Birthdays and Blossoms

Hello everyone who's still reading this (likely only our parents),

I hope this blog post finds you all well! We're both doing great here. This week we had some interesting stuff happen.
Tuesday was my birthday and, I must say, it's the first time I've felt really homesick since I've been here but Jesse made it really nice for me. I worked until 8:30 that night but then Jesse took me out for dinner at our favourite restaurant here - VIPS - which is an American chain I'd never heard of but that has a buffet of pasta, pizza, caesar salad, fajitas, and a million more delicious things. Then he had bought me a bunch of clothes that I wanted and had them delivered here so it was a very nice birthday.
Speaking of birthdays, every 2 months at my school, they have a big birthday celebration for all the students that had birthdays in the past 2 months. It happened to be this Friday and was an interesting and hilarious experience. I had 4 students in my main class who had birthdays and they all came to school in their traditional Korean outfits (so cute). I took a video of my students at break time all running around like mad and some of them in their birthday costumes.

Julia, Cindy, Aaron, and Thomas in their traditional birthday costumes.


In this video, my kids are running around on their break and some of them are talking to me. Pretty cute.

The actual 'birthday party' seemed more like a glorified photo op for the parents than an actual party. All the kids who didn't have birthdays sat on the floor and then, one by one, the foreign teacher for each birthday student would take their hand and walk them down the aisle through all the kids while the students sang 'Happy Birthday' for every one of them. Once every student had been walked through and sung to, they sat on chairs behind this massive table spread with tons of delicious food: pizza, cake, cookies, doughnuts, kimbap (Korean sushi-ish thing), fruit, etc. Then, each one got to blow out a candle and have a picture taken. Then, each one held a wrapped gift and card and took several photos with their foreign teacher. And that was the whole birthday party. The food wasn't touched and no party was involved.
Speaking of photo ops, I found my school's website that has photos of all the foreign teachers, which you can check out if you want: http://eccybm.com/KGV7/homepage/pageview/pageview.asp?CateCode=INTRO20#

This weekend was pretty low key. Today we got up early and went in to Itaewon (the foreign district) and went to the Rocky Mountain Tavern (the Canadian bar) to watch the Phoenix-Detroit game. It was neat to watch the NHL game and eat nachos. For a while we forgot we were even in Korea because the bar was full of foreigners and all the wait staff spoke English.
After that, we went down to Yeouido Park to meet Jesse's friend from school (the guy who he had a drink with that night after he went to the noraebong - Lee Sung Ho) at the cherry blossom festival. We met him and he introduced us to a bunch of his friends. We sat on the lawn of the National Assembly Building (I assume this is something like our Parliament Hill) while they ate a picnic - we were too stuffed with nachos to eat. Two of Lee Sung Ho's friends were super nice. One lived in Calgary for a year going to school and snowboarding and one lived in London for a year and is now one of the people who puts Korean subtitles on all the English TV shows and movies here. We sat and chatted with them for a few hours and it was neat to finally be hanging out with Koreans here - we've been mostly hanging out with foreigners so far - and, finally, we had a bit of a nice day and it was beautiful in the sun.

Me on the lawn of the National Assembly Building.

We left them after awhile to check out the cherry blossom festival that was happening this weekend. Cherry blossoms are huge in Korea and they plant cherry blossom trees everywhere and they are absolutely beautiful when they bloom. The streets were packed with people taking pictures with the flowers and going for walks and the street was lined with trees. It was really nice.

Street lined with cherry blossoms

Cherry Blossom tree

Then we just came home and relaxed. And that brings us to now. So, not too much exciting news this week. My school's supposed to FINALLY get a new foreign teacher this week from England (if he can ever get here with all the flights being grounded there), which is good because we're losing two more teachers at the end of the month.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Miss you all!
Ali

Woodstock and a bicycle built for 2

Hey everyone. It's been 2 weekends since the last post, but we haven't done any big exciting trips so it's not like you there's too much to write about. We mentioned in the last post that we would be going to a dinner our recruitment agency was hosting in Seoul. Figuring we'd make a day out of it, we went into Seoul early to a place called Insa-dong, regarded as the trendy artist area. That's because every two steps is an art gallery or an antique shop. It was basically one long narrow street that is very crowded with Koreans and foreigners alike. It was actually pretty fun just to do some browsing in this area, telling ourselves we'd be back when we had more money. There was also public displays of performance art (I guess that's what you'd call it) including one example of a woman in ropes and a guy dressed in North Korean gear with a rifle. It was a little freaky to say the least.

Not a real robot, unfortunately.

