I want to catch you up on some pictures of the past month.

First, Chuseok at school:

I took this video as I walked into the classroom.  Like last year, everyone came to school dressed in their traditional hanbok.  The video continues until Thomas - the first one hiding under the table - jumped on me.

We gathered in the library.

They practiced their bows.

Then we went outside to play games.

This is Thomas.  As you can tell from the video and this picture, he doesn't like having his picture taken.  But then he got a hold of my camera and took a few pictures. They weren't bad.  Here are a couple.

I like the fuzziness of this one.

Then, for the Chuseok long weekend, a group of us went to Seoul.  We walked around the many different areas of Seoul and ate a lot of good food.

This was in Insadong

On Sunday, some of us went to the largest church in the world.

Inside.  They had a specific section for foreigners where you could listen to a translation of the sermon in seven different languages.  It was certainly a big building.  There are church buildings about as big as it in Grand Rapids, but what makes this the largest church in the world is the amount of services they have.  I'm not sure how many that is, but we attended one at around 2:00 and when we got there, there were large numbers of buses leaving from the service before us.  I think they probably run all day.

And we went to a coffee shop which had Dr. Fish - where you sit with your feet in a tub full of fish that eat your dead skin cells.  It was so ticklish that it was hardly bearable.

And we went to another strange coffee shop: The Cat Cafe.  It's a coffee shop with about 20 cats of different varieties just wandering around, walking over your tables and inside your bags.  It was kinda cool, but also kinda strange.

They even had one of those hairless Russian cats.

Then my friend Frank (on the left), who lives in Seoul, took us to the river where we found a playground with a merry-go-round.

And then to an island on the river with a relaxing park.

And that was our trip to Seoul.

Then this last weekend, we went to Boegyeongsa (the nearby temple and mountain that I like so much).

We hiked up quite a bit of the mountain this time - almost to the top.  It was a beautiful day.

That's me at the top.

 Let my finish with a short, romantic tragedy from my kindergarten class:  

 At the end of every month, we have a birthday party for the students who had birthdays in that month.   At one point in the birthday party, as a good photo opportunity, we ask each student to call someone up from their class (who isn’t also celebrating a birthday) to give them a birthday hug.  Sometimes the birthday hug also comes along with a birthday kiss!  Now, in my class I have three girls and eight boys.  And, maybe because there are fewer girls than boys, the children have already decided which boy each girl is going to marry.  Ruby and Andrew, Rachel and Robin, and Ellen and Alex.  My kindergarten tragedy occurs between the last of these couples: Ellen and Alex.  You see, whenever it’s one of these students’ birthdays they predictably call up their ‘assigned’ significant other for their birthday hug (and sometimes kiss)…  except in September… because Ellen’s and Alex’s birthdays are both in September…  so they can’t give each other a birthday hug/kiss because when it comes time for it, the other isn’t in the crowd of students who they can choose from...  Isn’t that so sad?

Thanks for reading,
Michael

Observations: Sounds, Smells, Tastes, and Feelings

Continuing with my sensory observations of Korea:

Sounds of Korea:
- Car horns: Koreans blow their horns a lot more often than in North America, but certainly not as incessantly as in Vietnam.  Something that is unique to Korean horns is the variety of horn sounds.  On top of your regular sounding 'honk honk', there's the 'fading foghorn' which is a three second horn that starts loud and then gets softer, as well as the 'ice-cream-truck' horn that blares a quick little diddy that can be heard by anyone within a kilometer.
- Roving truck vendors: A number of times in the past, on Saturday mornings, when I'm trying to sleep in, I'm awoken by an extra loud, loud speaker giving some sort of automated message in Korean. At first, it sounded to me like some sort of communist public announcement calling everyone to the city square for an important government message.  Later on I realized it was just someone selling something (usually fruits or vegetables) out the back of his or her truck and felt like everyone (including those still in bed) would like to hear about it.
- Construction: If these truck vendors don't wake me up, the construction at 6:00 a.m. usually does.
- K-Pop: Korean pop songs are everywhere.  It seems like every store plays the same K-Pop songs over and over.  And every Korean's ring tone is also one of those K-Pop songs.
- If a store or coffee shop isn't playing a K-Pop song, there's a chance that they are playing a very inappropriate American rap song .  One coffee shop downtown only plays these songs, and it plays them loud.  The funny part is, I'm sure the person responsible for such a horrible music choice has no idea what the words are.  And there we are sipping on our hot chocolates listening to songs we wouldn't even here on radio stations back home because the lyrics are so bad.
- Korean: Of course this is an obvious one, but to be living in a place where I don't speak or understand the language a strange reality, when you think about it.

