Day 222: The Top Ten: Worst Of Korea - Part 2

Here's the second part of the top ten things in Korea that drive me bonkers the most!

5) AIR POLLUTION:

Because of so many people living in such a small area, and with all the heavy industry that drives Korea's economy, the air pollution here is beyond disgusting. I used to think that LA had bad air....not anymore! They sky here is almost never blue - it's always a sorta greyish brownish blueish colour. For most of the year (at least in the warmer months) there's this giant brown and yellow cloud of smog that just SITS over top of Central Seoul and never ever goes away. The air pollution is literally choking this city to death! There are some beautiful mountains to the north of Ilsan but I only get to see them about two or three times a month if I'm lucky cause the rest of the time they're hidden behind an impermeable shroud of smog. And the oh-so lovely bonus of all of this air pollution is a condition that I call Perma-Phlegm. Your throat is permanately clogged with gross disgusting phlegm. I have to hack up like ten or more big fat juicy seething writhing gobs of gooey spit from the depths within cause of the air pollution. My mother would SO NOT be impressed by all the spitting I have to do, but it's either that or choke to death on my own phlegm! Mmmm...yummy!

4) SAYING GOODBYE:

As mentioned earlier in the Best of Korea list, as a negative side effect of the expat lifestyle here in Korea, is the fact that you're always having to say goodbye to people. Employment contracts are only on a one-year basis and so teachers come and go like the changing of the seasons. Some teachers do sign on for another year but most of them are only here for their 365 days and then they're off to their next adventure in life. It means that you meet such wonderful, friendly, kindred spirits, but your friendship (at least in person) automatically comes with an expiry date. I've made some truly amazing friends here but many have already come and gone in my seven months in Korea. It really, really sucks saying goodbye all the time but alas, it comes with the territory. And it never gets any easier though with each passing goodbye.

3) LACK OF FOREIGN FOOD:

One of the most difficult things for people to adjust to is Korean food. Korean food is actually quite delicious, but the hardest part about it is not having access to all your familiar, tasty, comfort foods from back home. Moving to a foreign country can be really stressful and exhausting and sometimes all you really want is to eat something you recognize and enjoy. Seoul, for a city its size, is quite limited in its availability of foreign foods (either in restaurants or in grocery stores) so it's really hard to find your favourite foods. And its weird that once you're removed from something, you get the worst cravings for it and want it SO BAD! For example, about a month or so after moving here I was craving peanut butter like you wouldn't believe. This is kinda strange considering that I hate peanut butter like maybe once or twice a year back home. But suddenly because I couldn't have it, and because it was familiar and comforting, I really, really had to have it. I did end up finding it eventually but there's still plenty of foods that I don't have access to that I so wish I did. I'd give away my left nut for some Mexican food, or some chicken shwarma, or some grilled salmon, or a huge Caesar salad, or a bg-ass sandwich that's not from Subway, or coffee from Delany's, or my Mom's homecooking! Oh, how strong and ruthless my stomach is!

2) EVIL HAGWONS:

Hagwaon is the Korean word for foreign language school, but it also doubles for Extreme Risk At Getting Fucked Over By A Greedy Korean Bastard. Now we all know the horror story that I went through with my old school (I still get shudders just thinking about it) but my experience is unfortunately not a unique one. Foreign teachers get screwed over all the time here in Korea. Korea is a unique chance to experience life abroad, explore a culture, and make a lot of money, but that's only if you end up at a good school. The majority of schools here are poorly managed by Koreans who often treat foreigners very badly. Teachers get promised certain hours or pay and then when they get here it's totally different. Or you get a shitty apartment. Or they pay you late or not at all and then hide your passport so you can't leave the country. Or they fire you one month before your contract's end so they don't have to pay you your severance. Shit like this happens more often than I care to admit. Just check out Dave's ESL Cafe online or englishspectrum.com and you can sample all the horror stories. I hate to let this discourage you, but trying to find a good school that won't screw you is a significant challenge for any foreigner who's thinking of coming to Korea.

1) THE KOREANS:

The Koreans embody all that is the best - and the worst - that is Korea. The vast majority of them are kind, friendly folk who are very helpful and curious about foreigners, but a significant chunk of them make you want to throw yourself into the Han River. Koreans are stubborn to a point of ridiculousness, and are naive and sheltered and know very little or nothing about the outside world. They only wanna see/do/eat/listen/read/purchase Korean stuff and anything else they have no interest in. They can be rude, loud, very crude, insensitive, and PUSHY. People here actually shove their way through crowds and butt in front of you in line (including sweet little old grannies!) Koreans make any attempt to learn their language extremely difficult as unless your pronounce it *exactly* right they'll have no idea what you're saying. They're whiney and complainers by heart and are very close-minded and prejudiced. They can be exclusive and cliquey and many will hate you just because you're Caucasian. You will get screamed at on the street for random, no apparent reasons. You will have drunks falling over onto you/puking on you on the streets and on transit. You will have people laugh at you and ask why you're too fat or too skinny or too tall or too short or too whatever. They can be very vain and shallow and image-conscious and obsessively materialistic. They will lie to your face just to make more money or to get a better deal for themselves. They can be just downright cold. Now like I said most of them are anything but like this, but there are quite a few that have a very effective way of making you feel not welcome in this country at all. You just have to have the confidence and will power to ignore them and remember that most Koreans are very sincere and honest and friendly.

***The cumulative weight of the Best of Korea FAR outweighs the Worst of Korea but I just wanted you to know that it's not all sunshine and rainbows here 24/7. There are many significant challenges to overcome here and staying for a full year is a true test in personal strength and endurance. But the wonders of this amazing little country will reward you a hundred times over for all the shit that you have to deal with. You just have to have some tenacity and a positive attitude. And that's Korea for ya.

Day 221: The Top Ten: Worst Of Korea - Part 1

You know me, I'm all about balance (or atleast attempting to have balance in my life) so to counter-balance last week's Best Of Korea, here's a list of what I consider to be the Top Ten Worst things about Korea. This will give you an idea of some of the struggles, challenges, and daily frustrations that one experiences as an expat here in Korea. Check it out:

10) TRANSIT'S HOURS:

Seoul does have an excellent transit system - very extensive and inexpensive and definitely user-friendly. However, for whatever reasons it all shuts down quite early. The subways stop running around 11:30pm, and the busses around midnight. What's up with that? For a city of 20 million people you'd think they'd run it a little later than that! 24 hours would be nice but hey I'd even take 1 or 2am like what sleepy Vancouver does. Considering that Seoulites love to go out and party on the weekends and that it's not uncommon to go home from the bar at like 4 or 5am you'd think they'd wanna have some transit running then to keep the drunks from getting in their cars. Hell, half the time you don't even go OUT until after midnight so you gotta take a cab right at the beginning of the night. And that's just lame!

9) KOREAN SUMMERS:

Korea's summers definitely leave something to be desired. April and May are a treat, and so is September (well, except this year's) as they are often dry and warm with clear sunny blue skies and low humidity. July and August, the heart of summer, is like Mother Nature's cruel, sick, masochistic joke on Korea. The monsoons arrive and when it rains, it *fucking rains!!* I've never seen torrential downpours like I have here - it's like the heavens left the bathtub running on full blast or something! Having weeks and weeks of rain wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the humidity. HOLY FUCK is it ever humid in Korea!!! It's not uncommon for the humidity to not dip below 95% for weeks or even months at a time and it's enough to make a man go mad. Seriously, I'd walk home from work everyday and if I was lucky and it wasn't raining and I didn't get washed away by the cloud-born tsunamis, I'd be soaked to the gills in my own SWEAT cause it's so bloody humid outside! I'd collapse into my apartment and all I'd wanna do is just sit and make out with my aircon for a few hours. Ugh.

8) CITYSCAPE DULLNESS:

Korea does have some really splendid architecture, but it's all historical structures. There may be some really beautiful temples and palaces here in Seoul, but the rest of the city leaves something to be desired. Korea's modern architecture is completely bland and uninspiring and all about cookie-cutter development. Downtown's skyline looks less exciting than Tulsa's (with the exception of Dr. Evil's HQ's - aka Jongno Tower) and all the buildings seem to be completely about low-budget function and nothing about form. Seoul is one block of high-rise apartment building after another. It literally is a sea of thousands upon thousands of apartment towers that look *exactly* like one another. They're all about 20 or so stories tall and completely square and boring and unoriginal. They're so identical that they have to paint giant numbers on the sides of the buildings so that people can recognize their own building. Looking at Seoul from above is like looking at a sea of dominoes. It's very foreign and different when you first arrive, but gets real old real fast. And as an urban planning geek it just makes me wanna rip them all down and rebuild with some creativity!

7) CRAPPY APARTMENTS:

The standard of living in Korea is definitely less than Canada's. We're absolutely spoiled with the amount of space and fresh air and privacy that we have with our homes back in North America, but that's no surprise at all. Land is scarce and expensive in Asia, and so everybody lives in a shoebox. My apartment back in Vancouver was quite small as well, but at least it was up on the tenth floor with a fabulous view and lots of natural light (and a pool on the roof!) Apartments in Korea are extremely small and plain and lack natural light or air flow. And when you look outside your window all you see is another apartment building. They build the apartments so close together you swear you could jump from one to another. Now don't get me wrong, my apartment is actually pretty cozy and I'm quite fond of it, but it sure is a jump down from the housing stock back home. And plus in Korea there's no ovens, dryers, carpeting, separate showers, and plus foreign teachers almost never have a bedroom - it's always just bachelor apartments. You sure learn to live with a lot less space here!