We then made our way to the pre-dinner bar which was off the beaten path down some alleys. A lot of the back alleys we've seen in Seoul remind us of carnivals; there's a hundred bright neon signs, the occasional carnival-like game, and always a large crowd of people. We also saw bars called "Woodstock, The Doors, Deep Purple, The Beatles". No luck on Frampton, though. We arrived at Beer O'Clock to see a bar filled with non-Koreans which was a different sight. We met a lot of people from all over U.S.A. and Canada. Any time we meet people from Ontario they usually say they're from Toronto - as do I - so I always ask "Are you actually from Toronto?" One of these days someone will actually be from Toronto and my question will come off as rude. The people we met came from all over Korea. Some came as far as a 5 hour bus ride. Needless to say, I'm glad we live near Seoul. By the time we left for dinner, we probably had 50 people in our group. We even met someone who graduated from University of Guelph the same year as me, and who consequently, knew a lot of the same people as us.



We all walked over to a Galbi restaurant in our very large posse, which made me feel very much like a tourist on a guided tour. I believe Galbi just means "meat" but I could be mistaken, but a galbi restaurant means that you will be at a table with a grill and the meat will be cooked right in front of you. The restaurant was the kind where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor. I'm actually becoming quite fond of this set-up as it seems to create a more social atmosphere over dinner. However, after an hour, my legs are usually cramping up pretty bad and everyone around the table keeps shifting and moving around.

The foreigners.

After the dinner, we went back to Beer O'Clock for awhile before venturing out into Hondae, the trendy night life area of Seoul. Paul, Ali's cousin, called and we met up with him at a club. It was nice to see him as seeing someone you know from back home makes the distance between Canada and Korea seem a little smaller. We hung out for awhile there before eventually calling it a night and venturing home.

April 9-12 Weekend.
This weekend was Ali and I's 3-year-anniversary, so we decided to make it into a big day with adventures in Seoul. We had read about bike tours around Han river and decided that could be fun. The weather was cloudy the whole day, but there was no rain so we decided to risk it. We went to Yeouido park, which is on an island in Seoul. Yeouido park is called "the Manhatten of Seoul" (at least that's one guy on some website calls it) because it's where all the financial buildings are and has quite a nice skyline view. The park was crowded with people walking, picnicing, bikng, and rollerblading. We even saw many couples riding tandem bicycles, which Ali and I thought could be fun. Bike huts are common in this area so we rented a tandem bike for only $6. Those things are not as easy to ride as they look; everytime we would start riding, we would swing from side to side for awhile until we got into a rhythm. There's a long bike trail that goes around the island so we decided we would try that... Not the best idea. I'm not sure why Ali or I never stopped to think that maybe travelling completely around an island on a tandem bicycle would take a long time, but after at least an hour, signs had indicated we had travelled 10 km. Riding a tandem bike is much more exhausting than a normal bike because it is so heavy going up hills and it takes a ton of arm strength to prevent the bike from tipping when you are both pedalling hard. We were pretty exhausted by the ten km mark and the dark rainclouds were looking ominous so we got out our Seoul travel book and looked up the route we thought we on. Well, it seems like going around the island is 38km and at least 4 hours... not what we had in mind. So we turned back, exhausted, both in grumpy moods. Not as romantic and cute an activity as we'd planned.


Me, having lots of fun on the playground.

The start of Cherry Blossums

After the "nice and pleasant" scenic bike ride we went back to Insa-dong because we had read about a tea shop called Yetchatjip that featured birds flying all over the place and a washroom with fish swimming at your feet. We looked down a back alley, saw a sign for 얫잣집 which I read as "Yetchatjip" and went in. They had fruity teas but a lack of birds and fish. After our fruity teas, we left, walked five feet, and went into the actual "Yetchatjip" this time with an English sign that read "Flying Bird Old Tea Shop." I guess that means they don't have chickens. It was really cool sitting in a cramped space with little birds making noise and flying by your heads - our hair got brushed a few times by them. I wondered why more places didn't do this... and then I saw a bird poop on the floor. I forgot about that whole potential problem. It was still a really cool tea shop with great tea and as advertised, a washroom with a fish bowl on the floor.

That big thing is not a fish. It took me awhile to figure that out too.


Not the clearest quality. A new camera is at the top of my gift whish list.

After dodging birds, we went to Itawon, the reverse China-town and went to "Rocky Mountain Tavern" the Canadian bar. We had a pitcher and some delicious garlic bread. We didn't get the poutine, which I'm not a fan of, but like knowing it's available. They had a hockey schedule posted of when they show NHL games. Most of them aren't live, as the time zone difference of 13 hours would make the average 7pm game start at 8am, but with hockey playoffs around the corner, I might want to make my way down there to watch a game. We wandered around Itawon for awhile before settling on an Italian restaurant. It seems that every foreign restaurant has Koreans working there who speak perfect English. I would think that many Koreans with fluent English would go into business since that's why the government wants kids to learn English, but hey, as long as we can be understood when we ask for parmesan cheese - a rare item here - I'm not complaining. We caught the subway home, but didn't make it all the way to our stop; the subway stopped at 10:30pm which seems a bit early for a Saturday. We cabbed it the rest of the way and that was the end of our 3-year celebration.

