Funny Korean Rules and Habits.

A list with pictures of Funny Korean Rules and habits. Don't ask me why they have these but they do.

1. You cannot wear outside shoes indoors. If there is a major event at my school, people are expected to either A, bring their own indoor shoes, B walk with no shoes on, or C wear plastic bags over their shoes. Yes, plastic bags. It's rather ridiculous and looks like this only more ridiculous because you are INSIDE. The last time I had to wear something over my shoes I was walking around the Winter Palace in St. Petersberg. There I can understand, but to walk into a gym. Come on.

2. Separating out your trash. Now I understand the need to separate your recyclables from your trash. I also understand that some people separate a lot more out of their trash for recycling. My father is one of those people. We recycle more then the average household. However, separating out your liquid trash from your non-liquid trash is a little weird. I mean, in the states you just dump your excess liquids in the trash. Yeah, for anyone who has ever worked in the food service industry that trash is disgusting, but still. They designed a separate receptacle for liquid trash. They also have separate trash cans if and or when, you can find public trash cans, they often look like this. Most the times they don't have pictures either.

3. Sleeve protectors. These things are pretty great. I even understand their usefulness. However, you cannot truly take anyone serious who is wearing these things in bright pink with little animals for the design. It's just not possible. I try so hard not to laugh, but I end up ultimately failing. At least their sleeves are clean, no considering the biggest problem presented by eating with chopsticks is dropping stuff on your shirt, they need to issue bibs like these. That would be epic.

4. The Soju Tour. Now, anyone who has worked as a teacher in Korea, or just simply worked in Korea and went to dinner with your Korean boss knows what I'm talking about. Koreans love to have dinners at restaurants where the entire school goes to dinner. At these dinners, it is expected that at some point you make rounds with a bottle of Soju. Soju for those of you who don't know, is the Korean National Alcohol. It's a lot like Sake, only nowhere near as good. This stuff taste's like watered down Vodka, and has the punch of, well watered down Vodka. While you're doing this tour, it is required that you go have at least one shot with your boss. The problem is, if you have 50 teachers, and every teacher is doing a Soju tour then the boss has at least 50 shots of Soju. Anyone seeing the problem yet? They way they mitigate this issue is by pouring partial shots. Often times they will lift their glass after 1/4 pour indicating that you should stop there. Now, when you do this, they keep right on pouring. This tour, and those unfortunate foreigners who have been forced to go upon it know that this is the easiest way to drink two bottles of Soju in thirty minutes ever. You just do shot, after shot, after shot. Luckily people might let you get away by doing this tour with beer. In that case it's a lot of fun, however that doesn't stop the people from walking around with Soju stopping at you and making you do a shot. Remember, it's rude to say no.

5. The Drunken Support System. This goes out to all the Koreans, who, instead of drunk driving, go drunk walking. While this is a far safer then the other option, it does lead to some hilarity. Koreans to help reduce the chances of an accident have decided that when engaging upon these walks, the buddy system works best. Why should one drunk person walk alone. They get at least two other really drunk people to join them. Interlinked arms are the trademark of this support system. What is better then one person stumbling and weaving? I know, three people stumbling and weaving together. This way they can effectively block the entire sidewalk. The people also tend to be very loud and uncoordinated due to a probable consumption of two or three bottles of Soju.

Kids protesting?

Why are the kids protesting I thought. I mean they're walking around the hallways with signs chanting. The chants all sound the same in Korean and it's nearly impossible for me to decipher any difference. The students keep walking, keep chanting. What the hell is going on I ponder. I keep wondering when the Korean teachers will put an end to this incessant noise. Normally anything like this happens and they are all over the students. Why aren't the doing anything? Seriously, I mean this is really starting to get annoying. It's like attending a pep rally all over again.

That's when it hits me, the students aren't protesting. They are campaigning. I walk to the hallway and see several groups of students wearing sashes and carrying signs chanting the name of their friend. The make sure they stop in front of every classroom and chant for a few moments. Tactfully they hold their signs in the windows so all the students not in the halls can see who they should vote for. They walk down to the next classroom, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. "This is going to be one long ass week," I mutter to myself. My co-teacher looks at me, "It's time for class." The halls clear, blessed silence returns to my school. No more chanting, no more screaming, no more slogans.

