Just Another Day In Korealand

Some might think that this blog isn't updated enough. The truth is that in general, there isn't always much to write about. My life in Korea is very structured and routine, centered on my 1pm-9pm schedule Monday-Friday. I have not yet written anything describing my typical day, so I thought I would go ahead and bore the hell out you with this rundown. If it's updates you're looking for, just re-read this. It's that consistent.

9:00am: Wake up, open my laptop, get some morning jams pumping, check email.

10:00am: Two possibilities: go for a run or make breakfast. I run just about every other day.

10:20am: Breakfast is almost always French pressed coffee and toast made by heating up slices of bread one side at a time in a skillet. What are toasters like?
My wingspan can almost touch both walls at once. Ching Chang was absolutely compensating for something at the Walla-walla Bing Bang.

10:30am: Sip coffee and read the news, bum around on Facebook.
11:30am: Take a shower. No tub, no curtain, no problem! More a suggestion of a shower space than a suitable one. Korean style showers require that water goes friggin' everywhere. Are there things that shouldn't be wet? Yes. Will this exacerbate the mold and mildew problem? Absolutely. I have soaked many pairs of socks through because I missed a spot with my post-shower squeegy.

12:00pm: With an hour before work, I have options. Once upon a time I Skyped Emma, but that was before she disappeared into the jungles of Panama. Nowadays, I might play guitar, read, or look at more news (no more about the Ground Zero mosque, please). It's also a prime time for errands like the bank, post office, dry cleaners, or other random shopping.

12:45pm: Leave for work (in actuality, I leave around 12:52 and thus I am consistently 3-5 minutes late no matter what I do).

12:55pm: Out of a large group of students standing on the street corner down the block, one brave girl or boy will say: "hello!" or "nice to meet you!" or "handsome guy!"

I live in front of a high school and middle school so this happens almost every day.
12:58: Tip-toe around the ajummas selling produce on the street. It's remarkable how many varieties of greens Koreans eat, though I think much of it would be considered invasive vegetation rather than food.
12:59: I stand next to Paris Baguette. The Korean script reflects the French pronunciation, thus PAH-REE Baguette, though they place emphasis on the first, rather than the second syllable. It's pretty much the only place you can get a decent loaf of whole grain bread or a real baguette (it's nutrition-less Wonderbread galore at the grocery store).
Note COOLish Foreign Institute, above the tree on the right, 4th floor. The smattering of signage typical of buildings in Korea. You can only imagine what it looks like at night when they fire up the LED lights.

12:59:30: I cross the street to Lotteria. Run by the department store empire Lotte (they own everything from retail stores to soda/junkfood brands to baseball teams), Lotteria is the official fast-food burger chain of Korea. Many similarities to BK and McD's are there, but watch out, those onion rings you successfully ordered by pointing frantically at a picture are actually squid rings, one of many seafood options. Decidedly Korean.

1:00pm (1:05): Arrive at school, have a quick chat with Mr. Lee about current events, often concerning the weather.

1:05-1:50: I gather up and sort through the stacks of photocopies I use in class. Since each class is only 20 minutes, it can take a few days to get through just a single page, depending on how much I can squeeze out of it. If the class is a talkative one, we may never even get the pages I prepared. I figure out what I need and what I'll be doing today and that doesn't take long. I often just use this time to read and write.

1:50-2:10: Phonics class with Mr. Lee's oldest son, Jae Min. He's about six years old, so we just spell basic words and draw pictures. He's really into firefighters:

2:15-2:30: The phonics class from hell. Four students, three boys and one girl. The boys all have English names: Alex, John, and Tim, while the girl just goes by her Korean name, Soo Min. The boys are out of control. To delay chaos as long as possible, the beginning of class is very structured, hitting on the day, the weather and moods:

Laying the smiley-teacher enthusiasm on thick:

What day is it today?
Thursturday!
Close!
Fronday!
Fronday!?
Nooooo Tuesday!
Yes.
What's the weather like?
It's sunny!
Good.
How are you John? I'm so-so.
How are you Tim? I'm happy!
How are you Soo-Min? I'm so-so. Good.
How are you Alex? I'm tired and sad. Oh god.

