Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Some Christmas Cheer.

Here are some cartoons to help give you some Christmas Cheer.


Sunday, December 20, 2009

It's What?

Anyone who has ever been to another country can tell you about the weird and wonderful things they have experienced there. Even going to Canada and experiencing all the flannel can be a life long achievement. Yet, it seems that whenever we think of weird things, Asia always comes to the front of the line. We think of the Chinese, and after we dismiss the wonderful thoughts of Panda Express, we think of all the weird things they eat. Deep fried grasshoppers, sure. When you think of Japan, most people think of sushi, anime, and.....well this is a PG-13 blog. Needless to say the weird things of a culture tend to stick out and we stereotype based upon those things.

Now, this blog is not just going to be about the weird food products that I've experienced while I'm here. I've already written about that. This blog is going to be just about the funky, funny, and somewhat ridiculous products that can be found here. Some of these will be food based, others will be clothing based, and a few might just be human based. Either way these are some of the funniest products, sings, or things that I have experienced in my time here in Korea. Be they epic, bad, horrid, or just funky, this is the best of the best.

1. Cup O Cake. Yes, you heard me right, Cup O Cake. As in Cup O Noodles. I cannot tell you how many times I walked past these cups and didn't pay them any attention. Why would I, they were in the middle of flour and baking supplies. I didn't have an oven at the time and honestly just never really paid much attention. Well, one day, these things caught my eye. At first I was generally dismissive about what they were. After a second glance though I realized that they were trying to be cake in a cup. All you do is add and Egg and some Water. Then after 1 minute and 30 seconds in the microwave you have a piping hot cake. As you can guess these things taste about as good as Cup of Noodles.


2. Rice Tard. While honestly this is just a mistake in the printing, it doesn't make it any less hilarious. I'm sure somewhere I've just offended someone because I'm laughing at the mistake. Yet, what the person who wrote the English was hoping for was Rice Custard. Unfortunately for them, and quite fortunately for us, they do not understand the non PC nature of the word TARD.

3. Pet Storage. This sign is just awesome. Located inside of the few Costco's scattered throughout this wonderful country, this sign is perched above the storage lockers. It took me a second to read the sign, and then to truly process its meaning. These lockers, which are meant to store backpacks and such apparently just aren't meant for animals. I guess the more important question, is who brings an animal to Costco? We're not in LA.

4. Animal Hoods. I know I've written about these things before, but with the return of winter, they have returned. I swear these things get more ridiculous the more I see them. I can understand children wearing them, but adults, come on. Although it does turn any person no matter how gruff and scary into a more childish figure.

5. Horrible English Shirts. I cannot think of the amount of times that I have walked around my school looking at my students shirts. Sometimes you are rewarded with an absolute gold mine of comedic quality. From shirts that have swear words on them, to shirts that make no sense in English whatsoever. Perhaps the greatest shirt I've ever seen, and unfortunately do not have a picture of states the following (rough paraphrase but the meaning is identical): "Lets pretend were rabbits and do what rabbits do all day." Now this shirt had a really adorable picture of a bunny on it, and in no way was trying to be lewd. However, the context of what they wrote was obscene. I've never been able to get the 5th grade girl that wears this shirt to let me take a picture of it. I promise you, that when I do get it, you'll see it.



6. Funky drinks. Now, I've known some funky drinks in my day, but sometimes this country takes the cake. Well, honestly it takes the cake. I have had the following things here, and I wish that I was joking. Try grape juice from a can, with grapes in it. How, about other fruit juices with juice pieces in them. These aren't even like Orangina or sodas, these are just juice. Hey, you ever had Aloe Juice with pieces of aloe snot in it? I have. What about warm milk based hot chocolate in a can that comes out of a vending machine. Yeah, warm hot chocolate out of a can, from a vending machine. I haven't even gotten onto the health tonics that they sell. YEEEESH! Stay away from these things, well, the ginseng ones that have a lot of sugar in them aren't that bad. However, the pure ginseng juice actually gave me food poisoning.

7. Kimchi Fridge. Yeah, I know it makes sense, but these people sell Kimchi refrigerators. These are not small fridges either. These are the size of your average garage freezer. Yeah, that's a lot of Kimchi.

8. Korean commercials. Ugh. I could rant and rave about these things for a while. In fact I'm only going to give you the tip of the ice berg. Some of these commercials feature Diacon Raddish being credit carded by a ghost. Yeah, that's still on air. How about commercials that just blatantly use sex to sell, yup we got um . In fact here is a taste of what I'm talking about.



Or how about just blatantly racist.




