Thanks to Ace for updating for me! I’ve been slacking. We did indeed have a really nice Valentine’s day, though Ace wasn’t entirely truthful when he said we didn’t buy any couplewear. There was definitely some couple-socks purchasing action. They’re pretty adorable. There’s a stick figure boy on his sending hearts over to the stick figure girl on mine. When we put our feet together the picture is completed….hey, stop gagging! I have to admit, the excessive cuteness in this culture is starting to grow on me. You have to appreciate a country where it’s perfectly ok for officers in uniform to hold hands and for super-tough middle school boys to have fuzzy stuffed animal pencil cases and wear SpongeBob Squarepants backpacks. Yay Korea!
This week has flown by, as usual. With the same schedule and same classes every week, the weeks seem to just roll past us. Everything has been pretty uneventful at work- I don’t have any major discipline problems at the moment, and I’m really getting to know and enjoy some of my kids. I seem to alternate between being annoyed by and amused by my more rambunctious classes, but like I said, no major discipline problems- just a few hyperactive, good-hearted kiddos. The repetition does get a bit much if I think about the fact that I’ll be teaching in the exact same format for the next six months, so I try not to think about it. If I take things a week or a month at a time, it’s no problem, and fortunately I’m still certain that this is the best job I’ve had.
I just got back from the swing club. I’ve been taking jitterbug classes (that’s where I met my friend Rosemary). It’s a little strange being the only foreigner in the class- it’s taught in Korean, and only a few people speak a bit of English- but it’s already been a great way to make Korean friends. As long as I’m feeling confident enough to be the one person in the room not laughing when a joke is cracked, I have a really good time. Tonight we had class (it’s a bit easy, but I’m looking forward to the lindy hop classes starting soon), some open dancing, then went to a nearby bar and had a few drinks.
As Ace mentioned, I went to the animal shelter for the first time on Tuesday. I recruited 3 friends to go with me, and we all had an awesome time. The shelter (KAPS) has been run by a woman named Sunnan for the last 25 years or so- she bought the property with her own money, and says that it was the first animal shelter in Korea. I believe it, as some of my Korean friends didn’t know that animal shelters exist- Rosemary thought I was talking about volunteering in a pet shop That’s unfortunate, as I get the feeling adopting abandoned animals is pretty uncommon (at least in Daegu). KAPS is really different from the US shelters I’ve been to. It’s much less sterile- in good ways and bad. The kitties have two communal outdoor shelters where they can roam about as they please. I’m sure kitty colds get passed around more this way, but it’s so nice to see them all moving about freely, climbing stuff, scratching and socializing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The place seems to be patched together with a lot of love- you can tell the few staff members really love the animals and are really doing the best they can with what they have. In one room, I saw cats perched in cupboards and on shelves on Sunnan’s old armoire. All the cat trees and scratching things seem to be homemade. Sunnan mentioned that she has multiple litters of kittens in her apartment right now- she keeps them there until they are strong enough for the shelter. There’s also a ton of adorable little doggies, and the staff was happy to let us take out armfuls of puppies and play with them all together. A lot of them are really in need of a good bath, some brushing and some play time- Sunnan really just wants people to come play, and give them treats and/or baths. My friends and I are so excited to go back. We’ll be going every Tuesday for a few hours. I’m especially excited because it seems like the kind of place where you can really make a visible difference.
