Santa, do you like red clothes or rainbow clothes?

So I know I just posted an entry last night, but I wanted to share these. Here is some of the cutest/best writing I've had so far. I haven't edited at all - this is exactly how these pieces were written.

Cutest santa letter so far:

Hello, Santa. I'm Sally. I'm 15 years old. I am NoByeun middle school student. I am quiet. I can't shout loudly. So I want loud voice and brave. I cannot talk to everyone. My dream is elementary school teacher so I need to brave and loud noise. Santa, please help me. ^-^ Santa, I believe you live Santa country. Come back my house again and give me brave and loud voice.

Santa, Merry Christmas

Also adorable - from a little girl who used to grab my arm every lesson and say 'My teacher arm is always big':

Merry Christmas Santa.

My name is Sarah

What is your real name?

Do you like red clothes or rainbow clothes?

I want see your Rudolph.

And Santa I want a magic lamp, i-phone and money.

Santa Clause please give them.

Because I want have that.

Santa one years. I'm fight my drother, mom, father, children and my friend. Santa I promise a not fight and good next year.

Merry Christmas!! Oh! and I want a pet~

bye~ Santa

Sarah

An old story from one of my favourite elementary students, Jenny. This girl is pretty much always this funny:

Long time ago, there is very strong girl. Her is Jenny. She fight with cow and elephant and rhinoceros, but one elephant is her friends. She was cut the hair, so elephant don't know who are Jenny! Oh my god! She fight with him, but........... She went to the sky with elephant.

And possibly the best, most original piece I've had from a middle-school student I only taught 3 times. I asked them to pretend that their father had brought a dinosaur egg back as a gift from a business trip, and the assignment was to write about how to look after it.

It's impossible present for 21C people, except almighty god. Anyway, you want to have a Tyrannosaurus for your huge pet or fierce emergency food. First, you should change temperature hotter and hotter. The dinosaur egg is bigger than your body. So you must protect his warmth with big fire and blanket like a hen hold her eggs. Then you should make friends in the neighborhood of him. Once upon a time, dinosaurs' mom arranged their eggs like circle. So you had better make circle with your egg and toy eggs. Your egg feel comfortable. At last, you have to talk to him. It's very important point for you. If you don't tame him, he punches your notse when he hatches. Everyday you touch his egg shell, talk about politics, economy, literature, etc. Finally you greet him with a good-night-kiss. Few months later, you can meet your huge friend.

This is prolly my awesomes shirt

An entry on Korean is well overdue. Last Saturday the weekly class at the YMCA finished, and while I'm far from being able to hold even basic conversations, I have picked up enough to understand why my students struggle so much with basic grammar, spelling and pronunciation: Korean is a wee bit different from English. Obviously I'm a big geek, with a big love for phonology, but I will try to keep this light and non-techincal. Well, I'll settle for 'decipherable'.

Let's start with the pronunciation. Of course this is my favourite thing. In brief, syllables can have at most consonant-vowel-consonant. The final consonant can only be l, m, n, ng, p, t or k. To put this in perspective, English allows up to three consonant sounds at the beginning AND end of a syllable (e.g. 'strengths'). Also, they don't have any fricatives (long consonants) except s – so that's no z, f, v, or th sounds – or diphthongs.

In case you're thinking this means Korean is easy to pronounce, you are very wrong. They have a 'j' sound that is not voiced (making it sound more like a 'ch' to us), plus a geminate (double) 'j/ch' sound AND an aspirated 'ch' sound. The same pattern exists for the 'b/p' sound. I could happily study the differences between these sounds, but I find it extremely hard to hear, or produce, correctly. Many of the vowels are also nightmarishly similar to each other for English speakers.

Hopefully you can now see a little why when they write 'Matrix' in Korean, it comes out as 'Ma-tuh-rik-suh'. The 's' sound is also sort of between the English 's' and 'sh' sounds, so sometimes things sound a little lispy to an English ear. All of this leads to the peak of accidentally offensive Konglish: the 'shitty joo' instead of 'city zoo'. It also explains why I experience ridiculous levels of mishearing on a daily basis – snake vs. snack being a common, and often amusing, example. Getting the kids to say 'watched' (instead of 'watch-i-duh') is one of my favourite activities: my little ones are even starting to get it.

The grammar is also very very different, though my understanding of it is much more basic. I know that the verb comes last, even though I always forget that when I try to speak. And I know that most adjectives are actually verbs, in terms of grammar. So their word for 'tall' is actually a verb meaning 'is tall'. Realising this was so helpful for understanding my students' writing. Beyond that, I don't know much at all, but I'm sure the fundamental differences only get bigger with more study, given the sentences produced by even advanced-level English learners.

After trying to get my head round this stuff enough to actually make a few Korean sentences, and understand people, I have concluded that language is all about lines. In my head, Language looks like a colourful, messy blob, consisting of the full spectrum of what is possible. Each language carves up this space into meaningful units; and learning a new language means redrawing those lines.* When you learn another European language, the lines match up relatively often – with Korean it sometimes feels like they never do. You have to approach every new piece of information with as blank a slate as you can, and try to remember that the shape of your own language is far from the only way. I know this idea isn't ground-breaking, but even Arabic wasn't as challenging to my poor mono-lingual brain as Korean, and I feel like I am just now gaining a full appreciation for what my professors were on about when they talked about defining the boundaries of 'possible Language'.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the title is prolly the awesomes slogan I've seen on a t-shirt. More on Konglish another time.

* Vowels are probably the most concrete example: you can produce an infinite range of vowels phonetically, but to make any of them meaningful in speech, you have to define the boundaries that separate one vowel from another. Word meaning is also pretty easy to understand in this way if you imagine 'meaning' as space that is divided by words. Sentence meaning and syntax always hurt my head with their messiness, which makes both seem extra blobby in a vague and ill-defined sort of way.

