Christmas in Korea

Well the Christmas season has come and gone. We celebrated in style with a multi-cultural potluck feast in my tiny apartment. Almost all of the teachers from school were there, with the exception of two. And since I inherited the oven from Jo and Pete, I was the natural choice to host the party.

I made pumpkin pie from scratch. I should have gone for the small pumpkin...I only used a quarter of this one to make a double recipe. I have a lot of pumpkin frozen to use at Thanksgiving next year!

Here are the finished pies. I made the little heart-shaped one for sampling to make sure they weren't a colossal disaster. Luckily the substituting of Korean ingredients didn't affect the taste too much.

Christmas Eve we had a little party on the roof at midnight. It was a full moon and Mars was really bright. Lovely way to welcome Christmas.

Christmas Day I came home early to put the chickens in the oven. I managed to fit four chickens into my specially-bent pan that just fits my tiny oven. And a loaf and a half of bread's worth of stuffing. (was too hungry to remember to get an after shot...)

I had a tiny tree that was also bequeathed to me by Jo (I really should thank her for my Christmas) that set the mood for the party.

And I gave Hue a little bit of Christmas head gear to get him in the mood.

The gusts' arrival and the cooking of the chickens happened pretty much in perfect timing, and we all settled down to our feast. We had Korean food in the form of mandu (think potstickers/dumplings) and kimbap (Korea's answer to sushi) and jjigae (spicy Korean stewy soup). My Mexican/American friend brought some spicy ricey. The Brits made a traditional Christmas pudding (with some substitutions...). And Nick, from Buffalo, brought a meat and cheese tray courtesy of the stores on his brother's Air Force base. They were really the star of the show...you can't get good meat and cheese here. We all wanted to kiss Nick when he walked in with that.

He also brought veggies and dip, something else you don't get a lot of here, and devilled eggs. I was so happy to see those. We always have those at my Grandma's at Christmas and I really wanted to make some, but ran out of time and budget.

Here's a pic of everyone chowing down. We just passed all the bowls around the room because it was too packed to do a proper buffet. No one wanted to risk standing up.

And here's me enjoying the fruits of my pie-making labour. I must say I deserved a pat on the back for those babies. Grandma would be proud.

I stayed up late to call my family when they woke up so I could open my presents with them. Sadly, my web-cam was telling me things in Korean that I couldn't understand, so couldn't fix it. But I got to see them opening. When I could keep my eyes open, that is. Cooking for 15 people in a tiny kitchen tires one out.

I'm hoping to take some pictures of the Christmas decorations around here before they're all taken down...if I manage it I'll post them. 'Til next time...I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I'll see you next year!

The Korean Wish Book

I came home the other day and found in my mail box what I will assume to be the Korean equivalent of the Christmas-time Sears Catalogue known as "The Wish Book." I was very happy to find it as I had just been commenting to my fellow Canadians how I missed having the Wish Book to look at. It is an essential part of Christmas in any Canadian household.

Now the official name of the catalogue, as I can read it, is "2007/Goodbye/Hyundai Homeshopping." Hyundai? Yes, not only do they make cars but they have department stores and, evidently, 2007 Goodbye catalogues.

I was very happy to discover that, despite it's small stature, it was what I would expect from a Christmas catalogue. Inside you can find anything you'd need for gift-giving. Fashion, beds, furniture, shoes, bags, food. But, as is usual in Korea, it also has a few unusual things in it. Things you would never find in the original Wish Book, or any other Canadian catalogue for that matter.

First off, these strange shoes. I will draw your attention to the soles. Now why on earth would you want to wear shoes with a curved sole? I'm sure this nice man in the red shirt is telling us why, but I've got to disagree in principle with whatever he's saying.. Maybe the arrow at the top means you can use them as street skis or something.

This little gem appears to be a cereal dispenser. I look at this and I think of those things you can buy that will automatically feed your dog when you go out of town for the weekend. Is this for those busy families who can't afford a baby-sitter in the morning before the kids go to school?

