Fight! Fight!

I normally post these on Monday but I've had such an exciting week already! Today was cool, I did a ton of stuff but my favorite was when I was resting at a restraunt overlooking Namdaemun Gate and I saw another changing of the guard ceremony with cool drumming and fighting demonstrations! (I have awesome timing with stuff). Quick history: Namdaemun means "Great South Gate" and is one of the surviving gates from the 1300's when Seoul was made capital of the newly formed Joseon Dynasty. All of the gates are now preserved in the middle of traffic circles which is odd but neat-looking. I don't know if they all have guards with traditional costume or not. Namdaemun and Dongdaemun are the most famous ones.

Anyway, I'm looking at the gate out the window and then I hear the neat drumming and odd trumpet that reminds me of Tibetan trumpets. It was so funny to watch them heading for the gate from wherever they come from because they had to stop and wait at a lot of traffic lights. It just didn't seem right for the imperial guards to stop and let traffic go by, and for them to nicely cross at the crosswalk. It would have been way cooler if traffic had come screeching to a halt and the guards just marched straight through. Anyway.....

I headed down there and they were doing really neat weapons demonstrations, acrobatic martial arts, and mock battles. The mock battles were really exciting and well choreographed. So fun!

The other really fun thing I did this week was go to a new teahouse in Insadong that had birds free-flying all over the place. They were so cute and friendly. The bathroom was weird though, the floor was deep with pebbles! Very disconcerting.



I took a bunch of pictures. Tomorrow I'm going to a rural area in the center of the country to see a huge Buddha. Yay!

Miss you guys! Love, MacKensie

24 hour season change

It suddenly became fall two days ago.... brrr..... it's nice though.

People are acting like the nuclear crisis with North Korea has totally passed. I'm personally not convinced, but I'm glad things have quieted down a little. Tourists are still going to the DMZ and into North Korea even, so that makes me feel better. Maybe it shouldn't, I don't know. I saw the stupidest thing on CNN (we get an Asia-focused CNN here so I don't know if you saw this special). This correspondent did some very "dramatic" coverage of the crisis from the DMZ -"one of the most dangerous places on earth" he said. OK, if you look behind him, there are school groups on a field trip there. Oooohhhh, what a brave reporter. You know what's funny? CNN International, which is geared towards Asia, plays "The Daily Show with John Stewart" at night, as news. I love John Stewart but I can't imagine what the Korean, Thai, or Indian average joe might be thinking when they watch it --on CNN. It's a little odd to me. Sadly, we do not get the Colbert Report. But we do get... the A Team (that's right that old show with Mr. T). Anyway....

I finally went to a sauna. It was a cheap one ($3) which only had a hot bath, cold bath, and sauna room. For $10 you can get ones with things like ginseng baths and it can get exponentially higher from there with all sorts of stuff ranging from massages and body scrubs to traditional medical treatments like cupping (which I might try sometime). Saunas (more what we would call bathhouses) are everywhere. There are half a dozen that I know of between me and my subway stop. It was neat, I was surprisingly comfortable hanging out naked in a hot tub with coworkers and curious old Korean women. I'm officially a fan of the public bath.

We had dinner in Itaewon (the foreigner area) and I had .... a CHEESE AND OLIVE PLATE!!!!! It was magnificent. Six kinds of real cheeses with green and black olives. A good day I have to say.

Not to say that I'm not enjoying Korean food. I actually really like kimchi and have caught myself craving it. There's a few dishes here that I love and will miss when I leave. The chili paste they put on everything is delicious. Oh man, my stomach is growling now. Weird thing, ramen noodles here taste way better than ramen in the States.

Classes are still going well, we have a huge Halloween party coming up which will be fun. Kids can even bring friends-- it'll be nuts. Teaching is weird, I guess because I never thought I would be doing it. Sometimes when I reflect on the week I can't believe the things that I have had to say "For the third time, no farting in class" "I saw you break all of your pencils on purpose, no you cannot go to the pencil sharpener, lucky for you I have an extra pencil" *sigh* The kids are all great though and the problem cases have smoothed out.

My Korean has good days and bad days. I successfully got pants altered the other day with minimal miming, that felt good. But I am 0-0 on trying to order in food. I have two clients now for private tutoring and it is nuts what they pay for you to just sit and correct their pronunciation and grammar.

