teachers class

so i just finished another wonderful teachers class and found out all sorts of interesting things. like... school is out for winter break on December 30th, but they dont celebrate the regular new year, just the lunar one.. so apparently i don't get that time off unless requested... but, it does mean that i CAN get this time off... just an FYI to those interested. 
my teachers class is kind of strange and interesting, it satisfies my hours of teaching, yet... i sit in the break room and drink coffee and mostly listen to my co workers speak Korean. none of them want to participate in the class either, its like pulling teeth and bribing people to join the class with promises of sunshine and basketball....

im starting to plan my lessons for the next month. i think next week, being the week between their thanksgiving and ours, im going to talk about the difference in traditional thanksgiving things. perhaps have them make a menu... learn some thanksgiving vocabulary, make paper turkeys with different words on the wings.. haha who knows. anyways, will be interesting to see if i can come up with something. hopefully i can. 
i need to come up with something for the reast of the month though, i have two weeks where i have no ideas.... this is one of the very frustrating things for me here, coming up with ideas for lesson plans that are going to be interesting for the class... 

reason # 36 why korea sucks: buses

So i have been attempting for days to decide what i was going to do for the upcoming holiday cheosuk. so i finally decided that i was going to go and visit my friend rose up north in chuncheon. its a nice city north of Seoul that will provide me with a much needed break and a nice reunion with a great lady after 2 1/2 years!! so i decide that the bus is faster (takes about 4 hours) as opposed to the train (which takes about 5 1/2 hours) because of all the stops. i go onto the bus website all armed with my Korean phrasebook and Google translator, optimistic that it will be easy and ill be able to figure out how to book a ticket.
 I arrive on the site and figure out how to input the information for what i want; continue and pick the earliest/cheapest bus at 7am and put my bank info in and my Alien Registration Card (ARC) number. when i finish all of this i click 'ok' and come to a page that Google translator translates into a page with cancellation policy... so how do i know if my ticket is booked?! i go back and see that the seat i selected is still available, which means that either it take s little while for the server to update (Which would cause a lot of problems in my opinion) or it didn't work. through clever deduction (i.e. calling friends and getting their co's to call/calling the KTF- Korean people who help English speakers in korea) we find out it isn't, and i cant book it b.c. my bank card is not linked to my ARC # as i got the card before the ARC...
in other words, i cant book the ticket.

so now. i am stuck in a deliema. I ask my co-teacher if she can help and and she decides that she doesn't want to use her bank card to book for me... which also means... i cant get a ticket. so i ask her to call the bus station and see if i can have someone pick up a ticket there... (since im going from Daegu, i asked one of my friends there to go to the station and get it for me) no dice on this either.. apparently for this weekend the only way you can buy tickets is online....
does this make ANY sense?? seriously.
so now i am sitting at my desk. not sure what i'm going to do this weekend. watching the number of available seats on the bus slowly decrease as the day approaches to leave.
what will i do...
i have a teachers class this afternoon, and i'm hoping to try to discuss the subject of traveling for the holiday with them and possibly express my frustration with the Korean systems... i thought they were supposed to be more tech savvy over here, not more complicated....

later that day.... so the talk worked. and my co teacher who is my age and has thus been dubbed my friend used her card to buy my tickets. she even gave me her ARC card to pick up the tickets. which is kind of awesome. i hope i don't have any problems.  we will see.. im getting them to write down as much as possible for me. so here is where i am going... though im not going to Seoul im going a bit north east of it.. couldn't find a picture of a map with it on it.
im going to visit rose.
im really excited by this prospect because hopefully it will help me feel a bit of normalcy again. ive recently lost a little bit of something here... and im not quite sure what it is... a little quiet contemplation (which i have lots and lots of time for) will hopefully bring about more conclusions.
i think i just really miss home. and im starting to loose the whole brand new place feel of this place. even though it sucked. it was still new... now the daunting task of spending a year in this place that is all new is sort of.... hitting me smack in the face. i was told to cheer up today... haha. i try to smile for the students, but sometimes its hard when i don't feel like i'm doing anything for them. i really want them to learn, and to e excited about learning... but when they are running around screaming or completely ignoring me... it doesn't seem like i'm doing my job well... hopefully with time i will master some skills and the children will learn a little bit more respect for me.

Weekend in Seoul

So last weekend i took a trip to Seoul to see a show called global gathering. Lots of great Drum nd Bass and DJS and lots of fun! I had to ask to leave school early because of an 'apointment' so that i could catch my bus at 430.. which is when im supposed to finish school anyways. i dont feel so bad doing this because i come in on mondays an extra half hour early, so i figure since my contract states im only supposed to work 830-430 i can cut out a few minutes early every once in a while on a friday to go travel. The show was awesome. Lots of dancing and jumping around. we literally made it there the second crystal method was finishing and prodigy was starting. After the show i took a cab ride with my friend Amy to her friend nicole's house in Sujigu. This is in the north east corner of seoul. When we went looking for cabs we found a long line of them and we talking to nicole trying to get the exact place to go, giving the phone to the driver and having her friend who speaks korean translate where we were going. all seemed fine until he started waving his hands at us and rubbing his fingers together... it seemed he wanted money. BUT the meter wasnt running, and we hadnt agreed on a price. So we call the korean speaking person back and he tolld her he wants us to pay 70,000 Won. which... its about the equivelent of 70$. this... seemed quite rediculous to me, since the distance was about the same as from notl to downtown niagara falls,which would cost about 30$ at the most. Anyways, since we were already in the cab we didnt have much of a choice in the matter. so we payed the gradeous amount of money... the cab driver felt that we wanted to still party or something, even though we were falling asleep in the back watching the sun come up, and switched on some strobe lights and dance music... i thought i was being punked, or on that cab game show... but no... so.. being me, put my face into his face and started talking very loudly in english asking him to please stop... i may have thrown in a few choice words, considering the situation he put us in. he turned off the music and lights. its lucky neither of us had epilepsy...