6) CROWDS & TRAFFIC:

Seoul is a very, very crowded city! Greater Seoul is about the same size as Los Angeles, only with 20 million people living in it instead of 12. Despite the basic laws of physics, they manage to squeeze all those Koreans in to this city. More than 40% of Korea lives in Seoul and it sure shows. The central city is perpetually crowded and you almost never get a reprieve. Streets, markets, malls, busses and subways, grocery stores, parks...*everything* is crowded. Sometimes you can barely move and honestly have to PUSH your way through a crowd just to get through. And you can't even fathom what rush hour is like on those subways. It's like sardines in a can! When the subway car rocks back and forth, everyone rocks back and forth together as if they're one single entity, it's *that* crowded! And in correspondence to this, traffic in Seoul is a friggin' nightmare!! Streets and freeways are perpetually crowded - regardless of whether it's rush hour or not. I don't mind the crowds of people so much but I HATE getting stuck on a bus on in a car as it C-R-A-W-L-S through gridlock. And as for the weekend traffic on the freeways in and out of the city...words cannot even describe the horror! And until they invent a way to instantly beam people to their desired destination just like on Star Trek, I don't see any hope for it getting any better.

Day 220: You Like Me! You Really Like Me!

I walked into work today with a new mission - to whip those little preschoolers into shape and promise to be a better teacher. Well, I know in my heart I'm a good teacher, so I just gotta change myself into a teacher that the Korean Moms will love too. I'll win those bitches over, one way or another! ;-)

The Parrots today were surprisingly well-behaved! There was little I actually had to do in terms of whipping as they were all quite relaxed and obedient today. No fights, no crying, and they all listened to everything I said. Hmmm...maybe their mothers all had long and deep chats with them over the weekend? Or maybe they're all sensing my new asertness and are not in the mood to buck. Either way I'm not gonna complain - I wish they were this way everyday!

I had a really lovely surprise after the pre-schoolers had left that really touched me. I was in the middle of doing my prep for afternoon classes when Cecilia called me in to the library because Dennis' Mom was there and she wanted to speak to me. My stomach did a loop-de-loop at first cause I assumed that she wanted to personally tell me how much she thinks I suck and watch me squirm. No, it was the exact opposite!

She just wanted to tell me that she thinks I'm doing a great job and she really appreciates all the hard work and effort I put into the students. She said that "I know that teaching preschoolers is not easy and takes a lot of energy" (you sure got that right, lady!) and thanked me for all my patience. Her son Dennis is having some trouble with Phonics so we talked about a couple ways that she can help him practice at home. She was extremely friendly and enthusiastic and seemed really gracious.

And then she gave me a present! She said that Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) is coming up this weekend and that she wanted me to have this to say thank you, as she passed me a gold envelope from Lotte Department Store. Wow!! I was not expecting this at all and it really touched me that she would give me a gift for Chuseok. She is so sweet!! I opened it after she left (in Korea it's considered rude to open a present in front of someone after they just gave it to you) and my jaw hit the floor when I saw what it was. It was indeed a gift certificate to Lotte, but in the denomination of 100,000 Won!!! Holy shit! That's like $120 CDN!!! It was an amazingly kind and generous gesture, and it made me realize that hey maybe not *all* the Moms of my preschoolers hate me. LOL. :-)

Day 219: Three Mile Island

The three of us woke up today and were greeted with clear blue sunny skies! Hooray! The last couple weeks have been kinda rainy (unusual for September in Korea) so a warm sunny day on the weekend is a reason to celebrate. We made plans to go out for a little day trip to take advantage of the beautiful weather and escape from the city for a bit (it's been a while since I've left Seoul, like three weeks!)

We decided to go and have a bbq on Yeongheungdo Island, which is located off the coast near Incheon. Unlike Dokchokdo where I've been before camping, this island is accessible by bridge. We stopped into a Carrefour grocery store to pick up supplies for lunch, and then drove on over to the island. There was more traffic than expected on the freeways heading out of Seoul and so it took just over two hours to get there. And we didn't even get lost! Wow!

The island turned out to be...a little less than what was expected. According to the internet sites we looked up, this island is supposed to be really pretty with some great beaches. Well the beaches turned out to be nothing more than small gravely sand patches fronted by enormous MUD FLATS that stretch on forever. The Yellow Sea is really shallow so when the tide goes out, it goes WAY OUT. It's all mucky and smelly and rather gross (yet still crowded with Koreans.)

On top of that, there is a massive power generating station on this island, so there's rows and rows of gigantic high-tension power wires all over the island, funnelling millions of gigawatts or whatever to keep the mainland power grid aflowin'. We decided to leave the Icky Mud Beach and find a better, quieter, hopefully less muddy place for our picnic. We drove around to the other side of the island and found a beach that was a bit bigger and almost empty. It still had 18 miles of mud flasts fronting it, but hey at least we had it to ourselves. And we had a really beautiful view of the open sea and small islands dotting the horizon. Oh wait, no, we couldn't really see that cause of the GIANT POWER LINES stretching across the bay blocking our view. Wow, having a picnic here is like having a picnic on Three Mile Island!

At this point we realized that there was no escape from the mud or power lines so we just had a laugh about it and decided to camp out anyways. We set up our grill and had a yummy bbq lunch. After that we basked in the sun/radiation from the power lines and then played some frisbee. Michael brought his digicam and so he got some great shots of the lovely scenery. I'll have to put 'em up online later cause they're pretty funny in a bleak and dismal way, actually!

In late afternoon we packed our stuff back up and headed on home to Seoul. We took a different route home, driving along the longest causeway that I have ever seen in my entire life. It literally closed off an entire bay that was several kilometres wide, and it took like half an hour or more to drive across this thing! (granted slow traffic played a part in that too.) The traffic back to Seoul was a bitch and it took us three hours to get home.

We headed straight to New Delhi restaurant in Itaewon cause it was the place for Maeve's birthday dinner. This place serves up some really delicious Indian food in their buffet and is one of my favourite restaurants in Korea. YUM! The birthday dinner was small and casual but nice and relaxing. After dinner it was kinda late so I had to head on home to Ilsan. It was a pretty mellow weekend, in all, but I'll more than make up for it next weekend when I fly off to HONG KONG!!! YEEHAW!!!

Day 218: The Six-Day Work Week

I had to get up at 7:30am today (and it's a bloody Saturday!) and I wish I could say it was for something cool, like to head off camping or a road trip with friends or something like that. I have to go to a POLY workshop today, and I'm so not in the mood.

We're required to go to two of these workshops a year and they're an all-day gig. Normally I wouldn't be so cranky and pessimistic about attending a work conference, but with how 'well' the last two days have been at work, the last thing I feel like right now is diving back into another full day of POLYisms and POLYination. I feel irritable and just want to do my own thing. It's a cloudy and rainy day so it's not like I'm missing out on great weather, but I just don't feel like going to this work thing. Spending a whole precious Saturday at a work function just makes it feel like another work day. Ugh.

It turned out to be an alright day, but kinda heavy on the useless side. We had two workshops to attend today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and each were about teaching different kinds of students. Only half of it was actually useful or applicable to me as two of those four hours were spent talking about teaching students grammar, something I don't do at all. The other half was about reading, which I do teach, but it wasn't all that particularly informative or interesting. The whole workshop felt more like POLY Window Dressing as opposed to actually education, but ahhh well I'm obliged to be here by contract so may as well just go with it.

At least we got a free massive lunch buffet which was awesome. I couldn't eat most of the food as it was meat/gross seafood oriented, but the spread was impressive nonetheless. There are 15 POLY schools and all the staff of all 15 were present. It was pretty cool, actually, to be able to check out all the other staff from the other schools. Our day ended at around 4:30pm (and oh yeah, we were all given free kettles) and I felt pretty tired.

I wanted to go out that night and knew there was going to be some stuff going on in the city tonight with friends, so I opted to be dropped off at a subway station instead of being driven back all the way to Ilsan. Coming down to Itaewon early without consulting my friends for specific plans turned out to be not the wisest move. I had three options for friends so I figured that I had all my bases covered. I thought I could hang out with Michael & Gary, and if not then maybe dinner with Nick & Angele, and if not that then I also knew that Luke was going to be somewhere in the city in the evening time. Between those three groups I should be able to find *someone* to come out and play with me...?

Well I phoned Michael & Gary, but they were way out at Everland and weren't going to back in town for another few hours... And I phoned Nick & Angele but they were both split up doing their own things and weren't going to be doing dinner in Sincheon (not Itaewon) for quite a while... And then I actually ran into Luke, but he had just finished a tour of the DMZ and was tired so was on his way home to Chungju. I struck out! That's 0 for 3! I ended up spending five hours in Itaewon on my own in order to pass the time...LOL. I had some dinner at BurgerKing, spent over two hours reading at Starbucks, walked around the full Itaewon Loop twice, and then hung out in the hallway in Michael's apartment for a while waiting for him to get back. Serves me right for not making concrete plans! (now you know why I do need a professional secretary!) ;-)

The rest of the evening fortunately more than made up for having to kill all that time. Michael, Gary and I headed over to Sinchon to The Bar (yes, it's a bar actually called The Bar) and met up with Pauline, Jake & Shannon, Ben, Paul, Lorraine, as well as Nick, Angele, and Darryl. The whole gang was there! It turned out to be the best night I've had out in a while. The music was AWESOME (all 80's stuff and lots of classic rock) and there was a really friendly vibe in that bar. It was mostly foreigners and everyone was having tons of fun belting out all the English songs. And plus at this bar you can order PITCHERS OF GIN AND TONIC!!!! Now how amazing is that??? The three of us ended up staying til just after 3am and then cabbed on home. What a fun night!!

