School teachers and me

1
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

P1010099
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.

Continuing;

I've spent two days at school so far, and tomorrow will be the first time i have to take the classes by myself. Not quite sure what i'll be doing yet... hopefully inspiration will strike when i'm standing there in front of them all. I have to say, Korean kids are incredibly cute. Any ideas i had about them being quiet and shy however have been completely dispelled. They are really well behaved though - i think they have to be because the class rules are so strict. And when they're naughty they have to clean the school; it is really strange to see all these kids scrubbing and sweeping everywhere at lunchtime.

So I'm in Korea...

Yay I'm finally here! Actually I've been here for two days now, but this is the first time i've been able to sneak onto the internet here at work. I won't have internet at home until i can get my alien registration card (about two weeks), so these posts may be somewhat brief and occasionally interrupted for a while.

First thing, I've got to say I love my apartment. It's at least twice the size of what I was expecting, and everything is pretty new and nice. It also looks straight out onto rice paddies and hills; I'm told that I live in a rural area of Korea, but it's not quite what we'd consider rural. Yes there's rice paddies and vineyards across the road, but I live on the tenth floor of a high rise block of flats that looks tiny compared to the ones surrounding it, which must be at least 20 floors. There's a restaurant and a little market on the ground floor, which pretty much has all the basics. For some reason everything is sold in bulk, so instead of buying one tube of toothpaste I got ten, not to mention the biggest bag of toilet paper I've ever seen. I'm a little scared to order takeaway from the restaurant because apparently it arrives uncooked, and you have to cook it yourself, which kind of defeats the purpose of takeaway in my mind!

Mount Toubkal

Mount Toubkal
Originally uploaded by kirijae

This is taken from the top - or at least the top as I decided where it was :)

Mount Toubkal

Mount Toubkal
Originally uploaded by kirijae

Okay so this is where I discovered that I am just not cut out for hiking at high altitudes. We tried to climb Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in Morocco, at something like 4300 metres, give or take a couple. We drove the first 1000, then walked about 2000 metres the first day and slept overnight at a snow refuge. Damien wasn't feeling so good, so I did the next bit by myself. I left at 4:30am and took 3 and 1/2 hours to walk 840 metres, at which point I gave up with 60 metres to go. I have never been so completely exhausted in my life I think, not to mention feeling completely crappy from altitude sickness and not being able to breathe - towards the top I was stopping about every 5 steps to try and get my breath back. I think my guide was completely disgusted with me for getting so close but not making the final stretch, but all i was thinking was that I'd have to walk the entire way down - 2840 metres - in the same day. At least I only had to wear crampons for the top 900 metres, but I could feel every muscle in my body the next day - I could barely hobble from the bed to the bathroom. But I got some great photos, and made the important discovery that when I say I enjoy hiking, I mean strolling along on nice flat ground, preferably in a nice warm place :) This photo shows the summit behind me - it may be only 60 metres, but it looked a long bloody way to me!