Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt

안녕히계세요 - Good bye

2008-08-13T19:34:00.005+09:00

Well, in two days we will be in the airplane on our way to Canada. It's difficult to believe. These last few days have been filled with many different emotions. I'm really sad to say good-bye to so many people. I like to think of it as a 'see you later.' But I will be really happy to be in Canada again and to see everyone that I miss. I'm curious about what things will be different. Mark and I wrote a bit of a reflection on our year in Korea that we read in our church and also here in the devotion time at Connexus/KAC and as we were doing it was hard for me to think about what things in Korea are different from things back home. Everything has begun to seem so normal...so yeah, I'm curious about what things I will notice in Canada that I have forgotten about or things that have changed.

Anyway, last weekend was a full fun weekend. On Friday we went to a Noreabang (singing room) one last time. On Saturday we went to the beach and ate lots of shell fish for lunch and for supper.
Many people at the beach...

On Sunday we said good-bye to many of the people at our church and afterwards played/watched a soccer game. I watched, Mark played with a group of Connexus students. It was a crazy hot and humid day but I think everyone still enjoyed it. So, time to say a few more goodbyes.
I'm looking forward to seeing you! Thanks for reading. :)

one more post

2008-08-08T10:44:00.005+09:00

Well I just finished my last class. I moved out of my desk so the new teacher could move into it. We have moved furniture out of our apartment so we are living out of bags again. Its the end. As with most people who take up blogging when they spend some time abroad, their blogging starts to decline the longer they are abroad until of course it is time to go home. So here is one of my last posts from Korea, probably my last one.
We went on a trip to Jeju last week. It was our second week of vacation this year and we decided to stay in Korea and go to a small island south of the main land. It was good. Here are a few pictures from it.

This is the resort area, we didnt stay here, we just went there to crash on their beach. It ok, but the lifeguards wouldnt let us swim out of the roped area, so it was a little boring.

This is the Jurassic Park beach. Nobody was there, so it was really beautiful. Sand, with volcanic cliffs in the background. Actually all week we were there I felt like if I would turn around I would be face to face with a raptor (this being because Jeju is a volcanic island so it is really lush with vegetation since there are a lot of nutrients from the black volcanic rock that is everywhere). In any case, i want to watch Jurassic Park again.

These are the squid boats that go out every night and attract squid by pretending to be the moon. There were hundreds of them at night, interesting to see.

Waterfalls.

Different waterfalls.

Eating noodles on the way up Halla mountain.

Us at the top of the mountain, thats right, its the highest part in south korea (I have now been to the highest point in two countries; South Korea and Great Britain, i feel special). It is rarely free from clouds since it is a big volcanic crater so the clouds get trapped there. We got to see the crater lake for about 2 seconds when some of the clouds blew away, but basically it was cloudy.

This is a black sand beach which was incredibly hot but supposedly it is good for the body, therapeutic they say. A really nice beach though.
This is the bathroom of our Minbak, kinda like a really cheap motel. It was a little dirty but it was really cheap. The man was a little crazy. He patted my bottom every time I saw him, and one time he thought my fly was open so he made sure it wasn't by trying to put his finger through my closed fly. A nice guy though. My students have told me that a grandpa usually pats their grandchildrens bottoms, i guess its endearing.
These are the volcanic stone statues found all around the island. They are called Harubang, kinda like the statues on Easter Island.

Well thats about it. Whenever my students find out I am leaving they are always shocked and ask me how I feel. I then teach them the phrase, its bitter sweet, explaining I am excited to see friends and family but said to leave our friends here. Rather typical response, I know, but its true. I feel like I always go through the typical emotions when I have lived abroad. Excitement, followed by a slight sadness or homesickness in the 5th or 6th month, followed by the homestretch where every thing is fun because you have finally established meaningful relationships and gotten into a healthy routine. In any case, it is sad to say goodbye, but some of our friends and students claim they will come visit us in the next few years. Here's hoping. We are excited to see you all in Canada! See you in a week.

Some Pictures from the last month

2008-07-14T13:12:00.005+09:00

It's been a while since I've done anything on here so I thought it was time. I've become lazy with writing so I'm just going to tell you about some pictures.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons Connexus offers intensive English classes. This was one of those classes and it was really fun one. I taught them speaking, Mark taught them listening, and Marvin taught them writing.
At the end of June our church went on a retreat to a beautiful place in the mountains.
We enjoyed swimming in the little river that was near by. The kids were all really cold and got my towel nice and wet. :)

At the beginning of July both of the Connexus receptionists left. Here we are at a good-bye meal for them. Hee-jung, second from the right was our morning receptionist. I'm sad she is gone.
A couple of Fridays ago Mark and I went to a baseball game with one of my classes. The fans were so in to it and there was so much music and so many cheers that it made it really exciting. There were also these cheerleaders who did cheers on this platform a lot of the time.

They also handed out sparklers to us at one point. It was great fun.
You might have heard in the news that there have been lots of candle demonstrations or protests happening in Korea for the last two months. It is kind of a complicated issue but pretty much many people are really upset with the new president Myeong-bak Lee because they feel he is not listening to the people. Mark and I along with Heather, Joel and Kwang-kyu went to see what was happening a few Saturdays ago. I couldn't believe how many people there were!

Last week Cheryl had her last day with Connexus/KAC so we took a good-bye group picture.

This past weekend a bunch of the teachers went to Chuncheon for part of the weekend. We have friends living there and one of our co-workers lives there as well. Some people went on a hike and here we are at the end of the hike. It was a beautiful place and nice and cool. Lately it has been so hot and humid so it was nice to escape that.
With Ana and Will:
I thought it was odd to have a T.V. with the plants...hmm...
Yesterday I went to Suwon which is just outside of Seoul. A friend (who was also my student)Boerum invited me and Alice, who is a new teacher at Connexus, to go there. Here we are at the Suwon Fortress.

