Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Seoul; Presently Tense
It's Tuesday. Monday May 5th is my birthday. Monday. What can I do on a Monday…? Recover from a good – no, great – weekend, that’s what. So Deuk Kyun and I start planning a trip to Seoul
After leaving Yongsan, we hop the subway to Itaewon. This area is foreigner-central for Korea, and definitely worth the visit. We are walking up and down the streets looking for anything cool. I visit the English bookstore, browse the street vendors, and finally we begin to look for dinner. After stopping into an alleged "Spanish Tapas" bar, only to find they don't actually have food on the menu, we find a small Mexican restaurant. 2 burritos, 2 tacos and a Corona later, we finally leave for Nanji Park on the Han River.
After exiting the subway station at the Olympic Stadium, we ask some people on the street to get headed in the right direction. We walk... and walk... and then we see signs for Nanji Park. After entering the park, we haven't spotted the Han yet. Upon asking someone else, we are told that there is actually another Nanji Park. Damn. So we leave the way we came, and continue to ask people randomly if they can give us some direction. Eventually we meet 3 Korean girls loaded up with snacks and beer who say they are headed to the festival. Success! We follow them the additional 2-3 km until we reach the riverside. The last little shop we see is filled with festival goers, so we join the pack to fill our backpacks with beer, juice and soju. Picking up our tickets proves to be easy and we make our way in.
Now the music is just getting started, but as the night wears on, people get crazier, the DJ's prove more and more creative, and effects grow spookier. The air fills with dust and artificial smoke. We can feel our hair, skin, clothing, and even teeth becoming sticky with sweat, humidity, and dirt.
It's 3 AM. We're climbing up to the highway to catch a taxi back to the Hongik University area to find a jjimjilbang. We get in a cab with another young couple headed in the same direction and drop them off first. Soon after we arrive at a big sauna just up the street from the University. I am so tired I think I may not recall where we are in the morning. After getting into the bright indoor lights, I realize just how dirty my pack and shoes are though I'm not going to deal with it tonight. I find my locker, have a nice, long shower, and drag myself upstairs to the sleeping area.
After a fitful sleep due to people alternating between snoring and talking, I lay around in the hot rooms, get some misu-karu (a sweet, tasty, blended, grain shake), and lastly get a shower. It is only now that I realize how dirty my backpack and sneakers got last night! Wow, really. I decide to get extra towels just to clean them off. When we leave the jjimjilbang, we begin a search for lunch - which ends with a small "Oriental Food" restaurant in Hongdae called Tiki-ti. FANtastic. We leave the restaurant feeling not only tired but, now, stuffed, so we both agree it's time to go home.
We agree not to spend much money as we’re saving up for a big winter getaway. Therefore, I buy tickets to the show in advance, saving us ~$10. We also decide that a “love motel” won’t be cheap enough… no, no. We need to stay in a jjimjilbang. For around $10, a person can pay to get the hot tubs, sauna, rooms (click on the links and read if you don’t know what I’m talking about) any time of day. Most jjimjilbang are 24-hour operations, with dedicated sleeping rooms and mats, pads, and pillows available.
On Friday we pack small backpacks for the overnight trip. Deuk Kyun is arranging seats on the cheaper (read: slower) train to Seoul Station for ~$20 each one-way. Saturday morning we leave Daegu with no problems. The weather is beautiful in Daegu as well as
As I walk in, I immediately feel the warmth and excitement soaking into me from the bright, white display lighting and neon signs on the vendors’ showcases. All the salespeople eagerly greet me, asking what I’m looking for. I have recently purchased a lightly used Nikon D40 SLR camera body, so I explain to the first salesman I want to look at lenses. Specifically, the Nikon 18-55mm VR lens. The first vendor gives me a price and I quickly say, "I'll come back, thanks!" I continue to collect prices, higher and lower until I'm sure I've asked everyone... Or I get lost. I head back to the dealer who quoted the lowest price - he unfortunately informs me he can't sell me the lens. Due to the holiday (5/5 = Children's Day), their supply store is closed, or something. This is the case with 2 more vendors. I finally find someone who sill sell me the lens, I work out a deal, and get the warranty information. Finally, I walk out with my beautiful lens!
After leaving Yongsan, we hop the subway to Itaewon. This area is foreigner-central for Korea, and definitely worth the visit. We are walking up and down the streets looking for anything cool. I visit the English bookstore, browse the street vendors, and finally we begin to look for dinner. After stopping into an alleged "Spanish Tapas" bar, only to find they don't actually have food on the menu, we find a small Mexican restaurant. 2 burritos, 2 tacos and a Corona later, we finally leave for Nanji Park on the Han River.
After exiting the subway station at the Olympic Stadium, we ask some people on the street to get headed in the right direction. We walk... and walk... and then we see signs for Nanji Park. After entering the park, we haven't spotted the Han yet. Upon asking someone else, we are told that there is actually another Nanji Park. Damn. So we leave the way we came, and continue to ask people randomly if they can give us some direction. Eventually we meet 3 Korean girls loaded up with snacks and beer who say they are headed to the festival. Success! We follow them the additional 2-3 km until we reach the riverside. The last little shop we see is filled with festival goers, so we join the pack to fill our backpacks with beer, juice and soju. Picking up our tickets proves to be easy and we make our way in.
