Monday, November 28, 2011

Andrew's Going Away Party

Andrew left. As his replacement he was a big help to me, showing me where things are, introducing me to people, and he is a fellow Bulldog alumni, so it was nice to have someone from home around. His going away party was awesome. Definitely one of my favorite nights in Inje. Didn't go to sleep until past 6 AM.

Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, instead of babbling on like I usually do, I will use some photos of the night to break down his  farewell festivities.

At the one and only Jjokki Jjokki
Speech time
Norebang time!
Connor getting ready for his big debut
Norebang
So happy
I've compiled a list of things I guarantee you will miss about Korea:
  • Kimbap Cheonguk. More specifically Chamchi jjigae (nomnomnom)
  • "Teacher, why?"
  • Korean socks
  • Jjokki Jjokki
  • Luigi's voice and Harry crying
  • K Pop
  • the phlegm of Korean men and the sound they make when clearing it out
  • the luscious Inje mountains
  • Kawi bawi bo!
Good bye Andrew Teacher! Miss you and I hope you're adjusting well back in 'Merica!

Confessions of a Girl in Korea, Episode 1

So I have a confession. A big one. So prepare yourselves people. When I first got here, I did not like it. I  Inje. I didn't like teaching. I hated kids. I didn't like my small town life. I didn't like the fact that there is no English anywhere. I hated everything. I missed home and my family and friends. I even missed my old serving job (GASP).

However, this past month, I finally realized how much I truely enjoy my life here. I've finally developed my own style and technique of teaching and I get so much joy when a kid answers something correctly. I still don't really like children but I've accepted that fact a long time ago. Inje is really small, but I've been to bigger cities over the weekend and it's nice to come back and relax in my sleepy town. I am rarely homesick, because now Korea is my home; there are great people who have become my friends, my apartment is super small yet cozy and homey, and my boss has been like a mother to me here.

Sorry for the sap, but this concludes my first confessional blog.

Here's some K Pop to lighten the mood.

That One Time I Went to North Korea

So I went to North Korea. It was pretty cool.

I took a tour with Tony and Andrew that brought us to various sites involving the spat between North and South Korea. In all honesty, I thought it would be kind of boring, and I was pretty hungover so I wasn't all that excited at 8 AM, but it was surprisingly. It was really interesting to hear about the history between the two Koreas and it also kind of explained their animosity towards foreigners.

Me and Tony being tourists
Koreans being Koreans

Our first stop was at a Korean museum where we saw exhibits depicting how the border between North and South came to exists. We also saw a video that discussed the early conflicts between North and South, and the discovery of the tunnels that the North created to sneak into the South.

The Third Tunnel of Aggression

Our next stop was the Third Tunnel of Aggression. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but my stealthy self managed to take a couple. We had to wear helmets and walked about 300 meters underground (the uphill walk was brutal), and walked through almost 2 kilometers to the end. The walk was long and claustrophobic. I almost didn't make it. We had to walk hunched over most of the time, and it was dripping with water. When we reached the end of the tunnel (or as far as we could walk) we were only 150 meters from North Korea! That's probably as close as anyone could get. It felt pretty cool. I hope there were some North Korean soldiers who heard me yelling "Hey girl hey" at them.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Going Out in Hongdae

I love Hongdae. Hongdae is amazing. I want to live in Hongdae. Did I mention I love Hongdae? Okay, I probably just took it too far, but I really did enjoy myself in Hongdae and I definitely wasn't in Inje anymore.

One of the streets of Hongdae
Hongdae is this area in Seoul that has a bunch of different bars and clubs. Most are open until 6 AM so that people can party all night and just catch the subway in the morning (the subway closes at 1 AM, I think). It was pretty cool walking around with the streets just full of people, foreigners and Koreans, and the people are all within the same age range (my age range). It was an amazing change from my Inje nightlife: walking alone in the quiet streets, passing a man who drank too much Soju peeing in the side of the road, the occasional car driving by, on my way to Jjokki Jjokki, where the bar is never full, to meet my fellow foreigners.

11-11-11

Every November 11th in Korea, it is Pepero Day. This year, the date being 11-11-11, it was the ultimate Pepero Day.
Clara loooooves Pepero Day
From what I understand, Pepero Day was invented by the company who makes them because the date 11-11 looks like pepero sticks. Here's a short background on the joyous day: Pepero Day according to Wikipedia

One of my students actually knew how to spell my name correctly
Pepero Day felt a bit like Valentine's Day; the kids give each other pepero, and even I got a lot of pepero, enough to last a long time. The peperos were the first gifts I got from my students.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

How To Get A Korean Boyfriend

This is pretty hilarious, and probably accurate. This is also gives good reasoning why Korean girls act they way that they do.


Enjoy!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Screen Golf in Korea

As lame as it sounds, screen golfing is awesome. It's just like it sounds: golfing in front of a large screen. Virtual golf, if you will.

Laughing at Zaaid
There were seven of us total: me, Tony, Andrew, Ashley, Adrian, Zaaid, and Debbie, and we got a room to ourselves that had a table and some chairs, and we brought our own beer and soju inside with us. It was a lot of fun and you can even golf St. Andrews course, and it videotapes you playing so you can check out your own swing after each stroke. Our game took forever with only 9 holes. Needless to say my 4 years of golf in high school didn't help me at all in screen golf.

