Gyeongju, Thanksgiving, TESOL, Aquarium, Torture by small children and redemption from the least likely of places

Editorial complaint: Blame Kyle for taking so long to write this entry and therefore making the entry super long since we have SO many stories to share with you all. It reminds me of a scenario when I was younger. We would go to restaurants and Jenny would order a meal with fries, and I would ask Jenny, “Hey, can I have some of your fries?” “No. They’re my fries. Go away.” At the end of the meal, Jenny would then say, “Monica, do you want some of my fries?” “No, Jenny. I don’t want your fries now. Now they’re cold. “ *Grumble* How does this remind me of Kyle? Because he complains about how it’s OUR blog, but that he never gets to write any entries, but when he gets to write an entry it takes him a month and a half to write it. *sigh*

Gyeongju

Monica and I decided we were bored with staying in Ilsan every weekend and we decided to take a trip somewhere in Korea. One of my friends recommended Gyeongju, the original capitol of Korea. So we started to plan a weekend vacation. Planning went something like this:

Monica: I'm bored.

Kyle: Ok.

Monica: Let's go somewhere this weekend.

Kyle: Ok.

Monica: Where should we go?

Kyle: Gyeongju, I heard it's nice.

Monica: Sweet! Let’s go!!!

We planned what we wanted to do in Gyeongju Thursday night, but had no hotel reservations because we were told that there is a street just lined with hotels right next to the bus stop. Friday after work, we grabbed a bus to Seoul’s Bus station, got bus tickets to Gyeongju, waited 2 hrs for our bus, got on the bus to Gyeongju, and arrived four hours later in Gyeongju at 1:00am. Upon stepping off of the bus, we were immediately greeted by "Tackshi! Tackshi! Tackshi!" which is kongrish for "Taxi! Taxi! Taxi!" After we ran away from the swarm of drivers we found the hotel street.

Love Motel Commentary:

In addition to the typical hotels, motels, and youth hostels, Korea and Japan have another type of overnight stay. Many Korean & Japanese young adults live at home until they get married. The typical apartment is quite small, maybe one or two bedrooms, and houses grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, and 2+ children. Obviously in a close living situation such as this, privacy becomes nonexistent and finishing the night at home isn't really an option unless you want grandma giving you pointers. So the love motel industry was formed. These motels are all about discretion. You go in, hand them money, get a key, a toothbrush, and a razor (since nobody plans to stay at a love motel), and continue with your night.

Back to Gyeongju -
The street we were on was all love motels. There were about 6 or 7 and ranged in price from ₩40,000-₩60,000 per night. Monica and I did some quick re-con on a few hotels before making a final decision. While inquiring we had to wake a few people up that were sleeping on the office floor. There is only one word that can describe the inside of our hotel: "Tacky." The hallways were covered in glowing filigree. The rooms had some very nice red and blue mood lighting and a bed that felt like sleeping on your dining room table. They provide you with bubble bath, hair products, facial masks, toothpaste, and some… protection.

The next day we woke up, grabbed a meager breakfast, and took a bus to the Bulguksa temple. The city was beautiful with a backdrop of fall leaves over traditional Korean rooftops. The temple was gorgeous and the entrance way lead to a lake surrounded by autumn leaves and great scenery. I was pretty happy to be using my camera for something other than my students. We walked through the temple and saw some neat stuff. There were monks inside a few pagodas and you could pray, but because we had no idea how to do so we opted just to watch.

We left the temple and headed to the real reason we wanted to go to Gyeongju, the Seokguram Grotto. Inside the grotto is a huge, stone Buddha and the most famous Buddha statue in Korea. One can get to the Grotto by either taking a bus or hiking. We found the bus was coming in and hour and that the trail took about an hour to hike, so we decided to get some exercise. The hike was pretty grueling at a constant up hill grade with no switchbacks. As we neared the top of the mountain we could hear bells ringing and we couldn't wait to get up to the top and see the monks that were ringing them. Although our legs were weak, once we caught sight of the temple we were motivated to make it to the top. Then we saw who was responsible for ringing the bells. A line of tourists stood in front of the bell to ring it, and for only ₩1,000, we could have had our chance to ring the bell too. We were a little disappointed that there were no monks, but we still had the Grotto to look forward to. Monica was unimpressed (after seeing the Buddhist statues in Bhutan everything else seems to be a let down) and we expected the statue to be bigger. The UNESCO World Heritage Organization had put up a glass wall in front of the grotto so that was impossible to walk around the statue and see the other carvings inside. I thought the Buddha was pretty impressive, but it would have been nice to see more of it. We walked back down the mountain, grabbed a bus, and headed to our next destination.

We headed to an area that was made up of a few large parks. These parks weren't really parks though, but graveyards for ancient Korean kings. When Koreans bury their dead, they usually cremate the body and build a small funeral mound for them on a mountain somewhere. As you drive around Korea you can see little man-made mounds all over the mountains. The size of the mound is related to how important you were. These mounds were HUGE! Some were smaller than others, but there were about 30 mounds all over the parks. Among them was also Asia's oldest observatory. About 30ft high and made up of 365 stones representing the days in the year. We wanted to see the observatory at night, so we hung around the park and relaxed for a little bit, and when we got cold we found a coffee shop and waited until it was time for dinner.