Going native...

I've started to notice recently that I am, somewhat unsurprisingly, changing to fit Korea better. A few things I really didn't think would happen:

1. I like drinking hot water - I used to think this was the weirdest thing, but it just makes more sense to drink a glass of hot water when its cold outside.
2. I suck my teeth when I'm thinking – They do this all the time. I've started doing it too. It's not attractive. I also do the whiny nasal 'aa-aa-aaaaaah' sound and nod my head vigourously when I understand something. Again, not exactly fetching.
3. I'm obsessed with cute things – My (always faulty) cheese filter is gone. No trace is left. I love the cute-ness. The kids, the socks, the stationery: I love all of it.
4. I like heated toilet seats – I was vehemently opposed to this at first, but then its like 'Damn this bathroom is cold, and this seat is so toasty. Nice.'
5. I don't have a heart attack when scooters try to mow me down – They zoom about and everyone ignores them. Especially my heroes: the ajummas.
6. I may not be able to live without kimchi – I'm not alone in this: last Saturday, after hours of dancing, four of us waygook girls managed to polish off a plate of the delectable fermented cabbage in approximately 45 seconds.

Thought I'd also share one of the funniest classroom moments so far:

Me – Have you heard of Lady Gaga?
Lizzie – Teacher wait.
(Looks up a word in her phone dictionary)
Lizzie – Teacher, she is my idol.

Damn that kid – that might have been the only fully grammatical sentence she ever produced in my class.

...plus c'est la même chose

Birthday What with my birthday being so close to Halloween, and one of my friends here having a birthday the same week, it seemed only right to have a joint birthday night out the following weekend, thus allowing me to convince myself I had a week long birthday!

Sunday afternoon I went to a climbing competition at Palgongsan with Cat and Simon (who have a car....woo!) and Anne (who has good chat...woo!). I'd never actually seen a climbing competition before, and it was really good fun. The audience reactions were wonderful: more than one person shouted 'Nice-uh!' and generally got really into cheering the climbers on through the difficult sections. Palgongsan is also insanely beautiful: 'san' means mountain, so while the climbing was on an artificial wall, we were surrounded by mountainous views. And this being a Korean mountain, there was an impressive temple nearby too. Possibly even more entertaining than the climbing was the sight of a huge crowd of people listening to a truly bizarre selection of songs played in a jazz-pop style in the courtyard of the main temple. Oh Korea. (For Facebookers, Simon's put up an album of photos from this little daytrip - I am tagged in one photo so if you are my friend, you can click it and see the whole album. If you are not my friend I'm not sure what to suggest.)

Sunday night was a wee bit more relaxing than the madness of Halloween – just had dinner with Lacey, and got my second pair of awesome K-socks adorned with my favourite K-pop singer: G-dragon. (Do watch the video – it's quite marvellous.) I showed my socks to the kids at school on Monday, which got the rapturous squealing I'd expected, and generally had a lovely day at work followed by another lovely dinner at Cat and Simon's house.

The next weekend, Simon and I celebrated our birthdays again. Simon turned 30, so he really is 'ajushi' (old man) now, and I got called 'ajumma' (old lady) more than once. We celebrated all this ageing by eating fresh and simple Italian food and drinking excellent Italian wine at a restaurant run by an actual Italian chef. I'm no longer ashamed that my favourite food in Korea is foreign food. I do like Korean food, but its quite samey, and I'm just not willing to give up eating the food of lots of different countries. Of course, this being a Saturday, we went downtown for some fun and frolics, which included free drinks from our favourite barmen and meeting two birthday twins – one actually of the same vintage (1983 was a very good year). We finished off the night by belting out Alanis Morrissette at a noraebang. The next afternoon a few of us went to Hami Mami's for a breakfast buffet, and a cafe with English language magazines. A relaxing end to a very happy birthday week.

Seoul Again. Last weekend, Lacey and I headed up to Seoul for some shopping and sightseeing. We stayed in a 'love motel' in Sinchon the first night, and I now understand why people get a bit cagey about these – the one I stayed in my first weekend in Busan was absolutely fine, but this one was, well, pretty gross. We also learned that staying more than one night in a love motel is rather expensive. Because they rent those rooms out during the day. Ew.

So we moved to a much nicer hotel in Itaewon (the foreigner district) for the next two nights. I didn't like Itaewon last time, and it is still unsettling to be surrounded by so many non-Koreans, but after 3 months, a trip to the international food mart and book store were even more welcome, as was the Mexican and Arabic food. Actually, I think the eating might be the best thing about Itaewon. The Arab restaurant deserves special mention: we met fellow Sijans, Lia and Abby, there for lunch, and were the only white girls there. Most of the other customers were middle eastern men, and the owner seemed a little taken aback that four white girls would go so crazy for a buffet including hummus and falafel. We were politely, if awkwardly, informed that it was rude in Arab culture to waste any food, so we were to eat everything on our plates. This we promptly did. Twice.

We also found time to spend an obscene amount of time in Forever 21, drink some real beer in a brew-pub south of the river (while watching a Korean version of 'Cheaters' on the projector screen), and visit the Leeum Samsung Art Museum. The museum was really brilliant - I don't know why I only manage to go to art museums when I'm abroad because I always like it. They had a gallery of ancient Buddhist carvings and pottery and another two galleries of modern Korean and Western art. My favourite of the Korean paintings was a giant black velvet canvas, with a traditional Korean landscape picked out in diamante. It seemed to sum up Korea awfully well, though I certainly wouldn't want such a tacky thing in my livingroom.

Plus ça change

Just so you know, I ate cheerios with chocolate sauce for breakfast, and listened to girly folky country music. Then I was late for work. Just so you know some things never change.

So I thought I should do some kind of update on the last almost two months, so here are the highlights from October.