We enter the class, the students say hello. They always say hello, like they're still surprised I'm real. It's been six months, you'd think they would expect to see me once a week. Class starts, and the lesson runs. Class runs late, it always does so its no big deal. In the hall the chanting starts, the signs appear. We're almost done and the signs are outside the window, imploring the students to vote for them. It's almost enough to make a grown man cry. This is only the first class of the day, and already the noise and signs are annoying me. Four more days of this, "how the hell am I going to make it?" The clock runs out, the halls clear, and classes resume. Silence creeps through the halls, daring any to break it.

The day wanes down, and the chanting continues. Throughout the halls the students are talking. "Did you see who is running?" "Who will you vote for?" "Why are you voting for her?" All said in a foreign tongue that is hard to understand. The students leave and I'm left to my own devices for hours on end. Thankfully, the school is quiet. Resting for the rest of the day, because tomorrow will be rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

It's Friday now. The elections have ended, and my brain is so sick of campaigning I'm having dreams about Bush the Elder saying "Read My Lips." Clinton is in the corner swearing he couldn't inhale. Bullshit. You couldn't inhale and cigars.....wait, I digress. The election is over, peace has returned. "That was fun." I mutter to myself. Thankfully it only happens once a year.

Rediscovering your past.

Have you ever needed a cheap trip down memory lane. How about a reminder of all the things that make you feel like your childhood is still a tangible and living thing. Sadly, as we enter our rush to grow up, which honestly seems like an eternity we tend to forget everything that we loved from our younger days. I was reminded of that today when I noticed my co-teacher watching an Animaniacs video. Now for those of you who may be of an older generation, Animaniacs was a cartoon series that I watched religiously in my later elementary school days.

The show revolved around three main characters: Yakko(middle), Wakko(right), and Dot(left). The show was relatively crazy, yet at the same time would do spats of educational material. Yet, just by watching five minutes from this show I was sent back to a time where I was young and free. The world lay at my feet and I could do anything in the world. Granted at that time I was still actively considering a career as a jet pilot (thanks Top Gun), baseball superstar (I wanted to be Rickey Henderson), or life as a Rockstar (damn you Poison, Whitesnake, and Bon Jovi). Yet, even now I look back at life, and I wonder, how could things have turned out differently? How could things be worse, how could they be better? What if I had gone left instead of right? What if I had gone down instead of up? It's amazing to think that a simple show, which brought so much laughter and happiness in life at such a young age, can now bring so much reflection.

How often have you watched the things from your childhood? They make me smile every time as I remember the feelings that are associated with being a child. Could my life have been different, of course. Do I want it to be different, no. I love where I am, I love what I am doing. As I type now I have a smile on my face and I wonder, who else loved the cartoons of their childhood? Perhaps some day when I am old and gray, and probably on my way to the comfortable room where the walls are padded you'll hear me singing at the top of my lungs
"It's time for Animaniacs
And we're zany to the max
So just sit back and relax
You'll laugh 'til you collapse"
We're Animaniacs!"

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

It's official. Vacation is over. I am sad. After more then two months of vacation its time to go back to work. Well, ok, it wasn't entirely vacation time. I did work for about a month of this time, but it was primarily half days or a voluntary camp. Now those of you that know me, know that I am a person who loves his down time. Yet, downtime for me is a time to sit back and relax, not to go tracing around the planet. While I do love tracing around the planet, that is not what I consider down time. Down time to me, is time that you spend by yourself, or in the company of one or two good friends, and you basically do nothing. You sit around, you joke, you re-energize your life. One month of downtime is way to much for me. Hence, I am quite glad to be back at it, the daily grind of life here in Korea.

School has started, and I couldn't be happier about it. I love working in the classroom. Korea, the United States, I absolutely love the dynamics that come about working in the classroom. The teacher student interaction the dynacism that can be found located throughout the school, and most importantly, it keeps me busy from 8:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon. This means I have something to do Monday through Friday now. I have to get dressed in the morning now, I don't get to slum around all day. I know, I know. I sit here today and I get to look forward to months upon months of work, and sadly couldn't be happier about it. I feel ready to go, ready to get back to work, ready to continually destroy these wonderful students with my American Awesomeness. That's right, beware you'll go blind from the sheer power of my Englishee Awesomeness. Crap, Konglish is slipping into my speech again. Alas, I'm off to continue my fantasy baseball draft, as it seems there is no need for an English Teacher on the first day of school.

Jet lag, we don't have no stinkin Jet Lag.

