Tying the Knot and Tensions

Hi everyone!
I hope you’re all doing well. As of the 1st, we will have been in Korea for 3 months – a quarter of the way through.
So, what happened to us this week? School was the same as it usually is.
My mom sent me my rollerblades about a week ago because there is a big river that goes through Uijeongbu and amazing smooth bike paths all along it. Jesse has never been much of a skater or rollerblader but he was a good sport and actually bought some rollerblades so I’ve been teaching him how and we’ve been going rollerblading, which has been a lot of fun.
Friday night was a teacher from the other ECC in Uijeongbu’s last night. Everyone went out for galbi, as usual, but Jesse was feeling sort of galbied-out and I never eat galbi anyway so we just went over to our friends’ apartment and hung out on their roof and played cards while everyone else was at dinner and then we met up with them later. It weird here because you have a group of about 20 people who are all friends but, every month, some people leave and new people arrive so the dynamic of the group is always changing. Jesse and I are already seeming like veterans because a lot of people who have been here longer than us have already gone home. Anyway, Friday night was a fun night out with all the teachers from the three main foreign hogwans in Uijeongbu (the two ECCs and another big hogwan chain called SLP).
Saturday Jesse and I got all dressed up because we’d been invited to one of his colleague’s weddings. We were researching Korean weddings all week trying to figure out what was appropriate as gifts, and dress code and stuff and were all excited because we’d read that a lot of weddings had crazy stuff like smoke machines, bubble machines, laser lights, people in crazy costumes (like Darth Vader) and lots of other awesome stuff. We met with one of Jesse’s colleagues at the subway station (her nick-name is ‘Froggy’ – a questionable choice). Froggy showed us the way to the church. Apparently it’s rare for Korean weddings to happen in churches, and that is maybe why we didn't see any of the awesome wedding features we'd read about. Usually people get married in wedding halls that are designed to look like castles and have the reception in the same place. We arrived late, which I was all stressed out about, but it turned out I was worrying for nothing. All through the ceremony, people were arriving late, answering cell phones, and just generally not paying much attention. It wasn’t a ‘traditonal Korean ceremony’. The bride wore a white ‘western style’ dress and the groom was in a suit. There were performances by a singer and then a group of kids (many of whom Jesse recognized as his students).

The bride and groom and a massive screen showing the ceremony.


Here is a video of some the kids' performance.

Lots of people weren’t dressed up at all. Lots were in jeans, cut off jean shorts, t-shirts, running shoes, etc. Jesse and I were the most over-dressed for sure. After the ceremony, people went to take pictures with the couple and then headed to another floor in the building for lunch. Lunch was buffet style with lots of choices but there weren’t nearly enough seats for all the guests so you were expected to kind of wolf down your food and then give up your chair and go home. The whole thing lasted maybe an hour and then we went home. It was an interesting experience but one I probably wouldn’t repeat unless there were definitely going to be some bubble machines and Darth Vader impersonations.


Today we’re just running errands and getting organized for another week. This week they are having elections on Wednesday so there is no school. Another 4-day week will be fantastic but it the last holiday for awhile.

One final thing that has been big news here is obviously the escalating tensions with North Korea. We know it’s been all over the press lately and I’m sure you know as much about the news as we do. From an on-the-ground perspective, though, I can tell you that no Koreans seem worried at all. They all seem convinced that it’s all being blown totally out of proportion and that we’re all really safe. To be honest, I feel like it is very unlikely that the tension will escalate to conflict but, to be safe, we’ve registered ourselves with the Canadian embassy and, if conflict arises, they are obligated to give us safe passage to the nearest neutral country. Bottom line: no one is scared here, we’re still safe and are confident we’ll continue to be so, and are taking measures to make sure we’ll be fine even if the worst happens.

Anyway, that’s all for this week! Just in case you ever need to reach us urgently and we’re not on the internet, here are our cell numbers (you need to dial 011 +82 + 1 before the number)
Ali: 3145-4958
Jesse: 3981-0890

Miss you all!
Ali and Jesse

Baseball and Buddha's Birthday

Hello everyone!

