My apartment in Korea

My apartment in Korea
Originally uploaded by kirijae

Had a little bit of time on my hands this arvo, so thought I'd try making a video of my apartment. Don't laugh until you've tried videoing yourself ;-)

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

I have of course done this completely back to front. If you read the post below it should all make sense!

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

A tiny part of Seoul; you can really see the apartment blocks in this shot though.

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

There were lots of spots like this where you literally had to haul yourself up using the rail. We - the group I was with - were all pretty freaked out - I think my hands were still shaking when I took this photo :-)

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

One of the shelters along the way

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

This is taken on the way up; I didn't honestly think we were going up there!

View of Seoul

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to photograph, 'cause it just goes on and on!

View of Seoul

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

Bukhansan National Park

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

So I went hiking yesterday; today I'm not moving from the couch, or if I do, it's only to groan my way very slowly from the kitchen or the bathroom. Everything is very up or very down here! It was a good hike though 'cause I got a great view of just how enormous Seoul is. And it's all pretty much apartment blocks! I guess when 70% of your country is mountains, you have to make the best use of the tiny spaces available to fit 55 million people. Speaking of which, I've never been on such a crowded hike before; I think I was passing more people than I would on Mitchell Street in Darwin. I asked if this is usual, and apparently Sundays are even more packed, as a lot of people work on Saturdays. It gives you a real appreciation for how sparsely populated Australia is - and hopefully this doesn't make me a bigot, but I hope it doesn't change too much!

Foggy (?) Mornings

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

I woke up yesterday and it was really eerie - I could hardly see the hills in front of my place, the fog was so bad. I'm calling it fog, but I have a feeling that it's actually pollution - a feeling reinforced by the number of students coming to school wearing masks on their faces. It didn't actually burn off all day, so very creepy!

Chuseok gifts

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

It's the Korean holiday called Chuseok next week - from what I can gather it's like Thanksgiving, only this year it goes for the whole week, so no school for me :-) Also they give gifts to each other, like this one which the school gave to all their teachers. Each one came in a big briefcase, and so I was thinking oooh what's this? Well, it's tuna, canola oil, and SPAM! To be honest I've never tried spam before - the fact that we named our unwanted mail after it has sort of put me off, but I am willing to try anything I suppose....

I have spent the last two days trying to get my bank account up and running - not an easy thing when you don't speak the language! I am so proud of myself though for working out their online banking, 'cause it made ours look incredibly straightforward. Google translator is a very good friend of mine these days - if only I could use it in real life!

This afternoon I am getting my internet finally set up at home - yay! Soon I'll have a phone, and be a regular citizen - or alien, I suppose I should call myself.

Seoul

Okay so I finally made it into Seoul this weekend - or a tiny section of it anyway. To do that I had to catch a bus to a nearby city called Bucheon, then take the subway into Seoul. Id already made a couple of trips into Bucheon, mainly because there's an enormous shopping centre there where I've got most of my basic items - plus i can buy cereal there, which is a bonus. I hadn't taken the subway in Korea before, so when I got to the station I spent a fair amount of time wandering around trying to figure out how to buy a ticket, which train to take etc. Eventually an American English teacher (there's a few of us around) took pity on me and showed me the ropes. He had some time to kill, so he came with me into Yongsun, which is where they have a huge (there aren't enough superlatives for the shopping centres in Korea) electronics market. The term 'market' is quite misleading, because it's set out all shiny and bright, like a David Jones or something but even brighter, and has about 6 floors of just computers, tv's, phones, cameras etc - electrical stuff. I even found a section on digital pianos, which was pretty exciting. It turns out I can pick one up for about $600, so I might do that next weekend, give myself something to work on while I'm here.
After Yongsun we went to a part of Seoul called Itawae (not sure of the spelling), which is where all the foreigners hang out because there's a whole lot of western shops and bars. The bonus for me was an english bookshop, which was insanely expensive unfortunately. It was really strange seeing so many westerners after being the only one around for a while. Itawae has a pretty bad name among Koreans as being dangerous, I guess 'cause a lot of the westerners - including army guys from the nearby base - hang out and get drunk and agro there. From the few English teachers I've met, going out and getting excessively drunk every weekend seems to be the norm here. I guess if I'd come here 5-10 years ago I'd be doing the same, but these days I'm more interested in the food, and seeing stuff - which I haven't done much of yet, but I'm determined to do something cultural next weekend, even if it's just to visit the military museum or something. I've got in contact with a few hiking groups, but I can't do much until I get my Alien Registration Card, so that I can get a Korean bank account. Hopefully that will happen this week, and I can say that I am officially an alien :-) By then it might have stopped raining too - it has been non-stop. It's still pretty humid, but nowhere near as hot as Darwin. I'm looking forward to fall, which is supposed to be cool but beautiful clear skies. Everything is very gray and dirty at the moment, which is making me pretty lazy.
The good news is that I did manage to find my way home from Seoul by myself, so I think I'm okay to get around now. Just have to keep getting out there!