I find myself tonight watching hi-def television, drinking Red Trolley Ale, watching No Reservations, and completely full from the carne asada quesadilla. Did I die and go to my version of heaven, no. Did I somehow inherit twenty million pounds from my great dead Aunt in Africa, no. Although I have to say I keep getting e-mails claiming this. What did I do, well I hopped on two planes to LA and then got a ride to San Diego. That's right folks, I'm in the states, and not only in the states, but possibly in my favorite city in the states. Here I find myself recharging after 6 months of being abroad. Here in this place that I called home for so long. It's strange, I feel like I never left, and at the same time feel like I have been gone forever. Why, might you ask did I venture all this way? Well in a single word, marriage. No not my own, a good friend's. I get to watch as he takes the plunge on Sunday, then the next day, and I'm terribly afraid I'll be very hung over, board a plane back to Korea.

After arriving in to LAX and waiting for my ride to remember which parking structure she parked in, I arrived in San Diego. What did I proceed to do, well eat of course. Followed by some old fashioned jet lagged watching of the television and visiting with friends. That was followed up by spending the day at my old Junior High where I subbed for two years. I spent the day there talking to world history students, and visiting and chatting with some of my favorite teachers. I guess if I was to be completely honest I would have to say that these people are my mentors also. From each of them I gathered information on how to run a classroom, how to enjoy the art of teaching, and how to terrify students by being intimidating. I have learned so much from these people, and I can only hope that I become as good of a teacher as they are.

I followed up my day at the school by visiting my grandparents for a little while. It was good to see them. After spending some time talking with my grandparents I proceeded to go back to where I'm staying and catch up on some sleep. Saturday was to be a busy day and I knew that I would need some sleep. Sure enough I was correct. After purchasing several items which will be needed in Korea, I went off to visit my good friends Brian and Audrey. There we had an epic night of indulgence. The night started off with Brian's homebrew stout. Followed by an epic stout which has possibly been the best beer I've had in a few years. It beats speedway stout into the ground. This was then followed by quite simply the best steak I have had in my life. Plain and simple, no chance of even comparing these, it was the best steak of my life. We followed that up, if possible by drinking heavily and smoking a cigar. I have to say that I am sated now, and will give this much to Brian. Goulet sir, Goulet.

Today I head off for Jon's wedding. I don't quite know how I feel about this. I have known Jon forever and a day it seems like. It is just so weird to think of him as getting married. I guess this makes me the last man standing out of the fearsome foursome that emerged from High School. I am the only one who has not been married. Do I get a prize for that? Alas it seems like this weekend will forever go down in history for its whirlwind nature, epic food and drink, and excellent friends. It reminds me why I love San Diego, and how much I miss it. It also reminds me of how much I have in Korea, and why I love it there. Is there a comparision between the two? No. They are both special to my heart in many ways. I am looking forward to being back in Korea, but I know that I will miss my friends, my mentors, and everything that has made me love living in San Diego so much.

The Hiatus.

Well my dear friends, I have returned to my blog. I feel almost bad when I realize that I have left many of you hanging about my life. Well the time has come fore me to resume my duties. The appropriate question to ask at this point would probably be, "Will just what have you done these past three weeks?" Well, I've been working a lot. Ok, so maybe that is an insane oversimplification but in reality it is what I've done primarily the past three weeks.

The primary means of work that I've been engaged in during the past two weeks was an epic, yet exhausting Winter English Camp. This camp, was far more fun, and far more work then I ever expected. It was definitely worth the time and effort I had to put into it. It was also probably worth the new pair of glasses it cost me, to go along with the sprained ankle and black eye. Those two stories do fall under the realm of embarrassing and I know that I cannot get away without telling them.

The sprained ankle story is quite simple really. I was being a gentlemen, albeit a little drunk gentlemen and walking one of my co-teachers back from a camp dinner to her apartment. On my way back to the camp festivities I was walking down a dark road here in Seosan and thought the pavement was about six inches higher then it truly was. Needless to say I rolled my ankle pretty good, and well more or less sprained the thing. It got all nice and swollen and I had a few spots that turned the color of purple on me. Fun Fun huh.

