the gimhae garbage police

garbage disposal in korea is a very specific kind of thing. at home we have recycling and regular garbage - if you don't recycle it isn't "the end of the world" (but you should!!!) but we also have LOTS of space - something that korea is lacking. so, they have very specific rules about the way you dispose of your waste.

they don't have recycling bins like we do back home. you just kind of put everything out and different trucks come by and pick up things according to what's in the bag. you're supposed to use a special bag for "real" garbage, but the recycling can just go out any which way (and it very often does).

the special bags are blue and have "gimhae for you" written on the side, you can buy them at just about any grocery store for about fifty cents each. at home i used to buy ten bags for a dollar and they were five times the size of these bags... but that's the way it works here, so i have been obliging since i arrived. usually i will use a grocery bag and then put that inside the special bag and put that out (the blue ones tear very easily, someone told me they are biodegradable, so maybe that's why...?)

on monday, however, i was out of blue bags, so i just put out the grocery bag cause it was stinky and the heat wouldn't allow me to keep it on my balcony for even another hour. i see the grocery bags on the street all the time, so didn't think it would be a problem. in fact there are all kinds of bags and piles of trash on the street all the time... at least i used a bag, right?

piles of it...everywhere... blue bag??

the next morning there was a knock at my door - around 9:30 - i was leaving for work in a couple of minutes, good thing i was home and awake! anyway, i often won't answer the door if it's some random korean because they're usually trying to sell me God. i peeked out my peep hole and saw a man. i asked who was there, like he would understand, but he said something and so i opened the door.

he flashed a card with his picture and started rambling on, trying to look in my apartment, which i didn't let him do. he kept rambling on. i kept saying "i don't speak korean" and "i'm sorry, i don't know." finally he started rifling through his bag, while i was thinking "oh, here we go with the pamphlets..." but he pulled out this piece of paper that looked like a form of some kind.

he flipped the paper over and there was one of the class sheets from my after school class, stapled to that was a paper with my name and address printed on it. then he flipped that over and showed me a picture of my grocery bag sat on the curb and below that a picture of my grocery bag torn open and the garbage strewn throughout the street!

i confirmed that it was my bag, but still had no idea what he was saying so i managed to mime that he should give me his phone number and i'd have a korean call him. he gave me a little paper with a phone number and left. i went to school.

my co-teacher is away on training so i had to find someone at work who speaks enough english to be able to communicate with me. thankfully song was there. she called the number and explained to me that the man was angry because i hadn't put my garbage in the special bag and because i thrown paper into the bag (the paper being my class list and some pizza fliers - anything bigger than that goes out with the recycling). then she said that in korea you get fined for not putting out the garbage correctly.

where's the blue bag??? my garbage was put out next to this pile.

i played innocent "special bags?" "fine?" "what?" ??? sometimes i think i've missed my calling as an actress! anyway, she said that she told the man that i was a foreigner and that i didn't know the rules and could he please take that into consideration? he told her he'd have to havea meeting about it and would call her back the next day.

thankfully the waegook card got me off the hook this time! no fine for me, just a warning. but now i'm scared to put out my garbage! i confirmed with song what exactly should go in the blue bags and whether i can use the grocery bags for recycling and she said that was fine... so at least i know now. no one actually ever told me how to dispose of my garbage. i was just told to use the blue bag for anything and everything, except food, which goes in the nasty, stinky compost boxes out in the street...

compost box with other garbage strewn about and hate to be so picky, but where is that blue bag? i couldn't even find one to take a picture of!

this box looks cleaner in the picture than it actually is... imagine the other side is covered with food stains and the inside hasn't been washed - ever - and there are flies swarming it... who wants to touch that with nowhere to wash their hands??

it's all good to be so specific about things, i understand there is limited space for waste in this country (like everywhere) but, man, when you get stuck walking anywhere near the compost garbage truck, you wish that you were dead instead. and in this heat, the bins themselves reek to high heaven! for more on the composting process visit traveling chick.

the dragonfly days of summer

that's right, dragonfly, not dog. don't think i've mentioned it, but the dragonflies are out in full force. it's pretty incredible to see hundreds of them just floating through the air above you. haven't taken a picture yet because i haven't had my camera with me and they probably wouldn't shoot that well, being as small as they are, but i'll see what i can do.

