Thanksgiving

We had a thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Our friends Tom and Lindsey from back home came, as well as our newer friends Kitho from North Carolina, Min-Hwa from Busan, Korea, and Noor from the Netherlands. It was Min-Hwa and Noor's first time celebrating thanksgiving.

Katie prepared pies and stuffing, Kitho made mashed potatoes, Tom and Lindsey brought some wine, I made sweet potatoes. Unfortunately turkey isn't very easy to get or affordable here, so we had to have a roast chicken instead. But it wasn't too far from a traditional meal.

After dinner and pies, and a few bottles of wine, we played some Wii games.

Then we had a couple of bottles of soju.

And then we we were ready to go to NORAEBANG (고래방). Not exactly traditional, but it was fun anyway.

There's a Noraebang near our place that I've wanted to go to for a while. Noraebangs are very prevalent. You cannot walk down any street without seeing several (Unless, of course, you can't read korean, in which case you'd be oblivious). And so, because of their prevalence, they try to differentiate themselves. This particular Noraebang tries to set itself apart from the rest by having a creepy alien-nest theme. Each of the Noraebang singing rooms is covered in a plaster to look like some sort of alien plant is growing over them. And there are creepy statues everywhere. Inside the nest-rooms, though, is just your typical Noraebang set-up. Several television sets for the Karaoke part, lined with benches, a giant remote control to input the songs, and some tamborines.

All Noraebangs have an English language section, though I'm beginning to realize that they all have the same crappy selection. Still it's a couple of hundred english songs to choose from.

We paid up front for an hour at 15,000 won (about 15 dollars) and sang to our hearts content and until our voices were fading.

It was a strange but satisfying thanksgiving.

Korean tastes

Some interesting things I have discovered about food in Korea in the past few weeks:

First, I taught a lesson on recipes to my students last week. The recipes chosen as examples for an activity were chili con carne and pancakes. I expected that these dishes would be popular with students since brown-sugar filled pancakes are a popular street food and the flavor of chili closely resembles several spicy Korean dishes. While showing a cooking video of a chef making chili, the students were fine...they watched intently as she cooked the onions, peppers, and ground meat in a pan. Then came the time to add the beans, and in each class, the pouring of the beans into the pan aroused a sound of protest from the students. This sound of protest turned to utter disgust when she added tomatoes (according to the co-teacher they were saying "dog-food" in Korean), and finally outright indignation when she plopped a dollop of sour cream on top. One student asked me "Do you eat that?!" I realize in hindsight that Koreans really do take seriously the idea that tomatoes are a fruit (as evidenced by their appearance in several sweet cafeteria fruit salads - to my dismay) and beans are typically seen as a sweetened filling for rice cakes or candies. They did like the pancakes though. Second, with the advent of Thanksgiving, I have been trying to find turkey. When talking with my co-teachers about turkey and telling them how much I like it, I was surprised to find that those who had tried turkey before (usually on trips to the US or Canada) absolutely hated it. I don't really understand why. I tried to tell them it's just like chicken, but better, and they give me a weird look. Could all of America really be wrong? Is our most delicious poultry product really that disgusting to the rest of the world? While Koreans eat chicken, I think they are much bigger fans of pork and beef (and various types of disgusting-looking seafood). Maybe they just don't love poultry the way we do in the US. It explains why on my first trip to Costco in Korea I found spicy pork bakes instead of the classically delicious chicken bake. Luckily when we went yesterday the chicken bakes magically appeared and I heartily indulged myself.

While restaurants in Korea are cheap and plentiful, it's just not the same as home.

By Katie

Katie vs. Bukhansan

My co-teacher Faith has for weeks been excited for me to her friend Barbara who teaches at Indian Head International school just north of here. Apparently Barbara is a pretty avid hiker, so my opportunity to meet her came this last weekend when Faith invited me to hike 8 of the 12 fortress gates of Bukhansan. Richy decided that he preferred to spend his Saturday engaged in more leisurely pursuits.