9. One of the last things that I will probably never forget about this country, besides the music which is just horrid, is the serious man on man action. Oye, I understand that it's cultural, but can't they respect my culture and keep their hands off of me. I'm honestly thinking about getting a shirt that says no touching on it. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I've felt like I was being violated by a friendly Korean man. Limp handshakes I can handle. Trying to hold my hand, Ok, I can deal. Stroking my arm, leg, or facial hair, that's starting to creep me out. Leaving your lingering hand on my inner thigh, ok dude, no offense, I'm nowhere near drunk enough, and you're not my type. You have a penis. Not what I'm looking for when I'm out at the bar. I wish I could say that it was just a drunk gay guy hoping a foreigner would be down for some action, but most of the times these guys have girlfriends or wives, and they're there with them. No, I do not want to hold hands with you. No, I do not want to touch you. No I don't want to go to the bathroom with you and compare.  I wish I was joking about this, but this is a game that my 6th grade boys play.  One will be peeing in a urinal, the others will then all run up behind him and hug each other.  They then start swaying and gyrating and well, you get the picture......This is totaly ok, and in no way wrong.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Korean Cooking.

For those of you that are regular readers of my blog you know that I often times talk about Korean Food. I talk about the good, the bad, the weird, and the ugly side of Korean cooking. Yet, rarely have I ever provided insight into how these dishes were made. To answer you quite simply, the reason for that was I had no clue how most of these were made. If I had an idea of how something was made, I had no idea where to buy the ingredients or what to call them. Well, today that may have just all changed.

I was looking around for Doen Jang Chigae recipies because I'm going to try making it soon. Along the way I found this website. This webstie:

http://www.maangchi.com/recipes

gives you not only a demonstration of how to make it, but it also gives you the ingredients you're going to need, in ENGLISH.  For those of you that don't live with an Asian market anywhere nearby you are basically SOL.  Yet, for those of you who are lucky enough to have an Asian market nearby, you should be able to find all of the ingredients you need.  For those of you who want to try making some Korean dishes at home may I suggest you try the following recipies.


Rice mixed with meat, vegetables, an egg, and chili pepper paste

비빔밥
Bibimbap

This is a simple peasants dish of vegetables and rice.  It is simple, filling, and great.  Don't worry, you don't have to use the egg.

Bean paste, tofu, and vegetable stew, and a mixed green salad

된장찌개, 겉절이
Doenjang chigae, gutjulee
Doen Jang Chigae is one of my favorite soups here in Korea.  Just to warn you though, if you do not appreciate the finer types of fermentation like good smelly cheese, don't try this stuff.  It's awesome, but the neighbors might be wondering what died under your house.


Ginseng chicken soup

삼계탕
Samgyetang

I love this stuff.  In fact I love this stuff so much that I brought back packages of the ingredients to give to people.  Don't ask questions, just do it and love it.


Spicy fermented cabbage stew and a bean sprout side dish

김치찌개, 콩나물 무침
Kimchi chigae, kongnamool muchim

Love it or Hate it, you cannot get more traditionally Korean then Kimchi Soup.


Rice, meat, and vegetables rolled up into seaweed and cut into bite-sized pieces

김밥
Kimbap

The original Korean California Roll.




Vegetable pancake with Asian chives

부추전
Buchujeon

This is more along the lines of a dinner thing, not a breakfast thing.  However, that does not stop it from being awesome.  There are hundreds of variations, but my favorite is the Kimchi Pancake with seafood.  YUMMY!!!!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

My First Thanksgiving.

I have to say that I may have just experienced my first real Thanksgiving at the tender age of 26. What makes this Thanksgiving different from the 25 previous Thanksgiving, was that I was the one doing the cooking for everyone. Every year before this, my mother, my father, my Aunt, my Grandparents, somebody had cooked. This was the first year that I actually cooked, and I have to say it came out better then I was expecting.

The menu was quite a simple fare given my surroundings. Turkey is not readily available here in Korea, and when you do find it, it's ridiculously over priced. Take you standard 13 pound turkey, and add about 40 dollars to the price. Add on top of this the fact that most the ovens located in this country could not actually fit a bird the size of a turkey and you have a recipe for Thanksgiving Chicken. While more of a distant cousin then an actual relative, the Thanksgiving Chicken is actually quite delicious. We started with two large chickens (normal size in America). To these wonderful birds I added bread stuffing that I had made. After thoroughly violating the perceived rights of the Chicken I gave them a bath and a massage. The bath was in Olive Oil, and the massage, well that was to work in the Italian Seasonings, Rosemary, and Pepper. I threw them in the oven for about 80 minutes and then set about the other small side dishes that I was making.

