DMZ Docs/Kimchi Love Festival

Hey everyone,

A brand new post for you to enjoy. To start off I'm still surviving and in the daily grind of teaching and as with any job some days are better than others. This past weekend Dave, Mika, and myself made our way north to Paju, an area larger than Seoul, where Alex lives and teaches. Paju is the last area of South Korea before the DMZ that separates North from South Korea. This past weekend was the 1st annual DMZ documentary film festival in Paju and after a relatively early night on Friday, we made our way to the film festival early Saturday morning. The first film we saw was a documentary called "Welcome to North Korea!," a Czech film about a group of Czech tourists who are allowed into North Korea on a sightseeing tour. It was a very unique film that allowed us to see what North Korea actually looks like and see how the Czech group responded, a unique experience given that most of the group lived in Czechoslovakia during its Communist period. It was interesting to see how the group was told that certain things weren't allowed like 300 mm camera lenses or camcorders but they were allowed to bring them into North Korea and use them once they were there. But, you could also see some of the stark realities of North Korea. For instance, tourists walk on one side of the street and locals walk on another side, with no interaction between the two. There are soldiers everywhere and potential secret police disguised as citizens around every corner. At the end of the movie, some in the group noted how sad it was to leave their tour guides, knowing they were going home to something better, while the tour guides, who slept in luxury hotels and ate well with the group, were going back to dire situations. Overall, it was a very interesting film. After the movie we walked around the festival tents, taking in all the free samples, making rice cake, and experiencing the Flugen, an area where sanitizing spray is misted on you like the cool misting fans at music festivals. The second film we saw was called "My Neighbor, My Killer," a documentary on the gacaca trial process in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide in 1994. I studied this genocide at university last year in my Politics of Human Rights course. The gacaca trials try to bring justice to villages by having open-air hearings with citizen-judges in an effort to bring truth and reconciliation to the victims and also ease the transition back into society for the perpetrators of the genocide. The trials didn't officially begin until 2005 and so far their success has been limited and it remains to be seen how effective they will be for Rwanda. After the Q & A session with the director, I found out that she knew one of my professors from Madison, who I had for International Studies and who usually teaches the Politics of Human Rights course, which was neat to find out.

The third film we saw was called "The Yes Men Fix the World." The Yes Men are a couple of political activists who infiltrate the world of big business by posing as fake members of different corporations like Dow Chemical, the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, Haliburton, etc... They pull these pranks to highlight how corporate greed is destroying the majority of the world. The humor in the film was a nice switch from the first two films, but ultimately, the outlook of the film wasn't too bright. We had a great day of movies and went back near Alex's place to grab a delicious meal of shabu-shabu, basically tons of veggies, thinly cut beef, and stew with noodles and rice, covering all the important bases.

Sunday morning we set out for the Unification Observatory, located right against the DMZ. It was very eerie peering through a set of binoculars into North Korea, or basically a model town the North Koreans set up a la Rock Ridge. It is very hard to describe the feelings you get when you look at North Korea and realize how close it is and yet how different it is from South Korea. The Observatory was a very well done building with many interesting artifacts from North Korea and some very interesting exhibits. After our time at the Observatory we headed south back into Seoul to hit the back end of the Kimchi Love Festival. The festival, which advertised 192 + varieties of kimchi did not disappoint. There was kimchi everywhere and lots of free samples (my favorite). Fine kimchi is similar to fine cheese and wine, it gets better with age, although there isn't anything quite as aged as 12 year old cheddar; the oldest kimchi we tried was 3 years old and had a very different taste from the other kimchi strands. They also had a gourmet kimchi creation competition, which we unfortunately missed the end of. Overall it was a very enjoyable weekend.

Korean Drum Class and more...

