Yongsan Electronic Market

YO BABIES live it up. I'm tired but here are some photos of last weekend. I headed to another electronics market. I know, S. Korea is turning me into a techie. not really... two weekends ago i went for my friend andrew and then this weekend i went to get an MP3 player. it is fun--i am a bonefide korean commuter. i rock out on my subway commute every morning. and let me tell you, this morning i stopped by the bakery in the subway station where the guy that owns it always tries to teach me new korean words and got a little apple treat. then i rushed down to the platform and it was about 9:30 am--rush hour. i tried to hop on the subway last minute behind all the commuters and almost got crushed in the door! i yelped and then rambled off some obsenities and ended up getting part of my backpack stuck in the door. i was just stading there like a little kid who was hung on a coat rack by some bullies. except, my feet were touching the ground. so i took my arms out of my pack and it just hung there. i grabbed it before it thudded to the ground and got trampled by all the people who wanted off at jeonga yok (jeonga station). i was considering walking to the next car b/c i felt like an ass standing by people who saw that all paly out, but luckily most of them left. some had a look of mild terror throughout the whole experience!

let me also tell you that yesterday i sent four kids to detention for rough housing in my classroom. one of them, after he heard that he had to go to detention, started crying and bowing profusely while rubbing his hands together and saying over and over and over and over "I'm so sorry teacher. Teacher, I'm so sorry."

There was something else i felt i should tell you but now i am so tired it has escaped me. Ahhh, yes, last night I went running on the river trail that is nearby my house. I had to run off the negativity i gathered from six straight classes (8 hours of teaching, ten hours at the school). we have started the intensive month of our school--some kids elect to come 5 days a week (i'm sure many of the kid's parents elect for them with $$$). this means i have to come early to teach more classes in the morning. i was really enjoying working from 3-10. now that i have to wake up at 8 i am a bit more cranky with life. it is probably also just setting into actually working. sooooooo... i was running on this river path and man, it was like a game of dodge the koreans. it was 10pm at night and everyone's grandmother and kids were out on this trail. and the thing is, when ppl walk here, they weave so it was v. difficult and frustrating, but after an hour and half, i was like brand new.

a side note--i keep forgetting to say that the first thing i saw when i landed in s. korea... as i was de-planeing. i was walking up the ramp from the plane, and i look down and on the metal ramp i see a little OTIS emblem. i just cannot get away from those guys.

additionally: let me tell you about some of the characters i have come into contact with:

a) one english teacher asked me, "Have you teached English before?"
b) another teacher said, "the thing that gets me is the kid's pronounciation."
c) the third teacher said, "you should have came last night (to the dojo)."
not that i'm perfect,... b/c i'm sure i use tons of improper grammer both on my blog and everyday life. it's just that it's hilarious.
d) another teacher stayed after class to write 100X "I will not use profanity in class." he said he wants to set a good example for his kids.
e) another teacher refuses to eat korean food and is trying to subsist off of mainly McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Sochu (liquor).

July 21, 2006 Too Much Ginseng Can Equal Death

These are photos of last weekend's excursion to Seoul! Intersperced are photos of a temple as well as Techno Mart. Hopefully you can figure out which is which. We basically were required to go to the temple later in the day after visiting Techno Mart (8 floors of flea mart-esque electronics) so our souls would not suffer. At the bottom level of the Techno Mart was a HUGE food court with bowls of food as big as your shoulders are wide! (Please see the fake replicas of ice cream with ice cream peddling women in the background).








HAPPY 29TH BIRTHDAY TO OUR FRIEND JOE! he was on our flight from chicago to narita and narita to incheon, s. korea. he works at sam's school and i worked with those two jokers for most of this last week. i had a blast.



this was the best part of my day:

"Recently, we can see the cars or trucks everytime we walk through the street, and now for me these automobiles looks like a black bug. However it's true that automobile is greatly needed for us, for example, without it we can not go fast to the place where we have to, and this is not all."

"When there was only black cars moving fast on the hot black road, it will make me very sad, old people said the green nature is like a air for ever people living, and as fast as automobile run, as many as children die."

"Even ginseng is good for our health, when we eat too much of them, it can be bad for us. Same as this happen, too many automobile is bad but not any of them is not great either."