Now the music is just getting started, but as the night wears on, people get crazier, the DJ's prove more and more creative, and effects grow spookier. The air fills with dust and artificial smoke. We can feel our hair, skin, clothing, and even teeth becoming sticky with sweat, humidity, and dirt.
It's 3 AM. We're climbing up to the highway to catch a taxi back to the Hongik University area to find a jjimjilbang. We get in a cab with another young couple headed in the same direction and drop them off first. Soon after we arrive at a big sauna just up the street from the University. I am so tired I think I may not recall where we are in the morning. After getting into the bright indoor lights, I realize just how dirty my pack and shoes are though I'm not going to deal with it tonight. I find my locker, have a nice, long shower, and drag myself upstairs to the sleeping area.
After a fitful sleep due to people alternating between snoring and talking, I lay around in the hot rooms, get some misu-karu (a sweet, tasty, blended, grain shake), and lastly get a shower. It is only now that I realize how dirty my backpack and sneakers got last night! Wow, really. I decide to get extra towels just to clean them off. When we leave the jjimjilbang, we begin a search for lunch - which ends with a small "Oriental Food" restaurant in Hongdae called Tiki-ti. FANtastic. We leave the restaurant feeling not only tired but, now, stuffed, so we both agree it's time to go home.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
I Love "Love" Motels
A love motel usually runs between $35-60 per night, depending on the city, area of that city, and quality/cleanliness. They are called “love motels” because they have a floor or two of hourly-rented rooms, covered parking, and the amenities in the bathroom include a condom. Whether or not people actually use these services for the purpose intended, these motels differ from the more expensive hotels. As far as I know, there are some other (non-"love" variety) guesthouses or motels - yeogwan - in this price range.
As my Aunt Jan & Uncle Lou are aware, love motels can offer surprisingly nice accommodations such as in-room wireless internet with computer, Jacuzzi tub, or big, flat-screen TV. When they visited
In my time here I have stayed in a few love motels, most of them not as luxurious. The few I’ve been to in
Monday, April 28, 2008
Report Cards
Ha! I'm finally done with this horrible bi-monthly task. Six times a year is far too often for this, in my opinion.
We mark all our students (12 classes x ~10 students per class) on 4 categories for Reading class and 5 categories in Presentation (science) class. We have a couple of weeks to grade, then the kids just log on to the (super cute) website and look at it. I doubt many of the parents ever see it and I know they don't receive a printed form. Also, all the comments I'm required to choose from are shown in English - more complicated English than most of my students care to decode. For example, "Good use of vocabulary and sentence structure is correct. Presents to the class adequately." I wish I could at least click on pre-filled comments that would later be translated.
After all this, I fall asleep and dream about students. Gah.
We mark all our students (12 classes x ~10 students per class) on 4 categories for Reading class and 5 categories in Presentation (science) class. We have a couple of weeks to grade, then the kids just log on to the (super cute) website and look at it. I doubt many of the parents ever see it and I know they don't receive a printed form. Also, all the comments I'm required to choose from are shown in English - more complicated English than most of my students care to decode. For example, "Good use of vocabulary and sentence structure is correct. Presents to the class adequately." I wish I could at least click on pre-filled comments that would later be translated.
After all this, I fall asleep and dream about students. Gah.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
News
I just got some GREAT news! My college friend, Annie, has booked a ticket to come visit me for a week in August! So I've requested the time off work and will hear back soon if I get all the days I want. I'm already planning what we can do - we have many options.
Hiking, temples, jjimjilbang (see prev. post), beaches, mountains, eating, rock climbing, renting motorbikes at the man-made lake (^^), shopping, eating again, maybe a baseball game...
-------We will hardly have time for sleeping!
On a slightly stranger note, I made an impulse purchase yesterday at Home Plus (like a SuperTarget or something). That's not the strange part. When I walked in, there was a large bin of bras and women's underwear on sale for really cheap. I bought 5 pairs of cute underwear (all the bras were A and AA - no, I'm not kidding) for ~14 dollars. The strange part was that there were plastic produce bags to put your selections into, to keep them clean I guess. Makes sense, but I'd never have thought of it. All these men were sifting through the bin to find things for their tiny little wives, too. I love Korea.
Hiking, temples, jjimjilbang (see prev. post), beaches, mountains, eating, rock climbing, renting motorbikes at the man-made lake (^^), shopping, eating again, maybe a baseball game...
-------We will hardly have time for sleeping!
On a slightly stranger note, I made an impulse purchase yesterday at Home Plus (like a SuperTarget or something). That's not the strange part. When I walked in, there was a large bin of bras and women's underwear on sale for really cheap. I bought 5 pairs of cute underwear (all the bras were A and AA - no, I'm not kidding) for ~14 dollars. The strange part was that there were plastic produce bags to put your selections into, to keep them clean I guess. Makes sense, but I'd never have thought of it. All these men were sifting through the bin to find things for their tiny little wives, too. I love Korea.
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