Monica and I always seem to have difficulty when we want to eat. Whether we get too hungry or it's just bad luck whenever we go out for something special we can't find what we want immediately and we usually spend an hour wandering around until we find what we want or give up trying. On this occasion, I was not giving up and Monica was getting angry as both of our stomachs were complaining. We were looking for Ssambap, a meal that is famous in the area. Most Korean meals are made up of the main course, beef, pork, or soup, and a few side dishes. Ssambap is just the sides. They give you some rice and sides and you wrap them together in lettuce, cabbage, or seaweed. We were wandering through dark alleyways around the block trying to find "ssambap alley," which was featured on our map and in our guidebook. (From the term “Ssambap Alley, one would think that it was an alley filled with different restaurants that serve ssambap. ERR! WRONG!). We asked people where to go, but fate was against us and we wandered for a long time, circling the 1 Ssambap restaurant in the area countless times. (During our wandering, I pointed to a place that was quite busy and said "I think that’s it." Monica said, “No, there are too many cacti in the windows. It doesn't look traditional and we’re looking for an alley of restaurants.” She should have listened to me the first time because that was the ssambap restaurant). We got seated immediately and we watched the waiters shuffle by with trays stacked high with little dishes. The meal consisted of about 30 different dishes containing, fish pork, vegetables, invertebrates, egg, kimchi pancakes, and soup. Some dishes were delicious, some edible, a few unrecognizable, and one or two that weren't touched after the first try. The notable dishes were the small raw crabs cut in half and served in a spicy sauce (one of my favorite Korean sides), little baby squid (raw with eyes and everything) in a red sauce, and the worst dish on the table which was a whole fish in a black sauce that tasted like eating a tin of sardines that had been soaked in extra salt. I tried everything on the table, whereas Monica picked at some stuff, but mostly ate the pork and a few other things. I made a deal that if she ate one baby squid I would pay for dinner. She did and I was out ₩9,000 (that’s right the entire meal of 30 side dishes cost a total of $18).

The next day we were tired, Korean hotel beds are not very comfortable, sore from our hike, and had no place to keep our bags so we went and got some Famous Gyeongju Pancakes to bring home and took the bus back.

Thanksgiving
As thanksgiving came closer, we were wondering what to do when Monica's Uncle Craig called and invited us to have turkey dinner on the military base. The weekend before Thanksgiving, we were invited to a friend’s for a pre-thanksgiving turkey dinner. He placed an order to the military base and was able to buy stuffing, potatoes, turkey, veggies, gravy, and cranberry sauce. A few days later on Thanksgiving Day we went to the base to celebrate with Monica’s family. Monica's Aunt Jin put together a great homemade turkey dinner and since Jin's omma (mother) was there too, we even had the option of kimchi with our turkey, we however chose to keep it traditional.

TESOL
Monica and I are now certified ESL teachers. We finished our TESOLs and we can now start looking for jobs in greener pastures!!! :D

Latkes
In honor of Hanukkah, Monica persuaded me into making latkes. They were delicious and we enjoyed a real Jewish feast in Korea, even though there are no Jews in Korea. Funny story: Nadia asked me what games we play in the US on Christmas, and I said, “I don’t know any Christmas games. I’m Jewish, I don’t celebrate Christmas.” “You don’t celebrate Christmas?! Why?” “Because I’m Jewish. We celebrate Hanukkah.” Nadia looked confused and then asked me if I believed in Jesus. When I said no, Nadia looked intrigued as if I was a new species she was discovering for the first time. I am waiting for Nadia to come ask me questions about Judaism.

Aquarium
We had been hearing good things about the COEX mall aquarium, the largest mall in Korea and Korea’s largest aquarium. So, last weekend we decided to pay the aquarium a visit. The aquarium had some fun exhibits on fish native to Korea and some fish, which can only be found in the Han River. They had a great exhibit where they made aquariums out of everything from vending machines to washing machines to toilets (that’s right a toilet). They also had a two-headed turtle, which was the highlight of the trip! We finished the aquarium in about 2 hrs and had some time to kill so we saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The movie was really good and we both recommend anyone to go see it. We went to a really good Italian restaurant and browsed the bookstore, Bandis & Lunis, which has the largest English book selection in Seoul.

Torture by small children and redemption from the least likely of places

For about a month now the kids at school, minus the students from my old school (Daehwa), have been practicing for a music concert. We have been tortured by having to listen to Edelweiss all day, every day, for a month and we finally saw the finished product Friday night. For three hours we watched the kids perform. First the Korean Kindergarten went and then our students. The show may have been somewhat more bearable except that it was the same show twice! The Korean classes did the same skits as the English classes! Monica narrated the story of a giant radish. A few of the funnier moments involved a group of students telling a story in English, but each time there was one kid who screamed into the microphone causing eardrums to bleed. Mrs. Kwon rented a theater and a DJ for the event. The DJ had a "special talent" and we found out why he was hired. After each school finished had did a "Magic Dance."

Probably the most painful performance I have ever seen. He danced using poorly choreographed K-pop moves while pausing to pull out every store bought magic trick imaginable. If you have seen the end dance of Napoleon Dynamite, it was worse than that. Monica and I tried to pinpoint the moments the DJ started to hate his life. Mrs. Kwon watched with a huge grin on her face that could only be translated to "DANCE MONKEY!! DANCE!!"

After the show we helped bring the drums and instruments back to the school and Mrs. Kwon treated all of the teachers to dinner. As we are walking to the restaurant, one of the Korean teachers, who doesn't speak a lot of English, says "We are going to eat Korean people cat." I replied, "Cat?!? Like meow meow?" She was trying to say "cattle" and that we are going to a Korean beef restaurant. It was one of the best meals we have had in Korea and Mrs. Kwon paid at least ₩200,000 ($200) per table for 3 tables. Our friend, Hannah, kept asking me if I wanted more which I was more than happy to have and we spent as much of Kwon’s money as we could eat. Dessert was a cinnamon and boiled persimmon tea, which was fantastic! The Korean teachers wanted to go to norebong (karaoke) after dinner and Mrs. Kwon didn't want them talking bad about her to us, so she shuffled us to her car and gave us a ride home. I was a little disappointed to miss out on spending time with the other teachers since they don't know us very well and even after 9 months some of them still aren't very friendly. Maybe next time….

My Uncle Steve recently passed and Monica and I send our love and support to his family. He will be missed.

Only 1 more week of classes and then winter vacation!!! We are looking forward to a week of rest and relaxation. We have plans to go snowboarding with friends who are also staying here for the holidays. Since we probably won’t be posting within the next week, we hope that everyone enjoys the holidays and has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We miss you all and wish we could be home to celebrate it with you.

