"No fishing"

Ever since the first moment I stepped foot into South Korea I have been doing things that I never would have done back home. For example, living alone, eating moving octopus tentacles that stuck to my tongue and sort of the opposite...letting fish eat me alive =)

My feet in a pool of hungry fish.
Notice how there aren't that many fish eating my feet?...


Well that's because Walter's crusty toe jam filled
feet were too delicious to for the fish to waste too much
time eating anyone else's feet.

Thank God for Wally. With the few fish that actually were eating my feet I was laughing hysterically for 10 minutes straight. It's one of the most ticklish things I have ever experienced. Oh and I forgot to mention that this place is not a spa, it's a coffee shop called Dr. Fish. So basically you order your Mocchacino (or your drink of choice), stop by the free snack bar (with waffles, popcorn etc.) and take it all to a table or the tanks and fill your belly while the fish simultaneously fill theirs. Well that's actually a lie the fish don't really ever fill their belly's completely because they're constantly pooping out long strings of...dead skin?

Now, back to "no fishing". This is a term used by my children at school when I fake them out. It pretty much means "no faking". This all comes from a language in Korea called Konglish. It sounds like English (ok well at least it's supposed to), it looks like English but the terms and words take on different "Korean" meanings. Thus, it isn't English. The entire Konglish movement is sort of an attestment to how hard it is for Koreans to learn English. Not only is their native language the complete opposite of English in everyway (reversed sentence structure, completely different alphabet etc.) but the few English words they do know mean something entirely different to them than they do to the rest of the world. Here are a few more Konglish words and their meanings: "service" = it's free, "set" = combo, "ok ok ok ok ok" = ok (as in ok and I'm not trying to be rude and cut you off by talking over you and saying ok 10 milllion times....it's just Konglish).

Imagine the confusion when Koreans travel to North America and see signs that say "No fishing"!!! "Oh my God!" <------ (another Korean favourite!)

Its Been Almost Two Months....Oops

Wow I honestly don't even know where to begin. I have done soooo much since i last blogged that it seems a little silly even trying to fit it all into one post. Either way, I'm gonna try.

Let's start with my trip to Shanghai, China. I went to Shanghai the weekend of May 4th. As it was long weekend here is S.Korea. (May 5th = Children's Day) To start things off i had a somewhat of a unique airport experience. The Busan Gimhae Airport is split into two buildings. One for domestic flights and one for international flights. Although my final destination was international I had a stop over at Seoul. Not knowing that this meant I had to be in the domestic building (because i didn't know there were 2 buildings) I had the taxi diver drop me off at the international building. It was 4am and extremely dark. The building was not yet open and so I waited outside with about 5 other people in the extremely cold dark. About 15 mins later a security guard let us in. I was drowned in relief. But then time kept passing and the lights weren't be turned on. Until about an hour before my flight, actual workers started to show up and I was able to ask someone where the hell i was supposed to be. They pointed me to the other building so I dragged my suitcase down the road to the domestic departures building. Things were looking up. From there i landed in Seoul where I had the pleasure of enjoying the Asiana Business class lounge. It was really nice...free foo, drinks and massage chairs. Enough said. I had 4 windows to myself on the plane and I ordered my meal from a menu =) ...When I got to Shanghai I had to wait at the airport for 5 hours =( because Wally couldn't find a flight with a closer landing time to mine and we were told that it was dangerous for women (especially foreigners) to take Taxi's by themselves in China. Better bored than sorry I guess. Once we got to Shanghai I must say I wasn't impressed. It was dirty and rainy and all I could think was "yuck". Then we found a beautiful and extremely lit up road called Nanjing. The trip only got better from there. We met up with Walter's friends and had a good time. The food was AMAZING....I'm drooling just thinking about the PeKing duck...YUMMERS!

The next weekend I was off to Seoul for the second time. I didn't have as much fun as I did the first time when I went with the girls but it was ok. I think the rain sort of killed the trip. The highlight of the weekend was probably the Japanese prison/museum we visited. It was educational and interesting to see how the Koreans were treated by the Japanese. Needless to say there was a lot of torture and disease.

Somewhere in between that trip and now I began feeling very isolated at work. I was no longer playing volleyball and due to the fact that my school is ridiculously small there are a VERY limited number of people who speak English. In fact the only person actually brave enough to speak to me is my co teacher. This started to eat away at me, and one day at work I just sorta broke down. The silence and isolation can definitely get a person here. Not outside of work of course as I have many wonderful and fun friends...I'm talking strictly at work. Somehow...I got over that feeling of isolation....it just doesn';t really bother me anymore.

I joined the gym...i feel more fit already =)

I cut my hair ...twice (lol)

I got my ears pierced (woo hoo)

Wally has decided to take a leave of absence from work so that he can study for his CFA and find something part time here in Korea =)

The weekend of June 15th, I went to Jeju-do. The most popular island in S.Korea. Wally and I stayed at the Hyatt and had the times of our lives in paradise. It was gorgeous, we lied on the beach, we swam in the ocean and we ate like pigs.....what more can a person ask for.

