sorry it's been forever

The week after Thanksgiving my mom came to Korea for a visit. It was really cool to have someone from home come and see how I live. It's very hard to explain what life is actually like here without actually experiencing it and so now to have my mom understand my daily life is nice. My mom and I did most of the typical touristy things in Seoul, like the palaces and markets and she got to meet all of my friends. I, unfortunately, had to work all week so she spent some time cleaning my apartment for me (thanks mom) and exploring my little city. On one of the days she actually came to school with me and watched me teach. The kids went crazy when they saw her and mobbed her in the hallway, which was funny... just a little taste for her on what it can be like here. I introduced her to dokbokki, galbi, bibimbap, and other yummy korean foods. She was a trooper and tried them all.

Other than that life here is pretty standard. This week is finals at school so I don't have to teach... just sit here. It also got REALLY freaking cold in Korea this past week, the highs are like 16 degrees. But I'm getting through it just remembering that in 26 days I get to go to Thailand and lay on the beach for 2 weeks! It feels really good knowing I can pay for a vacation like that on my own... and still have money to survive haha. The real world isn't so bad after all.

Christmas is this week and I get the day off... not sure what exactly I'm doing yet but it's kinda fun to celebrate with friends just this once. Korea is mainly Christian so the cities are all decked out in lights and decorations, something I am happy about. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays!

best "i am thankful for..." responses i got during thanksgiving lessons

1. I am thankful for my pretty face
2. I am thankful for living in a peaceful country
3. I am thankful for born
4. I am thankful for meet my family
5. I am thankful for my charming face
6. I am thankful for Steven Jobs
7. I am thankful for Bill Gates
8. I am thanful for Microsoft
9. I am thankful for my parents meet and make me
10. I am thankful for Lambourghini
11. I am thankful for many food
12. I am thankful for eat
13. I am thankful for my body
14. I am thankful for my height, because short people are losers
15. I am thankful for my 6-pack
16. I am thankful for my smart head
17. I am thankful for having arms
18. I am thankful for having legs
19. I am thankful for pigs, cows, and chickens
20. I am thankful for breathe

another lesson in kpop

if you don't care or want to know about korean boy bands, stop reading now.

here are some of the best kpop songs out right now!

my favorite right now is Ring Ding Dong by Shinee (boy band all 19 and under). if you listen closely they say that something is "fantastic" and then "elastic" which makes no sense, but is hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roughtzsCDI&feature=fvst


another group that everyone here loves is called 2PM and they are playing at a club on christmas eve... so yea we are def going to be there. haha. their most popular song is called "again and again" and the middle schoolers go crazy for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUgReo37ECw&feature=fvst

this is another song called "sorry sorry" by super junoir. i used this song in class to teach my kids what "shorty" meant. hahaha yeah i know... but they say it in the songs here and the kids have no idea what it means. so here is the super group (13 members) called super junior. oh and i have the chorus dance memorized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAWqnA8PdcY&feature=fvst

k-pop is actually so fun and addicting. i wish that pop music/boy bands were still popular in america because its so fun to listen to and dance to at the clubs. it's also helpful to me for learning korean because the kids tell me what they are saying, and i hear the phrases and words over and over everywhere i go. haha. but yea check out shinee - the song is addicting.

a korean thanksgiving

first just wanna say i hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! (oh and happy 50th wedding anniversary to my grandparents!!)



thanksgiving is my favorite holiday so i was anticipating a hard day/week last week. ultimately, however, i actually had a really good thanksgiving. me and my friends from gwangju cooked ourselves a thanksgiving feast, rivaling any of yours back home. we had roasted chicken instead of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli, rolls, dak galbi, yorkshire pudding, and pecan pie with vanilla ice cream. also, lots of wine obviously. we all got together after work and cooked the meal and then sat around all night playing games and drinking wine. it was very nice.

one of the teachers at my school even bought us some dak galbi (basically chicken stirfry) to cook for thanksgiving because she knew it was a big deal. also at school all week i've been teaching about thanksgiving and asking the kids to tell me what they are thankful for... best answers so far have been: for being pretty, for my smart head, for cigarettes, and for my english teacher. hahah love it.
other than that i've settled in a very "normal" life here with not much exciting to report. my typical week is spent working, and then i go out on the weekends with my friends... very much a typical 20 somethings life except i live in korea. so sorry i have nothing exciting to report! my mom is coming to visit on friday though, so we will be doing lots of touristy things.

