Irish Pubs & Ice Hockey

Hey everyone, it's been awhile since a proper update, so we'll give one this time with all of the latest shenanigans that we're involved in.

As you've probably heard, North Korea fired artillery shells at a South Korean island that's only 12 km away from North Korea's coast. As it stands now, U.S.A. has just started going through some drills and war games with South Korea, which had been planned well ahead of the attack. North Korea is saying that if these drills go one inch into their waters than they will attack. Since U.S. has a lot of firepower here for these drills, South Korea is not too worried. South Korea really doesn't want a war. When they were originally attacked, they waited for 13 mins before firing one third of what North Korea fired at them and the government is coming under pressure that they should've responded much heavier to North Korea. So that fact might help ease your mind.

Anyway, on to less missile-heavy matters, last weekend I went into Seoul early on Friday because I was going to see a show with other public teachers called "Miso" (Korean for beautiful smile) and my co-teacher told me to go in early and see this traditional palace where they do a ceremony of changing the guards. So I went in early, took some pictures, and did some sightseeing all by myself, a first time thing for me here.




The show was really good and there was no language problem since it was pretty much non-verbal. At the beginning the screen laid out the whole story in multiple languages so you could understand what would be coming. The performers were dressed in the traditional Korean attire and did a lot of dancing and acrobatic moves.


The next night was Ali's co-worker's boyfriend's birthday so we went into Seoul again (well again for me) and went to this Irish pub. The birthday boy's friend owned the pub and had just opened it so we had a private room with lots of free food. We met some new people including a really nice couple, Ryan and Katie, who had been in Korea for a few months and didn't know that many people based on being the only teachers at their school. We hit it off and made plans to do some stuff in the future. Normally, we just kind of like pub food, but being somewhere where you don't eat it much just makes the times you do eat it so much better.

Sunday, we went to a double feature at the movies. "Let Me In" and "The Social Network" both really good. It was a good weekend as we did some stuff we hadn't done before, which had been becoming rare lately.

This weekend had a few more new things for us to experience. First though, we did an American Thanksgiving dinner with our American friends at VIPS, our go-to buffet restaurant in Uijeongbu. They don't have turkey, but there's lots of other Western food which is probably the best you can do down here for a Thanksgiving imitation.

Saturday was a day we'd been looking forward to for awhile: the hockey game. Now no one would think they have hockey in Korea and well... they kind of don't. There's an Asia Hockey League between Japan, South Korea and China comprised of 7 teams. South Korea has 2 of those 7 and neither of them are in Seoul, so hockey is still under the radar in this country. We went to Anyang which is South of Seoul and a 90 min ride on the subway for us. The arena is small and only seats roughly 1200 fans and 20% of those are probably foreigners. We went with 2 of our friends from Ali's work plus Ryan and Katie, the couple we met the week before. It was actually a pretty fun game with Anyang Halla (don't know what Halla is supposed to mean) losing to the Japanese team, Oji Eagles, 3-2 in overtime. Of course the skill level wasn't up to the same standard as the NHL but it wasn't bad. It was a pretty competitive game throughout. Both teams have a few Foreign players as well so you can still boo someone knowing that they probably understood you.


Work is still the same. I have 13 weeks left and 3 of those are vacation weeks, so that should be fun. Christmas is just around the corner so we bought a Christmas tree. Nothing too big. The weather is around -4 as a low and +8 as a high so pretty close to back home.

The not-so-big tree.

Well that's all for now. Bye!

Yeonpyeong Island

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11825445

Hi everyone!

I don't know if you've heard the recent developments between the North and South but I posted the BBC link above if you haven't followed it. We're all safe and sound here. The island is really far North, right up by North Korea and it's been disputed for ages, it doesn't seem like anywhere else is in danger right now. My South Korean colleagues are, once again, displaying great skepticism about the whole thing and they are positive it won't result in a response from the South. They were right with the sinking of the Korean warship in March so they are probably right again. Anyway, the Canadian embassy is on the alert and will contact us if things begin to escalate so don't worry!

Other than that, everything here is still just peachy.

All the best,

Ali and Jesse

Little France, Veggie Burgers, and Stuff Korea Does Right

Hi Everyone

This week was good, same as usual. One new thing is that, on Thursday, we had our first Korean lesson with our friends Dave, Tom, and Jonathan. A tutor came to Dave and Tom's apartment and gave us lessons for an hour and a half. Hopefully we'll continue lessons until we go and become pretty good at Korean. In our first lesson, we learned about 15 verbs and how to make statements, questions, and commands, both to friends and to important people. It's pretty tough but we're getting the hang of it.