So this was a three day weekend in Korea in honour of Buddha's birthday. With my three work days off 2 weeks ago and a Wednesday off in 2 weeks due to elections, we are in the midst of a great holiday blitz. With our extra day off, Ali and I decided to see a Korean baseball game. Korea has a professional baseball organization similar to the MLB in North America - except with 8 teams instead of 30 - and everyone has always told us that baseball games are so much fun here and that people in the stands are treated more as particpants than spectators (whatever that means). Now I've always loved baseball and enjoy watching it on TV. Ali, on the other hand, would rather watch paint dry - or even watch already dry paint stay dry - than to watch baseball, but she's okay with a day out in the sun, having some good food. So we made our way to Seoul to see the LG Twins vs. Doosan Bears.

The teams here are not named after cities, but the companies that own them. Hence, the LG twins and not Seoul Twins. Back when we talked about seeing a baseball game at some point this year, I looked at the teams to pick a favourite, because it's more fun to see a game when you have a rooting interest. Seoul was the closest city, but they had 3 teams owned by LG, Doosan, and one more. Well, I've owned things by LG before and they didn't catch fire, so LG Twins became my team. And Ali's kids love the Doosan Bears so they became her team. So at the subway stop at the stadium, I bought an LG Twins jersey and Ali a Doosan Bears one and the rivalry was born.


Ali and I showing our team pride.

We arrived at the game an hour ahead of time and it was packed outside. I don't know if it's always like this or if it was only because it was a holiday - similar to our soccer experience - but nevertheless, the stadium with a capacity of around 30 000 was sold out. Never fear though, Korea has ticket scalpers who must've made a lot of money that day. We bought $12 tickets for $25. It was hard to be annoyed though because the seats were pretty good. Definitely would be in the $25 price range back at the Roger's Centre. In fact, the whole sports-watching experience is much cheaper in Korea. Seats are cheap, food and beers are inexpensive, and you're allowed to bring in all the food and drinks you want from the outside.


Once the game started we soon learned what people meant by the audience being participants. The LG Twins and Doosan Bears both play out of this stadium so both teams had plenty of fans who sit in their own sections. We ended up right in the middle of the Twins sections so Ali, sporting her new Doosan Bears jersey, was in enemy territory. And the fans were energetic to say the least; all the Twins fans had these things we call 'bangers', big inflatable bats, and they banged them together and waved them around in the air.


Here's everyone with their bangers.

Every time LG was up to bat, a kind of male cheerleader blew a whistle and led the crowd in the cheers. He screamed a lot in Korean and waved his arms around, and the crowd ate it up. They sang, they cheered, they screamed. A lot of their songs were to the tune of other songs. We heard the melodies of Dancing Queen, Singing in the Rain, and It's a Small World. There was also female cheerleaders for both teams, dancing between innings. When Doosan was up to bat, our section took a breather. But everytime, LG was at the plate, it was back to standing on our feet, banging those things together.

LG Twins won the game 2-0, and despite the low score, I thought it was a pretty exciting game. Ali thought the first 5 innings was good... Overall, it was a fun experience and I would be up for seeing another baseball game some time in the future.

The rest of the weekend we just lazed about and relaxed. We went to the theatre and saw Robin Hood, bought some groceries, and just cleaned the apartment. Tomorrow it's back to work and next weekend, we will be attending a wedding of a teacher at my school.

Right now all the politicians in Uijeongbu are hitting the campaign trail hard because it is election day in a week and a half. Campaigning is definitely very different here than back home. When I walk to work in the morning, each candidate has several representatives, dressed in their candidate's colour, essentially doing cheerleading for their candidate. They all take turns to do their cheer and then the next candidate's people have a turn. Also, every candidate has these little vans that have a podium on the back and a big picture of them and they drive around town, giving speeches on the back of their vans.


One of the speech-vans.


Anyway, that's all that happened this week.
All the best!
Ali and Jesse

Buddha and Beaches

Hello everyone!

Hope this blog finds you all well. This week Jesse and I did different things on the weekend so we're going to write two separate entires - so try not to pick favourites:

Ali's Week:

So, this past week at school we had a field trip to this crazy sand park which was really fun. The kids all had to wear matching sun hats that looked like ducks, which was pretty much the cutest thing on earth. The sand park was really fun. The kids could look for 'dinosaur bones' in the sand, make sand art, make 'fossils' out of clay, build sandcastles and it was very cool. It was a nice break from school and our directors gave all the foreign teachers a really nice picnic lunch.