pepero day

So here is one of those Korean holidays that I have never heard about. Today is Pepero day in Korea. Basically it is a version of Valentine's Day (which they celebrate also) in which you give your boyfriend/girlfriend/friends/whomever pepero. Pepero is a long stick cookie dipped in chocolate. Since November 11 is 11/11 it has been dubbed Pepero Day because 11's look like Pepero sticks. Many people think the candy company made up this holiday as a ploy to make money, which could definitely be true since every store is making a KILLING on pepero. But I, or course, am a sucker for stupid holiday's like this so I bought some boxes of regular Pepero (only 550 won, around 50 cents each) for my students, and they gave me some of the almond kind in return. Here is a note I got from my student Kelly with a box of Pepero since I know you guys love hearing these:

"To Sera~
Sera teacher! Hello^^

I'm Kelly. This is pepero!!

delicous cookie!~!

This is for you!

You are very cute girl!

and nice girl! HA HA ^^

From, Kelly"

loves it.

happy pepero day!

my korean birthday

This past friday was my birthday... I didn't really expect much at school, in fact I didn't even expect people to remember, but I got such nice things all day! A lot of the kids sang happy birthday to me in class and yelled it at me in the hallways all day. One girl, one of my favorite students, brought me a whole big box full of snacks. My teachers also got me presents, like apples, chocolates, etc. One of my coteachers actually put together a pizza party during some of my down periods for me, which was very sweet. It was a really good school day.

So Friday night was my birthday, Saturday night was Anna's, and Sunday was Rebecca's. Naturally we had to do the weekend right.

On Friday night me, Amy, and Rebecca went out to dinner for some Korean food and went home/to bed pretty early. On Saturday we had rented a hotel room at the Grand Hilton in Seoul so we checked in promptly at 2 to take full advantage. We hung around the room all day, took bubble baths, and ordered room service. We also made jello shots with the jello my mom sent me from America. Around 9 a lot of our friends showed up and we had a little hotel party. We went out that night and it was really fun. The weekend was a really good one and made me very grateful to have the friends I do in Korea, this experience would definitely not be anywhere near as fun without them. Also, thanks to everyone from home who wished me a happy birthday!! miss you and love you.

halloween

Last week i taught my kids about Halloween. My coteacher told me it was the best halloween lesson she has ever seen, which just shows how much i love the holiday - that i would put that much time into a lesson. I made all the kids say trick-or-treat once they were done with their work for candy and wore a witch hat my mom sent me. It was actually pretty fun.

They don't celebrate halloween in Korea, which definitely made for some awkward moments and stares when you're on the subway in full costume, but it was halloween! so i didn't care. For the weekend we all stuck around Seoul. On friday I went to a party that felt like I was back in america/college - beer pong and all and saturday I went to seoul. Rebecca and I dressed up as hippies. We went to a place called Itaewon, which is the area that grew because of a nearby American army base. This is why we thought it would be a fun place to go for halloween. It was definitely full of costumes and halloween spirit, which was fun, but most of the people were military and the air around the bars was much different. We headed back to our usual, more Korean, stomping grounds called Hongdae for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning wasn't so pleasant for me, as I woke up to realize i had left my wallet in the back seat of a cab. Therefore, all my money, cards, and the keys to my apartment were gone. I had to spend the night at Luke's house (thanks Luke!) and go explain myself the next morning at school. Not very much fun. So now I am currently in the process of getting all my cards back, etc. very annoying.

Other than that, Korea got really cold this week (like 30) which is super lame... and i turn 22 on friday, which i am not looking forward to. Although I am looking forward to the party/cake/activities. Thats all for now, anyeong!

seoraksan

This past weekend me and some friends decided to go on an adventure to the "crown jewel" of south korea, Seoraksan National Park. We met up at the East Bus Terminal in Seoul and bought tickets to the town of Sokcho. Sokcho is a town on the East Sea, directly East of Seoul. The bus took around 3 hours and when we got there we hopped in a cab to our hostel right near the park. On arrival we discovered that our room was "ondol style". In korea instead of heating their houses with hot air, they pump hot water through pipes under the floor. The floors are nice and warm and this heats the room. This heating system is called "Ondol" and due to the toasty floors, many Koreans sleep on the floor. So we didn't have beds, just sleeping pads, pillows, and blankets. I didn't really mind it, the beds here feel like you're on the floor anyways. I miss my foam matress :( Anyways, we set up our beds and went to bed early so that we could get up and go hiking the next morning.
We woke up at 8 and after finding some random food for lunch and breakfast we headed to the park. We started our hike and were surprised at how many koreans there were. Sorry if this blog becomes a rant but the national parks in Korea really bother me.... There were literally thousands of people hiking with us. At many points we had to literally wait in line to countinue on the hike. We joked that we were waiting in line for space mountain and wished we had gotten the fast passes. The Korean national park experience is nothing like the American one. Instead of a peaceful hike through the forest we were literally being pushed out of the way, waiting in lines, and trying to manuever through crowds. Very different from my trip in July to Glacier National Park in which I got to experience the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen with just my family... maybe seeing another human being every 4 hours.