Then we rode this little train around the fortress. It took us to the top of a hill and we thought it would take us back but apparently it was a one way ticket so we had to get a taxi to get back to our car. Not the best train I've ever been on.
At the fortress we tried to do the Korean archery. I was not doing so well so the leader helped me out.
After the fortress we went to a Jim-jil-bong which is a Korean sauna. Everyone is given these matching clothes and there are a number of different sauna's you can be in. My favorite one was the one full of little clay pebbles and you lie out on them. So relaxing. We also tried "doctor fish" which is kind of a foot treatment. The little fish bite off your dead skin...kind of disgusting and it's so ticklish!

Well, that's all for the pictures.

I can't believe Mark and I are going to be in Canada in less that 5 weeks! We're really looking forward to being home again and seeing everyone. We are also a little sad to leave because things are going well here. In two weeks we have a week off and we are going to Jeju Island. We're really excited. It's a really small Korean island just south of the Korean peninsula. We plan to spend a lot of time at the different beaches, hike some mountains and explore whatever else there is to see.

I hope you are well where ever you are.

Beautiful Samchuk

2008-06-16T22:16:00.004+09:00

Two weekends ago we had a long weekend in Korea so Mark and I with our friend Kwang-kyu took a trip to Samchuk, a city on the east coast. We enjoyed relaxing on the beach, visiting one of the largest caves in Asia, as well as an interesting park.

Here are some pictures from the trip:
This first one is of the walk to the cave entrance. The cave is called Hwanseon Donggul. Here we are inside...I couldn't get over how big it all was.
It was cool to see the different limestones and other rocks. Too bad I don't remember very much from my Earth Science class.
We were sorry we didn't meet any bats. I think Mark was a bit more sorry than I was.
If you look closely in this last cave picture you might be able to find what looks like the virgin Mary. It's really small standing above the whitest part in the picture...
View of the ocean from an interesting park.

Then we went to the beach, which, I don't understand, was almost empty! It was such a beautiful hot day. I love the ocean!

San-Nak-Chee

2008-06-05T16:58:00.003+09:00

Last night after we finished teaching we went out to try a new dish called san-nak-chee. It's raw octopus (fresh out of the tank) cut up and then put on a plate. When it's brought to the table it's still moving! It looks crazy! I think it still moves because the nerves are still alive. When we picked up a piece with our chopsticks the tentacles stuck to the chopsticks...the tentacles also got stuck to the inside of our mouths. That was an interesting feeling. So then you just chew and chew and chew. I heard that a person died from eating san-nak-chee because it was a really long piece and the person suffocated because it stuck to the person's throat...something like that. We only ate small pieces so there was no risk but I still chewed a lot just to kill all of the nerves. Yummy! Well not actually but it wasn't bad.

Korea vs. Jordan

2008-06-03T22:14:00.003+09:00

On Saturday we had the pleasure of going to a soccer game at the World Cup Stadium in Seoul along with two Connexus students. I love being in a stadium. I haven't experienced it very often so every time it's kind of exciting. The first half was really good and Korea's best player Ji-Sung Park scored two goals. The second half was a bit disapointing with Jordan scoring two goals....oh well. We still had a good time...a highlight was a wave going around the stadium three times! Yes, three times!
On our way home Mark got stopped by a man who wanted to interview him about the game. Maybe he will be famous...
...side note...I think my English is getting worse....after teaching it it should be better, shouldn't it? But I seem to have gotten into a habit of simplifying my speech too much that it now sounds bad...this is not good.

I'm a bump-a-dump-a-dump-bump

2008-05-29T22:54:00.003+09:00

When I was a child I really liked a Fred Penner song called "The Bump." My parents even recorded me singing it. A month ago this song came back to me while we were in Gyeongju. Maybe I wrote a few posts ago how we visited a park with many ancient tombs there. Well, the tombs looked like this: (see picture)...every time I saw one this song came in my head. It brings me back. "I'm a bump-a-dump-a-dump-bump in the middle of the prairie. The land around is flat flat flat..." and I forgot the last part...too bad.

Retreat at Sobaeksan

2008-05-19T11:34:00.005+09:00

Last weekend (well I guess it was two weekends ago) the Mennonite Church Canada Witness workers in Korea went on a retreat together. A MC Canada Witness worker from the Philippines also joined us as the guest speaker. It was a really good 4 days with lots of relaxing, discussing, watching movies and some sightseeing.

Here we are visiting the first Confucianist school in Korea. Confucianism is kind of confusing to explain (hence the name) so I'll leave it up to you to research it if you want to know more.
This was one of the classrooms. There were indoor ones as well but I guess on nice days they got to study here. I wish Connexus could get classrooms like this.
Mark got tired of walking. I can't quite explain my actions here, maybe I was standing like that in case he would fall...
Right by the school (I should say it is not used anymore, just a touristy place) was a traditional village with many houses like this. Here is the group together.

We stayed at one of our co-workers host parents country house. It was in a small farming village in the mountains. It was such a beautiful area! We spent a lot of time hanging out in this room.
Here is the outside of the house.
One of the days we went to a riverside beach. Since it's been a dry spring the river was almost nonexistent. You can see a tiny stream in the background. We enjoyed the space to throw a frisbee around. We're playing jackpot in this picture. If you look closely you can see Mark in the red shirt getting the disc right in front of me. I kind of suck at this game.
Still at the beach just enjoying the sun.
After the beach we went to a market to get some more food. Here are some random shots of the market. We see these kind of things a lot...I can't remember if I've posted pictures like this before.

I think these containers are filled with different side dishes like vegetables and fish...maybe some kimchi in there as well.
Here is some dried fish...a lot of it is squid...still not my favorite.
more vegetables:

On Monday was Buddha's birthday. It is a national holiday in Korea and I don't know very much about it. All I know is that lots of lanterns are hung up everywhere, around temples and along streets in towns and cities. They're really pretty at night when they're lit up. So on Buddha's birthday we visited Boseoksa Temple.

We had to climb up a hill to get to it and from the top the view was beautiful!
The last night we went out for some barbecued duck. It was tasty.
As we drove around the area we passed many rice fields as well as ginseng fields. Here is a picture of a ginseng field which is grown in shade.
On Tuesday night we got back to Seoul (Connexus was closed on Tuesday) we were so tired and all craved hamburgers so we went to T.G.I.Fridays. It is an american chain I believe, kind of like Applebees. So most of us ordered hamburgers and after waiting for about 10 minutes the manager came and told us that they only had two hamburger buns left! Can you believe it! It was disapointing but we moved on and still had a good time.

