Sunday, July 30, 2006
Our trip to Busan - The East China Sea
This past week we had three days off for summer vacation. Just to let you know - we have the best directors in the world!! They gave each teacher at our school $100 to spend on our vacation. So, with $200 in our pockets, and a smile on our faces, we decided to head down to Busan (a beach town on the south-east tip of Korea) for some fun in the sun. We took a 5 hour train ride, and went from rainy, over-cast weather to beautiful sunshine.
Here's Sam enjoying the view on Gwangalli Beach. The motel room that we found was one street over from the beach - awesome location!! The bridge in the background made us think of the Golden Gate bridge (wrong colour, but we felt like we were in Cali!). 
This is one of the many little motels we looked at before settling on ours. This one smelled like smoke and beer, and was pretty sketchy. Needless to say, I convinced Sam we should keep looking! And we're so glad we did! Ours was a couple bucks more, but we had our own bathroom, a real bed, and air-conditioning in our room.
Here we are exploring the streets around Busan. This was our first night in town, and we were looking for dinner. We really wanted to find a dakgalbi place (really spicy chicken stir fry), and knew that the first Korean symbol in the word looked like a C+ with the number 27 under it. We wandered for an hour, and couldn't find a dakgalbi restaurant, so we finally settled on a Korean barbq joint, similar to a restaurant we enjoy at home in Osan. We went in, sat down, and the waitress came over to take our order. We pointed at "beef" in our book, and she pointed at a picture of beef on the wall and we nodded. Then she said some words and we thought we heard "sauce", so we nodded that yes, we would like sauce on our meat. Little did we know that she was actually saying something like, "Hi foreigners, would you like the most expensive meat we have in this restaurant?". Our meal came, and we were both pretty disappointed with our cut of meat. I'd say it was 25% meat, and 75% fat...disgusting! We figured we had ordered the cheapest cut, so we just ate what we wanted, and finished off our "so-so" meal pretty quick. We headed for the door to pay our bill...figuring it would be about $12 to $20...the normal price at home. We were pretty shocked when we were charged $36 for fatty meat (we didn't even get rice with it!!). But, what could we do? We had already eaten, and didn't know the words for "you're ripping us off!". So we paid, and left, feeling completely scammed. (I know $36 doesn't sound that expensive when compared to North American prices, but you have to remember that we're used to paying $2 for a good lunch!). We did what any normal person would do, and drowned our sorrows in some Baskin Robbins icecream :0) But, don't worry - all of our meals at Busan were not complete gong-shows...the next day we ate at a chain that we eat at here in Osan. They had an English translation of their entire menu, so we were able to copy out a bunch of meals that looked awesome. Now, we have more then 2 options at that restaurant!
Here Sam and I are displaying our train tickets to Busan...the first we purchased on our own...we were proud!
Here's the view on Gwagalli Beach...beautiful, eh! There was about 1.5 km of sand to walk on, so that was fun...we walked the whole thing a couple of times.
Here Sam and I are displaying our train tickets to Busan...the first we purchased on our own...we were proud!
Here's the view on Gwagalli Beach...beautiful, eh! There was about 1.5 km of sand to walk on, so that was fun...we walked the whole thing a couple of times.
East China Sea Trip - Beomosa Buddhist Temple
On Friday, we decided to go and see Beomosa Temple. After a subway trip, and a harrowing taxi ride up the mountain (the driver didn't understand that the center line in the middle of the road shouldn't be crossed when going around tight corners), we arrived.
This was the first building we came to after entering through the gates of the temple. On the inside were beautiful paintings. I don't know if you can see it clearly, but on the right of this building, really tall bamboo was growing. It looked really neat!
There were tons of little shrine buildings all over the temple grounds. Most of them looked like this on the inside. There was usually a gold buddha in the middle with two statues of his "attendants" on either side. There were a lot of people at the temple grounds, and we saw them in the various shrines, bowing down and praying to the statues.
This is me in front of the 3-tiered pagoda. All of the buddhists who passed by this structure would stop, bow at it, and then continue. We found out that this is actually the centre of their worship. This pagoda is thought to embody the Buddha and all of his teachings.