Lots of Love, Monica and Kyle

Halloween, Move to Baekseok, Lantern Festival,

Kangaroo class

Panda class

The week of Halloween was very fun for all of our students and us. Monica and her students made dancing skeletons, tissue ghosts, paper jack-o-lanterns, and masks. On Friday, students at both schools dressed up in costumes (mostly princesses, power rangers, and witches) and were ready to eat as much candy as possible. Halloween isn’t a big holiday in Korea, it’s really only the foreigners who dress up and go out and the little kids if they are at a school that has foreign teachers. This is why so many students have the same costume because the big department stores only sell 3 different costumes.

On Friday, Kyle brought a big bag of toilet paper to school and had his students do mummy races, which all of the kids really enjoyed. We found it somewhat odd that all of the students brought their own candy that was then put into each homeroom teachers’ bag of candy and then redistributed to all of the kids, but we think teachers may have sent out a notice telling parents to send their kids to school with candy. Who knows?

Mike, Monica, Hannah

Danny as a mummy

Jade had the best costume; he was a gangster

Parrot/Dolphin class

Baekseok's Parrot, Dolphin, & Kangaroo class

Friday evening marked a very sad moment for Kyle, who was the only person at Daehwa school (all of the Korean teachers were at Baekseok setting up/cleaning their new classrooms). Kyle stayed to take down all of the Halloween decorations and said a last good-bye to the place he learned to teach in. A neglected building, whose heat had been permanently turned off because Kwon refused to pay the heating bills, whose halls and rooms were filled with fond memories, countless frustrating phone calls and conversations, moments of students grasping the English language, an organized and smoothly run school, and an overall good time had by all of those who have been inside its walls. It was a very sad day indeed for our story’s hero. Would he survive Baekseok and all of the unorganized hell that it rains upon those caught in its path? Would the chaos that surrounds Baekseok destroy our hero’s positive outlook of Korea as it has already destroyed our once happy and joyful heroine’s? Only time will tell dear readers, only time will tell….

At a traditional Korean style restaurant

That Saturday night we went to an International Food & Wine Festival with Kyle’s friend Blaine, who has lived in Korea for 7 years, his wife, Jamie, who is Korean, Canadian Monica, and some of Blaine’s & Jamie’s friends. The IF&WF was $30 for all you can eat and drink for 3 hours. Not a bad deal, except that we hit awful traffic getting into Seoul and what should have been a 45 minute trip took us 2 hours!! However, we showed up ready to wine and dine and had lox for the first time since being in Korea and it was delicious! There was also delicious sangria and Kyle enjoyed a ginger cocktail. After the IF&WF ended, we suited up in our hanboks, the traditional Korean garb, and were ready for a night on the town. We went as Koreans for Halloween.  Needless to say, we had the best costumes out of anyone we encountered that evening. We went to a part of Seoul called Sinchon and actually got us and everyone in our party into a club (that was charging $30/person) for free because the owner liked our costumes so much. Random Koreans kept coming up to us and asking us to take pictures with them. Come on, our hanboks are pretty sweet.


On Monday, Nov 1, Kyle joined me in hell. It didn’t take too long for him to experience the kind of shit I have been dealing with for 8.5 months. For example, Kyle teaches a story telling class and Joann (the manager of Baekseok) just threw a random kid into Kyle’s class without saying a word to Kyle or the student. Fortunately, I arrived at the scene seconds after this happened and knew the student because he should have been up in my class at this time. I introduced Kyle to James and was able to give Kyle a quick rundown on James. 2.5 hours later, Joann does this again to Kyle, except that she tells him, “Elementary class now. 3:30-5:00pm,” and puts Kyle in a room with a sobbing little boy. By this point in time Kyle is furious. The little boy, Daniel, happens to be one of my student’s younger brothers, but he doesn’t speak, he clearly had no idea what was going on because we found out that Joann had put him in Mike’s class initially, but that Daniel then just started crying because he was so overwhelmed (Mike’s kids speak a fair amount of English and Daniel is just a beginner). Then Daniel was given a book that was ½ finished and another book that was way too difficult for his level. :/


Last weekend, Nov 6, we went into Seoul to see a Lantern Festival. There were lanterns from Korea, China, and Japan, although not as many as we were expecting. The lanterns were all set up in this river that runs through Seoul. It is kind of like a canal because there are walls on both sides of the river, but it’s about 40 ft wide and goes on for miles.  While we were perusing the lanterns and making our way down the river, we saw a hot air balloon being set-up. We thought it would be exciting to sit and watch the hot air balloon inflate especially since it was being done in such a tiny space. We also noticed that Koreans are attracted to fire like moths to light. We were quickly surrounded by hundreds of Koreans wanting to watch the hot air balloon. This is fine, except that even the Koreans who were much father away and unable to see anything had to stop and look whenever they heard a blast of fire inflating the balloon. The festival was fun except that we got caught in a ridiculous crowd when trying to leave. It took us an hour to walk about a block because there were SOOO many people. And Koreans are pretty pushy. We had ajumas, old Korean woman, trying to push people forward even though there was no place to go. There was even a moment when I became temporarily claustrophobic because there were so many people pushing me from all sides that I was actually being crushed. Korean crowds are a thing to avoid we have decided.

Horde of people

Japanese Lantern

Interesting cultural note:  Many countries celebrate November 11 by honoring veterans or by remembering the signing of the Armistice.  In Korea, however, they celebrate Pepero day.  Peperos are Korea's equivalent to pocky.  (For those of you who may not know what pocky is, it is a biscuit stick dipped in chocolate).  Koreans celebrate Pepero day on Nov. 11 because two pepero sticks next to each other make an 11.  *shakes head*  Oh Korea....    