The scenery was beautiful in Seoraksan, and the fall colors were amazing... but I couldn't seem to enjoy it as much as I wanted to because I was so frustrated with all the people. This is just another case I guess in which Korean culture is very different and hard for me to understand. I love the American National Parks way too much I guess.
We made it to the top of the mountain called Uslan Bawi after making our way up through Buddhist temples and hermitages and then came back down. We went back to the hostel then out for pizza and beer. We ended up meeting 2 Korean boys who spoke very little english but we went to the Noraebang with them, which is a karaoke room. We sang the English songs they knew and the Korean ones we knew. It was a funny night. The next morning we went to the beach in Sokcho for a little while and then took the bus back to Seoul.

Now I don't want people to think I didn't enjoy myself in Seoraksan, it was a fun weekend. I just really dislike the national park system in Korea and wish it were different... but thats just my opinion. Seoraksan was beautiful, I just wish they would do something about controling the crowds...

tanbeol middle school

my school is pretty big compared to most others that my friends teach at. there are around 1,700 middle schoolers. me and luke split them up, i teach the 2nd grade and half of the third grade and he teaches the 1st grade and the other half of the third grade. this means i teach roughly 800 students a week. for this reason i only need one lesson plan a week, and i teach it 22 times to 22 different classes. so that makes life really easy.


a typical day at work is coming to school at 8:20 and classes start at 9:00. i am done with work at 4:20. usually i have 4 classes a day for 45 minutes each, meaning the other 4 hours are spent sitting at my desk on facebook, planning weekend trips, or reading books. in fact i am currently writing this between classes at my desk.


my kids are for the most part good. my 2nd graders are split up into classes by their level, so i have red classes (they know lots of english) all the way down to green (they know nothing). the red classes are really enjoyable, the kids understand everything i am saying and actually care about learning english. the green classes on the other hand don't really care about what i am saying, and can't understand it either... so they basically talk/sleep the entire class, which is really frustrating. i always have a coteacher in every class, and i have 4 different ones. they translate and help me teach the material... but are mostly there for discipline and to keep the kids in check.

at school we get an hour for lunch at the cafeteria, and i actually really like the food. after we eat luke and i go up to the english cafe and talk to kids for extra credit. on wednesday in the english cafe we have a noraebang (a karaoke singing competition) for the kids (the songs have to be in english).

other than that life at school is pretty straightforward. it's a pretty easy job especially since i get to teach the same lesson 22 times for an entire week... that means ill only make around 50 lesson plans a year.

anthony bourdain style

This past weekend I left the Seoul area for the first time since arriving in Korea. Me, Rebecca, Amy, and Frisch decided to head to Busan, a city on the southern tip of Korea, with no real

plans or hotel reservations. We knew it was going to be a good weekend to go because we had heard about a fireworks festival happening.

We all headed to Seoul Station after work on Friday and caught the 9:00 bullet train. The

bullet trains are really popular in Asia (they're the same ones i took in Japan 2 years ago). We

basically got from the top of the country to the very bottom in 2.5 hours, which was awesome. We bought some juice boxes full of soju and drank them on the train ride.

We got to Busan around midnight and took cabs to Haeundae beach, which is the most popular

spot in the city, and met up with our friend Tom who lives/teaches in the Busan area. We found a hotel pretty quickly with enough room for all 5 of us. That night we walked around Haeundae beach which is beautiful. Busan kinda reminds me of the Miami of Korea, with posh hotels and such lined along the beach. The girls headed home around 3 while the boys decided to go to a casino until late that night.

The next morning we headed to the beach to check it out in the daylight. We laid around and took a walk along the beach. I collected handfulls of sea glass, for some reason there was tons!

After our relaxing afternoon on the beach we headed to a seafood restaurant to try out some new cuisine. Now until 2 months ago I was sure I was allergic to shellfish, however, right before I left I decided to try crab... and guess what? I wasn't allergic. Since arriving in Korea I have also tried more crab, shrimp, and to add to the list I tried clams in Busan. Because of my "allergy" I had never had clams before, and neither had Amy or Rebecca. The restaurant we went to was right on the beach, the perfect setting for our first clam adventure. The clams were plucked right out of a tank sitting in front of us and we cooked them ourselves on a little fire at our table. They were pretty good, I guess, I don't really get it though, they don't have much flavor to me.