Busan is the second (or third. Damn you Incheon!) city of Korea, and we went to see the fireworks extravaganza they had to celebrate the end of their international film festival. This was the second time I've been to Busan with the intention of meeting up with other people who went on a different train, and the second time I've failed. It seems to be a black hole where fun things happen and people get very lost. Luckily, we were quite the merry troop on our own, and all the stress of getting from the train station to the beach melted away immediately that the first rockets went up. We'd spent a good couple of hours fighting through the biggest crowd I've ever been in, and settled for a slightly blocked view, but within about 10 seconds we all looked at each other and acknowledged that it had absolutely been worth it. There were all kinds of new fancy fireworks I've never seen, and tons that were just plain bigger than anything I've seen before. Definitely some very pretty bombs.

Of course that was only the beginning of a stupendous night out that included standing in the sea, having our photos taken with three little Korean girls who were very excited to speak some English, being told repeatedly by the barmaid in a soju hof that we were all 'very cute-uh' and 'sexygirl' (it definitely sounded like one word when she said it), hanging out with some Korean students (who thought I was younger than I am....oh Korea, thank you), and running to catch the first train back to Daegu 5am. Good times indeed.

Fish feet One of our post-Korean class wanderings included a trip to a very unusual cafe in Daegu where you can stick your feet in a fish tank. And the little fishies eat the dead skin off your feet. The cafe itself is a lovely place to chill out (even if the only English language book was 'Eats Shoots and Leaves') and the non-lactose-intolerant among us tucked into the all-you-can-eat supplies of toast and other baked goods. The fish thing is quite a strange sensation, and you could definitely feel when one of the bigger ones was chomping away at your foot. Overall, it was ticklish and funny, if rather ineffective at making your feet soft or lovely. Later that night I had a kettle thrown at my head by an angry English hooligan type. It was quite an eventful day.

Halloween was as ridiculous as I thought it might be. Every foreigner in town gets dressed up, and the Koreans stare at this bizarre activity. On the 5 minute walk from the subway station, we got four 'wow!'s and one 'assah!' (a Korean exclamation – means something like 'woop'). I think this had very little to do with my somewhat homemade 'zombie climber' outfit, and more to do with the 'goth from clockwork orange' and 'hamburgler' I went out with. It took a good bit of chat with fellow revellers (and looking through facebook albums!) in the next few days to put together the whole night because we kept running between places and chatting with, well, with everyone. Suffice to say, it was awesome and crazy in the best way.

Redressing the balance

While looking for something non-work related to read this evening, I stumbled across a blog written by a Daegu expat who I met a few weeks ago. The blog is extremely vitriolic, and while the views expressed have clearly been thought through, it didn't sit well with me. Put simply, there were lengthy discussions of racism in Korea, and the general bad treatment foreigners receive here. I'm not going to wade in on any big debates because I've only been here a short time, but it made me want to share my own very positive experiences of Korea, just to set the balance right in my own little corner of the universe. So here's my top five moments in no particular order:

The moment my rowdiest middle school boys looked up the word 'cheeky' in their electronic dictionary. They could not have been more entertained that a teacher would call them 'impertinent'. These are the same kids who named 'Jen Monster' as the most scary Halloween character. They are probably my most fun group to teach, though I doubt much learning goes on in that classroom.

Having my bag pulled out of my hands on the subway, and then being pulled into a seat next to an ajumma. This one requires some explanation: the red line subway in Daegu has a high proportion of older passengers. They are of course more traditional, and they don't like to see a person standing up and holding a heavy bag. So having got up to allow an older lady to sit down, a gentleman across the way promptly grabbed my bag from me and perched it on his lap. Once he'd left, the lady next to him pulled on my jacket to make me sit next to her. She then smiled at me and looked generally pleased until we left.

Being given a Korean name. Having learned that some expats are given a Korean name, I was very keen to have one. So I asked our favourite barmen at Go Go Vinyl to name me. They said they would think about it, and when we wobbled past later that night, they said they'd come up with one: 최 미 나 (Che Mi Na). I know I'm easily pleased, but it definitely made me smile.

How are you today? Every day I ask my students how they are, and they have to give me a reason why. The little ones often say something like 'I'm really really very very always always much-i much-i... terrible... becau-juh... many school homework-uh.' Last week it rained pretty heavily, which doesn't happen much at this time of year. So when I asked one of my favourite elementary students 'How are you today, Sally?' she answered 'Today teacher, I am dirty.' Turns out rain is dirty. Who knew?

The moment an ajumma apologised to me. I have been shushed on the KTX (high speed) trains more times than I can count. They like trains to be quiet here, and my voice just carries. On an early morning train back to Daegu from Busan, an older lady shushed me after I'd spoken on the phone for only a few moments in my best 'indoor voice'. I then grumbled to my friend that it was completely ridiculous when I really hadn't been noisy. A few moments later she stood up, looked me square in the eye and said 'I'm sorry sister'. Oh my. I said it was ok of course, and made sure to smile and bow politely when I got off the train, but I was really confused by this whole encounter. I asked a friend about it and she said that using family terms to address strangers is common in Korea, but usually it corresponds to the relative age, so an older person wouldn't normally call me 'sister'. Maybe it was a mistranslation, but it definitely didn't feel like the disrespect we foreigners are supposed to get all the time. It felt like a genuine apology for overstepping the mark. Wherever you are in the world, that's a nice thing.

Happy Halloween!

I'm not going to take the time right now to do a full post, but I wanted to say Happy Halloween to those at home (and those scattered about too of course!) I hope you all have very scary costumes for tonight's revelry - according to my middle school students, 'Jen Monster' is the most scary monster of all, so I guess dressing up is not necessary for me!

The last couple of weeks has gone by insanely quickly; this last week being mainly taken up with a rotten cold, which is now thankfully improving, and monster-themed lessons. Korea's still exciting, teaching's still wonderful and all is well. I'll post a proper update shortly.