We are off to Gyeongju this weekend. The original capital of Korea before it was changed to Seoul. We are going to catch the subway straight from work and head into Seoul (about an hour long subway ride) and then catch a bus that will take us straight to Gyeongju (4 hours). It should be a fun weekend filled with authentic Korean landmarks, something that is rare in Korea since most original things were destroyed by the Japanese and North Korea.


We hope all of you are well!   Miss you!   Love, K & M

Dear Korea..., Chuseok, Fireworks, & Zoo

Dear businessmen who sit next to me on the subway,
        I know why you smell. When you wake up in the morning and go to work please do not stop at the track to work out in your business clothes. You sweat out all the soju you were drinking until 4 am last night and your mexican shower does not hide it.


Dear writers of English signs, billboards, and English books,
        There are many foreigners living in Korea.  Many of us speak English as a native language and would be more than willing to help you write them correctly. A pool hall called "3 Balls" does not sound like a place you go to play billiards. When asking me for the time you do not need to say "What time is it now?" A simple "What time is it?" is fine. I know it's now, I won't tell you what time it was or what time it will be.


Dear small children and your parents at a restaurant,
        Small children please do not stare at me while I eat. We aren't at the zoo at feeding time.
        Mothers and fathers of the small children, please keep your kids at the dinner table.  Yes, you call them over, but while you are busy drinking they have left the table and have wandered back to mine and they are still staring at me. I know you called them back a second, third, and fourth time, but they have returned and they look hungry. However, I am not the one responsible for feeding them. While we are on the topic, please keep them at you table in general while at a nice restaurant. They should not be playing in the water fountain, crawling under my table with toys, or playing hide and seek.


Dear Restaurants,
        I am very thankful that whenever I visit you, no matter where I go, you offer a wet towel with which to wash my hands before I eat. I would like to point out that cleanliness does not need to go beyond that.  I do not need gloves to eat chicken fingers, hamburgers, or ribs. I accept when eating such foods that I may get a little messy, but I do have napkins and I am very capable of cleaning myself. I'll even wait for my ribs to cool off before stuffing my face, so the offering of insulated gloves inside of the plastic glove is appreciated, but very unnecessary.


Dear Baekseok Chef,
        The toilet next to the kitchen is not a garbage disposal and the fact that I know you are bringing kitchen utensils into the bathroom and using them to dispose food makes me want to vomit.


Dear Mrs. Kwon,
        Your schools sucks. I am not staying. Do not assume that I am because I would rather get a full body wax while lying on a bed of nails coated in salt and lemon juice.


Dear Cable Company,
        Why did you drop the discovery channel? It was the only channel offered in English.




It has been a very busy month for us.  Hooray! Now that it has started to get cold we no longer feel the need to hide in our apartment away from the sweltering heat. We met a very nice Canadian, who just happens to be named Monica (we will refer to her as Monica T.), that we have started spending a lot of time hanging out with. She has really helped us in finding fun things to do and making Korea not seem so bad.


On Sept 20, all of the kids at Monica's and my schools dressed up in the traditional style clothing, the hanbok, for Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving.  Since Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea, we had a mini-vacation Tuesday-Sunday.  We decided to celebrate Chuseok by having a taco fiesta and inviting all of our foreign friends to join in.  It was more delicious than any Korean feast could have been.  Here are some pictures of our students all dressed up for Chuseok:

On Oct 9, we went into Seoul for an International Fireworks Festival.  There were fireworks from Korea, Japan, China, and Canada.  It was a lot of fun, but more crowded than we have ever seen.  We took the subway and finally got to see what a "subway pusher" is.  They are people who push more people onto the subway.  We were jammed into a subway car, so packed, that we could not even turn around.  For any of our readers that our claustrophobic, you would not have enjoyed this experience.  It took us 4 hours to get home it was so crowded, and we even decided to walk 3 miles in the opposite direction of the crowd to catch a different subway.  Here are a few pictures to prove just how busy it was.  The subway looked like it was vomiting up people. 

Last week, we went to the Seoul Zoo and had a lot of fun.  It was a pretty nice zoo, although Monica would like to add that it was nothing in comparison to the San Diego Zoo, but really, who can compete with that?  We watched the Dolphin show at the zoo, which was up to par with Sea World's show, except that we couldn't understand anything the trainers were saying because it was all in Korean.  :/  I made friends with a guanaco (cousin of the llama), but when I tried to pet it Monica freaked out at me because she was afraid I would get bitten.

This Friday, we had 2 of Monica's Korean teachers, Hannah and Chloe, along with Monica T. come over for another taco night.  Hannah and Chloe had never had tacos before so Kyle enjoyed making tacos and his homemade tortillas in order to broaden their food horizons.  We played card games and had a really good night.

We've been continuing to work on our TESOL and are more than 1/2 way done!!!  We have also started using and been enjoying the sam-gap-sao grill we inherited from Kyle's ex co-worker, Jordan, after he quit.  It makes for a very tasty dinner and now we can cook in the luxury of our apartment instead of having to go out to eat.

New news on the krazy Kwon front:

Kwon has finally sold my school.  For real this time.  The other Korean teachers, 95% of my students, and I are moving to Monica's school starting in Nov.  We are interested to see how this works since Monica's students are much farther behind than my students and we're not sure if she is going to try and integrate the classes or keep my school as a separate entity within the Baekseok school.  We will let you all know how that works out once it has taken place.

Monica and I are looking forward to this week since our schools are having Halloween parties on Friday.  Monica has planned an entire week of Halloween activities for her 5 year olds so look forward to our next post after Halloween!  Hope all is well with you!  We miss you & love you!  M & K

M:  132 days!  Only 95 actual work days!

We've survived 6 months, only 6 more to go

Last week’s post that never got posted:

Typhoon Kompasu was supposed to hit us last week, but it managed to miss us entirely.  We were a little disappointed.  We were hoping school would be cancelled.  Lots of schools in Seoul were cancelled and they had lots of rain, flooding, loss of power, and trees down, but no destruction here. 