Well, we can count on Alex smacking another kid with his pencil case. He prefers to climb on the tables while his peers proudly spell "telephone" and cries when he loses the ABC bingo game. He punched me the other day. John is a slightly better behaved, but in very non-Korean kid fashion gets all wide-eyed and mocks you while putting his thumb and finger together in the an "okay" sign whenever you ask him to do something. This is my favorite class.

2:30: Lunch from the kimbap shop. Korean food delivered on the cheap, I get my daily kimchi and rice fix. I'm going to have to write the ladies over a card or something. My order is sometimes the only thing that distinguishes one day from the next and keeps my energy rolling.

2:55-3:15: I slip out of school and hang out on a bench outside with a book. Good people watching and I appreciate the fresh air.


3:20-9:00: Teaching.
The kids hate me.
I am a dessert.

My day consists of 5 separate hour-long blocks during which I teach three 20-minute classes in row. I have 10-minute breaks in between. The pace makes the day move along. On the good days, the kids are into it or least wear unintentionally funny English t-shirts:
I love you and all, but if you think I can be counted on to provide starches, you're dead wrong.
Your grass is sad? At least your t-shirt is green.

The other day, a student wore a shirt with what looked like the outlines of zoo animals throwing feces. Across the top it read in pink and green letters: "POLITICAL PARTIES." Right on.

I was chuckling for a long time, and my class of 3 students sat without any emotion or energy to speak of (these classes bring on the harder days to get through). It would have been hopeless to explain what I thought was funny, and even if it did get through, I've found Korean sense of humor isn't very receptive.
Jun Beom (pronounced JOON-BUM). One of my all-time favorites. I sometimes like to give a round of high fives to get class started. Jun Beom insists upon getting another student (sometimes two) to hold my arm in place while he punches as hard as he can for as long as he can. It's well meaning. Everything Jun Beom does, he does without smiling, but this off-beat dazed determination to carry out his intent. What that intent is, I really don't know, but it's hilarious.

Whenever I ask how he is, Jun Beom says that he is "hungry." He's been saying this everyday for seven months now. When I ask what he wants to eat, he used to list every edible thing he knew in English, but now he just says "everything, everyone, and everybody." Jun Beom is open to cannibalism.

I once did an activity in his class where I had the students take a piece of paper divided into thirds. In each part, I asked them to write a sentence and draw a picture of what they like to do. Jun Beom drew a cow, a pig, and a duck. He wrote: "eat cow; eat pig; eat duck."

He's about four feet tall, but he once lifted me clear off the ground. Jun Beom, you're a legend.

They can be a pain sometimes, but these guys are entertaining:
Seong Jun. Once claimed he went to Washington and kicked Obama you know where, only to make up and negotiate a successful free-trade agreement. Okay, maybe I put words in his mouth, but he's a joker.
Jae Hong. His t-shirt says lust. This pose is even better when he shrugs his shoulders with his hands up. I ask him to do it every class. Gets me every time.
Sang Deok. Frequently comes to school reeking of cigarettes because he lives at the PC-room (internet cafes for computer game junkies, there are about 20 of them within a two-block radius). Will do anything to avoid doing anything. Bravo, Sang Deok, bravo.

The bad days are when I'm tired and struggling to keep focus. It's on those days a kid says "he play computa gay-eem on home" and in my daze of auto-pilot is say "yeah! good job!" Shameful, but it happens. Some of my classes are like teaching statues. This makes it tough in a conversation class, leading to me to dance around waving my arms shouting a grand monologue as part of an effort to summon pigeons to remind these kids that they are ALIVE! Shit!

I ask things like "what's your favorite fruit?" and get blank stares. Blink twice for bananas! After I ask a few times, giving examples, telling all about how much I LOVE ORANGES, I might be fortunate to get them to grunt or whisper "mho?" (what?) "moy-yo" (I don't know) or "nae" (yes). If only life were a yes or no question kids, if only.