Now the black eye, that story is far more hilarious, and happened a simple twelve hours after trying to break my ankle while walking. Our camp went to this local sledding place on a field trip. Now I had managed to avoid going down the ice hill for most the time we were there, but the kids, and my fellow co-teachers *coughs* Brenden, David, and Henry decided that we must go down the hill. This turned out to be a bad idea for me. The retaining wall was a mere 100 feet past the base of a hill that was pure ice, not snow. Needless to say when a guy my size gets going down this thing he gets some major momentum by the time he finds the bottom of the hill. What made the speed even worse was that I was going to hit the padded retaining wall shoulder first. Now this wall had some nice padding, if you are an 80 pound kid. When you weigh 245 and are hurtling sideways at this thing, you start to consider your options. My options were to hit the wall and screw up my back, or bail. I chose to bail. As I bailed, Brenden tells this story far better, I hit the ice pretty hard with my head. According to the eye witness reports apparently I rolled three times, nearly took out one of the workers there, and then got run over by David. During this process I managed to bend my glasses and knock out a lens. I put the lens back in but could not get the bend out of the frame. Hello new glasses.

The camp was a success though, even with lots of confusion and tireless hours. I did fulfill one of my goals during my camp. I ate live wriggling octopus. It was pretty good. Very chewy, but pretty good. Now that I've scratched that weird food off my list I can move onto the dog meat. Old Yeller here I come, anybody have any BBQ sauce? I just started my Winter camp at my school, and I'm doing a butt kicking job at teaching phonics to six students. Boo to the Yah!

In other news, the Lunar New Year has come and gone in Korea. Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday of the year in Korea, and I must say that we partied like it. The weekend started off great with me meeting a new friend named Jin Sook. She is 27 and a English teacher at a hagwon here in Seosan. We met last Saturday at one of my favorite bars. Thankfully I did meet her on Saturday, because on Monday I really needed her help.

As Drew and I are wandering into downtown for our festivities to begin, I stopped by one of the local ATM's to get out the cash I will need for the night. Well, as soon as I put my card in the machine, the machine cycles off, and then re-starts. It doesn't give me my card back. My recruiter, Ryan, was busy with a family dinner and could not get away for at least and hour. Much to my surprise, Jin Sook messages me asking what I'm up to. Completely embarrassed, I tell her that I am camped outside and ATM to make sure that my card doesn't get spit out by the machine. She volunteers to come to the ATM and helps me contact security to get my card back. What I found really funny, was that when I tried calling on the help phone inside the ATM, nobody would answer. Yet, as soon as she dialed, someone picked up and they sent someone over. Damn my lack of Korean camoflauge. Well, after all that fun/freaking out about my ATM card, we met up with my friends and partied until 8 in the morning.

Soalal, or Lunar New Years was a pretty epic party, and if I am here for it again I'm quite sure it will be fun. Other then that it's been life at the grindstone. Working for the man just to get my money. Well, can you really call it a grindstone if I really love the job? Next stop in my journey, San Diego surprising enough. John Malkin is getting married and my ass is going to spend 36 hours travelling to make sure that I see it. I can't wait man. I will be in San Diego for a few days, and if you want to see me, you're going to have to get in line. I'm going to be really busy, I'm thinking we might have to just have a get together on Friday or Saturday night so that everyone can have access to the man. I will hopefully see some of you, if not all of you during my stay in SD.

Here is a list of the photos and what they are:

1. camp students doing morning exercises
2. camp dinner
3. the hill of pain
4. the aftermath
5. me eating live octopus
6. Julie being MC Julie, my favorite bartender in Seosan.

Happy New Years (long post)

I know it's a little late but Happy New Years to all of you my devout and loyal readership. For those of you who are still reading this blog, and I can't really understand why you would be here are some highlights of the past year for me.

1. D.C. Trip: It's sad I know that chaperoning a group of 40 eight grade students across the country to D.C., Philly, and N.Y.C. would seem like a highlight. Well, actually it was absolutely a great time. For the history goober in me I was allowed to see several things that I thought I might not be able too. It was also a great way to realize that I was very appreciated for the hard work and time I spent at my Middle School.

2. Korea: Honestly I cannot say enough about the experience this has been so far. I've received several compliments from my time here in Korea, but by far I think the best one has been that I am a lot of peoples favorite foreigner. It's weird to think that I'm actually somewhat popular out here, and far weirder then that I'm popular with the ladies too. I guess delusion does have some positives after all.

3. My friends: Honestly I miss all you. Then again, I do have some great friends here in Korea. I even managed to drag a few with me from San Diego. My friends here in Korea, and my friends at home it has honestly been a highlight this year. Who will ever forget Jordan's epic vitriol at my going away party.