Smells of Korea
- Jukto Market:  I've never been in a place with such a variety of strange smells.  I haven't lived on the coast before so the smells of the sea are new to me.  These smells are everywhere in this city, and are especially concentrated in Jukto Market.
- Scented Toilet Paper: strange eh?
- Cigarettes: Either Koreans smoke more than North Americans or a lot of the foreigners of Pohang smoke or both.  I'm pretty sure it's both.
- Barf: This past weekend, there was this one spot on this one road where someone must have puked out everything they had.  I know it has been there for a number of days because I scooted through it three times.
- Urine: Korean men have a tendency to just go wherever, whenever.  So every once in a while, you get an unpleasant whiff.

Tastes of Korea:
- There are a lot of new tastes which are a part of Korea food.  I won't dive into all of them now, but suffice it to say that most of them include either kimchi, red bean paste, or the red Korean spice that is in almost everything here.
- My favourite food in Korea has become Pizza Toast.  This one small road-side shop makes it for 2,000 won (2 bucks) and it's wonderful.
- Makkoli and Soju: Korean rice wines.  Makkoli is decent, and Soju is just rubbing alcohol in my opinion.
- Sweet potato chips: it's hard to find chips that are salty, not sweet.

Tastes Not In Korea:
- Cheese:  This isn't completely true; some foods do include cheese here, but they're usually foreign foods.  It is impossible to buy regular mozzarella or cheddar in Pohang.
- Spices: Almost all spices that I grew up with are not found in Korean foods or grocery stores.
- Good chocolate

Feelings of Korea:
(I realize that these feelings don't have anything to do with the sense of touch, but that's ok).
- Scooting!: such a great feeling.
- Confusion: when a person is talking to you in Korean and expects you to understand, but you just can't.
- Frustration: when my students don't understand the words that I'm saying, but I just keep rattling on oblivious to it.  (Hmm these last two are similar aren't they).
- Fatigue: I'm tired often.  I try to get enough sleep, but it just never seems enough.  Maybe it's because I can't sleep in on Saturdays.
- Contentment: when I'm spending time with friends and I realize how lucky I am for all I have here.
- Sadness: when I wish I could be back in Toronto or Grand Rapids or Gallup to be with those friends and family.
- Uncertainty: about what I'll do after Korea.  Excitement is a part of this too, because I have a lot of options.

Two weekends ago was Chuseok and I'd like to add some pictures from that, but our internet connection isn't working really well lately.  So maybe later.

Thanks for reading,
Michael

Due to an extra busy Wednesday and a falty internet connection, I wasn't able to write this weeks blog. So I will take this week as a holiday. I will also be changing my scheduled blog writing day again. Instead of writing on Wednesday, I will be writing my blog on Mondays from now on.
Thanks,
Michael

Observations: Sights of Korea

In my kindergarten science class we are learning about observing things with our five senses.  This week, we observed a balloon, hand sanitizer, and gummy bears.  This gave me an idea for my blog.  There are still differences about Korea that I haven't written about.  So here is a list of some, not very scientific, observations about Korea.  Some of them will overlap with observations I've already written about, and I probably won't get through all five senses in this blog.