Visitors

2008-05-14T21:01:00.003+09:00

Mark and I were so happy to greet our very first visitors in Korea! Mark's parents and brother Jeff arrived in Korea at the end of April. We were so happy to have them here and to show them a bit of our world. Their hotel was pretty close to both our apartment as well as to Connexus so for the few days that we had to work while they were here it was nice that we could still stop in either before work or after work.

Their first full day here (Saturday, April 26) we spent a lot of the day walking and walking. We saw a few major touristy spots and were so tired of walking so we took a city bus tour. Not the most exciting tour I've ever taken but at least we got to sit for a bit. Also that first day we managed to get ourselves a little lost on the subway. After taking the subway for 8 months we get the most confused while having visitors...opps...

The next day we introduced them to our small church community and then went to tour Gyeongbokgong which is the most famous palace in Seoul. Mark and I had been here before (see post Sept.10) but it was nice to be back since I had forgotten most of what I had learned about it and it was such a beautiful day.
After that weekend Mark and I had to go back to work so during the day the Wiehlers had the chance to explore a bit on their own as well as see Connexus and KAC.

On Friday (we had the day off of work!) the five of us took the 4 and a half hour bus ride to Gyeongju which is in the south eastern corner of Korea. Gyeongju is a really traditional city in Korea which used to be the capital of the Silla Dynasty. It has a lot of the traditional Korean buildings and has a very different feeling than Seoul. Our hotel was not right in Gyeongju but in the mountains near a famous Buddhist temple, Bulguksa. We had a beautiful view from our hotel window and we really enjoyed the area.

Here we are at Bulguksa. These little boys were getting their pictures taken and I guess Mark and Jeff were in the background. When they tried to get out of the way of the picture their mom waved for them to get in the picture so here they are.

Here we are in front of the temple. I like my new umbrella. :) After the temple we were looking for a place to eat and it was really strange because it kind of felt like we had entered a ghost town. We were walking through these streets of restaurants and youth hostels and there were no people! I think this was a first for us in Korea. I tried to ask the woman in the restaurant where all the people were and she answered "tomorrow" so I guess all of the people come on the weekends. Who knows.

The next day we took the bus to the ocean to hang out on the beach and to see the famous sea tomb of King Munmu. I was not the nicest beach...it had a lot of rocks and garbage but despite that it was nice to sit by the water for a while and watch the water.

After coming back from the ocean we went on a hike to see a famous Buddha statue on the top of the hill by the temple. It was a bit more tiring when we thought but the walk was really beautiful. Here we are on our way down.
Every night (and maybe some mornings) some of us played Settlers together.
Our last day in Gyeongju we explored some of the city of Gyeongju which began at this park which had a lot of ancient tombs. The tombs were big hills which you can see in the background of this picture. Usually tombs are not this big but since the people were of royalty they got big hills. (This picture is dedicated to Aiden (not in reference to the tombs) :))
More tombs and interesting trees.
This brings our trip to an end. It was so nice to have the Wiehlers here. Jeff is actually still in Korea and also stayed with us for a few days after mom and dad left. He is volunteering on an organic farm these days. We look forward to seeing him again in a couple of weeks.

2008-05-06T17:04:00.002+09:00

I just thought I would share some good news with you all. Mark and I both got accepted into education programs starting in September. I'll be going to the University of Winnipeg and Mark will be at the University of Manitoba. I'm actaully kind of excited to be a student again. I say this now...who knows how long this feeling will last after I start.
I hope you are all well!

Hwa-eom-sa Temple

2008-04-23T13:40:00.010+09:00

I didn't know quite what to expect at the temple stay. All I had really heard about was the 108 bows. Here is a little overview of our stay. We arrived at the temple in the afternoon and were given our temple clothes and led to our rooms where we would sleep. Heather and I had the room on the right, the guys on the left. Our views from both doors (there was also a door in the back) were beautiful! Before getting a tour of the temple by a monk we were taught how to bow. You start at a standing position with your hands together like in the picture. Then you kneel down and put your forehead to the ground and kind of raise your hands up and down right beside your head, then you get up again to your feet. That is one. Usually when a Buddhist enters a temple they do three of these (from what I remember learning).
Here we are on our tour of the place. Our monk was really funny but also very difficult to understand. Maybe I understood 30% of what he said, the rest of the time I just nodded and laughed when he did. When monks walk around the temple they usually hold their hands like we are holding them (we were also taught this). I guess I had forgotten and liked the pockets a bit more.
Here is the inside of the biggest temple. This is where we attended the "worship services" that Mark wrote about a few posts before. This is also where we did our 108 bows at 3:30 in the morning. (yes, it was painful to walk for days) Notice the woman in the background taking our picture...Mark also wrote about this in the post. It felt really strange to have so many people staring at us...crazyness. It was such a beautiful day and I couldn't get enough of the cherry blossoms.

After our tour of the temple we met this monk who is sitting behind the table. He meditated with us. We all sat for 20 minutes cross legged on the ground with our hands in our laps and just mediated. I was really tired and really struggled to stay awake...I was also thinking about my legs which were sore from sitting cross legged for so long. This monk told us how he meditated for 13 hours a day (with breaks of course) for three years straight! I can't imagine.

Later in the evening we had tea with him and had the chance to ask questions. Our friend Kwang Kyu who is sitting to the monk's left side was our great translator (he also planned the whole trip for us all :)). It was really interesting to learn more about Buddhism and about life as a monk.

At 9pm it time for bed....I can't remember the last time I went to bed this early! The reason they go to bed so early is because they get up every day at 3am! At 3:30 we attended a "worship service." All the "worship services" were really short, maybe 10 or 15 minutes. The monks and other Buddhists would sing/chant two songs and do a couple of bows in the middle of the songs and then that was it. After the early morning services most of the people left the temple but our group stayed with the monk from the night before who led us in doing the 108 bows.

