Halloween Approaches...

This Halloween I will not be shlepping makeup on every girl and her mother that wants to be a "sexy kitten" or a "sexy police woman" or a "sexy piece of shit"...you get the picture. I will put on my finest and most comfortable soccer clothes and be ONLY female soccer player in all of South Korea. It will be quite a scene for my little ones.
Sara and I will be hosting our Halloween gathering in our empty apartment so our after school costumes have to be superb...we are working on the details as we speak.

Last weekend was one for the record books. I don't think I have ever been so hung over for such a long, consecutive period of time. Here, in Korea, it is just one event after the other. Starting out your weekend of debauchery on a Thursday at Open Mic night doesn't help the cause...but when followed by a manditory school branch dinner/bar night, you weekend is basically thrashed from the get go. After laying around attempting to recover ALL Saturday, we headed to the local watering hole, Guri Bar for a birthday party which was only the climax of our weekend, ending in bumpy, Sunday family dinner, consisting of excellent vegan dishes and lots and lots of red wine.

We hope to make this week a little more productive than the weekend. We have been planning to take a hike all this week, we will see if it actually happens. We have acquired more furniture from a friend that is leaving the country on Saturday. We will be moving in into our place tomorrow morning before work. Then, we have the task of rearranging our apartment perfectly for our get together and coming up with the best costumes ever...any ideas?

Other than that, teaching is getting a lot easier. I have control over my classes, as the end of the session approaches. I now know what I have to do from the get go to get those little helions to behave. From what I have been told, our 1st week of vacation is coming up at the end of January...so any one is welcome to come. We are thinking about going to Thailand. We found a really cheap travel site where it will cost us about as much as it would to fly from LA to Denver. Amazing.

It is finally starting to get cold here which I welcome with open arms. A year in the OC with all the sun and heat has made me really welcome the seasons. From what I have been told, it doesn't snow here. We have winter weather about as cold as Monterey, just not as foggy. I can't wait to go snowboarding in other parts of the county. Korea is so small that it would seriously only take a 6 hour car ride to drive from tip to tip...and its only that long because its very mountainous.

That's all for now!
see ya next week

love love love
erika :)

Free beer and food at company functions = good times

Well, we have just ended week 5 of our Korean journey!  The week was uneventful for me.  Got a nice little day flu thingy on Friday so I layed around all weekend with a box of Kleenex and some Tylenol (thank you Bob and Hillary!).  

Fortunately, I recovered quickly from my brush with death (my cold) and was able to attend our company picnic/sports day.  Sara and I dressed in our finest...soccer shorts rolled as high as they would go, sweatshirts, soccer socks and some glare...we wanted them to know we meant business!  We partook in the most intense and competitive game of dodge ball that I have ever encountered, tug-of-war (my team had all the fat kids, myself included), Korean see-saw (taking the smallest Korean woman on your team and flinging her down a line of 30 people, 4 feet off the ground on a thin piece of fabric), balloon blowing up contest, and giant ball bouncing contest.  We also indulged in a battle of the branches karaoke competition where Sara and I manhandled the challengers while accompanied by the vocal stylings of the Backstreet Boys.

Along with plenty of athletically testing and strength challenging games, we were provided 2 whole pigs, a fried food box, all the beer we could drink and a stage, complete with a bubble blower, flame thrower and foam shooter.  These Koreans don't fuck around.

I also took part in a little bit of soccer with some of the Korean kids and one of my co-workers.  It made me miss soccer so bad, until of course the universal machismo kicked in when the Korean men joined the game and not only refused to pass me the ball, but acknowledge that I was anywhere near the field.  Took me back to my Monterey Bay indoor games, fighting with the Mexican dudes that would come crash our games.

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving.  Some of our fellow coworkers that we hadn't met until the picnic happen to live in our building and were hosting a nice like pot-luck and were nice enough to invite the new kids.  I brought some wasabi mashed potatoes (courtesy of Dad's amazing recipe).  It was a nice little gathering with our friendly neighbors from the north eh...even though most of them don't know what their celebration is aboot.  Happy Thanksgiving Canada!  