"For all these reason, every thing has to be enough no more no lesser."

this is probably illegal but i've decided to post some parts of my student's essay on my blog. pure and utter genius. what great ideas for a pre-teen!

i must go to bed because tomorrow we are going to hike up Bukansan, it is a mountain near Seoul. You can take a bus right up to the approach and there probably will be quickie marts there so there will be no need to pack a day's worth of food. this hike is a six hour hike and maybe a two hour ride to get there. sam and myself are going. and probably our friends joe, isaac, and stephanie. maybe even don if we can pry himself away from watching the 'game' channel. for those of you that do not know--there are channels on t.v. where you can watch people play video games.

July 14th, 2006--the conclusion of my first week in Seoul

Don't forget to double click on the photos so you can blow them up and get a better view. Love ya mom!


Sam with some kimbap (korean sushi--usually with no meat or cooked meat) and various kimchis. i think this was Tuesday, before our first day of work in a nearby restaurant.

This was the food we ordered on our first night--we went to a drinking establishment on the first floor of our apartment that the local foreingers call the 'elephant bar' b/c there is a cartoon elephant on the window. we ended up paying about 10-15 USD a dish and we got two dishes. this is really ridiculous but it was our first night, we didn't know that you can get a decent meal for about 4-6 USD. whooops.

The view on our first night from the taxi van ride from Incheon airport to Bundang.

This is the main road near our house with the subway entrances on it. Many buses go by here everyday. I have bought tomatoes from a vendor on this street and twice I have seen the banana man. Today he was on the bed of his truck in a yellow slicker peddling the small remainder of his week's bananas in the pouring rain around 8 pm on Monday night.

Kimbap close up with side dishes.

On our street is TGIFridays as well as Outback Steak House and other fast food joints. As you can see, the many businesses advertise on the outside and unless they are on the street level, you have to go up in these office-like buildings and find the barbers, the restaurants, the skin care places, etc.

Undies and pads for sale in the local Quickie mart.

This is the view you get upon directly exiting our apartment building and walking out of the parking garage with a glace to the left.

This is the view to the right. It's almost like you live there, hey?

A tile design on the subway wall.

This is the path I take from the subway to my school. There is a spongy running path on the right and a gazebo type thang on the left.

And lastly, another item for sale at the Quickiemart--what is beer without a drunken game of soccer????

This weekend we headed to Seoul in the rain and checked out a temple as well as TechnoMart which is 8 floors of everything electronic you could have ever dreamed of or never knew was even invented. I am finding that Seoul is the place of information overload. Too many Asians milling around assulting your senses, about a billion cellphones on display, and too many types of detergent with Korean phrases that you cannot read, much less choose which one you want! Stay posted for more photos, of course.

Seoul Style

Close up of Beehives ie concrete housing in Korea. This en route from Incheon airport (which is to the west of Seoul)to Bundang.



More of the same. It is insane how many buildings are here. Korea is the most densely populated country in the world.



Turnstyles at the subway station during my daily commute.



This is how many restaurants do water. I hear the water here is not good to eat. Not necessarily because there is bacteria in it, but because it has been treated with so many chemcials. So there is a watercooler in many restaurants with a container that holds little cups. And the container claims to disinfect these cups.

McDonald's in the airport. We saw this when we went to pick up our friend Andrew on Thursday morning bright and early. Sam and I woke up at 5 am to take the "airport limosine" which was a purple bus that took 1.5 hrs-2.5 hrs depending on traffic. We at some noodles before meeting him after customs. We did not even see him walk through the doors because we were concentrating so hard on deciphering some korean writing on the panel above the doors. He is a hard guy to miss--a lanky over six foot tall white guy in a sea of smaller and darker koreans.


A scene on the bus ride on our way to meet our friend Andrew. As a side note, on our way back from the airport to Bundang (area or neighbor hood of), Seongnam City (sp?) (which is a suburb of Seoul), Andrew started feeling really sick. He almost had to poop in a plastic bag at the back of the bus since there was no toilet on board! it was hilarious and disgusting all at once. I took my quick guide how to speak korean up to the driver and was trying to tell him the word for toilet. I've discovered even if I speak with perfect intonation or terrible intonation, Koreans will not understand me yet. Anyhow, one of the space age looking stewardess was on our busride and she came up and described the situation. There was nothing we could do since we were in gridlock traffic on the highway from Incheon airport to Bundang. On the side of the freeway was a drop off, i'm pretty sure. And i think there was about 6-8 lanes of traffic. Later on, after we passed a toll stop, our driver pulled over but by that time, the immodium had kicked in and Andrew decided to take a chance to see if he could make it home. At that point we were in the clear. Until I got back to the apartment and had the kimchi splatters.