Kids are shy, I get it. I'm making these poor awkward middle school kids really uncomfortable. Kids that are quiet in Korean are going to tend to be silent in English. What do they think of me?

Who is this crazy foreigner that is so unsatisfied with the fact that I don't like fruit and all I want to do is play computer games and I spend 15 hours a day in a classroom and don't have hobbies. You've had your 20 minutes, now let me languish in this cell phone application!

If you're starting to sense that I find myself frustrated sometimes and may be going off the deep end if I stay here much longer - you're onto something. It's been a lot of deep breath, grin, and bear it. Day by day.


9:00: I fill my 2-liter bottle up at our filtered water cooler. I take one home just about every day. I drink a lot of water.

9:15: I stop into the grocery store in the basement below Paris Baguette. I go almost every night, so all the women that work there know me. I'm reasonably sure they judge my purchasing habits and wonder how I could possibly feed myself with the things that I buy. For one, they seem concerned that I've never bought meat there. My usual is a variety of veggies, tofu, cereal, milk, pasta, noodles, and rice. They ask me a lot of questions. None of which I understand.

In one interaction, I used up my entire arsenal of Korean vocabulary and they took this to mean I was capable of answering complex questions (what's your favorite fruit perhaps!?). What I think they've asked me:

"Do you eat meat?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Would you like to try our swamp cabbage? It's on sale this week."

"What exactly do you do with these groceries?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

9:30: Get home, cook dinner. I usually spend the afternoon in class daydreaming about what to make. Let the grocery store ladies believe that I live on ketchup and raisin potato chip salads.

10:00: Eat dinner, sit on Facebook, read some more news. Perhaps watch the Daily Show. Bed time is usually around 1.

Hope this has demystified my life in Korea. Peckrill will agree that those who think we're making profound cultural discoveries each day and conquering feats of historical signficance in our down-time are mistaken. Those things happen, but in flashes wedged between a very normal, routine working life. It's in a sometimes strange country, but it doesn't take long to normalize the cartoon characters pushing cosmetics, old ladies hawking weeds they picked from the highway median around the corner, and armies of pre-schoolers that swarm the white-skinned, blue-eyed dude in the street like a god.

Moolgogi Hunting: Part Deux

This past weekend, Mr. Lee invited me on another fishing trip. You may recall our last adventure to wrangle with water meat ("moolgogi," the Korean word for fish, literally translates to "watermeat") featured fake school principles, deliciously inky squid (you haven't an inkling), and eel slime hair gel. The sequel has understandably high expectations, but I'm sorry to disappoint. This won't quite stack up. I got some good pictures though.

We went to the same place, a town called Samcheonpo. So far as I can tell, the defining feature of Samcheonpo is the bridge across that crosses the bay. By nightfall, in true Korean fashion, it's illuminated by a full spectrum of constantly changing LED color. In contrast to the modest blue lights of Boston's Zakim bridge, Samcheonpo brings to mind glow stick acid trips and randomized computer screen savers.
I found a YouTube video that ever-so-delicately documents the night view of this bridge. I couldn't help but crack up at some of the zoom-ins. While I'm not pleased with the quality and you hardly get any real sense of the "spectacular" light show, it's a funny example of differing perceptions. The Korean film-maker sets the footage to peaceful piano music while when I look at the same scenes, I think of pulsing K-Pop. What do you think? View for yourself.
The bay when we arrived. The sun had been fighting the clouds all day and it made for some beautiful scenes down by the water.
Note Mr. Lee's hat: "Boston, Massachusetts Est. 1630." Spelling? Correct. Dating? Correct. Rarities in Korea...thanks Emma!
Rather than fishing from a dock, we rented a floating barge that had a little room to sleep in. You get some sense for what these things were like the background. We fished well into nightfall and woke up early and fished some more.
Mr. Lee shows off the first catch of the day. This is a full grown adult for this type of fish and apparently it's a very expensive delicacy. We were joined by another group later in the evening and they filleted it for us. Tasty. We of course caught some eels:
STAMINA!!!
As the sun set behind the clouds, I let my reel out, sipped my beer, and kicked back.