Mashed potatoes are a staple of almost any Holiday meal, and if I need to explain to you how to make them then you're probably already lost by this blog. To pair with the mashed potatoes I made orange infused sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping. Yes, those things. Originally the recipe calls for orange juice concentrate, good luck finding that stuff here. We have to settle for orange juice and orange peel infused potatoes. It still comes out tasting close to the same, but it looks nothing like the original. We pared these two sides with steamed Broccoli and garlic bread. Now garlic bread is not your standard fare at Thanksgiving, but it turns out that every time I make a meal for people I make garlic bread. I think it has something to do with the scarcity of ovens in this country and that is a requirement for Garlic bread. Either that or a large BBQ, which also tends to be a scarcity.

The last thing we had was stuffing. I actually made Bread Stuffing for the first time. I have to thank Mom for the excellent recipe. I knew that stuffing was relatively easy but given the pointers and the advice I received it made it quite simple. It was a simple thing to make, and honestly the two hardest parts where drying the bread, it took a while, and finding Sage. We had to use fresh Sage, but I don't think that anyone really noticed. To this I added dried cranberries, onions, celery, celery stalk, and a few slices of carrots. I accidentally over salted due to the discovery of vegetable bouillon at the store, so I had to add some more stuff to it. Honestly, I'm somewhat impressed with myself, and think that I will be able to not only replicate this stuffing, but make it better next time for Christmas.

For desert we demolished the Pumpkin Pie that I had purchased from Costco. The Pumpkin Cheesecake survive somewhat intact due to the fact that we were stuffed by the time we got to it. Still it lost about 1/4 of its weight. All in all, while a quite simple dinner compared to those of you in the States, it was greatly appreciated. It was nice to have some semblance of normalcy on this Thanksgiving. Last year we went to a nice restaurant and ate dinner. This year it felt like Thanksgiving. I was even exhausted after the meal because I had spent about 4 hours cooking in a small kitchen. Ohh well, Christmas should be just as fun.

Monday, November 23, 2009

The Whole Vacation Thingy pt.2

I have considered the fact that I have left most of you waiting an inordinate amount of time between these two posts.  However, it basically took until now for my schedule to loosen up enough where I had time to sit down and put ponderous word upon paper.  Well, actually I hope that the words are not that ponderous, regretfully, I am not the one who is reading this, you are.  

Back to the story:



We arrived in Baltimore, Maryland on the afternoon of the 28th of October.  From there we quickly grabbed a rental car and began our trek to Dover Delaware.  The drive from Maryland to Dover is only about 2 hours, however, this did not stop me from napping for at least part of the way.  For those of you who have never been to Delaware, I can't blame you.  Honestly, I feel somewhat bad for saying this, but I really have no plan, nor serious desire to return and explore the state.  Its not that Dover was that horrific of a place, or we weren't treated fine, I just prefer to travel to places that feel like they have something to offer me.  It doesn't have to be much, but it has to appeal to me.  When we arrived in Dover we went straight to our hotels and checked in.  I was staying about 100 yards from my parents hotel.  As I was checking into the Holiday Inn express, I realized two things.  First, American hotels are seriously expensive compared to Korea, and second, that I had never checked into a hotel in America before where I was the only one staying there and I had paid for the room.  It was a bit jarring.  I have stayed in many hotels and hostels abroad, but this was the first time I was staying in a hotel in America that I had paid for.  Mental note, I need to travel America more.



We spent that night eating dinner at my sisters house.  She has come a long way from her first futile attempts at cooking, and while skeptical upon arrival at her apartment, she prepared a good meal.  I was impressed, perhaps one day she will be able to out cook me, but I don't think so.  The following day Ann, my dad, and I bolted out of Dover and went to Washington D.C.  D.C. is only about two hours from Dover.  While we were there we did the tourist thing.  We did the tourist thing on speed though.  We arrived in DC at 11 and left at 6.  In that time we saw the following things: Washington Monument, National Archives, National Gallery, Smithsonian Aerospace Museum, Marine Corps Monument, Vietnam Wall, Korean War Memorial, FDR Memorial, Reflecting pool, World War Two Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, The Old Post Office, Fords Theater, from a distance the US Capitol Dome, The United States Supreme Court, and lastly we saw the Jefferson memorial from a distance.  I dare you to find people who did what we did in the time we did.  I mean come on, not all this stuff is within five minutes walk of each other.  