There's a lot of things coming up that I'm looking forward to. I've arranged two trips outside of Seoul- one to see temples and one to see archaeology stuff. I might have set up a volunteer thing pending more information. I'll keep y'all updated. Miss everyone! I'm going to eat now.

Fire Alarms and Flat Fish

So far, so good. Of course, although there is no atmosphere of fear here, us foreigners are certainly concerned about the situation with North Korea. I thought this article on BBC News did a good job of summing up the attitudes in Seoul and the atmosphere in the country -- "South Korea's Anger Over Nuclear Test." The three of us foreigners at school have talked a little bit about what we think might possibly happen and what we would do during the worst case scenarios. It was (sort of) funny- we had just finished convincing each other that we weren't that worried and then alarms went off in MokDong! It turns out it is a monthly drill, and no one else was concerned, we nearly jumped out of our skins and everyone else made fun of the wimpy foreigners. Ah well, I guess it's just wait-and-see.

Nothing else really eventful is going on with me. A few of us went out Friday night and enjoyed some Korean beer and snacks. Usually you are expected to buy food at a bar and there are particular food items that are served just about everywhere. In the picture below is some flattened and dried cuttlefish and mystery fish (too flat to tell). The mystery fish is additionally treated with something sugary and you dip it in a mayo/vinegar dip which actually comes out pretty good, as gross as it looks and sounds. Shredded, dried, squid and cuttlefish (are they the same thing?) are ok. It's a good thing I don't mind this stuff because it's pretty popular here. I see more of my students snacking on dried squid than on chips or anything like that. You also see a lot of seafood flavored snacks like shrimp chips and squid chips. My students were disappointed when I told them that those flavors weren't available in America. That reminds me, minutemaid juice makes a delicious rambutan juice here that they should immediately put in American markets.... mmmmm....

Usually when I get local food its some sort of soup, noodle, or rice dish, which is always pretty good. There's lots of fried things here but I always get sick when I eat heavily battered things so I haven't tried much. I had raw crab that had been soaked in chili pepper sauce, my Korean friends were impressed. Mostly though I make my own food; simple stuff though, like grilled chicken, some cheese and tomatoes, and some fruit.

Some people have asked me about the prices of things so I'll give a quick rundown:
- my utilities this month were $65 (US) including gas, electric, full cable, DSL internet, and a home phone line.
- a loaf of wheat bread at the "French" bakery $5 (anything Western is pricey)
- grande iced vanilla cappuccino at Starbucks $5 (surprised?)
- tteokbokki, al sorts of crazy things stirfried with noodles in chili sauce with a boiled egg and some dumplings thrown on top, served with a side of kimchi, pickled beets, and miso soup $3
- bus fare, 50 cents
- a pint of Cafri (Korean beer) $1.50
- a pint of Guinness $10
- a months worth of daily Chinese lessons, $100
- a copy of O! Magazine (Oprah's Magazine) $22
- a day at the sauna $7
- a day of white water rafting including lunch and pick-up in Seoul $45
there's a few of the odd high expense items but it's easy to live cheaply if you want to.

OK, I'm tired now. I miss everyone!!!! Talk to you later!

Hey guys. First of all, I know there's tons of scary stuff on the news about North Korea but South Korea is not necessarily in huge danger right now. After all, North Korea is feeling threatened by the West more than the East. South Koreans are not overly concerned about security here, they are much more worried about the economic repercussions. Unfortunately, if the dollar drops here that will be crappy for everyone, myself included. You would never know anything was going on if you didn't watch the news, everything out on the streets is the same as usual. Plus, I'm on the Embassy's mailing list and they told us all that there is no immediate threat to foreigners' security here. So, relax!

Anyway, Chusok, the Korean Thanksgiving, just ended and we had a nice little four day weekend. I went to a Chinese movie with Korean subtitles! It was a little stressful but I followed along ok, yay! It was The Banquet, with Zhang Ziyi, and if you liked Hero, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, etc. you'll probably like this one too-- although this had much more blood and gore. (you can watch a trailer here) The Korean girl, Kay, that I went with covered her eyes through half the movie! Kay's really cool, she's one of my coworkers and has been really helpful. She studied English in Newcastle, England and will be going back next year for her Masters in English Education. Her boyfriend of nine years waits for her everytime she goes, jeeze, maybe I would like a Korean boyfriend (all of the girls here keep telling me so anyway).

