Spa Valley and other happenings

This past weekend was pretty grand. I had to work Saturday, which was kind of sad, but after work I went out with some friends to watch the Korea vs. Cuba gold medal baseball game. Korea led the whole game, but in the bottom of 9th inning Cuba loaded the bases with only one out. At this point, Korea's catcher flipped out over some bad calls and was ejected, and the pitcher who'd been in the whole game was replaced as well. It was looking bad for Korea, and Cuba's players began an early celebration. But the next batter hit into a double-play, and Korea took home the gold. It was a pretty exciting evening.

I went home early Saturday night because I Sunday I had to get up at 6:30 to play soccer. A friend picked me up and we drove to a university where two other soccer teams were. We had a mini-tournament. I played two of the 25-minute games as a striker, and had a few chances to score. The most disappointing part of the game was that I took a penalty kick and had it blocked by the keeper. Well, at least I have some room for improvement. Anyhow, it was fun to get out and play some real soccer, but I have to adjust to the Korean style. They don't pass that much--instead their midfielders play more long-balls to the forwards in hopes of a kind of fast-break.

After soccer I went home and got ready for church. I went to one of the largest churches in Daegu, Dong-bu. They have a 1p contemporary service for young adults that is translated into English through a headphone set in some pews, so I listened along. Afterwards there was an English Bible study, and I also introduced myself to the young adults group (between 100-200 people). I like the church and will return there.

Sunday night I did my laundry. I'm much better at it now, so it was actually easy, non-frustrating, and generally successful. Monday was my monthly personal day, and so I had planned a few weeks back to go with a group of friends to the local water park, Spa Valley. Nine of us drove there and spent about eight or nine hours there. They had a diving pool, a number of large slides (a couple I'd never seen before), a number of jacuzzis, a wave pool, a heated pool, and a 'river' that ran around much of the park. It was a fun day. We finished up with a dinner of sam-gup-sil, pork grilled on our table.

I ordered a table, chairs, and a couch last week, and by today all three had arrived. The table allows me to now eat my cereal with ease and comfort, and the couch lets me relax and read. This week I'm hoping to get internet access at my house so I won't have to come to the school every time I need to email people or check my work schedule. Or maybe I won't get it, and I'll just arrange to be at the school more...we'll see.

This weekend is our long-anticipated work retreat to the nearby city of Gyeong-ju. We are having a 'workshop' for 'team-building' between the Korean staff (about 14 people in their mid-to-late 20s) and the teachers (seven of us, but only four or five are going). We are supposed to be learning how to get along better through understanding about our cultural differences, so we will be playing some games and doing some other activities towards this end. I'm just excited at the opportunity to go to another city and hang out with everyone. I guess next week I'll be sharing whether or not the trip met my expectations.