Besides Tuesdays at the shelter, we have a lot of other great stuff to look forward to. This Wednesday is our two year anniversary, and to celebrate we’re spending the weekend in Seoul. We don’t have any big plans, other than staying in Itaewon, eating lots of foreign food, and doing some shopping and wandering around. Itaewon isn’t very Korean, as it’s the foreigner district of Seoul, but it’s a great change of scenery. The following weekend is our vacation…to Turkey! We’re THRILLED to be taking a week of vacation, visiting Malynda and her sister, and getting to know Istanbul and Cappadocia. We’ll be staying with Malynda for most of our trip, but we will be flying to Cappadocia and staying in a cave hotel for two nights. Awesome!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Valentine's Day and more
On Valentine's Day, Kait and I had very nice day just going downtown and hanging out. We wanted to buy "couple wear," but nothing struck our fancy. (Couple wear is when a couple - as in two people who are dating, etc. - buy the same pair of clothes together. Sometimes, however, the design on the clothing is split between the two pieces, so you must have somebody else wearing the other half in order for it to make sense.) So we wandered around downtown for a while just checking out shops and immersing ourselves in the Korean fashion - though not taking a part in it just yet. From there we went to the arcade and played a bunch of games for less than 5,000 won ($3.50) and got our pictures taken in one of those small photo booths. We also went on a fun, simulated "roller coaster" ride downtown. We wore 3-D glasses and sat in a fake roller-coaster seat that was set up with hydraulics and air hoses that blew air into your face during the "fast" parts of the simulation. We had fun. We finished the night by going out to one of our favorite restaurants in our neighborhood and watching a movie at home. (The movie was "Milk" and we thought it was great - one of the best movies we have seen in a while.)
Two weekends ago, Kait and I traveled with Kait's friend Rosemary (whom she met in a dance class) to go to nearby Gyeongju. Since Rosemary has a car, we were more than happy to accept her offer to drive. We had lunch and dinner together. One dish was a delicious "kimchi chigay," which is basically a kimchi stew.
Just yesterday (Tuesday,) Kait went with some friends to an animal shelter to volunteer and play with the cats and dogs. Kait mentioned that the shelter was started at the very grassroots level with close to zero funding. Apparently it was actually the first animal shelter in all of Korea, and the woman who created it is a bit of an advocate for people to stop eating dog. (I will let Kait post more on this later, as she went there herself.) Next week I will also start volunteering there as well, and I definitely look forward to it.
Just this last weekend Kait and I decided that we needed to cook more because we were going out to eat almost every day, so we prepared dinners such as a ginger stir fry and an Indian curry dish. We have been feeling much better about this and hope to keep it up as time goes by.
Other than that, I am just starting to look for a job next year at a university here in Daegu so that I can be happier with my level of autonomy in the classroom. I just started looking, but I think I have a decent chance, so I will give it a go. Anyways, Kait and I wish all of you at home the best from our part of the world. Regards, Ace
Two weekends ago, Kait and I traveled with Kait's friend Rosemary (whom she met in a dance class) to go to nearby Gyeongju. Since Rosemary has a car, we were more than happy to accept her offer to drive. We had lunch and dinner together. One dish was a delicious "kimchi chigay," which is basically a kimchi stew.
Just yesterday (Tuesday,) Kait went with some friends to an animal shelter to volunteer and play with the cats and dogs. Kait mentioned that the shelter was started at the very grassroots level with close to zero funding. Apparently it was actually the first animal shelter in all of Korea, and the woman who created it is a bit of an advocate for people to stop eating dog. (I will let Kait post more on this later, as she went there herself.) Next week I will also start volunteering there as well, and I definitely look forward to it.
Just this last weekend Kait and I decided that we needed to cook more because we were going out to eat almost every day, so we prepared dinners such as a ginger stir fry and an Indian curry dish. We have been feeling much better about this and hope to keep it up as time goes by.
Other than that, I am just starting to look for a job next year at a university here in Daegu so that I can be happier with my level of autonomy in the classroom. I just started looking, but I think I have a decent chance, so I will give it a go. Anyways, Kait and I wish all of you at home the best from our part of the world. Regards, Ace
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Great Wall of China, Tienanmen Square, and The Forbidden City
While on our China trip, in order to get to the Great wall of China, we first had to get up very early (about 6am) to meet with our tour group in the morning. It was totally worth it to get up even a little earlier so we could beat the crowd down to the full-service breakfast that had so much good food. So after feasting like kings on French-style pastries, fresh fruit, baguette French toast (delicious!), bacon, and other breakfast foods, we met with the bus to leave for the Great Wall of China.
