Korean Windows

Today was my first day teaching the teachers. The day started off without a hitch. I woke up two minutes early to make sure my lesson plan was in order and had Daniel proofread my plans. I got to school around 8:35. As I ran up the stairs I realized I forgot to send my lesson plan to my email so I could have Michelle print it out and make copies. Not to worry I brought our laptop just in case I ran into any problems. I borrowed Michelle’s USB drive to save my lesson plan. After about ten minutes of trying to figure out where the “save as” option on window’s XP 2007, I finally found it. Then I saved my lesson plan on the USB drive and took it over to Michelle’s desk so she could print it. She was busy getting ready for class and said she would print out the lesson plan after lunch. At home, I would I have taken care of this myself or made other arrangements to prepare for the class. Since I’m in Korea, the computer software is in Korean and it makes using Microsoft Word extremely difficult so I had to wait. All morning long, I had this weird feeling in my stomach that something was wrong but I didn’t have the time or resources to do anything. At 12:20, lunch time finally came and I hurried and ate my food while everyone was taking their sweet time. I mentioned to Michelle that I still needed to print out my lesson plan she tells me Oh! I forgot to tell you the teacher’s English class has been moved up from to 2:00 to 1:20. Sheer panic takes over my body… Seriously what are you suppose to say to that but I just smiled and responded with ok! I look at the time and it is 12:50 I have 30 minutes to print and make copies which is a good amount of time. At 12:55, we finally make it back to the English classroom and Michelle tried to open my lesson plan. She pulls up the file and because our laptop has a different version of windows, it’s not compatible with Korean edition of windows on the work computers.
Michelle suggested we go to the staff lounge and print out the lesson plan. But still the file would not come up. I tried to install the work printer to the laptop, but it too did not work. Of course the instructions would be in Korean. Just then I remembered I sent Michelle a copy of an old lesson plan I was going to use before. I was able to pull up the document from my email and display it on the electronic blackboard/ 90” T.V. in the classroom. With two minutes to spare I waited for the 5 teachers to show up which included 3 teachers and my 2 co teachers…lol. There was a school assembly at 1:20 and with the time change several teachers were unable to make it. The class is supposed to have 15 teachers. The first class was about getting acquainted and introducing themselves to others. It was fairly easy because I did not know the level of the teacher’s English skills. I had them say, hi what’s your name, what do like to do for fun, etc. The class seemed too easy for the teachers so I made some last minute adjustments. We sat around in a small group. I asked them basic questions about themselves. The class was a success. Once I got going I had a good time and felt comfortable. At the end I asked them if there was anything specific they wanted to learn. They said they mainly wanted to practice their conversation skills. Next class I will pick a topic and we will sit around and discuss it. It’s my dream job, sitting around talking to people and getting paid for it.
TaN

Yellow Dust

On my way to work I notice everyone is walking around Namyangju with these white surgical masks around their noses and mouths. My co teacher Michelle says Latanya you need to get a mask cause yellow dust is here and it's really bad for your health. I look out the window expecting to see yellow dust flowing in the wind, the sky just looks like the Santa Ana winds have picked up but nothing out of the ordinary. So I go home and wikipedia yellow dust now I'm convinced that everything I touch has yellow dust on it. Yellow dust is a dust originates in the deserts of Mongolia and northern China and Kazakhstan where high-speed surface winds and intense dust storms kick up dense clouds of fine, dry soil particles. These clouds are then carried eastward by prevailing winds and pass over China, North and South Korea, and Japan, as well as parts of the Russian Far East. Sometimes, the airborne particulates in significant concentrations which affect air quality. So I drag Daniel to Emart to buy some masks as soon as we leave the store I put on my white surgical mask and I am being so dramatic because wikipedia convinced me that yellow dust is going to kill us. and how I can't breathe because I inhaled the yellow dust...lol. He just looks at me like I'm crazy but I keep going on because I'm a yellow dust expert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust

Dos Tacos

This weekend Dan and Tan went on another adventure. We ended up in Hongdae which is an area in west Seoul that is known for its college atmosphere, clubs, bars, restaurants, shopping, and foreigners. (Think Melrose ave. in L.A. meets Haight and Ashbury in San Fran…I seriously forgot I was in Korea). There were some many things I wanted to buy but I was responsible and decided to save my money on something more worthwhile like food. Walking down the street, in between a Subway restaurant and amongst all the Korean signs was DOS TACOS (translation two tacos). We both stopped in our tracks and practically ran into the restaurant, Mexican food in Korea this must have been our lucky day. We looked at the menu and were quickly reminded we were still in Korea by the food was written in Korean with small subtitles in English. Dan ordered a meat and rice burrito with a negra modelo and I ordered 2 beef tacos with a lime margarita. Our food came out and we sat there for a minute cause we weren’t sure what to expect, the food looked like any other taco or burrito so we dug in. Delicious! It tasted like a taco but it was missing the spiciness a few jalapeños would have given it a kick still it was really good. Dan enjoyed his burrito and the hot sauce; he agreed with me that it was lacking an ingredient. After our lunch, we walked around Hongdae for a while but not to long because I wasn’t feeling good. Hongdae is a place we will definitely visit again and I'm sure there will be more stories to share.

Tan

St. Paddy's Day

So on Tuesday Latanya and I were in full force celebrating St Patrick's Day. We went to school wearing green and explained the holiday to our co-teachers. It seemed that no one had any idea what in the heck we were talking about. It seems that the people closer to Seoul know more about the holiday than people on the outskirts.
It's been a two year tradition of Lt's and mine to cook traditional Irish food on St. Paddy's Day, and have some Guinness or other Irish brews. We met after work and went to the local butcher to pick out some corned beef. We then realized we were not entirely sure what corned beef actually looked liked. We have bought it several times before at home, but there was always a sign that said corned beef. I thought that it's a little stringy so we made our best guess. We chose a cut and got 600 grams worth, whatever that means and were on our way (sorry, still trying to figure out the conversion).
Next we had to pick up some Guinness. We made sure to make a stop at the local Family Mart right across the street from our apartment. Family Mart is similar to any convenience store in the states, it's open 24 hours. So if we ever have a late night craving or run out of Beer or Soju we know we will always be able to go across the street to get more. Once we picked up the brew we headed home.
We already had cabbage, bacon, mustard, butter, and potatoes from our shopping the day before. We were unable to find horseradish so we had to do without. Latanya started to cook and I helped a little bit. From then on it got a little interesting. First off the strips of bacon we thought we bought was not really bacon at all. We actually cannot confirm it's true meat family at this point in time. All we know is that when we put it in the pan the strips started to turn white and hardened. The meat did not shrivel up or turn dark in any sort of way. So we decided to toss the mystery meat and make do without; even though cabbage without bacon is just not the same.
Next item of non-Irish authenticity, we started to cook the meat and it began to cook just like a regular cut of beef. The stringiness that we thought we saw in the cut was all of a sudden non existent. It looked like small pieces of filet in the wok. Since they looked like good cuts of beef we seasoned it with our Outback seasonings, delish.
We then found out the mustard we bought was not like regular yellow mustard but honey mustard instead, boo. Lacking flavor and spice (without mustard and/or horseradish), Latanya made an executive decision. She decided to add curry powder. It was the greatest idea ever. I know many people know I love curry, any if you don't, you know now. So adding curry made me so excited. The traditional Irish meal we set out to make ended up being a most delicious combination of Indian, Australian (really American) and Irish food. I was in heaven. I had some of my favorites; meat, potatoes, curry and beer.
Once the cabbage was done we served it up and set the table....Oh wait, we still don't have a table. Our only other option was to set it all up on the ground. But all was O.K. because our Guinness was cold and our chopsticks were ready. Chopsticks? Yeah you read it right, chopsticks. What could be more Irish than chopsticks. Well, we don't have any forks so we were left with our chopsticks, which just added yet another culture into the mix. We sat down, legs crossed and dug in.
Latanya was worried it was not going to taste good. She worried for no reason because it was delicious. I ate every last bite. I think she was just aiming for our usual St. Paddy's Day feast. It was a new take for the holiday and a success. We did not have too much to drink because we had school the next day. I know not the usual St. Paddy's Day for us. But it was one to remember for sure. 2009 St. Patrick's Day the year of the Indian/Australian (really American)/Korean/Irish combo. Cheers!!!
Dan N Tan