I just realized how much I travel lol.

S.Korea is coming into Monsoon season so it's raining cats and dogs over here. It was really nice and sunny up until today tho. So I can;t really complain. I heard it only rains hard for about 2 weeks....so I guess Monsoon season wont be so bad.

Overall, life has been good. I love this extended vacation/work thing. I can't help but think I'm a genius for getting myself into this lol. However, although I'm having a blast here I'm excited to see everyone back home. I'll be in Canada for summer break for July 24th-August 8th.

The World is Flat

As I look around here in Korea I cant help but notice the drastic juxtaposition of two clashing cultures. For arguments sake I will call these two cultures the traditional culture and the K-pop culture. The tradition culture consists of women in Hanbok, folk songs, tea, temples and respect. The K-pop culture consists of women in mini-skirts, K-pop, bars and clubbing. Due to these two conflicting cultures I sometimes feel as thought I am living in a land of contradiction. Many Koreans fear the loss of their culture and I can honestly understand why as the younger generation does not seem very interested in their heritage. This of course leads me to beg the question, is my presense in Korea and my purpose of being here contributing to this loss of culture?

I have to answer that question with an indecisive yes and no. The yes side of the answer is inescapable. I am here as an embassador of the ever conquoring Western culture, spreading my language and consequently my culture. The result is a McDonald's and Starbucks on every corner and of course music like "Insomnia or Sorry Sorry Sorry" (music that I love by the way). I don't want to give the K-pop culture a negative wrap but I just want point out that it is drastically different from traditional Korean culture. Then again it is only natural for humans to evolve and modernize their behviour. Maybe holding on to a traditional past is futile anyways...who knows...

However, I also feel that my being here is contributing to a greater peace and understanding in the world. I now know a lot more about Koreans and because of that I also feel a bond with this country and it's people. I hope that the reverse is true as well and that the Koreans I have met have a newfound bond with Canadians and our culture as well.

Now for the "no" part of the answer. Ever since I've got here I've been really participating in and emersing myself in traditional korean culture. The number of temples, palaces and festivals are countless already just 2 months into my trip. So I think it's a two way street. My culture maybe rubbing off on them, bu theirs is rubbing off on me as well.

A Tale of Two Festivals

So I had a crazy and jam packed weekend. On Friday I went to Gyeongju, a city about an hour outside of Busan, with my school on a field trip. We took the grade 3s and 4s. The significance of Gyeongju lies in the fact that it was the captital of the Silla Kingdom (57 BC – 935 AD) which was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and the longest sustaining dynasty in Asian history. A great number of Silla tombs can still be found in the centre of Gyeongju. Silla tombs took the form of a stone chamber which was surrounded by a soil mound. We visited such tombs as well as memorials for the two great kings and the one warrior who unified the Three Kingdoms of Korea. This was a good cultural experience but more than that it was a great day of bonding with my students. They are so adorable, they were all trying to hold hands with me and a few of them made me notes and drawings telling me they loved me. After that long day outside with the kids I went home a lil early and fell asleep. I woke up ate some McDonalds and called it a night. lol


Saturday was an absolutely amazing day! The others were late, so Taylor and I headed to the beach for the Eobang Festival (Fish Festival) taking place on my beach. There was free everything! Free face painting, flip flops, wish trees, balloon hats, characatures, traditional candy and games. The others eventually met up with us and we had a blast. As we walked along the beach a few local political figures asked us to sit down and eat with them. An extremely old lady kissed Taylor lol and another man told us not to worry about money. He bought us seafood pancakes, soup and my new fav drink Makoli (Korean rice wine of some sort). The Makoli was disgusting at first but I have to say that stuff really grows on you. In any event we continued on after lunch and checked out some more games and cool little jewellery vendors etc. After this the real fun began! We had signed up to participate in the traditional pulling of the fish net at 6pm. So we were suited up and ready to go. Little did we know we would be the celebrities of the night. We were interviewed by local news crews and given cool fish hats that lit up. We were constantly pushed into centre stage(beach) to dance and pulled in the net and participated in 3 exciting games of tug of war! After which we were awarded with more Makoli! We danced the night away and then watched in awe as a beautiful display of fireworks ensued over the Gwang-an bridge. After that we got some free beers at G Terrace (a beach side bar), grabbed some burgers at Breeze's Burns and finished the night off with some darts and more drinks at Thursday Party (another beach side bar). All in all one of the most amazing nights I've had in Korea.


