Hmmm, What Have I Done?

And the answer is: not much. Work has been super busy, seven days a week... not too fun. However my extra class is quite good, I teach one of the more advanced classes, and we're studying 'A Wrinkle in Time', which was hard for me as a native speaker at this age; and nearly imposible for my class. But 2 of my 3 new students signed up for regular CDI classes; which is most important. This really is a business, not a school... students can get away with anything as long as they pay the bills. Enough of the company line.

I saw an amazing soccer game, even if the stadium was 3/4 empty. Bora and I grabbed the train down to Daegu to watch Bolton play Guadalajara; and Nicolas Anelka is world class. Simple as that. When he came on the game changed. Instantly the defense focused on him and opened up innumerable chances for the other Bolton attackers.


Other than that I haven't been doing much; this stupid job is draining my soul. Peter was back for a few day; and he, Adrian, and I had some good times.

Last weekend Bora and I went to Myeongdong, a big market area in Seoul. It was fun, but very busy.

Petering Out

As you may have been able to infer from the title of this entry, my friend Peter is in the wind. He did his year, and is off to see East Asia now; well as much as he can pack into one month. Before he left we had to observe that ancient english teacher tradition: the going away dinner. In Peter's case we got a bunch of folks together and feasted on Galbi (basically marinated pork strips that you cook at your own table) at a restaurant that Peter and I both were frequent guests of. After a delicious meal we headed to local live music venue: the Led Zeppelin Bar. Unfortunately the Korean jam-band playing that night was only marginally better than the sound of nails down a chalkboard. Next on the agenda was a rainy cab trip to one of the big party areas of Seoul: Hongdae. After an hour or so of walking around in the rain looking for a perfect spot, we decided to hunker down in Brixx. This Arab-themed bar is quite laid back, and a good place to chill out for a while. Bora and I called it a night reasonably early, but the rest of the lads stayed out partying until the sun came up.

A few days later Peter was at my apartment dropping of a massive box, which now almost fills my kitchen. I agreed to store some stuff for him; and if he doesn't come back I can sell it all for a tidy profit haha. Later in that day I was out for dinner with a few co-workers around 11pm when I got a text on my phone from Peter. He was on the ferry from Incheon to Tianjin, China and he reported that the boat was quite comfortable. Getting these reports and providing some advice from my own Asian travels gave me a twinge of wanderlust, there certainly is a lot more of Asia to see. On the top of my list now are (in no order) Hokkaido, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali, Tibet, and Nepal. I've got a week of holidays to use, so we'll see where I end up.

The weekend before Peter's dinner Bora and I made an outing to the zoo. It was alright, definitely nothing spectacular. The cages weren't as small and miserable looking as I'd imagined, but it's certainly not up to the standard of the zoo in Toronto. Afterwards we met up with Peter and ate a Korean delicacy I'd never tried before: live octopus. Now before you freak out, they've cut the octopus up but the tentacles are still flailing about madly as you grope at them with your chopsticks. It was actually quite tasty, but very chewy. They also tended to suction on to your tooth as you were chewing them.

So that's what's been going on. I'm going away for the day on Sunday to some mountain lake north of Seoul and will hopefully be able to get some good pictures there. The following weekend I'm headed down to Daegu for a much anticipated soccer game. Keep the comments coming.

A Couple Weeks in Seoul

It seems like time to update this blog, but not much has really happened. We just started a new semester at work, so that means things have been pretty crazy. I have almost all-new classes, but I got to keep my favourite one (the most advanced one at the school). I'm actually teaching them college-level English, and some of the subject matter is... suspect at best. However, I do get to practice my french; one of my students lived in Paris for eight years.

Enough about the job, two weekends ago I went and saw an Andy Warhol exhibit in a really cool part of Seoul I'd never been to before. Allegedly the CEO of Samsung lives somewhere nearby. I also visited Africa that day; Bora, Peter and I accidentally ventured onto the grounds of the Angolan embassy on the way home from the gallery... any embassy of a country that has a machete on its flag is not a place I want to trespass. But the big news came after the moderately interesting Warhol exhibit; I bought a Nikon D-40! I got a fairly good deal on it, and have been very impressed with it so far. After a couple celebratory pints at the local BeerHunter Peter and I walked back to his place. This took about 30min. and led us through some of the most derelict apartment blocks I've ever seen. How they are still standing is beyond me; I certainly feel sorry for whoever lives on the 8th floor of a building with no elevator!