For those of you who are thinning (and trust me, Korea will do that to you) here's a contraption that will help you get back what you've lost. I wonder if it massages the scalp into relaxing enough to let the hair grow back? If that's not a cup of your tea, maybe you'd prefer the more traditional method:


Spray paint.

For the lady who has everything, including a jewelry fetish, a mirror that opens into a storage closet for her accessories! My only beef with this is that it's not really big enough. My earring collection alone would need maybe three of them. (Yes I nearly ordered this but luckily was rescued by the thought "how would I get it home.")

For the body-conscious, a selection of slimming underwear. And, as I like to call them, cleavage makers. Not just a regular push-up bra, these babies appear to pull all the fat off your back even and push it up to your chest. I guess some people can use all the help they can get in that area. (My favourite thing on this page has to be the little cartoon old lady in the upper left corner. She's thinking....hmmmm...i could look like that again...with the right underwear of course.)

And here's a little something for those of you who need a little help in....other areas. (NOT ME!)

On to the exercise equipment! This is something straight out of the '50s. Jiggle yourself skinny! They have these at the gym I go to and I've never had the courage to try them. (Mostly because you have to take off your shoes to get on.) Notice the many positions to take on the giggling surface to target various parts of the body.

And the "SlimU." How this works is any one's guess. But it might...steam you skinny? Shock you? Heat you? Who knows.

And the food! No where to been are the tins of cookies and taffy you would expect in a Christmas catalogue. No candy canes or anything like that. Instead we have...

...random fried things and spicy noodle...

...vacuum-packed all-nutrients-boiled-away corn...

...sweet potatoes (of course)...

...dried squid (what else?!)...

...mail order mussels (!!!!!???????!!!!!!!)...

...and a two-page spread of kimchi. What more could you need?

My favourite thing in the whole catalogue has to be this though:

I like to try to guess what it could be for. A personal sauna for your legs? Some sort of detaining device for concerned parents to keep their teen aged daughters out of trouble? Personal heating? Personal air conditioning? Vibration? Steam? I could get one of the Korean teachers to read it for me but I prefer to be left in the dark on this one. It's much funnier.

The Foreigner's Sing My Girl

I wanted to post the video of us singing at the wedding. Enjoy!

No I am not dead!

Oh my gosh it's been so long since I've written! I do apologize to all my faithful readers. (Do I have any of those? I have no idea!) But I have a valid excuse if you'd like to hear it! Since my promotion to Senior Teacher I have no real breaks like I used to. Technically they are "office hours" so I feel naughty if I use them to do things such as write my blog. And since I have no computer at home it makes it hard to find the time to sit down and catch up. I also mentioned last time I wrote that there hasn't been much blog-worthy happening lately. One of my friends pointed out that maybe it's not that nothing has been happening, it's just that now I'm so comfortable here that things just feel like normal life instead of exciting adventures. Which could be very true. So in that spirit, I will try to catch you up on things that may seem mundane to me but that might be of interest to you. As well as the few interesting things that we've been doing as well.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween week (I think I mentioned this in my blog last posting. And yes I realize that was a month ago) was really fun. We did two weeks of special Halloween programs for the kids. It was pretty fun for them, and for us. The highlight of the week was when we did a haunted house. We darkened the school and all teacher dressed up in hideous masks and whatnot and hid throughout the hallways in the classrooms. The kids came through in groups of five or six and we would jump out and scare the pants off them. One kid was so scared he stood there for about 5 minutes screaming at me "You are bad, teacher! You are very bad! Who is you?!!! You are bad!!!!" After it was all over I went to find him to apologize. But he was like, "I am fun!" Kids.

Here are some pictures of the staff all dressed up. In the top one, I'm the one in the blue mask. The bottom...the creepy ghost with the stringy black hair and the severed hand.

Here's me in my devil costume, thrown together from Homeplus finds and my real clothes. Oh and lots of red eyeliner.