Upon arrival in Dover, after an unplanned and unfortunate detour into Anacostia (hey how could I know there was only an on ramp going south from the map), we sat down to Dinner at Uno's.  There I was introduced to Yeungling beer (pronounced Ying Ling).  It was actually a decent beer and I must thank Mike for the introduction.  Thanks Mike.  I'll return the favor by sending you to the good stuff in San Diego.  After returning to the hotel, I collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep.  I was a little tired.  The next day Ann, Dad, and I took off for Annapolis and a partial day of sightseeing.  Now before you think the three of us were shirking our duties to help my sister with her wedding, we were told to stay out of the way and not cause problems.  We offered our services every day but they told us that we were not needed.  Annapolis was far better then I expected.  I will freely admit that I was quite skeptical before arrival.  Upon arrival I realized that the city has a lot of historical sights to see.  An unexpected delight was the Annapolis State House.  It was there that George Washington resigned his commission at the end of the end of the Revolutionary War.  It was unique to find myself standing in that room, and just sensing in a way the momentous importance of what happened in that room.  Deal with it folks, I'm an uber history geek.  I got chills when I was in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

As we were walking out I noticed a bust of a Naval Commander named Winfield Scott Schley.  As I was looking at his statue I noticed that it had the word Korea and 1871 under it.  I realized then that this man was somewhat influential in punitive raids America launched upon the Korean mainland.  It was a punitive action for attack and burning of the British trade ship the General Sherman and the murder of its 20 sailors.  Sadly this moment was all but avoidable.  It was one misunderstanding after another, compiled with the desire to open Korea to trade.  In 1871 the American Navy launched a series of raids upon South Korea the led to the death of almost 300 Koreans and 3 Americans.  


After the State House we went down to the Naval Academy and caught them at lunchtime formation.  Everyday these kids have to stand in formation and march to the cafeteria.  Meanwhile the band and silent drill team perform.  If you ever get the chance I suggest you check this out.  On our way out of the academy I stopped by the Navy Mascot to take a picture or two.  It was then that I notice the mascot had recently been vandalized.  Well ok not vandalized, but attacked by some snarky Air Force people.  I know this due to the blue AF on one side of the statue, and the much larger, but washed off, AF on the other side.  GO AIR FORCE!  As we walked out of the academy the three of us realized that it was time for lunch.  Hello deep fried soft shell crab sandwich.  We also ate some awesome crab cakes, and I sucked the brains out of a Crawdad.  This was met with a little bit of repulsion from my Father and Ann.  The brains of shellfish taste awesome and y'all can just deal with it.  


We explored some more of downtown Annapolis and then headed back to Dover for a nice dinner.  The restaurant we went to was consistently rated in the top of Dover's restaurants.  Our server was sarcastic awesomeness and the food was excellent.  I ordered the clam, mussel, scallop, seafood mix combo.  I have gotten use to eating really good cheap seafood here in Korea, and honestly I am going to miss spending 3 dollars on big ass shrimp.  We all headed back to our respective abodes and awaited the next day.  Halloween, and now my sisters anniversary.  That morning we awoke and went to set up the country club for my sisters wedding.  After a few hours we had everything set and then we returned to get dressed for the Wedding.  Now, I must warn you that costumes were acceptable at this wedding.  I was not wearing one, although I could have been.  In Annapolis I found this perfect purple felt hat, that would have gone excellent with the white suit jacket I found in Ohio.  The only problem was that I didn't buy the jacket because I didn't have the hat, and I didn't buy the hat because I didn't have the hat.  


Upon arrival at the wedding I quickly realized that Mike needed some help.  Buddy, you can kick and scream all you want about this, but you were a nervous wreck.  Yes, things fell behind schedule, but everything went fine.  The only reason I'm throwing you under the bus right now is because you were claiming so often that you were fine.  It was really obvious that you weren't.  When the wedding started everything went off perfectly.  The only unexpected thing that happened was that it took a ton of effort for me not to cry.  Honestly, watching Hollie walk down the aisle was more then enough to make me start crying.  I was barely holding back for the first five or so minutes.  After that things got a lot easier, but I was really happy for her, and I was really proud of her.  Everything went well, and you did a great job Hollie.  It's still freaky to think you're married but I guess I'll eventually get used to that idea.  





With the Wedding done the drinking could commence.  I quickly grabbed Mike and I a beer.  He needed a drink and I was more then willing to provide one for him, at my father's expense.  Wait, I should say at my mother's expense.  We went out to take the millions of pictures that always accompany weddings and then proceeded to eat and make merry for the rest of the time.  It was during this time that I went for a quick walk outside, and I realized that I was ready to return to Korea.  I had done what I came to America to do.  90% of my shopping was done, I had visited my Grandparents, and I saw my sister get married.  Mission accomplished, and it was time to get ready to get back to Korea.



After a quick demolition of the wedding accoutrement my parents and I met for an hour in the Hotel bar.  It was here that we said our goodbyes.  I was flying an earlier flight and had a different ride to the airport.  It was sad knowing that I won't see them for another year or so, but by this point I've grown somewhat accustomed to it.  I awoke that morning at 4:30 finished packing my bags and headed down for my ride with Ann to the airport.  I arrived at the airport with 1 hour to get checked in and through security.  No major problem.  I walked onto the airplane right when my boarding group had been called.  I even had time to buy a sandwich.  After de-planeing in Salt Lake City, I decided to have some lunch.  It was at this time that quite possibly my worst traveling mishap happened.  