The area we went to was actually a very refurbished section of the wall, so it was very tourist-friendly. However, many of the steps were fairly uneven, some higher, longer, or steeper than others. So it was a very beautiful part of the great wall, and a fairly non-challenging hike. Once we got there, Kait and I decided to book it up to the top so that we could beat the crowds of people that would come before very long. This way, we could do our photography and videos on the way down. Once we got to the top, we felt like out-of-breath heroes (because apparently, according to the tour guide -- and Chinese legend -- only heroes hiked all the way to the top).
All along the wall were several guard towers that were no doubt constructed to fend off Mongolian invaders. It was clear that some of these were for show in that there was no actual roof access to them, which would have been a major design flaw with any defensive building like that. But it was okay because we could get on top of at least a couple of them, albeit by taking some very steep, narrow stairs. Also on the way down, we noticed a sharp difference in the willingness of the tourist shops to barter with you. Kait wanted to buy a t-shirt that said something to the effect of "I climbed the Great Wall of China," but the first shop we went to refused to lower his prices to something that was actually reasonable. (He wouldn't go below US $25 or so for a regular, screen-print t-shirt.) So we went to a tourist shop that was just a little further down the hill, and found the same shirts for roughly half the price, which seemed a little weird to us, but we just rolled with it.
Once we met back up with the bus, we were ready for a lunch in another tourist-trap restaurant that sold, well, vases. That's right, we got a tour of a vase shop, which was neat and all to see, but probably not altogether worth our time (in my humble opinion). During the lunch, we had what I like to call "hero juice," a kind of liquor that, apparently, only heroes drank. It was a 56% alcoholic drink that burned like crazy and had a particularly awful taste. I just had one small shot, then I dumped the rest of the contents of the bottle into a glass (no one else wanted it either,) and pocketed the cool-looking bottle as a souvenir.
Later we went to the Forbidden City. This is where the emperors and their numerous concubines lived. It has immensely high walls, and it has several different layers of walls inside. Apparently, one emperor lived in the inner court while the outer court was allowed for public use for a period of time. Sadly, we did not have much time with our tour group to spend in the Forbidden City, so we walked in a straight line from the entrance to the exit, taking pictures along the way. There were still a lot of cool things to see, like giant water vases used for fire, giant bronze lions and other animals, and giant incense burners as well as stone carvings all throughout.
Once we were finished here, we went straight to the Tienanmen Square, which is located directly south of the Forbidden City, a 5-10 minute walk. It was here that we found ourselves in the middle of more people per square foot I have ever experienced in such a large area. Once we were in the square, we took a bunch of pictures of Mao Tse Tung's mausoleum, the national museum, and the parliament building that surrounded the square. On the gate to the Forbidden City, there is a large picture of Mao, left as a memorial to his period in office and the changes for the better that he made for the Chinese people. While on our tour, the guide spoke nothing about the atrocities of Tienanmen Square nor those of Mao himself; he spoke nothing about these things because even if he were aware of them, it would be illegal for him to talk about it. I read online that most of the youth in China today don't know about the uprisings that took place in Tienanmen Square.
Once finished with this day, we went back to the hotel to get a good night of rest - after some sauna action - before our very early flight in the morning.
All in all, we had an excellent trip. The best thing was that we really didn't have to worry about anything; it was completely low stress. The bad part was that we were taken to a lot of random places that we really didn't care to see all that much, and that were total tourist traps. These include the jade and pearl markets, a tea house, the vase shop, and a "kung fu" show that we went to. It would have been nice to have used this time at the end of each day to go to someplace - perhaps an open air market or a row of authentic restaurants - where we could just wander around and actually experience a place in China that had local Chinese people in it who weren't directly connected to any tourist service. (This is something that we really did not do throughout the whole trip!) So in hindsight, I think it will be a while before we do any kind of tour like that again, but at least we had a very good time.
While on our China trip, in order to get to the Great wall of China, we first had to get up very early (about 6am) to meet with our tour group in the morning. It was totally worth it to get up even a little earlier so we could beat the crowd down to the full-service breakfast that had so much good food. So after feasting like kings on French-style pastries, fresh fruit, baguette French toast (delicious!), bacon, and other breakfast foods, we met with the bus to leave for the Great Wall of China.