Day 217: Trial & Error

If yesterday was a stressful day, then today was a totally shitty day. :-(

I got my reviews in from Chang (our POLY Director) regarding my performance at the Open House Day, and I totally blew it. Much to my surprise, pretty much all the mothers who came to watch strongly disliked what they saw. I had one complaint after another, and apparently none of them had anything positive to say.

I was told that the main complaint was that the Korean mothers thought that the kids were not disciplined enough in the classroom, and that I had 'too personal of a relationship' with the children. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I was told that I'm too friendly with the kids and need to take on more of a 'stricter teacher role in the classroom.' I pride myself on being close with my kids, and that we can have fun while we all learn together, but I guess that's where the difference between Western and Korean classroom environments begin. As Westerners we're used to classrooms being fairly relaxed and informal, with the teachers being quite flexible and the students having quite a lot of freedom, as long as goals are met and everybody learns. In Korea, I've been told, teachers are quite strict and that all students are expected to behave perfectly at all times and show the teacher the upmost respect. I don't feel that my students disrespect me, but I guess my relaxed and comfortable classroom DOES NOT jive with the Korean Moms.

My shitty review totally made me feel like crap and took the wind right out of my sails. I had been all pleased with how well it went (or so I thought) and here I find out that they hated it. What about the fact that all the students got several chances to speak and write and spell in front of everyone and that they were all enjoying themselves (while obviously have been learning all these months) at the same time? Doesn't that count for anything? I've got some really smart kids in my class, and even the weaker ones had a moment to shine. What about all of that?

I guess maybe I had focused on the wrong areas... I totally feel bad now that I've disappointed my bosses and now all these Moms think I'm a bad teacher or something. It totally sucks, but I've gotta change things around - and fast. In reality POLY is not a 'real' school, per se, but in actuality is a business. The parents pay big bucks to put their kids through prestigious POLY and if the parents are not happy with what's going on at school then they can pull their kids out just like that (example: Eugene.) I have to cater to their wants and demands, cause its the parents who pay my wages.

I just feel like the worst teacher now. Its days like this where I feel like saying "What are you doing, Scott? You're not even a real teacher!" I sometimes feel like a 'fake' as I don't have a degree in education, have had no formal training in teaching or classroom management or marking and grading or lesson planning, and often feel like I'm just making things up as I come along, trial and error. And yesterday was a major error. I enjoy teaching and love all my kids, but its these 'technical teaching things' that I have no experience in whatsoever and its moments like this where I really feel that. Its culture shock being felt right here in the classroom, and its hard not to feel so down and discouraged about it. I want to please both my bosses and all the parents of my students, so I've gotta do whatever it is I've gotta do to make them all happy. I just wish I could figure out exactly what that is...

Day 216: Great Expectations

Today was a totally stressful day. Today was Open House Day - the day when all the parents of the pre-school kids can come in and *watch you teach*!!! Egad!!! I can barely think of a horror worse than having to teach (aka: perform) in front of 11 skeptical and impossible-to-please Korean mothers. The mothers of my students that I have met so far have actually been really nice to me, but Korean mothers are notoriously intrusive and gossipy and I was warned ahead of time about this day. Oh boy...

So I stressed out about it all week which isn't a very good thing, but was feeling okay this morning actually. There's only so much that I can do, cause when it comes down to it, these kids are only five years old and so you have to sorta expect things to be a little chaotic. The mothers are only there for one forty-minute block and I had it all nice and organized so that it would showcase a sampling of each of the areas of study that we do in a week - some reading, some writing, some speaking, some flashcards, some song and dance - it was gonna be all smooth and cutesy and every student was going to have their minute to shine.

Only nine of my mothers actually showed up, and I was thankful that none of them had a video camera (there usually is at least one of them wanting to film you teach, or so I've been told...) I jumped into the swing of things and away we went. The schedule went by as smooth as silk and my Parrots were being surprisingly well-behaved. Teaching pre-schoolers to behave is a lot like training a school of dogs - you can practice and practice and tell them all a hundred times how important it is to *really behave* on this one special day, but in reality you're totally at their whim. Like dogs, five-year olds will only do what they really feel like it when the pressure's on. Overall they were all quite good - the presence of the mothers caused some of them to be really shy, and yet it caused some of them to be quite hyper. Other than the song and dance at the end of the class where things got a little crazy as the kids were really into their singing and dancing, I thought it all went really well.

The forty minute block flew by (thank god!) and next thing I knew I was ushering out the kids to go and get washed up for lunch, and saying goodbyes to all the mothers. They were all quite silent and none of them asked any questions...they just sorta filed out of the room afterwards... Is that a good sign or a bad sign? Personally I thought it went quite well, but I guess I'll find out later.

Day 215: The Top Ten: Best Of Korea - Part 2

We hope you enjoyed those messages from our sponsors - now stay tuned for Part 2 of The Top Ten: Best Of Korea, brought to you by our friends at S2H World Tour, Inc. Enjoy! ;-)

5) FOOD:

Considering what huge difficulty I had with adapting to the food when I first arrived, I never thought I would become such a huge fan of it. I love Korean food! It's amazingly delicious! It's the spiciest food that I've ever eaten in my life, but once you get used to it there's no turning back. Eating Korean food is not just for the taste and the flavors, but for the physical sensation of eating such spicy food. Your mouth literally burns sometimes and you feel like your tongue is going to explode, but that's what gives it that addictive kick. It keeps you coming back for more. And don't even get me started on kimchi! I can't get enough of that stuff! Korean food is very cheap and all meals always come with a variety of side dishes, meaning that no matter what you order there's always quite the sampling right there on your table. Being the non-red-meat eater that I am, it can sometimes be a bit tricky finding restaurants/meals that don't include beef or pork, but the meat-free dishes that I have had here have been incredible. Chumchi Kimchi Chigae may just quite possibly be my most favourite food in the whole world. Wow!

4) HISTORY & CULTURE:

For being such a tiny little corner of northeast Asia, Korea has such a long and fascinating history. Considering that its people have survived being invaded 3000 times in its history (that number is not an exaggeration, I kid you not) its amazing that Korea has survived at all over the centuries. The most recent piece of violence in its history - the Korean War - burned most of the South (and especially Seoul) to the ground, but again the people rose up and rebuilt their homeland. And somehow quite a lot of amazing little jewels of Korean history have survived despite all the wars and invasions, and these remarkable treasures are incredible to visit. Buddhist temples, royal palaces, old markets and city gates, Confucian shrines, and some really ecclectic little neighbourhoods are smattered throughout the country, just waiting to be discovered. History buffs like myself are in heaven, and even those who aren't will be more than impressed with Korea's historical remnants. And there's a million and one really cool cultural festivals to check out, being dedicated from kimchi to mud to green tea to masks to drums to Buddha to ceramics. Korea has a fascinating culture and history.

3) LIFESTYLE:

The life of an expat living overseas really, truly is The Shit. To be a foreigner living abroad has been an amazing, life-changing experience. I could spend hours writing pages upon pages of how incredible it has all been (both the good and the bad) and how my world has been changed forever, but even then I wouldn't truly be able to capture it all. Here, nothing is ever ordinary. Every single day is an adventure. The simplest of tasks can be thrilling or challenging or hilarious or endearing. My weekends have been like one natural high leading right to the next one. Life abroad is like LifePlus. It just feels like you're living *more*, if that makes any sense. You test yourself in ways you never imagined, and all your previous notions and concepts and ideologies of how the world is (and should) be run is completely shattered. For once it really is life outside the box. Hell, I'm so far outside my old box that I can't even see the walls anymore in the distance. To be able to experience day-to-day life in an environment completely different from the world you grew up in, and learn the things you learn, and experience the adventures you experience, and to meet the people you encounter, and to travel the voyages at your doorstep, it's all so brilliant. How will I ever be able to go back to NormalWorld after this?

2) THE PEOPLE YOU MEET:

Tying in with the lifestyle, are the people you meet along the way. You meet the most amazing variety of people (I'm talking foreigners here) who, like you, took the plunge and threw themselves into the chaos of Asia. You bond so so quickly with strangers here, and you become more outgoing than you ever imagined you'd be. You become the best of friends with people who's paths never ever would've crossed yours in a million years back home, and learn so much from them. Friendships here are fast and intense. People come into your world, usually only for a few months, you bond and you connect, and then you say goodbye to probably never see them again. It's one sad beautiful goodbye after another, but you feel really lucky just to have been touched by them. The best thing about the people you meet here is that they have this innate *understanding* of everything you feel and think regarding life as an Outsider here in Korea. Your bestest of friends back home will never ever really comprehend what this life is like, what it gives to you and what it takes out of you, but the people here do. You can see a stranger in the crowd, not even say a word, but one second of eye contact and you know that you're both on the same page. Most of the friends I'll make here I'll probably never see again once I leave Korea, but the ones I do stay in contact with will remain as cherished friends forever. We shared a uniquely intense and thrilling experience together and nothing else can compare to that.