Since breakfast was only at 6am most of us temple stayers went back to bed for an hour. Here is a picture of our breakfast. It was actually my first time to have a korean breakfast. This is actually not my plate (I didn't take this picture)...my plate was mostly rice and some tofu, I just couldn't handle all of that kimchi for breakfast.

After breakfast we went on a walk through the forest with our guide and at the stream we meditated again, this time only about 5 minutes. It was such a beautiful setting.
After handing back our temple clothes we took a group shot. The two women on the very right were kind of our guides who told us what to do when. They were really kind.

It was such an interesting and surreal experience. I feel like I could say a lot more about it but I'll stop there for now.

Green tea farm

2008-04-22T22:07:00.003+09:00

I've been meaning to write about our weekend to the temple and to the green tea farm so here I am. It was a pretty amazing weekend. It was nice to have a break from Seoul and be surrounded by trees and what felt like clean air. I'm going backwards here, I'm starting with the green tea farm. On Sunday after the temple, we took a couple of buses and a few hours later we arrived at the farm which was in almost the most southern part of the Korean peninsula.

This green tea farm is apparantly a big tourist attraction in Korea so there were many people there. Everything there seemed to be along the green tea theme. For lunch we had green tea samgyupsal (which is kind of like bacon). They bring it to the table raw and then we fry it on the grill at our table. Notice the green tea powder sprinkled on top. For dessert we had green tea ice cream. I would prefer chocolate but it actually wasn't bad. At most ice cream places in Seoul you can also order green tea ice cream.
It was a beautiful place. We spent the afternoon wondering through the farm.
Here is our gang hiding behind the bush.
Okay, I'll write more later. I just finished teaching for the day and Tuesday is my busiest day...so I'm tired. Time to walk home in the rain. Stay tuned for more on the temple stay.

I am Johnny Depp

2008-04-14T19:34:00.005+09:00

So this weekend we had an action packed adventure of doing a temple stay and then going to a green tea plantation in the southern part of Korea. It was a good weekend. The temple stay was at a Buddhist temple where we got to pretend to be monks for the weekend. This included meditation, tea ceremony, "worshiping" with them (I use quotation marks because it is more like paying respect to the previous teachers/buddhas as far as I understand it, and I dont completely understand it), getting up early to bow 108 times (at 3 am, and full bows from standing up to head touching the floor), getting a tour of the temple (which was gorgeous since the temple was set in the mountains with white cherry blossoms and magnolias), talking with monks and just enjoying the scenery. But more to come on this front.

Part of the experience was feeling like Johnny Depp. Having 6 foreigners walking around in temple outfits was quite the thing for many of the people who were visiting the temple. This mostly occurred when a kind older monk was giving us a tour of the temple in English. He was using his best English (and it was very good English), but to try to communicate Eastern understanding of metaphysics in a Western language which utilizes western understandings of metaphysics would be challenging enough for seasoned translators, and this is where the problem came in.

As we were trying to concentrate on the explanation of the different artifacts in the temple we would have many Koreans (both children and adults alike) see us, start whispering to there fellow travelers about waygookeen (Korean word for foreigner and i refer you to a previous post "waygookeen" which has a good link about this if your interested), perhaps a giggle would follow and then if they were brave enough they would say "Hello" or "Where are you from?" If we were standing in one place, listening to an explanation, it was not uncommon to have people come up to us, maybe about 3 feet away, and just stare at us, take a picture or two of us, stare a little more, and then they would keep walking. Little kids were perhaps the funniest with shocked and awed faces. Personally I didn't want to laugh when someone is telling you about the history of their temple, but it was difficult to keep a straight face as one little kid came up with a face out of a looney tunes cartoon with his chin dropped, eyes wide open and staring in awe for a number of minutes.

Because of a hair cutting mishap on Friday night, I ended up shaving my head before we left, not with a razor, but just a buzz (the monks razor their heads). But my hair was short enough that it was easy for one little kid to mistake me for a monk. A little kid came up in front of me and gave me a low bow. I bowed back respectfully not knowing what to do and confused as to why this kid was bowing to me and after, when he was able to see my face, he became red and unsure of what to do realizing that i wasn't a monk but a foreigner. Later I found out that temple culture is that when you see a monk, you are to bow to them and they will bow back.

It was a lot of fun and we will post more pictures and reflections on our time there, but I thought i would start with our experience of feeling like Johnny Depp. Here are a few pictures and we will post more pictures later. I really liked the white of the cherry blossoms on the green background. This is the building where we slept.

At the beginning of a "worship" session, which occurs three times a day (morning, afternoon and night), they play the drum, bell and gong. Each represents something, the skin of the drum represents animals and people and with each beat our suffering is lifted out of us. I forget what the other two things mean.

more scenery

main building in the temple where we had worship service.

views in and around our apartment and work

2008-04-09T17:11:00.008+09:00

I thought I would post some pictures of our area...since I had received some requests to do so.
This is taken on the main street that we walk down every day. Connexus is a block off of this street and our apartment is a few blocks off of the street about 20 minutes north of this picture This is Connexus' street. It is a smaller street where cars and people seem to weave around each other. Connexus is on the left somewhere in the mix of the signs.

Here we are back on the main street. This is what we meet almost every night as we walk home. The sidewalks aren't this busy all the way to our place...they empty out a bit maybe after 10 minutes of walking.

The sidewalks are lined with these vendors where many people congregate to get a bite.
Now some more views of our apartment from our housewarming party on Saturday night. Here we are playing some games. The traditional Korean games that we played needed a soft service hence the towels spread out on the floor.

This game is called hwatu. It is a traditional Korean game. Maybe it can be compared to poker. I haven't quite wrapped my mind around it yet...it's so confusing.
...but I think the cards are really cute. They are all plastic and some times they have to be thrown down on the table..why, I don't know but it looks cool. Mark knows more about it.
Here is the view from our apartment window. This tree is actaully starting to bud so I'm looking forward to being able to see a nice green tree outside our window.