As I reached into my bag to pull my wallet out, I found that I could not find my wallet.  A little disturbed I figured that I just left it in the seat back pocket of my seat.  No big deal.  My plane was still at the jet way and the wonderful personnel at Southwest let me walk back onto the plane to grab my wallet.  Well, my wallet wasn't there, or if it was there I couldn't find it.  Needless to say, I freaked the hell out.  Well I wasn't ranting and raving, but I'm pretty sure that is the closest I have ever come to having a panic attack.  In fact I may have had one.  Here I was in St. Lake City, heading to San Diego, and I had potentially left my wallet in Baltimore.  More importantly I was slated to leave the country the next day.  Luckily I still had my passport and did not need to worry about leaving.  

Upon arrival in San Diego I talked to the ground staff and they informed me that nobody in Baltimore had turned in a wallet.  Somewhat dejected I called my friend  and he came and picked me up.  We headed off to my old house and I unpacked, did some laundry, filed a report with Southwest, and then headed out to a good Mexican dinner with my friends.  This dinner was one of the few things that I had planned to do with my time in the States.  Everything else was relatively free form.  I met with my friends at Coyote Cafe in Old Town San Diego.  Here we sat down to a wonderful Mexican dinner and a margarita.  It was just good to see some of my friends and to deliver some presents that I had accumulated during my time abroad.  



The next day I boarded my flight out of San Diego to San Francisco, and then boarded my flight back to Korea. 


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Whole Vacation thingy. pt. 1

After a brief respite from life on the Korean Peninsula I have returned to my working ways here at Seodong Elementary.  Yet, I realized that in my haste to depart Korea I neglected to mention where it was I was going, and what it was I was doing.  Well for those of you who are still reading this blog, and honestly I still can't figure out why, I will explain to you where it was I went and what glamorous things I did.  Well, maybe I'm lying a little bit.  The whole thing about glamorous is severely overrated.  I am not a glamor queen.

When I decided to re-contract and stay in Korea I was given a two week vacation to go and do whatever it is I wanted.  After some quick negotiations with my school I convinced my school to let me delay my vacation to the end of October that way I could attend my sister's wedding.  Yeah, I know, scary thought.  My sister got married.  No, there were no ritualistic sacrifices nor the shedding of small animals blood, although I kept suggesting it.  With this in mind I headed off for another flight across the Pacific Ocean.

I arrived in the port of San Francisco after a 9 hour flight from Korea to San Francisco upon Singapore Airlines.  I highly suggest this airline to anyone.  This was by far the best service I have had on an economy international flight.  British Airways is not far behind, but these guys were good.  Upon arrival at the airport I cleared myself through customs, and may or may not have lied when I said that I had no fruits or vegetables with me.  Well it turns out that the packages of soup mix I had contained dried dates.  Luckily they were dried and the people at customs really didn't care all that much.  I had a connecting flight out of San Francisco to St Louis in a few hours upon US Air.  This airline has once again reminded me why they cannot run at a profit.

For starters upon check in they slam you with a 25 dollar fee for checking your bag.  Now, when I booked my flight I did not know this.  However, I was expecting it after I checked their policy online.  25 dollars to throw my bag on your plane, thanks.  What was worse however was the response I was given at the check in counter.  I was curious to see what response I would get to questioning the bag fee.  Now I wasn't irate or even refusing to pay.  I just made a comment that I did not know they were charging for bags now.  The response I was given is just ridiculous.  I am directly quoting this woman, and am in now way, shape, or form changing it "Ohh.  That's because we care about your bag."  Give me a freaking break.  The same people who work for Southwest, Singapore Airlines, Delta, American, etc handle my bags.  You put my bag on a conveyor belt and then stuff it into your plane.  There is no care for my bag.  My bag isn't in the bottom of the airplane getting a massage and pedicure.  Just tell me the truth and I would be happy.  Simply say we are struggling to make money so we are taking it out on you the customer.

Ohh well, just another reason to love Southwest.  Upon arrival in St. Louis at 12:00 AM, no you didn't misread that wonderful fact, I walked off the plane to find my Father waiting for me.  During the 2.5 hour ride back to Decatur we chatted about this and that, in what was an effort to keep both of us awake.  Plus my dad complains that I don't call him enough so he had a captive audience for 2.5 hours.  Jet lag be damned he was going to utilize the time.  We walked into the house at around 2:45 AM and basically went straight to bed.  My body not entirely sure what decade it was in a the moment acquiesced and let me sleep, that was till I woke up around 9 AM and could not for the life of me get back to bed.