1) THE KOREANS:

There are days here when the world seems to be against you, when you're grumpy and irritable and feeling frustrated and exhausted and just looking for a break and not getting one, and almost feel like you just wanna throw in the towel and say "Fuck it! I'm tired! This is too hard! I just can't take another minute of Korea" when all of a sudden you'll come across a Korean stranger who'll make your entire day. The Koreans are some of the nicest, friendliest, most curious and hospitable people that I have ever met in my life. Random people on the street will go out of their way to help you out. They're absolutely thrilled when you say even the shortest Korean phrase or can string together a basic sentence. They're always bending over backwards to make sure you feel welcome and comfortable. Complete strangers will come up to you and want to chat with you. Everywhere you go you feel like a virtual celebrity, with plenty of curious and fascinated stares, and every single Korean teenage girl wants to have their picture taken with you. And the children are the cutest, most adorable little kids that I have ever seen. They have the sweetest sparkle in their eye, and to get a hug from one of them can make your entire world. The Koreans have been wonderful hosts to me, and many days I feel more special and receive more attention than I feel like I deserve. Taxi drivers, ajimas in the markets, the girl at the check-out counter, the cluster of friendly boys at the mall, the groups of friends buying you drinks and dinner at the bars cause they wanna be your friend, the 15 year-old girls fauning over you and giggling incessantly just because you smiled at them, the random little kids running up and grabbing your leg, the strangers helping you on the street cause you looked lost, the people who don't speak a word of English but their smile says it all. These are the people who have made my experience so memorable. I will always remember the friendliness of the Korean people.

***Korea has been really amazing, and although it hasn't been an easy one, it truly has been the adventure of a lifetime! I'm so glad I decided to move here to teach English - that one moment and decision of bravery will reward me with a lifetime of incredible memories. Korea rocks, baby!***

Day 214: The Top Ten: Best Of Korea - Part 1

I've said this many, many times before, but I need to say it again - living in Korea rocks! I've decided that it would be cool if I made a list of *The Top Ten Reasons Why Living In Korea Is Awesome.* This list will conveneintly, neatly and wittily summarize all the best that Korea has to offer, and hopefully this list will maybe convince a few of you who are considering moving here to think about it even more...(and you know who you are: Miss Laura Fox, Mr. Jason Madore, Mr. Marshall Moore, especially!) Here it goes:

The Top Ten: Best Of Korea - Part 1
by S2H

10) THE NIGHTLIFE

Seoul has a pretty cool nightlife scene. It's quite different than any city back home in North America. There aren't many HUGE clubs here, but for what Seoul lacks in size, it more than makes up for in variety, originality, and most definitely quantity! There are tons and tons of tons of places to go out and have a drink here - little hole-in-the-wall bars, giant thumping Korean discos, bars for foreigners, bars for locals, bars for everybody, bars that serve food, bars that serve women, quiet quaint establishments to hide and escape and relax in, loud and in your face and crazy clubs to commit debauchery in. It's all here. Seoul is not New York or London or even Hong Kong or Tokyo when it comes to nightlife, but the nocturnal scene here has a pace and spirit of its own. And it's pretty damn cool.

9) SHOPPING

Shopping here is awesome! Once again, unlike its many other big-city Asian cousins, Seoul is not known for particularly international or high-end shopping, but there's tons of deals and steals to be found here. Clothing is inexpensive here, and always fun. You may not always agree with the Korean styles, but they're always changing and interesting. And the clothing with the bad English (Konglish) is reason enough to want to go out and check out what's out there - too funny! And the act of shopping itself is what makes it so fun - from chaotic seething street markets to sprawling underground malls to ridiculously busy multi-floor department stores to off-the-beaten path boutique stores to random unexpected street stalls - there's a million and one ways to acquire clothing here. It all depends on your mood and what kind of environment you feel like throwing yourself into. Very cool.

8) SCENERY

Albeit very small, Korea is a beautiful country with some spectacular landscapes. From the white sand beaches found on the islands in the Yellow Sea, to the jagged limestone mountain peaks of Sorakhsan, to the volcanic craters and cliffs of Jeju Island, to the rolling green central Korean hills filled with rice paddies, to the lush and misty terraced green tea fields of Jeollanam province, to the several-hundred kilometre sliver of untouched pristine wilderness in the most unlikely of all locations - the DMZ - the no-man's land between the two Koreas, Korea does have a lot to offer in terms of beautiful scenery. Sometimes you have to travel a bit far from the megalopolis of Seoul to try and find it, but it's well worth the journey.

7) INCOMES

As foreigners working in Korea as English Teachers, we make a lot of money. Much, much more than most of the locals, and also significantly more than what most of us would be making at home right after university. As a result we're able to do a lot of financial things that we could never do back home. Like paying off student loans (who woulda though *that* was actually feasible before turning 30?) to saving up really nice nest eggs for graduate studies or houses when we get back home to exotic and extended travels around Asia. Income tax here is only 3.3% (this fluctuates slightly depending on the Korean economy) so pretty much all that we earn we get to keep for ourselves. I happen to work in a job with a lot of long hours, but most English Teachers here make quite healthy incomes for only about 20-30 hours a week. And this combined with the fact that none of us pay rent, or had to pay for our plane tickets over, and you can start to see the dollar signs (or won signs) in your own eyes. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching!

6) INEXPENSIVE COST OF LIVING

Number six and seven really do belong together since they go hand in hand. I guess our incomes in Korea aren't *that* spectacular, but when you match it up with the fact that the cost of living here is dirt cheap, even in big city Seoul, it really does present a lot of opportunities for saving a lot of money. Or buying a lot of things on our healthy incomes. Just get a load of these costs! (all prices in Canadian dollars)

-a one hour ride on the subway - $1.50
-a full meal at a Korean restaurant - $4-5.00
-a twenty-minute cab ride - $5.00
-a visit to a spectular ancient palace - $1.00
-a bottle of Soju (35% alcohol) - $1.00
-a three hour ride on a high-speed bullet train that takes you to the other end of the country - $50.00
-a two litre bottle of refreshing mineral water - $1.50
-a new fun t-shirt from Dondaemun Market - $10.00
-a brand new pair of prescription glasses - $50.00
-a fancy-schmachy toaster over - $30.00
-admission to an international art gallery showing - $3.00
-a state of the art digital camera that won't be available in North America for years - $3-400.00
-diddo for laptops and camcorders and DVD players and all other sorts of electronics that are way-super advanced for much less than what we'd pay for back home (if it was even on market yet!)

It's easy to spend a lot of money here if you want to, but it's also really easy to live off of peanuts.

*Stay tuned for Part 2 of the list in tomorrow's edition! I hope this whets your appetite, cause the best really is yet to come...*

Day 213: And Then There Were Eleven

So this morning I learned some surprising and some sad news - one of my pre-schoolers has left POLY - and that student is none other than Eugene. Without any advance warning at all, her mother has removed her from POLY and has already enrolled her in another hagwon (English school.) This left me feeling confused and more than a little sad.

Eugene was actually one of my most favourite students, and I am going to miss her dearly. This may come across as a surprise, as Eugene was my infamous 'problem child' for the longest time. She was known as The Screamer at POLY and had a few breakdowns at school right when I began teaching. I had been warned about her ahead of time and the legend did live up to the name. Her tamper tantrums were atrocious and left me feeling frustrated and helpless. I was honestly afraid to set her off at school, cause like a dam bursting, once she let loose there was no stopping her.

But then the miracle of all miracles occurred. We developed a personal Behaviour Star Chart to help give her motivation and guidance to improve, and she pulled a complete 180. In the time span of just a few weeks, she went from being my most dreaded student to a bright and happy and cheerful five-year old. She was sweet and friendly and polite, and not only did she improve, she became one of the best-behaved students in the class. She was always giggling and having fun, and was so hard-working and meticulous. And when she finished her own work, she always went around to try and help out her classmates. She gave me big hugs all the time and told me on more than one occasion "I love you, Scott Teacher!" It was absolutely incredible. The whole POLY staff couldn't believe the change in her, and even her mother commented that she was much happier at home, and was very self-motivated in practicing her English reading and writing at home. Wow!

Given such a dramatic improvement, you can imagine that I was more than just a little thrown off when I was informed that her mother wanted her to go to a different school instead. I was told that although her mother was very proud and appreciative of her improvement, and commented that she liked me more than Eugene's previous teacher, but that her Phonics weren't improving fast enough at POLY and so she wanted to try a new learning environment. Yes, Eugene always had been in the bottom four in the class for her Phonics abilities, but she always tried really hard and had been starting to show some real improvement with her academics in the last month or so. Given more time, I sure she would've kept on improving and would've made great progress with her reading and writing abilities.