Classes

So I guess I should say something about my job! It's not too scary, at least most of the time. I have a co-teacher called Judy who is with me most of the time. I say most of the time because she seems to enjoy torturing me by coming later and later for each lesson - probably her way of making me stand on my own two feet, when I'm actually pretty happy letting her do all the work ;-) I have six different grade five classes, and five different grade six classes, which I teach twice each every week. Each class gets the same lesson, so we do the same lesson six times for the grade fives, and five times for the grade sixes, if that makes sense. It generally turns out that the first lesson is a shocker, but we (by that I mean I) improve with each one. It can get pretty repetitive, hopefully it doesn't do my head in after a couple of months.

On Monday and Thursday afternoons I have the grade one's and two's, which definitely wakes me up. Seriously, these guys are pint-sized energizer bunnies, that barely speak a word of English, which doesn't stop them from yelling whatever words they do know as loudly as they can at me. But there's nothing like a rousing tune of A - a - apple to break the monotony :-) They are completely cute, although I suspect there may be a few little monsters amongst them as well. It turns out that the younger the student the better; I like my grade one's better than my grade two's, and my grade fives better than my grade sixes, who are way too cool for school.

I don't think teaching is for me in the long term, but it's a good experience. I'm not huddling under the desk with my hands over my head at least, so that's definitely progress, right?

School teachers and me

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

So this was taken last night when I went out for dinner with the grade six teachers. The woman I am sitting next to is my very wonderful co-teacher, Judy. We went to a duck restaurant, which was incredibly yummy, and I seem to be finally mastering their chopsticks - or at least I thought so until my co-teacher gave me a bib ;-) Actually even harder than the chopsticks is getting used to sitting cross-legged on the floor - and getting up again afterwards! Tall people aren't designed to be flexible I swear.
In addition I am trying to learn all the many little points of etiquette that come with Korean dining, such as making sure that everybody else's glass is filled before filling my own, and (I think) only drinking when everybody raises their glass together, which they do a lot. I can't quite remember what they say when they raise their glasses, but it means 'To everything!', which I liked.
I think I managed to horrify a good portion of the people in my neighborhood on Friday night by going into the restaurant at the bottom of my building and eating by myself. The restaurant owner kept saying "no no, you won't like the food, you shouldn't eat here", but I was hungry and sick of eating my own cooking so I persevered. Maybe people don't eat in restaurants by themselves here? Everybody turned and stared when I was eating, and had a good giggle about my limited ability with the chopsticks, but I persevered and had a great meal that only cost me about $4.00, so I think they'll just have to get used to me there :-) My own cooking by the way is TERRIBLE. I can't work out what is what when I go shopping, so I thought I'd experiment, which hasn't worked out too well. Twice now I have had to throw out what I made and resort to vegimite on toast, which is becoming a dietary staple of mine. I'm firmly sticking to salad for a while I think.

View from flat

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Originally uploaded by kirijae

Ok so this is the view from my window; it's mostly vineyards, which is handy because there's a little market stall set up right across the road that sells fresh grapes and occasionally wine. I haven't tried the wine yet - I must confess that I am a little suspicious of Korean wine, as what I've tried so far tends to be very sweet. It looks pretty picturesque, so it's a little strange that if I was to stand on the other side of the road to take the picture all you would see is high rises! It's very nice to have some green right outside my window though.

About the food

I really have to start taking photos of what I'm eating, a) because it's so amazing, and b) hopefully somebody can tell me what it is. On Monday night I went to a Duck restuarant, where you bbq your own pieces of duck over the coals. It came with numerous side dishes, most of which were yummy but I didn't get to eat as much as I would have liked because duck grease and steel chopsticks don't go well together for beginners. Last night I went to another restaurant, and here I really couldn't tell you what I was eating. I sat on the floor at a really long table which the waitress proceeded to fill up with small dishes - I counted 32 before I gave up. Again most of it was pretty nice, but I have to say that there were more than a few times where I put something in my mouth and instantly regretted it - and I'm pretty open about trying anything!. Eating has definitely become an extreme adventure here. Tonight is my first night at home by myself, and I am looking forward to vegimite (big thanks to my library friends!) and toast.