This is our street. Our apartment is on the left.
Here are some more random shots in our neighborhood.

waygookeen

2008-04-08T15:30:00.002+09:00

Its rather embarrassing, but we have been here for 8 months now and our ability in Korean is alarmingly low. Its hard when we work at an English school and speak English with all our students. This leaves us with little opportunity to practice the rudimentary Korean that we do know. Even at a store, most Koreans want to practice there English and respond to our Korean with English. Oh well. We'll keep trying.
But one word we do know in Korean is "waygookeen" which means foreigner. Its funny when you dont understand 99% of what people say but you can hear the word for foreigner as you walk by a group of people. Rather than write a lot about this experience, here is a link for a person teaching English and writing a blog for Walrus magazine. He has a good blog post on this topic and looks at the experience of foreigners in Korea, which is one of the most homogeneous cultures in the world.

The Bow

2008-04-03T22:48:00.003+09:00

I still can't get quite used to all of the bowing here. The other day Mark and I were waiting for a big department store to open so we were standing in front of the doors with a group of people. We could see a number of workers in the store standing at their counter or by the door waiting to open it. Four women in matching outfits were the door openers. Suddenly some Korean came through the speakers and everyone started to bow to us and the door openers turned to bow to each other and then to us again (from what I remember) and then they opened the doors. It was quite the opening.

Today I was walking to work and I passed a group of four older women. They were wearing matching outfits. As I walked by they bowed to me and said hello in Korean. I said hello back and then they thanked me. I have no idea who these women are...random.

The other day we heard that the convenience store down the street from Connexus was handing out free ice cream so we left our work and went to get some. The guy gave us the ice cream and we gave him a Connexus pen...he bowed so low to thank us I thought he might fall over.

Anyway, just something I have been noticing lately...I find it interesting.

Don't OTL

2008-04-02T18:10:00.003+09:00

Konglish is a term used by Koreans for English words that have been adopted into Korean but are words or phrases that native English speakers don't use. While this term may not be the most politically correct term, my students use it, so I'll use it. Such examples are:

eye shopping - instead of window shopping
CC (which means campus couple) - for couples who met at university
skinship - kinda like PDA, public displays of affection
OST - are soundtracks for films (i think it means original soundtrack)
wellbeing - for the healthy, organic trend
deca (pronounced Dee Ka) - digital camera

These are just a few examples of what comes out in class. Another new thing is how texting has changed English. For example lol is now commonly used to express; lot of laughs. Since everyone over the age of 10 has a cell phone in Korea, it is natural that our students teach us new expressions for texting in English. The latest one is, "Don't OTL."

If you look closely enough, OTL looks like a person on their hands and knees and their head down. Essentially it means, dont be sad or cheer up. We thought it was interesting so we thought we would share it with all of you. So here's hoping that you are all not OTL.

Our new home

2008-04-01T14:06:00.002+09:00

So, we are all moved in! This weekend was very exhausting so I'm really happy we are all settled in now. And hopfully now I'm a little stronger after carrying a lot of our furniture down five flights of stairs! My arms are still a little sore. So here are some pictures of our new place. Your eyes will probably be drawn to our lovely pink wall with white flowers. Yes, I noticed this right away as well. Adds a little colour to the room. And I'm really happy because we have a bathtub...the door beside our lovely "closet" is the door to the bathroom..still no shower curtain so the bathroom still gets wet but that's okay.
Welcome to our kitchen. The clear door to the left is the door to a tiny room that pretty much only fits our washing machine and our suitcase.
I thought I would give you a close up of the wall. Doesn't it just make you happy....maybe?
So, we really like the place. Still small but it's big enough for us. The area is a little quieter as well than our last place. It feels more like a residential area. When we look out our window we don't see any flouriscent lights only the neighboring apartments. But a 10 second walk and we see the lights again. We also walk down a really crazy busy shopping and business street on our way to work. The best part of the walk is the thrift store that we pass everyday...these are hard to come by in Seoul.

quick update

2008-03-28T17:40:00.003+09:00

It has been awhile since i have posted on here so I thought I would give a little update as to what is happening. This weekend, as you may have seen in earlier posts, we are going to move. It will be good to be able to walk to work. Plus we will be in a more central area of Seoul. But these benefits come at the expense of having real grass close by. Growing up in Canada i have taken real grass for granted. So now we will live away from grass, but closer to work.
We were supposed to have a Koinonia meeting this weekend with our church community, this means a church retreat on saturday night at our pastor's house, but unfortunately he is feeling sick and it has been canceled. So we will use that extra time to pack up.
Spring is almost here and we are excited about the flowers that are about to bloom. Below you will see a tree outside of our office window that is starting to blossom. It should look pretty. Supposedly the cherry blossom trees are really nice in April.
Anyway, things are trucking along here, not too much new.

Weekend Adventures

2008-03-24T16:33:00.004+09:00

Two weekends ago Mark and I rented bikes and along with our friend Kwang-kue biked along the Han River in Seoul. Besides it being kind of a windy day and having to dodge many other people on the path it was a great time. It was so wonderful to be on a bike again. I think this is the longest break I have taken from biking since I first started to ride. Oh, I miss my bike! This last weekend Mark and I got up early on Saturday morning (early for a Saturday) and went to an amusement park called Lotte World. It kind of reminded me of Disneyland. As you can see it has the big fairy tale castle and also many people were wearing fake ears. Not mickey mouse ears but other mouse type ears. I don't quite understand the facination of wearing ears but whatever makes people happy.
We had so much fun trying out all of the different rides. We started with the Gyro Drop which you can kind of see on the left in the picture below (we had to pose with the castle). Pretty much you get taken up really high up this poll and then after maybe 2 or 3 seconds they drop you down. What an amazing/awful feeling!
I realized that I really love rides! I don't think I had been on a ride since I was in grade 10 so it was fun. I kind of felt like a little kid with excitment. It's weird how the fairytale land can just suck you in.

speaking of quick changes

2008-03-18T21:57:00.003+09:00

Our new apartment has been found! I said things happen fast. It's maybe a bit smaller then our apartment now but still a good size and it's in walking distance from Connexus, 20-30 min. walk! It is also a few minutes from Heather and Joel! We move on March 30th. That's all!
I hope all our readers are doing well. :)

Quick changes

2008-03-14T11:33:00.002+09:00

I have been noticing how things change really quickly here. One day there will be a noodle restaurant across the street and the next day it is a clothing store. I don't understand how these places pack up so quickly and then become something new.