On Friday, September 3^rd, Kyle and I celebrated our 6 month mark of being in Korea.   Hopefully it’s all down hill from here, but as Gregg wisely put it, it’s been downhill since we got here.  :/

Last Saturday we went into Seoul to visit my Aunt, Uncle (Dad’s brother), and cousin, who are now here living on the military base in Yongsan.  It took us an hour and a half to get there by subway, but it was well worth it for the delicious pot roast dinner that awaited us.  Mmmmm…  We had a nice visit and it was great seeing everyone since it’s been 3 years since I’ve seen them.

This week’s post:

Kwon seems to hate the Daehwa school (Kyle’s school) even though she owns both it and my school (Baekseok).  Ariel told me that she has a 4 year old cousin and her aunt was thinking about sending him to Baekseok.  I told her that I would strongly recommend her NOT to send her cousin to my school because he won’t learn any English.  (I’m the only English speaker that teaches the 4 year olds, and it’s only for 20 minutes a day).  I then told her that Daehwa would be a much better option because the class is much smaller and her cousin would practically get one on one English lessons with Kyle since they only have two 4 year olds.  Apparently her aunt called and talked to Kwon, who refused to answer any questions about Daehwa.  She kept saying, “We have a bus that will pick him up if you don’t want to drive that far” (her aunt lives in Daehwa), “Oh, but Baekseok is a much better school” [hahahahhaha, Don’t make me laugh Kwon], and “Baekseok is bigger.”  More proof that Kwon hates Daehwa is because Baekseok is the largest kindergarten in our area, therefore Kwon gets money from the government to help her with the school.  This past week Baekseok has been painted and fixed up; new sinks in all of the classrooms.  But is Daehwa getting fixed up.  Why of course not!  Because then Kwon would have to spend her own money to fix up Daehwa. 

On a more depressing note, Ariel is no longer coming to Baekseok.  She lasted a week.  That’s how terrible my school is.  I guess Kwon was trying to get her to teach classes, but didn’t want to pay her and Ariel said no.  Ariel also said that the students were all too crazy and out of control that she didn’t want to deal with them so she’s found a new school to go to.  L  I also found out that the part time English teacher who has been working at my school for a little over a month is leaving next Friday.  He’s done dealing with the unorganized and corruptness of Kwon.  Kyle and I are hoping that this won’t affect him because I can see her trying to move Kyle to my school full time.  But what about Daehwa?  Don’t they need an English teacher?  Psh…remember, Kwon doesn’t care about Daehwa.

The government is coming next Thursday to inspect Baekseok school.  They’re coming to see what their money is being spent on.  I would love for the government to realize what an awful place Baekseok is; how I have classes with no books, no curriculum, etc.  However, we’re stuck in a bit of a catch-22.  While I would love to see Kwon crash and burn, she also needs to stay in business until March so that she is paying for our plane tickets home, severance, etc.  Oh well.  I think karma will get her come end of Feb-beginning of March when she realizes that very few of her teachers (both Korean & foreign) are signing back on for another school year. 

My students have been terrible recently, but today took the cake.  I was teaching my 20 minute class with the 30 four year olds, my least favorite class because it not only cuts into my lunch time by 20 minutes, but the students are dreadful because they’re so little.  There is a Korean teacher who sits in on the class, who is supposed to help control the children because they really don’t understand me and their attention span is pretty damn short, but instead she sits on her computer and enjoys her 20 minute break.  There are about 10 kids who I can tell want to learn because they listen to me, they remember stuff we’ve gone over, and they are well behaved unlike the rest of the class that prefers to just beat each other up.  One of these kids in particular is the worst kid I have all day, I will refer to him as Butthead from now on because he doesn’t have any English name.  It was Friday and I was feeling generous and decided to give the students who were good during class a stamp.  The kids all sort of line up when I get out the stamps and I have to weed out the ones that were bad.  Well, Butthead was too busy trying to dislocate another child’s arm during class, so I deemed him unworthy of a stamp, but he tried to get one anyway.  I told him that he didn’t get a stamp because he was not good (he should be used to this by now because he rarely gets a stamp from me since he’s always causing problems).  Butthead then decided that it would be wise to spit on me.  Stupid little shit.  Class ended right after that so I grabbed Butthead’s hand and walked him to the Korean teacher in charge of his class.  I told her that he is always bad in my class, hurting others, and that today I had reached my final straw when he spit on me.  The Korean teacher speaks a little bit of English, but I didn’t get the reaction I had been looking for, so I then mimed spitting for her just to make sure we were both on the same page.  She suddenly looked appalled and smacked Butthead on the head and then starting berating him in Korean.  I then told her that I refuse to teach him because he can’t behave.  Maybe my 20 minute class will be better now.  Doubtful, but here’s to hoping.

Also on Friday at Kyle’s school, Daehwa was dealing with a very sad Danny (the cute little boy I posted a picture of when we went to Paju’s English Village).  Apparently Danny cried all morning and no one could figure out what was wrong with him.  Danny’s aunt is Julie A, who works at Daehwa.  She suggested calling Danny’s mom to come pick him up and take him home.  Later in the day, the school got a call from Danny’s mom saying that Danny had broken his arm.  Poor little guy.  He’s always getting injured at school.  L

We went into Seoul last night for a friend’s birthday (Ivan’s brother).  He wanted to keep it low key and watch Commando & Predator at his place.  After seeing his apartment, Kyle & I are feeling pretty happy with our place.

