Some Wonderful Discoveries

Life has been good good good lately. No more am I wallowing in the sad sack sadness of failed romance, but have been getting out and being Shanda. And it had led to Some Wonderful Discoveries.

Wonderful Discovery #1: Homeplus has roller blades for half price

I bought some roller blades. I'm not sure if I posted about this way back when I first got here, but I've tried this already. Part of my first paycheque from the Villagey went to a pair of cheap blades. They, sadly, were unusable. I returned them and decided not to buy another since the places for comfortable roller-blade use are few and far between here, compared to Saskatoon at least, where you can go down the middle of the street and not be bothered by cars, or to the river and not meet a single person to get in your way.

But, my attempts at running having being foiled lately by my dodgy hip and knee, I decided to give Korean roller blades another try. And I got a sweet pair for half price. And they rock.

Wonderful Discovery #2: The parks are blade-able after all

You may not really care about this, but it makes me so happy. The thought of another summer with no rollerblades in it make me very sad. And so the discovery that cobbled sidewalks aren't impossible to blade on was like finding gold. There are two parks near our apartments and going between and around the two of them makes for a varied and intense workout.

Wonderful Discovery #3: Road Rash gives you street cred

Yes, I wiped out. Big time. In front of a nice young Korean man who spoke enough English to ask if I was okay and tell me to be careful after helping me up. It was actually his fault that I wiped out in the first place. He was walking on the smooth part of the sidewalk that ramps onto the sidewalk so I had to take the cobbled part that has no ramp. And the difference from street to sidewalk was more than I anticipated. And I hit the curb at pretty much full speed. And ended up sprawled pretty much face first on the sidewalk. Luckily my shoulder broke my fall. I'm used to having a few skraped knees over the course of a summer, but it's the first time I've had road rash on my shoulder. Not pretty. Especially when the kids at school notice it and poke it and say "Teacher, what?" But one of my facebook friends says that road rash gives you street cred. And plus it makes me feel "hard core." (I was going to post some pictures of my impressive war wounds...but I just realized how disgusting they are.)


Wonderful Discovery #4: Black Bean Noodle is actually good

We all know Valentine's Day. Well in Korea and in Japan and some other Asian countries they also have White Day, one month after V-day, where men give presents to women in reciprocation of the gifts they recieved on V-day. And the month after that comes black day. It is a day to celebrate (or lament) singleness. Me and my fellow single co-workers chose to celebrate.

The traditional food of black day is black bean sauce on noodle.


So we went out for dinner to a noodle house. The black bean sauce is not something new to me, we eat it at the school cafetteria every week. But, as most people will agree, cafetteria food shouldn't be used as the basis for judging anything. Even the best of foods will taste awful once a school cafetteria gets its hands on it. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that black bean is actually delicious!

After the noodles we went on a grocery shopping spree at homeplus, our favourite department store hang-out. Then to an organic soy icecream shop. (I gave up dairy at the start of the month hoping it would help improve my health, so Baskin Robins was out of the question.) But we found the soy delicious, though not as creamy as real cream. (Who'd a thunk...) We then topped of the evening by giving ourself mud facials and reading Shakespeare and tarot cards.

Who needs a man when you have girlfriends? When was the last time your boyfriend let him give you a facial or debated the healthiness of banana chips for 20 minutes?

For more information about black day: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSSEO18852320080414?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

Wonderful Discovery #5: Hwaseo Station has a gorgeous park/lake

Hwaseo is the station next to Suwon Station, where I usually catch the subway. I see out the window when I go into Seoul every weekend that there is a lake near the station. And right now is cherry blossom time and the lake was in full bloom. (Well, not the lake exactly, but the trees around it.) There are cherry blossom festivals all over the place, but I wanted to see them without the crowds of people that would inevitably flock to the festivals. So on my lazy Sunday I went to check out the lake. And found my new favourite place.

It felt like I was actually in nature, not just in a park in a city. True, there were sky-scraper apartment building in the background, but those are easily ignored. And you could hear the subway rattle past every few minutes. But the trees and flowers and water and families picnicing and children frolicking...it was heaven to my poor nature-starved soul.

I took a million pictures. Here are some of my favourites.