Sunday was another festival. The lantern festival. We were once again signed up to participate in the festival. This time it was by walking in the parade. The lanterns looked beautiful at night, but in my opinion we got there far too early and did way too much sitting and waiting. I actually wished we had simply watched the parade rather than participated in it, but it was another experience in Korea nonetheless. Needless to say even though I wasn't dressed up in traditional Korean clothing like Taylor and Kiara, the locals were still waving at me frantically as if I was something special to see, despite the fact that almost everything else in the parade was way cooler to look at. Paulenna and I skipped out early because we were tired and cold. I must say I don't regret that decision lol.


Walter has left to Hong Kong for the week and I will meet up with him in Shanghai on Saturday. Looks like I'm in for another CrAzY weekend!!!!

SERVICE!

One of my favourite things about Korea is service. This is when vendors or whoever throw things in for free. Since I've been here my friends and I have had a lot of random things for service. Some strange, others quite normal. In any event, this blog will be a running account of the things I've recieved or seen my friends recieve for service.

- Ice cream (at Norebang)
- Taxi (on the way home one night, a kind taxi driver who knew a bit of english took pity on Puja and I who looked lost and refused payment for the ride)
- Gems (for my phone when we signed up for Wally's phone courtesy of LG Telecom)
- A scarf
- A purse
- A belt
- Soju
- Coke / Cider
- Fruit Platters (at clubs)
- flip flops
- face painting
- lunch! w/ makoli
-Charicatures
- lanterns
- a drawing notebook

Ah, the kindness of strangers =)

Better Together

Wally's here =)



There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart,
our dreams, and they are made out of real things
like a shoebox of photographs
with sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer
at least for most of the questions in my heart, like
Why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

Mmmm, It's always better when we're together
Yeah we'll look at the stars and we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments
just might find their way into my dreams tonight,
But I know that they’ll be gone
when the morning light sings
and brings new things
for tomorrow night you see
that they’ll be gone too,
too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
i was somewhere in between
With only two,
Just me and you,
Not so many things we got to do
or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree, now,

Yeah It's always better when we're together
Mmmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

mmmmmmm

I believe in memories
they look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
you look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
There is no, no song I could sing
and there is no combination of words I could say
but I will still tell you one thing
We're Better together

1,2,3,4...tell me that you love me more

I feel as though so far this blog is giving off the wrong impression. I like to rant when I'm upset so I've written some negative blogs, and I'm glad I did because the ranting really helped me get the steam off my chest. Koreans are different from North Americans and this is both frustrating and wonderful all at the same time.

That being said, I realized that the blog wasn't reflecting how in love I really am with Korea and my life here. So because of that this blog will list my 10 favourite things about Korea in no particular order.

1. Being on the Yang Dong Elementary School volleyball team. "Yong Dang, Yong Dang OOOEEE!!" My teammates are all men with exception of another female teacher, and they are all super encouraging and fun to play with. We practice every Wednesday during work hours =) and play a game against another school every other week. Not to mention my V-ball skills are improving.

2. My coteacher has become much more than just a coworker. She is such an amazing person. She is giving, light hearted and best of all a slaker like me!!! hahah we're a match made in heaven. We watch "Nopo De Anja" (Korean mini series) during work hours (shhh don't tell my principal lol) and oogle over the F4 boys hahah. If I ask her about something once, she makes it her life mission to make sure I get the answer or I get my problem solved, no matter how big or small that problem may be. She has told me I'm her little sister and having her here is really like having family.

3. Meeting all my international friends. Not only have I made awesome Korean friends, but I have a great group of friends from the states and different parts of Canada that have insantly become like family as well.

4. On a similar note, I love having a sense of community and belonging to a specific group where I really feel I belong. I never really had that in Canada. In high school I was the one brown girl who wasn't a part of the Youth of South Asia club and nor did I ever reject my Indian culture. So I've always felt somewhat inbetween. But here there is a huge group of people who are just like me. They are black, white, yellow or brown and are interested in taking in and experiencing many different cultures. I think that's why we have made lasting friendships so easily and quickly.

5. Fried MANDU!!!! Need I say more?

6. Random moments. This is something Flav and I achieved the summer of '06. However, it was short lived. Here in Korea, I'm crazy. I try everything once and sometimes twice. I make random friends, and I literally go where the wind takes me. It's the me I always wanted to be.

7. I am always on the go, whether its out to dinner or off to another city to explore, my schedule is packed of fun goodness.

8. Let's face it, this is a year long vacation. I don't really do any work. =)

9. GOD I LOOOOVE THE CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THE SHOES!!!!!

10. The BEAUTIFUL scenery I see EVERYDAY. From cherry blossoms to the beach to the lights of Gwangan Bridge, my eyes are spoiled rotten, there is beauty all around me!!!

BONUS: Everyone here thinks I'm beautiful, mainly because I have a small face and big eyes. It is beyond flattering to be stopped in the streets and told you are beautiful on a daily basis. hahah Foreigners are celebrities here.....it's going to suck to go back to North America and get used to being a nobody again lol.

Well I love my life....and boy do I feel blessed =)