoul, so that'll free up some space elsewhere for them!) Can you imagine would happen if we Canadians tried to put 50 million people into lil New Brunswick? Dear God where would we put them all!?? Can you imagine? 'Welcome to Fredericton, pop. 19 million!' Crazy!

The second point is how the Koreans don't really view their own country as being small. To them, taking a trip across the country to visit a place, like say, Busan, is an incredible journey and adventure in itself. To me, I'm floored that I can cross from one end of the country to the other in just under three hours. For the Koreans, there are many, many corners of this country that they probably never make it to in their lifetime just because they view that space in a totally different perspective from us foreigners. In their eyes travelling to the other side of Korea is FAR, and something that you don't do very often, certainly not on a weekend! Most Koreans don't own passports and have never, and probably never will, leave Korea. This little peninsula is all that they have ever known, and as such their idea and conception of space is shaped by those limits. This applies to just about anyone who's from a small country (my friends in the UK are very much the same way.)

Us Canadians, wow, are we ever SPOILED when it comes to space. I always knew this, but never fully realized it until I came to Korea, but Canada is fuckin' huge!!! Our measely 32 or so million population lives in a area that's equal to 6% of the world's total land space. Granted, most of that land is uninhabitable, but still, that's a lot of open wilderness! I've driven across Canada several times and yes it is a long trip, but it doesn't seem all that arduous or crazy. Taking four or five days to drive from Thunder Bay to the West Coast just seemed 'normal' when I was growing up. That's what happens when you live in a ginormous nation. The Koreans, they honestly cannot *fathom* being in a vehicle for 5 days OR MORE to drive across just one country (and that's just half of Canada!) When I tell them that it takes about four or more hours (and not counting connections) to fly from where I was living in Canada to my hometown, they look at me like I'm joking. In four hours of flying here, you can make it all the way to the Philippines or Vietnam!

As a result, I've often gone on weekend trips all the way across Korea cause honestly it doesn't seem all that far to me, and it's always funny to see and hear the reactions of my Korean coworkers when I tell them where I went in just a day or two. From complete shock and wonderment to pure disbelief! It's pretty funny actually, I think you'd be hard pressed to find two populations that have more of an *opposite* view of space and land and travel times than the Koreans and the Canadians! It's really fascinating how geography can have such a profound influence on the culture and social constructions and spatial impressions of a nation's people. Cool stuff.