Flights and Farewells

Hello everyone,
So we haven't posted a new entry for a few weeks now and that's because we haven't really done anything new and exciting over here during that time. That's soon to change as our Chuseok Jeju island trip approaches, but we thought we would check in now and let you know what we've been up to so you don't think we've just been watching paint dry this whole time.

Two weekends ago, six of our friends were all leaving for home so it was a weekend full of goodbye parties. On the Friday night the party was an Ajima-Ajashi theme. That means people were supposed to dress up like old Korean women and men in their very distinctive style of dress. Old Korean women wear lots of floral, MC Hammer style pants, giant sun visors, long gloves, and often aprons. Korean men are less distinctive but often wear arm warmers, hiking gear, and similar stuff to old men in Canada with socks pulled up to their knees, collared t-shirts, etc. Anyway, lots of people didn't really dress up because they were afraid of offending everyone. Ali and I just bought sun visors in a half-hearted costume attempt.

We all went for galbi (a huge group of us) and then went to a bar downtown which is one of the only bars that permits US military so it was, consequently, jammed with military guys. Not the most fun ever.


Here's a big group shot of us and our friends outside the galbi restaurant.

The next day we were supposed to have a goodbye party on the roof of one of our friend's apartments but, because monsoon season was delayed this year, it was pouring. Instead, people rented out a huge hotel room for the goodbye party. It was lots of fun with tons of great food but then the hotel staff started freaking out seeing all the waygooks (foreigners) coming past the front desk so we moved to our friend's apartment and had lots of fun anyway, but it was really sad saying goodbye to our friends.

Last week, Ali went to Canada for her cousin's wedding, leaving me here to fend for myself. Since Ali saw most of the people that read this blog, there's no need to go into much detail on her trip.
The day she was leaving was slightly exciting because we both saw our first typhoon. It petered out by mid-morning but it was just crazy strong winds and rain. Apparently five people died from it in Seoul. There was lots of damage to be seen and Ali's morning classes were canceled. Pretty exciting and thankfully her flights weren't delayed because of it.
While she was gone, I had to make appearances to represent the Ali-Jesse image so we wouldn't be forgotten. I went out with Ali's coworkers for a Korean dinner and had a funny encounter. Outside the restaurant, a mother and child were walking by when the mother stopped and said "English teacher?" It turned out I taught her daughter (1 of 350 kids I teach so it's hard to remember them all). I was expecting to say a quick "hi" but the mother wanted me to have a conversation with her daughter (so I guess she could see the English she's learned). The only problem was the daughter was very shy and was clinging to her mom's leg. I said "how are you?" to her and she answered while still hiding behind her mom. The mother then said to me, "She wants to ask you question." She then grabbed her daughter's arm and pushed her towards me. "You ask teacher question now." The girl in her most timid voice says, "How are you?" I said, "I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Are you going to dinner now?" That must've too much for because she was back hiding behind her mom. Then the mom yanks her arm again to push her towards me to talk. It went like this for about a minute. The parents really want to see their children use English with a foreigner. Not sure if the mother thinks I'm a bad teacher though, given how little confidence her daughter had with me.

Later in the evening, we went to a norae-bang (karaoke) because there was a couple of new people with us who hadn't been yet, so that was fun.

The next day I went to a baseball game with everyone, taking advantage of Ali's absence since our opinions on baseball differ greatly. I have fun at baseball games but this one was very hot even though it started at 5pm. The heat has been bad for awhile now and only recently has shown signs of slowing down in exchange for warm damp days.

This weekend Ali had to work on Saturday to compensate for the extra day she gets off at Chuseok. She didn't get home until 8 on Saturday so we didn't do anything. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will probably just relax around Uijeongbu because Ali is still getting over her jet-lag and it's only a one-day weekend for her.

Anyway, it's only one more week until Chuseok so we'll let you know how that goes.

Talk to you soon,

Ali and Jesse

Climbing and Cookin'

Hey everyone,

Another week done and we can now say we're past the first quarter. Three months have gone by much faster than expected as it only seems like we landed three weeks ago.