Jirisan: A Chuseok Holiday Adventure

I wipe the rain from my brow and take tentative step onto what looks like the outline of a stable rock on the pitch-black mountain trail. While the sun set around an hour ago, the rain clouds and tree cover had made our path dark well before that. Only three of the six of us have flashlights and I am one of those without. I try to see by staying in someone's light, but as we make our way up and down the winding trails, it's almost impossible. Be it fact or myth, I tell myself that the carrots I've been eating regularly make the situation manageable. My unpreparedness only begins with lighting; my non-waterproof jacket soaked through long ago and without a backpack cover, my provisions and extra clothes are suffering a similar fate. Many day-hikes around the neighborhood mountain range where I would rock nothing more than a tank top, swim trunks and Crocs with a water bottle and encounter silly Koreans with full hiking-suits, cleated hiking boots and hiking poles with packs for a day hike made think I could get away with minimalism. This was a different ballgame.

We start to think we should have planned this better.

Our arrival at Jirisan National Park had gone smoothly. A series of bus connections took us from Daegu to Seong-sam-jae, a peak at the beginning of the range we planned to cross in a 3-day excursion over 30kilometers (~20 miles) that would culminate with a 1,905M summit at Cheon-wang-bong:
Here's the crew at Seong-sam-jae before we set off:
Jen, Harry, Kaitlin, Caitlin, and I (our sixth member, Robbie is missing). Not as much confusion over C(K)aitlins as one might expect.
Following the funny pictures of the Korean man, Caitlin gets her stretch on. Hoo-rah!
While the Koreans picnicking in the parking lot had their typical 10-course meal, we fueled up on peanut butter sandwiches.
To start, the fog was thick and the views were nil. Robbie commented that it was like a scene out of a war film. I have to agree.
5.5km ahead: Banyabong. Who in the world would want to ban ya' bong? The DEA, that's who. On the state level, it turns out Florida already has. But really, drugs are bad and bong just means "peak" in Korean. I'll let you fashion your own joke playing on the fact that peaks are naturally high.

Caitlin and Harry each brought their tents to camp, but we hadn't planned where. Strict park regulations prohibited camping outside of designated areas (enforced with a hefty fine of 500,000Won), and since all park information was in Korean, we had no idea where these places were. We thought maybe we could camp outside a shelter up on the mountain range, but by the time darkness crept up on us, we had passed one 5km back and the next was about 5km ahead. The rain began in spurts but was soon coming down full. This was where I found myself thinking about carrots.

When dread really started to set in, we found signs pointing towards an information shack. We arrived to find Koreans, decked out in their typical hike-Everest gear huddled under a tarp strung lean-to style to the shack. Down the hill, there was a creek and a bridge with another tarp shelter fashioned over the rails.

In a mix of very limited English and Korean, we worked out that they'd let us pitch tents next to them. We happily did so. With a setup complete, I went down to the creek for some water. When I got there, I met two Korean guys camping it on the bridge. They offered me sam-yeop-sal (strips of pork meat, usually barbecued) and I was excited and expecting to have a bite of leftovers. They gave me an entire unopened package of meat and two bags of kimchi. "Chin-cha?" (really?) I asked. "Nay, chin-cha," (yes, really) they responded. I thanked them profusely with the widest of grins. Could our circumstances have turned around any faster? God bless the hospitality of the Korean people.

We ate heartily, at times using an umbrella to shield our tiny portable gas burner. Harry and I retired last to the 2-man tent. Unfortunately, it wasn't completely waterproof, so we slept on and off through the night between torrential downpours and corresponding bouts of Chinese water torture from water condensation inside.

The next morning, we saw that we had apparently broken 3 out of 4 campsite rules by pitching tents, cooking food, and smoking cigarettes. We were considerate enough not to "throw."
After a breakfast of baked beans and hot dogs (anything edible is delicious when your burning 4,000 calories a day) we gathered up our gear and tread into the rain.
A thick fog continued to spoil any views. I show off my green plastic bottle of delicious spring water.
Having accomplished nothing, I pose like a gold-medalist skier. Most Koreans on the trail had hiking poles, and to support her knees, Caitlin got outfitted with a pair. They made for fun props.
The fog showed signs of breaking that afternoon. Like magic, mountains began to appear.