Last weekend Bora and I checked out Gyeongbukgung; probably the most famous palace in Korea. Back in its heyday it was easily the equal of the Forbidden City in Beijing (and the layout is very similar), but the Japanese destroyed 300 of the 330 buildings in the 16th century. Perhaps that, and thirty-five years of occupation (1910-45) have something to do with the continuing animosity between Korea and Japan. Regardless, it was a truly beautiful place and a great test subject for my new camera. After that Bora and I met Peter and we ate blowfish, or according to that restaurant "swellfish", and no one died of fugu poisoning.

Tomorrow is wednesday, and my regular day off. This week it also happens to be a national holiday: Memorial Day. The holiday honours soldiers that died in the Korean War, but also oddly falls on the anniversary of D-Day. To celebrate I plan on having a nice glass of wine. For some reason, wine has gone super-cheap in Seoul. I'm not sure why, but as of last weekend most of the big stores have started selling good wines for cheap; and I mean $5 for a bottle that lists online for USD$25. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm going to stock up; so if you're in Seoul check out the local Lotte, E-mart, Shinsegae, etc. And in July I'm going to get to see some world-class soccer! There's a big tournament coming to Korea (peacecup.com/eng) and I plan on attending the Bolton Wanderers (England) vs. Chivas Guadalajara (Mexico) game and the tournament final. The tournament also includes top teams from Italy, France, Argentina and Japan. Lucky for me the most expensive tickets are only $100! And that's for VIP all-access stuff! Look forward to some great field level photos of English, French and Mexican international players!

It's Been A While...

Time has flown by here in Seoul; next week I'm 25% finished my second year here. Most of my time has been spent working, parent/teacher meetings were especially time consuming. I have tremendous admiration for the teachers at my old school who had to deal with parents every month; six hours every three months was enough for me. Apart from that work is going quite well. One book I'm teaching is "The Roots of Rock & Roll". For these classes I've been bringing my laptop in and playing some music; Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Chuck Berry to name a few. In the lecture that mentioned both Pat Boone and 'protest music' I naturally played Dylan over Boone.

Other than work I have been out and about the last few weekends. Three weeks ago Bora and I went to Namsan, which literally translated means 'South Mountain', however these days it finds itself in the middle of Seoul. Centuries ago it was a watchtower, attempting to protect Seoul from invaders. Nowadays it's a nice spot for a view of downtown Seoul... if the smog isn't at its usual level. Bora and I took a cable car to the top, which consisted of me looking at everything and her shutting her eyes in terror; it was fun. The view from the top was decent, but unspectacular. We walked down the mountain, and that was quite nice. Anytime you can see trees and hear birds in Seoul is cause for celebration in my books.

Two weekends ago was 'Children's Day'; an excuse for parents to buy/do whatever their kids want. Bora and I tried to think of somewhere that wouldn't be popular on such a day. We decided on Myeongdong, a shopping district in central Seoul. District doesn't quite do it justice; picture everyone in your high school... stuffed in a single locker, and you'll grasp what Myeongdong is like. We chose very wisely, this was the third time I'd been there, and easily the least crowded. Bora did some shopping, and I tagged along to watch to Myeongdong human zoo.

Last weekend was a rainy one, so Bora and I went underwater. By that I mean to one of the biggest aquariums on Asia, at one of the biggest malls in Asia: COEX. It was expensive, about $17.50CDN, and they had some interesting things... but it wasn't worth it overall. One thing that was worth it was the turtles; I have never seen such large turtles in my life. I've been to fair variety of zoos, aquariums, etc. in North America, Australia, and Asia; and the turtles were the stars here. They also had a Eurasian Beaver that was going crazy trying to get into the neighboring enclosure with a Siamese Crocodile; I almost freed it in a patriotic fervor, but thought better of it.