So before I part, I have compiled my list of the top 10 things I have learned so far in Korea...

10.  Lines are not a suggestion...

These people are nuts when it comes to getting in lines.  Whether it be for the bus, the subway, the elevator, waiting in line for a cheeseburger, if you are not breathing down the person's neck in front of you, you are not in line.  I have been cut by many an old lady for not being properly placed in these so called lines.

9.  If there is an open door you must run through it, no matter who you trample on your way in...

So, say you get into one of these mandatory lines that I previously mentioned...once in said line, you are obligated to stampede into whatever the desired destination of the line may be.  You are not allowed to kindly let the person in the subway car or the elevator exit before making you grand and much anticipated entrance.  You MUST, without haste, enter, taking down the elderly, pregnant and handicapped upon access.

8.  No talking on public transportation...

It is an absolutely heinous notion to think that making idle chit chat while riding on any form of public transportation is acceptable...and the Koreans will let you know that...in their loudest and most offending voice.  Nevermind a subtle whisper, a light chuckle or giggle.  These forms of sound are prohibited, along with coughing too loudly or talking on a cellular device.  And, not only will they scream at you to stop, they will then proceed to talk to other Korean people about how rude you were for talking, in a voice louder that the original sound that was made.

7.  SQUAT, SQUAT, SQUAT

Squatting is the position of choice for most Koreans, from what I have gathered. Instead of real sit down toilets in public restrooms there are holes in the ground which you...you guessed it, squat over.  Men and women can frequently be found resting their legs on a long day by squatting...ANYWHERE.  in the subway, on the street.  Chair??? What's a chair?  

6.  English is cool...

Even if it makes absolutely no sense.  If your advertisement, song, clothing, etc. has English on it, no matter how misspelled, grammatically incorrect, or incompetently translated it is, it is cool.  I saw a sweatshirt on a lady that said "Sea World.  Shiny silver bacon leaves" or something to that effect...she was o, so posh!

5.  BLEND IN

Rarely will you find a Korean with any colored hair besides black or brown.  No highlights, no fun and funk colors, no tiny nose studs or tattoos of any sort.  Blend, blend, blend...or stick out like a sore thumb and get stared at like me.  Either way...your choice.

4.  The bigger the better...

I have tried to find fashion trends here in Korea.  There is no fall color or true staple or method to the madness of the dress code here.  The only thing that really stood out is this...oversized clothing.  Pre-arrival I worried that it would be quite a task to find clothing here.  I was pleasantly mistaken and found that these women wear their clothes far, far larger than they rightfully should.  They sport shirts to their knees and pants that are ridiculously gargantuan for their petite frames.  Maybe I will do some shopping after all, and show what a size large SHOULD look like when worn correctly.

3.  Touching vs TOUCHING...

In this country, personal space is a thing of fairy tales and mythical lands far, far away.  You will often find, despite the rampant homophobia, men holding the hands of men and women interlocking fingers with one another as a sign of friendship.  Sara and I tried it and it just wasn't our thing.  Maybe the stigma of what it means in the states drove us away from the embrace, or maybe our person space bubble is far to encompassing for this country.  Either way, touching in a friendly, non-sexual manner is good and encouraged.  Sexual touching though...bad, bad, bad.  Korean girls believe that Korean boys have koodies until they are out of high school.  If you ever want to punish a Korean kid, make them partner up with a member of the opposite sex.  There is no kissing, petting, talk of kissing or petting, thinking about either of the two, allowed in Korea...guess the American space bubble doesn't encompass that kind of "touching", where we seem to be pretty liberal a society.