Sights of Korea:
- Buddhist temples: Toronto is pretty culturally and religiously diverse, but I've never had a temple in my neighbourhood or discovered one on a hiking trip through the forest before.  There are quite a few in and around Pohang and I find them pretty interesting.  They're certainly beautiful.
 - Fluorescent lights:  Alisa said that the red fluorescent church crosses were the first thing she noticed about Korea.  It seems like every church has one and there are a lot of churches.  Also, Pohang is known for its mega steel factory, Posco, not just because it's one of the biggest in the world, but also because the whole thing lights up at night with fluorescent lights.
- Squatter toilets: I try to avoid them.
- Old, run-down buildings: In most of the cities I've visited, there are areas of old buildings that look tired and worn-out.  They have a lot of character though.
- Extreme construction: This might be unique to Pohang, but there are buildings going up everywhere around here; tall cranes all over.
- Apartment building density: Korea loves apartment buildings.  In the big cities, they're everywhere, all packed together.
- Hunched older women: Often the older women that I see around town walk with quite a dramatic hunch.  I'm guessing this is a result of years of farm work.
- Couples clothing:

- Coffee shops: are booming business in Korea.  There are at least 5 within a 1 km radius at Bukbu beach.
- Hagwans: It seems like every busy corner has at least one academy of some kind.
- Roadside markets: I've come across a number of these markets on random streets in Pohang.  They're fun to walk through.
- Red light districts
- Marines: both American and Korean.  This is somewhat specific to Pohang because we have a big marine base nearby.  It's common to see guys around town, even at the beach, in full uniform.
(Sadly, I've read that these last two are closely related)
- Strange side dishes: Tiny little fish, or Beondegi (steamed silkworm pupae)

It tastes as bad as it looks and it smells even worse.

 Things you don't see in Korea:
- Stop signs: Most minor intersections don't have any signage.  So either people slow down for them or lay on the horn as they fly through them.  I've seen a couple of fender benders just in our neighbourhood.
- Public garbage cans: This bugs me to no end.
- Homelessness: I hadn't thought about it until someone brought it up, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of homeless in Korean cities.  Although, I haven't looked into this observation.
- 4th floors: In Korean, the number four is "Sa", which is similar to the word for death.  So most apartment buildings and hospitals don't include the 4th floor.  It's not unique to Korea though.  Tetraphobia, which it is officially called, is found in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan for the same reasons.  What these countries have in common is an influence of the Chinese language, from which this association originates.

I'll leave it at that for now.  Next week, I'll try to finish the rest of the senses.

Crab update: Our classroom crabs are still alive; the rice has sustained them thus far.  And today, one of them shed it's skin!  So now we have 2 live crabs and an exoskeleton in our small tank.  Apparently, their leftover skin has essential nutrients and the crabs eat it.  I hope you're eating right now.

Thanks for reading,
Michael

About a month ago, one of Alisa's kindergartners found a salamander-like lizard around the school.  They put it in a small plastic aquarium and kept it for a quite a while.  My student's favourite thing to do at recess was to go catch bugs to feed to Batman, it's name.  Batman has since died, quite dramatically according to Alisa, but since then my students have been wanting to have a class pet of their own.  Not long after, the parents got behind the idea and Chavie let me know that soon they would be buying us a class pet - a bird.  Hmm, a chirping bird in a kindergarten class: definitely not the smartest idea, we decided.  Chavie must have passed on our concerns to the parents because on Monday morning, when I walked into our classroom, there was, not a bird, but two, much quieter pets on my desk ... crabs!  To be honest, I don't think I'd ever seen a crab up close before.  Let me tell you, they are the strangest looking creators.  I'm pretty sure ours are fiddler crabs. They look a little like this.

It's fun to just watch them.  When they come up out of the water, they always blow bubbles for a couple minutes, and they always seem to be grooming themselves with their front claws.  They are quite bazaar.
But I'm not sure any of us know how to care for our new pet crabs exactly.  They're in a pretty small container and we've been feeding them rice, which just doesn't seem right to me.  I guess we'll see how long they last.

The other big news of the week is that the Track and Field World Championships are happening right now about an hour and a half away, in Daegu.  They're not the olympics, but I still think it's cool.  Some of my friends went to see Usain Bolt run on Sunday.  Unfortunately, he false started and was disqualified.  I'm thinking I might go this Sunday to catch the end of it.  As it is, I'm enjoying watching the highlights on TV every night.