I got up on Saturday at my usual weekday wake up time of 7:00am, dressed, ate breakfast, and took the 15 minute walk to Suyu station. There, I saw a group of older Korean men greeting each other, dressed in typical Korean hiking fashion. I stood there awkwardly as we stared at each other, wondering whether we were in the same hiking party, but too reserved to ask. When Faith showed up it turned out these were the other teachers we were hiking with, from a nearby high school. Here, I'll introduce them by their nicknames: Kenny Rogers (so called because he sings Kenny Rogers songs well at Norebang, and insisted on singing a few as we were hiking), a math teacher who seemed to speak the least English of the group, and made a point to brag about his son who lives and works in the US. When I asked him what his son did for work he replied, "Server. Do you know DQ? He serve ice cream there. And study English." The official leader of our group (although I am not sure why) was a social studies teacher by the nickname of Kisaro (again, a song-related name of some sort) who spoke good English and was very kind to everyone throughout the trip. Finally, the official photographer of our group was Andy who has apparently traveled and hiked extensively throughout the world, including Mt. Rainier and Glacier National Park, so he was very eager to talk to me about hiking in the Pacific Northwest.

I was also soon introduced to Barbara, a woman in her mid to late 60's who has taught all over the world, hikes like a teenager and who seems like an altogether cool person, originally from Colorado. I was also introduced to Annie, a 27-year-old teacher at a nearby private elementary school who lives with her husband (also a teacher) in the dorms at Indian Head school (that's how she knows Barbara).

We all caught a bus from Suyu to the trail head which took about 30 minutes. It also took us through one of the quaintest areas of Seoul that I have seen so far: ornate copper light posts, cute little shops in old traditional buildings, and bright fall colors all around. Right at the trail head was an expensive hotel boasting a "sky view" restaurant which looked like a miniature, boxy version of the space needle.

The first leg of our hike was long, rocky and steep, but as soon as we reached the first gate of the ancient fortress wall (originally built in 132 AD and modified, extended and rebuilt many times since) the hike leveled out a bit and turned into more of a long walk for a few hours. Kisaro soon led us away from the wall and we found ourselves taking "shortcuts" that took us up and over a series of steep granite peaks. At the fifth gate we sat down and ate a lunch of a various types of rice cakes, persimmon, and homemade wine. Then came the most strenuous part of the journey, where we went all the way up and all the way down three separate peaks, and at some points we were hoisting ourselves up cables and poles much like my first Korean hiking experience.

The last three gates passed anticlimactically and we ended our journey surrounded by tour buses near the grand South gate of the fortress, where tourist shops have set themselves up to specialize in food and hiking gear. Also Annie, Barbara and I ended the hike with new nicknames: Ms. Minnesota, Ms. Colorado, and Ms. Washington. I guess we seem like beauty queens in Korean eyes. We were invited to dinner, but since Barbara is a strict vegetarian who avoids eating in Korean restaurants whenever possible, and since I wanted to get home to have dinner with Richy, we ended up getting a ride home with a fourth male Korean teacher who had apparently decided not to come on the hike in order to help his wife make kimchi. He was introduced to me as Magpie and seemed to speak no English whatsoever, but had a good taste in music as evidenced by what was played on his car radio.

While I enjoyed the 7+ hour hike (we started at 9am and finished at 6pm, but took some breaks along the way), the fact that my thighs feel like they're screaming every time I move two days later makes me hesitant to want to go again anytime soon. Maybe climbing Korean mountains once every other month or so is enough...


By Katie

A trip to the circus (aka: 5 hours on several buses for a 2 hour performance)

Our friend Min Hwa invited us to come with her to a traditional Korean circus outside of Seoul. It's the same type of performance (and some of the same performers) as featured in the popular Korean movie: The King and the Clown (which you should be able to find with English subtitles if interested). Min Hwa is not from Seoul, but from the city of Busan in the South, so she's interested in the same kind of touristy stuff we are. We met her at a bus station and when we got there from the subway (a little later than expected) she had already bought our bus tickets for us. So we purchased a few snacks and hopped on the bus, no questions asked.

An hour and thirty minutes later, we show up at the bus station in Ansan. We get off the bus, and immediately Min Hwa looks upset and confused.  She says were looking for a local bus number 15, but she doesn't see anything like it. We go inside and ask, she gets a more confused and upset look on her face. Then she tells us to wait outside while she gets more information. So we wait outside and try to enjoy the sunny autumn day and contemplate why Korea lacks a certain charm you usually find in other places while traveling.