As you can see from this picture, it was definitely beautiful up at the temple. It was green all around, with rolling hills and mountains in the distance. Most of the shrine rooms looked like this building, and were placed around the temple grounds. The white statue in this picture is a 9-tiered pagoda.
This is Sam in front of what we thought must have been a meeting room for the monks at this temple. It was an open room on the inside with a painting of Buddha on the wall, and various pillows to sit on around the room.East China Sea Trip - Our Hike
While we were at Beomosa Temple, we ran into two guys who were from California. They were travelling around Korea, on their way to China. They were planning on hiking from the temple to a fortress that was a 3 hour hike away. We were invited to go along, and it sounded pretty fun, so we went.
This is Sam with Dan (in the blue shirt) and Sam (in the black shirt). We had bought some kimbap that morning to have for lunch, so we decided to have a snack break along the way. We only had two pairs of chopsticks, though - they quickly became communal chopsticks :0)
This was part of the trail up to the North Gate of the fortress. It was REALLY humid in the forest...no air movement at all...we were all feeling it! The trail was really beautiful.
This is me at the North Gate of Geumjeong Fortress. This is actually the only part of the fortress that we saw. After seeing this gate, we consulted a map that had no English on it, tried to figure out where to go, and then headed in that direction. Needless to say, like many of our other trips here, we got completely lost and ended up in a small village in the country somewhere (we still don't know where we were!). Fortunately, a bus drove by. We got on and hoped that the bus driver was going somewhere with a subway station. He drove down the mountain (the roads here are so narrow, and yet they still drive at crazy, break-neck speeds!) and ended up in the city. One of his stops was at a subway station. We said goodbye to our hiking buddies, and headed to Haeundae Beach.East China Sea - Haeundae Beach
This is Haeundae Beach...and it was sooo crowded. This picture doesn't really do it justice! We came here after our hike in order to get in the water and cool down!
When we first got to the beach we didn't really know where to go. There were people everywhere! Kinda felt like we had gone to the beach with 500,000 of our closest friends!
Once we found a spot, we decided to rent a yellow inner tube and ride the waves a bit. You can see in the picture that the tubes are a BIG hit! Everybody had them in the water, so each wave would jostle us and push us into other inner-tubers! The waves were great, and it was a fun way to cool off!
The lifeguards here are crazy intense...blowing their whistle every 5 seconds, and getting really nervous if anyone gets remotely close to the buoy lines (we've been told that many Koreans aren't great at swimming). Anyways, it was funny cause at 6:00 pm on the dot, everybody got out of the water...and noone was allowed back in! If people tried to sneak in, the lifeguards would freak out and blow their whistles and wave people back to shore. It was like there was some unspoken rule that "swimming after 6 is extremely dangerous". We couldn't believe how fast people cleared out...still not sure what that was about :0)
East China Sea Trip Cont...
Here we are at Gwanglli Beach...this is the beach that we stayed at. It was way less crowded then Haeundae Beach, and had awesome atmosphere! At night there were tons of neon lights along the main beach strip. People were out, sitting on the sand in little groups until past midnight. Lots of kids had sparklers and glow sticks and little old grandmas were selling rice cakes at 10:30 at night. It was awesome!
Here we are under our umbrella. We rented this little space of shade for $5...well worth it, considering we forgot our sunscreen at home, and were a bit burnt from our hike the day before. We pretty much hung out under this umbrella for all of Saturday, until we had to leave to catch our train home.
Here's Sam...commemorating our trip to the East China Sea. The water was pretty cool, but felt so good after the hot sun and humid weather!
I have to say that Sam is acting more and more Asian every day...here he is doing his "squat" sit under our umbrella. It seems like every time I turn around, he's sitting like this!
Oops...we first thought we were at the South China Sea...and did our little "staring off into the water" photo shoot with this little message in the sand. Luckily, our Lonely Planet Guide to Korea was on hand and we were able to verify that it was in fact the "East China Sea". A little ways down from this message we wrote the right name in the sand and shot our pictures all over again :0)Saturday, July 22, 2006
Hwaseong Fortress
Today, Sam and I went to Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon (4 subway stops from Osan). If I could think of one word to describe today (besides "fun") it would be - WALKING!! Here's how much walking we did: We left our apartment and walked to the subway station. After arriving in Suwon, we decided we were to cheap to pay $1.50 for the bus, and that we'd rather walk from the station to the fortress...turned out to be about 3 km. Once there, we walked around the entire fortress wall - 5.7 km. Then, we walked back to the station - another 3 km. And once back in Osan, back to our apartment. What a great, active day, eh! The walking was definitely worth it though, because we found a Dunkin Donuts, and used the money we saved on bus fare to buy ourselves a little treat...so good!!