Looking around, it was something out of a movie. We were up close and personal with the clouds as they slid up and over the mountain curves.
Emma described this one as a "cloud beach." I like it.
Though we were rain-drenched, the landscape went a long way to lift spirits. We were even happier to be sleeping in a warm, dry shelter. At an earlier stop, a friendly Korean man called one ahead for us and made sure they had space. Score another for the compassion of this nation...

The shelter reminded me of a lodge somewhere out in the western United States. The landscape around it added to the effect. Nestled at the sloping base of one of the open ranges, it was like a mirage rising out of the rugged, remote terrain. There were had huge rooms that probably could have slept over 100 people if full (side by side with only a blanket on the wood floor - yeah Korean style!). It was at about 70% so it wasn't so bad.
Here, Harry, Robbie and I try unsuccessfully to dry something from our bags. Oh the wetness.

At dinner, I ate what I estimate were five helpings of ramen. I was starving. Later on, Harry and I befriended a trio of middle-aged Korean guys on a serious night-cap. One of them offered me to try a drink of something he made himself. It was brown in color. It tasted...unique. With a mix of English, Korean and body language he explained that it was made from oak trees, but he kept making this gesture where he wrapped one hand around the other I think to indicate what part of the tree it came from. Neither Harry nor I knew what this meant, but we just pretended we did. I now think he meant oak tree bark. A combination of soju and extreme altitude really put a damper on the mime-guessing skills. In any event, this drink, like the fabled eel, provided stamina. That's all we needed to know.

It came out that one of guys had studied in Guatemala years ago, so he spoke some Spanish. Thus, we communicated with a mix of English, Korean, body language, AND Spanish. For the record, not one of these methods was working well, but using bits of each usually got the point across. Harry has some extensive South American traveling under his belt so he knows some Spanish. The Korean Spanish speaker's companions were confused as hell when we would switch from English to Spanish and back again. Cool stuff. Yeah language.
Dawn. At last we saw the sun shine. Was the effect ever appreciated.
A steady relationship with the clouds, now complemented by blue skies.
Our shelter from afar. What an outpost.
Look at the distance to the town below! Caitlin takes it all in.
Harry, Kaitlin and Robbie. Robbie had a beautiful Canon lens camera, so I will be after him for the shots I could never hope to get on my little point-and-shoot.
The trail marches on. We are well within range of the summit, and you can feel it in our pace.
Between peaks, stretches often opened up the way to stellar views. For those tallying, this was Caitlin teacher's favorite.

After a series of stair sets and treacherous inclines where we passed Koreans coming down and belted a hearty "an-yeong-ha-sae-yo!" to each one, we finally made it:
The summit of Cheonwangbong, with plenty of company.

The cloud cover up there was intense so the views weren't quite as clear as those before. It didn't take anything away from our sense of accomplishment and awe at the fact we were 6,282 feet in the air.
Harry strikes a pose with the summit marker. A Korean girl with a funky Asian cartoon backpack looks on in curiosity. An actual interaction that happened shortly before we reached the summit:

Korean Man: "I like your beard."

General laughter amongst our group.

Harry: "Oh, why thank y..."
Korean Man: "Just kidding!"
Much contemplation. In their grand proportions and natural beauty, mountains sure make ya' think.
We had lunch, again marveling at how many side dishes Koreans actually toted up the damn mountain. We finished off the bread for the last peanut butter sandwiches. Final tally on peanut butter damage: 2.5 jars. Consider the fun fueled, Skippy people.
A little ways down, we took in my favorite spot on the whole hike. We all lay out on a rock face listening to music, catching some rays, and taking in the impossible distances we could see.
Why leave?
On our way down, we stopped in to check out a small temple. While several women chanted a Buddhist prayer in the main hall, Harry, Robbie and I wandered around the grounds. It was a fitting and peaceful end to our journey.