Wish you were here!

Slippers and shuffling

Things that seem normal after 2 months in Korea:

Extremely wide roads – the street outside my school is 11 lanes wide – literally.

Wearing slippers indoors – this makes you shuffle.

All manner of vehicles on the pavement – from bikes and mopeds to trucks. They not only park on the pavement - they drive on it too.

Cars without colour – white, black, silver and grey. That's about it.

Small children grabbing me (and my earrings) all day long – Ah the joys of elementary students.

Bowing – When in doubt, I bow.

Aloe (as in Vera) juice – holy crap this stuff is tasty!

Chopsticks – even the metal ones.

Patients outside the hospital – in their gowns, often with their IV drip and occasionally smoking too.

Being stared at – not as big an issue as I expected, but it does happen, and it does seem normal-ish now.

Physical contact - I'm no longer surprised when a shop assistant strokes my arm or I see children to play with each other's hair. It's really nice actually.

Babies strapped to their parent's back by a blanket – this seems to be the mode of transport of choice for many a wee one. The parents must have awesome knot-tying skills.

Noisy as all hell mobile phone stores – oh the K-pop. Wonderful on the dancefloor; unnecessary on the street.

That truck that drives around my neighbourhood with megaphones - I gather this is in aid of some business or other. Mainly it is annoying and a little creepy, but now it is normal too.

Two-handed giving/receiving – whenever you hand something to someone, or vice versa, you are supposed to use both hands. Failing which, the other hand should be under your forearm. Sounds cumbersome, but quickly becomes automatic.

Bins full of used toilet paper - I didn't say 'Things that seem nice...'

Awful beer – Hite-uh and Cass-uh are the most common – neither is any good. I am no longer agog with either.

Doors that open outwards – subtle difference, but felt so wrong to begin with.

Jets overhead – we're near an American base so there are a lot of fighter jets flying above Siji.

No bins in the street – This is only a slight exaggeration – yet the streets are still pretty clean.

Phone numbers in car windshields – often cross-stitched and always 'cute', car owners display their phone number so that they can be contacted if the car needs to be moved. I'm told it is also good courtesy to leave the car in neutral in case it needs to be pushed out of the way.

Being surprised – all the freakin' time.

Chuseok in Seoraksan part drei

Ok, this has gone on long enough. I hope you aren't exhausted by the tales of mountains, so I'll try to be brief and get the photos to look acceptable (me and html are not what you'd call close.)

Day four was indeed a difficult one to start. Mark was first up, and his excellent door knocking skills got the rest of us to the hostel kitchen for a fairly messy attempt at breakfast. Anne was the only one untouched by the evil hand of drink, but we all found ourselves on a bus by 10am. Our view from the hostel window also helped inspire abandonment of duvets.

We wobbled our way to the cable car, and took the alarmingly speedy journey up. The entire trip in the cable car took only 5 minutes, and it was fast enough to make my ears pop (I have a feeling I am rather more sensitive to this than other people...) We'd been reliably informed that you could go up to the top of the hill from there, but every step was agony, and I definitely thought I would not be going any higher. Anne went on ahead to investigate, phoned a mere 10 minutes later to say it really was easy, and so we all made our way up.

The path was indeed easy, but finished up at a little nobble of rock, which looked lovely to scramble on. Indeed it was clearly popular with the dozens of people already swarming over it. It was steep, but by far the most dangerous thing was scrambling in close proximity to so many people who have no idea what they're doing – including a woman in heels. Despite the press of people, those few minutes of scrambling really undid my hangover. On the way down, I was informed through gesture that I really should hold on to the rope else as it was not safe. The 'rope' being rather tatty, attached at only one end, with 5 people already hanging on and swinging it about. I attempted to indicate that my solid hold on the rock was preferable, but the helpful chap still felt that he should grab my shoulder, as I clearly did not know what to do. Oh dear.

After the trip back down, all the excitement inspired Steve to sit in a stone bowl. There was a lot of banter and not a lot of movement for quite some time, but we eventually settled on an easy walk to Biryeon waterfalls after Mark headed back to town to catch his bus home. Steve and George were doing well to avoid their hangovers by way of hair of the dog, and the four of us made quite a motley crew, but we made it safely and merrily to the falls.

Again, my photos do not do justice to this delightful valley, nor can they capture the restorative effect of walking through dappled sunlight in good company. A quick dangle of feet in startlingly cold water was also a real wake up after all the walking (and not quite enough washing...!) We interrupted our tramp back at the two outdoor restaurants for beer and pajeon (Korean potato pancake). There was also a very funny incident involving a Korean understanding rather more English than anticipated. Good times.







Anne and I eventually dragged our tired selves to the bus station and our pimped out express bus. The airconditioning and huge comfy seats were absolute heaven and, after a wee snooze, we woke to find a K-drama playing on the bus tv. Happily, it was the next episode after one we'd seen in the Chinese restaurant the night before. Trying to work out the plot was enormously entertaining - I do believe I've found my favourite programme. Korean dramas make even Sunset Beach look underacted and subtle. Fantastic.

Obviously I am behind again. Obviously I have more thoughts on Korea, and more things I want to write about, but it's a bit much just now. I hope you are all well, and emails to let me know how you are would be most welcome! For those who don't do facebook, get me at jen.wright1983@gmail.com

Chuseok in Seoraksan Part Deux

Realised after the last post that I had not actually said who was in the group. Oops. I'm still not quite sure about giving names on this thing, but Anne has put up a note on Facebook (I am tagged if you want to read it), and Mark has a blog (with links to many more photos). So there are now three versions of this weekend online! Both Mark and Anne work for Yale, though Anne is based in Jisan. Also with us were two of Mark's football buddies, Steve and George, both English and currently living in Gyeongju. This weekend was the first extended period I've spent in the company of fellow Britishers, and it was nice to revert to my former accent and vocabulary.

