Namsam Mountain

A couple weekends ago, Alexa (one of my coworkers) and I visited Namsam Mountain with some Koreans and a Turkish student she met at a restaurant. We hung out with them last weekend too, and it's nice to have a group of Korean friends to socialize with and show you the ins and outs of the city. When I heard we were going to a mountain I expected a somewhat rigorous hike, so I wore my hiking shoes. When we arrived at the base of the mountain (which is more like a tall hill in the city center) it became obvious that this was not the outdoor adventure I was expecting. While the mountain was wooded (a welcome change from the buildings and streets of a city with 10 million people), there were stairs that led all the way up to the top. At various points there are man-made look out points that give you a nice view of the surrounding city. It was cool and cloudy that day, but the scenery was still pretty good. I will definitely be returning to the mountain in the spring and fall, when the trees are blooming and the leaves are changing colors.

There was some fitness equipment on the way up, so we stopped to try it out. The seated press is actually harder than it looks; you are basically lifting up your body weight. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the little girl trying out the elliptical.






There are several attractions at the top of the mountain, the most prominent of which is the Seoul Tower. I think it's a TV tower and you can go up in it, but we did not feel like it that day. The views from the mountaintop were good enough for us. One side of the mountain featured a fort-like wall, complete with turrets that you could climb into. This was a lot of fun and all of us snapped some nice pictures. I'm not sure whether the pavilion is authentic or not, but it was a nice finishing touch to the mountain top.

There were also some traditional Korean spears that were sitting unsecured in a rack. Naturally I went over to glance at them. What happened next happened very quickly, and I'm not sure I have all of the details right. One of the Koreans we were with said you could pick them up. This made absolutely no sense to me, because the spears looked like they were from a museum exhibit and potentially dangerous. Looking at them I would have assumed they were for display only. But, we could climb in the turrets (which probably wouldn't fly in the US), the spears weren't secured, and I had my Korean friend saying you could pick them up. On top of all that, I thought a picture of me wielding a traditional Korean spear would be the sweetest Facebook picture ever. I was in a culture different from my own and mesmerized by these weapons; needless to say, I was in a very suggestible state. I lifted up one of the spears and prepared to strike a ninja-like pose, when a lady came running towards me screaming for me to put down the weapon in Korean. I was very humiliated and quickly dropped the weapon. I'm still not sure if the Koreans we were with knew the rules, or were just playing a joke on the stupid American, but I was pretty embarrassed.

There were also several performers at the top of the mountain. One of these was a group of men dressed as traditional Korean warriors, doing a martial arts show with swords (maybe the spears were for them?). We watched the various performers for awhile and relaxed. The ability to take fast-action shots must run in the family.


They also had several characters dressed up in Disney World-style mascot costumes. Of course we couldn't resist getting pictures with them.

The top was pretty crowded because it was "White Day." The Koreans have two Valentine's Days, one in February where the ladies get gifts for the men, and White Day where the men get gifts for the women (I'm really surprised Hallmark hasn't picked up on this yet). As a side bar, there is a singles' day too where all of the singles are supposed to go out eat black noodles. Sounds kind of depressing if you ask me. Anyways, the mountain top was crowded with couples. There is a fenced in area where the fence overlooking the city is completely covered in locks. Our Korean tour guides explained to us that in a famous Korean movie the couple attached a lock to the fence as a symbol of their undying love. It caught on, and now the fence is completely covered.

It was a fun trip, and I definitely want to make a habit of doing something fun on Sundays. We've since hung out with our new Korean friends twice, but I will save the details for a later post.