To be honest I kinda feel insulted. I worked so hard with Eugene to help her out and invested so much time and energy and care into her and then her mother pulls her out just like that. And not only me, but Cecilia my assistant, and Iris the school counsellor, we had all put a lot of ourselves into Eugene's time at POLY. Eugene's last day was Friday (but none of us knew until Friday night) and she started at her new school already today. Obviously her mother had to have planned this ahead of time, but didn't even give us the respect to tell us ahead of time. Here one day, gone the next. It feels like a slap in the face. What about all the hard work we all put into Eugene? We all really cared for her and she loved being at POLY. How is moving her to a whole new learning environment surrounded by teachers and peers who she has no history with going to help improve her English? POLY is consistenly ranked among the top English schools in all of Korea. What could this other school offer that we can't? It makes no fucking sense to me. I'm not a parent and I'm not Korean so maybe I just can't understand these things, but it seems like a stupid idea to me.

And I guess I'm just mad cause I'm gonna miss her. I never even got the chance to say goodbye or give her one last hug. I guess I got more attached than I should've. It really sucks.

And then there were eleven.

Day 212: Today's Lesson

I slept in late again today which was really awesome, and once again was greeted with a dark and rainy day. Another good day to lay it low and just chill out. Michael decided to come out to Ilsan again and so Pauline and I met him at LaFesta to hang out there.

When Pauline and I arrived at LaFesta we ran into Eric (not the Eric that just moved to London, but Eric who's Brian's friend and is the new teacher at POLY: Tahnyan.) We met up with Michael and the four of us went to have a coffee at Starbucks. (Sorry Delany's, I've been in Korea seven months now, and don't even hestitate or blink an eye or feel remotely guilty whatsoever for supporting the Evil Green Empire with my hard-earned won, anymore!) It was really nice to just sit and chat for quite a long time, and with the Starbucks Western-style coffee house, the rainy weather, and being surrounded by Asians I totally felt like I was back in Vancouver! Trippy!

Michael, Pauline and I decided to go and check out a DVD Bang (DVD Room). DVD Bangs are these really cool places where you and some friends go and rent a small room that has a giant TV and sound system and pick out a movie to watch. It's like going to a video store to pick out a movie, only you get to watch it *at* the store. It's tons of fun! We picked out a Korean film (with English sub-titles, we wanted something local to watch) and was led to our room. Our DVD Bang was kinda small but had enough couch space for the three of us and a pretty nice TV setup.

The movie turned out to be quite....ummm...dark and depressing, but was interesting nonetheless. Basically, the lesson learned from the film is that if you're a teenage girl and you and your best friend (and possibly lesbian lover, as you tend to shower with her a little too often and tenderly to just be friends) are trying to save up money as quickly as possible so you can buy plane tickets to Europe, *DO NOT* turn to prostitution, as tempting and convenient as it may seem at first! Cause if you do, you'll inevitably fall out of the window of a love motel and crack your head open on the pavement, and then your best friend/lesbian lover/unwilling pimp will lose all that she has in the world and because of her immense grief will have to go and sleep with *every single john* that you ever slept with and pay them all back the money you had made by fucking their middle-age brains out to try and regain some of your honour. And in doing so her detective/homicide investigator father will find out one day just what exactly she's been doing in her spare time and will absolutely lose his marbles completely and begin this downward spiral of stalking and tormenting all of the johns that will lead to some of them losing their families and/or committing suicide and then eventually murdering one of them in a public bathroom stall with a brick, and then eventually turn himself in one day after the two of them have gone up to visit their deceased mother's grave up in the mountains by calling the police and leaving her alone in the family car to drive herself home back to the city ALONE, even though she just learned how to drive for the first time, literally five minutes ago. And that would all really, really suck, and you don't want to do that to your lesbionic friend, now do you?

After that happy film the three of us went and had a very delicious Thai dinner at Aroi Aroi (that makes two amazing dinners in a row now!) and then went back to my place to chill. We eventually broke out the Scrabble board again (are you surprised? I sure am not!) and *sigh* once again Pauline won. After that I had to write up a Grade 2 Science Test that's gonna be used at all the POLY's at the end of the month, and then went to bed.

(Note to self: be sure to cancel all future plans for hoaring myself out to make some extra cash to sustain my travelling addiction, as I've learned today that doing so *might* not be the best money-making plan!) ;-)

Day 211: Subway Air Miles

I slept in today and it felt good (and a little bit foreign) to wake up in *my own bed* on a weekend and not have to rush off somewhere. I could actually just lie in bed for whatever length of time I felt like and that was really nice. Eventually I did pull myself out of bed...to see that it was pouring rain outside. Ugh - not exactly a day that inspires one to go out and conquer the world (at least not if conquering the world involves leaving one's apartment.)

My buddy Luke was coming into Seoul from Chungju for the day so I decided to meet up with him and hang out. I got on the subway and rode the good ol' Orange Line all the long way out to Express Bus Terminal to meet him when he came in on the bus. I had one mission in mind today - to seek out and destroy, err... purchase... a Lonely Planet: Hong Kong! I was not allowed to go home until I had one in my hot little hand. Last weekend I looked for one at Kyobo and they were sold out. I was a bit surprised at this, being that it's the largest book store in Korea and all... Today I would go wherever I had to to get one. Now that Hong Kong is officially on, what overseas trip is complete without a Lonely Planet to guide me?

Luke and I checked out the bookstore at the Central City Air Terminal (it's actually a bus station, what's with the "Air"?) but had no luck there. Sold out again! Argh! We hopped on the subway and rode over to COEX. I've been to COEX before but it's been quite a few months since my last visit. COEX is Asia's largest underground mall and not a place I enjoy all that much. It's perpetually over-crowded, has the most confusing design I've ever seen in a mall (I'm always lost in it) and has really low ceilings (leaving me feeling a little bit claustophobic.) But they have a big bookstore and one of Seoul's best record stores so that sorta makes up for it. We popped in at Evan Records first and I bought the Alizee CD (a French pop star, a favourite among Michael, Eric and I) and then at the bookstore I finally found my LP:HK! Yah!! I also ran into Katie there which was a bit odd - we're both a long ways from Ilsan.

After COEX we took the subway out to Yongsan Electronics Market as Luke wanted to buy some CD-burning software. That was quite a ride in itself - it took three subway lines to get us there. By the time we got to Yongsan it was dark outside and raining even harder - and really, really windy. NOT a pleasant time to be outside, that's for sure! We had no luck at all at Yongsan - Luke shopped around but could not find what he was looking for, at least not in his price range. We were both feeling pretty tired and *hungry* and had had enough of shopping for the day so we decided to head to Itaewon for some dinner.

We went to this really cool Italian restaurant and had one of the best meals I've had in recent memory. The restaurant had excellent service, a really nice, relaxed atmosphere, and some fantastic food. We even ordered an appetizer and had some wine and it actually felt like a real, proper dinner. God it was delicious!! A little salmon penne, a little white wine, a little Norah Jones, a good friend for dinner company, what more could a guy ask for in a meal? :-)

After dinner we parted ways (Luke went back to Chungju, and I back to Ilsan) and it was, yes, back on the subway yet again for me. God I spent a lot of time on the subway today!!! I must've ridden at least six different lines today between all of our travels around this huge-ass city! I sure am rackin' up those Seoul Mass Transit miles! When I got back into Ilsan I discovered that everyone in The Village was only in the mood for a quiet night, which is good cause that's exactly how I felt. Addie and I went over to Pauline's to watch some Saturday Night Live (best of Cheri Oteri - very funny!) and play some Scrabble. I lost YET AGAIN to that damn Pauline! Oooohhhhh I'm gonna get her one of these days! My competitive nature doesn't let me lose easily!

I ended up staying up much later than I had planned... When I got home from Pauline's I popped online onto Messenger and it was like everybody and their dog was online, including lots of good friends who I haven't talked to in ages. Next thing I knew it was 4am - SO totally time for bed. Goodnight, world! :-)

Day 210: Stupid Drunks

So I got some fantastic news today!!!

I GOT MY TICKETS TO HONG KONG!!!

The miracle of all miracles occurred - I actually got bumped off the waiting list and was given an actual ticket to Hong Kong! I'm so excited!!! I had totally given up on it thinking that there was no way that space was gonna open up, but sure enough it has so I'm going! In exactly two weeks tomorrow I'll be flying to Hong Kong! How awesome is that!!???

After work tonight I went out for dinner with Michael and Addie. Michael felt like coming out to Ilsan for the night to hang out, and Addie owed me a dinner so we went to the TGI Friday's at LaFesta. Yummy fajitas - mmmm!!! :-) After dinner we went back to my place to play a little Scrabble. Brian was having a little going-away get-together at Ben's place so we decided to pop into the party after our Scrabble game.

It was a nice little party. The three of us arrived and there was Ben, Brian, Eric, Pauline, Jake & Shannon, Lorraine, and Dennis (and later Paul showed up too.) We all just sat around and socialized, having some beer and wine, played some cards, listened to some music, Jake & Dennis played guitar and sang for us, it was really nice. I only had two glasses of wine and Michael and Addie weren't drinking at all so around 1:30am or so, when the boys decided we should change venues, the three of us decided to just go home.

We all left Ben's apartment together as a group and I guess most of them were quite drunk. This is when the trouble started. Pauline had brought a guitar to the party that she had accidentally dropped and broken. It was the kind of damage that couldn't really be fixed and she'd probably just have to buy a new guitar anyways. Well some of the boys (in their drunken, unwise stupor) decided that it would be cool to take the guitar out on the street and smash it. I could see how this would be funny if you were drunk, but when you're sober (and therefore smart and capable of making logical decisions) it seemed like a stupid idea. The three of us didn't think it was the best thing to do but whatever, get it over and be done with and then we'll all go off our own ways (us to home, the rest of them to some bar in Hwajeong.)