Anyhoo, on Saturday, Anne and I enjoyed a well-earned lie-in until almost 11am and a leisurely breakfast in the hostel's adorable kitchen. I don't think I would have left at all were it not for Anne's gentle persuasion. I'm awfully glad we did!

Being sore from the previous day, we decided on a short walk up to Heundeulbawi ('Teetering Rock'), with a possible extension of the walk up to Ulsanbawi. I think the walk was around 3km in total, but again, we had not quite appreciated how steep it would become. Up to Heundeulbawi, the trail was easy and scenic, taking in a walk past the giant Buddha statue and temple and through some woods. The rock itself was smaller than I'd expected, and it does seem improbable that it hasn't yet been knocked off. Anne and I decided that we'd best not try to push it over - I remain convinced that, had we tried, our waegukin strength would have toppled the boulder and ruined everyone else's fun.













There was talk of turning back at this point, but as Anne said, there was no way we were going to ignore the chance to go further 'up'! From this point, the trail gradually became steeper, and legs protested at the further exercise. We thought we were there when we reached the bottom of a large cliff, but no such luck: there were stairs up to the top. I nearly backed out as it felt like a cheater's way up the rock (especially when there were quite a few bolted routes within sight of the steps) but that would have made me even more of a wuss. This was even steeper than the previous day's climb – it was also more exposed and windy – and far more crowded! At the top, we found not only handrails, but a stall selling souvenirs. I'll just let that sink in...we'd climbed metal staircases up a cliff and snaked through gaps in boulders at the top, and there, above all that, was a man with a megaphone selling gold medals. I absolutely had to have one – after the previous day's exertions, getting to the top of Ulsanbawi really felt like an achievement - and 10,000won seemed a reasonable compensation for the chap for hefting the medals up there and engraving them. (It says my name! In Hangeul! Which of course means it says 'Jenipa', but hey, that's as close as it's gonna get.)

Unsurprisingly, a steep metal staircase up a cliff is actually more scary on the way down, but it certainly was quick, and we were soon back in Sokcho enjoying a cheap and tasty bowl of chinese noodles for dinner. (I'm assured that this particular dish is about as common in China as chicken tikka masala is in India.) After so much hiking, an evening of beers seemed in order. Off we trotted to the local foreigner bar where punters can choose whatever tunes they fancy from the laptop in the corner. It was more like a house party than a bar – no bad thing! This was the same place a couple of us checked out on the first night, and the atmosphere both evenings was very friendly. From chatting with the local expats (can you be a local expat?) I think this might have had something to do with living next to a beach AND the most beautiful national park in Korea. If you had to put up with having only one local bar, you'd want it to be this one.

Can you guess what happened in Part Drei? Did our intrepid adventurers overcome the hangovers so obviously coming next? Or did they all hide in their respective duvets all day? Oh the suspense....

Chuseok in Seoraksan, part uno

Or, for those who can read 한글, “추석 in 설악산”

Done showing off now. Plus, I don't have the handy little stickers on my keyboard to find the Korean letters, so it's kind of time-consuming to type in Hangeul.

So, Chuseok is the Korean Thanksgiving. Every Korean family comes together at the 'big father's house' (this must be a direct translation – it means eldest paternal uncle of the family) to exchange gifts and money and pay respects to their ancestors. There's special food, shops are overrun by gift sets (including artfully displayed tins of spam. I kid you not.) and a great deal of tv is watched. So it's not so different from major holidays in the West really. I've asked all my classes what they did for the holiday: most of them play computer games (not so different from any other weekend!) and said their mothers do a lot of cooking. One student only finished with everything today (the main holiday was on Saturday) because his father is the 'big father' and they have a lot of ancestors. Tough break for the kid – he looked exhausted. Another girl was left at home because she slept in and her parents left without her. I have no idea what to make of that story! I even got a gift from my adult class: a bottle of Blue Nun. Score!

We were lucky to have Thursday off, as that meant we were able to miss most of the infamous Chuseok traffic jams. We set off obscenely early on Thursday morning to catch a bus at 7:10 (AM! A! M!) We chose the 'Intercity Bus-uh' as the 'Express-uh Bus-uh' left from a terminal way on the other side of Daegu. This meant that our journey would take 8 hours in total, in contrast with the speedy return last night, which clocked in at just 4 and a half hours. That being said, the bus was typically comfortable and spacious, and the bus driver was really very nice. If a little unable to drive stick shift, or indeed remember when to reverse. I am becoming accustomed to this sort of thing, but it is always a little more nerve-wracking in such a large vehicle! On the way, Anne and I had a typical Korean stew with some kind of beef and an egg. Yes, a just-barely-coddled egg. I not only ate it - I liked it. I am really beginning to doubt myself about the whole 'I hate egg' thing.

On the way into Sokcho, we passed almost a mile of racks hung with drying squid by the side of the road. Dried seafood seemed to be the town's passion. You'll note the photo of the street lamp decorated with a squid motif. The first afternoon was the only time I really wandered around the town, and the smell of this stuff really did not sit well with me. I try to be open minded about food, but a dried fish split down the middle, with dessicated guts still clinging on? No. Sorry, but eugh. Fortunately, Sokcho is really a nice little seaside town and and we found our way up to a cute little pagoda. This being Korea, a few locals were there hanging out with a bottle of soju. Though it is similar in strength and ridiculously cheap, soju has none of the unpleasant – or underage - connotations of a bottle of Buckfast. I've seen plenty of hammered Koreans, but no aggression so far. They seem to just go for it until their mate has to give them a piggy back home.

Dinner was a simple galbi buffet (as much meat as you can eat for 7,000 won or ₤3.50) followed by an episode of Blackadder and an early night at our cheap and very cheerful hostel. The owner had given us a good chat about what there is to do in the area when we checked in, and confirmed that it was indeed possible to get up Daecheongbong (the highest peak in Seoraksan National Park – and third highest in Korea) in one day. We had unanimously agreed that would be our task for the next day, and planned to leave at 6:20 the next morning.