Christianity is the #1 religion in Korea.  We've seen "recruiters" several times before handing out tissues and pamphlets trying to recruit one to come attend their church.  Kyle and I went downstairs to get pizza for dinner and the little pizza place is very small and there were 2 Korean women sitting on the only chairs.  After a few minutes, they stood up and offered us their seats.  We should have suspected something was up then because Koreans never give up their seats.  We sit down and find ourselves trapped for 20 minutes while our pizzas are being made.  The women start jabbering in Korean to us.  We try to explain that we don't know any Korean other than a few words, but they don't seem to care or understand and continue trying to talk to us.  Finally Kyle realizes that she is trying to get us to go to their Church.  Kyle then tried to play the Jew card, but they didn't understand.  I don't think there are any Jews in Korea.  The woman then found a pamphlet and was telling us about the special service they have at 10am where we can wear headphones that will interrupt for us.  After telling her again and again no thank you, our pizzas were finally finished and we ran away quickly.  Stop forcing your god on us!  We're not interested.    

That’s pretty much all that is new with us.  We miss you all!  Only 175 days!!!!  J  Love, K & M

Back from summer vacation

Nothing too exciting going on in Korea.  Our first week back was nice and relaxing because we only had to teach 3 hour days instead of 7 hour days.  If only every week could be like that….

On Monday, Kyle found out that Kwon hired a new Korean teacher to work part time at his school.  Julie B (since there is already a Korean teacher named Julie at his school) apparently grew up and went to high school and college in Canada and the US.  However, she has barely spoken to Kyle other than answering direct questions.

Then on Wednesday, Kwon showed up at Kyle’s school and fired the Korean teacher Amy. (Koran teachers at Kyle’s school: Nadia, Minnie, Julie, Amy, and now Julie B).  Let me recap what happened at Kyle’s school right before summer vacation.  One of the Moms of one of the 2 year old students had gotten very annoyed with Kwon for being unorganized and randomly planning fieldtrips without giving any of the parents notice.  This mom is somewhat notorious for pulling her children out of schools, although I can’t blame her for getting upset about Kwon being super unorganized because she IS.  Well this Mom then convinced other moms at school to pull their children out and Kyle’s school lost 4 kids in one day.  This was a big deal because Kyle’s school is so small; they only have 27 kids!  Three of the kids were from the 2 year old class, which is the class Amy is in charge of.  Anyway, Kwon thought that since the 2 year old class now only has two students, she would just combine them with the 3 year old class and fire Amy.  She didn’t give Amy a month’s notice or her severance pay, which is illegal in Korea, but I doubt that Amy will turn Kwon into the labor board.  Which will just allow Kwon to continue getting away with whatever she wants to do.  201 days and we are free of her crazy corruption!!!!

On a happier note, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin are finally in Seoul!!!  We will get the chance to see them once their house is done.  Unfortunately the military hasn’t finished revamping their house yet, but hopefully it will be done by the end of August and we can go see them once they’re all moved in.

We also just started our online TESOL course, so that will be keeping us busy for the time being.  The material is very interesting and can help us improve our teaching skills, which pretty much equal make it up as you go along.  (Keep in mind we still have had no formal teacher training and were just tossed into a classroom the first day we got to Korea).  Now we can use everything we learn from our TESOL and apply it in our classes.  So we will be working on that for the next few months.

We went to Costco today, which is always an experience.  Going on the weekends is the worst time to go, but Kyle and I wanted to make tacos for dinner, and Costco is one of the best places to get ground beef here.  Anyway, Koreans seem to believe that going to Costco requires one's entire family and is always a zoo.  They bring their small children, who either take up 1 cart sleeping or run around the store getting lost.  Then the older children are running around the store taekwondoing invisible ninjas.  You have spouses walking next to carts instead of behind them and Grandma and Grandpa slowly following.  Kyle and I always try to know exactly what we need to buy before we enter or else one could spend hours in Costco.  We've stopped using a cart and now bring with us our recyclable bags because it makes it that much easier to walk around.  Kyle eyed some lox in the freezer section, but it was $30.  I guess he'll have to wait until we get home to have lox.  :(

Hope this finds you all well!  We miss you all!  Love, K & M

Summer vacation to Guam & Saipan

Our journey began at 5:30am on Saturday.  We got to the airport and headed for Nagoya, Japan where we would catch our connection to Guam later that night.  We left the airport once in Japan because we had a 10 hour layover.  We converted some money at the airport into yen, which was a huge mistake because we were completely ripped off thanks to the exchange rate.  We converted 200,000 won which only gave us about 11,000 yen.  We then went to buy train tickets so that we could get to the shrine, but a one-way pass cost us 740 yen, that’s practically an $8 one way trip!  We made an American friend in the train station who thought we looked lost and confused and she helped us find the right train to take since she has been living in Japan for 7 years.  We even got job offers to go work at the school she is planning on opening, but I don’t think we’ll be accepting that any time soon….  We got to Nagoya, found our way to the shrine, and we’re horribly disappointed.  It was a few buildings spread out that didn’t have any signs to tell us their importance, and you couldn’t go into any of them.  It was also hotter than hell, and I haven’t sweated that much since Calcutta, India.  We wandered around the whole shrine for an hour and then decided that we hadn’t eaten since 6:30am and it was time for lunch.
We walked around the entire area of Nagoya surrounding the shrine and train station looking for somewhere to eat.  You’d think that in Japan they would have sushi restaurants on every corner, but not the case in Nagoya.  We searched for 3 hours and could not find anything that was open, well except for 2 strip clubs.  How could nothing be open on a Saturday?!  Is Saturday the Sabbath for the Japanese?  I don’t know, but we were so hot and hungry from walking around that we ended up going back to the airport where we actually found a sushi restaurant.  Although our day was a complete bust, that sushi was the best sushi we had ever eaten.  The slices of fish were HUGE in comparison to what you get in Korea or at home.  We then rested in the cool, air conditioned airport, had a great wifi connection, and waited for 8:30pm to come when we would leave for Guam.  Needless to say we won’t be returning to Japan any time soon since it left such a bad impression on us and because it’s just too expensive to visit.