So Ben and Jake took turns smashing the guitar and it took quite a few hits before the thing finally exploded all over the street. When it finally broke it literally did explode, with wood pieces flying everywhere. All of this made a lot of noise and attracted the attention of some nearby Koreans. This one Korean guy came over and told us to be quiet and Ben and Jake apologized for the noise and the mess. So anyways Michael, Addie and I said goodnight and started to walk towards home. We hadn't even gotten half a block away when we saw trouble fast approaching.

A very angry and DRUNK Korean man, probably in his 30's or so, was walking quickly and angrily towards our direction. And he was carrying a very large, thick piece of wood that he was hitting on the street as he walked along. You could tell this guy was PISSED OFF and was wanting to do very bad things with that stick. Uh-oh...

At first we thought he was coming for the three of us, but he stormed right by us and headed right for the rest of the gang. We knew that this was going to be bad news, so we stopped and watched to see what would happen in case our friends needed help. Our friends had already walked another block down the street from where we had left so we weren't all that close to them, but we watched as the confrontation began.

The drunk Korean man began screaming at all our friends and waving the stick around in a very threatening motion. This obviously scared the shit out of all my friends, except for Jake, who when he's drunk is very confrontational. Jake started screaming and swearing back at this guy, and it did not help the situation. Paul can understand Korean, and apparently this Korean guy was screaming that he "hates all foreigners" and wanted to "slit their throats and kill all of them." HOLY FUCK!!!

I honestly thought this Korean guy was gonna beat the shit out of my friends with this stick, but luckily the situation didn't go that far. The first Korean stranger who had told us to be quiet ran back to help diffuse the situation, and all my friends worked hard to try and get Jake to shut up and turn around so they could all just walk away before the verbal violence became physical. There were several tense minutes there where I didn't know what was going to happen and I was really afraid for my friends. I guess in all of their drunken stupidness my friends had pissed off the Wrong Korean with the guitar smashing and the noise.

In the end, THANK GOD, everyone just walked away and no one got hurt, but it certainly was a close call. That Korean guy was obviously drunk and PSYCHO but we had all created the situation ourselves with being noisy. We totally need to be more careful with our late-night adventures, as fairly harmless fun (well harmless unless you're a broken guitar) can very quickly turn into a dangerous situation. It was certainly a sobering experience for all.

Day 209: Fan Death

There's been a noticeable change in the weather/everyday temperature here in Korea this week. The extreme summer heat has left us, and although it is still very nice outside, (hell somedays it's still quite hot and sweaty!) gone are the days when you went outside and just BAKED in the heat. The nights have gotten significantly cooler, and I haven't used my aircon in weeks. I actually prefer this weather - it's much more comfortable to be outside in like 25 C weather instead of 40 C weather!

A funny cultural phenomenon about Koreans that involves heat and summer weather is a bizarre (and completely incorrect) fear of Fan Death. All Koreans know about Fan Death, and take it *very* seriously. They will do anything to avoid it, and will also often warn foreigners of this potential threat to our lives. Here's what they believe:

Koreans believe that if you're in a room, and you're going to go to sleep, and the door is closed, and all the windows are closed, and the fan is on in the room, you WILL die. I kid you not. The fan will kill you while you are sleeping - you will just never wake up from your sleep. This is the infamous Fan Death.

The Koreans honestly believe in their hearts and minds that leaving a fan turned on without a window or door cracked will kill while you are sleeping! They attribute this to suffocation or something, as if the fan will 'suck out' all the air in the room and cause you to suffocate while sleeping, and that you can only prevent this by having a constant supply of air into the room to replace it. I'm totally not joking!!!

Even funnier/more unbelievable than believing in Fan Death is that sometimes the media will even report someone dying of this! There are a couple of Fan Deaths in Korea every year, and you can read about them in the newspaper or hear about it on the news. Some body will be found dead in a bed or in a room (apparently Fan Death can affect even you if you're not asleep) but a fan will be found still whirring in the room, and thus caused the death. Now I don't think the forensic scientists who do the autopsy believe this, but this is what is reported to the media.

Most likely, as us foreigners have discussed and maybe figured out, is that Fan Death is the name given to all deaths which are embarrassing/somewhat mysterious/may cause a loss of respect for the dead person's family in order to 'save face' for either the person who died or their family. For example, lets say that someone comes home drunk one night, goes to sleep with the fan on, becomes sick and throws up, and chokes to death on their own vomit. This is not a very 'honourable' death, and so most likely will be reported as Fan Death. Suicides sometimes come under this category also, as well as drug-related deaths (ie: overdoses.) No one seems to question it, and people carry on with this very serious and real fear of Fan Death.

It's very, very strange (and amusing!) It's hard not to laugh when Koreans warn you about it (you don't want to appear rude or condescending) but they really do take precautions to avoid it. It all just seems so silly to me, as it flies in the face of all science and logic! I wonder if 'Fan Death' occurs in any other Asian countries?

Day 208: A Treasure Lost

I woke up today and it was pouring rain. P-O-U-R-I-N-G down in buckets! Addie and I normally walk to work but in those hurricane-like weather conditions we decided to take a cab this morning. I went and met Addie and we walked on over to the taxi stand together. We had to wait quite a while before an available cab came around (on rainy days they're always hard to find) but finally one did come and we rode on over to work.

Only seconds after we got into the cab I noticed that my wrist was bare - I was missing my treasured wristband! My wristband was a gift given to me by one of my best friends, Tom, in Vancouver and it means a lot to me. It's just a simple brown wristband that I always wear on my right wrist and looks really cool, but its sentimental value far outweighs the contribution it makes to my overall fashionability. The wristband is a reminder of one of my best friends, and of my home country, and I've literally worn it *every single day* since it was given to me. Just rubbing it on days when I'm down or lonely remind me that I have lots of wonderful friends in the world, and that I still have a tangible connection to my beloved Vancouver. I love that wristband!

I tried not to panic, thinking that I must've left it on my bedtable or in the bathroom (I always take it off when I do my hair so it doesn't get wet.) It must still be at home, and I'll find it there waiting for me when I return from work. When I got home to my apartment the first thing I did was scour my place looking for it. It was nowhere to be found!!!

I suddenly realized that if it's not on me and it's not somewhere in my apartment, that means it must've fallen off on the way from my apartment to the taxi stand. So out in the rain I went, to re-trace my steps exactly, on the same path I took earlier that morning to the taxi stand. I searched and searched but it was nowhere to be found. It had fallen off, and someone else had picked it up. It's gone forever!

I was totally bummed out by this! I mean yeah it is just an inexpensive piece of leather I wear around my wrist, but again, it meant a lot to me. It sucks that I lost it in my own neighbourhood, and that I can't get it back. I'M SORRY I LOST IT, TOM!!! And I'm sorry that I lost my everyday reminder of where on this planet my heart belongs. :-(

Day 207: Musically Clueless

So today, just for shits and giggles, I decided to log into the MuchMusic website and check out who's on the Top 30 Countdown. I was completely shocked when I realized that not only have I not ever heard like 90% of the songs on the chart, but that I haven't even heard of at least half of the ARTISTS on it! What the hell??? How have I become so behind and so lost and so out of touch from the North American music scene in just under seven months??? It's like I blinked and the music world back home has completely changed!

Most of the Top Ten artists/songs I had not heard of, and browsing through the charts I saw tons of names I've never seen before. The Killers? Lloyd Banks? Keshia Chante? How the hell are they? And The Trews? Sounds like a country band to me. And who the hell is Ashlee Simpson? Jessica Simpson's sister or something? (if that's true than I'm really not missing *anything* back home.)

The charts were even full of familiar well-liked artists of mine that all had songs that I've never heard. All of the latest singles from Hoobastank, Nelly, Matthew Good and Linkin Park were completely new to me. Man, I'm so behind!

And then I was also surprised to see the names of some artists who I thought had been near buried six feet under as its been ages since I've heard *anything* from them! Since when did Green Day, The Tea Party, and the frickin' Beastie Boys come out with new music!!!??? I feel like I've been in a time warp or something!

This is especially embarrassing for me as I was always Mr.Music back home. I was always on top of, no let me correct that, *at least one step ahead of*, the music charts back home. I always seemed to be 'in the know' about new artists and what new singles were about to be released. I could always name the Top 10 backwards and forwards, and knew which albums were flying off the shelves and which ones were collecting dust. I was often the guy that people came to when they wanted the latest update on the music scene.

And now look at me! Completely clueless! What have I become?

In all fairness I do live in a foreign country that plays very little English music (but hey I guess I could check out the scene more often back home online or something, eh?) I feel very, very far removed from the North American music scene (same with TV, movies, and just general pop culture/celebrity back home) but most days I don't miss it at all. I'm too busy with my own thing here to be thinking much about the Canadian music charts, although I am quite curious about it at times. I can't help it - it's in my nature to stay in the know about music!

If this is how I am after just seven months, how bad of shape am I gonna be in come December 2005 when I return home to Canada (briefly) after having been away for a *full two years!*??? Am I gonna be as bad as my parents when it comes to knowing who's hot and who's not in the music industry? Am I on the road to becoming a...*gasp*...Music Relic?