Changdeokgung Palace

Dan and I needed to regroup from being stood up the night before. So on Sunday morning, I was sent an email from an expat group that I signed up with, the group posts events on a website of what is going on in Korea. At first we debated on whether or not to head into Seoul because we didn't have any Korean Won. The night before we went to just about every ATM machine in Namyangju and they would not let us withdraw money with our card. So we decided what the heck let's be adventurous and meet up with the group at the Changdeokgung Palace (I figured the palace was a tourist spot and they would accept credit cards). We hopped on the bus, Dan was in charge of getting us to the location and I was in charge of remembering the location of where the group was meeting. Two minutes into the bus ride of course I forgot where we were suppose to meet the group. Luckily every subway station has a list of tourist spots and directions on how to get there. We hopped on the on subway in route to transferring to another subway we found an ATM machine that took our card...yah!!! As we made our way to the Changdeokgung Palace I was on the lookout for the expat group, a couple people stood out but I wasn't sure. Since the tour was in English Dan figured we would eventually meet up with the group, so no need to go introducing ourselves to everyone. With our fresh stack of Won we bought our tickets and waited for the tour to begin. A little info about the palace it was the favored palace of many kings during the Joseon Dynasty and retained many Korean elements dating from the Three Kingdoms of Korea period that were not incorporated in the more formalistic Gyeongbokgung. One such element is the fact that the buildings of Changdeokgung blend with the topography of the site instead of imposing upon nature. The tour was very informative and we got to spend a few hours learning about Korean history. Along the tour, I tried to see if I could find some members from the expat group but I didn't have any luck because there were so many people. All in all we had a nice day in Seoul and got to spent some quality time together. Dan especially liked it because we got to learn some Korean history by actually seeing history with our own eyes.

Tan

Stood Up!!!

So on Saturday we were so excited to be going out on the town. In the city that is, the Seoul Night Life!!! Whoa!!! But not so fast. Our new friend we had met two days prior left us standing on the street corner for a half hour in the freezing cold, and never showed up. Boo!!!
We had originally settled on a time and place to meet on Saturday evening, in front of Pizza Hut at 7pm. Sounds simple right, well we guess not. We thought oh, maybe there was another Pizza Hut in our area but then thought that this could not be the case, because we were only a 3 minute walk from our apartment. So we waited and waited and it was sooooo cold. It was not the temperature that got us but the wind was blowing so hard, making it freezing. We kept wondering what could have kept him so long and not coming at all. After a half hour we had enough and went back home to our warm apartment and made our own party, playing Uno and drinking beer. What a Saturday night.
We found out two days later via email that our so called new friend had lost his phone and was tied up because he lost his cell phone. Whatever, lame. So as Courtney would say he is Diced!!! And for everyone else, he is cut, 86ed or whatever. He said sorry and that was that. So much for date two. I think we were too eager and too desperate, lol. The weekend was not lost though.
On Saturday morning, Lt and I had breakfast with some foreign teachers who live in our neighborhood. Latanya got in touch with a girl named Amy through her co-teacher at school. They talked briefly and made a date for Saturday morning where a few of them usually get together for breakfast. The place is called Park Avenue, they serve waffles and egg croissant sandwiches among other items. It was good, I had the sandwich.
We walked in and met Amy and her friend Delaney. Later a guy joined us named Tidus. The girls are from Canada, about four hours out of Toronto. And Tidus is from Nebraska. They were really nice it was good to chat with them. They said they would be more than willing to help us adjust to living in the area if we needed. Amy is leaving in a couple of weeks though. They are throwing a party for her soon, we are invited. We will make sure that, that experience goes better than our last one.
Talk about a small world my friend Jared who I had studied abroad with was partying in Seoul on Saturday. During the St. Patrick's Day celebrations his friend took some pictures. In his photo album, that I saw online there in the crowd was Amy and Tidus. They don't know one another at all. Crazy I know. Well we definitely should have hungout with them on Saturday.
On Sunday we took a day trip into the city to see one of the five main palaces of the Joseon Dynasty. That story will soon follow so please stay tuned.
Dan N Tan

We Made A Friend!!!