The fortress was awesome...very old (originally built in 1794, but a lot of it has been restored since then), and very pretty!
This is near the start of our walk around the fortress wall. Behind Sam is the "West Gate" - called "Hwaseomun".
This is me in front of the fortress floodgate. It was so hot out today that I was tempted to get in the water. There were actually a few kids on the other side of the building behind me who were playing around in the stream.
It was kind of funny because we were walking around this super old structure, and yet, on either side of the wall the city was bustling around us. This is Sam looking down on some Suwon traffic.
This was my favourite place of the fortress. We had to take our shoes off in order to go up the stairs to this pavillion, where we enjoyed a little shade and a granola bar. The view from this place was spectacular - a beautiful pond and willow trees were directly behind and below. Could have stayed here all day!
Here we are in front of one of the many other pavilions...a self-portrait using the camera timer...sorry about the fact that it's a little crooked!Hwaseong Fortress Cont...
Sam and I felt it was only appropriate to have an "empty water bottle sword fight" down the entire East Gate staircase. We were pretty evenly matched, however Sam managed to disarm me once, and so I have to give the title of "grand champion" to him.
This is a shot we took after walking down the steps from the "Namporu" lookout...soldiers would hide in the pavilion (you can see the roof of it at the middle of the top of this picture) and watch for enemies.
This is Sam, exhausted, after we climbed about a million stairs to get to this point (you can sort of see the city sky line in the background to get an idea of how high we were). We figured this little marker was either the grave stone of a fellow tourist who actually died from the climb, or an invitation to rest in Korean.
This is Sam on one of the many lookouts...searching the fort perimeter for enemies. You'll be happy to know that none were spotted while he was on watch.
Ok, I know I'm tall, but come on...this door is tiny!!! Sam and I felt like we were taping an episode of "Big People, Little World"!!!Monday, July 17, 2006
"English?" "Costco?"
Costco. The word brings with it images of massive quantities of food, samples gallore, large shopping carts, and discount hotdogs. It's almost magical, really!
That is, unless you're Sam and Becky Jones trying to figure out Korea...and then the word musters up images of rain soaked clothes, lost wanderings in Seoul, and throbbing muscles. Let me explain...
This afternoon at around 2:45, Sam and I decided to go to Costco. We looked up "Costco Korea" on the internet, found out what subway station was closest to the nearest store, viewed a simple looking map that showed Costco as being one block down and one block over from "Yangjae" station, and set out with high hopes of bringing home delicious food that we knew how to prepare. It was a rainy day, but we figured we'd be fine with our new umbrella.
The subway ride there was great. We only got on a wrong train once, and it only took us one stop to realize what we had done and fix our mistake. Not a bad trip :0) It was when we got to Yangjae that our troubles began. We knew Costco was supposedly "one block down and one block over" from the station...however, there were tons of station exits leading to various street corners and starting points in the world above the tracks. We took one that we thought sounded familiar, and stepped out onto the streets of Seoul. Our plan was to try every "one block down and one block over" combination until we randomly stumbled across Costco. Our first 15 minutes were mostly us walking the ways we "felt" would lead to Costco ("Becky, I feel like Costco is to the left", "Ok, Sam...but if it's not, then I feel like it's back that way"). After about 20 minutes with no luck, Sam had the great idea of pulling out our Costco card, showing it to people who were walking by, or people in the stores, saying "English?", and then "Costco", and hoping for some look of recognition and a pointing in the right direction. We tried that plan only to find out that people had no idea what we were saying or why we were waving a card around. Slightly frustrating...keep in mind that it's pouring the entire time, and although sharing an umbrella is fun and romantic at first, it doesn't really do the greatest job of keeping both parties dry!