Also, on Thursday, while you were all having Remembrance Day, Korea was celebrating a much less somber holiday. A company, called Pepero, somehow managed to create a massive holiday, solely devoted to the giving of it's product. Pepero is a long cookie/cracker stick, dipped in chocolate. There are now tons of variations on the traditional pepero, some being as long as walking sticks, some being made of a sugar-cone material, some where you dip the stick in strawberry or vanilla icing... but basically, everyone gives everyone else Pepero on 11/11 (so chosen because the number 1 looks like a Pepero stick). Ali got about thirty boxes Peperos from her students but I didn't get any. Luckily, I can eat all of hers.

Here's a pepero display at lotte mart.


Ali has finally found some Korean food she really likes, which is great because now we can go to Korean restaurants where both of us can have a full meal for about $5. Pretty great. In case you're wondering, her favorite Korean dishes are called Rak bokki (ramen noodles, dok bokki noodles (kind of super thick rice noodles), and a hard boiled egg in a super spicy sauce) and chamchi chumok bap (basically canned tuna inside a rice and seaweed ball). They sound not great but are actually really good. And I eat everything so I have fun ordering random dishes off the menu to see what they are.

So, this weekend Ali was supposed to have to work on Saturday but her director changed her mind at the last second so she had the weekend free. On Saturday, we went into Seoul because Ali really needed a new winter coat so we did some shopping in Myeong-dong (a place with American stores). Ali got a coat and some new clothes and then we headed to a new area of Seoul, which is in my book of the Top 100 Things to do in Seoul. The area was called Seorae and it is a small community of French people. There are about 600 French people, more than half of which are children. The international French school is there as well as French bakeries, cafes, and street signs.



It was a really nice neighbourhood, and it was very unlike most of Seoul just because there were lots of living space. It had tree-lined streets, all of which were changing colors, and small tri-plexes, instead of big apartment buildings. We went to a French bakery and got chocolate croissants and baguette and listened to French people talking to their kids in French - it was pretty cool to hear another language for a change. We ate our pastries and walked all over French town looking for this big park, which, after about 2 hours, we gave up looking for because it was impossible to find.


In search of a park.

After that, we went to Itaewon to meet Ali's friend, Jenn and some of her Busan buddies who were in town. We met them for dinner at a place called Gecko's Terrace where Ali finally found a Veggie burger (she was ecstatic) and I had a cheeseburger. It was fantastic. Then, we headed home. Sunday we just relaxed and cleaned and did our Korean homework together.

Now, since we've been here 8 1/2 months, we thought we'd do another post highlighting differences between Korea and Canada, only this time, it's things we've noticed here that Korea does WAY better than Canada and we think someone should work on back home:

Things Korea Does Right:

1) Movie Seats: In Korea, you can choose the seats you will sit in on a little screen when you buy your tickets. This is so nice because you don't need to go into the theatre half an hour before your movie to get the good seats. And, for really popular movies, you can go early, get your tickets and reserve your seats, and then go and have dinner or something and show up right on time and stroll into great seats. The other thing they do here is, if your movie starts at 8:00, the actual movie starts at exactly 8. The previews are before that so you know exactly when the movie will start.

2) Cell Phone Chargers: In Korea, every single cell phone (and there are a lot) all can use a universal cell phone charger. It's great because you can share chargers, have a charger in the office that everyone can use, and restaurants and bars will charge your phone for you while you eat. If you lose a charger, you can borrow from a friend or buy a new one from any company and it won't cost a fortune. It's really nice.

3) Side Dishes: Any Korean restaurant, when you order a meal, or even if you just get drinks, they bring you tons of side dishes. Like, seriously, tons. Just two people eating a $5 meal, we get an average of 6 or 7 side dishes - soups, vegetables, kimchi (of course), meats, seafoods, nuts, etc. Just tons of things. Granted, a lot of the side dishes aren't super delicious to our Western tastes but it does amount to a ton of free food.

3) No tipping: This one is obvious and so awesome. Probably not awesome for the waiters, taxi drivers, etc. but it is awesome for us

4) No taxes: Or, rather, all taxes are included in the price and prices are usually even numbers. So, when you see a price on a menu, that's exactly what the bill will be. Very handy.

4) Yo-gi-yo buttons: In Korean, "yo-gi-yo" basically means 'over here!' so, in most restaurants and bars, you can just yell 'yo-gi-yo' whenever you are ready to order or you want something else or whatever. But, even better than having to yell at someone in a crowded restaurant, most places have a button on the table you press and your waiter comes right over. It's not rude or anything and it's much easier than having to try to get someone's attention when you want the bill or wait for them to come check on you.