St. Patrick's Day in Seoul

St. Patrick's Day is pretty much nonexistent in Korea. After day at work, we had a staff meeting, where dinner was provided. I headed over to the gym with another teacher. By the time we were done working out it was about 9:30 PM, and we decided we needed to mark the occasion somehow. There is an Irish pub down the street from the gym, so we hopped in for a Guinness. The place was pretty quiet, which tells you just how little Irish culture has penetrated the Korean Peninsula. The Korean waiters were all dressed in green, but despite the bar's efforts, it lacked the "ambiance" of what we would think of as an Irish pub. The bar was essentially a ritzy foreigners' bar. The evening was pretty low key, we just sipped our $15 beers and talked for a while (yes, $15).Look at how few people are wearing green!

My Room

This post is about my room, which pictures do more service to than words, so it's a relatively short post.



My room is very small, even by Korean standards. I live in Gangnam, which is a very business-oriented area in Seoul, so rent is very expensive. It is a one room studio apartment that came furnished. I have a stove top (but not an oven), a TV, a fridge, a microwave, and a washing machine. Other than the fact it is small, there is nothing particularly interesting about it except the bathroom. There is no bathtub, so the shower drains in the middle of the bathroom. The washer is also in the bathroom, so my bathroom is basically a tile room with a washer, shower, toilet, and sink, with nothing to divide them.

So far I only have one extremely important decoration. I have never been much of an interior designer (perhaps the understatement of the century), but my Michigan banner really makes my apartment. It hangs at the foot of my bed and reminds me of home (and of the CCHA Champion hockey team I left behind).

Food

Food in Korea is really delicious, but you have to be able to enjoy spicy food. Back in the U.S. I admittedly wasn't the biggest vegetable guy in the world, but in Korea they disguise the bitter taste of some vegetables with delicious and very flavorful sauces. For this entry, I'll just put up some pictures and give brief explanations.



It is relatively cheap to eat out in Korea, but only if you eat Korean food. Eating out is even more economical because you don't have to tip. This was less than $15 worth of food that I split with one other teacher. The top dish in the black bowl is bi bim bap, which consists of rice, veggies, and a red pepper paste. This particular order was dol sot bi bim bap, meaning it's served in a very hot stone bowl with an egg freshly cracked on top. As you stir the food, the egg cooks. Very yummy. The other main dish was a noodle dish that looked better in the picture than it tasted. I have had some delicious noodles since coming here though. The dumplings are called mandoo, which are stuffed with pork and vegetables. The meal also includes soup and other small side dishes, which is characteristic of Korean meals.


Samgyeopsal- A true delicacy, especially for all of those who love bacon as much as I do. It's one of the two meats I've had at a Korean BBQ so far. The other is galbi (marinated strips of beef), which though I've eaten three times, I do not have any pictures of it. Samgyeopsal is thick strips of pork belly, that are thrown onto a grill right at your table. The strips are then cut up and you put a piece or two on to a leaf of lettuce, along with grilled onions and garlic and scrumptious sauces. To the right of the pork in the first picture is kimchi, Korea's national food. It sounds disgusting at first, but if you come to Korea, you have no choice but to like it because it is served with every meal. It is pickled cabbage covered in red pepper and garlic. It's really grown on me in my short time here, and it tastes truly delicious grilled.
















In Korea there are tons of street vendors, selling anything from fried food to sweets to silk worm larvae (for some reason, I haven't made it around to trying those just yet...). This is me and two of the other new teachers, Dara and Alexa eating this delicious pancake-like treat filled with cinnamon and sugar.


Dak Galbi- This is basically a chicken stir fry cooked in a frying pan right at your table. It contains chicken which has been marinated in a spicy red sauce, sweet potato, greens, some zucchini or cucumber, cabbage, onion, and these chewy rice cakes called dak bokki. You can order it "with cheese," which we did.















That's all.

Korea-First Impressions

This post is going to focus primarily on my first week in Korea and my experiences and thoughts during that time period. I will do a longer post about the school and my classes later on, as I am still getting a feel for how everything works. I know some people (Mom) are antsy to see pictures of cute Asian children, so I'll give everyone a teaser to start, then begin my post.