When we reached the hour mark of "feeling" our way to Costco, it wasn't fun anymore! In fact, it was down right frustrating. Noone understood us, we had no idea where we were, or where we wanted to go. We came to a "Fedex" store that looked promising because all the words on the sign were in English. We went in, asked if anyone knew how to get to Costco, showed the membership card (we were still using that plan), and were told that noone knew. We went outside, crossed the street, and decided to call our friend Dave to see if he knew how to get to Costco (he's been here in Korea much longer then us!). He told us he didn't know, but that it was within 10 minutes walk of the station, and told us to try to catch a cab. When we hung up the phone we heard someone yelling "Costco" behind us, so we turned around and one of the Fedex guys was waving us back. I guess he had gotten on his phone and figured out where it was. Then - get this - him and his friend decided they would drive us there! Isn't that amazing!! It took them about 20 minutes to drive us to the store...so much for the 10 minute "one block down, one block over" map on the internet!!
Funny story - when we got to Costco, the first thing we saw was a dad run out of the entrance with his son, who abruptly whipped down his pants and starting peeing on the Costco wall right near the door. We were so shocked, and didn't know whether we wanted to hug the greeter since we were finally there, or pee on the walls too, because of the fact that it had taken us 4 hours of travel time to make it to the entrance! We opted for neither and entered the wonderland that was Costco!
We had tons of fun...and were able to find things that aren't in any of the grocery stores in Osan. We now have spaghetti and spaghetti sauce! We got 12 boxes of Kraft Dinner...so fun! We got Curry packages, chicken, fruit for smoothies, pickles, real cheese, and even granola bars! We also found bagels, tortilla chips and salsa. It feels more normal in our kitchen now! And best of all - we treated ourselves to some food in the Costco food court - a hotdog for Sam and a chicken bake for me - tasted great!
Now, in any Costco in North America, you'd never expect someone to enter the store, buy a bunch of "warehouse sized" items and then carry them home. SUV's and hummers grace the parking lots...waiting to drive home the massive purchases. But, this isn't a Costco in North America...and we don't have a car, and so we carry home our purchases! They even sell "Costco" cloth bags to make the carrying more "fun"! Lets just say 60 pounds of food gets pretty heavy when you have to walk for 50 minutes to get to the subway station, switch from the orange subway line to the green subway line to the blue subway line and then the purple subway line, and then walk 15 minutes from the station to our apartment (Sam had both big Costco bags thrown over his shoulder and would run through each of the stations to try to get to our next train before his arms gave out...I was always trailing him by a few meters...not able to keep up because the heavy backpack kept throwing off my run...it was probably the pickles sloshing around). All in all the trip to Costco took us 8 hours...not 8 minutes like at home...8 hours (we got in at 11 p.m).
You know what? Looking at our full cupboards, I can honestly say - it was worth it :0)
That is, unless you're Sam and Becky Jones trying to figure out Korea...and then the word musters up images of rain soaked clothes, lost wanderings in Seoul, and throbbing muscles. Let me explain...
This afternoon at around 2:45, Sam and I decided to go to Costco. We looked up "Costco Korea" on the internet, found out what subway station was closest to the nearest store, viewed a simple looking map that showed Costco as being one block down and one block over from "Yangjae" station, and set out with high hopes of bringing home delicious food that we knew how to prepare. It was a rainy day, but we figured we'd be fine with our new umbrella.
The subway ride there was great. We only got on a wrong train once, and it only took us one stop to realize what we had done and fix our mistake. Not a bad trip :0) It was when we got to Yangjae that our troubles began. We knew Costco was supposedly "one block down and one block over" from the station...however, there were tons of station exits leading to various street corners and starting points in the world above the tracks. We took one that we thought sounded familiar, and stepped out onto the streets of Seoul. Our plan was to try every "one block down and one block over" combination until we randomly stumbled across Costco. Our first 15 minutes were mostly us walking the ways we "felt" would lead to Costco ("Becky, I feel like Costco is to the left", "Ok, Sam...but if it's not, then I feel like it's back that way"). After about 20 minutes with no luck, Sam had the great idea of pulling out our Costco card, showing it to people who were walking by, or people in the stores, saying "English?", and then "Costco", and hoping for some look of recognition and a pointing in the right direction. We tried that plan only to find out that people had no idea what we were saying or why we were waving a card around. Slightly frustrating...keep in mind that it's pouring the entire time, and although sharing an umbrella is fun and romantic at first, it doesn't really do the greatest job of keeping both parties dry!
