happy birthday to...

my school? yup. today is school #1's birthday, which meant another day off. you might remember school #2 had it's birthday a couple of weeks ago... and school #3 had their birthday today too... how come the schools' i attended never had birthdays? and even if they did, it didn't mean having a day off!!! just another crazy (good) thing in korea!

so i spent the day cleaning my apartment from top to bottom - literally. i killed a cockroach the other day. it was the second that i've seen since september... so i'm not worried about an infestation, but i also want to make sure that i don't have to. some interesting facts about cockroaches:

- Cockroaches are some of the most ancient insects. Fossil records show their relatives have been around, virtually unchanged in appearance, for over 350 million years.
- The popular Latin American song "La Cucuracha" means The Cockroach.
- The common German Cockroach can survive for over a month without food, but less than 2 weeks without water.
- Cockroaches have been found to carry, on their bodies, the pathogens that cause tuberculosis, cholera, leprosy, dysentery, and typhoid, as well as over 40 other bacteria or viruses that can cause disease.
- Cockroaches will feed on people!! They feed at night when people are sleeping, consuming protein materials such as
eyebrows and fingernails.

this is like the one i killed

and don't forget, they can survive a nuclear explosion!

given these facts, i certainly don't want them to live in my house, so i spent the day cleaning to make sure they know! i'm also gonna get a couple of roach trap thingys next time i'm at the store... just to be sure.

tomorrow is memorial day, so everyone has a day off... thinking of heading down to the beach... i promise to update more regularly... i've been getting really lazy about the blog...

see sand, feel sand, enjoy sand

SAND! that's right, this weekend was all about sand. the haeundae sand festival was on so a bunch of waegooks headed into the big city. i made plans with kat (of the amazing adventures of kat and liz fame) and deb (a good friend from orientation i hadn't seen in 6 months) to meet for the occasion. i spent much of saturday afternoon wandering around the beach on my own as all the other waegooks headed to the baseball game... i had to meet kat an hour after the game started so i didn't go. still had a good time though wandering among the various activities on the beach.

no smoking campaign

a mermaid!

volleyball tournament

lots of kids and families playing in the water

the sun and clouds didn't really co-operate with the organizers of the festival, but it was still warm out (25ish). when the sun did show itself it was really nice, but the best part was the sand! no, seriously, i LOVE sand... the feel of it squishing between your toes... nothing beats it! well, almost nothing.

saturday night i forgot my camera at the motel, so i have no pics, but it was a good chill evening. we sat on the beach for most of the night after meeting some waegooks visiting from seoul. one of them was so drunk by 11 pm that his friends were trying to get him back to their hotel so they could go out clubbing.

this guy kept telling us that he had a hot tub in his hotel room and that he was having a hot tub party... and would we pleeeeeeeeeeease come? eventually we all ended up at a bar called U2. his friends explained to me that they just wanted to put him to bed and then go out and would i please agree to go to the hot tub party just to lure the guy back to the hotel. so we did.

the "hot tub" in question, was actually just a really big bath tub with jets in it. he kept saying you could fit 8 people in it, but i say two, maybe, three (if they were tiny koreans). it was hilarious. anyway, we got to the hotel room, and then said "oh, we have no beer! we have to go get beer!" the guy knew what was going on and kept saying "aww, they're not coming back..." i felt really sorry for the guy, but he was really drunk and it was probably for the better that he just pass out.

as we were walking down the street a few minutes later a cab zoomed by. a hand stuck out the window and i heard "thank youuuuuuuu" screamed out the window. guess the guys got to go out like they wanted.

just a totally random thing that happened. a story to tell the grand kids maybe! haha...

sunday was spent lying on the beach trying to get a tan... if only the sun and clouds would have properly participated... or maybe i just shouldn't have put on that sun block... oh well, better to be safe than get skin cancer!

all in all, a good time was had. it was great to (in no particular order): see kat and deb; eat indian food; see the sand; play with boomerangs, kites, and frisbees; meet some crazy waegooks from seoul; dip my feet in the water; see some awesome fireworks; feel the sand; sit on an office chair on the beach; eat turkish food; drink sake in a japanese-style bar; get outta gimhae - even only for a night; enjoy the sand.

overnight in pohang

this weekend a gang of gimhaens descended upon the city of Pohang. i was among them. a couple of canucks from here were playing in a hockey game so we went to cheer them on. apparently it worked because they played much better than they did here in gimhae. (i wasn't there, so that's based purely on what i heard.)

a street in pohang

we caught the bus around noon and arrived about two hours later. we checked into a motel and headed for an orphanage where kim worked a few years ago. having grown up in the 80's i always get this picture of the poor little orphan annie in my head; children in rags, scrubbing the floors and being beaten when they are bad... but it wasn't anything like that at all.