By some miracle, we all dragged ourselves out of bed before 6am for the second day in a row, and made it to the first bus after a rushed breakfast. Another crazy bus driver made sleep impossible on the way to Osaek, and we were kicked off somewhat further away from the start of the trail than we expected, but we were given English maps at the ranger station, and started our way up before 8am. I was already bloody impressed with us.

The hike to the summit was only 5km, with 1,300m of ascent, and an estimated time of 4 hours. If you've done any walking at all, or indeed any maths, you will have an inkling of how painful those 4 hours were. The three boys in the group quickly zoomed off on their longer, stronger legs, leaving me and Anne to channel the spirit of the Tortoise, and keep going through several pain barriers. Lovely trees and promise of beautiful scenery (and, for me at least, a bagged hill!) provided motivation through several hundred stairs.

I won't delve too deeply into my impressions of Korean hiking just now (lest this post turn into an essay of unwieldy proportions) but it really is not the same as hillwalking in Scotland. This is not wilderness by any stretch of the imagination. There are staircases and walkways everywhere – and swarms of people. People with a crap load of branded hiking gear. As one of our group said, 'Mountains are Korea's catwalks'.

I reached the summit around half an hour after the boys, and Anne was not far behind. The summit itself was actually not that impressive. The views were quite hazy, and we were almost too high to really appreciate the surroundings. We restocked water supplies at the shelter (more like a hostel than a bothy) and began our trek back. As on the ascent, there were hundreds of stairs, which allowed us an easy descent into the valley. The views quickly went from just good to breathtakingly magical. This is not hyperbole: there were many points along the trail where everyone in the group gasped at the scenery. Without wishing to bang on about it, my photos don't nearly capture it, and I have never seen anything quite so majestic and awe-inspiring. It blew the socks off anything I've seen in Scotland – and I do not say that lightly! Oh, and the rock. There was lovely rock everywhere. Like a giant playground of rock just begging to be climbed. I have a feeling I will be back to Seoraksan before this year is done.

After dawdling over photos, we realised that the walk out was much longer than the walk up and we would need to press on if we were to have any chance of getting out before dark. While I did have a head-torch, and the path was good, it was a concern and two of the boys trundled on ahead in an effort to avoid any night-time walking. Mark and I stayed back with Anne to make sure we all got back ok - I was definitely grateful to move a little more slowly by this point! - and we all made it down before sunset.

As well as the views, the other highlight of the hike was that I used a map. Actually, I used two: a trail map in English, and a proper one with contours in Korean. I may not have known where we were at every point, but my directions were accurate when needed, and provided confirmation when we weren't sure. It was a really good feeling to be the one navigating, even if it was just on trails.

After much-needed showers, we headed out for dinner (American this time), and a beer at Sokcho's only foreigner bar, more of which in Part Deux!

Update 3

Phew. Last one:

Last weekend was a little less hectic. After Korean class number two (I was late again. Shock.) we wandered around downtown again, but this time in the company of my hiking buddy who's been in Daegu for many years. She took us to see the backstreet markets, including 'greymarket' shops (with foreign goods of dubious origin), lots of stalls with second hand electronics, clothes and streetfood. It's really hard to describe places like that, and I'm not enough of a photographer to capture it, but it's really exciting to get into these little areas. In some sections, the stalls/shops were so close together, you were knocking things on both sides. It was fascinating to be so close to Korean life – just by being a foreigner, I usually feel a little arm's length. It seems to me that people are less self-conscious than in the UK/USA - but I keep thinking that could just be my misinterpretation of what I see. I feel like the culture is so different to my own that I can't be sure I'm understanding things correctly. (Not a bad feeling - I just don't think I can draw massive conclusions so quickly!) Again, Lacey has blogged about the after-class wanderings, and she has more photos...

So, that's about it for weekend shenanigans. In other news, I've started going to the local climbing gym, and have discovered how much of a jessie I am (bouldering is hard dammit!), and I have stocked my freezer at Costco. Food in general is getting easier – learning the Korean word for 'milk' (uyu) made me realise I was accidentally eating a lot of dairy – it was even hiding in mandu (my favourite dumplings). I feel soooooo much better now that I'm really dairy free again.

Life here is really starting to feel like 'life' rather than a holiday. It would be hard to overstate how good it feels to be doing this. My brain feels stretched and used in a way that it hasn't for some time and I wander about thinking about linguistic-y geekiness on a regular basis. (For the nerds out there (Hi Ben!) today's epiphany was that I have now studied an SVO language: English, VSO: Arabic and SOV: Korean! (and Dutch, but the verb-second rule muddies the waters somewhat). That's all three major classifications! Yay!) Socially, things are also settling in nicely. It's not as frantic as freshers' week, nor is it as lonely as my year in Utrecht was to begin with. I've found people to hike and climb with, people who want to explore Korea and just about everyone I've met seems to be up for a beer!

Tomorrow morning, we set off for Seoraksan - a national park up in the north east (it's actually above the 38th parallel!) for some hiking and general natural beauty. I'm hoping to get to the top of the highest peak (Daecheongbong), but I'm not sure if we'll make it. The owner of the climbing gym said the best way up is along a rocky ridge (yay!), and from looking at photos online, it sounds amazing. Will try to update sooner next time....

Update 2

Hiking -

This last weekend had an extra day tagged on (yay for long weekends!) so I went hiking with a fellow Yalie from a different branch. She's been here for many moons longer than I and has hiked quite a bit in the local hills. At her suggestion, we walked from Jisan (her neck of the woods) back to Siji over a lovely ridge. Not having done any serious walking for so long, it was a bit of a shock to the system, but it felt wonderful to blow away some cobwebs.