2.  Superstitions...

My favorite so far is that if you sleep with the fan/air conditioning/any kind of cooling device on, it will lower your core temperature so much that you WILL die.  They hate the sun...will do anything to stay out of it.  Rain will burn your skin, ergo they carry an umbrella everywhere.  If you drink anything, even water while you are eating you will eat too much and get fat.  Just a mindless stream of crazy do's and don't consume the daily lives of this country.

and lastly...

1.  Kimchi...

It is the signature Korean dish.  It is served as a side with everything.  It is the equivalent to bread and butter, french fries, veggies on the side.  It is the one thing that is agreed upon to be acceptable with every meal, mixable with every animal by product, and still ok to be consumed on its own.  Whether it is fresh or packaged, if there is kimchi on the table, it will be eaten.

thats all for now!  come back next week!

love love love

erika :)

Small Face...Lovely Breast (advertisement for korean plastic surgery...we think)

THE PUSAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IS HERE!!!

Monday, we planned to go see the movie "Religulous" with Bill Maurer that I guess just came out in the states!  Of course, due to obstacles and unforeseen distractions, we were too late and tickets ran out. :(

But...basically this film festival is the BIGGEST of its kind in all of Asia.  They have turned Haeundae beach into the "festival village" and have tents and such on the sand.  Sara and I missed the film festival part of the venue since it runs during the day and we are either working or sleeping, but got to witness countless numbers of people sitting on the beach, lighting off fireworks and drinking after hours.  Quite a sight.

Friday (10/4) was a national holiday here in South Korea.  It was independence day...that's right, the anniversary of South Korea breaking off from North Korea and becoming its own separate nation.  No one worked...except for us kids at CDI of course!  Only half of my students showed up to school, since all public schools were closed for the day anyways.  Only the little shits that misbehave attended..just my luck!

I have these 2 kids in my last class, lowest level, Troy and Josh.  These kids are twins, smart as ever, but always misbehaving and competing with one another, sometimes physically.  Honestly, I don't really care what they do, because they are pretty sharp when it comes to the lessons, but they are such a distraction to my other kids...who aren't the brightest crayons in the box already.  I was warned about them by my head instructor and how the staff has tried to put them in different classes or on different schedules, but their mother refuses.  They have always been quite problematic.  So my HI told me that I needed to make an example out of one of them...either one, whoever pissed me off more that day, and just kick them out of class.  Even though I'm not very fond of belittling children in my day to day life, I just about had it on Friday...so i picked Troy and kicked him out.  To my absolute disappointment, none of the Korean teachers would come to my aid and the branch manager took him out of class for 5 minutes and brought him back, candy in hand!

Since then, I have tried using other tactics to make them behave.  Monday was amazing!  They sat the whole time in class and participated and only disrupted anyone once!  Yay for the evil genius that can manipulate young Korean children's minds!

Other than the film festival (or being the vicinity of the film festival while not actually viewing movies) it hasn't been very eventful here.  We have discovered a couple of really cool foreigner bars.  

Which reminds me...Sara and I requested songs at a bar called Thursday Party and were dancing around to them like cool kids...and the people that had been here for 8 months had never heard them before!  Super overplayed songs like "Go Girl" and "When I Grow Up" and my FAVORITE, "Swing"!  Please friends...do not let me be that person that is so musically out of the loop!  Let me know what's in!  Save me from Korean musical damnation!  

Ok, sorry for the side note...

But ya, foreigner bars!  Its nice to hear English being spoken fluently!  What else have we done?  O, ya...lots of casino-ing...to my wallets dismay.  I don't lose too much, but I really hate gambling so it upsets me.

Sara ate chicken ass hole...and surprise, surprise, it tasted like shit!

OOOOO  I acquired a couch for our humble abode!  FRIGGIN FINALLY there is something in our living room.  We are getting a TV from a friend this week and hopefully (fingers crossed) will have a beer pong table set up within the month!

and...drum roll please....the long awaited premier of our apartment video!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YfA-DeoUgF0

I'm going to keep putting pics up on facebook so check them out!

love you all

keep sending the emails!  i thoroughly enjoy them!

love love love

erika :)