During the day we discussed options for visitng my Grandparents in Ohio.  My Grandmother's health has taken a bad turn the past couple of months and we decided that it would be good to go and spend at least one day in Mansfield.  Off we went to Ohio to fulfill familial obligations.  I also wanted to do some shopping for Ohio State gear and Illinois doesn't have very much of it.  They have Illini gear, but who wants to root for the Illinois Fighting Illini?  We spent our time in Ohio with family and shopping, and I was intensely grateful to be given the chance to see my grandparents again.

After our trip to Ohio we settled in for a long three day period before we headed out to Dover, Delaware to prep everything for Hollie's Wedding.  This three day period was spent watching football, eating good food, and even cooking some food.  I decided it would be a good idea to make Stuffed Chicken Soup for my parents.  This stuff has become one of my favorite foods here in Korea and I wanted to try making it for my parents.  It came out well and I was delighted to think that I had actually managed to bring back/impart some Korean food upon my family.

We left Illinois on Wendsday the 28th and headed out for Dover.  However, the second part of this trip will be dealt with in another blog.  That's where the story actually becomes somewhat interesting.

Monday, October 12, 2009

An Idiots Guide To Driving In Korea.

For those of you who do not know, I have started driving on a regular basis here in Korea.  Thanks to Brenden leaving I found myself in position to learn how, and become competent on a motorcycle.  I know have a way to get around town when I need to, and every now and then leave the town for one of the smaller localities around.  Yet, with these new experiences I feel compelled to create a guide on how to drive in Korea for those of you who may one day consider trying it.

Rule Number One:  There are no rules.  Now this is not to say that there aren't rules to the road here in Korea, it just means that they are primarily considered suggestions. 

Rule Number Two:  Red still means stop, unless you can make through the intersection up to and including one minute past the red light. 

Rule Number Three:  Green still means go, unless the intersection is blocked, in which case it means play car Twister. 


Rule Number Four:  Sidewalks are for the following uses only: Pedestrians, Bicycles, Motorcycles, Scooters, Walking, and Parking your vehicle.


Rule Number Five:  You can stop your vehicle to offload or upload any person or item on any road provided you put on your emergency blinkers and are in the right lane.  You can have an added bonus if you block an intersection while doing this.


Rule Number Five:  Don't screw with the delivery boys.  These guys are whipping around traffic without protective gear at high speeds on their scooters.  Watch out, just because your vehicle outweighs them and has the green light, doesn't mean you have the right of way.


Rule Number Six:  If you drive a Motorcycle or Scooter you are allowed to use Crosswalks to get around a red light.


Rule Number Seven:  Parking on the street is fine.  On any street, in any direction parking is fine.  You can even park on both sides of a narrow street effectively making it a one lane alley.  It's still two way traffic.


Rule Number Eight:  There is no problem with double parking, or blocking somebody in.  Just leave your hazards on and the keys in the ignition.


Rule Number Nine:  It is acceptable to move someone's vehicle if they have left the keys in the ignition so that you can park your vehicle .  You don't even need to ask them.

Rule Number Ten:  Seat belts are optional unless the cops find you.  Seat belts are always optional in the back seat, regardless of the police seeing you.

Rule Number Eleven:  It is okay to put two people in the front passenger seat provided the seat belt fits around them.

Rule Number Twelve:  There is absolutely zero tolerance for Driving Under the Influence.  However I have yet to run across any DUI check points.

Rule Number Thirteen:  Just leave your car running.  When you run in to use the bathroom, or do some quick shopping, just leave your car running.  It may be hot or cold outside so you need to keep running your heater or air conditioning.  Bonus points for taking a nap and running the air conditioner with your windows down.

Rule Number Fourteen:  There are no stop signs or yields.  When you arrive at an intersection that does not have a light, whoever goes first goes first.  There is some consideration for flow of traffic, but if not you just go anyways.

Rule Number Fifteen:  You can cross any road at any time so long as you hold up one hand and start walking.

Rule Number Sixteen:  Remember what the speed limit is at all times.  That way when you come across the speed cameras you can figure out what 11% above the speed limit is and slow to that speed.

Rule Number Seventeen:  There is no speed limit unless you are coming up on a speed camera.

Rule Number Eighteen:  Police don't do anything.  Run a red light, speed, or cut someone off.  The police don't do a thing.  In fact they tend to do most these things. 

Rule Number Nineteen:  Always remember that it is ok to turn right at a stop light, even when people are turning left into those lanes.  You don't even have to stop.

Rule Number Twenty:  No Harm, No Foul.  As long as there was no harm, there was no foul.

Rule Number Twenty One:  If you hit a pedestrian just pay them 1,000,000 Won and all problems are solved.