After our seafood we headed to starbucks and a convenience store to pick up some dessert and some wine. We took a cab to Gwangali beach around 6, but we maybe should have gone earlier. The beach was PACKED with people. There was a fireworks show starting at 8 so we spread out our blanket and opened our bottle of wine. We passed the time by doing some sparklers, eating our desserts, and drinking. There had to be literally close to 100 thousand people on the beach we were at. The beach looks out over the ocean and a huge bridge that looks kinda the brooklyn bridge meets the golden gate. Around 8 the fireworks show started. The fireworks were pretty much the coolest fireworks show I've ever seen. They were set to music and half of the fireworks were set off of the bridge.

After the fireworks we went to a bar in the area for a drink. We were sitting there and all of sudden 2 kids from Semester at Sea walked in. I hadn't really been friends with them on the ship, but i recognized them and Frisch knew them. It was crazy to just run into them at the bar and it reminded me how small the world can be. After that we headed back to Haeundae beach and went out to a bar called "thursday party".

The next morning we had to check out by noon so we headed to the beach again and hung out for an hour or so... then we headed to the rail station and bought tickets back to Seoul on the bullet train leaving just 30 mins later. So convenient. They even played a movie on the train back! We got back to Seoul around 6 and had dinner, and I was back in my apartment by 8. Overall a really fun weekend of traveling... It felt really good to get out of my comfort zone of Seoul and sleep somewhere other than my comfy apartment for a whole weekend.

take a tour of my apartment

so here's a video of my apartment, for those who have been asking to see pictures... i figured a video would show it better. enjoy!

gwangju-si

The town is live in is called Gwangju. If you google Gwangju, South Korea, however you will find a much bigger city to the south with the same name. My city is much smaller. It has around 200,000 people living here, but in Korea that is a semi-small town. South Korea is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with 48,379,392 people crammed into an area the size of Indiana. My city, therefore, may sound as big as Madison and there may be just as many people, but it feels much smaller. Most Koreans live in apartments and not houses, so the city is much smaller area wise.

Map of South Korea: The orange part is Seoul, and Gyeonggi-do surrounds it.

My city is located in Gyeonggi-do province, which is the province surrounding Seoul. Most cities in Gyeonggi would be considered suburbs of Seoul. In order for me to get to Seoul I have to walk about a block to a bus station and take a red inter-city bus for 40 minutes. This bus drops me off at Gangbyeon Station, which is on the Green Line on the subway. The Green Line is the central loop through Seoul so from there I can get almost anywhere in about 30-40 minutes. It's really easy to get downtown and the subway is HUGE but really easy to navigate since it's all in english. I go to Seoul at least twice a week nowadays.

Map of Gyeonggi-do: My city is to the Southeast. Gwangju.

As for my actual city, I don't live in the main downtown drag, but on the main street we have faves like Baskin Robbins and Dunkin Donuts. An E-Mart just opened which is like a Korean version of Target meets Meijer. We have most things you could need.

a lesson in k-pop

k-pop is basically the only music everyone in Korea listens to. It's basically like the music I listened to when I was in middle school, like nsync and britney spears, but even more over the top. The singers are usually groups of 5 of more girls or boys and the music is very very poppy. Some of the groups (like super junior) have up to 13 boys in the group.

The funniest part of k-pop is that everyone here listens to it. the teachers at my school have the songs as ringtones, the old men blast it in their cars, and the business people are listening to it on their ipods on the subway. most k-pop also has at least a few english words in it as well and sometimes it's not very correct. for instance a group named KARA sings a song called pretty girl and the chorus goes "if you wanna pretty, every wanna pretty". which obviously makes no sense.

my favorite 2 groups are 2NE1 (4 girls) and big bang (5 guys).

my current favorite, however, which is much more poppy, is called "gee" by a group called girls generation which has 9 members. check it outtttt.

korean bbq (aka samgyeopsal)

So i've been here for 2 month already this Friday. A lot of the things that seemed crazy and foreign to me when I got here are now normal to my everyday life here. I forget that most of you still would like to hear about the little Korean things, food, and traditions that happen on a regular basis so I am promising to try and do blogs about things like that during the week and not just about my life on the weekend.

This first post is going to be about samgyeopsal, or Korean bbq. One of the most common foods here is called samgyeopsal and it involves pork or beef you cook yourself over a grill at your table.