Weekend in Seoul

I tried to think of a much wittier title for this blog, but all my ideas looked rather lame in print. So I opted for the standard description for this trip. I went to Seoul on Korean Independence Day (8/15), when they were freed from Japanese rule after WW2. I met up with Kris' girlfriend, Yun-Hye, and two of her friends, who happened to be twins. We walked around downtown, where I saw my first demonstration. There was a large group of people holding the Korean flag and chanting, and I couldn't tell exactly what was going on at first. Two men began fighting over the flag, and as I was filming (against Yun-Hye's wishes) they began yelling violently. I found out later it was a dispute over Korea's much-disputed president, Lee Myung-bak.
From there we went to Insadong, an ancient Korean street where they sell traditional clothes, food, and miscellany. We bought some snack there--peanuts wrapped in strung-out honey. It's one of those "you have to be there" kinda things. Oh, and some Koreans randomly asked me on the street to pose like a Mortal Kombat character for some kind of photographic scavenger hunt. I eagerly obliged.
The weekend was a little rainy, so we stayed inside cafes mostly. We did take the subway to Yong-San to visit the electronics market, and I got a power cable for my 360 that was 220 volts. We also walked around the downtown areas where the riverwalk is, and saw many Koreans watching the Olympics on a big screen. Later that night we went to the fish-cafe, where you can pay $2 for 25 minutes in a fish tank. You dip your lower legs into the tank, and small minnow-type fish come and nibble on your dead skin. It has a very ticklish feel at first, but after you grow accustomed to the sensation, it feels quite therapeutic.
I stayed in an amazing bed-and-breakfast in Seoul's wealthiest neighborhood. I'm still not sure how this happened, as Yun-Hye made the arrangements, but it was incredible. I had my own bedroom and bathroom, free internet and towels and travel maps, and the best part was that the wife of the owner made my breakfast promptly at whatever time I asked. I stayed there quite happily for two nights.
Saturday brought myself, Yun-Hye, and a different friend to Nam-dae-mun Market, then Myeong Dong. We met up with a friend of mine (well, Kris' really) from Atlanta who starting her first year of teaching next month in a public school in Seoul. Her name is Danah, and we made some arrangements to go to her church the following afternoon. We walked around for a while and found a Krispy Kreme shop where you could get a free donut. It was quite delicious. That night I went to Itaewon with a friend of mine, Eun-Jin, from Jacksonville (who I of course also had met through Kris) and we ate some sushi and went to Starbucks.
Sunday morning Danah and I went to the Korean War Museum, where I finally had some of my lingering questions answered by the quite-detailed exhibits. We grabbed some lunch at Burger King, making sure we ate before the 1:30p church service. While there, Danah recognized a guy that had been a guest speaker at her church, and as he was alone, she invited him to join us. His name was Malath, and he was an Iraqi Christian from Baghdad. He traced his Christian roots back to the first Assyrian Christians, and I don't know enough about this to comment further. Anyhow, he was in Korea completing his last year of seminary, and he led a small Arabic-speaking church. I cautiously brought up politics with him, and he was quite willing to discuss his views on the Iraq war with me. We had a really good chat about that and the church in Iraq.
After lunch we went to Jubilee Church. It reminded me of Discovery Church in Orlando, where I had visited a few times last September during a special push they were doing (Apathy to Entropy, or something like that). Anyhow, the church was great. The music was unfamiliar to me but good, and the guest speaker was excellent. It is an English-speaking church, and most of the congregation seemed to be Koreans who knew English or wanted to increase their skills. If I lived in Seoul, I'd definitely become a member of that church. This week I'm visiting a large church near my house that has an English ministry, so I'm hoping it is comparable to Jubilee.

So, the trip was great. No complaints. Good people, good friends, good food, good church, good everything. God is good!

Well, off to do some actual work. Oh, I finally was able to purchase a couch and a table and two chairs, so my apartment will soon leave the Stone Age. Next month I hope to purchase a TV, and if I can also get internet access, I'll be ready to rejoin the 21st century.