Day 206: Some Habits Are Hard To Break

So Korean children have a very unusual habit that proves to be rather...ummm...'unsettling?'...for us foreigner teachers. It's mainly a habit of the boys, but sometimes a girl will participate in it too. It was an especially big problem back in the days when I was teaching at REI out in Shihung, but happens once in a while at POLY as well. Hmmm...let's see....how do I explain this one?

Korean children like to stick their fingers up your ass.

For real.

I'm not joking.

Seriously!

It's a weird game that they like to play, and one that's actually quite 'normal' to them. They like to sneak up behind you (especially if you're bending down), and, while putting their index fingers together like in the shape of a gun, poke you hard and firmly right up your ass. And then they laugh out loud hysterically as if this is the funniest thing they've ever done. They absolutely love this game.

Naturally it's a game that I'm NOT COMFORTABLE with, for obvious reasons involving personal body space and what's appropriate for young children to do (in our culture) but they just think it's so funny that it's near impossible to get them to stop. And the more you react to it the more they want to do it. There's been many a day when I've been bending over to help one of my pre-schoolers (only young children do this) to help them with their phonics or whatever and suddenly "HELLO!!! There's a student behind me and he's letting me know he's there!!!" It's not fun - trust me!!

One of my pre-schoolers, David, especially enjoys this activity and it's hard to get mad at him cause he's like the sweetest, cutest, most innocent little boy you'll ever meet in your life. I'm not sure the historical or cultural reasons behind this game but the kids here sure love it. I wonder if this is just a Korean thing or are other Asian cultures' children into this little charade as well? All I know is that I'm *REAL* careful now whenever I have to bend down, and always take a mental note of where little David is.

Day 205: Vertical Limits

Another lazy post-bar day! Maeve, Michael and I slept in til almost noon and then Michael made us some delicious French Toast for breakfast. He even had some real maple syrup from Canada! YUM! The three of us just hung out for a while being Chatty Cathy's and then finally got moving in mid-afternoon.

Maeve went off to do some shopping and Michael and I decided to go and see a movie. We went and saw 'Mean Girls' (yes, the second time for me) in this really cool movie theatre in Apgujeong. Apgujeong is the ritzy 'Beverly Hills' area of Seoul. Lots of posh people and high end over-priced shopping. The movie theatre was so cool because it was a completely vertical theatre. There were 15 theatres at this complex but it was built in a sheer black glass tower. Each theatre was *stacked on top* of the other reaching high into the sky. Ours was #14, almost at the top, and the view from up there was amazing! In the men's bathroom they had these giant round porthole windows so that you could enjoy the view of sprawling Seoul as you peed. Way cool!

Seoul is a crowded city with a lack of available land and very high real estate prices. The city is constantly growing and building new stuff (Seoul is under *permanent* construction) and the only place left to go is up. Because of this, you see vertical stuff all the time. Vertical movie theatres, vertical restaurants, vertical stores, vertical shopping malls, vertical fast food joints (there's a four-story Burger King here!) and vertical motels. Anything that back home would be spread out horizontally is stacked up narrowly on top of itself here in Seoul.

The coolest are the vertical parking lots. Yes, you heard me correctly! Picture a large windowless building (quite ugly actually) ranging in height from five to over fifteen stories, but inside this tower are stacks upon stacks of cars. Now this is not a parkade, and you cannot drive up into the different levels. So how on Earth do the cars get up there? How it works is that you drive up to the front of the vertical parking lot, and the service man there gives you a designated number, or parking space code. He then drives your car into a small ELEVATOR that then proceeds to lift your car up to whatever level in the tower is available and parks is up in some small tiny near-inaccessible corner of this steel pinnacle. It's the strangest thing ever, but hey I guess it does free up land space and you'll NEVER have to worry about your car being vandalized or stolen while locked up in one of these things!

Despite the fact that there are a lot of high rise structures in Seoul (the entire city is virtually all high-rise residential blocks), there aren't any *REALLY* tall buildings here. With the exception of one or two towers, none of the skyscapers here are taller than anything that's found in Vancouver (around 40 stories or less is the average downtown office tower here.) Other than 63 Building on Yeouido Island in the Han River, Seoul doesn't really have any landmark towers. Unlike most other Asian cities, which are undergoing a frantic competition to see who can build the tallest skyscraper in the city/world (Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur are especially notorious for this, while Taipei just recently completed Taipei 101 - now officially the tallest building in the world) Seoul has kept its skyline quite low and fairly tame. I haven't been given a positive reason for this but apparently it was mainly out of fear of creating a super tall building that could become a target if North Korea ever decided to attack.

I guess having a hostile enemy only a few kilometres north of your capital, with a leader that at one time vowed to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" would be inspiration enough not to create a really obvious attack target in the form of a super-high, super-vulnerable skyscaper! I wonder if the recent warming of negotiations between the two Koreas will release this fear, and result in the future contruction of those ridiculously high skyscrapers that almost every other major Asian city is known for?

Day 204: Caribbean Bay

Our plan to wake up bright and early to head out for our day of fun didn't exactly happen today. We ALL slept in "accidentally" and decided that a later start would be a-ok! Our plan today was for the four of us (Eric's really cute sister Claire would be coming along) to go and have a full day of wet 'n wild fun at Caribbean Bay. I've been wanting to go to Caribbean Bay ALL SUMMER LONG so I was totally stoked to go.

Now what, exactly, is Caribbean Bay you ask?

Well Caribbean Bay is Seoul's hugely popular really giant water park. It's located right next to Everland (the amusement park I visited back in April) so it's quite a ways outside of town, nestled in the hills south of Seoul. The water park is notoriously expensive and crowded during peak season (July to August) but since now it's September and "summer is over" the prices, and crowds, have dropped substantially. Sounds like a perfect time to visit a water park as the weather these days is still quite warm.

Caribbean Bay turned out to be really awesome! It had everything one could want at a water park - a massive wave pool, a lazy river, tons of slides (both indoors and outdoors), tube rides, a wave-board-maker, saunas, hot tubs, a watery jungle gym, and of course, more eye candy than you could shake a stick at! Other than the three giant outdoor slides, line-ups were quite minimal and the crowds weren't bad at all. We waited in line for AN HOUR to go on one of those giant slides and as fun as it was I'm not sure if waiting in line a full sixty minutes was really worth it.

One of the cooler things they had at Caribbean Bay was this giant watery jungle gym. Picture in your head a jungle gym that would find at a typical playground, only it's like three stories high and is full of water guns, hoses, buckets, and faucets that spray at you from 100 different angles. Crazy fun for young and old alike. Well the coolest thing is that on the top of this is a HUGE bucket in the shape of a pirate skull (we're talking a bucket like twice the size of a mini-van!) that slowly fills up with water. There's a meter on the side that shows the water level in red as it creeps up... Once it fills up the buckets turns and spills out its entire load down onto the people below! It's like a GIANT TSUNAMI that comes roaring down on top of you and it feels like you're standing under Niagara Falls for 20 seconds as it pours out. Way cool!

We spent a good six hours at Caribbean Bay and the headed back to Seoul. We got all showered up and then went over to Eric's place for dinner. His mom cooked us an absolutely delicious Korean meal that was simply to die for (I guess it's true that homemade food always tastes better, regardless of the culture!) After dinner we went out for a night out on the town on The Hill. Maeve joined us too and we went to a couple of our regular night clubs. It was an okay night and the four of us had fun but we felt pretty drained from our day at the water park. I think we went home around 4am (early for us these days it seems) and crashed at Michael's place. Good times!

Day 203: Too Funny

Another work week that just flew on by! This weekend is Eric's last weekend in town before he leaves us and moves away to London so Michael and I wanted to maximize our 'Eric-time' and have the three of us hang out a lot. The plan was to meet up in the city from there and see where the night takes us.

I was really slow in getting my ass in gear for a weekend in Seoul so by the time I made it down into the city it was almost 11pm! Michael, Eric, and his sister had already finished dinner and drinks and the four of us were actually feeling in a pretty mellow, chill-out mood so we decided to have a night in instead. Michael and Eric had bought a couple bottles of red wine so we opened up those, put on some good tunes, and just hung out at Michael's.

I had just gotten my pictures back from our last couple adventures, including our weekend in Busan, both camping trips to Dokchokdo, and my super-awesome birthday party, and I had brought them down to share with everyone. The pictures are absolutely hilarious!!! I broke them out and literally the four of us were in tears because of all the silly photos. You know how it is...you get a couple weguks together at a bar with some alcohol and a camera and the ridiculous poses and crazy random shots just start flowing! There were plenty of 'blackmail' photos in there of everyone and we all had a great laugh over them. Too funny! I put them all up on my Splashbulb site - you gotta check 'em out!!! :-)

A couple bottles of wine later and we were all pretty buzzin'. Michael and Eric really wanted to go out and hit the norebang (karaoke rooms) but Claire and I were feeling pretty sleepy so we decided to head to bed instead. I crashed at Michael's and was pretty excited for our next day's plans.