Rule Number Twenty Two:  There are no rules about protective wear for motorcycles or scooters.  Don't wear a helmet, that's fine.  Want to wear a helmet but can't afford one? Just wear a construction hard hat.  Can't find a hard hat?  Just wear a bucket.

Rule Number Twenty Three:  When in a traffic jam, watch for the vendors selling snacks and drinks standing in the lanes.  Some of these vendors are selling alcohol and it makes a long stop in traffic fun.

Rule Number Twenty Four:  There are no rules against open containers in a car.  Drink all you want in the vehicle, unless you're the driver. 

Rule Number Twenty Five:  Drinking on public transportation is fine.  Karaoke on public transportation is even better.

Rule Number Twenty Six:  There are no rules, just drive.

I hope that these rules have been effective in helping calm and allieviate any fears you may be having about driving in this wonderful country. 

Monday, October 5, 2009

Feliz Chuseok?

Happy Chuseok, Merry Chuseok, Feliz Chuseok? It doesn't matter how you say it, or why you say it. All that matters is that you understand what the holiday is. What's that you say (no, not the Sprung Monkey song) you don't know what Chuseok is? Well, in that case let me educate you. Or, at least in my own way attempt to explain just what this Chuseok thingy is.

Chuseok (pronounced Chew Sock) is the second most important holiday on the Korean calendar. A simple explanation is that Chuseok is a Korean Thanksgiving without all the genocidal implications. Yet, that simplifies the matter far to much. Chuseok is a harvest festival that falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Lunar calendar. How that translates to the Julian calendar is it happens somewhere around the Autumnal Equinox. I know I'm not giving you guys any help in determining when this is, so here is the best I can do. It happens sometime in September or early October.

Koreans celebrate this holiday many different ways. The first is that almost every Korean heads back home for the holiday. The first thing this leads to is massive traffic jams across the country. If you are lucky enough to live on the main rail artery through the country, then you can fight with the rest of the people who refuse to drive and attempt public transit. Needless to say travel is a nightmare given that most people have two or three days off of work. Once they have arrived home Koreans tend to meet their friends for dinner and drinks. The day before they spend most of their time preparing food and making sure that everything they require is on hand. Think day before Thanksgiving or Christmas at the supermarket or mall and you'll have a good idea what shopping is like.


The day of, the family wakes early and prepares a ceremonial table of food in front of the family "shrine". I have shrine in quotation marks because it's not really a shrine, but a room divider with Chinese and Korean symbols on it. That honestly isn't a good explanation either so I will just include a picture of it and hope you guys get what I mean. That morning the whole family will gather to pay respect to their ancestors through several means. The first thing they do is they prepare a Jesasang. This is a ceremonial table full of food that acts as a type of offering to the ancestors. However, this is not an offering in the sense of Dia De Los Muertos where the food is left. The offering is for the ancestors to come and have a meal with the family. The family channels their ancestors by burning incense and a piece of paper with the names of their ancestors upon it. After doing this they preform several Buddhist style bows (head to the floor bow).

With the ceremony complete the family then sits down to a feast of a meal. Traditionally the meal includes Bulgogi (marinated meat), Mulgogi (fish), Kalbi Jim (marinated ribs), Songpyeon (rice cake), Chapchae (Korean style Chow Mein but they don't fry the noodles), and fruit.




Now I must state that this feast tends to take place in the morning. I had some friends who were doing this at 6 AM. Other were doing this at 10 AM. The family that I celebrated with did so at 7:30 AM. After enjoying the meal, the family then heads to the family graves to pay their respects, leave flowers, and trim the plants around the graves. Now it's important to note that only the men are required to do this. Some of the women are expected to stay behind and clean up. Which is really unfair considering they had to cook in the first place.

After visiting the graves the family then will go to their grandmothers house. What they do here varies by family. My friends family went there and farmed for eight hours. After this, they official duties of the day are done and the people are free to do what they want that night. This normally leads to the entire town heading out to the bars to drink with friends they have not seen in some time. Well, at least here in Seosan that is what this leads to.

I was lucky enough to spend this Holiday with my good friend Seung Hee (Alia). Her mother invited me to come eat with their family. I have to say I was quite surprised when they told me the meal would be held at 7:30 AM. When Alia told me this the first time I said "You mean PM?" She then corrected me and it was then that I found out they tend to do this really early in the morning. The other unique facet about this holiday and other traditional holidays like it is that the actual ceremony takes little to no time at all. The ceremony was done in ten minutes and the feast was done in 45 minutes. The explanation I was given for this is two fold. First Korea has been a very poor country until only recently. Many families could not afford extravagant feasts that went on for hours. In fact most families couldn't. The second reason the ceremony is so short was because since 1953 the country has lived under the threat of invasion. My friends say that you never know when the bombs may drop so they do these things quickly.