After the aquarium we were naturally craving seafood, so we picked up our friend Peter and hit a delicious shellfish restaurant here in Guro. Following that we met up with Bora's sister and went to a bar for beers and fishcakes. All in all, a great night.

No exciting plans for the future, just working. You may have noticed the lack of pictures with this posting, my camera had been loaned to Bora's sister for a tip to Japan. I have it back now, but it's just not the same: a new one may be in order. I think I'll probably pick up a Nikon D40 shortly, body and lens should only set me back $450 here. So hopefully the quality of photography on this blog will go up shortly.

Photo Blog

Couldn't really come up with much good to write, so here are a few photos from the last 18 months. Yep, it's the blog equivalent of a clip-show.

The Land of the Rising Sun... and then some

I recently took my first trip to Japan, for visa purposes. In a nutshell, I didn't have the proper work visa for Korea and they can only be issued abroad. So, my school flew me to Fukuoka, Japan, home of the nearest Korean consulate, for two days to get the proper visa. Everything went off without a hitch, and to be honest there wasn't much to do in Fukuoka. I walked around the downtown for 5-6 hours, made my way to the beach on the Sea of Japan, looked at the big baseball stadium, and played a few Japanese video games. Fukuoka itself reminded be a bit of a smaller Busan, and parts of North Vancouver. It was a nice city, but if I never go back I won't regret it. However it did pique my interest in Japan in general; among the few travel plans running through my mind is the idea of doing all of Japan, north to south, for a month or so. Or possibly using my weeks' worth of holidays and doing the Tokyo to Kyoto area; who knows.



Other than that trip to Japan everything is running like clockwork. My new job is going very well. I haven't had a single discipline problem after three weeks of work with elementary and middle school kids; remarkable. As I mentioned previously I'm working Saturdays, and that class is a lot of work. The level of stuff I'm teaching is quite high, we're using a college english textbook... and these kids are 13 years old. One girl lived in Boston for ten years, and speaks perfect english; better than some of the teachers at my old job. Another girl lived in Paris for 8 years and speaks english with a french accent; we also speak to each other in french and no one else at the school can understand.

Not much exciting coming up in the future, just working. We've got a staff dinner on friday night, which should be fun. The weather starting to get a bit warmer; highs of the low-teens and lows around -3, which makes Seoul a much nicer place to be. I'll try to update this a bit more regularly, but not much going on now beyond teaching.

Back in Seoul

Yes, after a brief sojourn in Canada I have returned to the Republic of Korea. I spent my first week in Seoul doing training for my new school. It sucked. I would be pulling 14-16 hour days for 6 days in a row, and have a 45min commute... on the busiest subway line at the busiest time of day. However, I passed everything, which was a big big relief. A number of people didn't and had to go back for some... re-education.

I was supposed to spend two days the next week in Japan, but it didn't happen. I was going to be heading over there to get a proper work visa for Korea. I don't exactly understand why, something along the lines of my school forgetting to confirm my ticket. So I've started working this week without the proper visa, my school tells me it isn't illegal, but I'm not quite sure how this is possible. So I'm going next week, and it'll cost me $200 in lost wages. Welcome to asian bureaucracy.

I'm one of seven teachers at my new school. There are four guys; two Korean-Americans, a white guy from Maryland and myself; there are also three girls, two Korean-Americans and a Korean-Australian. I get a pretty good vibe from everyone so far; they seem to have a good combination of professionalism and craziness.

It's been good to be back and see some friends. Bora met me at the airport, and has been very helpful getting me setup in a new apartment, new cell phone, etc. I paid a visit to my old school and was begged to come back; apparently one of the new teachers is generally regarded as something below a pond lily on the evolutionary scale. I obvisously declined, my visa belongs to another. I've also been able to spend some time with Peter and Trevor, back into the off-hours routines that make teaching here a lot of fun.

My schedule is a bit different than it was before. I used to work Mon-Fri 3-9 (app.), now I'll be working Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri 4-10, Sat 2-5 and have Wed and Sun off. It should be interesting, I think I'd perfer to teach 3hrs on Wed. and have Sat. off, but we'll see how things work out. That's about it for now, I'll write more when something interesting happens.