We didn’t get into Guam until 1:15am.  As I mentioned in the last post, one of my Dad’s coworkers, Mary, is from Guam.  Mary still has family that lives in Guam, so she put me in contact with her sister, Antoinette.  She had volunteered Antoinette to come pick us up at the airport Sunday night, but we decided that since we arrived at such an ungodly hour, we were not going to call Antoinette to come get us.  We even booked a hotel within a mile from the airport so that we would have a cheap taxi ride.  HA!  Our 1 mile taxi cost us $17!!!  The shortest, most expensive cab ride of my life!  We can get a cab into Seoul (which is a good 25 minutes away) for that price.  We got to the hotel, checked in and asked about shuttles to the beach.  We were told that there are shuttles to the beach, but that they cost $10 roundtrip and that we might have to wait 20-30 minutes for one.  We thought that didn’t sound too bad since apparently a 3-mile taxi would probably cost us about $50.  When we woke up the next morning we called to the front desk and they said it was about an hour wait until the next shuttle.  Not exactly a 20-30 minutes, but we weren’t going to pay for a taxi so we waited.  We went to Ypao beach, spent the day soaking up the sun, snorkeling, and relaxing.  At 5:30pm, we went to call for the shuttle.  We found 2 pay phones on the beach, but of course they didn’t work so we had to walk all the way to the Hilton.  Called from there and were told that the shuttle would come to pick us up at 6:30pm.  We sat in the parking lot waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  Kyle had read that Guam has a pretty big meth problem so we were starting to wonder about the group of locals who were sitting near us smoking something out of a pipe.  It eventually started to get dark, and people were now arriving at the beach, but just sitting in their cars.  One guy sat in his car watching us for 30 minutes and then drove by us and asked us if we needed a ride, we kindly declined his offer.  Then all of the streetlights in the parking lot went out and we decided that we should move to the main road.  It was now 8pm.  We went into a bakery that was on the corner and asked to use their phone.  We called the hotel again and complained about having been forgotten and abandoned for 2 hours and told them that they needed to send someone down to pick us up now.  I was able to pick up some wifi as we continued waiting and had received a message from Danny saying, “Hey girl, what’s up?  We need to talk.”  I didn’t think too much of it and thought I’d contact him when we had more reliable internet.  The hotel was very apologetic about forgetting us and we were able to get a free ride to the airport out of it, but we found out that the women who booked our shuttle earlier never wrote down that they had taken us to the beach so they had no record of us.  Ugh.

The next day we left Guam for Saipan and ended up in Saipan at 11am.  (It’s only about a 30 minute flight).  Since had not had internet while in Guam, no one was sure exactly where we were.  As soon as we got to the hotel we found some wifi and Kyle checked his e-mail.  He had a message from his mom, Beth, that said, “Monica really needs to get in touch with Danny.”  Now I start to panic, because if Danny has asked Beth to reach us it’s a little more important than “Hey girl, we need to talk.”  I then checked my e-mail and find out that my grandfather had a heart attack while my family was visiting.  Fortunately our hotel was right on the beach, so Kyle went down to the beach while I talked to my family.  After I had gotten the latest update, I joined Kyle at the beach and we snorkeled to try and take my mind off things.  That night we went in search of dinner, but Saipan and Guam don’t really seem to believe in sidewalks.  Nobody walks anywhere, so we walked a few miles looking for food, but there were no restaurants, except a few Korean and Japanese places, but we refused to eat Korean while on vacation.  We walked by a place whose name sounded familiar because we’d seen it on a brochure for things to do in Saipan.  We went in, made friends with the owner, Aui, and arranged to go to Mañagaha Island the next day.  (We’d read about Mañagaha Island and apparently it is the #1 place to go in Saipan).  Aui even gave us a lift back to the hotel that night.

On Tuesday, I woke up checked my e-mail and had a message from my Mom saying that my grandfather had passed away peacefully in his sleep.  While I was very upset about this, I couldn’t help but think his choice of timing to go was about as good as any.  I had just skyped with him less than a week before, he had just spent the past 2 weeks with 2 of his grandsons, and he’d gotten the chance to see 2/3 of his daughters.  Feeling sad, but relieved that I had had the chance to speak with him a week before he passed away.  Rest in peace Grandpa.  We love you and miss you and hope that you find a great fishing spot with Uncle David up in heaven.


  We then left for Mañagaha Island. 

Once on the island we walked out to the main area where all of the Korean and Japanese tourists were.  There was about ½ a mile of sand from where the trees/shade were to where the ocean was, and there was not a single person sitting in the sand.  All of the Koreans and Japanese were clumped up in the shade.  Kyle and I, feeling like we were committing some taboo, put our stuff out in the sand and went snorkeling.  The area we were in was very crowded with Koreans and Japanese (aka the foreigners), and some snorkeling company gave them all fins for reasons known only to God.  They were killing the coral.  And I’m not exaggerating.  They were kicking the coral, walking on it, touching it, and destroying it.  They were so loud they scared away any fish one might actually see.  Kyle and I found this so disturbing that we relocated to a different area that was more rocky and free of destructive Asians.  (Yes, I have become quite racist since living in Korea, please bear with me).  Upon switching areas we were able to snorkel around antiaircraft guns, sunken Japanese docking boats, and other WWII wreckage.  It was pretty incredible.

Gun lying on the beach

We saw hundreds of fish and much to Kyle’s disappointment I saw a small reef shark and he didn’t.  We were also able to see coral that was bright and alive, polyps blooming like tiny, neon Christmas trees.

View of Saipan from Managaha Island

The next day we decided to rent a car, which Kyle bravely drove around the island.  (They drive on the same side of the road as US mainland does, so no worries there and there are only 3 main roads which also helps since we are both very directionally confused).  Anyway, we drove around the island and were able to see some amazing things we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Kyle’s grandfather was stationed in Saipan during or shortly after WWII and took some pictures that Kyle was interested in recreating.  We went to Lau Lau beach, which had an amazing coral reef, right off the beach, but would have probably made a better dive sight than snorkeling. 

Suicide Cliff

We went to Suicide Cliff, which has a very tragic tale.