Yesterday Latanya was walking home and she ran into another foreign teacher that lives in our area. She was so excited and did not know whether to approach him or not. Well she did and they started to talk. I met up with them shortly afterwards, because they were talking on my route home. His name is A.J. and we all hit it off immediately. He is from San Antonio, Texas and had just moved to our area on Monday. He told us that he has been in South Korea for a year now. He previously worked at a school further outside of Seoul. He was just as happy to meet us as we were to meet him. He is 25 years old, the same as me, whop whop, it's all about 1983. What a Year!!! We talked for about a half hour on the street corner exchanging e-mails and just plain getting to know one another.
We then walked towards our home and realized he lived just a two minute walk away from our apartment. He wanted to know if we had any plans for dinner. Seriously, I felt like we were being asked out on a date. Funny I know. We were all excited and didn't want to seem too eager. I am sure most of you girls know the feeling of being asked out by someone you really want to date, well this was the same felling. So we said yes, Lt and I wanted to dine out so bad, but we hadn't built up the courage yet. This was a perfect way to try something new. So then he said that the fried chicken in Korea was delicious, which, it totally looks. So we decided to get some chicken and beer.
After walking around for ten minutes or so we decided on a place. It was a restaurant just next door to our apartment. It had opened recently. We walked in and were welcomed and sat down and attempted to read the menu, which was obviously all in Korean (with hardly any pictures, boo). The waitress understood some English and we all ordered beer and fried chicken. We waited for about thirty minutes for the food, but we didn't even notice because we were having such good conversation. We literally talked for hours. We talked about why we were in Korea and what we thought about the U.S. economy. We updated him on the still horrible reality of finding jobs back home. He said that was the main reason he left home, because he recently had graduated from college and could not find a job. Well we made sure to let him know the situation has not changed. I think that's why he was staying in Korea for another year. We talked about all sorts of topics like, politics, Korean culture versus American culture and so forth.
So after three hours of dinner talk the night was getting late and we decided to get going. But before we parted ways with our new friend we made plans for Saturday. He invited us to a birthday bash in Seoul for another foreign teacher. We accepted and he was happy because everyone going was bringing another friend and he was able to bring two now, instead of none. It felt as if we clinched a second date. We said our good byes and went home, which took only thirty seconds to walk.
Also on another note: I had talked to a friend of mine that I studied abroad with just a couple of weeks ago. He told me that another buddy we had known from our time in Berlin was in Korea now as well. His name is Jared and I contacted him. We are trying to get together hopefully this weekend, or at least for St. Patrick's Day. We are excited to meet some new people and party it up Seoul style. We will definitely have some updates from the weekend, for it's going to be a long one. Also one last comment: Latanya is having her welcome dinner with her school tonight. I know it's going to end with her singing some karaoke. I told her she should sing Don't Stop Believing by Journey (a classic). Or maybe some old school N'Sync. I know she knows all the words. Lol. Well wish her luck because I just know it's going to take a lot of Soju and beer to get her up on stage.

Latanya makes dinner

After days of peanut butter sandwiches and rice I finally decided to switch things up. Today I saw an advertisement for Dominioes pizza at school with my mouth watering I thought we should get pizza tonight. Before I do anything in Korea I research because with the language barrier I wanna make sure I'm getting what I order. While looking for the Korean website I came across a blog from a foreigner about Korean Dominoes Pizza his comment read: I always thought pizza is pizza. Pizza from Korea can’t be that much different from pizza in the USA, right? Boy, was I wrong. So, I finally find the website and from looking at the pizza's they looked a little too festive for my taste. We usually eat a simple peperoni, mushroom, and green pepper pizza. Myuang saw the look on my face and suggested I try Pizza Hut so we researched the Pizza Hut website. I found pizza's similar to home and felt a lot better. I told Myuang what kind a pizza I wanted and she wrote it in Korean (she is my favorite person).
After school I met Daniel and we walked to Pizza Hut and it's a full service restaurant we say we would the pizza to go. The server takes us to the back of the restaurant to order and I pulled out my order in Korean and we were good to go. After 12 minutes of waiting, the pizza maker who barely speaks English says to us "Problem" (that's not something you want to hear from someone making your food). He led me to the expo window and showed me the pizza. The pizza had a big air bubble but it looked completely edible so I offered to take the pizza. He says, No done in five minutes. Daniel and I waited and talked about our days. While waiting the server offered us a sprite and a coke...the coke in Korea is so refreshing and crisp way better than at home. Our pizza is finally ready and the server wraps the pizza box with a red bow and send us on our way.
Daniel and I practically run home to taste the pizza. As soon as we get home we change into our pizza eating gear, open the box, and stare at the pizza with pure amazement. We take our first bites and there is complete silence. The pizza was absolutely delicious it tastes similar to the pizza at home minus the salt, grease, and the slices are smaller. After all the anticipation we had two slices and were stuffed. Glad to a have a reminder of home for a couple of minutes it made our day.