I did take a bunch of photos that day, but I'll do another post about hiking later. Not enough time now to do it justice!

One of the longest days in history...

The next day, I managed to be late for Korean class after getting lost in the downtown subway station (in my defense, there are 25 exits). I moved up from the most basic class, which means that it is a little too difficult, but I think if I do some studying between classes, I should be ok-ish. I just really didn't want to spend half my time there re-learning the letters.

At the end of the lesson, I was hanging about to let the teacher know that I was a bit newer to Korea than most of the class, when two other girls said the same thing. They also mentioned going to a baseball game so I went for it and asked if I could join them. Thus began an Adventure of Fun-ness. Lacey's already blogged about most of the day (including a slightly blurry snap of the bartender at Go Go Vinyl).

A few things to add... I ate lunch that had egg on it. Yes I scraped most of it off, but I didn't freak out, send it back to the kitchen or go hungry. I am Growing Up.

Baseball is fun to watch with a good crowd, but the game itself is less interesting than I remember... how people have the patience for cricket I cannot imagine.

Nightlife here seems to be aimed at children (drinking out of ziploc bags, sparklers, throwing ice beer glasses at targets, singing your heart out to rubbish pop songs, bubbles). And this is why it is So Much Fun. I have yet to encounter much 'coolness' in the nightlife, and I don't intend to seek it out.

Next day I was pretty knackered, but did manage to join some fellow teachers and their Korean friends for a wee barbeque next to a river near Siji. (Actually, it is kind of on the river, but the rocks are dry enough.) Good, relaxing, times were had by all and the boys even mustered up a little fire. A perfect end to the weekend.

Catch up....

Ok, so a lot has happened since the Seoul weekend, and another weekend is almost upon us, so I'll try to catch up before Chuseok (Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving – 1-4 Oct).

Daegu International Body Painting Festival -

As soon as I heard this was happening, I knew it was at the top of the to do list. I gather there was a big international competition in Daegu last year, so this year they thought they'd do it again, but the 'international' section was actually just 4 teams (the only girls without strategically placed band-aids), and most of the Korean teams looked to be shy art students with embarrassed models. Obviously we couldn't understand the chat during the presentation, but it was easy to tell that the main presenter was the Korean equivalent of a second-rate cable tv presenter – all shiny hair and forced laughter.

Here are some photos for your delectation...




Sensation Gonzales -

That night, I ran into a couple of local teachers and headed downtown to meet them. On the cards was the last gig by a the above-named local ex-pat cover band (phwoar check out the adjectives on that noun phrase...) after a quick stop at Go Go Vinyl. I think this might be my favourite place in Daegu – they serve dangerously tasty and reasonably priced cocktails in ziploc bags. The real highlight is the service: the two guys that work there dress like nutters (very art-school) and they always ask you to 'TASTE!' when they give you your bag – and once the transaction is complete, they hand you a sparkler. Brilliant! The band was ok too, and the crowd's enthusiasm was so infectious that I soon found myself belting out along with the best of them (I can hear your surprise from here.)

BEACH!!!

Waking up the next morning was far from easy...I very nearly decided that a day in bed was called for. However, I did not come to Korea to hide in my bed. So off we went to Pohang for a day of lounging on the sand. This was my second beach experience in Korea, and probably the last for the season. It was definitely better than Busan: the water was much cleaner and the beach was nearly empty! Yes, despite beautiful weather, and lovely water, Koreans don't go to the beach in September, because It Is Autumn. I cannot possibly complain about this illogical thinking because it gave us a fabulous day!

Who will sa-e-ave your Seoul?

Another bad pun, yes. It's my blog and I'll use bad song lyrics if I want to. In case you were wondering, it's the self-righteous Jewel song in my head. Anyway, day two probably does not require so much writing, so I'll keep it brief...

First stop for culture was a Renoir exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art. My buddy warned me that Koreans were a little different in their approach to museums, but I was not quite prepared for the massive queue of people slowly shuffling along – with absolutely no wandering about. Other than another small group of foreigners, we were the only people who stood out of the snake of people, and dotted about. I don't think we got too many dirty looks at least, so that's something. The exhibit itself was also notable, though really not my favourite – everything was a little too 'pretty'. I think this sculpture outside was actually my favourite thing there.


Next up was a palace nearby, and really I think the photos are better placed to describe it. I do love the skyscrapers in the background – there are a few places here where an old roof, or even part of an old roof, is completely swallowed up by modern concrete buildings. Mostly, there are just concrete buildings, so it's always nice to see something old hiding among them. We also caught the 'changing of the guard' – very touristy, but also good fun.

I got Seoul, but I'm not a soldier

Another writing exercise for the kids is 'Process Writing' – where they practice using 'First, then, next, after that, finally'. So here is the process of our trip to Seoul....

First, I got up very very early on Saturday morning. This was possible due to excitement only, and my newly nocturnal body-clock fought back hard. Nonetheless, three of us Yalies made our way on the delightful KTX train up to Seoul. The KTX takes less than two hours, and is a very civilized way to travel. It's not cheap (over £40 return), but when you think about the time saved, and remember how much the oft-delayed trains of Britain cost, it's definitely worth it.

Next, we located our guesthouse. All that needs to be said about this is that it was a little further out than we'd anticipated and I shall take Lonely Planet recommendations with a pinch of salt in future. Having found it and dropped off our bags, we were all overheated, starving and a little cranky. This being Seoul, we decided to head to Itaewon, the foreigner district, for some home comforts at the American Diner. I do feel a smidge guilty that some of my favourite meals in Korea have been foreign food, but the burger at this place was Awesome. Much better than anything I've had in the UK. The other major selling point of Itaewon is the fantabulous English language bookshop. However, I did find the sensation of being in a majority again (Koreans don't really go to Itaewon) very unsettling. I didn't like it at all actually, and wanted to get back to normal Korea.