Last Command Post

During WWII, the Japanese told the islanders, the Chomorros, that the US soldiers were going to come to the island and rape their women, torture them, and kill them.  Entire villages and families went up to the cliffs and jumped to their deaths.  Of course when the US soldiers arrived, they gave the Chomorros food and water.  Why there was a memorial to the Japanese under this cliff, Kyle and I will never understand.  We then went to the last command post, which had some long range artillery canons and a tank.  We also saw the Grotto, which is supposed to be one of the top dive sights in the world.

We had been told by the locals and online that you could only dive there if you were very experienced and if you had a guide because the current is so strong and it’s easy to get lost.  Maybe someday we’ll go back and dive in the Grotto.  I hear they have a resident shark that lives there and it’s supposed to be a good place to see sea turtles too.  We only walked around the water’s edge, but saw a Japanese group in the water that had a large number of small children with them.  Fortunately they were wearing life vests, but some of the Japanese in the water weren’t.  Kyle tried to see if I would change my mind and go snorkel there, but I said no and that I didn’t want to witness any Japanese children drowning when the current got strong and sucked them down into the cave.  [Kyle side note:  Thank you for being my conscience Monica.]  After this we went to Kalabera cave,  

you really needed to have your spelunking gear with you to see very much, but Kyle found a rock to crawl behind that had an area to explore around it.  From my spot on the opposite side of the rock I couldn’t see him, but I heard a big rockslide and nearly had a heart attack thinking he had plunged into the depths of the cave.  We then drove to Tank beach thinking that surely if it was called tank beach there would be a tank on the beach, but there was no tank and the local children laughed at us when we asked them where it was.  We then returned back to the hotel just in time to beat a huge storm that had been brewing for a while and we got ready to return back to Guam the next day, Thursday.

In Guam, Antoinette picked us up from the airport and greeted us with leis.  She asked us if we needed to go anywhere, if we needed anything, and we said we were good and be fine just going to the hotel and heading to the beach.  She dropped us off at the hotel and arranged to come pick us up that night to take us to dinner.  The water was so low when we got to the beach that we decided to just sit in the pool, which overlooked the ocean.  Later, Antoinette and her husband, Tom, took us to a very nice dinner at the Fiesta hotel.  We had a great time and Antoinette and Tom seemed to enjoy hearing all about Korea and the crazy Kwon.  When they dropped us off back at the hotel we made plans to drive around the island on Friday.

On Friday, Antoinette and Tom drove us all around the island.  Without them we would have never seen as much as we did.  We learned that people in Guam never drive around the island unless they have family or company in town. We started out at Guam's miniature version of the Statue of Liberty since Kyle told Tom and Antoinette that he had never been to the real one.  Then we got to see the Governor's Office, this picture is taken near it next to a latte stone, used as building supports by the ancient Chamorros.

Next, we went to a naval museum and got to see one of only two, 2-man submarines left in the world, the other one is in Hawaii.
Then we saw Asan beach, which was completely destroyed during WWII.  We went to a few scenic outlook points and saw Cocos Island and other parts of Guam from afar. We drove by the landing spot of Ferdinand Magellan.  We also got to see an old, Spanish fort.  A local man set up a place to sell coconuts and bananas right in front of it.  The coconut was delicious.  

We had lunch at Jeff’s Pirate Cove, which was delicious.  We had some local food and Greek food.  Yumm.  Then we went to Talofofo Falls.  Tom and Antoinette said that it had been about 20 years since the last time they had been to the falls.  They were telling us how their daughter overheard them talking about going to the falls and she got upset because they had never taken her, but they were taking complete strangers.  There were a ton of wild pigs in the parking lot, and quite a few little piglets.  We got to ride a gondola to get to the falls.  We had been planning on swimming in the falls, but the water was kind of grimy, and the pamphlet we got said no swimming.  Tom asked a man that worked there about the no swimming, and he said that they really didn’t care, it was more for liability issues and that if we swam they wouldn’t stop us.  We decided to walk over the slippery and slimy, moss covered rocks and go sit behind the waterfall.  After that, Tom and Antoinette drove us back to our hotel and we showered and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.  We were pretty exhausted after seeing everything.

On Saturday, Antoinette and Tom picked us up and took us to Cocos Island, which is right off the coast of Guam.  The island was way less crowded then Mañagaha Island had been, and even though we didn’t find any old WWII wreckage, we saw huge purple starfish, cute little clown fish, an eel, and several other tropical fish.  We stayed on the island for 4 hours and then drove back to Ypao beach, where Antoinette dropped us off so that we could snorkel some more.  We snorkeled right in front of the Hilton, less than 100 feet from where we had snorkeled on the first day.  We saw 2 lion fish hiding under a rock, they won for best fish seen during the whole trip, lots of other fish that followed us around, and clown fish that had a lot of fun trying to touch us, but then we would move and startle them and they would rush back to the security of their sea anemone.  It became a hilarious little game.  Then Antoinette picked us up from the beach, waited for us to shower and get ready, and took us to the mall so that we could watch Inception.  (If you haven’t seen it, go!  It was amazing; I was on the edge of my chair the entire movie).  Then Antoinette and Tom came to pick us up from the movies and we had to say our goodbyes when they dropped us off.  They were the sweetest people ever and made our trip that much better.  Antoinette even gave us some chocolate covered macadamia nuts…Mmmm…some Chamorro cookies (chocolate chips and macadamia nut cookies)…Mmmmm, and some hand sanitizer, which is super expensive in Korea.  Tom and Antoinette were so wonderful!!!  Thank you both for everything!  We had so much fun! 

The only picture I have of our wonderful hosts

We were so sad to leave Sunday morning at 5am and return to the super hot and humid Korea, but we enjoyed our vacation and it has given us the energy and mental refueling we needed to make it the next 144 days until winter vacation!  Thank goodness we only have to teach 3 hours a day this week instead of a full day.

Hope this finds you all well.  We miss you and love you all.  Love, K & M