After you cook the meat, you take it with your chopsticks and put it in a lettuce leaf. You add a whole clove of garlic and some hot bean paste sauce (and whatever else you might want) and pop the whole thing into your mouth at once.

The Korean's love this dish and there are resturaunts on almost every corner serving simply samgyeopsal. If you're ever planning on coming to Korea, plan on eating it. It's actually really really good. The great thing about going out for samgyeopsal is that it is served family style and the side dishes are free refills. That's all for now, more Korean tidbits soon!

english names.

This week in school I am really enjoying the lesson I am doing. I am giving all of my kids English names. I made a list of my favorite English names (my friends, family, and fave celebs). I pass out the list at the beginning of class and tell the kids to pick an English name and then make a name tag for their desk. Some of the kids know some American celebrities and what not and make up their own names too.

My favorites so far are:

Jack Sparrow
Ron Weasley (My girlfriend is Emma Watson)
Michael Jordon
Barack

It's also funny when the kids are named after my friends. Like today in one of my classes the front row was Nicci, Alan, and Matt. I couldn't help but laugh and i was wishing I had my camera. And in another class the girl named Lauren wouldn't stop talking, so typical. Its funny because I don't even assign them names, they pick them. Noone has picked Barney yet though, sorry Barn.

Anways I'm probably having too much fun suggesting that kids name themselves Tayshaun or Justin Bobby, it might be bad karma. But they are having fun with it too. Maybe I'll take some pictures tomorrow and put them up here.

midterms, cocoon, and gyeongbok.

last week was midterms for my school so i only had to come to work until noon everyday, which was awesome. on wednesday i went shopping in myeong-dong and spent way too much money (oops) and on thursday rebecca and i ventured to a vintage market. this is one of my favorite finds so far in Seoul. Dongdaemun market is one of the world's largest wholesale markets and you can find basically anything on the planet there. In one building of the market (called Gwangjang market) there are 2 floors of secondhand clothes. The only way I found the place was because i researched it on the internet, its actually really secluded. The market smelled like mothbolls, which was awesome, and had tons of vintage leather bags, jackets, boots, t-shirts, and all around awesome things. I could have spent hours upon hours there digging through all the things. At the market I got a sequined vest, shirt, a little purse, and a Detroit Tigers shirt.

The weekend officially started on Friday and we headed to Hongkik University or Hongdae as it's called (Dae means University). We went out to dinner and then hit the bars and clubs. We met some Koreans who took us to a club called Cocoon. It was a packed dance club that reminded me of London+Acapulco. We eventually went to Burger King around 4:30AM to wait for the subway to open at 5:30 and then all went home. I walked into my apartment around 7AM. Killer.
That day I mostly slept off the night, but then it was the guy I work with, Luke's birthday. We all went out to dinner in Bundang for some Indian food and it was sooo good. After dinner the group was headed back in Seoul to Hongdae and I decided I couldn't do it again (i know im old) so i met up with Amy, Adam, and Rebecca around the corner at a bar. We hung out at the bars for a little while, smoked some apple hookah, and then all hopped in a cab to my house. We had a slumber party at my place and in the morning cooked some eggs and watched Michigan lose to Iowa. We had woken up in the middle of the night to see if Wisco was worth watching... aaand it wasn't obviously.

On Sunday Me Amy and Rebecca decided to keep to our tradition of not wasting Sundays and doing something touristy and went to Gyeongbok Palace in downtown Seoul. This palace is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Seoul and it's HUGE. We walked around for a few hours taking pictures and enjoying the perfect fall day (sorry to all you at home, its still around 70 during the day here). The palace literally took 2 hours to walk through and was full of doors and colorful fun things to take pictures of.

After the palace we walked around the main drag of Seoul. The downtown area acutally reminds me a lot of Chicago. I could tell it was going to be a cool sunset so I wanted to watch it. We happened to be walking near one of the tallest buildings in Seoul so we decided to try and see if we could get to the top somehow. We took the elevator to the top floor and stumbled upon an amazing resturaunt with 2 story windows overlooking the whole city. We decided to have some expensive glasses of wine and enjoy the sunset. Sometimes spending money on something like this is worth it. We also made reservations here for November 6th (yeayuhh).

Chuseok present.