These two stories are connected because my kids have named one of our crabs Usain Bolt.

On a sad note, Japan Dan has left Pohang and gone back to Japan.  I'm bummed to see him go, but we're planning a trip to Cambodia over Christmas and we'll see him then.  Also, Frank, the board game guy is leaving this week.  He's such a great guy, a lot of people will miss him.

Thanks for reading,
Michael

Let It Be

At school, Chavie, my co-teacher, has been playing songs by the Beatles and teaching my kindergarteners about the Beatles during the breaks lately.  I think the song "Let It Be" must be Chavie's favorite Beatles song because my kids have picked it up pretty quickly.  Also, now when one of my students is angry or frustrated about something, my class has become quick to tell them to "let it be", like this:  (Thomas, sulkingly) "You never give me the new eraser."  (Danny and Luby, directly) "Let it be."  And that's the end of it.  It works pretty well and it cracks me up every time.

Lately I've been feeling homesick because of page numbers.  When we get to pg. 131 in a book at school, it reminds me of highway 131 in Grand Rapids and then I miss all my friends and the good times from Calvin.  And when we come to pg. 66, it reminds me of rout 66 through Gallup and then I miss my friends and the red rocks of Gallup.  And if any of our books had 401 pages, it would make me miss Toronto.  But none of them do, so I don't miss Toronto.  Just joking.

Kids are sponges.  Earlier, I wrote about one of my students, Ellen, who went to New Zealand for a few months.  Well, she's back, and she has a pretty strong kiwi accent.  I think it's amazing how she picked up such an accent in a short amount of time.  No adult could do that.  But I don't know what the rest of my kindergartens think.  I haven't brought it up and they haven't said anything about it, but I'm sure they have noticed because it's hard to understand her sometimes.  So funny.

This past weekend brought two new experiences for me.  First, on Friday, a group of us went to a restaurant none of us had been to before.  That's because this restaurant serves dog meat.  If I haven't mentioned it yet, Koreans, a lot of them at least, eat dog meat.  I didn't know this until I had gotten to Korea, and when I found out about it, I didn't really think much of it.  Personally, I'm not opposed to it.  I don't see much difference between dog meat and cow, pig, or sheep meat.  But I also didn't have a pet dog as a kid.  I know people here who are strongly against it and they all seem to be people who have been close to a pet dog before; so I understandable their position..
Last Friday, when I heard that others were going out to eat dog meat, I said, "well, why not?" and I joined them.  Turns out, its quite good!  It was tender and didn't taste much different than beef.  I liked it.  We ate it in a soup, which is more common, and by itself, barbecue style. 
The second novel experience of the weekend was the Chilpo International Jazz Festival (www.chilpojazz.com).  Chilpo is a beach about 20 minutes north of Pohang.  A couple of us went early to relax on the beach for a while.  We brought along badminton rackets and I ended up playing some pretty awesome badminton with a Korean woman who was at least in her 50s.  It was pretty cool.
As for the Jazz music, we saw two groups play.  The first was led by a Brazilian percussionist who plays a mean tambourine.  I was impressed.  But I loved the second group.  It was a trio - three French guys - one on the piano, one on the bass, and one on the drums.  I was blown away.  I even bought the CD.  They're called the Remi Panossian Trio.  They've become my new Frank Mills.
Here's a video:

Here's us with the band. I got their autograph. (shrug) no big deal.

Thanks for reading.
Michael

Jeju

Kimchi is Korea's national side dish and something that's purely Korean.  So when I discovered that kimchi doesn't tickle my taste buds like it does for most koreans, I was a little bummed out.  While I'm in Korea, I'd like to eat it's food, but kimchi just isn't good in my opinion.  A student even gave me some homemade kimchi and it's just smelling up my fridge right now.  (aside: there are lots of types of kimchi and some of them I do like.  But here I'm talking about the fermented cabbage kimchi).  I was always aware that there were all sorts of kimchi varieties, depending on the region, but I had sort of given up hope that I'd ever truly appreciate kimchi.
BUT... this was all before I went to Jeju.   I tried the kimchi in Jeju and it was decent, even pretty good.  It wasn't as fishy as the kimchi in Pohang.  It had flavour and I liked it a little bit.  And that made me happy.  So there Korea... I do like kimchi - just not Pohang kimchi.