Ashley was offering free dance lessons during our screen golf sesh
Apparently screen golf is a big deal in Korea and Korean take it very seriously. I've heard that to golf on an actual golf course in Korea is quite expensive, an 18 hole round can cost around $400. Yikes.

Getting tested in Chuncheon

In Korea, all English teachers have to go through a series of tests before getting their Alien Registration Card, ARC card. Last Monday I finally went to Chuncheon to take care of all this. It was an interesting and traumatic experience.

I went to Chuncheon with my director, Erica, and Andrew. The weirdest part about this was that everything was done out in the open right next to the lobby. I first got weighed, and then the nurse measured my height. She also measured my boobs, not my hips or waist, just my boobs which I thought was really weird. I also got tested for my eyesight and hearing.

Then came the blood test. I have never had blood drawn from my arm before, just simple finger pricks which are bad enough. For those that don't know me, I am terrified of needles and blood. TERRIFIED. Especially needles. Just thinking about them sends me into panic mode. As soon as the doctor took out the tube and the needle and started checking my arms for an appropriate vein to poke, frenzy ensued; the shaking started, the tears slowly started to form. Did I mention this was all in the open next the hospital entrance?

I won't go into the gory details of the blood draining, it was not pretty. Tears and snot were dripping down my face. When the doc finally decided he took enough of my blood he chuckled at me and told me to hold the cotton on my arm. Whew. It was over.

NOT. Crazy vampire doctor wanted more of my blood.

He was searching my other arm for a suitable vein and he couldn't. I thought I was safe. NOT. He shoved a needle in the backside of my hand. I just about passed out. It hurt, it was awkward, and I was miserable. And then, it was finally over.

After the blood, came the pee test. I had to carry my cup of urine through the lobby for everyone to see which was gross yet kind of funny.

Last was my chest x-ray. That wasn't bad except for the fact that while waiting in a hall full of Koreans my director thought it was hilarious that I cried during my blood test and was telling everyone in the hallway. She also kept calling me "cry baby".

As miserable as this encounter was, it makes for a great story. As I look back, even though it was awful, it was pretty amusing and I was laughing during my blood test because I was so embarassed. So I hope you all enjoyed my tale of anguish.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Remember, remember, the 5th of November

Welp, thanks to our house Kiwi, we celebrated Guy Fawkes Night in South Korea.

What is Guy Fawkes you ask? Why let me have my friend Wikipedia help you:

An annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in England. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London, and months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.


Here are some pictures of our celebrations on the river's edge and in the Inje tunnel...


Fire is fun

K-Water's 3rd English Contest in Daejeon

This last weekend 16 of our students competed in an English contest sponsored by K-Water. The contest had other English Villages that are funded by K-Water. There were about 200 kids total representing six different provinces around Korea. The three different categories were Skit, Speech, and Golden Bell (vocabulary test). I have never been more nervous/excited/anxious/happy/proud in my entire life. This weekend was also the weekend when I truely realized how much I care about these kids and their well being.

All 6 provinces represented by about 200 students
We left for Daejeon on Friday, and finally reached the K-Water Education Center 5 hours later, the education center had dorms that all the kids stayed in, and we stayed in some other company's dorms about 10 minutes away. When we first got there, the kids were split up by province, and each province had a different colored sweatshirt, we were red. All day Friday there were activities for the kids and blah, blah, blah. I'll skip to Saturday, which was the day of the contest.

Our students (in red) jumping rope
I was sweating like a madman with nerves. I wanted these kids to win so bad and there was a rumor floating around that the winner would get to go to America, so of course I wanted my kids to have that experience.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

New Teachers in Inje

We got two new teachers in Inje! They are a couple from Rhode Island that are here through the EPIK program. The girl was Ms. Rhode Island 2010, which is pretty flippin' cool man. We all went out for welcome dinner with some Korean co-teachers and some teachers from neighboring towns, and we ate dakgalbi.

The whole group
Afterwards we went to a bar besides Jjokki Jjokki which was pretty exciting. The place was called Rodeo and they served their beer in rocket-type things instead of pitchers which I thought was cool.

Zaaid, Connor, Andrew, and Ashley enjoying themselves

After Rodeo, we of course ended up at Jjokki Jjokki, where we ended the night.

Debbie and Tony doing a love shot

Education in Korea

Today, Thursday November 10th is a big test day for high school students.

South Korean students' 'year of hell' culminates with exams day

I think this article says a lot about the importance of education in Korea, and it definitely says something about their competitive nature.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

I GOT PAID!

After almost 2 months of no income, I finally got paid! It is probably the largest amount I have ever been paid, and it included my first month of pay, my stipend upon entrance, AND my reimbursement for my plane ticket over here so it was amazing to see that many numbers in my account, especially in Korean won it seems like a lot.

In honor of getting paid, I have a special song to commemorate this joyous day:



So friends, what should I splurge on first with my first Korean paycheck?