I just received a Chuseok present from one of my kids... its colored pencils, candy, and a small notebook. But the best part is the letter he wrote me in English, so I thought I'd share:

To Sara:

Hello! Sara!
I'm daniel Kim (Korean name kim in tae)
Last weekend is Korea traditional special day Chu-seok
So, I'm giving a present to you.
I'm not sure what my present means in America. But my present contains a lot of my true heart.
I hope we stay in close.
I wrote it Last Friday in school.
But i heard "you didn't come school" at after school.
So i give this today.

Sincerely, Daniel Kim (kim in tae)



so precious, right?

chuseok weekend

This past weekend was Korea's biggest holiday of the year: Chuseok. It's a celebration of the harvest and everyone travels to their hometowns to honor their ancestors. For this reason, traveling anywhere was out of the question and we stuck around Seoul/Geyeonggi-do. The holiday is kinda comparable to our Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning I met up with some of my friends and we headed to the Korean Folk Village in Yongin (south of Seoul). We were expecting a traditional village full of Korean history, however, it was a little more commercial than expected. Kids in traditional hanboks were feasting on corndogs and churros.

The whole day wasn't a waste, however, we got to see some pretty cool things like traditional Korean dance, herbs, holiday attire, and games. It was kinda comparable to Disney World meets Greenfield Village... but in Korea.

That Sunday Me, Amy, and Rebecca decided to head to the World Cup Stadium used for the world cup in 2002. The stadium itself was closed but we got to walk all around it and take in the asthetically pleasing area they chose. It was a brisk fall day and being outside and walking around the park area was nice. The stadium sits on the west side of Seoul and you can see the mountains peeking up behind it (to the left under the trees in this picture).

The weekend was a nice long break from work, but now I am back. Although this week is midterms so I am not teaching at all, just sitting at my desk all day everyday. I am about to go out for a traditional korean dinner with the English department. Fall has begun and I officially feel like I am not a tourist here anymore. That initial excitement/fear has worn off and now i acutally feel like a resident of Korea.

my trip to north korea

over this past weekend i took a trip to the DMZ (demilitarized zone) which is the strip of land, which is 4km wide, that seperates north and south korea.

just a little background on the situation for those who don't know, after the north and south koreans signed a cease fire ending the violence of the korean war, they established the DMZ which runs along the 38th parallel in order to create a "buffer zone" between the 2 countries. this strip of land is 4km wide with each country getting 2km up to the actual border. it is riddled with land mines and mostly uninhabited.

my tour started off with a trip to the dora observatory. from here we could see the actual line seperating the countries and a "propoganda town" in North Korea. this town literally was built to make the north koreans look good. noone lived there until recently and they also project literal propoganda over loud speakers for up to 10 hours a day. the town is complete with a 600 pound north korean flag waving higher than the equally as huge south korean flag right over the border. the tension here is very obvious.

after the observatory we went to the third tunnel. this is where i started to realize how crazy north korea actually is. the third tunnel is one of 4 tunnels that has been discovered leading from north korea, under the DMZ, and into south korea. these tunnels are beleived to be part of a plan to surprise attack seoul. the third tunnel can fit 30,000 troops an hour through it and lies only 52km north of downtown seoul. there are many other tunnels beleived to exist. the third tunnel tour was like going into a mine. we had to wear hard hats and we went 200m underground. the north koreans had smeared coal all over the walls of the tunnel as a way to say they were just mining for coal, not trying to invade.

after the third tunnel we headed to the highlight of the trip, the JSA. the JSA stands for the Joint Security Area and it is in Panmunjom, Korea. The JSA is the location at which the cease-fire between the two countries was signed. before entering the JSA we were breifed by US soliders and had to sign a waiver in case of any "enemy hostile acts". This waiver was no joke, as we learned of stories such as the Axe Murder Incident. The JSA is an area that is run by both countries and the guards literally stand "face to face with their enemy everyday".

We got to the JSA and as soon as we walked outside everyone became dead silent. Across the way we spotted a north korean solider wip out his binoculars and start watching us. We were standing facing 5 small buildings, 3 were blue and 2 were silver. the blue ones mean they belonged to the UN and the silver meant they belonged to the KPA (north).

We got to go into one of the blue buildings ( the one with the door open to the left) which was the building where the cease-fire was signed. the building lies right on the border between the countries and we got to walk over the acutal border and stand in north korea. inside the US solider told us many stories about how the north koreans try and mess with them. for instance, they go into their own buildings that straddle the line and open the curtains and flick off tourists/soliders and do the motion like they are slitting their throats. we were told to ignore them and definitely not acknowledge their presence, but they didn't do anything of that sort while we were there. They also told a story about how when Bush came to visit the DMZ the KPA soliders walked into the blue building and took an american flag and started polishing their shoes with it and wiping their noses with the south korean one. there are also scuff marks on one of the tables in a UN building due to a female KPA(north) dancing on it.