5) Crime: Korea is ridiculously safe. We've talked about this a few times but the crime rate is so low here that it's amazing.

6) Convenience Stores: Convenience stores here are everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. And you can buy all your normal convenience store stuff but also can buy coffee, or ramen noodles or sandwiches, kimbap (like sushi, kind of), and a bunch of other 'meal stuff' as opposed to just snacks. If you're starving, you can go buy a cup of dry noodles for, like 60 cents and then they have hot water and chopsticks and everything so you can just eat it right there. Very convenient.

7) Free Samples: At grocery stores, on every day of the week, all day long, there are millions of free sample people. At least one in every aisle. It makes grocery shopping pretty good.

8) Bringing in Outside Food: Here, no one cares if you bring your own food to the movies, to sports games, to restaurants - whatever. It's all good. In fact, some baseball stadiums have special seats with grills so you can bring your own meat and have a little BBQ at your table.

9) Shopping Carts: Here, shopping carts never have a bad wheel and they can maneuver with ease. I don't know how they do it but it's very pleasant.

Anyway, these are just some of the things we really like about Korea and that will be hard to adjust to not having when we go back home. Korea can be difficult a lot of the time with language and cultural differences but sometimes they do things that just make a lot more sense than the way we do them.

That's it for this week,

Ali and Jesse

hilarious birthday occurrence

So, it was Jesse's birthday on the 4th and so I got him a bunch of new clothes. He put them on and we went to the grocery store - I know, sweet birthday celebration - and, obviously, the clothes were good because, walking down an aisle, this group of three 15-year-old girls saw him and gasped.

"SO HANDSOME!"
Then they pointed to me and him and said "Love?"
And I said yes and they all started cheering and shaking my hand and yelling "Bravo!"

Pretty excellent.

Musicals and Meat Buffets

Hi everyone!

Well, it's now November and we've been in Korea 8 months! Time is really flying now and it feels like we'll be home before we know it.

Happy Halloween to everyone! They don't do Halloween in Korea, really, but my school had a Halloween party because of all the foreign teachers. It was really hard to find a costume here because not many people buy them so I ended up making a very unattractive giraffe costume. My kids had fun in costumes and making 'trick or treat' bags, witches brew, and doing face-painting.

This weekend wasn't too exciting. I had to work on Saturday because my kids had their huge play for their parents and families that they've been practicing for for months. My school got a huge auditorium at a nearby university and it was decorated to the nines with giant balloon sculptures and inflatable rainbows and all kinds of stuff. Each kindergarden class put on a performance. The 7-year olds (6 years old in Canada) all did musicals and the 5 and 6 year olds did ballet performances, songs, and speeches. It was really high stress for the teachers because parents approval is insanely important at hagwons (private schools). All the Korean teachers were super stressed out and were freaking out on the kids if they were doing anything wrong.

My Einstein class was doing a Snow White musical, complete with really fantastic costumes and soundtrack and my Edison class did a Pinocchio musical. My Newton class is only 6 so they did a ballet and sang 'Raindrops are Falling on my Head' and did speeches about their dreams, interests, and people they admire.


My scene in Einstein's play. Pretty sweet.

I was really proud of all my students and they did great. I think the parents were happy - at least none of them complained. And the principal, Mrs. Lyu, seemed satisfied as well. Jesse came and watched the performances and helped clean up afterwards. Then my principal paid for all the teachers do go out for dinner together.

We went to a 'meat buffet' where you could choose from lots of different kinds of meats and grill them at your table. I got rice and kimchi jigae - a spicy soup - but everyone else had a meat feast. After dinner my boss took all the teachers to a noraebong (kareoke place) and we sang songs late into the night.

Sunday we just lazed around and watched Halloween specials and went over to our friend's place in the afternoon to visit with our friends, Katelyn and Mallory, who finished here a few months ago and have been traveling South East Asia since then. They're only back for a few days before they head home so we just hung out with them and heard about their trip.

On Monday, I had the morning off, because I worked on Saturday, and Jesse had the whole day off because his school chose to celebrate the anniversary of their opening by closing. We just relaxed in the morning and didn't do much of anything.

This blog has mostly been about my stuff - not much is new with Jesse. He says his work is the same and so is everything else.

In November, Jesse and I and some friends have signed up for private Korean lessons. It's a bit late in the game but we would like to leave knowing at least a basic understanding of the language. Jesse has been studying a lot on his own so he's, by far, the most advanced out of all of us but we've all agreed to start at the beginning.

Anyway, sorry for another unexciting blog. We don't have much planned for next weekend, either, so I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat for that one.

Hope all is well! Miss you all.

Ali and Jesse