When we reached the hour mark of "feeling" our way to Costco, it wasn't fun anymore! In fact, it was down right frustrating. Noone understood us, we had no idea where we were, or where we wanted to go. We came to a "Fedex" store that looked promising because all the words on the sign were in English. We went in, asked if anyone knew how to get to Costco, showed the membership card (we were still using that plan), and were told that noone knew. We went outside, crossed the street, and decided to call our friend Dave to see if he knew how to get to Costco (he's been here in Korea much longer then us!). He told us he didn't know, but that it was within 10 minutes walk of the station, and told us to try to catch a cab. When we hung up the phone we heard someone yelling "Costco" behind us, so we turned around and one of the Fedex guys was waving us back. I guess he had gotten on his phone and figured out where it was. Then - get this - him and his friend decided they would drive us there! Isn't that amazing!! It took them about 20 minutes to drive us to the store...so much for the 10 minute "one block down, one block over" map on the internet!!
Funny story - when we got to Costco, the first thing we saw was a dad run out of the entrance with his son, who abruptly whipped down his pants and starting peeing on the Costco wall right near the door. We were so shocked, and didn't know whether we wanted to hug the greeter since we were finally there, or pee on the walls too, because of the fact that it had taken us 4 hours of travel time to make it to the entrance! We opted for neither and entered the wonderland that was Costco!
We had tons of fun...and were able to find things that aren't in any of the grocery stores in Osan. We now have spaghetti and spaghetti sauce! We got 12 boxes of Kraft Dinner...so fun! We got Curry packages, chicken, fruit for smoothies, pickles, real cheese, and even granola bars! We also found bagels, tortilla chips and salsa. It feels more normal in our kitchen now! And best of all - we treated ourselves to some food in the Costco food court - a hotdog for Sam and a chicken bake for me - tasted great!
Now, in any Costco in North America, you'd never expect someone to enter the store, buy a bunch of "warehouse sized" items and then carry them home. SUV's and hummers grace the parking lots...waiting to drive home the massive purchases. But, this isn't a Costco in North America...and we don't have a car, and so we carry home our purchases! They even sell "Costco" cloth bags to make the carrying more "fun"! Lets just say 60 pounds of food gets pretty heavy when you have to walk for 50 minutes to get to the subway station, switch from the orange subway line to the green subway line to the blue subway line and then the purple subway line, and then walk 15 minutes from the station to our apartment (Sam had both big Costco bags thrown over his shoulder and would run through each of the stations to try to get to our next train before his arms gave out...I was always trailing him by a few meters...not able to keep up because the heavy backpack kept throwing off my run...it was probably the pickles sloshing around). All in all the trip to Costco took us 8 hours...not 8 minutes like at home...8 hours (we got in at 11 p.m).
You know what? Looking at our full cupboards, I can honestly say - it was worth it :0)
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Seoul Grand Park
Today being Saturday, Sam and I decided that we would embark on our second "weekend adventure" in Korea. We want to try to get out of Osan every weekend and see something cool in Korea. Gives us something to look forward to each week!
This weekend we decided to go to Seould Grand Park, which has a zoo that only costs $1.50 to get into...couldn't pass up a deal like that! Makes for a pretty cheap day!
Most of the zoo was awesome...we saw elephants, tigers, lions (we were there at feeding time), giraffes, snakes, water buffalos, lots of deer and elk-like animals, wolves, pumas, leopards, lots of birds, ostriches, crocodiles, and tons more. We pretty much had the whole zoo to ourselves...probably because it rained ALL day. But that's ok!
This picture was the only sad thing about the zoo, hence the fact that Sam's looking sad in front of one of the monkey cages. This part of the zoo broke my heart. All the monkeys were in little glass cages that were so dirty. They all looked bored out of their minds and pretty sickly. I wish they had been outside at least!
Here's Sam in one of the thatched roof wooden rest areas on the way to the zoo. At this point of the day we thought the rain would be ending soon, and were trying to wait it out under cover. We eventually gave up and just got wet!
Here's me with the giraffes...one of the best animals we saw at the zoo (I thought)!