Saturday was Teacher's Day here in Korea so students gave gifts and stuff on Friday. I guess one of the benefits of working at a private school is that the students are rich so, for my teachers day, I got a $100 gift card to this huge department store, tons of soaps, body washes, scrubs, mists, etc. I got flowers, cards, weird ginsing candies and lots more. Jesse just got a few soaps and an origami flower so I really cleaned up in comparison. Anyway, I love Teachers' Day.

On the weekend I went down to Busan which is the second biggest city in Korea and is way in the South of the country, right on the coast. I met my friend Marijke (from college) in Seoul and then we took the KTX high-speed train down to Busan. The train, apparently, goes 300km an hour, and it took 3 hours to get down to Busan.

Marijke and I with our KTX tickets.

There, we met our other friend from college who is staying in a city near Busan. Her name's Jen I hadn't seen her in months so it was a great mini-reunion. We got a hotel and explored Busan and caught up Friday night. On Saturday we went to Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Busan. Jesse actually watched a Korean movie on the plane over here called 'Haeundae'. Unfortunately it was about a tsunami striking the beach and killing everyone but, fortunately, it was fictional. Jen had a bunch of her foreign co-teachers come down and we had a girls day on the beach, just relaxing.

Me, Marijke, and Jen on the beach.

The water was way too cold to swim but it was sunny and warm and a beautiful day to be relaxing on the beach. That night we all went out for dinner and then hit the town and I finally got to go to a noraebong (private kareoke), which I've been dying to do since I arrived. It was such a fun weekend and it was so good to see my friends. Marijke and I took the train home on Sunday and that was the whole weekend.

Koreans are funny because they HATE the sun. All the women wear massive visors and carry umbrellas in the sun and, even on the beach, everyone wears long sleeves and pants to avoid the sun. It's because, apparently, they are very afraid of cancer, which is legitimate, but it would make a lot more sense if they weren't such heavy smokers. Almost everyone here smokes and smoking is legal in every restaurant and bar and public place. I'm not sure if I'm going to understand Koreans, even after a year here, but I'm trying.

A bunch of 'ajeemas' (old Korean ladies) protecting themselves from the sun.

Here is Jesse's week:

While Ali was basking under the Busan sun, I went down Seoul on Sunday afternoon with some of the friends we've made since being here. Buddha's birthday is next Friday and for some reason that I'm not too sure of yet, they have all the celebrations the weekend before. Anyway, when I got off the subway, I saw a vast amount of white tents framing the street, all featuring events and activities varying in form and function. There were arts and crafts tents where you could paint a small wooden Buddah or create a lotus lantern; information tents with all the different forms of Buddahism; sales tents where you could buy clothes and other stuff; and performance tents where you could watch a group of women do yoga moves while holding empty plates (I would have been more impressed if their was food that stayed on the plates, but it was still okay). We walked around for a few hours taking in the sights and enjoying the food. I must say there is a lot of Korean food that I'm getting used to and will probably miss once it's gone.

The main event was at 7:00 pm, the Lotus Lantern parade, which I'd been told was quite cool to see with hundreds of people walking the streets with their cool lanterns lit up in the night. Despite the hype, I was not disappointed; not only were there many lanterns as advertised, but there was numerous floats ranging from kings and queens to fire-breathing dragons and tigers. My camera doesn't take the best pictures at night so these photos really don't do the parade justice.


Fire-breathing dragon float


Peacock that also breathes fire - just like the real ones.


Tiger

Anyway, that was both our weekends. This week has a 3-day weekend, not for Victoria's Day but for Buddha's Birthday. Friday is a holiday, which will be awesome. Jesse and I haven't made a plan yet but it's supposed to be beautiful weather so we should do something cool. We'll let you know what that is in our next blog.

All the best,
Ali and Jesse

Football and Festivals

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all doing well! We miss you all a lot.

This week was a pretty great week because Wednesday was Children's Day, a national holiday. For me, it really broke up the week and made it feel very short and, for Jesse, it was very short since he had no classes on Tuesday, due to Sports Day at his school, and then was off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

At my work, we've gotten a third new teacher: an opera singer from South Africa. She's very nice and it's good to finally have enough staff. On Tuesday, we had a big party to celebrate Children's Day and we had a treasure hunt, a clown, a games room, face painting, and lots more. I got to do face painting, which was really fun.

Me concentrating very hard on the face painting.

On the holiday Wednesday, Jesse and I met up with a bunch of foreigners who are part of this Korean meet-up group on the internet and we decided to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo instead of Children's Day. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon (the foreigner district) and had lunch. We met a lot more people from Uijeongbu who we hadn't met yet, which was nice, and we got to eat some Mexican food - a rare treat in Korea.