Well, Mark and I are kind of experiencing these quick changes as well because yesterday we found out that we will be moving for the second time. If a new apartment is found soon we could be out any time. Our current landlord wants to use our apartment himself and I guess there were some miscommunications with how long we would stay so out we go. We have mixed feelings about this. We've grown to really like our area with the park close by and our little convienence store across the street. We also really like our apartment and I'm afraid that our next place will we be a little box like our last place. But we have been commuting an hour and a half a day and hopfully our new place will be closer to Connexus so that will be really nice...maybe even walking distance.

So that is the newest thing with us....

Foreigner stereotypes

2008-03-04T14:01:00.004+09:00

As the title says, this is about some of the stereotypes some of my students have about foreigners in Korea.

Firstly: Spicy Food. I like spicy food. But somehow every time I eat food with my students they all ask, "too spicy?" I usually reply with, "No, i really like spicy food." And their response is usually one of awe and wonder. It doesn't bother me, but often its the same students that I have had for months that are always surprised, even though i have been out with them many times before and they have already asked me many times before if I like spicy food. Sometimes even in one night with two different dishes they will ask me twice if its too spicy.

Secondly: Chopsticks. Usually when I go out with my students and I pick up a set of chopsticks, some of my students are rather impressed that I can use them. They tell me, "its ok we can ask for a fork." Thats when I begin to explain that i have lived here for half a year and can use chopsticks (not in a pretentious way, although when i write it down here it sounds pretentious). Sometimes I wonder how you could live in Korea for 6 months and not know how to use chopsticks since the majority of restaurants will not have forks, but they are still surprised. I think they think that I only eat at western restaurants

Thirdly: the Subway. As mentioned earlier, we have lived here for over six months. I commute to work everyday with the bus and the subway. Sometimes after going out with students they wonder how I will get home and explain how I can use the subway to go home. Again they are shocked at the fact that I can navigate Korean subways, then they try to explain to me how i need to transfer to a different subway line and what i need to do. I am not entirely sure how they think i go home each day.

Anyway, those are some of the things that seem to happen each time I go out with my students.

community meal & a haircut

2008-03-03T22:19:00.002+09:00

Once a month the Connexus and KAC community goes out for a meal together. This time we went to this beautiful traditonal Korean restaurant almost outside of Seoul. The food just kept coming...it was pretty tasty...although I have to say I'm not crazy about the seaweed and rice mixture...maybe it will grow on me.
Our group was about 15 and we all squished into our beloved connexus van which does not sit 15...
We all call the van "Cheap Grace." I think the van company name has the word grace in it and the vehicle was bought for a really cheap price, therefore the name Cheap Grace was born. Our first day in Korea Jae Young picked us up in this...it has seen better days...it used to be painted really colorfully...I think it needs that again.
And...I got a haircut. Heather came over on Saturday and chopped off a lot of my hair. Here she is today just touching it up a bit at work.
That is all. Have a wonderful week everyone!

pics from skiing

2008-02-27T17:54:00.002+09:00

Mark mentioned that we went skiing/snowboarding last weekend. I had only downhill skied once in my life and that was 12 years ago so this was a pretty new experience for me...at first I was kind of nervous but by the afternoon I was loving it! Here are some people from our gang. And one of the runs...in this picture it looks really flat but in real life I think it looked a lot steeper.

i'll be back

2008-02-26T16:43:00.003+09:00

This post wont be that interesting, but i figured it was time.

Went skiing this weekend, actually i went snowboarding. It was good, but I have been a spoiled kid growing up near the rockies. The hills here just arent the same. First off at the bottom of the hill was a fountain, this means that the entire hill that we skied upon used artificial snow as there was no natural snow and it was warm enough to have a fountain at the bottom. Everywhere was brown except for the place where we skied. Secondly, it takes only 5 minutes to ski down the hill. Its a lot smaller than the rockies, but it was still fun.

I had a good class the other day. Not to say that my other classes arent good, but i like it when my students tell me that they just feel like talking. I know that sometimes grammar and vocabulary can be boring, so its fun when students tell me they just want to talk. So we started talking and somehow the discussion changed to crying in movies. One of my students confessed that he cries easily in movies. Particulary in Terminator 2, when Arnold talks about how he is the last chip and has to melt his body (he is a robot) so the technology cant be reproduced. He said he watched that part about 20 times. I told him he is a very honest man.

Other than that, not much is happening here, same old.

Bjork

2008-02-20T10:28:00.002+09:00

On Saturday night I went to a Bjork concert with some friends. I just want to share that it was amazing! And the stadium was more like a hall so we weren't as far away from the stage that we thought we might be. Of course she had a very unique outfit on, no swan this time but she still stayed with the bird theme. She had her forehead painted like a bird that glowed in the dark, pretty clever I thought. And her outfit was this ruffle bird like thing. She also had a small brass band with her (as well as other musicians) and the band was all dressed up as birds, they were really cute. There was no opening act and I was surprised with how excited I felt when the lights went out and she came on to the stage...there was so much energy in that room! And the show was amazing!

Korean Folk Village

2008-02-12T14:40:00.000+09:00

On Saturday Mark and I went to the Korean Folk Village which we thought was only an hour south of Seoul but from our apartment it took almost two hours. Before arriving we took a free shuttle bus from the subway stop and we made a friend with a little six year old girl. She just started talking to us in Korean. First she looked at us and said "Foreigners" in korean and that led to a 30 minute conversation...in Korean! She was just so cute and kept asking us questions, we didn't understand a lot that she said but we could communicate a little. This was the longest conversation we have ever had in Korean...I guess we are learning something. So the Korean Folk Village is pretty much a really big fake village with traditional Korean houses, museums and performances. On the river there were many people playing on these wooden planks...Mark and I both tried it out. In each hand you old an ice pick and just push yourself a long. Kind of fun.
Here is a traditional Korean activity (I think). It's like a seesaw but you jump up and down instead. We tried it out as well and it is really difficult!
Here is one of the pefromances we saw.
And me at one of the tradional houses.