Taking over Pangok Elementary

Pangok domination!!! Today Michelle brought it to my attention that employees regular teaching hours are 22 hours a week and I am working 21 hours. She asked me if I had any ideas of how to make up that hour I didn't because there are so many rules on teaching in Korea that I didn't even want to guess. She suggested I teach English to the teachers at the school to make up the extra hour(I think it was her plan all along). The teachers at my school probably speak English well but they are afraid to speak to a native speaker. From what I have read Koreans strive to be perfect at everything they do and if they are not perfect at something they are scared to try. I think Wednesday will be my first day teaching the focus of my class will be everyday English: basic introductions (Hi!, How are you?), talking on the phone, talking to friends, going to a restaurant, shopping, etc. Michelle also gave me the option of working overtime by creating an after school ESL program for the students. I love planning things so this will be right up my alley. I would be working an extra four hours a week from 3:00- 5:00 but I'm at school until 4:40 anyway so I might as well do something and get paid for it. The after school programs won't start until April so I will keep you posted. What I have learned so far is Native Speaker + Korea= $$$$$

Tan

Sightseeing part 2

Our next task was finding the entrance to the place. We walked alongside the mountain, passed a botanical garden and arrived at one entrance. It only took twenty minutes of walking and constantly second guessing which direction was right. At the entrance we found a map of the grounds and saw the different roads leading to the tower. I had pointed out that there was a cable car that led up to the tower. On the map it showed the cable cars around a bend of the mountain, or there was a trail that led to it up and over a hill. So we chose the trail to save some time.
Once we got to the top of the trail we could see the cables for the cable car. We also found a restaurant and stopped to get a bit to eat. We were so hungry at this point. It was about 11am now, and our breakfast was only enough fuel to get us this far. Latanya ordered a beef stew and I got a pork tenderloin. Her stew was good but she did not like the meat. I ate all of my pork and then some. We also made sure to fill up on rice and some Kimchi.
Now that we were refueled we looked to see how far the cable car was. It was still about a thirty minute walk away. We saw another trail that led up the mountain. We made the executive decision to climb up (what were we thinking?).
The trail consisted of steps and different platforms for picturesque views. As we climbed step after step our legs began to burn and we realized this was going to be a climb. The stairs felt never ending. It made my climb up to Neuschwanstein in Germany look like an ant hill. While climbing we started to see the expansive city below. We started to get higher than any other building in Seoul then higher than most mountains and hills in the near vicinity. I could swear the air got thinner and colder. The stairs kept going and going… our legs still burning. We were being passed by local Koreans out for a Saturday walk and old Korean men, who looked to be about 90 years old. We still saw the tower in the distance. We kept going and fought off the pain.
After a forty minute hike we arrived at the cable car drop off point only to discover more steps to climb. Luckily it was not too much longer until we reached the tower. We bought tickets to go up to the observatory. We then walked in and took an elevator ride up to see a 360 degree panoramic view of Seoul. It was a hazy and kind of smoggy day, but we were still able to see pretty far. On each window they had city names and the distances to each city from our location. Each window was pointing in the direction of the cities listed on the window. We found the window with LA and took a picture in front of it. We also saw where we had walked from. We saw that from the level of the river where we started to the top of the mountain was too high of a climb for any human being. We felt liked we accomplished something grand. Not too many people can say they hiked from the Han river to the top of the N Seoul Tower.
After plenty of pictures we made our way back down the tower. We had some French fries in the food court and went outside to start our long journey back to Itaewon. Latanya found another road that had buses and we began our walk down the enormous Namsan mountain. After walking down the road for awhile we found the botanical garden we saw earlier and followed it down. We made our way to the main road and kept walking to find a new way down the Korean Hollywood hills. Our new way consisted of less windiness and more stairs with a nicer path.
We arrived back in Itaewon and we found the main strip. There were so many foreigners on the streets we did not know what to do. We wanted to say hi to them but no one seemed interested in saying hi to us. For them, they all see each other every day. For us, there aren't any foreigners really in our neighborhood. So we just walked amongst them and saw all the big American chains such as; McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Cold Stone, Coffee Bean, Starbucks, and of course Outback Steakhouse. It was our second citing of Outback. We knew there were a lot in Seoul and were not surprised to see one in Itaewon.
Itaewon today is a foreigner hot spot. It's located near the American military base. Itaewon used to be Seoul's red light district but has now been cleaned up and made into a happening district. We certainly grew found of it because of all the western amenities. Most everything was in English and most everyone was speaking English. This district cooled down our culture shock not so much for me but for Latanya. After walking around for awhile we made our way to the Itaewon subway stop and headed for home. It took two transfers and many stops and we were at good old Donong. We hopped on the 165, not the 165 dash something else. We then walked home from E-Mart to find our last steps of the day to our flat. Boy, were we exhausted. Our legs were still burning and our bodies were tired. We got home around 5pm and considered it a full Saturday. It was definitely a little different than our leisure Saturday stroll that we had originally planned. But we had a great time none the less. We marked off our first tourist site visited and will welcome the next one to come.