Happy Cinqo de Mayo!

After lunch, we all took the subway to watch a soccer game at World Cup Stadium. We arrived late and there were long lines for tickets but we managed to see the last few minutes of the first half and all of the second half.
The half-time show was a bunch of little kids doing Tae Kwon Do who were totally insane. They were doing a million flips and spinning kicks, and chopping boards with punches and kicks - it was very cool but made me a little more terrified of making my students angry.

Kids doing Tae Kwon Do

I usually find soccer to be painfully boring but it was actually a very high-scoring game with a lot of action. We were watching FC Seoul play Seongnam. FC Seoul was the home team and the stadium was packed with more than 60,000 people, all wearing red (FC's colour). It was neat to be a part of such an enthusiastic crowd, especially when the home team won 4-0. Every time they scored, fireworks were set off and the crowd went nuts. Luckily three of the goals were scored in the second half so we didn't miss much of the action.

Fireworks after and FC Seoul goal.

After the game we just explored around Seoul a little and had dinner and headed home.

Friday night was the goodbye dinner for one of the teachers at my school, Mikey T. He had been in Korea for 2 and a half years so there was a very big crowd to send him off. Everyone went out for duck galbi (cooking duck on the grill at your table) and there was probably about 40 of us. Then we went out in the 'bu (downtown Uijeongbu). I was so excited because everyone was talking about going to a noraebong (private kareoke) and I haven't been yet and am dying to go but they didn't end up going until 4 in the morning so I went home before that and missed it again.

Saturday (yesterday), Jesse and I went back to Seoul for this massive music festival called World DJ Festival. We met up with some other teachers from my school, my cousin Paul and his friends, and some other people we've met since being here. It seemed like every foreigner in Korea was there, as well as tons of Koreans, obviously. There were 4 stages (one for techno, one for rock, one for hip hop, and another miscellaneous stage). We had a lot of fun and saw some cool acts in both Korean and English. The festival went from 2pm Saturday afternoon until 6am Sunday morning but we left around 2am because it was getting cold and we'd lost our group in the crowd and we were tired.

Crowd shot by the main stage.



Today we're just taking it easy and doing errands and laundry and that kind of stuff.

Happy Mother's Day to both our moms and all the moms reading this blog!! We're both sad to not be with our moms on Mother's Day but we're thinking about you!!

Much love,
Ali and Jesse.

Hot Tubs and Land Mines

Hello everyone. As of today, we've been in Korea for 2 months exactly! Time's gone by fast.

It's been two weeks since our last update because last weekend we really didn’t do anything exciting since Ali had a bad flu. However, it was kind of nice to have a quiet weekend with no travel on overly crowded subway cars.

In work related news, Ali's school just got two new teachers. Hopefully that will lighten her work schedule for May.

Both Ali and I had open classes this week. An open class is when the parents come in and sit in the back of the class to watch the lesson. It's a bit crazy for Ali's school because she has to spend a couple of weeks rehearsing with the kids what the lesson will be like. It's almost like they are rehearsing a script so when the parents come in it looks like the teacher runs great classes and all the kids are learning. My open classes are a bit stressful too but there's not as much prepearation and practicing as Ali's school.

I went out Wednesday night with a bunch of teachers from her school for a ‘guys’ night’ and we went out for galbi (which is what we do all the time) but then we went to a jimjilbong, which was quite a unique experience. A jimjilbong is basically a public bathhouse with hot tubs, cold pools, saunas, areas to relax, and even rooms you can stay overnight. It is separated by gender and everyone walks around nude. Some of the hot tubs were hotter than any hot tub I've ever been in but the Koreans love it. It was a bit weird but an interesting cultural experience none-the-less.

We also went to see Ironman 2 this week (not bad but definitely not a must-see) because it was a rare event that a movie comes out here weeks before it does in America. It only did so that it’s opening wouldn’t conflict with the World Cup but they know Americans don’t care about soccer so they aren’t so worried.