I can't believe I forgot to put this in last night when i was writing but last Wednesday at my Korean Language and Culture class we had a private Korean drum lesson, which was great. I remember for the longest time when I was younger I wanted to play drums (Ringo definitely didn't influence that at all) but Mom and Dad were completely against the idea, so I moved on to guitar, which they were also against. Anyways, I got to showcase my rhythm last week and it was great. The drum is shaped like an hourglass and you it it with a mallet on one drum head and a very thin wooden spatula on the other. This afternoon my special advanced class had their monthly magic + English lesson. This basically consists of a Korean magician and myself, acting as the magician's assistant, basically teaching the trick in English. The kids loved it and it's just another reason why I love elementary school. Looking forward to this weekend, the annual Kimchi Festival is being held in Seoul, which means an extraordinary amount of various kimchi strands to taste, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly pass this up. That's all from here.

Fresh Out The Oven...

Hey all,

Not too much to post in this update but still plenty to enjoy. Pretty quiet week at school, although the English room I teach in moved on Thursday and in the process I learned what my school does with old furniture. I was assuming that the tables the students sit at and their chairs were moving with us into the new room but instead some of the furniture from the old room was thrown out the window on the 2nd floor by the school janitors to be broken down and thrown away. I'm not sure if this was done because the school's getting new furniture or simply because this is how it's done in Korea but it was shocking at first. It gets even better though. The head janitor pulled me over and had me throw a desk out the window. It's pretty exhilirating to push a desk out of a window and watching it shatter into pieces. Later on Thursday I got to teach my Special Advanced class how to tie-dye, which was awesome and they definitely enjoyed that. I always thought organizing a tie-dye project was pretty simple but I learned that it's definitely a lot of work, which made me appreciate the art specialists at camp that ran tie-dye activities for me when I was a camper.

This past weekend was much less active than the last few. I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing and taking it easy. Dave, Alex, and I saw a very popular Korean movie on Saturday called "Old Boy." To keep things short and simple I'll just say that the plot was very crazy; a man is kidnapped and held in a prison for 15 years never knowing why he was imprisoned, then he's released and he has to figure out why he was imprisoned. There are some very ridiculous turns in the plot but it was definitely a very entertaining movie. That's all from here, Go Vikings! and hopefully the Wild and Leafs can turn things around soon.

Pusan International Film Festival

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a week since the last post. Last week was pretty uneventful, I'm battling a stuffy nose right now, which seems to happen every year when summer becomes fall. This past weekend the same gang from the Chuseok trip plus two more ventured out to Busan (formerly Pusan) in southeast South Korea to celebrate Jessie's birthday and attend the 14th annual Pusan International Film Festival. 5 of us caught a 9 pm bus on Friday from the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul and all proceeded to sleep the entire 4.5 hours to Busan. Once in Busan we hastily made our way to the closest jjingjibang, which was much smaller than the ones we stayed at over Chuseok. We woke up early the next day to check out the huge fish markets by the water and then made our way to the PIFF zone to pick up our reserved tickets for our movie on Saturday. After grabbing our tickets we went to a large market place where the men let the women enjoy their shopping while we grabbed some food from one of the many stands in the market. We headed towards Haeundae beach after the market, which was the other location for the film festival. There were some cool sand sculptures and we grabbed a nice spot on the beach in the sun and waited for the rest of our group to arrive. From the beach we made tracks to the theater to see "Five Minutes of Heaven," an Irish film produced by BBC Films, starring Liam Neeson. The film is set in the middle of the violence in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s and focuses on a teenager who is part of a Protestant terrorist group who murders a Catholic in front of the man's younger brother. 30 years later, a TV program tries to bring the two together to meet and hopefully find "truth and reconciliation" in the process, but the victim's brother, haunted by 30 years of guilt, is out for revenge. The film was very good, but also very heavy.