4. Teaching: I have to say I absolutely love my job. Be it teaching English, or teaching History. I truly have found my passion in teaching.

5. Getting paid to travel: Now everyone knows my absolute love of traveling. Let me tell you it's even better when you're getting paid to do it. I think that when my time is done here in Korea that I will have had an experience that will last me my entire life.

Ok, now that I'm done with my musings on the past year, let's get down to the real reason you all are here. I have to say that the past two weeks have been pretty awesome. I have been on Vacation since Christmas, and also basically found out that besides the English camps, I'm basically on vacation till March. I have a couple of weeks of work in this time, but nothing major. Now anyone who has ever worked in Education knows that the first week of any vacation is basically rest time. I don't know what it is about kids but after working with them for six months you need a week of sleeping and resting to be able to enjoy your vacation. Well, that's how my vacation started.

It was followed by a weekend trip down to Busan. Busan is the second largest city in South Korea. It's also the second most important because of the port. Busan's port is the 5th busiest container port in the world. Busan has several things to do, and to see. By far the biggest two tourist attractions are Bemosa Temple, and the U.N. Cemetery. Bemosa is an absolutely beautiful temple. It is nestled in the hills above the outskirts of Busan, and is a place of serenity and beauty. As we wandered about the buildings and prayer halls of the temple, I found my self thinking again that I wish I understood more about Buddhism so I could understand the temple's images and icons better.

We followed up Bemosa Temple by another place of serenity and beauty. However, it is only serene and beautiful in the way that a military cemetery can be. The U.N. Cemetery was truly a moving experience. Most Americans understand nothing about Korea. They don't know why there was a war, and even if they know why, most do not understand the sheer brutality of it. Americans see Korea as just another intervention. Most think it was no bigger the Grenada or Panama. The simple truth that is America sent 1.6 million soldiers to Korea, and we lost over 36,000 of them in that country. That doesn't even include the wounded. America's contribution is more then every other UN nation combined, except for Korea. South Korea had 250,000 soldiers killed, and lord knows how many civilians. The Korean War is the seminal piece of modern Korean history. Yet nobody knows about it.

I apologise for the diatribe. As Brenden, Carissa, and I walked into the cemetery, we were immediately asked by the South Korean Military Guard where we were from. After responding that we were American the guard quickly snapped off a salute and thanked us. This was not the only time this happened. I think the most moving, was the old groundskeeper who asked us the same question. The man spoke no English, but in Korean I told him that we were American's. The old man, who was probably a veteran from Korea saluted us, and then offered a prayer of thanks. It's weird being thanked for something that you had nothing to do with. Honestly it is also very moving. The starkest part of the Cemetery was The Wall of Rememberance. This was is engraved with the name of every foreign soldier who died in Korea. No Koreans are on this wall, only foreigners, of which, the majority are American.

Side note, the bathroom at the Cemetery is the best bathroom I've seen in Korea, and honestly one of the best bathrooms I've ever been in abroad. After the very moving, but heavy experience of the Cemetery the three of us descended upon Lotte Department store for Lunch. That was an experience let me tell you. The department store, or a better word for it would be massive mall, had a replica fountain of Trevii outside it. When I say replica, I mean it was a full size replica. I laughed a little, I cried a little, I may have even peed a little. Here is the wonderful piece of Italian Art and History, in Busan Korea, with a shoe stand in front of it. It was tragic, if it wasn't so funny. The department store however was impressive. Inside this store were all the super expensive brand names. Koreans love their fashion, and spend the money for it too. They think that I am lucky because I spend twenty bucks on a pair of pants. The would willingly spend 100 dollars on the same pair.

The morning we left Busan we headed over to Haeundae Beach first. This beach is the most famous beach in Korea. Being from San Diego I have an appreciation for nice beaches, and this was one of them. I won't go into the misleading information in my guide book that said something about Bacon and Eggs being served at a bakery there, but the beach was awesome. What was not as awesome was the KTX adventure getting home. Well first let me say the KTX is a high speed rail that makes traveling from Seoul to Busan a three hour Journey. On our way down to Busan, Brenden, Carissa, and I happened to get on the wrong KTX train. Our train was three minutes after this train. Luckilly both went to Busan, so at the next stop we got off and boarded our train. On the way back the KTX was sold out, so we bought standing room only tickets.

Needless to say this post has been really long. Hopefully it has been fun, but it has been really long. A Happy New Years to you all.