Today was pretty exiting. We got up early and met a tour group going to the DMZ (de-militarized zone). A quick history about the DMZ for those who don’t know: The DMZ is the border between North and South Korea and holds the distinction of being the most heavily fortified and guarded border in the world. It was created just after the Korean war. However, it's not just a line separating the countries, but rather a buffer zone to make sure the countries aren't too close together. It is mostly an untouched piece of land (full of landmines, of course) 4km wide that spans the width of the country. It is very heavily armed and guarded on both sides and there are places where armed men from both countries just stand and stare at each other all day trying to intimidate each other. Because no one is allowed in the DMZ, it’s become a pretty unique wildlife reserve as well with animals able to thrive without human influence. Since the ‘70s, 4 tunnels have been discovered that run under the DMZ and into South Korea from the North. The tunnels are big enough so tens of thousands of men with heavy artillery can get through in an hour for a surprise attack on South Korea. The last tunnel was discovered in ’95 and many suspect there are other tunnels still to be discovered.

Because the DMZ runs across the entire width of the country, there's different areas to check out, and not all of them can be seen in a day. On our tour of the DMZ, we first went to Cheol Won, which is a more quiet area with less tourist fanfare. During the drive up there, there was wire on both sides of the road with signs indicating the presence of land mines so we knew when we were close. Once there, we went to an observation point where you could see posts from both North and South Korea, as well as a large area of the DMZ. Tensions don't seem too high here as we observed South Korean soliders playing volleyball in the distance.

South Korean guard tower at the DMZ

We then went to the 2nd tunnel, put hard hats on, and went right in. This might have been the best part of the trip, walking through a tunnel dug by the North Koreans for the sole purpose of attacking the South. When the South first discovered them and sent people in to investigate, several lives were lost due to hidden mines and dynamite, but it seems like they cleared all those out now. The tunnel was very low (the hard hats saved us several times) and wet but incredibly cool. You obviously can only walk so far before you’re gated off to prevent you from reaching North Korea.

Inside the tunnel


Us inside the tunnel. Looking good...


Ali with a South Korean soldier


Counting the days since the Korean war ended

From there we saw an old Labor Party building where lots of prisoners were kept and tortured under the North Koreans. (it’s been bombed since then and is now only a ruin).

Labor Party Building

We then went to a place called "White Horse Hill" and we were lucky enough to have a Korean soldier who spoke almost perfect English act as our tour guide and fill us in on the history of the location. It was a large hill that was a pivotal point to control since you had a view of where attacking forces would be coming from. Over a period of ten days, control of the hill went back and forth between the North and South 24 times. All of the craters in the hill created from countless bombings apparently resemble a white horse from above. Our tour guide also showed us a building and stated that after losing the White Horse Hill battle, the North Korean general in charge went there and cried for 3 days. I guess there's still some hard feelings over the conflict...

This is a statue of hands praying supposed to honour Korean soldiers's sacrifces.

After we left the hill, we did an 80 min bus ride to Im Jin Gak, a more touristy area of the DMZ. Little did we know that touristy meant carnivals, souvenir shops, art exhibits, parks, kids flying kites, pinwheels, and cotton candy. It was very weird to see how an area so close to a massive amount of weaponry was a place for wholesome family fun. Not to say it was all like that. It was the location of the ‘Freedom Bridge’ – the only bridge between North and South Korea.

Freedom Bridge

After that we got on the bus and headed home. A notable area we didn't see is the village of Panmunjeom. This is a village actually located inside the DMZ buffer zone. Apparently, it's an area where farmers are permitted to live and must observe a curfew. I think it's under watch by the South as the North have thier own small village in the DMZ. Only certain tours are permitted there (I think only US army ones) and a dress code is observed. Maybe another time.

Not much else is new here. Of course you’ve heard about the South Korean boat that was sunk due to an ‘exterior explosion’ but it’s beginning to look more and more like a North Korean torpedo hit it. There are lots of questions here about whether the South will retaliate to send a message or keep it cool to avoid damaging their economy so it’s really interesting being here for all this. Here is an article with more information if you haven't been following the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8648970.stm

Next Wednesday is Children's day, a national holiday. I remember in North America when kids would complain about Mother's Day and Father's day and ask why isn't there a Kid's day. Well, they have that here but no Mom and Dad day, instead opting for the joint "Parents Day." It looks like parents got the short end of the stick here. Anyway, it also happens to be Cinco De Mayo, so we have plans to go to a Mexican restuarant and see a soccer game, which should be very cool, so we’ll keep you posted on that. I get the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off but Ali has to teach Thursday and Friday.

We’re both still doing well and having a great time!

Love,
Ali and Jesse