The Weekend

Back with another new post, albeit much shorter than the last few. Friday night was spent in Ilsan with Dave and Alex, a very typical guys night out. On Saturday, Alex and I met up with Mika in Seoul and we went to check out the Seoul Museum of Art, which was interesting, but also quite small. The current feature exhibit is modern art from Beijing, Seoul, Istanbul, and Tokyo. Some of it was interesting, some of it went way over my head. I definitely don't have the most refined knowledge of what is good art and there are some things like the mannequin in a bodybag that I don't think I will ever understand or interpret as art, that's more along the lines of Yoko art. Anyways, the gift shop at the museum was awesome! They had everything from a extensive Korean cuisine cookbook to Thomas the Tank Engine models (very exciting to see!). In the end, Robyn ended up with a nice trinket, which I hope she'll enjoy when I see her in a month. After the art museum we headed to Insa-dong, a very artsy, Uptown-ish area with lots of small coffeeshops and smaller galleries. By this point in the day I was famished and after grabbing a drink and warming up we made our way to Kraze Burger, the best burger in Korea. It's not something we have all the time so when we do go there, it makes it that much better, which probably elevates its place on my food pedestal. Regardless, the K.O. burger was excellent. From Insa-dong we made our way to Dongdaemum, one of many areas in Seoul filled with endless shopping markets. I figured I could do some scouting for Mom and Robyn and the other guys were in the market for peacoats. All of us accomplished our goals (except Dave, but he still ended up with a jacket). Saturday night was spent in Hongdae with the usual crowd and Sunday was the usual low-key, relaxed affair. I'd love to write more but that's all I can think of from the past weekend, but stay tuned, I'm willing to bet there will be some good material from Thanksgiving weekend.

iPod A-Z update: "Maybe Baby" by Buddy Holly

Brand Spanking New, brought to you by the letter L.

Hi everyone,

I apologize for the long delay between blog posts lately, and no, I wasn't honoring the Vikings bye week by not writing, I've been very busy lately. I've been charged with the task of making a workbook for next year's students and it is a long, arduous process (thank you Mr. Priemesberger for the 10th grade AP English vocab words). So far the project is going slowly, mostly because I don't have a copier/printer/scanner in my apartment, but I still have a month to finish it so hopefully I'll be able to finish it in time. And yes, there is a cash incentive for me to finish this project. Anyways, I suppose you'd like to know what I've been doing the last two weeks.

Over my birthday weekend, Alex, Dave, and Mika came into Suwon on Saturday to do some exploring. We spent Saturday afternoon at Hwaseong Fortress, the most famous attraction in Suwon (aside from the world renown public toilets, but we'll save that for another post). The weather was surprisingly warm during the weekend after a week of colder weather and we all worked up a nice sweat climbing to the top after taking in the fortress grounds. At the top we took in some nice views of Suwon-si (Korean for city) right before the rain came. Fun fact #1 about Suwon: It remains the only entirely walled in city in Korea. When we got back to downtown Suwon we enjoyed some cake, ice cream, and coffee at one of the numerous ridiculously over-the-top cafes in my neighborhood. On a side note, South Korea is fascinated with these ridiculous cafes and coffee shops. Many of them have private booths with a door and outrageously ornate decorations like chandeliers hanging from the celings. I don't understand why all of this is necessary, but I guess if you are going for coffee and dessert you like to indulge so these places cater to that? To cut a long rant short, we indulged ourselves in one of these private booths. Saturday night we headed to Hongdae for the Madison quadruple birthday celebration. Sunday the weekend traditions continued with the usual bagel and coffee from Dunkin Donuts and an afternoon of relaxation.

This past weekend was a little more low-key than the last few have been. On Saturday, Alex, Mika, Jessie, and I went to Hongdae during the day to check out the university art fair, which was very interesting. We went to a small gallery, which had some interesting paintings. It also had a Beatles-ABBA-Queen exhibit that was showing last weekend but unfortunately not on Saturday (I can't believed I missed it!). We grabbed some snacks and drinks at an awesome cafe that had a very cool chair exhibit in the basement. After Hongdae, the gang headed to Itaewon to check out the War Museum of Korea, which was very powerful and interesting, I regret not bringing my camera. On the grounds there are planes, tanks, and naval guns used during the Korean War on display. The exhibits on the inside cover all the wars in Korea's history. We had Mexican food for dinner on Sat. night at a pretty good restaurant. Itaewon is a pretty Westernized area of Korea, mostly due to the U.S. military base that's located there. Sunday was the usual again: bagel and hot chocolate from DD's, afternoon full of relaxation.