Happy Seollal (Lunar New Year)!

2008-02-10T18:03:00.000+09:00

Our holiday is coming to an end....tomorrow we go back to work after five days off. I think I actaully feel ready to go back which is a good sign but it was really great to have a break. Mark and I did a lot of relaxing at home but also did some eventful activities. On Wednesday night we went to the World Cup Stadium with some co-workers and students and watched a soccer game, Korea vs. Turkmenistan. It was really cold but it was really awesome to be there. One of the most popular soccer players in Korea, Park Ji Sung who plays for Manchester United was there, so that was kind of cool to see him play. The next day was bowling night with Connexus teachers. It had been a while since I had bowled 10 pin but it took me back. Did you know that 5 pin was invented in Canada? No one has heard of it here.
On Friday, Mark and I left Seoul and took the bus to Icheon which is only one hour away. We visted a Ceramic Village that had stores and stores of beautiful pottery. Since it was a holiday many of the stores were closed but luckly there were a few open so we had the chance to browse.
After the Ceramic Village we went to a famous Hot Springs or Spa in Icheon. It was really great and so different than anything I had ever experienced. First we soaked in a number of different outdoor hot tubs that had different colors and scents such as a green green tea tub, a brown coffee tub, and aqua color aroma tub. Then we took a dip in the pool that was so crowded with people so we decided to change out of our swimsuits into the supplied t-shirts and shorts and headed for the Jimjilbong (which is the name for a Korean sauna) on the second floor. There we met many people in the same matching shorts and t-shirts. For a little bit we sat on the floor in a long igloo shaped sauna...it was so crowded and the roof was low so I felt a big clusterphobic and left. Then we headed to the electronic massage beds and got cucumbers on our face. It was great! Then we got our swimsuits on and hit the outside hot tubs again. Before leaving we spent some separate time in our respective change rooms. I have never experienced anything quite like it. The change room had lockers, a powder room, some individual showers, saunas, a really big group shower area with more hot and cold baths, and then a few more hot baths outside that were only for woman. I had never been in a place with so many naked woman before. Anyway, that takes me to the end of Friday.

Ballerina in love with a Bboy

2008-02-06T14:50:00.000+09:00

On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a music performance with some co-workers and students. It was at this cute little theatre in the artsy area of the city. My student called me Saturday to invite me to the show and I couldn't quite understand all that she was saying so when I agreed to go I thought we were going to a ballet. Later I realized it was a ballet plus a lot more hip hop dance. The story was about a ballerina who falls in love with a b-boy. Here is the star b-boy that Heather and I are posing with. At the end of the show everyone in the audience was welcome to get their pictures taken with the dancers...we chose to just take one with the sign instead.
Some of the show was kind of cheesy but the dancing was really awesome. I wish I could spin on my head like some of those guys.

Crazyness...I don't know how they spin like the do....

interesting first classes

2008-02-05T14:22:00.000+09:00

Yesterday we started a new semester, for the sixth time. So again we have to remember a lot of new names but luckly there are some familiar names as well. We usually do the regulary get to know each other activites and it's sometimes awkward because people are shy or nervous. My last class of the day there were only three people in the class, one man and two woman. We were talking about clothes and the one woman said to the man (a younger guy, university student) that she liked his jacket and he responded "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." Not quite the response I was expecting. The woman started fanning herself and we all started laughing...awkward!

In one of my other classes there were four returning students and two new students. Last month that class got pretty tight so the four returning people felt really comfortable with each other. Anyway, we were talking about our weekend and one guy said "I got a new girlfriend on the weekend." and then he said "and you know her"...all of the returning students were all really excited and right away guessed the woman who was in our class last month who hadn't come back this month. They had just met last month in my class...love began in my class!!!!! Oh, look what connexus can do. Anyway, so this student had told me about his new girlfriend before class and told me that it was a secret. After class he told me with a big grin on his face "it is no longer a secret."

Fancy Photo Booth

2008-02-05T12:16:00.000+09:00

On Friday I was introduced to a new kind of photo booth...and I think it is pretty awesome! It is set up like a store and there are many photo booths...you can choose different accessories to wear as well as choose backgrounds and later draw on the picture..and it's so cheap! So on Friday Mark, Joel and I went with our two students. One of our classes at Connexus is called IES (intensive english study) and there are three parts to the class, I teach the speaking part, Joel teaches writing and Mark teaches listening. So anyway, here we are at the best photo booth ever.

Good things, bad things

2008-01-31T13:52:00.000+09:00

The nice part about being a teacher in a society that is highly influenced by Confucianism is that teachers are given a lot of respect. This includes gifts at times, or the students who can not but help call me "Teacher Mark." I usually tell them that they can call me just "Mark." After a few classes they recognize that Connexus is a little more relaxed and they grow content with that. Although I still dont know if this is good or bad, a pseudo form of cultural imperialism perhaps. Anyway, so I i have one student who is the graphic designer for Nike Korea. He offered me tickets to a friendly between Korea and Chile last night. That is the good thing about being a teacher in Korea.
The bad thing is that teaching adults in Korea means working late hours so that I wasnt able to accept the tickets as I had to work. Take the good with the bad i suppose. I watched the second half of the game on tv, and i didnt miss much, it wasnt a well played game.
Next week we are going to see Korea play Turkmenistan in a world cup qualifier match, hopefully it will be a little more interesting.

waterfalls and dakgalbi

2008-01-24T16:34:00.000+09:00

Last weekend Mark and I visited our friends Ana and Will in Chuncheon. It was nice to get out of Seoul and just relax in a different setting. We went on a little hike, or maybe I should say walk, to a beautiful waterfall just outside the city. There is more snow in Chuncheon than in Seoul so I really enjoyed the whiteness around me. Here is the waterfall and the little dots that you will see are people climbing. It was interesting to watch....and actaully looks pretty scary. Can you find mark in this second picture?
There were a bunch of people waiting at the bottom of the falls who had all of their climbing gear. Do you notice the man wearing black right in the middle...well, he was taking pictures of us for like five minutes! Kind of weird..but whatever...so I took a picture as well.
Mark was really excited to get in this picture...can you tell?
Chuncheon is famous for it's delicious 'dakgalbi' which means barbequed chicken. Of course we had to go out for it so here we are enjoying the food. I love it so much!
We also enjoyed watching a lot of Corner Gas and playing a lot of scrabble at Ana and Will's place. Their apartment is really nice...it is great sitting on a couch when watching TV...funny the things you miss.
Have a lovely day to whom evers reading this!