now in my experience of travelling throughout europe, i rarely took a taxi, my feet were there to carry me through the night every single time, no matter how far of a walk it might have been.  but, i was always warned about taxi drivers ripping foreigners off when they least expect it. this was my firest experiece with it actually happening. and it kind of took me off guard.
the rest of the weeked faired pretty well.. the next day we slept in and ate pizza and watched amovies. a nice relaxing saturday afternoon. in the evening we headed into the city (a 2,000 won bus ride might i add... thats about 1.50) and went to the 'western district' known as itaewon. walked arounf there for al ittle bit and relished in all of the non korean's. then i went to another busy area, the name escapes me rightnow to meet up with some friends there and headed to a hookah bar. it was pretty neat! they had like tree houses all overthe place, we ended up in a place that was 'underneath' a tree house. but it was pretty awesome. a nice little meditation space filled with lots of pillows and blankets. it was a litel cozy with 10+ people under there, but still really great.
i stayed at a friends house so that i could stay for free and i slept on the floor, the bruises on my hips are still evidence of the wonderful sleep that i got. haha. we got up around 10 and decided to go into the city again and get some food and go to the folk flea market. the most amazing place in the world. im serious. i love this place...so many interesting things to find and look at. i bought myself a guitar, after much deliberation; i decided the 35$ was worth it. ill post a pic soon!

then i got on the bus, almost didnt make it... grabbed some kim bop (korean sushi) and read the rest of my book... home is always nice when you are exhauseted.

Shopping adventure/Bodypainting and a Bus driver

So, this week was an interesting one. On Tuesday i went to Home Plus with my co-teacher. Home Plus is like the korean version of the UK's tesco... it even says tesco on the side of the building.anyways its 4 floors of glorious goodness and i sincerly wish with all my heart that there was one nearby. its a one-stop shop for everyhting you would ever need, and it would make my life so much easier. Alas, the things that we went there for were basic necessities for my 'apartment' and there seemed to be room for little else. We went in with my co-teachers daughter, who is super cute, and left her sitting at the lotteria... like a mcd's only asian. i thought it a little nerve racking as the child is only 7 years old, but it seemed to be okay, and the attendant said her would look out for her, from what i could gather. so we ran around the store and i am now the proud owner of.. a rice cooker (its lavender on insistence of my co- she didn't like the less expensive orange one), a portable gas stove, a toaster, three pairs of chopsticks and two spoons, a large cutting knife and a small parang knife, some really lovely dishware (pictures to follow) a pot, two frying pans (b.c. the tiny one was free with it), two mugs, a mixing bowl, a cutting board, one tray, and a hotplate. :)
all of these things are wonderful amenities to have when paired with the proper groceries.. but those were not acquired and... there are no stores near me... so i had the tools just not the ingredients.  after we finished out shopping spree it was around 8:00 at night and was already pitch black outside... its strange how quickly it gets dark here.. one minute its daylight and the next its night.
so she told me she did not want to drive me home in the dark (its about an hour drive) because she is too tired and i should just stay at her house for the night. well, this was not the most appealing idea to me, but i really had no choice in the matter. it was a strange experience. When i arrived at her house she took me into the bathroom and produced a bag full of toiletries that she had just bought.... somehow... she placed a toothbrush, cup and bath puff on the counter. and told me i was to "shower now" and then she left the room closing the bathroom door behind her.  i stood there a little bit confused b.c... in the first place i have nothing to change into once i shower, i showered that morning, and it was just plain strange being told i had to shower at that moment. This is one thing about koreans that i have found quite interesting. haha. they all do things the same way. eveyone conforms to this mould of the way you should live and doesnt question it. Now i may be a little biased since i have only been here for a limited time, but my observations thus far have lead me to this mock-conculsion, which seems to be a pertty accurate depiction of their lives.
Speaking with my co-teacher later that night, (after i turned on the water of the shower for like 5 minutes and brushed my teeth... haha) i found out that a lot of the older generation feels pressure to maintain a certain way of life. a pure-blood existence in which stability and conformity are the normal ways of life. she expressed to me her disinterest in this type of thinking, even though it is part of her generation. she also expressed how her belief that was in Canada there is no discrimination between races and race mixing is a very popular thing to do. (her words) i tried to think about this for a little bit and wondered how to answer this statement. true, Canada is a place where many cultures co-exist, but does anyone live in a place where discrimination does truly not exist? if there is such a place i would love to know about it. discrimination can come in the smallest form and doesn't always have to do with race. look at a school, where kids who do not have a certain haircut, or listen to a certain type of music, or wear a certain brand name.. regardless of race they are discriminated against; perhaps not the most astute observation, but one nonetheless. do i think that people are more likely to be married to someone that is not on their exact background in Canada... well yes, Canada is a place that is filled with people from all different backgrounds and cultures and so this would be kind of an insane notion to think of. Korea on the other hand.. well... mainly full of Koreans. the other foreigners you do see are usually stared at as they pass by and not regarded as a part of their society, even though they could have been living there for more than 10 years.
anyways, that was my rant about that. and im tired now so i guess i will have to finish the story of the bodypainting and bus driver another time.
happy reading everyone.

My Address

for those of you paitently waiting...
her is my addres so you can send me mail..
 its backwards.. so i think to avoid confustion at the korean post i think its best to write it this way??im having mail sent to my school since most places wont know how to read english... including the motel i live at and then the package/letter will not get to me! so here ya go:

South Korea
635-893
Gyeong-nam, Chang-nyeong
Bugok-Myeon
Bugok Middle School
Bryn Lepp