Here's the sign directing us to the zoo. It was nice that the sign was both Korean and English so we knew which way to walk! Sorry the pictures are out of order...I couldn't figure out how to put them in order on this blog...that'll be next week's project ;0) 
Here we are in the "Asian Animals Pavilion"...lots of cool monkeys and crocodiles and snakes in this place. We didn't get many pictures of the two of us, so I wanted to include this one for your viewing pleasure!Zoo Pictures Continued...
Ok, I don't know if you can see what's in this picture...but it was pretty graphic for a kid's zoo! This was in the snake pavilion...a nice picture demo of how a snake eats a mouse. Yuck!
After our time at the zoo, and when we were thoroughly drenched (as you can see from Sam's hair)...we found a KFC on our way to the subway, and figured we'd give Korean Chicken a try. We realized that we hadn't had lunch yet (it was 6 p.m)...talk about starving! The food was pretty good...tasted like home :0)
Sam wanted his picture taken with the massive tiger on the way out of the zoo, and wanted the picture title to simply be "No Fear"...need I say more?Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The rest of our Apartment Pictures
Here they are...the long awaited "apartment" pictures :0) We were pleasantly surprised by our apartment...a lot bigger then we thought it would be. We went and visited our friend Nicky in Sanbon, and her apartment was about the size of our washroom in Langley...just enough room for a bed, a toilet, and a shower head!!
This is our Computer / "Walk-in Closet" room. The black and white things behind Sam are our "wardrobes"...no built in closets in Korea...you have to bring them with you when you move. 
This is our eating area and living room. The couch is fantastic...brown leather (I don't think it's real leather though). Definitely the nicest couch we've had since we've been married :0) The door way you see to the left goes into our bedroom, and behind where you're looking from is the kitchen.
This is the kitchen area. The thing above the sink (to the left of Sam's head) is a dish dryer. I was really excited when we first saw it because I thought it was a toaster oven, or something similar. I had wonderful thoughts of all the cookies and cakes I would be able to make. After unsuccesfully trying to boil water in it, I realized I should ask before using it again.
And here's our faboulous washroom. No shower curtain...usually no tubs in most Korean houses...ours is a little more Western. The water sprays everywhere and then we just let it dry. Took a little getting used to, but we like it now.
And finally, our bedroom. The massive window to the balcony is really fun...a quick and easy route to the washing machine!And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed our little tour :0)
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Some Interesting Things We've Found
I know that I've e-mailed some of you with these interesting little tidbits, but wanted to post them so that everyone can see some of the different things we've found out about Korea:
1. We have sen red Nazi swastika hung from many buildings around our neighbourhood. Because we were a little concerned about a possible Neo-Nazi presence in Osan, we asked what the signs were about and found out that they're actually the symbol for Buddhism over here. Huge sigh of relief on that one!
2. The number 4 here means death...for that reason, our building has renamed our fourth floor, Floor F.
3. In Korea, if you write a student's name in red it means you wish they would die (!!). HUGE faux pas the other day when I (Becky) started writing a student's name on the board with my red marker, thinking nothing of it, just wanting to make sure I had the correct spelling. Halfway through I realized what I was doing, grabbed my eraser, and rewrote it in black. Sam just informed me that the other day he wrote ALL of his student's names on the board in red. He realized it right them, but figured the scare might calm them down and make them listen...so mean!!
4. We've noticed that most teenage dating couples here match their clothes to one another. One of the best ones we've seen - both were wearing the same pink and white stripped polo, jean shorts, and matching socks and shoes. Kinda cute, but Sam and I are definitely not going to start doing that!
5. We've been warned that most of the soaps and creams here come with an added bleaching element. We think we know what happened to Michael Jackson...
6. We had to get some pictures taken to hang in the school, and I was slightly stressed by it because I always kinda freeze when I'm getting my picture taken and then I look dazed. Anyways, supposedly every picture that you have taken here is airbrushed before it's returned to you. Saralyn (one of the other teachers at our school) had to get a passport picture taken recently. We all know how bad passport pictures turn out right? She went in with no makeup and messy hair, but when she got the pictures back they were perfect - perfect skin, great makeup, and good hair. Is that legal?