Only people with foreign passports are allowed into the JSA because they are scared of what koreans might do when put in this tense and emotional area. therefore, i felt very lucky we were allowed to go here.

Overall, the tour was crazy, and awesome. I'm really glad I got to go see the JSA and experience the insane tension that exists there. The korean situation is very unfortunate and unfortunately there seems to be no end in sight.

here are the rest of the pictures

myeong-dong

so every week i try and break up the montony of the workweek and go into seoul at least once. the past 2 weeks i have meet up with some people in myeong-dong, which is the big shopping district in seoul. myeongdong is the ninth most expensive shopping street in the world in terms of floorspace rents. they have a forever 21, american apparel, and much more. but what is even cooler is all the street vendors lining the streets. i bought a scarf, a headband, and a hat. there are millions of really cute boutiques and shoe stores and it makes you want to spend your entire paycheck. they also make these turkish kebabs that we are all OBSESSED with. the other street vendors sell things like octopus and other tasty korean treats. myeong-dong is a dangerous place for a shopaholic like me, but its awesome at the same time.

dobogonsan & RENT

last weekend on friday i went to see RENT in seoul. one of the benefits of living in a global city is the cultural opportunities like plays and musicals. RENT was doing a global tour and the two main characters (Roger and Mark) were played by the original cast members from broadway. it was really awesome to see, especially the song "living in america" which was just the two of them singing (therefore it was the same people as on the official RENT soundtrack). after RENT i went out in bundang with the girls i went with and went to a foreigner bar that literally didn't have a single korean in it. i felt like i was in america, it was strange.

on saturday i went on a hike up a mountain outside seoul in bukansan national park. it was really convenient as it was on the subway line and we didn't have to try hard to get there at all. there was a group of 10 of us and we headed out to the mountain around noon. it wasn't like any hike i've ever done because it was LOADED with koreans and the end portion was literally straight uphill, with ropes to pull youselves up. halfway up the mountain there was a buddhist temple with cool views and amazing scenery. it was a really cool place to pit stop on the way to the top. it was a really fun day though and the views at the top were very worth it. you could see all of seoul. here are the pictures....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2621900&id=8623045&l=4094c53ff4

after the hike pictures there are some random seoul adventures and pictures of my town (gwangju) and school. i'll put up a video of my apartment very soon i promise :)

fan death

in korea, everyone truly believes that if you leave a fan on for too long in a room while you sleep etc. it will kill you... reasons vary from:

1. the fan will chop up all the oxygen molecules and you suffocate

2. you will get hypothermia

3. the fan will suck all the air out of the room

i thought this was hilarious, because they really do believe it. apparently suicides are sometimes blamed on "fan death".  the fan in my apartment has a timer on it so it will only stay on for 3 hours maximum.

girls nights & sleeping on the beach

this past weekend was a really fun one...

friday night i had a girls night with all the girls who live in my city: meaning there were 5 of us. haha. but it was a really good time.... we are all from different countries (except 2 from the US) and we ordered pizza, drank wine, and read tarot cards. by the way chris, the tarot cards still said similar things.

the next morning i woke up early to head into seoul to meet up with a group of us headed out to an island for the weekend.... the group consisted of 2 people i knew and 3 i didnt. we headed out on the subway to the airport and then took a bus and a ferry to muuido island.

the island was different than i expected. once we made it to the beach it kinda felt like we were in a tropical place, like costa rica or something. we hung out by the beach and did some exploring. we ate dinner at a place right on the beach and enjoyed traditional korean pork bbq and crab (still not allergic!) and then set up camp and made a bonfire. we hung out at our bonfire all night and then slept right there next to it in our sleeping bags. it was a pretty sweet night. i made new friends and got to see some cool stuff in korea.

anyways i had a great weekend, and didn't want to start work at ALL today. here are the pictures from muuido island

to all the family at home, i am sorry i can't be there with you all this week, but i am thinking about you. love you all. rip uncle dick.

first week at tanbeol middle school

my first week of teaching was really easy... i didn't teach

my first week was just observing the english kid i work with, luke, in all of his classes all week. 

my work week is pretty easy, after i make up a lesson plan. i am at work for 40 hours, but only teach for 22 of those. the other 18 are spent sitting at my desk "making lesson plans".  the thing is, the school is so big i teach each class only once a week, so i get to teach the exact same lesson 22 times.... over and over.

i have to be at school from 820-420 everyday and i get an hour for lunch... which is actually ok in the cafeteria.