After that we hit the shops of Myeongdong. Here, we found overwhelmingly large crowds of Koreans and more raw capitalism than I have ever encountered. The choice of stuff was frankly intimidating, but I dug down deep and found I was able to face down my indecision and indeed, cash was spent. Most of it was in an American store (oh Forever 21, where have you been all my life?), but this is largely attributable to my rather Anglo-Saxon build not being compatible with tiny Korean dress shops.

Next, Insadong. A lovely district where every kind of Korean trinket is sold. If I buy you a souvenir, it will most likely be from here. There was one shop I want to live in – everything was handmade, colourful and Lovely. After all this shopping, we refreshed in one of the many tea-shops. We found ourselves in one which was decorated in the manner of an old-fashioned train, down to the graffiti on the walls, suitcases in racks and old train seats. The dedication to the theme was admirable.

Finally, dinner in Hongik University area. Oh the people watching. I wished I had 360° vision like a frog so I could take it all in. The students here were mental with the clothes, and it seemed like the whole world was out for a stroll and a drink. We just had some cheap dinner in an Orange store (not the phones, but 24-hour eateries) and wandered. While standing outside a little bar which had caught my eye, we were waved in by a rather flamboyantly dressed Korean chap (how I wish I had had the nerve to take a photo...) This bar was the highlight of the whole weekend for me. It was tiny: only 5 small tables and no real 'bar' to speak of, and the 'bartender' appeared to just be a local who also served beer and soju on occasion. The decoration was a arty in a not-too-pretentious way (lego-men!) and the clientèle was primarily Korean student-types. For all the amazingness of this establishment, we were awfully tired so we just enjoyed a couple of beers, and headed back to the guesthouse around 1ish – a very early night by Korean standards!

Thus ended Day One. AKA Day of Consumption. Day Two will follow shortly, and included more culture, and a few more snaps.

How to deal with homesickness

Things I miss:
People – you know who you are
Glaswegians – I can't understand the banter here so I can't even tell if I'm missing out on great jokes
Stereo cafe – Oh Stereo, my lovely vegan retreat from city life, you have not been replaced in my heart!
Knowing how to cook stuff – I'm just not sure what food to buy, or what to do with it – it's like being a fresher all over again!
Being good at my job – Self-explanatory. I know this will improve with time.
Tatty scones – My number one craving.
Being able to read ingredients lists – Being lactose intolerant, this is quite important! It is improving though.
Living with people – Much as it has got on my nerves in the past, I miss having flatmates.
Whisky – Mmmmmm proper whisky...
My cds - The laptop speakers are crappy and my cd drive appears to have added its own little skips. Thanks for that.
My books - I do have reading material, I just miss my bookshelf full of stuff
A comfy bed – The mattress here is basically the same firmness as the floor.
Scottish mountains – Haven't seen anything quite as inspiring as Torridon, Glen Coe or Skye, but then I haven't really left the cities yet.
Orion Mountaineering Club – The only climbing chat I've had so far is about 'hiking' (i.e. hillwalking up a path with an unnecessary amount of gear). Need to find some proper mountaineers to continue my apprenticeship.


Things I would miss if I had to go home now:
Korean kids – Yes the middle-schoolers are draining, but on the whole, the children here are insanely adorable. And they give me sweets all the time. How can you not love a pint-sized cutie who provides candy??
Teaching – even though I'm a bit rubbish at it, I would really miss getting a whole room of 11 year olds to say 'vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv'
My walk to work – I'm beginning to think people-watching here beats Glasgow. And that is saying something.
Being allowed to be pushy in crowds – everyone does it here – my pushiness is finally socially acceptable!
The crazy-ass buildings – I'm sure the architects here get high a lot. Most buildings are basically cubes, but they go mental with the finishing touches. Cobblestones, bricks and stucco on one house anyone? Nice-uh.
Steamed dumplings – almost stodgy enough to be a Scottish food.
Konglish - beach-i, nice-uh, Teacher Jenniper, joo (instead of 'zoo')...I love it all, and that's just the pronunciation - I can't wait to I figure out all the phonotactic rules. Mmmmmmmm phonology........
Barbecuing your dinner at the table – Such a sociable and fun way to eat.
Korean mountains – Haven't explored enough yet, but they look damned tempting.
Soy bean paste - I still don't know the Korean name for this, but I already know I will be bringing a supply home with me.
Living on my own – Actually, I do quite like never having to wash another person's dishes. And never needing to close the bathroom door.
Shopping – Have only scratched the surface with this, but it is obviously a national pursuit.
Learning Korean - I can read the alphabet pretty quickly now, and I'm really excited about taking lessons.
Not knowing what's going on – It is draining to feel like a dolt for most of the day, and it can be embarrassing when Koreans correct you (they really do that by the way – I've had rice out of my hands because I was eating it wrong!) but I figure my brain is busy working this stuff out. There's definitely some learning going on, and that's always a good feeling.

Ok, I feel much better now. It seems like a good sign that the second list is longer. :)

Gee that camera phone's awful handy

Not feeling fabulous this evening (don't think the cow-spine soup last night agreed with my delicate Western constitution...) so will comfort myself with some nice photies:



Some local artwork.











Konglish....more on this another time. I am somewhat unsurprisingly captivated by Koreans' take on English.












Major fake plant action in the public toilet in the subway station...in the background you can see a 'squattie'.










Hang on, am I in Malaga??












A more tasteful seaside shot.











Awesome sculpture in the grounds of Daegu's World Cup Stadium. The blurs at the bottom are little kids trying to climb up the slick metal. Definitely some future climbers in that bunch.


My street. Photo taken after my first big night out. If you squint you might notice how crazy the wiring is. Now imagine the horrors of the plumbing...










My lovely livingroom. Nice-uh.




For when I just can't take any more fried meat.