I spent one day on Yeuido Island, in the middle of the Hangang River (actually I suspect gang means river, but anyway...). The Hangang runs through roughly the middle of Seoul. A lot of times people will ask if the location of something is North or South of the river. The coolest touristy spots are north central, I'm southeastern. Yeuido has two subway stops, a couple of famous parks and some neat amusement-type stuff. I went on a river boat cruise which was fun. The guy sitting next to me turned out to be a Korean Opera singer who has toured all over the place and speaks fluent German as well as English! He was cool. Since that day was the official Chusok holiday people were out with their families and a lot of children were dressed in traditional clothing --adorable! Sorry, I didn't take pics. I walked around this one park where they had a special thing set up for people to try traditional games and methods of food preparation. It reminded me of going to Cowtown in Kansas and playing shuttlecock (if I remember right).

Then I went to the 63 Building. It's the tallest skyscraper here and it is gold tinted. The gold didn't show well in my pic but sometimes the building looks pretty fantastic in the right light. It's got tons of stuff to do including an aquarium with dolphins and sealions, Imax theatre, shows, restaurants, etc. I just went to the skydeck and took pictures of Seoul. Seoul is so huge, I love it! There's a part of the deck where the floor is see through --ew, no, not interested. It was a fun day. Of course, I get home that night and Heidi and Johnny call to see if I want to go on the river cruise the next day with them!

Other than that I spent the weekend reading, studying, and relaxing a bit. Sunday night we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at Heidi's mmmmmmm...... stuffing!

This week is stressful because the bosses are sitting in on my classes and telling me what I'm doing wrong, but it'll be over soon and then we won't have to do it again. At least I finally get paid, yay!!!

I miss you guys!

More pics...

I was hoping to go river rafting this weekend but it didn't work out. Hopefully I'll at least be able to go hiking. I've put more pictures up. A few are of funny notebooks. There's these little stationary stores everywhere and they're filled with all sorts of fun, random things. I keep picking up the funny notebooks (they're only about 50 cents each and I do use them). What? Did you guys think you were going to get normal souvenirs? No, you're getting socks, notebooks, and maybe a can of silkworm larvae (heat them first... duh!) haha!

I had my upper classes describe Korean dishes to me in English; everyone was sent into a fit of hysterics when I tried to pronounce the dishes myself. It was even recommended that I just go to Outback Steakhouse. Thanks!!! As more and more dishes were explained to me I was apparently mixing up their multi-syllable pronunciations and saying completely unintelligible things. In my defense, I always write stuff down when I really go out to eat!

The parents of my Chinese student gave me Chinese mooncakes today for the mid-autumn festival, cool! I'm all into the present side of teaching, for sure. :-) He has been my worst discipline problem but I have found that bribing him with the promise of playing hangman when his work is done has been helpful. He doesn't even realize that I'm secretly making him practice his spelling words. Muahaha!

Above's a picture of one of my notebooks and the convenience store I go to. More pics are on Flickr as always.

OK, Last week was a little hectic with all of the quizzes and progress reports as well as switching over to a new boss, but it wasn't bad. The new girl, Sammy, seems really nice. She lived in the States for a number of years and is married to an American who served in the military here in Seoul for 15 years. I'm glad she turned out to be a cool chick and she's familiar with the program we're teaching which is great. Most of my kids did well on their tests, yay!

We had a farewell dinner for the old boss on Friday at the restaurant downstairs. Everyone got a big laugh when they asked what new foods I haven't tried yet that I would like to try. I answered "bulgogi", I hear it's really good. Yeah, it's what I was eating! And we had that together my first weekend here at Danielle's going away party--oops. Oh well, hey, it is good!

This weekend I took it slow although I did spend a few hours wondering the Myongdong area. It is a shoppers paradise with everything from Luis Vuitton to discount punky-style stores and of course a bunch of cafes. I took a bunch of pictures but I forgot to bring my camera stuff to the internet cafe (my home internet is down again).

Everything else is fine, I have a four day weekend this week so hopefully I'll make it out of Seoul for a day or two.