it's been hotter than hell of late... hovering around 30 C, plus humidity, which brings it to something like 50 C (okay, might be exaggerating a little) which is kind of nice on some level, but i am praising the fact that i have air conditioning in my apartment. i don't know what i'd do without it sometimes. it's one of those really nifty ones that has a remote and all kinds of controls. i'm not sure what most of them are, (the remote is in korean) but as long as it keeps spitting out cold air, i'm ok.

the coolest part is that i can adjust the temperature. if i want to leave it on when i sleep i can leave it on warmer so that i don't wake up in an ice box (not to mention that it can't be good for you to sleep in the freezing cold of the aircon, can it?).

anyway, we're in high summer here, and i've had the afternoons off all week, so have been heading up to the roof to work on my base tan. it's coming along very nicely. got a bit of a burn on my legs yesterday, but they're fine today.

the heat is also good for an excuse to not go to the gym, i mean, i'm melting anyway, right? been getting there as often as possible, but they don't have the luxury of a working aircon (korean for air conditioning) so sometimes it's just too hot to work out for very long.

eleven days to thailand. and 39 days to home. those are some numbers that i can live with! (as opposed the million degree heat).

at long last...

this weekend was another one for getting things done... things that i haven't done before. on saturday a bunch of us headed to Beomeo-sa (pr. bomo - sa is temple in korean). it is one of the largest buddhist temples in korea and i've been trying to get there since october. it was on my "to-do" list before leaving, and as with many things you always think there is so much time, but there really isn't - with only 6 weeks left til i'm home (and two of those in thailand) i'm really running low on that particular commodity.

so, we left the g-spot at around 11 am. we stopped for a korean lunch when we got into busan and then headed up the mountain. we could have taken a bus, but we all decided that we could make the 2.6 KM walk up... it wasn't too hard, some of us were huffing and puffing more than others, but we all made it up.

the weather was pretty crappy but it was my last chance (as well as d and a, who will be leaving (?) at the end of the week) to see it, so we went anyway. the clouds made the trip kind of nice actually because it wasn't too hot and they were really pretty once we were up the mountain.

the view before getting to the temple... we were in almost in the clouds.

Beomeo-sa was built in 678 AD by the Great Buddhist monk Eusang. it sits, along with 160 other temples and hermitages on the slopes of mount Geumjeong. the name translates to "Fish of the Buddhist Scripture Temple" - "beom" means the sky where a fish played and "eo" means fish. it is said that a golden-coloured fish descended, riding on a colorful cloud, from brahma-deva and played in a well on the mountain. the well never dries up and the water is the colour of gold, thus the name of the temple.

ancient 'graffiti'

on the walk up to the temple you have to pass by tombs and burial markers, as well as what is referred to (in my south korea guidebook) as ancient graffiti. names of visitors past who took the time to carve a little peice of themselves into the mountain. better than carving your name in a tree, i think.

waegooks at the "iljumun" - the first gate.
(L-R: Scott, Nate (in back), Kim, Abbey, Me - Dave is MIA and kelsey behind the lens)

the iljumun is the boundary between the mundane world and the sacred world, it is the first of three gates to enter beomeo-sa. this gate was built nearly a thousand years after the original temple sometime around 1614 AD. (most of the buildings and gates etc.. were re-built in the 17th and 18th centuries.)

one of the devas.

the second gate, or cheonwangmun, holds the four devas who stand guard. this one also had what someone called the "evil doers" though i'm not sure if that's what they are. i've never gotten a good shot of these before because they are often behind strips (or bars) of wood, so i was surprised at the clear shot i could get of these ones.

one of the "evil doers"

finally after passing through another gate, walking up some steps and around a building we were in the main temple area. this is where the 'three story pagoda' sits. it is typical of a Silla Dynasty pagoda and is believed to have been built in the 9th century.

three story pagoda

on the other side of the courtyard sits the stone lantern, which is though to have been part of the original temple built in 678.

the stone lantern

the Daewoongjeon

in the middle of the courtyard are the steps up to the main hall - or Daewoongjeon.

a monk performing a service - in the Gwaneumjeon

to the right of the main hall is another - the Gwaneumjeon - where the goddess of mercy is placed. there was a service going on while we were there, and the chanting was peaceful and sort of mesmerizing.

there are a ton of other halls at the temple, but those were the main ones that i took photos of. then we wandered around for a while, i took some 'artsy' sort of photos, so here are a couple.

nice wall...

the perfect roof shot.