If you can read this sign, please notice that they have EVERYTHING at this airpot. It is rated as one of the best airports in the world. Rated by whom and based on what, i have no idea. it is just one of the many factoids i get from sam. It reads: "Hospital, Pharmacy, Billards, Sauna, Bank, Supermarket, Beauty Salon, Barbershop, Laundry, and Optician."

Need I say ANYTHING about this photo? I mean, really... drinks AND you can make a phone call all at the same time. Genius, pure and utter genius.

I can't remember for certain, but I think this is the Sunae stop on the Bundang subway line. This is at about 11 or so pm and everyone is out eating and drinking. Tonite, Saturday, we noticed that restaurants were actually closing down a bit early. It was 10pm and we expected to be able to go out and eat wherever and whenever. boy, we were wrong. instead we had meat dumplings. i forget what they are called in korean.

Sam purchasing individual lettuce leaves at the Carrefore. This is a french store, but I hear it has been bought out by Kmart. It is essentailly like a super walmart. There are attendants everywhere and they weigh and price your selection before you go by some stuff at the 1,000 won section (dollar store), or clothing, etc.

These are some of my fellow teachers at Avalon School Imae. There are seven branches of my school. Krista is in the middle, she is a Kanuk, and it was her last day on Friday. It's too bad b/c she is really a cool girl. But myself and another woman were hired to replace the only other two women foreign teachers. That is not a coincidence. There are 4 male foreign teachers and two female foreign teachers. The Korean teachers are mainly women. I hear they just take that job as they wait to get married. Two of the Korean women teachers were wearing playboy t-shirts on Friday while teaching. I asked them if they knew the significance of the shirts. They said yes. After they left the room I heard them laughing outside and speaking in Korean. I know that wouldn't fly in the American teaching system. But I guess it is just fashion here.


This is a classroom at my school, although I do not teach in it. My schedule (Sam's is the same although he works at the branch nearby our apartment. My branch is five subway stops away) is that I arrive to school at 3pm. The first classes start at 4:10 and we are supposed to use that first hour to plan our lessons, but many eat lunch. You can teach up to four 1.5 hour classes a day. The students come after their regular schooling and whatever other lessons they take--Tae Kwon Do, soccer, piano, etc. The students are taught 1.5 hours of conversational english with a foreign teacher and they also take 1.5 hours of classes with a Korean teacher who teaches more grammer. The other day one of the foreign teachers asked me in front of our boss, "Have you teached before?" I started laughing SOOOOOOOOOOo hard. One of my students answered the question, "What are they doing in this picture?" with "They are looking at boobies (movies)." But it sounded just like boobies. Sometimes it is very hard to keep a straight face. The most that happened yesterday, friday, before their summer vacation was that a boy punched this girl in the face. I didn't see it except for the aftermath of tears and shame. For the most part, the students are very well behaved and nothing in comparion to the apathy of the migrant children I used to teach.

This is the hallway and front desk at Avalon school. When I get to work at 3pm I feel like it is early morning. The weird fluroscent lighting makes me feel awake for the first part of the day at least. It is strange working from 3-10 pm M-F. The best part of the day is hopping onto the subway at night and the smell of soju just leaking out of the men's pores. It is very common for men to work all day and then come home only after hanging out with their buddies drinking, etc. Most of the time they do not spend any time with their wives or children. I have heard of english teachers giving private lessons to korean women but it mainly consists of being paid to have coffee and talk in english--probably b/c the woman is very lonely.

Saturday, July 8, 2006

Tomorrow is my parents 29th anniversary.
Tomorrow is the day I leave for my venture to South Korea.
I leave at 7:46 am. After a few hours to Chicago and a few hour stopover, I head to Korea and after 16 hours, arrive in a foreign land full of fish and kimchi!

It's hard to imagine that today we wrapped up the last apartment details, got on each other's nerves multiple times, returned library books, Six Feet Under dvds unwatched (wimper wimper uggghhh i LOVE that show), threw out a bunch of stuff, people stopped by to say hi/bye, I cried randomly. And in less than 36 hours we will be like, shit, i can't believe we are finally here and our past life in the states seems like a dream. All the pain in the neck junk we endured in the past few weeks was definately worth it but in the past 12 hours I've been wondering "What have I gotten myself into?" as succiently put by Ron Gray (Sam's Dad).