Last week school was back on and the kids were as perky as ever. I can't believe it's only been 3 months since I've been here, I feel like I've adjusted pretty well and it seems like I've been here much longer. That being said I am definitely looking forward to winter vacation and traveling Japan with Mom, Dad, and Robyn and then giving them the grand tour of South Korea. The weather has finally turned to winter and the heat is finally on in my apartment. I can't tell you how awesome heated floors are, but the contrast with ice-cold tiles is a little much at times. At school I have to wear a jacket when I teach because the heat is rarely on, to save energy costs.

For all the Americans or duals reading the blog, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving next week. I know Bubba, Auntie Holly, and Na will have a good time in Minneapolis and Robyn and Mom will enjoy the shopping companions. As far as celebrations planned here, a group of us are going to get together next weekend and celebrate, since Thursday night would be a little too hectic for all of us. Most of the ingredients for the usual delicacies can be found at Costco, so we should have turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce (Thanks, John), pumpkin pie, and maybe even cornbread. That's all for now.

iPod A-Z update: "Lover Man" by Jimi Hendrix

Jeonju/My Birthday

Hi everyone,

First off I'd like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes. I really appreciate all of them and it has been great to hear from you all. Secondly, I'd like to wish Bubba and Auntie Sherri belated Happy Birthdays, it sounds like it was a wonderful Sunday! Third, I'd like to wish cousin Karen a very happy birthday, I hope you have a great day! The first week in November is always a busy one for birthdays!

As far as other news goes, not too much from my end, except that classes were cancelled last Thursday for a week due to a small outbreak of swine flu at my school. Last week was a bad week for Korean schools and swine flu in general. Thankfully only a few kids at my school contracted the virus and I've stayed healthy, I know other teachers here (not at my school) that weren't so lucky. No classes has meant plenty of free time to plan ahead and I've been very successful, finishing lesson plans as far ahead as May for some classes. But, it can get pretty boring as well and I'm hoping classes aren't delayed any further.

This past weekend, Dave, Alex and I went down to Jeonju in Jeollabuk-do to visit one of Dave's good friends from Boston who is teaching at a hagwon (private school). We did our usual routine, leaving from the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul a little after 9:30 pm and we got in a little after midnight on Friday. We stayed at the most luxurious jjingjibang I've ever seen. It had everything, a coffee/wine bar, a pool table, a DVD room, a small library, board games, a ball pit, arcade games, a good cafeteria, a "healing house," a hot sauna, a cold sauna, a really hot sauna, an open air stream, Thai massage, foot treatment, massage chairs, an open air bath, a gym where little Korean kids work out, and the typical hot baths. It was by far the best jjingjibang we've enjoyed the pleasure of staying at so far. The uniforms fit and the sleeping mats were actually comfortable! On Saturday we met up with Danny (Dave's friend) and Dana and ate some bibimbap (a rice dish with mixed vegetables, a little hot sauce, and trace amounts of beef or seafood). Jeonju is known throughout South Korea for its bibimbap and lunch was delicious. After lunch we went to the Jeonju Hanok Village (basically a traditional Korean village). But, the Hanok village wasn't just a traditional Korean village, it was basically a little art colony as well, with street art and coffee shops a plenty. After looking at some art we mosied on down to a nice, relaxed coffee shop for some caffeine and Euchre. Before leaving the village we went on a little mini hike and saw some excellent views of the city. For dinner on Sat. night, we met up with a few of Danny and Dana's Korean friends from Jeonju and partook in a "Maekoli meal." Maekoli is a Korean rice wine and at the restaurant we went to, each time you order they bring out plates of food. Over the course of dinner we had omelettes, seafood pancakes, kimchi and hamburger meat, a very good chicken broth, squid, and live octopus. Needless to say dinner was excellent. Sunday we decided to take it easy and went to the gym for some badminton followed by an excellent meal of shabu shabu before the Three Amigos headed back to Gyeonggi-do.

Today was great; although my co-teacher has been sick, some of the other teachers from my school took me out for a birthday lunch of sundubu chigae (spicy soft tofu soup) and I brought in some cakes for everyone. Once again, thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes, more to come in the blog over the weekend.

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.