There were dozens of blue herons nesting on an island in the middle of the lake. I caught one of them in flight in this picture.

To see the rest of the album visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104272&l=ba44f&id=890700076

Wonderful Discovery #6: I am a circus cat

I bought a new shirt. On it, a cat in a red cape balancing on a tightrope. And the words "I am a circus cat." This may not seem note-worthy, but I feel I must live up to that shirt. It's not the kind of thing you take the wearing of lightly.

In other news, I have started a new blog. This one is more of a creative writing project. I've been wanting for a while to start a second blog, something more personal. So I was inspired the other day when I found a small red block on the side of the road.

You can see the new blog at http://redblockdiaries.blogspot.com

I hope you like it. (And also don't mind if you don't.)

Hey, did you get rid of Tony yet?!

Sorry for the obscurity of the title. Kids in the Hall fans might recognize it. And what does that have to do with anything? Well, I blame the Kids in the Hall for me not having posted since JANUARY!!!! Yes, January. To be fair, I wrote a really long post in February, but it was accidentally deleted before I could publish it. And in frustration I vowed never to blog again. Plus I downloaded all five seasons of KITH and watched it for a long time...and someone got me hooked on The Office. And it's spring and who wants to be stuck at a computer writine a blog when it's spring outside. And...ok, enough excuses. I'm just a bad blogger.

But let my try to get you all up to speed. What has been happening since last we spoke.

Well, the biggest real reason I haven't been keeping up with my blog is because I was pre-occupied with a romance. It was short lived but intense and took up all my thought an energy while it lasted. And then all of my evenings turned to chocolate-eating, feeling sorry for myself and tv watching when it ended. But now that I no longer have that distraction, I'm trying to remember what my life actually consists of, and one of those is this, my wonderful blog. :) So that's probably the biggest news in my life, but I'll try to come up with some other things that have been going on.

How far back should I go?

The first week in February we had a holiday from the Villagey for Lunar New Year. It's one of the biggest holidays in Korea, so we closed the school for a whole week! I went to a Buddhist meditation retreat, intending to stay the whole week, but ended leaving after 4 days. (This experience is what my ill-fated three-hours-to-write post that was deleted was about. I'll give you the short version here.) It was going fine until the third day when this man came to stay at the temple, claiming he was a Buddhist monk. Even I could tell he wasn't. He knew less about what was going on than I did. The afternoon after his arrival, the head monk at the temple confronted him and asked him what temple he got his monkhood at (I'm not sure of the proper terminology here) and when he couldn't answer satisfactorily, the head monk got super pissed off and kicked him out of the temple. When the man refused to go, the monk began to punch and kick him. Watching this, I decided that this was not the sort of place I wanted to learn enlightenment at. There were other things about the place that made me not like it, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I left that night. Spent the rest of the week with Sean (the afore-mentioned romance) hanging out in a deserted Seoul eating mexican food and Dunkin' Donuts until I was ready to explode.

The week after that I went with Lee and Pip to see Bjork play in Seoul. It was AMAZING!! I was in tears pretty much the whole time. She is such a powerful performer, and though I didn't know much of her music at the time it still was so moving. It was for sure one of the top five concerts of my life. (Hawksley excluded.)

A few weeks after that I went to see maroon 5. A much less satisfying concert experience. But a good fun evening none-the-less.

I've started my drum lessons at last. This weekend was my forth lesson, and if I do say so myself, I am certainly one of the best in the class. :) I try to practice every day, much to the chagrin of my neighbours. The other day while I was banging away I heard a distinct tinkle from the bells I keep on my door. I stopped playing and heard banging on my door and yelling from the hallway. I sheepishly put away my drum and tried not to make a peep for the rest of the night. I put it inside its case to practice now so it only makes a quiet thump when I hit it. It does the trick, but it's not nearly as satisfying.

The spring is reeking havoc on my asthma and I find myself out of breath a lot of the time. The infamous yellow dust is also coming and going of late which doesn't help the problem. I think I'm going to consult a traditional medicine doctor about it, and have given up dairy in an attempt to get it under control. I really want to run a half-marathon in October and my training is way behind. (Okay, my training is back at square one. Darn boys for distracting me and then breaking my heart!)