"no in" - what a positive way of saying "keep out"

this is just a funny sign that we passed on our way out, i couldn't resist getting a shot. after the temple nate, kelsey, and scott decided to hike the three hours over the mountain and through the geumjeong fortress. i saw some photos and it would have been awesome to go, but i went with kim, abbey and dave to the hurshimchung spa.... more on that next time, this post is already long enough... but yes, i finally went to a bath house... stay tuned.

the beginning of the end

this is the last week of the spring/summer semester for middle schools across korea. lucky me. and i guess lucky kids too, though most of them will spend their summer vacation studying. as we all know, i'll be going to thailand (in less than three weeks now - 18 days if you wanna get right down to it).

monday was my first last day of class. my after school class finally finished. i've been teaching an extra two hours every monday for the last two and half months. it was my favourite class of all though, and was sad to see it end. i had three girls that showed up every week without fail. the rest of the (20 odd) students showed up a maximum of four times each. so i ordered pizza for the girls and got them little prezzies. they got me a necklace and a jewelry box... so sweet. they all have my email and i hope they'll use it, especially Siria, she is an amazing bright teenager.

Grace, me, Siria, and Mia - my after school girls.

today was my second last day of the semester (tomorrow will be the third). this didn't only mean that i only have one class (in august) left with these kids, but that one lucky class was having a pizza party for lunch. at the beginning of the year i devised a plan to try and keep control over my classes... a little reward system that i call "my sticker program". lots of teachers have them.

basically every period a class would start out with five stickers. when it was time to settle down, or if they got out of control i would count down three... two... one... zero. if by the end of the word zero they weren't quiet, they would lose a sticker.

the class at the end of the month with the most stickers would win prizes. these usually consisted of a printed certificate from me, a not-so-shiny canadian penny, a pencil, some candy, and a choco-pie (a kind of chocolate cake with marshmallow that the kids all love). the school didn't pay for any of this, i did. but i figured it was a small price to pay to have them all be quiet when i needed them to be. in some classes it worked extremely well, in others, not so much, but at least they could gauge when they were about to get in trouble!

well, the second part of the program was that whichever class had the MOST stickers at the end of the semester would get a pizza party. i didn't think this part through that well, since it cost me an arm and a leg and they weren't even all that appreciative, but today was the party. class 1-5 were the winners... which was expected since they won two months in a row and got five stickers in just about every class i had with them.

anyway, here are some pics:

mmm...pizza and "no teacher! don't take my picture!!!"

cuties. very quiet and shy...but that can be a good thing!

me and my little friend.

this girl never attends my class since she's handicapped, but she was allowed to come to the party. plus she loves me. she makes me little gifts and gives them to me in the hallway. she's the happiest middle-schooler i've ever met! she spent the whole class giggling about something!

they're a bunch of pretty smart kids and i'm proud of how far they've come in such a short period of time. and yes, when it's time to go home for good, i might get a little teary eyed over some of them, but that's just part of the job, isn't it?

g & t, fire, and newness...

another weekend has passed. i've only got about four left in korea, so making the most of them is pretty important. on friday i went to mr. parks (of a hobo-christmas fame) to hang out with brandy and a bunch of other waegooks... at around 1 am kim and i decided to go shopping at the "trial mart" next door for some shirts. this is one that we both bought:

HAHAAHAHAAHA!!!! you thought it said "poopie", didn't you!?!? i love korean shirts!

on saturday i went out for a nice dinner with kim and scott (who is new in town and knows kim from back home), then we went to the "cockstail" bar near kim's house. i'd never been before, though i have been to the one near my house... this one was much nicer.

it was nice to go out somewhere that you could drink something other than beer. (korean beer doesn't sit well with me, and lots of bars don't have mixed drinks.) it was a nice place too - plush and comfy chairs replaced little stools, dim atmospheric lighting, and the best part, a bar show. yes, the bartenders throwing bottles around.