the kids are kinda bratty which is to be expected with middle schoolers, but they are also very interested in talking to me. they like to tell me about the boy bands they love, tell me my eyes are pretty, and ask if my brother is handsome.

i don't think i'm going to love the job, but its definitely not the worst thing i could be doing. haha. and as long as i have awesome weekends and vacations to look forward to i'll be fine.

seoul and bathhouses.

last weekend was my first weekend in korea, and it was a good introduction. on friday night i went to bundang with some of the teachers from my area. i got to meet around 10 other english teachers from all over the world. it's kinda fun having friends from england, new zealand, australia, and south africa because here we are all basically the same to a Korean... and before coming here i really had no friends from any of those places. it was a fun time, exploring the areas near me. we hung out at an irish bar called dublins.

the next day i went to seoul with frisch, paul, and isabelle...we went to itaewon, which is the area of seoul that developed as a place for american soldiers to frequent. for some odd (? haha) reason it is also full of fights and hookers. itaewon is full of foreigners, everywhere you look there are americans and people speaking english. we ate dinner there at a turkish restaurant, as this area has the most international food. after that we went to hongdae (hongik university) and walked around the nightlife... it was a really cool area and we kinda just hung out on the street. in seoul, the subways and buses stop at midnight, so when you go out, you're kinda stuck. therefore, at around 2am we needed a place to sleep and had heard about these bath houses where you can sleep on the floor for very little money. so we got in a cab and headed to the nearest one. let's just say it was an experience. we had to wear jumpsuits provided that looked like we were in jail, and sleep in a huge room on a mat with tons of other koreans. it was.... interesting haha but quite the experience.

Overall the weekend was encouraging to me and I hope I can continue to have as much fun once the weather begins to suck. more posts coming very soon.

First post from Korea.

Alright. So as most of you know by now, my first week here was pretty rough.  I arrived on Friday afternoon and was immediately taken by my co-teacher to a random Korean lady’s apartment, where I was to stay for 3 nights, in Seoul.

The next day I went to see the apartment I was supposed to be moving into. Unfortunately, it was on the ground floor with bars on all the windows and it made me feel very unsafe.  I talked to the teachers and they agreed to take me with a real estate agent around the area and find me something I liked better.

The next day I went to my school. I met the other native English teacher, Luke, who is from England. He gave me a tour of the school, which is pretty standard, except for the high tech projectors and stuff in each classroom for the teachers. Some of the teachers took us both to a very traditional Korean lunch… I ate a whole fish… haha. Afterwards we came to my new apartment to move in!

That night Luke and his girlfriend Louise came and got me and took me to another couple’s apartment for dinner and a scary movie. I tried soju for the first time, which is like Korean vodka, but very watered down, and costs around 80 cents for a bottle.

The next morning I ran some errands around town and set up my apartment a little bit and then went into Seoul. The couple I had met the night before (from Australia and Canada) happened to be going to the same subway stop as me so they offered to show me how to get there.  I took a bus for around 40 minutes and was dropped off at a subway station on the main central line in Seoul.  I took the subway for another 30 minutes to meet my friend Isabelle. We walked around Seoul all day and went to different temples and bookstores. For dinner we had traditional Korean bbq where you cook it yourself.  It was actually pretty good, oh and I’m not a vegetarian anymore, haha.  I took the subway and bus home all by myself and it was a really good feeling.

Today I just hung out in my city… I tried the Korean version of McDonalds, called Lotteria, which was pretty good for fast food, and the French fries are decent! I also found pasta and olive oil at the market, which I was very excited about. My apartment is coming together, although I can’t find hangers anywhere so none of my clothes are put away yet. Haha.

I start work on Monday. And I’m planning on going out in Bundang with Luke and Louise (and others) on Friday and then going to Seoul with people from Wisconsin on Saturday. I’m excited for the weekend!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me an email or message this week, I really appreciate it. Ill try and write back this week, but I rarely have internet. Most posts won’t be this long, sorry for the novel. Love and miss you all!!

first post

Welcome to my new blog! This one will be sorta like the one I did for Semester at Sea, but probably less interesting since I'm LIVING in Korea - not just traveling all the time - haha. But check here for updates on my life in Asia... 

I leave on Wednesday to go to orientation in Chicago and my flight is Thursday the 20th from O'Hare. 13 hours later I'll touch down in Incheon, South Korea where my co-teacher will meet me and take me to my new apartment in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do.

I'm getting really excited/nervous! Should be a crazy adventure... 

평화

Sara