School is getting busy. Kids are on a waiting list to get in. I guess word has spread that the Villagey is the place to be. My one year anniversary of being in Korea is coming up at the end of this month. I can hardly believe that this time last year I was stressing about what to pack.

I really just wanted to post a quick catch-up note so I could get back on track with my regular postings without feeling daunted by the prospect of writing 3 months worth of posts at one shot. So sorry for the "highlights reel" but I hope to stay on track from now on. And hope to have some exciting things to post about.

Oh! And speaking of exciting things, I was featured in an article in the Suwon News. Here is a picture of it. (A student brought me this clipping and asked for my autograph! Perhaps she's never known anyone who was in the newspaper before. It's not like the Wynard Advance where everyone in town is in it at least once a year.)


I can't tell you what the article says, but it's basically about my opinions on the state of English education in Korea. I don't know why they picked me for the article...but it was pretty fun to do. The interviewer didn't speak English so boss-lady Jeannie did the translating. I told her to make me sound smart. I'm hoping she succeeded. The Korean teachers all assure me it's a nice article.

So that's all I'll say for now. It's dinner time and my tummy is rumbling.

I hope it won't be too long before we meet again!

Ice Fishing Festival

So this weekend we went to Hwacheon, a lovely city in the mountains, to the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival. Sancheoneo is the river trout ("a fresh water fish that is only able to live in the cleanest water and tastes with firm, chewy flesh and a nutty as well as sweet.") that lives in the rivers up there. So they dedicate a festival to them, and to other icey activities. According to the brochure we were given, it is "one of the biggest funs of your life." There were many "unique events." To quote the page-turning brochure, "Why don't you have a good time at Eolgomi castle, snowman photo zone and New Year's folk town? You can enjoy Sancheoneo Ice Festival at everywhere. Have you seen those gorgeous sceneries of rural village? You can meet also marvelous events there." A lot to live up to, no? But I assure you, it delivered.

The weekend began dark and early Saturday morning as we had to be in Seoul by 7am to catch the bus. Long subway ride followed by Burger King breakfast and a long bus ride. Stopped at a village on the way up the mountain to get lunch and booze (gotta have soju to keep you warm.) We got to the festival around noon and proceeded to the ice fishing area.

We had to dig our own hole using a t-shaped "drill" that was more like...a chipper.

And then scoop the ice chips out of the hole using our fishing rods.

Here is a hole I dug all by myself. Sadly, it did not yeild any fish.

And here's me fishing.

After we tried our hand at real ice fishing (Hannah was the only one who actually caught a fish) we decided to partake in the bare hands fishing event. Which was really the highlight of the weekend for me.

Basically they had a pool of water with some fish in it and they gave you shorts and a t-shirt and you jumped into the icy water and tried to catch a fish with your bare hands. Sounds easy, right? Well, we all thought it did. I was bound and determined to come out of that pool with a fish since I didn't catch any the traditional way.

Here you can see me, Hannah and Pip huddled around a wood stove to keep warm before it was our turn to go in the water. (These pictures are all from the tour website, so I don't know any of the other people.)

Here we are all lined up. I bet so many white legs were never seen before in Korea!

There's me in the back and fellow villager Mike in the middle, up to our shoulders in ice water. We were hard-core.

I did not actually catch a fish, though I had my hands on many. My fingers were too stiff from cold to grab hard enough to keep the fish from wiggling away. But I was rewarded these two for diving into the water. I wanted to represent Saskatchewan girls and prove that we are no woosies!

And just to emphasize my point...here's me in my Saskatchewan shirt. Represent!

I took one of my fish to the sashimi tent so we could try it raw.

It was really delicious. Very chewy but not too fishy. Yum!

We also checked out some of the other things at the festival before we had to take off...

There was an ice tunnel aka tunnel of death as the floors were so slippery no one was able to keep their footing. And I didn't even have any soju at this point!

And here's me hugging a polar bear. Naturally.

After the festival funs, we went to check into our cabins which were an hour away. It was a beautiful spot in the mountains. We had to walk about 15 minutes up a mountain trail that the bus couldn't make it up and by the time we got there it was already dark and it was amazing to be able to see it. Actual dark, not neon buzzing dark, not streetlight dark, actual dark. And hear silence. I'd forgotten what both of those things were like.