I finally did head to DB Cooper's bar that was just two blocks from my old house. It has some great Classic Rock tunes that went well with the scrubby motel lounge wheely red marble vinyl chairs and friends to drink laugh and cry over beers with. Friday night we also checked out the Blue Room at the 18th and Vine jazz district for the happy hour on fridays. It was nice to see Wanda, Sam's co-worker at the middle school. But in my opinion the jazz was terrible. but the company was good. And it was all in Kansas City style.

We of course headed to first fridays and checked out just one gallery--The Leedy Volkos, saw the pop-and-lock street dancer and then saw the Axe Capioera group.

We ended with some Jack Stack BBQ where I was very cranky. I had not realized the root of my emotions yet, but I think I was just realizing that my time in Kansas City was fading. I have related much of my experience in the city with holding crappy work positions, but all in all, I have made many close friends here that I will miss dearly.

"Happiness in your mind is contagious."--this is the quote that is at the bottom of all of my recruiter's emails. yesssssssssssssssss!

it is now 5:15 am on sunday. i must post this.

This is a photo of myself and my two cat-babysitters aka my apartment mates. Joe is on the left and Paul on the right. Paul gave me a monkey in a car firework a few days after I moved into my apartment in 2005, on the fourth of July. I put it in my cabinet amongst my glasses and found it upon moving out in 2006. So I decided what more monumental time to set it off than my going away party among my very apartment mates. The dark photo above is of us setting it off in the street. All of our friends were watching and cheering this baby firework from the balcony! I set it on fire with a lighter and then yelped because I knocked it over and then I was laughing so hard while Joe set it back upright. I THOUGHT HE MIGHT DIE! but he didn't thank goodness.












4th of JULY, 2006

This is the day that we decided to take Isa's blow up matress out on the stormy lake of Clinton, in Lawrence, KS. It is here with leftover Miller Lites from our going away party (iewww) that we decided to pretend we were adrift at sea and then later to have raft riding contests. I made it a stunning 14 seconds. Maybe I should have been a bucking bronco rider. It's not too late yet!

We continued our party onto the fireworks display along the river. Rachael and I had sesame chicken while Isa and Sam shared a sushi plate from Try-aki. This coupled with Champagne (thank you Eric S.!) made McGurgles in our stomaches. It was questionable if we were to make it through the night for the next two hours. The night was topped off by our own fireworks display with Nat Yeh and Isley along the river in the tall grass.

Today is one of those days where I really took in all of my surroundings in a appreciative silence. I realized how much I appreciated the Kansas sky, some open water, and being around a few friends with a few drinks. The nostalgia of America hit me in an unsentimental way when it dawned on me that I am leaving my country to have much awaited aventures, but that I will probably miss certain comforts, familiarities, and customs of America. I realize that all of this will become more apparent in my travels.

I leave you with some photos from Sam's and my blowout going away party. Almost 50 people attended which is amazing for the two bedroom apartment Sam and Rachael have. The date of the party was the last day of June, 2006, the same day I was slated to completely move out of my apartment. Bad planning on our part, but typical of our nature--believing we can do everything all at once! And somehow, amazingly enough, it did work out. I think I filled up a dumpster and a half with my condiments (excess dressings, miracle whip, and miscellanous spices I only used once or twice). We also put half of my belongings on the 41st and Stateline street corner to recycle a set of knives, mismatched dishes, and rickety wooden furniture, etc for the many med school kids and have-nots. While Sam loaded up the last load in his car (the day before I sold my car to a man who paid with a Nebraska out of state check. I do not recommend doing this, but if you do, be sure to hold the car until the check clears!), he realized he had a screw in his tire. He ran to the BP station while I cleaned up my apartment and rode my pink hot mamma bike over to rid myself of the stench that moving in 100 degree weather brings. Somehow we got it all accomplished by 6:30pm, just in time to host the best party of all time. You might ask "why?"
I have two words for you--CRAP RAFFLE. or CRAFFLE if one word is more economical. I will include photos of the best finds. For those of you that don't know, since we are moving to Korea, we got rid of a ton of our stuffs. Especially me b/c 1) I have a ton of stuff and 2) because I cannot easily unload stuffs at my padres since they now reside in Canada. Enjoy! Dontcha wish you woulda been there to obtain some of our CRAP? it is such sweet crap.

Oh, one last thing. In the morning at about 6:30 am, just as the sun was rising, there was a fire across the street from Sam's house. Notice Alan in the foreground returning from checking it out. He is the street watch dog.