Day 202: Popularity

After work tonight Addie and I walked down to the area of Ilsan down by Juyeop Station to seek out a pet store. Addie wants to buy a cat sometime soon so we wanted to go a'browsin' for kitties. We didn't have much luck in the Finding Cute Inexpensive Kitties Department, but being down there gave us an excuse to go out for dinner to Outback. We went and had an awesome dinner and then headed off to go and see a movie.

We went and saw 'Mean Girls' and it was actually a really good movie. It wasn't emotionally-inspiring or life-changing or anything like that but it was fun and funny and light-hearted and I enjoyed it a good deal. But hey I've *always* been a sucker for those stupid teen movies (just ask any of my friends and they'll verify this, or take a peek at my video collection) so I knew that 'Mean Girl's was gonna be a Scotty-Pleaser. The movie's about girls in high school and what it means to be popular (and mean and bitchy and back-stabbing) and what true friends are all about.

This got me thinking...am I "popular"? Well, if being well-liked and having a lot of friends defines what it means to be popular, than I guess the answer to this would be...yes! Let me explain before I come off sounding arrogant, hehe.

When I was growing up I was so not popular. I was a fairly shy, awkward, geeky kid for a long, long time and never ever felt comfortable in my own skin. I was never in with the popular crowd in elementary or high school, but was lucky enough to have some really awesome friends during those years that got me through (a special big thank you goes to Barb, Sharon, Craig, and Lisa, who I've known since my elementary days at Sherbrooke!) I was particularly unhappy with myself in early high school days and had a few moments/experiences that I don't ever want to re-live and feel uncomfortable just thinking about, but fortunately things started to change mid to late high school. I became more sociable and cared less what other people thought about me.

And I started to become outgoing. By the end of high school I had a really awesome crew of fantastic friends, almost all of which I'm still friends with today. And when I had moved out to Vancouver for university I was given the chance of a lifetime - the chance to re-create yourself into anyone that I wanted to be. I moved to a big city where I didn't know anybody, had no history in at all, and could start off from scratch. Not that I totally transformed myself from head to toe or anything like that, but I decided that I wanted to be an outgoing, confident, uber-sociable person who was friends with everybody. And I was not going to be too shy or scared or unconfident to do it.

By the end of my stay in Vancouver I had the best social life a guy could ever ask for! I had met tons of really amazing people and was so blessed to have made so many wonderful friends. I had lots of friends in a variety of social circles, so that I could always have something to do, regardless of whatever I was in the mood for. Whether it was a serene afternoon of hiking in the local mountains, or a relaxing chill dinner party/game night at someone's apartment, or high-end window shopping on Robson with caramel macchiatos, or a crazy late night out on the town full of alcohol and debauchery with many blurred laughs inbetween, there was always someone I could call. I was almost never bored. And my birthday parties! Wow! I think some of them may have ended up on the cover of 'People' magazine! They were always the social event of the century - every year! hehe! ;-) (some mild exaggeration here, but they were a lot of fun for sure.) I was a confident and happy person who was really satisfied with himself and his life and very thankful for all the great people who were in it.

Coming to Korea was like once again starting over. Only this time I didn't feel any need to have to re-invent/make-over myself. I was full content as exactly who I was. I was Scotty and I liked being me and people seemed to like me too. What more could a guy ask for? Now I've only been here just under seven months and already have a kick-ass social circle. Once again I have a variety of friends in different circles who I can pursue a plethora of activities with, and once again I always have someone to call. I feel pretty popular, both back home and here in Korea, and I really like it. I'm far from perfect or flawless, but I think I'm a pretty cool, nice, out-going, honest guy who's fun to be with, and I like being who I am.

So am I popular?

Bitchy and arrogant and selfish and pig-headed and self-centred and people-user-and-abuser? Definitely not.

Sincere and friendly and appreciative and personable and grateful and so god-damned lucky? You bet.

Day 201: Facing Fears

Today was September 1st, and the first day back to school for all the kids here in Korea. School here is not like school back home where kids are off completely for two and a half months. Kids here go to school year-round but still have almost the same amount of holiday time as we do. We just get ours all in one big chunk, while their's is spread throughout the year.

This meant for a bit of chaotic day at work today, but mostly in a good way. There were tons of new faces around POLY, and in almost every one of my classes I had one or more new students. Most of my classes before were around nine or ten studets, and now pretty much all of them have been boosted up to the full size of 12. Several of my students that had been away for weeks or even over a month on summer holiday also returned today. All of this combined with the handing out of new textbooks and the shuffling of schedules for some of my co-workers (I got to keep my awesome schedule, as is), helped to fuel an extra buzz in school that burned all day long today.

It really did almost feel as if it was *my* first day back to school. You remember those days in September when you went back to school after being gone for so long, nervous to be back in school but excited to see all of your friends, new books and backpack on self and feeling butterflies in your stomach? Today was sorta like that, and I haven't felt that feeling in a long time. It was pretty cool. It was even cooler to be feeling it from the perpsective of a teacher, instead of a student.

So after school I normally walk back to The Village (where I live, not M.Night Shyamalan's, thank god!) with Addie but she was going off to LaFesta with Katie for 'girl night' (do I hear pajama party with pillow fighting and tickling? Please say yes) so I was about to walk home alone... My co-workers Chris and Tim were leaving the same time I was and both boys go to and from school on a scooter. Chris saw that I was alone and wanted to know if I wanted a ride home on the back of his scooter. I paused for a second...

I should let you know that I'm terrified of motorcyles, scooters, and other such mobile two-wheel speed-racing, lane-jumping, human-mangling death traps. I've never been on one ever in my life and have never ever planned on it. I can hardly think of something more dangerous to transport yourself around on! Fly around on a road at 80 km/hr with nothing to protect me but a token helmet and MY CLOTHES which are the only thing that separates me and my falling body from being ripped to sheds by flesh-hungry asphalt? Can we say 'bye-bye skin?'

My sister and her boyfriend have one and use it to get around Vancouver. Janelle teases me about it cause she knows that I'm too scared to go on one. Well tonight I had a brief moment of bravery and decided to do something that would impress my sister. Or at least myself. I said 'yes', and accepted Chris' ride home on the back of his scooter.

Now a scooter is much slower and smaller than a motorcyle, but equally scary in my eyes. In only seconds after getting on the back of Chris' scooter we were already flying along through the streets of Islan (during rush hour!) on our way back home. We whizzed along at about 60 km/hr. or so past cars and through intersections and it was THRILLING! The cool evening breezes roared through my hair and it was exhilirating to watch the cars and apartment towers of Ilsan flash by. It totally felt like flying. Granted I was still scared shitless the whole time and convinced that in turning the next corner we'd inevitably wipe-out or I'd fall off and that would be the end of lil me, but hey we survived the trip. And dare I say it was fun?

I'm still scared of motorcyles and scooters, but if I survived one trip on one of those crazy machines, I could probably survive another. Hmmm...I wonder when the next moment of bravery will come along?

Day 200: Angry Spider

Today was the August field trip for all the pre-schoolers and it's something that all of us teachers really look forward to. It's a chance to get out of the classroom with the kids and check out something cool. It happens every month and usually takes up almost all of the morning. Last month's field trip to the fire station was pretty cool but today turned out to be a rather exhausting day.

Today's field trip was to the Central American Cultural Museum (who knew that Korea, of all places, had one of those?) which had the most unusual location for a museum. It was way out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of suburbia north of Ilsan. It's the kind of location that if you were driving by you could blink and miss it, as it was really tucked away. Why this museum isn't located in the city (like where there's people) is beyond me.

The museum was a really cool building whose inside was modelled in a Latin open-air style and it was full of really beautiful and exquisite Central American cultural relics, including masks, statues, paintings, furniture, and many sculptures. All this really amazing stuff though held absolutely no attraction though for the kids. We whizzed through exhibit after exhibit in no time flat and in all seriousness it probably took us about fifteen minutes to cover the entire museum. This was disappointing cause there was tons of cool stuff in there I would've loved to have pored over but I mean, come on, these kids are only five so of course they're not gonna be into it.

The museum was situated on beautiful grounds made up of stone pathways, flower bed gardens, and dozens of unique Latin sculptures. Most of our day was spent doing 'photo shoot' in just about every single spot in the garden. Our Korean assistants LOVE taking pictures of all the kids in a million and one poses everywhere we go, and as cute and fun as this can be at first it doesn't take long for it to get tedious. The kids get bored of having to constantly line up or sit down and pose (as do us teachers) and after a while you really start to wonder exactly *how many* photos do we really need? We probably took at least fifteen or twenty throughout the day!

The kids were having one of their 'we don't feel like listening to the teacher' days and were especially hyper while outside in the gardens. It was cute to see them get excited over the flowers and plants, and you should've heard the SQUEALS of joy/fear/curiosity/ecstacy/disgust when we came upon some spiders who had spun rather large webs in the garden. "Angry spider! Angry spider!" shouted the kids as they through sticks and leaves at the spider webs. They were so excited to taunt the spiders but jumped back in fear every time they did it as if the little spiders were going to jump and attack them. God I can only imagine how they'd be if they ever came across a tarantula!

By the time our long-winded lunch was finally over I was totally ready to head back to school. I was tired, the kids were tired, and I was absolutely starving (I couldn't eat the lunch cause it was kimbok which not only contains ham but is also completely disgusting.) I had a nice, quiet, peaceful lunch when we got back and was thankful there were no more angry spiders at POLY for me to save.