the valentine motel... our little love nest!!!

the kids were fascinated with the waegooks - going so far as to measure nose and leg hair lengths of the boys -- which was hilarious! they were sweet and fun. the orphanage is set up with different "apartments" - each one has about ten kids and one "mother" who cares for them. i think we were all expecting rows of bunk beds covered in gray blankets, but they sleep on the floor on mats (many koreans do). it was really cool to hang out with them all for an hour or so.

the orphanage

what a big nose you have!

oh my! (what a cutie)

after the visit, we had dinner and headed to the game. 'les boys' played really well and were ahead for most of the game. unfortunately, the ref was actually a member of the other team and wasn't very good at reffing and didn't really know what he was doing. they actually extended the third period to 30 minutes just so they wouldn't lose! WTF? anyway, it was really awesome to watch!

yes... that's a Zamboni... in korea...

only in korea... would the entire team hop a squat on the ice.

blair (game face on) and jason.

then it was out for the night to the three "foreigner" bars in pohang. i liked mindy's the best, but they were all good. got in to the motel at about 4:30 am... and i left early! a good time was had by all (i think) - we should definitely go back again!

***
to my regular readers... sorry i haven't been posting as often as usual... hopefully i'll get back in the swing of things soon... in the meantime, thanks for keeping up! this weekend is the "sand festival" in busan, so there should be some good posting for that!

happy birthdays

first to Abbey. what a night! and second to Buddha, what a great day off!

dave made this adorable sign!

yesterday abbey hosted her birthday dinner where we indulged in all manner of tex-mex; nachos and salsa, quesedillas, and tacos! then of course, there was the ice cream birthday cake from baskin robbins! i think we all gained about ten pounds in a few hours!

mmm... tacos....

kim even made a pinata for the event! it was loads of fun to watch abbey trying to break it. finally it fell to the floor where she beat it open.

hit it!

finally we all headed to the noraebang (karaoke) where fun was had by all. we were joined by a mass of other people and sang late into the night (or early into the morning - i got home at 4am and i left before almost everyone else!)

and all that thanks to buddha having his birthday today - which meant no one had to work and we could all stay out! this weekend: pohang.

sometimes

i just don't have anything to say. can you believe it? well, it's true. soon, however, i will have many wonderful stories with which to regale you. for now, happy wednesday, TOMORROW IS A HOLIDAY!!!!

the funk that was

well, a few days have passed since my "inflammatory" post about korea and culture shock. i'm feeling much better now, thank you. like i said, culture shock comes in waves and it's different for everyone... i managed to surf through that one and only really fell off my board once.

i think one of the hardest parts of culture shock is seeing it for what it is, and that post helped me. so did a good friend of mine here in korea. she helped me put my feelings into perspective, helped me see the other side of the story... something which i was blind to precisely because of the way i was feeling. so a thanks to you (you know who you are) for a great evening of wine and cheese and intellectually stimulating conversation!

today is actually my nine month anniversary here. i know it isn't really that long, but it's still a milestone. a little more than three months to go and when i break it down, i can do it. so happy anniversary to me!

back to stage two

They say culture shock can last for years. I believe them. I was having a good run of things, despite all the 'crap'; I was feeling pretty good, in general, about being here. The last week has seen a resurgence of my culture shock. I’m not sure what triggered it, but everything i do makes it worse.

A friend of mine recently wrote a post on her blog about how when you’re far away from home emotions are heightened. When you’re up, you’re really UP, and when you’re down, you’re really DOWN. I’m in the latter at the moment.

I think it may have something to do with the realization that I’ll be going home in about three months; then what? I’ve been thinking too much about the future and it’s freaking me out. It’s also making me feel like I'm wasting my time here... I just want to get on with it.

It may also have something to do with having gotten out of here and seen something different in Japan. It just brought home a lot of things about Korea that I don’t like.

It’s also partly realizing that Koreans don’t trust foreigners. Everywhere I go I get sidelong glances and dirty looks from the Koreans I see. They look at me like I’m about to steal the candy out of their babes’ mouths. Last night was the clincher, I won't go into details, but a bunch of us were out for the night, and the Koreans kept treating us all like criminals; searching purses, accusing us of not paying, and guarding us like inmates about to break out. Compounded with how I've been feeling all week, it made for a VERY bad night, and an increase in my hate-on for Korea.

All I wanted to do was come to Korea, teach their children some English and have an experience I would never forget. Well, I certainly won’t forget the past eight and half months, and the next three are bound to be just as memorable. Korea, as I’ve said many times before, is a homogeneous and xenophobic society, that is unwelcoming to anything from the outside. I just can’t deal with it anymore… I’m sick of pretending like everything in Korea is so fantastic and wonderful. Yes, there are good things about being here, but right now I'm having a hard time seeing that side of things.