We met some other teachers from Suwon just by chance and bunked with them for the night. Luckily they were super cool and we ended up fast friends, aided of course by a game of flip-cup.

There was a great meal of roast pig (yes, the whole thing) and Korean sides where the soju flowed...

After dinner there was a bonfire and wrestling and such things. The next day there was the option of going on a hike (which I opted out of...headache and all) and then it was back down the mountain and onto the bus.

Here's the whole group we went with. I'm sure I talked to all of them at some point, but I'll be damned if I can remember it! (We were standing on a frozen pond to take this picture and just as we did we heard a huge crack and felt a shudder under our feet. We dispersed pretty quick!)

And here's team Villagey at the festival. (Not sure why I appear to be falling over...)

Lots of the pictures I've posted here were from the website of the tour group we went with. There are tons more if you want to see them. Go to www.adventurekorea.com and click on the photo gallery.

I also have a facebook album if you want to see that too.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82373&l=05d70&id=890700076

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82375&l=83bfd&id=890700076

Happy New Year!

2008 already? How did that happen? And the coming of the New Year also marks my 8 month anniversary in Korea. So that means I have 10 months left. Looking back on how the first 8 months flew by, I can only suspect the next 10 will go by even faster.

We spent New Year's Eve at our favourite "Self Club Bar" the Crazy Duck. We're regulars there and the owner knows us and there's a good pack of other regulars we're getting to know by site if not by name so we thought it would be a good place to ring in the New Year. It was a night of rum buckets, dancing and fancy dress. And good fun. Sadly, there was no countdown to midnight, we just kinda watched the clock and when it changed to 12:00 we started cheering and kissing.

Here are some photos of the highlights of the evening:

Here's me posing in my sexy sequined hat.

Here's some of the group: Pip, Rupali, Mike, Myself and Collin in front.

Posing again. Love this pic. I look like I'm waiting for a martini or something...but should also be checked into a mental home.

Hannah enjoying the creepiest mask in the world.

One of the best things about the Crazy Duck is the regular who we call our "helmet-haired spirit guide." He's always there in a strange costume of some kind making balloon animals and schmoozing, though he can't speak a word of English. He gave Mike a business card once, and I guess he's like a clown for hire. But anyway, he made me these wings. I was so overjoyed with them...it seemed like a good omen to welcome the New Year.

I brought them home and gave them to Hue. He is still wearing them, though they are slowly losing air.

At school on New Year's Day we had a western-style New Year's Party with the kids. We had Time Square live from New York on the big screen and played games and had party hats that the kids made and noise makers. At "midnight" sang Auld Lang Syne and tried to get them to kiss their friends. (Not likely...)

Here's me pouring some apple juice "champagne" for the kids. (Look closely and you'll see how red eyes are. The lack of sleep and the emotion of missing everyone at home kinda got to me...)

Happy New Year!!!! toast.

New Year's babies chillin with Father time just before they crash the party and Father Time gets kicked out.

It was pretty fun, anyway. I don't know if the kids understood what they heck was going on, but they like playing with balloons and juice is always good...

Some exciting things have happened since New Year as well...I finally got a new ipod after getting the run-around from my insurance company and many fruitless trips to the repair store who never have regular hours and always seem to be closed whenever I take the hour and half trip into Seoul to go see them. So it's been a month and a half sice I broke my old one. Naturally I was pretty happy to see the new one.

I bought tickets to see Bjork in Seoul in February. Once in a lifetime opportunity...

I have also bought a jangu. Remember the hour glass shaped drum I fell in love with at the Korean Folk Village? Well I found a place in Seoul where I can take lessons to learn to play it so I spent my Christmas money to buy one. The lessons don't start until March and I can't wait!

Getting a little artsy with the photos lately...

Isn't he shiny and beautiful? I have no name for him yet...

And the most exciting news: I have a new nephew! My sister and her husband had their second child on January 2nd. I won't post pictures because I don't know how they would feel about their son being put on the world wide web...but trust me he is the most handsome baby in the world.

So Happy New Year everyone! Going ice fishing next weekend so I'm sure I'll have some great stories from that!

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!