they started light with just a plain bottle. then they added light sticks to the bottles, then sparklers, and finally full on flames. it was cool. here are some pictures.

pretty cool flames

more cool flames.

this was a guy blowing fire.

these are the addictive deep fried spaghetti and seaweed snacks - provided free of charge!

i stayed out WAY too late, but it was a really good time. lots of good friends and lots of gin and tonic. i can only hope that the rest of my weekends in korea are as good as this one was.

the amazing bacteria killing man

a couple of weeks ago as i was walking home i saw a man. no, that's not the interesting part... he was carrying what looked like a leaf blower that was spewing smoke and fumes into the street. he was walking up and down all the streets with this 'smoke blower'. i thought it odd, but hey, this IS korea, and i've encountered stranger things, though i'm at a loss to think of any at the moment.

the 'smoke blower' made an awful lot of noise as well, so a couple of days later when i heard it outside my house i leaned out the window to take some photos of him:

from a little far away

and closer up...

what is that thing? if you look closely you can see the smoke coming out the front of it. well, being the curious cat that i am, i had to find out, so i went to the venerable source that is my co-teacher. she said he was spraying to kill the bacteria in the air. "bacteria?" i asked her. "there is bacteria in the air at this time of year," she said... she couldn't tell me more than that... i guess she isn't so wise as i paint her to be... but at least she gave me that much.

i suppose it makes sense that there would be more bacteria in the air and water during rainy season, but this is the first i've heard of spraying the streets... just a little more korean strangeness...

**

in other news... i will be in thailand in 25 days. i got a typhoid shot the other day... no adverse reactions... thankfully.

i have now had over 6000 visitors to this blog since november 2006 - woot!

waegooks vs hangooks

i did something this weekend that i can pretty much say i've never done before. i played soccer - or as many of my friends would call it - football. i played in high school, during gym class, but have never (even imagined) playing it for fun!

saturday night a bunch of foreigners were going to play against the gimhae men's league team. i was going to go and watch, but my wonderful friend, kim, convinced me to play. she was playing, she assured me, and there would be other girls too. so i agreed, thinking it would be a fun and different way to get some exercise. i'm hooked.

the pitch. we rented it for three hours. 7-10 PM.

before we started playing one of the guys came up to me and said "do you even know how to play?" my reply was "kick the ball into the other teams goal and don't touch the ball with your hands." i'm still not familiar with the intricate rules of the game (if there are any) but i think i could be good at it with some practice.

we also made some new friends - from busan, and from france. yes, that's right, france. we met a bunch of guys who are in korea on internships with korean air... it was strange for me to speak french with them, what, with my funny accent and all!! but it was nice to speak it for a bit and to realize how bad it's gotten... i'll need a brush up with all of my french friends when i get home!

who's playing first? not me...! later on you couldn't have torn me off the field!

even though you can't see my face i swear that's me on the right! a little down time... (bill and kim on the left)

we lost every game we played, but that's ok... i was just there for fun and the korean team practices together regularly, so they're really in tune with each other.

team photo - photo d'equipe - the waegooks

after we played 16 of us went for dinner together - all sweaty and smelly - i'm sure the koreans at the restaurant appreciated that! but it was yummy and gave us a chance to talk more with our new french friends.

francois, bruno, mathieu, and arnaud... teddy is not in the picture... sorry!

waegooks eatin' bokumbap (spicy fried rice with chicken)

there's a women's team here in gimhae who play together every saturday and you can bet that i'll be there next week, and the week after, and every week that i'm in korea. anyone back home know of any women's leagues around town??? like i said, i'm hooked.

summer on the mountain

some of you might recall that i started hiking mount sineo in mid-winter. there were no leaves on the trees. the streams were but a trickle of half frozen water. the air was cool. i really enjoyed it and went up about 5 times in a couple of months.

on thursday i had the afternoon off (thanks to exams) and figured what better way to spend the afternoon? it was actually sunny out for the first time in a while and thought i could get a little colour on me before the trip to thailand. i also wanted to check out those 'trickles' during the rainy season.

it was a whole different world.

i took pictures to compare and contrast the difference...

before:

i took this because i KNEW it would be a lake in summer... there's been some kind of 'work' done on the area so it looks a little different, but i swear it's the same spot.