And there you have it...some of the things that have made us laugh!
1. We have sen red Nazi swastika hung from many buildings around our neighbourhood. Because we were a little concerned about a possible Neo-Nazi presence in Osan, we asked what the signs were about and found out that they're actually the symbol for Buddhism over here. Huge sigh of relief on that one!
2. The number 4 here means death...for that reason, our building has renamed our fourth floor, Floor F.
3. In Korea, if you write a student's name in red it means you wish they would die (!!). HUGE faux pas the other day when I (Becky) started writing a student's name on the board with my red marker, thinking nothing of it, just wanting to make sure I had the correct spelling. Halfway through I realized what I was doing, grabbed my eraser, and rewrote it in black. Sam just informed me that the other day he wrote ALL of his student's names on the board in red. He realized it right them, but figured the scare might calm them down and make them listen...so mean!!
4. We've noticed that most teenage dating couples here match their clothes to one another. One of the best ones we've seen - both were wearing the same pink and white stripped polo, jean shorts, and matching socks and shoes. Kinda cute, but Sam and I are definitely not going to start doing that!
5. We've been warned that most of the soaps and creams here come with an added bleaching element. We think we know what happened to Michael Jackson...
6. We had to get some pictures taken to hang in the school, and I was slightly stressed by it because I always kinda freeze when I'm getting my picture taken and then I look dazed. Anyways, supposedly every picture that you have taken here is airbrushed before it's returned to you. Saralyn (one of the other teachers at our school) had to get a passport picture taken recently. We all know how bad passport pictures turn out right? She went in with no makeup and messy hair, but when she got the pictures back they were perfect - perfect skin, great makeup, and good hair. Is that legal?
And there you have it...some of the things that have made us laugh!
Monday, July 10, 2006
Gyeongbokgung Palace
This weekend we decided we wanted to see some of the sights of Seoul. After consulting our "Lonely Planet" book on Korea, we figured it would be fun to check out one of the many old palaces that Seoul has to offer. We settled on Gyeongbokgung - originally built in 1392, but burned down by the Japanese in 1592. Rebuilt in 1868.
This is the front gate entrance to the palace. When we arrived, there was a "changing of the guard" ceremony reenactment going on. Pretty cool - lots of colorful flags and uniforms...the red men behind me are the new guards who had just taken over.
This is the main building of the palace. Inside was beautiful...a throne and tons of decorative pieces around the throne. The ceiling was all painted in bright colours...and in the middle were two gold dragons. Sam and I both wished that we had been the royalty who had lived here!
This is Sam making friends with one of the dragon gargoyle statues. They had tons of statues all over the palace grounds...really beautiful stone work!
Ok, so I was trying to be artistic in this shot. "Sam, go walk through the pillars...it'll look awesome!".
This was my favouroite part of the palace. I guess one of the kings had built this little pavilion on an island so he could go there and relax. It was named "Hyangwonjeong", which means "far reaching fragrance pavilion". We weren't allowed to cross the bridge and get closer...but we wanted to!After the palace, we went into the Korean Folk Museum that was on the same grounds. When we came out we ran into our friends, Brandon and Rachel, who we had knows at Trinity (how do you accidentally "run into" people in a city this big?). Anyways, they told us about this great street a few blocks over that had tons of street vendors and food carts, etc. It was really cool...a great place for souvenirs and Christmas present ideas to send back home :0) We also got to try a new food selection - bi bim bap. It's basically rice, lettuce, some kind of grass, bean sprouts, something we refer to as "little brown sticks" (no idea what they are), hot sauce, and an egg on top. Sounds weird, but when you mix it all together, it actually tastes pretty good!
Oh, and we didn't get lost on the way home!
Eyelid Surgery
Ok, this picture deserves a post all its own!First things first - did you know that "Western" eyelids have a crease in them, whereas "Asian" eyelids don't?
We found out there's a surgery here that is gaining popularity. The surgery actually puts a crease in the eyelid. Appearance is HUGE over here. We're judged on appearance every day...our students make great comments (Sidenote: Sam's comments - "You look like David Beckham", "You are so strong"; Becky's comments - "You are so tall", "You have a pinnochio nose").
We walked by a store that actually offered the surgery...check out the pictures that were hanging in the window.