In school-related news, my job is going well with no real changes. Ali, however, has had some drama at work with the recent departure of a teacher. A girl who'd been here 7 months kind of packed her bags and went home without any warning. Turns out, she had some criticisms with how school is taught in the Hogwon system but Ali is suspicious that it was more because she missed her boyfriend and a bunch of friends were having weddings coming up she wanted to go to. Anyway, Ali's work schedule will probably continue to be a bit hectic until new teachers arrive.

That's it for now. Next weekend we might go to a Cherry Blossum festival in Yeouido park since it's almost their peak season.

재시 (Jesse)
알리 (Ali)

Dancing Queen and Smashed Motorcycles

Hey everyone!

So I'll just update you on what's been up since Jesse's last post. First off, we got our new April schedules and mine got MUCH better. I have started teaching two new kindergarten classes in addition to my original class and they are both great. I don't have to work until 8 any night and finish at 7 two nights, 6 two nights, and 5 on Thursdays. I still have the terrible class but it's gotten much less terrible because the ringleader of all the trouble has been expelled and 4 other kids have been transferred to other classes. They are still my worst class but now I can at least control them to some degree.

The bad news is that my better schedule isn't likely to last long. The guy who was supposed to replace Jake (the teacher who just left) never showed up. Turns out he was drafted back into the American army and couldn't come. Also, another teacher (my roommate, actually) is being fired because she has some vision difficulties and they are worried it will affect her ability to supervise the children (Korea is really un-accommodating to people with disabilities). So, losing two foreign teachers will make us have to cover a lot of work but I get paid well for overtime so it's not such a big deal.

We bought cell phones as well, which was a bit of an adventure. We ended up getting them for 50,000 each (about $50) and apparently it's a good deal. It took us ages to do, though, because, obviously, no one spoke English and we had no idea what they were asking but apparently they asked if we wanted them to charge the phone before they gave it to us. I said yes and we had to wait for over an hour for it without any idea what was going on. Our cell phones both work though and we just refill credit on it when we run out. Texts are really cheap so we text most of the time.

I've been trying to socialize more with the other foreign teachers in Uijeongbu. I went out for a girls night with a bunch of them the other night. It's really neat meeting people from so many places. At my table of 5 girls there was one from Ireland, England, South Africa, and another from Canada. Last night, was Jake's farewell dinner. Jesse and I, as well as all the foreign and Korean teachers at our school went out for gelbi (basically meat that you cook at your table with a million side dishes). I had pizza instead but it's fun to hang out with everyone.

Jesse went out with the teachers at his school one night as well and it sounds like he had a crazy time. I won't be able to explain it as well as him but, basically, they all went to this huge restaurant (there was about 50 people) and ate. He had to sit next to the principal for most of it and had to awkwardly offer to pour him drinks (and was corrected on his etiquette several times). He had to go from table to table socializing with everyone. Afterwards, they all went to a noraebong, which is basically a place where you rent a room and do private kareoke. He sang Dancing Queen because they didn't have 'Don't stop believing' and he was already in the D's. I wish I had photos of this but he said no one was taking any pictures. Everyone else sang Korean songs so he just had to clap along for over an hour. Then some guy walked him home and, it turned out, he wanted to get a drink alone with Jesse so Jesse went with him and they had a drink and talked for awhile but the guy's English wasn't very good. The guy apparently works maintenance at his school and wants to hang out with Jesse more often now.

This morning, on my way to school, I witnessed a pretty brutal car accident. A motorcycle (they drive insane here) smashed into the back of a bus at full speed and he flew off his bike and the papers he was transporting blew all over the road. There doesn't seem to be any real traffic rules and, if there are, they are completely ignored so I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time but it was pretty awful to see. I think the driver was okay and the ambulance got there right away.

As Jesse said in our last post, we are going to Seoul this weekend for a big dinner with all the foreign teachers who went through our recruiter. We're going to try and do one more touristy thing while we're there but we haven't decided what yet. Jesse and I are planning to do a temple stay soon where you spend a weekend in a Buddhist temple and live like the monks do. It sounds interesting and I'm pretty excited.

We're still getting cold and rainy weather. I'm excited for spring to start for real!

Happy Easter everyone!
Ali


This is the group of teachers at Jake's goodbye dinner enjoying some chicken gelbi.


Jake, Me, and Jesse at Jake's goodbye dinner.


One of my kids, Abraham, doing his colouring.


My class doing their work. This isn't their normal uniform, it's their gym outfit.


The South Korean flag waving in the wind.