EVERLAND

Around Halloween we went to Everland, which is like the Disneyland of Korea. It was Shaun's leaving wish that he visit it for the third time, so how could I refuse? It was the usual gammut of rides and whatnot, but also a lot of animals in a zoo-type area and other things to do. It was a beautiful day for it and it was a nice way to say goodbye to the summer too, as the cold weather set in shortly after that.

Here are Shaun and Collin on one of the rides I opted out of. Being upside down is not my bag, baby.

I did ride this roller coaster. And discovered that if you scream really loud its a lot less scary! I applied this philosophy on the rest of the rides we went on.

On the safari ride they had lions, tigers, hyena, bears, and these LIGERS! Yes, that's right. A lion/tiger fusion. Unnatural isn't it?! Oh those Koreans!

Inside the bird house we fed the budgies. It reminded me of feeding the pigeons on Granville Island with Raea. But the budgies are less smely.

SEODAEMUN PRISON

At the beginning of the month we went to visit a Prison Museum in Seoul. It used to be a real prison where the Japanese held Korean patriots during Japanese occupation of Korea. It's set up to show the horrible tortures and unfair treatment suffered by the Korean prisoners. It was a real eye-opening experience. Very graphic and realistic-looking robotic mannequins doing things like shoving bamboo sticks under the fingernails of the prisoners, whipping them, pouring hot water laced with chilis up the noses of prisoners who were tied to the ceiling by their feet. Photos weren't allowed in the museum part, but I snapped a few shots of the outer buildings.

This is one of the long hallways leading off the y-shaped cell-blocks.

This is the inside of one of the cells. They would put as many people as can fit in these tiny rooms. And did not have the windows open so there was no fresh air or sunlight.

And here is a giant Korean flag on the outside of one of the cell-blocks.

AUTUMN HITS SUWON

As I mentioned earlier, the weather started getting cold around this time. And the leaves changed colour and autumn was here. (It's now the end of November and by my standards, it's still autumn weather.) But I thought I'd post some photos of the gorgeous colours. None of these photos are mine. I stole them from my fellow teachers Lee, Hannah, and Pip. I hope they don't mind.

The above photos are couresy of Hannah, and were taken in the parks that skirt our apartment building.

These two are Lee's and were taken somewhere in Seoul.

This one is Pip's. We walk up this road every day to go to the caffeteria for lunch. It's a wonderful walk and a nice break in the day.

This one is mine, and was taken by Hwaseong Fortress, the fortress wall that is the main tourist attraction in Suwon. These beautiful plants bloom everywhere lately. You can see patches of them on the side of the tracks on the subway. I thought they were particularly beautiful here with the sun shining on them.

YBM PARTY

YBM, the giant mother company that owns our school, threw a party for all it's teacher all over South Korea a few weekends ago. It was...interesting. There was a "talent" show and some professional entertainment and lots of prizes, none of which we won, and a great dinner. But it was a little disappointing becuase we got stuck in the overflow room with the other English Village and had to watch the whole show on a screen. On the plus side we got fed really quickly as our room was only half full. And we got to laugh without restraint at the attempts at talent that were showcased.

Here is the lovely ice scupture at the entrance to the party.

Our Names on the seating chart!

One of the contests was to make balloon creatures. We didn't win, but we made this guy, the Villagey Mascot for the night.

Here is me with Hannah and Rupali, looking sexy for the big night!

JAMIE'S KOREAN WEDDING

One of our Korean co-workers, Jamie, got married this past weekend. We were all invited (and actually performed a wonderful rendition of "My Girl" at the ceremony.)

Now I must explain something about Korea. It seems like they take a lot of "Western" ideas and squeeze everything extranious out of them and make a kind of...Korean version of them. They do it with Christmas, donuts, hamburgers, English. And now I can say they also do it with weddings. It was like someone read a book about a wedding in the west and said "Oh yeah, we can do that!" but didn't quite get the details right. Don't get me wrong, it was still really lovely and Jamie looked absolutely gorgeous. But...well, let me explain.