The area we went to was actually a very refurbished section of the wall, so it was very tourist-friendly. However, many of the steps were fairly uneven, some higher, longer, or steeper than others. So it was a very beautiful part of the great wall, and a fairly non-challenging hike. Once we got there, Kait and I decided to book it up to the top so that we could beat the crowds of people that would come before very long. This way, we could do our photography and videos on the way down. Once we got to the top, we felt like out-of-breath heroes (because apparently, according to the tour guide -- and Chinese legend -- only heroes hiked all the way to the top).
All along the wall were several guard towers that were no doubt constructed to fend off Mongolian invaders. It was clear that some of these were for show in that there was no actual roof access to them, which would have been a major design flaw with any defensive building like that. But it was okay because we could get on top of at least a couple of them, albeit by taking some very steep, narrow stairs. Also on the way down, we noticed a sharp difference in the willingness of the tourist shops to barter with you. Kait wanted to buy a t-shirt that said something to the effect of "I climbed the Great Wall of China," but the first shop we went to refused to lower his prices to something that was actually reasonable. (He wouldn't go below US $25 or so for a regular, screen-print t-shirt.) So we went to a tourist shop that was just a little further down the hill, and found the same shirts for roughly half the price, which seemed a little weird to us, but we just rolled with it.
Once we met back up with the bus, we were ready for a lunch in another tourist-trap restaurant that sold, well, vases. That's right, we got a tour of a vase shop, which was neat and all to see, but probably not altogether worth our time (in my humble opinion). During the lunch, we had what I like to call "hero juice," a kind of liquor that, apparently, only heroes drank. It was a 56% alcoholic drink that burned like crazy and had a particularly awful taste. I just had one small shot, then I dumped the rest of the contents of the bottle into a glass (no one else wanted it either,) and pocketed the cool-looking bottle as a souvenir.
Later we went to the Forbidden City. This is where the emperors and their numerous concubines lived. It has immensely high walls, and it has several different layers of walls inside. Apparently, one emperor lived in the inner court while the outer court was allowed for public use for a period of time. Sadly, we did not have much time with our tour group to spend in the Forbidden City, so we walked in a straight line from the entrance to the exit, taking pictures along the way. There were still a lot of cool things to see, like giant water vases used for fire, giant bronze lions and other animals, and giant incense burners as well as stone carvings all throughout.
Once we were finished here, we went straight to the Tienanmen Square, which is located directly south of the Forbidden City, a 5-10 minute walk. It was here that we found ourselves in the middle of more people per square foot I have ever experienced in such a large area. Once we were in the square, we took a bunch of pictures of Mao Tse Tung's mausoleum, the national museum, and the parliament building that surrounded the square. On the gate to the Forbidden City, there is a large picture of Mao, left as a memorial to his period in office and the changes for the better that he made for the Chinese people. While on our tour, the guide spoke nothing about the atrocities of Tienanmen Square nor those of Mao himself; he spoke nothing about these things because even if he were aware of them, it would be illegal for him to talk about it. I read online that most of the youth in China today don't know about the uprisings that took place in Tienanmen Square.
Once finished with this day, we went back to the hotel to get a good night of rest - after some sauna action - before our very early flight in the morning.
All in all, we had an excellent trip. The best thing was that we really didn't have to worry about anything; it was completely low stress. The bad part was that we were taken to a lot of random places that we really didn't care to see all that much, and that were total tourist traps. These include the jade and pearl markets, a tea house, the vase shop, and a "kung fu" show that we went to. It would have been nice to have used this time at the end of each day to go to someplace - perhaps an open air market or a row of authentic restaurants - where we could just wander around and actually experience a place in China that had local Chinese people in it who weren't directly connected to any tourist service. (This is something that we really did not do throughout the whole trip!) So in hindsight, I think it will be a while before we do any kind of tour like that again, but at least we had a very good time.
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