After observing my first class, all the new teachers that had arrived that day went out to lunch with the director of the school. We had bi bim bap (which was the same thing I had on the plane), but it was something we were all familiar with and liked. Finally we were able to go home and get cleaned up before returning to the school to talk to administrators and observe a little bit more. Basically the first week in Korea at the school was really overwhelming. We were told we needed to plan all of our lessons for a month, despite not knowing our kids at all. We were given piles of books and workbooks to use for different classes and it was a complete information overload. On top of that all of the school policies and routines were being explained to us for the first time; it was just a lot to remember. After our first day on the job Dara, Alexa, and I (the Canadian couple, Ian and Kristy, had not arrived yet) decided we needed to unwind. We bought a couple bottles of beer and a bottle of Makolri (very cheap rice wine) and took it back to our rooms.

Because we arrived a week early to observe classes and go through our orientation, the teachers we were replacing were still living in their apartments. Thus we could not simply begin to unpack and set up our new place. So for a week the school put us up in a hotel. But this was not just any hotel. This was a "love motel," which is exactly what it sounds like. In Korea, people traditionally live at home until marriage. This chaste practice is only a guise because there are plenty of these love motels were you can get a cheap room for a night (or an hour). The room looks like a normal hotel, except there is an assortment of beauty products and condoms on the dresser. Also, you might think that a love motel would pride itself on the comfort of its beds if nothing else. This was not the case. The bed was basically a spring box.








After enjoying our drinks in the love motel, we headed out for dinner. Not knowing what restaurants were good, where we were exactly, or how to read Korean, we wandered the streets exploring for a bit. Fortunately met one of the teachers (Jared) at our school on his way to the gym. He showed us into a restaurant and ordered us dak galbi with cheese. I promise there will be an entire post dedicated to food, but I don't have the space for it here. At night the streets of Gangnam (my neighborhood) come alive with street vendors, neon lights, and bar hoppers. After eating we continued to wander around exploring the area.

The first few nights of being in Korea all ended very early due to my jet lag. I would wake up at 5 or 5:30 and not have to be in at work until 9:15. After three days of observations, meetings, and lesson planning, I was definitely ready for the weekend. Friday night we had a full staff party, which meant that all of the teachers, administrators, and secretaries went out for Korean BBQ and drinks. The food will be discussed in a later post, but it was very delicious. After the restaurant the entire staff of GDA (my school) headed to a noraebang, which is a private karaoke room. As someone who loved karaoke night at Charley's back in Ann Arbor, this was a dream come true. They have both Korean and English songs, so most of the Korean teachers sang Korean pop, while the American and Canadian teachers performed Western music. I decided to go with a tried and true karaoke classic, Billy Joel's "Piano Man." To my surprise, 15 seconds into the song my school's director, a Korean woman in her 40s or so, exclaimed, "I know this song!" and picked up the other mic and sang with me. Going out for drinks and karaoke with your boss and all of the staff you just met would probably be a bad idea in the US, but in Korea it was totally acceptable and everyone had a great time.

On Saturday I hung out with the American and Canadian teachers again, but called it a night early because I was very tired. The next day was the infamous America v. Canada gold medal game. While there are other American teachers at my school, they are all from California or Virginia, and, needless to say, do not care about hockey. So I headed over to the apartment of a couple of outgoing Canadian teachers to watch the game on delay (one of them had recorded it and could watch it on his laptop which was hooked up to the TV). None of us had checked our email or even used the internet at all, so we could watch the game without knowing the outcome. All of the incoming and outgoing Canadian teachers showed up and I was the only American. When we scored with 15 seconds left I was jumping up and down in the midst of their collective groaning, but they got the last laugh.

As long as I'm on the topic of the Winter Olympics, Korean figure skater, Kim Yu-Na, is a huge celebrity here, like Michael Jordan was in the US in the Nineties. She's all over the ads on TV and posters, endorsing everything from facial cremes to bagels. At the gym I joined (called the Muscle Factory with shirts that say, "Pride Your Body") there are entire walls with her picture plastered on them. During her performance I was at school, and all of the Korean teachers were huddled around the computer watching her long program, and clapped loudly when she finished. Even the older man working at the love motel grumbled angrily during the Japanese skater's short program (there's some resentment in Korea towards Japan because Japan occupied Korea for basically the first half of the 20th Century). OK, I think that's all I have time for tonight, but I promise posts about the school and food will come soon.