Let me tell you about Jeju.  Jeju is a volcanic island south of the mainland of Korea.  It is a province of Korea but has a history somewhat unique to itself.  There are two sizable cities on the island, but it has also become a very popular vacation spot for Koreans and a tourist destination for Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese (and foreign teachers).  Jeju's geography is dominated by Halla-san, the inactive volcano at the center of the island, and Korea's tallest mountain.
Monday was Korea's Independence day, so Jane, Alisa, and I had planned on going together over the long weekend.  But, due to unforeseen circumstances involving a scooter and a telephone pole, Alisa was not able to join us.  So it was up to Jane and I.
We flew out of Busan on Saturday morning and after a short 40 minute trip, landed in Jeju.  We had not done any planning prior to our trip and so our only plan was to decide what to do as we went along.  This made for a bit of an overwhelming experience at the airport when we realized just how many things there were to do on the island.
We didn't have a lot of time left in the day so we decided to go see Jeju's semi-famous Love Land.  Love Land is an artistic and humourous sex park.  If you haven't heard about it, which, if you're not a foreign teacher in Korea, you probably haven't, don't worry too much - it's mostly tame.  What I thought was the most interesting thing about it was that I find Korean culture to be much less 'sex-infused' as western culture.  But then here's this park dedicated to the subject - seemingly counterculturaly.
The next day, with a rough plan in our heads, we took a bus east along the coast.  The first place we went to was the Manjanggul lava tubes.  Lava tubes are long cave-like channels made by once-flowing lava under the earth's surface.  And they're awesome.  So we walked down into the cave and immediately noticed the temperature change and become much colder.  In the part of the cave that tourists are able to walk through, there are dim lights, information about the lava tube you're in, and quite a few people.  From the entrance to the end of the public area, it was about a 40 minute walk one way - and that's only the part people are able to see.  In all, the caves are a few kilometers long!  They were cool.

A rock fall inside the lava tube

A lava spire

Outside the lava tubes.  There was this lady sleeping and it looked so peacful.  Also, something that makes Jeju unique is all these volcanic rock piled up into stone walls surrounding fields.  They are everywhere in Jeju.

The entrance to the cave

After the caves. we went to another impressive natural volcanic 'wonder'.  On the east coast of Jeju is a place called Seongsan Ilchulbong. This is a 'lava cone' with a large crater on the top that jumps out of the ocean and could be said to resemble a giant crown or a rock castle.  It's beautiful.

We climbed up the side of it (a pretty good hike) and then took a short boat ride halfway around it.  We were quite impressed.  To me it looks almost other-worldly because it's so round.  There are lots of myths and legends surrounding it.

looking back at the way we came.

the inside of the crater

Afterwards, tired from walking so much, we took a beautiful bus ride through the countryside back to the city.  And the next morning we were on our way back to Pohang.

Seeing the lava tubes and Seongsan Ilchulbong were amazing, but for me, the highlight of the trip was going from one to the other.  After the lave tubes, we got back to the bus stop and hoped to jump on a bus that would take us where we wanted to go.  We didn't really know if and when there would be such a bus, but that was seemingly our only option.  After waiting a little while, somewhat jokingly, Jane suggested that we try to hitchhike our way to Seongsan Ilchulbong.  I was hesitant at first, but worked up the courage to stick out my thumb at the passing traffic.  Wouldn't you know it, soon after, two guys in a van pull up and tell us to jump in (well they were Korean, so they didn't actually say "jump in" but we understood from their smiles and gestures that that is what they meant).  They were nice guys.  The driver was even sipping a beer as he drove us, possibly a little inebriatedly, to the next town.  There, with the help of more very kind people, we caught a bus that took us to our destination.  Koreans are nice people.

Thanks for reading,
Michael.