After the movie we had a nice birthday dinner and further festivities, providing many memories and eventually we ended up at a another jjingjibang by the beach. Some of us woke up early Sunday morning to get try and get tickets for a mid-morning movie. Unfortunately they didn't have 5 tickets for one movie so we had to split up. Dave and I went to see Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, a Japanese film that I can't really describe with words. The plot centers around an American businessman living in Tokyo whose young son is murdered, which leads to a number of secrets being revealed to the man, including a large mystery surrounding his mother and his birth as well as his father's work. Definitely one of the stranger films I've ever seen. After the movie we decided it was time for us to head back home after a quick but very exhausting visit. Once again, the bus ride back consisted of some wonderful rest time for all.

In other news, it was very disappointing to see the Badgers outgain Ohio St. only to fall apart because of turnovers and special teams, but I'm not surprised. Also, Twins fans couldn't have asked for a better last month to the season but I don't think anyone expected them to make it past the $$$ Yankees. Hopefully the Wild and Leafs will start to pile up W's in the wins column. It's great to see the Vikings undefeated, even better if their record is 7-0 two weeks from now. Oh and how could I forget, I had my first official visit to a Korean hospital today, but nothing to worry about, I have had a skin infection on my right index finger for the last two weeks and went to get it checked out and got plenty of prescription pills and cream so hopefully it will go away by the end of the week. Anyways, that's all from here, hope everyone that's reading this is well.

National Lampoon's Chuseok Vacation: A Griswald Family Trip through Gang-won do

Hi everyone,

Here's the new blog post you've all been waiting for! Hope everyone is ready to settle in because this is going to be a long one so pop that popcord, grab a nice ice cold beverage of your choice and enjoy this massive blog post.

My Chuseok vacation began last Thursday morning. I woke up at 9 am, turned on the Slingbox (much thanks again Stephen) and proceeded to watch the Twins lose to the Tigers, effectively starting my break off on the wrong foot. Little did I know that my loss of faith would be rewarded by the end of the weekend. I took the subway in from Suwon to Ilsan to meet up with Dave, Mika, and Alex who had all returned from their GEPIK orientation earlier in the day. With plenty of time to kill, we headed to the CGV to see "Surrogates," the new Bruce Willis movie. Most of my readers know that I am not the biggest fan of sci-fi movies but this movie kept my attention for the most part, although I should've known the only reason Dave and Alex wanted to see it was the Boston screenscapes. After the movie the boys took in some Winning Eleven, where I was victorious in shootouts twice thanks to Alex's expert shooting. We had dinner in Ilsan and then proceeded to make our way to the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul. 4/5 of us made our bus but our fifth, Jessie got held up and wound up meeting us the next day in Gangneung. As soon as we got on the bus we all proceeded to fall asleep (a recurring theme for Dave) and we arrived in Gangneung around 3 am. We made our way to the jjingjiban, a Korean bath house where travellers and locals can take in a spa, sauna, and sleep overnight for very cheap. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for a larger uniform and spent most of my night worrying whether I was gonna turn from Doc Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk and rip through my clothes. Needless to say I was relieved to find that nothing had torn the next morning. After a quick dip in the baths and some time in the sauna, we made our way back to the Gangneung bus terminal to meet up with Jessie and continue our travels.

We decided to go to Jinbu, where Mt. Odaesan National Park is located, for the day on Friday. The park was beautiful and we got to see the two large Buddhist temples there, Woljeongsa and Sal-wongsa. After a full day of hiking we made our way to Jeongdongjin, a beachside town located on the East Sea. We got in right around sunset and hung around the beach for a little bit before grabbing dinner. As you can imagine, a seaside town, especially in Korea, has a plethora of fresh seafood dining options and we settled on a restaurant known for their clams. We had every size of clam imaginable for dinner; babyneck clams, medium clams, large clams, mega clams, you name it, we probably had it for dinner. The meal was fantastic and if you couldn't tell already, I was overly enthusiastic for it. Of course, those of you that know me well know how much I enjoy seafood, especially fresh seafood. After dinner we explored the town a little bit and we ended up at the massive cruise ship hotel at the top of the town hill where they had a revolving bar, a norabang (karoke), and a cool sculpture garden that overlooked the sea. While we were tempted to find a room here, we opted for the much cheaper option of a motel in town. The next morning Dave, Jessie, and myself decided to test the temperature of the water but were told to get out by the police who were afraid of people swimming due to the lack of lifeguards on the beach. After our little dip into the East Sea, we hung out on the beach and played some Euchre before making our way to our next destination, Samcheok.