after:

don't know where that concrete came from... but look at all that water!!!

before:

it's not exactly the same shot, the direction is a little off, but it's the same place...

after:

isn't it incredible what a little (or a lot) of rain will do.

i know it's just nature, but how often in our hectic lives do we really have the time and opportunity to just enjoy it? i know when i go home i won't be a ten minute walk from nature... and if i want to hike a mountain, i'll have to drive to it... so i'm going to enjoy it as much as i can before leaving korea.

here are some extra shots i took just because things are pretty now.

this is the "bridge" over the stream... it was barely wet in winter and now you have to walk through the water.

the bottom of the mountain is host to farmers fields. little plots of land that remind me of community gardens in montreal, but on a bigger scale. they grow lots of different food and plants.

like corn.

and potatoes. i don't think i've ever seen potatoes this close to their "natural habitat".

it was a nice afternoon. i'm a lot faster at getting up and down the mountain than i was, so i guess all the cardio i've been doing for the past five months is doing something. i've actually lost a total of 25.5 pounds now... and i'm still going!!!

coming soon, some korean weirdness that i've been meaning to write about: "service" and "the bacteria killing man"... so stay tuned.

cheater, cheater

today i invigilated a math exam because the teacher who was supposed to do it had to take a kid to the hospital. i was the only other teacher with "nothing to do" so they asked me. i didn't think it was a good idea until they told me there would be a korean teacher in the room with me. all i had to do was stand at the back of class, watch, and listen. no problem.

while i didn't see anyone cheating i still know that they do it... when i give quizzes - once a month to the top classes as a way of determining THE top class of the month - the kids try their best to help each other out. i always tell them before the quiz that if they cheat - talking to others, or looking at anyone else's paper - that i will take it away and count it as zero points.

they always try to argue (or whine) their way out of it when i catch them, but in every class there is always at least one. it's not like my quizzes are the collegiate scholastic ability test or anything... all they get is some candy, a canadian penny, and a certificate!

but the CSAT is another story. you might remember a few years ago when upwards of 1600 students were investigated for cheating on that exam using their mobile phones.

i am also reminded of the two days that i spent sequestered from the world, while working on the gimhae foreign language high school entrance exam last fall. would they do that if they didn't think that someone would TRY to get the answers (or questions) from us?

it's a sad reality that these kids go to school for upwards of 12 or 13 hours a day and are still expected to be A students. i wouldn't be a very good employee if i was forced to work that many hours a day. it's just the way they're brought up though... but no wonder they can't concentrate; no wonder they think they need to cheat - if they don't 'ace' every test and exam they are told they are nothing and will never accomplish anything.

and though i feel sorry for them, thank god i didn't catch any of them cheating today! and i could certainly tell which ones had studied, which ones had had a decent nights sleep, and which ones were wishing they could just lean over and ask for the answer from their friend.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

i realize this is a day late... but i was in no state to be posting yesterday. i was recovering from (korean) canada day! turns out that canada day celebrations can be just as much fun when you're outside of the country.

of course, i've been in quebec for the last twenty or so, so i guess i wasn't really "in" canada! haha.

on saturday kim, brandy and i headed into busan to go to starface, where they were holding their third annual canada day party. we went out for "western" food at outback steakhouse and headed to the party. we paid our 15,000W (~17$) for our all-you-can-drink cups and started the party.

i was drinking rye and ginger all night - which was awesome because the last time i saw ginger ale was in japan, and before that was last summer when i was in canada! i didn't think that it existed in korea, but i have photographic evidence now. the bartender w/couldn't tell me where it came from, so i'll have to wait another 2 months for some more... :(

canada dry!!! woohoo! and it's even written in korean "jin jaw ale"!

me and a couple of honourary canadians.

another honourary (eileen) with her country's flag... note the lighter in one hand!

what kind of canada day would it be without some gitch?

it was a great night, much of which i'm sure is stored somewhere in the recesses of my memory... but for now i can't find that part! we ended up leaving starface as they had complaints from the neighbours and we headed to a foreigner bar called U2, where the partying continued until the wee hours of the morn.

i spent sunday glued to my bed...

hope all of you in canada had a great day!!! i know i did!