Busan and Back

The last week has been pretty enjoyable, although I had my first "inconveniences." This past weekend Doug and I went to Busan, the second largest city in Korea. Besides having the best beach in the country, Busan is also home to a large naval base, so I wanted to visit and learn my way around. (As a side note, I found out you can take a three-hour ferry to Japan from Busan, so on my next three-day weekend...) The train station is minutes from work and it only takes an hour or so to get there, so Doug and I arrived with little trouble in the early afternoon. We rode the subway to Hae-un-dae Beach where we saw the craziest, most crowded beach I've ever seen. As far as you could see, umbrellas planted like trees formed a canopy over the sand. Hundreds of people were crammed under this shade on sandy blankets and tarps, and hundreds more were walking up and down the rows of these umbrella villages. I went down to the water first, and, finding it to be quite warm, jumped in for a swim. I soon realized that nearly every one of the thousands of people in the ocean were actually floating on yellow tubes, so I soon returned to shore to rent one. It was $10 to rent it, but after returning the tube you'd get $5 back. Doug opted not to swim; instead he wandered up and down the boardwalk enjoying the nice weather. I floated and swam and enjoyed the Florida-like environs of Hae-un-dae for a long while before returning. I put my tube underneath one of the umbrellas I had claimed so Doug and I could go have lunch. When we came back, the tube was gone. This was not all that unexpected, but it was still disappointing because I lost my $5 deposit. However, I tried explaining to the tube-rental guy that it wasn't really my fault and that I would really like my $5 back. Amazingly, he relented and returned my cash, despite my total lack of evidence to support my claim. We hung out around Busan for a while longer (which is when I tried ban-da-gee) before taking the train back to Daegu. Doug is a good conversationalist, so we didn't lack for any discussion on our journey. It was actually really nice to be able to talk to someone in normal English for a few hours, since I'd spent most of the previous two weeks speaking in elementary-level sentences. That night was the monthly "teacher dinner" paid for by the school, so we went to The Holy Grill downtown and ate up. I called it quits early because I was hoping to play soccer the next day.I had to get up at 6:30 on Sunday morning to meet Phillip for soccer. He met me near my apartment and we drove to a schoolyard. There I met his local team members in the recreational league, and after two hours of drills and practice, we played a few thirty-minute periods. I was playing striker for our team, but I was severely disadvantaged because I had only tennis shoes, while everyone else was in cleats. The game still went well (although I didn't score) until the third period, when the guy guarding me starting playing dirty. He couldn't keep up on some plays, so he started yanking my arm to slow me down. I let it go the first two times since he was about ten years older than me, but after the third time, I shouted that he should keep his hands off. Later, as Phillip was driving me home, he told me that shouting of any kind during a match, especially in regards to an older person, is totally against Korean culture, even if the person is playing unfairly. So I learned a good lesson in endurance (although I'd rather the other man learn a lesson in fair play). During the game I also suffered my first "inconvenience" when I lunged during a play. The field was not grass--it was sandy with small pebbles. The effect of falling on such a pitch is comparable to running your hand (or knee, in this case) over a cheese grater, with the result being that my right leg was blood-soaked from the knee down. I kept playing until the end of the game, at which point I had to look at my large, nasty wound and apply some disinfectant. Anyhow, after the game I ate lunch with the soccer players, then Phillip took me home by noon. I had intended to go to Dongbu Church for the 1pm service, but I fell asleep from my unexpectedly strenuous exertions. When I awoke at 5pm, I had little choice but to start my laundry and catch some of the Olympics. The Olympics here are funny, because the only coverage we receive involves Korean athletes. Maybe it's the same back home, but I never watched it to notice. So I washed my clothes, although it was some guesswork since all the washing machine's buttons are in Korean, then I hung them out to dry in my laundry room. While I was waiting for the clothes, I finally decided to try to hook up my Xbox onto my pitifully small TV. I'm still considering getting an HDTV, but it'll probably be next month before I do that. So I got my transformer out, got the Xbox power cable, and plugged them into the wall, only to see and hear a sizzle and spark from the power cable. Somehow, despite my precautions to put those things on the right setting, the Xbox cable got fried along with the transformer. Sad times, since I could no longer charge my toothbrush, razor, iPod (on the speaker dock), camera, wireless headphones, and, obviously, play Xbox. A minor inconvenience...Monday I determined to buy a real transformer from a Korean hardware store. One student, who wuite bewilderingly took the English name Thrall, took me down to the hardware district to find a suitable transformer. I got one for only 20,000 won ($20) instead of the usual $50, and when I took it home, it worked like a charm. The real problem, though, was the laundry. When I got home, I found that I had a smelly set of still-wet clothes in my laundry room. A neighbor of mine named Teddy was with me to assist with the transformer, and he called his parents to ask them some questions about the washer. Even though it was around 11:15pm (I get off work at 10pm), his parents came over to help me understand how to properly use all the buttons. After an hour of explanations on the best method of washing and drying laundry, we discovered that the dehydration function on my washer was not working correctly. Because of this, my clothes were far too wet (thus a little smelly during the drying process) and I might need a new washer. But regardless of that issue, Teddy's mother took some of my dirty laundry to her home to wash for me, which was unbelievably kind of her. The family also noticed my roughed-up knee, and the father went home to get some medical supplies (and lots of extra hangers) and he treated my wound. The family was actually at my apartment until 1:00a hepling me out with some of the basics of life in Korea. When I get a table and some chairs and perhaps a couch, I'm hoping to have them over for a thank-you meal. And as uncommon and amazing as that story is to me, my understanding is that that behavior is common among Koreans.As for teaching, this week inaugurates my regular schedule. I usually teach a class at 1pm, then another three classes at 7p, 8p, and 9p. This leaves me ample time in the afternoon to study Korean, have a long lunch, read a book, chat with students, write ridiculously long blogs, or accomplish other errands. The classes are pretty easy right now, because I only teach the standard "check-up" classes, meaning I only check a student's knowledge of a particular grammar point. In a few weeks I'll start getting a few other classes in my schedule (like the other teachers), which will involve me making up my own lessons on specifics of English usage or an unusual grammatical concept. I haven't figured all that out yet.My coworkers and I and are getting along dandy. They are a pretty social bunch who like to go out after work to play darts or eat or some other activity. We all saw The Dark Knight last week and this week we are celebrating a birthday.Friday I'm going to Seoul for a few days. We have Friday off of school (Korean Independence Day) so I have a long weekend. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing there other than going to church with Danah on Sunday. The train ride from Daegu is only $40 round-trip, and it takes about four hours. The bullet train (KTX) is only ninety minutes to Seoul, but it runs about $120. I hope to take lots of pictures on the trip to share next week. I'm sure there'll be a story to share, and I'll try to trim it down for next time.