Wow, A Blog From... Canada???

Yes your eyes aren't misleading you (assuming you read 'Canada'). I've been back in the homeland for a month now, and it has gone by very quickly. Everything is exactly the same... but not quite, there are subtle changes in many things. I've spent some time in Kelowna, Ottawa, and of course Victoria. All these places are great, and I enjoyed my time in all of them (especially catching the Canucks/Senators game in Ottawa).

Now for the news, I'm heading back to Korea on Feb. 9th. This is sooner than I would have liked, but I got a very good job offer that I didn't feel I could turn down. I'll be in Seoul again, working near Seoul National University (the Harvard of Korea as I'm told). Also, I get a free trip to Japan out of the deal... because I was lazy! Take note children, laziness DOES pay off. But seriously, this job offer developed so quickly that there wasn't time for me to get the proper visa in Canada. This means I'll be sent, all expenses paid, to Japan for two days to get my visa; so if anyone knows of anything good to do in Fukuoka speak up!

Finally, I have a tracker attached to this blog that allows me to see where every hit comes from. Most of them I can figure out, but I'm curious about what people are looking at this from the lower mainland, India, and So Cal. I've gotten a bunch of random hits, but these have been persistent 'viewers', so please leave a comment! I'm very intrigued to hear what people I don't know think of this blog.

It's Christmas Time in... Laos

Six hours late... Our flight from Hanoi to Luang Prabang was six hours late leaving. The flight also was moved from the reliable Vietnam Airlines to Lao Airlines. Lao airlines does not publish their safety records, nor do NGOs or embassies advise their employees to use this airline. Those facts made me feel great about the flight, just great; thankfully it was a completely uneventful flight. We landed in a chilly Luang Prabang, well chilly by Southeast Asian standards, and made our way into town. Two hours after getting into we were still walking the streets without a room at the inn, as it were. We had visited around twenty guesthouses, and no one had any rooms. We had two choices: sleep on the street or put an expensive place on Visa. The good people at Visa were pleased with our decision.

We however were not; we found a $4 per night guesthouse the next morning, and it was just as nice as what we'd paid $65 for the night before. After being suitably pleased with out new accommodations we headed out into Luang Prabang. We walked around this charming town for a while and ended up at the Restaurant L'Elephant, where we made a reservation for Christmas dinner. We spent the rest of the day wandering around town, but the highlight of the day was definitely the dinner. Andrew and I shared a table with an interesting French couple who were great company, but the best part was surely the food. We began with some cheese and cherry tomatoes filled with a similar soft cheese. Next up for me was a baked cream of mushroom soup, with cheese on top. The third course was the main, Andrew and I both had turkey stuffed with local wild mushrooms, scalloped potatoes, and some asparagus. Following that there was a soft cheese course, and then a cake dessert. All in all this one is one of the finest meals I've ever had, anywhere.

On Boxing Day we lounged around for the morning and then headed out to a waterfall. The waterfall itself was quite nice, but the real hilight was the trail Andrew and I found that led us through this gorgeous riverbed/flooded forest. We made our way through the calf-deep water and came to appreciate what a truly beautiful part of the world Laos is. We only had a couple hours there, but it was one of the most memorable experiences I had in Southeast Asia. I think this is because we found this trail on our own (it wasn't exactly hidden though) and it was so gorgeous.

The next day we caught a bus to the capital city of Vientiane. The bus ride really showed off the Laotian countryside. We also had the pleasure of sharing our bus with vomitting Laotian women and an especially stinky rooster; I guess these thing build character. Vientiane was an interesting little city, we went to a covered market that was the least hectic of any I've ever been to. We also took a trip to "The Vertical Runway", this is the Laotian Arc d'Triomphe. It is so named because it was made from cement intended for a new airport and looks very similar to the arc in Paris. That night we had a nice sushi feast and headed to the airport the next morning.

Andrew went back to Saigon and then Canada. I went to Bangkok for a couple days, and then came back to Canada. And that's where I am now, sitting in Victoria writing my blog on my new Macbook. I'll save any grand reflections on SE Asia for another blog, but I will add some photos now, so if you're reading this check out this last few entries for some new pictures.