I am very grateful to Alia's family for allowing me and Joe (another foreigner) to partake in their families celebration. This is not the first time that I have been invited to her house for a family feast. I guess this means that she gets to come over for Thanksgiving. Wait, who am I joking. I will probably be cooking Thanksgiving dinner at her parents apartment.

Monday, September 28, 2009

My life is a construction zone.

This summer during break my school decided that it needed a face lift. Honestly, it did. My school has been educating students in this little Korean town since 1965. The building we currently occupy had been standing since 1965 and had undergone very few renovations. The school had kept up with the times on some things, but overall the general impression was that the school had been haphazardly upgraded. Enter a 5 week summer break and the chance to do a thorough renovation on not just my building but the whole school.

There were several jobs that absolutely had to be completed. The first was every classroom needed a fresh coat of paint. When it had been painted last I'm not sure, but the fact is with children and their propensity for drawing on things this school needed some new looking walls. Enter men and women with paintbrushes and several different colors of paint. The result is a surprisingly more vibrant and honestly welcoming school. I actually don't feel like I'm walking the hallways of a mental institution any more. While I may still be patrolling said hallways, at least I don't feel like I'm surrounded by a world of drab white and screaming children. I'm only surrounded by screaming children.

Next, every window, and door needed to be replaced in the school. Why, I'm not entirely sure, but the school decided that it was time to upgrade the doors and windows. The last ones were working just fine but hey, I'm not the boss. Another thing that happened was they re-floored every classroom. This quite simply has been a godsend. The school had a mix of dirty linoleum, old creaky hardwood floors, and somewhat newer wood "tiled" floor. Enter the wonderful world of knock of Pergo style flooring. I am very happy that the new floors no longer squeak, creak, or make noise when I'm walking the aisles of my classrooms. Several of the auxiliary rooms have been given a complete face-lift and overall the repairs and renovations have been quite nice to experience.

However, these are all the things they have done to the interior of my school. What they did to the exterior is quite simply a tragedy. They took a classic old brick building and well, honestly I don't quite know how to explain what they did. The best way to explain what they did is that they resided the building, however there was no siding on the building before. They took my classic brick style school, and well made it metal. Yet, not only did they side it with sheet metal, they did it with multi-colored sheet metal. The colors they chose were yellow and light blue. It's not a true light blue, but it is a true yellow. We're talking like yellow Ferrari yellow. I get it, my school is old, but I didn't know that schools could have a mid-life crisis. If this wasn't enough, they decided to also have portions right in the middle of wood. They stained the wood to look like red pine. I honestly want to ask the designer what he was thinking.

This is what they have done to my building. The building across from my office has been turned from a standard school building, into something that could possibly have been dreamed by Dr. Seuss. Utilizing the same sheet metal colors, they decided to add Green accents to this building. Not only that, but they decided that the building needed to look a little more new age. Gone is the nice simple rectangular shape. Granted its not very imaginative, but this is an elementary school, not architecture school.

I was not asked about how the school should look, and honestly, while I think it looks bad, I'll deal with it. What I am not happy about however is the way that the work was done on my school. They are still not finished with my building. We are three weeks into the new semester and they are still working on my building. My office has no windows, just a plastic sheet. Luckily they are almost finished, but the time management by the company was poorly planned. They had five weeks where there were no major classes besides my English summer school. We were in a separate building and only had class for three weeks. What aggravates me the most is that they knew they were not going to have the building opposite my building done before school started. They brought in the Korean version of portable classrooms. They made classrooms out of cargo containers.

This is standard practice in Korea. They brought in enough container classrooms so that they didn't have to have the building done in time. What is problematic, is that they knew this, yet still chose to keep 1/3 of the work force working on the building that didn't have to hold classes until the start of the next school year in March. What this means is that until just recently, we have had to deal with men on scaffolding, drilling, cutting, and making all types of racket while we teach. This makes teaching English quite difficult because I already have to fight for my students attention. Needless to say I've had to remind them several times that class is not outside the window, but in front of them. They could have easily finished everything by the first week of school if they had just assigned that 1/3 of the workforce to my building. Yet, instead they chose to have nap time for 1 hour every day, and work on both buildings at the same time. If a company ran a contract like this back home there would have been major repercussions.

The worst part of all of this has been dealing with the noise pollution that construction creates. I have not had a class in three weeks where I have not had to pause and wait for someone to finish cutting, drilling, or yelling at another person. It makes the whole thing a challenge at times. Yes, its something that I have to deal with and there is nothing that I can do about it. Well I can complain to all of you and show you some pictures of what they have done to my school.