On a side note, besides the fact that I got paid, this week has been going amazingly well. I think I'm really getting the hang of this teaching thing. This 4 year old boy who is probably too young to even be in our school said his first English words in front of me! "Pizza" and "cheese".

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Halloween in Sokcho

For Halloween, some of us from Inje county went to Sokcho, a city on the coast, about an hour away from Inje.

Cheese!
Where's Arazue?
The 3rd annual "Holloween Party" was held at Min's, a Westernized bar that actually had liquor besides Soju. There was vodka, rum, whiskey, and tequila galore! I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I thought there would be mainly foreigners, but there was a good mix of Koreans and foreigners. There was even a Korean DJ who played an eclectic mix of k-pop, dubstep, American Top 40 hits, electronic, and Guns N' Roses. I went as Waldo, a costume I put together thanks to the street market about an hour before we left.

Axl Rose showed up
There was lots of dancing, strobe lights, beer, shots, and awesome costumes. My favorite was Connor, who was the prettiest Korean school girl at the bar. He played the whole Korean girl thing the whole night and even danced his way around the bar like a Korean girl. It was amazing. This night was a lot of fun and before we knew it, it was 4 AM, so we left, but there were still a ton of people in the bar. I don't think most places in Korea have a closing time, they usually stay open if there are still a lot of people, so I have no idea how early people stayed out, but I can imagine it was super early.

Connor hustling for drinks at the bar
In the morning, I found myself in a motel room with 4 boys and it reeked of farts and boy funk. It was an interesting morning to say the least, expecially with Connor walking around still in his costume as a girl. We saw a group of Korean Army dudes who were definitely checking him out. I think they thought he was hot, until they saw his leg hair poking through his tights.

Walk of shame
Things I learned from my Halloween weekend in Sokcho:
  1. Koreans love to rave.
  2. Koreans love to dance.
  3. Tequila is not my friend.
  4. Dressing up in costumes is always fun. 
  5. Halloween is fun in any country.
Happy Halloween from Korea!

Halloween Friday

Instead of cooking day last Friday, we had Halloween Day! There was lots of candy, crafts, and more candy. It was awesome.

This is Julie
We made witch mobiles, ghost lollipops, paper jack o' lanterns, and we had the kids make their own candy bags. Unfortunately we didn't get to dress up, neither did any of the kids, but it was a fun surprise when I didn't think I would see any Halloween realated things in Inje.
My Class 3 loves Halloween
I even taught the kids how to yell "Trick or Treat!" in order to get their candy. I tried to tell them to smell my feet when they were being bad, and tried to teach them the Trick or Treat song, but they didn't get it.



Thursday, November 3, 2011

Rugby Sunday: the Final

Last weekend, New Zealand won the 2011 Rugby World Cup! It was their second time winning since the very first Rubgy World Cup in 1987, and this also concludes the Rugby Sunday series.

After barbequeing and watching the game outside, the night concluded at Jjokki Jjokki (where else would we go?), where Adrian bought everyone drinks in celebration of his beloved motherland.

Cheers to New Zealand
I'm really going to miss watching big muscular men in tight shirts and short shorts run around on Sundays.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Invisible Children

Hey everybody!

Check out my friend Jaime's fundraiser for Invisible Children. This last August she was chosen to go to a summit in San Diego to learn more about the cause, and is now a top fundraiser for IC.

Background on Invisible Children:
IC is a 501(c)3 organization that seeks to raise awareness and bring and end to the longest running war in Africa. Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army are abducting children and forcing them to fight as child soldiers. Over the past 26 years, Kony is estimated to have kidnapped between 30,000 and 60,000 children. Here's a video with more detail on Kony and the LRA, who they are and what they're doing: Who is the LRA?

The current fundraising campaign, called The Frontline (www.invisiblechildren.com/frontline) runs until December 14th, and all the money raised goes to the Invisible Children's Protection Plan (www.invisiblechildren.com/protectionplan), and here's a video description of the protection plan as well: Invisible Children Protection Plan

If anyone is interested in donating, this is Jaime's personal fundraising page: Jaime Landsverk's Fundraising Page where you can watch videos, donate, and learn a bit more. You can also set up your own fundraising page on the frontline link.

She's currently in the top ten for fundraising, and every two weeks, IC gives away one all expense paid trip to Uganda to see the results of the work they've put in over the years and meet some of the beneficiaries. The top fundraiser is the one who wins the trip, and she's currently in the third spot for this week's top ten, so let's get her to number one! They announce the winner tomorrow (Wednesday, November 2nd) evening, so all donations for this specific trip giveaway need to be in by noon tomorrow (Wednesday, November 2nd).

There all still a few more chances if this week doesn't work out. She has her bigger fundraising events in November and December:
  • Saturday, November 19th at the Beanery in Aitkin, MN
  • Thursday, December 8th at Summit Brewery in St. Paul, MN
    • 6:00 - 9:00 PM
    • all ages
    • $15 suggested donation for all you can drink beer AND root beer and snacks
    • live music, raffle, silent auction
    • documentary screening at 7:00 PM

If you have any questions, feel free to email her at jaimelynnland@gmail.com