Some other pics from Busan are available at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47665&l=40afe&id=561241295

First Weekend

This weekend was pretty representative of every day I've been here thus far. On Saturday, I came up to the school to use the internet and hang out, since ironically my empty apartment isn't the most awesome place to enjoy a day off and work is. I chatted with some teachers, went out for lunch, walked around a park with some friends, and then got invited to go out in the evening. I watched the Jomo Cup, a soccer game between the Korean League and Japanese League's All-Stars., then played some darts and came home. Sunday I took the subway towards a place where a co-teacher goes to church, and someone met me at the station and walked me to church. The service was in a typical Baptist format, with the big exception that Korean churches provide meals after the service. So I had a good lunch and met lots of people there. Then those people invited me out for desserts, which turned into an all-day outing at an Italian restaurant for dinner and then more Billi-bow and darts. The reason I say this is representative of my experience here is because people here are so open to meeting foreigners and then being hospitable to them. I have yet to plan an evening after work, because there is always someone hanging around who will go eat with you or just go hang out. All that to say that I'm having a great time here and feel quite comfortable and at home. Pictures of this mysterious Billi-bow to come soon. =)

First Post in Daegu

So...for those of you curious about how life is here in Daegu, South Korea, or just about me in general, I'm hoping to post weekly what's going on here. I suppose I should start with what exactly I'm doing and how I got here, and then I'll describe my work and apartment.

Around March I decided I'd like to do something a little different for this school year, so I looked at a number of different schools around the world. I got in contact with the Wall Street Institute in South Korea, and after a few emails and a phone call, they decided that I could come once the school year finished out. After months of gathering documents and calling consulates and mailing paperwork, I finally got a Korean visa and headed off to Korea. I arrived in Daegu on Tuesday, July 29.

In addition to providing the airfare and visa, the institute arranged my apartment. The apartment came sparsely furnished: it had a bed, a wardrobe, a washing machine, and a fridge. Last night, though, I was very blessed. A friend of mine that Kris introduced to me via email came by my work and told me that her neighbor was getting rid of some furniture, so she had her brother-in-law and another friend load it into a van and drive it to my apartment, and when I got home last night, it was there for me. God has been taking care of me. This same friend and her sister also drove me to the only Costco in the area, and I was able to get some essentials for the place. I'm still lacking some pots and pans, but I'm not in a hurry for those things. Anyhow, the apartment is about 15 minutes walking distance from my school. I walk through a pet store district, past an Outback Steakhouse, and then underneath an intersection to get there. Amazingly, the underneath the intersection is a massive underground mall, so my daily walk to a from work is quite varied.

My job is fantastic--better than I could have hoped. I work for the Wall Street Institute, a company that caters to adults needing English for work and school. Many students here are also enrolled in nearby universities, and the others are business people who work with foreigners. Here's how our system works. A new student comes in and tests to see what level (1-48) they are in English. Once that is determined, they are given a workbook and told to do some corresponding multimedia lessons in the computer lab. It generally takes a student two weeks to do all the computer and workbook lessons, at which point they schedule a class with a teacher (me or one of the other five teachers here) who then check their fluency and abilities with the vocabulary and grammar they were supposed to have learned in that lesson. So my job on a day-today basis is to ensure that the students are progressing well on their lessons, and when no one needs help, to just talk with them about whatever. The school also hosts social clubs: fun activities that assist in learning different cultural quirks or idiomatic expressions. The other teachers are quite fun and friendly. Two are Canadian, two American, and the last British.

I think there are a million more things I could write, but I'll leave it at that for now. I'll hopefully post more in the next few days. Oh, and here's a link to my first photos, if you aren't facebook compatible. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46357&l=622dc&id=561241295