Samcheok is a decent size city located further down the coast in Gang-won do, but when we got there it was like a ghost town. We explored the city a little bit, including a visit to the wedding-cake shaped Cave Museum before grabbing dinner at another seafood restaurant where we met some very cute Korean kids that were all too excited to speak English with us. After dinner we made our way to another jjingjiban, this one was much nicer than the one in Gangneung. While we were in the hot tub, I heard someone call my name and after a few moments I realized I was talking to one of my third grade students. It was definitely a very humorous moment, something that would never happen in the West but is apparently somewhat frequent in Korea, teachers running into students at the bath houses. After our night spent in the jjingjiban we woke up early Sunday morning to go to Hwaseon Donggul, one of the largest caves in Asia. The cave was very cool, it was massive and seemed to go on forever. Our next stop was Sinnam, a small fishing town with a very unique story. Legend has it that a young virgin drowned within sight of her boyfriend and soon after the local fishermen noticed their catch was dwindling, believing that this girl had cursed the sea. But, after one fisherman relieved himself in the sea, the catch began to come back and ever since this town has revered phallic symbols. In short, Sinnam is known for Haesindang Park, a beautiful park with the highest quantity of phallic statues in one area. While the shock value of the statues is definitely prevalent when you first enter the park, most of the statues are expertly crafted and are works of art. Adjacent to the park is a Folk Fishing Museum, which we also visited before heading back to Samcheok to spend the night in a beach villa. The night and the trip weren't complete without a visit to the local Beatles bar, which was a let down, and the norabang for an epic hour of hoarse voices and twirling mics.

Monday morning we hung out on the beach in Samcheok for a little bit before heading back to Gangneung to catch our respective buses back to our cities. Much to my surprise, I arrived back in Suwon to find that the Twins and Tigers were headed to Game 163. I also saw that both the Leafs and Wild are both winless still but it's early on and the Badgers held on to Paul Bunyan's Axe for another year. Glad to see that Grandpa Favre was able to beat the Packers on MNF to keep the Vikings undefeated. That's all for now, expect more from me next week, a weekend trip to Busan for the International Film Festival is in store.

Happy Chuseok!

Hi everyone,

Here's my first mid-week post in a while due in part to the long weekend I have for the Chuseok break. Chuseok is one of two major Korean holidays that is a celebration of the fall harvest and families honor their ancestors. I have school off Thursday, Friday and the following Monday, which is nice because it means I get to travel. A few friends and myself are going to Korea's east coast to do some exploring, possibly hike parts of Seoraksan National Park, which is supposed to be absolutely breath taking. I hope everyone's fast went well, mine was fine and the rest of this week the teachers at my school kept on asking me more questions about Judaism; I'm pretty sure I'm the first Jew they have ever met, which isn't surprising. I have also been keeping up with the Twins playoff push, thanks in part to my friend Stephen's Slingbox account. I woke up at 9 am this morning to catch the game, but unfortunately the Twins played themselves basically out of the race losing 7-2 to the Tigers. Better luck next year, but now I can move on emotionally to the NFL and NHL seasons. It was awesome to have vintage Brett Favre on our side for once and I can't imagine how much attention the Monday night game this week is getting, might be the loudest the Metrodome will ever get. I'm also very excited for the Leafs and the Wild to start their seasons and hopefully this year my dream scenario for the Stanley Cup will finally come true, although it would be tough to choose who to root for.

Alright that's all from here, you can expect plenty of new pictures and a new blog post next Monday.