It took place in a huge hall (5 floors of huge) and there were two "chapels" on the second floor, side by side. One couple would be ushered in, a quick ceremony, some photos, then that bride out, new one waiting. It was like Vegas or something. There was a fog machine and dicso lights for when the groom came in. The wedding march was played on the piano by another of our Korean co-workers, Julia, so that part was good. Then the officiant (Priest? I don't know...) talked for about 10 minutes. Apparently Jamie and her groom said something like "I do" but I must have missed it. Then they walked over to a giant tier of plastic champagne glasses and poured some champagne into the top one so it cascaded down like a fountain. They then drunk some champagne with linked arms.

Then someone lit two birthday candles on a cake, Jamie and Jesse (I gave him his English name!) blew them out and were handed a knife longer than my arm to make a single cut in the cake. And I have a feeling that if you had looked at the top of that cake there would have several cuts from all the other wedding that had happened that day.

They did bow to their parents and before the ceremony the mothers lit some candles on the altar so there were still some remnants of what I assume would be tradition.

Here is a photo of the happy couple leaving the chapel before being whisked back in for a whirlwind photo shoot.

After the ceremony we went up to the buffet where there were guests from what I'm told was probably five other weddings. I guess people just mill in and out and eat and some don't even watch the ceremony! The food was amazing. There was I think 8 different tables of different kinds of food. Western food, Korean, sushi bar, salad bar, dessert bar. Everything you could want, really. After a while Jamie and Jesse came up to the banquet room in their traditional Korean dress. Sadly by that time most of the guests had gone already. Not us foreigners, however. Leave when there's free food to be had!?

Here is a picture of me with the bride and groom in their hanboks.

And the "Best Dressed" pciture. Me and Ricky (aka Luxury Boy), another co-worker.

VISIT TO THE DENTIST

About a month ago my teeth started hurting me, but I put off going to the dentist, my fear of them being compounded by the fear of the unknowns in going anywhere in Korea. But last week I looked at my tooth and discovered that I could actually see a hole in one of them, so I bit the bullet and made an appointment. I was nothing but pleasantly surprised when I walked in. There was a fire place and water feature in the lobby. And the receptionists looked as if they had been waiting all day for me to show up. The dentist spoke very good English and was really happy to practice it on me. He was very kind and answered all of my questions, even recommending a good brand of toothpaste for me since I'm not familiar with Korean brands. My initial visit cost me the equivalent of $4, and when I went back yesterday to get the tooth filled it cost me a whopping...are you ready for this...$5!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes five. That is not a typo. I think I will get him to look for more cavities so I can get them filled while I'm here. I feel like I was making money just by visiting the dentist! I had to go back after school today to get the filling polished and he said he would miss me. I've never had a dentist say that before!

RIDER PRIDE IN SUWON

Many of you know about the Grey Cup (pretty much everyone who would read this blog proabably do) so I won't go into details. I just wanted to show you how I spread Rider Pride to South Korea.

I couldn't watch the game live at is was on during the middle of the day on Monday here and I was working. But some of my friends (two Americans, a Brit and a Quebecer) agreed to watch it with me. They all knew the score but were nice enough to have me convinced that the Riders lost so I was really happy when they didn't.

All day at school I had the kids chanting "Go Roughriders!" (I'm in charge of the microphone during morning and afternoon assembly) and though they didn't really know what was going on, they were good sports about it.

IN CLOSING

In other news, it's pretty much for sure that I will be extending my contract another six months when this one is finished. So that puts me home in November of 2008. The thought of going home in less time than I've spent here doesn't sit well with me. And I feel like I have much more to do here before I'm ready to come home. So that's that.

And that's about all I can think to write about. I hope this has brought everyone up to speed. I've been at this PC room (think internet cafe without coffee) for nearly 3 hours typing away, so I think I shall wrap it up. I promise it won't be another month before I get back at it!