I guess this week the bad stuff is just playing center stage in my head… I feel like I’m back in October again. Stuck in stage two culture shock with no way out but to sit and wait for time to pass. Hopefully the next few months will pass as quickly as the last eight have and I’ll get through it. I know I can, I just can’t see how right now.

just another...

i worked in a bank for almost five years. not in a branch, but in customer service answering the phones - on the front lines of complaints at that; for three of those years i was a supervisor. when i wasn't on a complaint call, there was other work to be done, but when that was done, all i could do was sit there and wait for the phone to ring. to alleviate the boredom i became addicted to cheesy online games like the ones at popcap. we weren't supposed to play games, but everyone just kind of looked the other way... when you're bored, you're bored... and you have to find anything to make work bearable.

this worked for a long time, but i was sick of my job long before i left it to come to korea. in fact the bank job was one of the reasons i came. i didn't want to just go out and find another mundane, run-of-the-mill kind of job, i was free from university and was looking for adventure... so i moved halfway around the world... and here we are.

the thing is, my job here, though at times crazy and full of excitement, has it's fair share of boredom as well. for instance, winter "vacation" - don't worry i won't get into it again!!! - spring "vacation", exam time, anytime that i don't have classes to teach really. i thought school #2 was different since they gave me time off last week and the week before when there were no classes, but today changed my mind about them.

i found out late in the morning that my afternoon classes were cancelled. i got excited; i imagined myself outside tanning in the glory of the days' sunshine, getting to the gym early, going home, taking a shower, making a nice dinner, relaxing in the evening... i should have left the dreaming for bed time. i was made to stay at school until 4:30 - FIVE HOURS.

five hours of doing nothing inside, at a desk, when i could have been outside fulfilling my day dreams. i just don't get it. i think it's one of those things that will confound me forever. all the other teachers were asking me why i was there, wondering the same thing as me. it's just crap. i can deal with it, but it threw off my whole day and just made me pissed off.

as i've said before, i could understand if i had some kind of work to do, or even a computer that worked properly, but i literally spent half the afternoon with my head on my desk trying to nap. what's the point? i might as well be a "bad" student who is being punished for screwing around in class.

if it was a reason to leave canada, it sure as heck is a reason to leave korea... so really this is just another bullet point on my list of reasons to leave...

happy teachers day!

what a fantastic holiday. teachers day is not what it used to be (or so i hear) but just getting an extra day off is a gift unto itself! i spent my teachers day at the beach, soaking up the rays, with a few friends. a couple of them got loads of presents and gift certificates, where i got a pink balloon and a note. oh well... like i said, a day off is a day off!!!

the koreans were out as well... we found these ones buried in the sand!

wes, dave and abbey chillin' in the sand...

down the beach.

the sun didn't seem very strong, but i've come away with my first (and hopefully only) burn of the year. i had sunblock on (only 15 spf, as that's usually enough) but i guess i should take a hint from the stores which sell almost exclusively 30 spf. point taken... it won't happen again. don't think this will peel... and will hopefully be a nice brown in a couple of days.

it was a great day for relaxing on the beach... thanks guys!

miscellaneous pictures

(or fukuoka, japan - the finale)

these are just random pictures that didn't really fit into the other posts... funny, different, strange... it's all here... enjoy!

on the street

no smoking on the streets of fukuoka!

even the manholes are interesting!

boys should not hit girls with their bikes!

fire hydrants are underground

except for the signs! which have advertising on them!

beware of the giant man-eating turtles! (i didn't even see any turtles!)

in the store

green tea kit-kat!
because women don't chew gum?!?

need an individual size glass of ice?

some people...

a burned out building with one room left is a perfectly suitable place to sell chestnuts!

yes, there are homeless people in japan. more than you would think. this was just outside the walls of the castle ruins...

in the train station at night after everything closes... people will sleep anywhere they can... so sad...

japan was a great experience, despite only being there for two days. it was truly a breath of fresh air for me. it helped me realize a lot of things about korea, most of which i will not subject you to. japan is just more open, in every way - the people, the buildings, the atmosphere, the variety of food, the different international stores...etc... the list goes on. i guess that japan is just more "modern" and "international" than korea. they aren't xenophobic or homogenous the way koreans are. they are more approachable. they are nicer (they smile and nod when you pass them in the street - in korea you don't exist). they understand what it means to queue for something and don't push to the front. like i said, the list goes on and i won't go into it any more...

hope you enjoyed following my little side trip... i guess the posts will resume to the regular "ranting about korea" that we've all grown accustomed to... hopefully not, things are looking up with less than four months to go... now i need to figure out what to do when i get home... any suggestions?