Min Hwa takes forever, so we go back inside to find her, now looking very nervous and embarrassed. Turns out we took the bus to Ansan instead of Ansang, which are similar-sounding, but two totally different places. We do a little more wandering around, Min Hwa apologizes profusely for buying us the wrong tickets, and we try to make her feel better by telling her that it's okay; we like a good adventure (not only that, but it did make me feel better that even native speakers of Korean can have a hard time differentiating the sounds). We decide to carry on with our journey instead of taking the bus right back to Seoul, so we buy bus tickets to Ansang this time, accepting the fact that we'll be a little late for the performance.

Another two hours later, we arrive in Ansang, and the bus driver instructs us to find a taxi to where we're going to save time. So we do, the cab driver knows where it is, and takes us there. We're a little late, but easily find a comfortable place to sit among the crowd of mostly parents and children. The show is free, funded by the government in order to promote tourism in the small town. Min Hwa translates some of what the performers are saying to the crowd and we shiver in the cold, clapping along to keep warm while watching the performers jump and dance and twirl and bang instruments. At one point some gymnasts look for foreigners to pick on in the crowd, but luckily we were in the shadows so the guy didn't notice all the Korean kids pointing at us screaming "Yo-gi! Yo-gi!" (Over here! Over here!). Instead he found a skinny, nerdy Japanese guy who spoke no Korean to pick on. It was pretty funny.

When the show was over we called the cab driver to come pick us up and rode another bus for two hours back into Seoul. Then we had another hour on the subway to get back. It was an exhausting day even though we were sitting the whole time. I would like to go back sometime in the spring or summer, when the weather is warmer and we know to pay attention to the "g" sound at the end of Korean place names.

by Katie

Sports Day

Male Teachers vs. Third Grade (9th graders) boys. The mostly older, out of shape male teachers and I faced off against the much more fit and trained third grade boys soccer players. I dreaded it all day. Waiting to have to play soccer in front of the intently watching eyes of several hundred middle school students, whose eyes automatically affix themselves to my strange features and foreign ways.

I awkwardly walked onto the field, a sandy gravel courtyard between the three buildings of the school, and donned a bright green jersey. I was wearing a brand new pair of the cheapest running shoes I could find, which I purchased the night before in preparation for this event, and I'd changed out of my dress shirt, too. I was still wearing my baggy khakis, which have either gotten bigger on me since we arrived because of the lack of a dryer, or I've gotten smaller from all of the kimchi. (I have been told more than once that my face looks thinner.) Nevertheless, as the token white guy on the team, the other teachers had every intention of me looking nice out there, but of keeping the ball away from me.

It came to me twice. The first time was a tall lob from the other side of the field, and I cowered and nudged the ball with my upper arm as it fell from the sky, tried to kick it, and it was taken away by one of the third graders. They made me take the far side, and intended for me to run up close to the goal. But the ball never came my way. Against younger and more fit opponents, the fit male P.E. teachers were doing more than there fair share keeping up the defense.

The boys team quickly scored a goal. Play resumed. A couple of the male teachers on the opposite side of the field could get the ball close to the net. One of them passed, another shot. The goalie dove effortlessly to catch the ball. One of the male teachers ran up and kicked it out of his hands. Less than honorable, but accepted by the male teacher referee.

It was a tie game. A little back and forth, the boys were going easy on the teachers. I decided it was time to take off my jacket, look a little more serious. I handed it to a student, put my jersey back on and ran up to the opposing teams goal. The teachers were getting closer, but couldn't score. The boys weren't getting the ball to their side either. The male teachers had no intention of losing to their students.

Then it happened. The ball was coming down my side, there was a wide gap, no students were defending against me. Someone passed the ball, it came straight to me. I looked around, I was the farthest forward, there was no one to pass the ball to. I only had one choice, to shoot. I hesitated, and then dribbled the ball forward, shot and, goal!

High fives ensued, the students cheered. The male teachers were glowing with joy, and perhaps frustration that they themselves didn't score the goal. The game was ended immediately, to ensure the male teachers victory.

As I walked back to my office, in front of all the students, they erupted in cheers and called for high fives. I enjoyed a moment of celebrity, the closest I'll ever come to being a sports star.