From Ann Arbor to Seoul

I've never been one to blog or follow other people's blogs, but if anything warrants a blog it's a year of teaching English abroad. So, here it goes....

On February 22, 2010 I embarked on my journey to Seoul via the Detroit Metro and Chicago O'Hare Airports. Naturally, it snowed 6 inches the day of my scheduled flight. I spent the night before frantically calling the airlines to figure out what would happen if one or both of my flights was delayed and/or canceled. Fortunately, my flight was at 8 PM, so the roads were all cleaned up by the time I headed out. I spent the morning helping my dad shovel and spent the rest of the day relaxing in anticipation. After scarfing down some monster cookies (which I thought would be my last for a while, but my mom smuggled some into my luggage) and taking one last look at home, we headed to the airport. We arrived about 3 hours before take off, so my parents and I had a chance to snap some last pictures together before I walked through security.

Upon getting through security, I went right to the gate even though it was so early that there were two flights scheduled to depart from that gate before mine. When I'm traveling I'm always extremely paranoid that something could go wrong, so it was very comforting just to sit at the gate for two hours and watch TV shows on my laptop. I did grab a sandwich because I had no clue when the flight from Chicago to Seoul would serve its meals. There were some delays at the airport, but the flights to Chicago were so empty that they bumped me up to the flight before mine which actually left 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I read the entire flight and it was pretty uneventful, which was a good thing.

O'Hare airport was busy, but once I got to the international terminal it was empty with the exception of passengers taking the same flight as me. I had a long layover because the flight didn't leave Chicago until 1 AM. I spent the time talking with another English teacher and an American woman heading over to marry a Korean man. The American fiancee warned me about eating dog and freshly killed octopus that wiggles in your mouth as you eat it, but I have since forgotten what both were called. Hopefully neither will wind up unexpectedly on my plate during my stay.

When you fly to Korea, the first meal is served as soon as the plane stabilizes. You get to choose whether you want a Korean dish or a Western dish and our choices were bi bim bop (rice, veggies, meat, spicy sauce and egg) or beef. I went with the Korean food and this was a good choice. It was by far the freshest, most delicious meal I've ever had on an airplane, and, like every Korean meal, it came with several side dishes (kimchi, cold dark noodles in sesame oil, and a fishy broth that was the only thing I was less than crazy about). The man sitting next to me had the Western meal and the portion of beef was small and the veggies were overcooked. I flew Asiana Airways, and the plane had several cool features. Each passenger has their own screen on the seat in front of them which can be used to watch movies, old TV shows, play games, or track the flight. I watched Where the Wild Things Are while eating my meal and dozed off while the aircraft was over northwestern Manitoba (interesting fact: flights from Chicago to Korea fly up through Alaska and Russia then south again). Upon waking up, I glanced at the monitor to see where we were, expecting to be somewhere over Alaska. To my surprise, we were above Russia heading south. There were only about 4 hours left on the flight; I had managed to sleep through 8 of the 14 hours. After listening to some podcasts and starting another movie, breakfast was served. Once again, I went with the Korean dish (in Korea breakfast food is no different than lunch or dinner) and was impressed.

I was the last of the three teachers from GDA to arrive in Korea, so after collecting my bags and exchanging a few bucks, we headed for Seoul (the airport is in Incheon, a suburb). There are five new teachers at the school and three that are staying on. The two I arrived with were both girls from California. The other two new ones are a couple from Vancouver. One might think they would have given us some time to clean up and change after being on a plane for 14 hours, but that was not the case. We were dropped off at the school to observe classes. The journey begins...