The work week was great because we had a day off on Wednesday due to elections - a custom we hope Canada will embrace. I've now had 5 days off in 5 weeks, which has made time fly, but alas, the holidays are coming to an end. It's good that the elections are done with, just so that we can now walk around the city without getting bombarded with cheers and cards from the people campaigning. There's no recent news in terms of the North Korean situation but the election results might shed some light on what Korean people think of the situation. My understanding - which could be very wrong - is that many South Koreans thought that the the ship sinking and threats being thrown from both sides were being blown out of proportion on purpose by the President. Lee Myung-Bak is the most conservative, anti-North President that the South has had in quite a long time, so people's thoughts were that he was trying to drum up support for his party by exemplifying how bad the North is. Well, the election results had Lee's party losing a lot of seats so maybe many people think the new tough stance against the North - the stance that was taken long before the ship sinking - has been unnecessary and lead to more problems. This is just conjecture on my part, but many Koreans have told us they thought the Government has been trying to make the tensions seem worse.

With everyone out voting, Ali and I decided to spend the day by the river. By river, I mean the 10 feet wide stream that I walk over every day on my way to work. We always saw families hanging out on the little strip of greenery (there isn't a lot of green space so people get it where they can), putting up tents, playing badminton, throwing a ball, so we decided to give Uijeongbu's version of a beach a try. We set up shop under an umbrella but it was way too hot to stay for long. The temperature is pushing close to 30 degrees now. So we ended up making a big salad dinner and seeing a movie.

Our little make-shift set up at the river.

Thursday night, Ali and I headed to what the foreigners call "Ajima aerobics". "Ajima" is the name for old Korean women and every week by the river here, a woman leads an aerobics class and at least a hundred people gather and join in. Since we've been starting to get some exercise, we joined in on the fun. It was pretty hilarious because the 'work-out' was a lot more like choreographed dances (which we obviously didn't know and couldn't follow from really far back) and arm-waving and hip shaking. It was lots of fun and pretty cool to see so many old ladies shaking their rumps out there. That seems to be a cultural difference here; everywhere you look, there's usually someone doing some kind of work out, whether it's stretching or mountain climbing or using one of the machines scattered across this city.

On Saturday, a group of public school elementary Foreign teachers were getting with some of the Korean co-teachers to climb a mountain. It was organized by the Uijeongbu Office of Education so it felt like I was supposed to go. Ali could've gone but she wasn't in the mountain climbing mood that day because it was really hot out. I've never really been one to climb or hike or even walk up any type of slope, but it seemed to make little sense to be surrounded by mountains and never climb one. It ended up being a great experience, though. Not only did I get some exercise, but I met a lot of Foreign teachers who are in the same boat as me. Now, granted, very little climbing was involved - although there was one part where I had to hold a rope and walk up some rocks - but I still feel I can say I successfully climbed my first Korean mountain. It turned out to be an "amateur mountain" as one of the Koreans said, and several people in their 60's passed me, but nevertheless, I was impressed with my success. I plan to go back with Ali one day and we might have a picnic up on the peak. The group also went out for dinner which was all paid for, so that was nice.

Me at the peak of our 'beginner mountain'


The group of English teachers at the top.

After, not doing too much Friday and Saturday, Ali and I decided we needed to something on Sunday, so we decided to go see Nanta, a Korean somewhat non-verbal performance that is about a group of cooks trying to get several meals ready for a 6:00 wedding all the while using the various kitchen utensils to drum rhythmic beats. Think Stomp meets Korean cooking. The show is actually well known internationally; although, I'd never heard of it, it's played in over 30 countries, including a run on Broadway. The show ended up being a lot of fun. There was little actual dialogue, and what was spoken was sometimes in Korean, the humour was of the slapstick variety and the actual drumming and tricks the cast performed was very impressive. The show did drag a bit in a couple of spots but overall it very enjoyable.


These weren't our photos - we weren't allowed to take any - but this is what it was like.


We also spent our day doing some shopping. We discovered a big shopping district that has a lot of the American clothes stores like H&M, The Gap and, many others.

Well, the holidays are over so it's looks like we're back to the 5-day work week. Hopefully, we'll manage.

Love,
Ali and Jesse