breaking wind

2008-01-23T13:41:00.000+09:00

I have been working on getting conversation going with some of my High-Basic classes. I decided to get the students to work at creating a discussion out of yes and no questions. We began with how it is a little rude to answer only yes and no, but if you want to be polite its good to always say "Yes, I do, am, have, etc." and then maybe add some extra information to get the conversation flowing. We studied the grammar of yes and no questions, moved to answering them and then talked about the importance of follow up questions to help a conversation.
At about half way through the class the students were asked to write down one yes and no question they wanted to ask another person and to start a conversation from that. The students broke into pairs, and one of my students who is in high school, asked her partner, "Did you breaking wind yesterday?" Then she had to explain what breaking wind meant.
So in response we talked about how to avoid certain questions, perhaps "I forget" or the classic answering a questions with a question, "why do you ask?" I never expected that question as a conversation starter. The class continued with her confessing she did many times yesterday.

Suddenly One Year Older

2008-01-13T19:05:00.000+09:00

Growing up I always thought that every where in the world people added up their age in the same way. I have learned that I was mistaken. Before coming to Korea I had heard vaguely that my age in Canada is different than my "Korean age." I'm sure Korean isn't alone in how they figure out age but I really have no idea which other countries also use their same method. Currently I am at a P.C. Bong which is similar to a Internet Cafe. Most people seem to be playing computer games around me...I can hear gun shots in the background. I'm trying to drown it out with my music but with little success. Anyway, for some reason this computer is not letting me research this age thing...some korean words flash on the screen as I try to use google...who knows...So, anyway, back to the point. In Korea when a baby is born the baby is already one year old. And Koreans don't become one year older on their birthday but instead with the change of the new year, so every one becomes one year older on the same day. I was born in November 1983, and in Korean standards I was actually already 2 years old in January 1984. This means I just turned 26 in Korea and in Canada standards I just turned 24 two months ago. I'm getting old so fast. Crazy!

oil spill and church retreat

2008-01-08T13:07:00.001+09:00

Now thats an original title.

This last weekend was our church retreat, as you may have guessed from the title. The church decided to go to Taean and help clean up oil that spilled about a month ago. If any of you have seen that Simpsons episode were Lisa is very excited to go and help save the world and clean up an oil spill, only to arrive and find she has to scrub rocks with a toothbrush, well thats what it was. Rather unromantic. We dug holes in the sand, when the sand was black we either took old clothes and tried to rub the oil out or we tried to dig out the black sand and throw it in bags. If we found a rock with oil on it, we wiped off the oil. But it was still fun. It was actually a lot cleaner than i was expecting. Little oil in the water, but there was black on some of the surrounding cliffs and there was a layer of black sand about 5-10 inches down from the surface. And it did smell.

Anyway, here are some pictures. This is Kwang-kyu. He is our friend and has started coming to Grace and peace. He was in my Peacebuilders class and has taken a number of other classes from Connexus. He is nice.

This the cleaning. There was another volunteer group there helping clean. I think most of the clean up has been done by groups volunteering to wipe up the oil with old clothes.

Vanessa made a new friend who said if Canada has an oil spill, she is going to come and help clean it up.

Most, but not all of our group.

This was inside the room where we had our church retreat. Those are our church members. They are also nice. My legs were a bit sore from doing everything on the floor, but, when in rome.

That is all,

2008-01-07T18:02:00.000+09:00

Here is a movie from our trip, i finally got it to upload. Here is sushi from a conveyor belt. You take the plate off, eat, take another plate off, eat some more, and than you bring your plates, which are color coded by price, and pay at the till.

more pics from our trip

2008-01-02T17:44:00.000+09:00

Here are some more pictures from our trip that i liked.

2 Days in Busan, South Korea

2008-01-02T11:17:00.000+09:00

The next stop of our trip was Busan, Korea. It was actually kind of nice to be back in a place where I can read the langauge...I may not understand most of it...but it still helps. I felt kind of lost in Japan at times. The language looks so confusing!!!!

In Busan we met up with some people from Connexus. Busan has a huge port as well as many beaches so although it wasn't the warmest day we decided to explore the coast. There were so many seagulls which Mark, Joel and Marvin were inspired to feed. Heather and I took lots of pictures and laughed.
Then we met up with Karen, two of her students, and one of her students' mother. After the meal we all went to a Noreabong (singing room)...it seems to be the thing to do here...I'm not complaining. It was a good time.
The next day we went with Joel and Heather to a temple in the hills called Beomosa. It was so beautiful and peaceful.
Our last day of our travels we went to the top of Busan Tower...here is the view. You may notice the dots of blue all over. It seems that on every roof top there is a bright blue barrel...It adds some nice colour.
Busan is also known for it's gigantic fish market which we visited. I'm still not used to being surrounded by so many fish hanging from the ceiling or laying out on the street. Anyway, we ate at one of the restuarants at the fish market. The fish that Mark's holding was so tasty!
So, now we are back in Seoul and back to work. We're also back to cold weather! I shouldn't complain because it is only -6 but it feels so much colder!
Happy New Year to you all!!!!!

Christmas in Japan - part 2

2007-12-31T21:54:00.000+09:00

When we got back from the island we joined the Christmas party at our hostel where we got free sushi! We met a lot of really nice people from all over the world. After the party we went to an Irish pub with a group of people from England, Australia, Swizterland, the States, and Japan. Then after the pub we went to a karaoke room and sang for a few hours....it was a great evening and a very different Christmas Eve than I had ever experienced. On Christmas day we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Not a very Christmasy thing to do but it was really interesting as well as difficult to see the awful effects of an atomic bomb.

That evening we went out again with some of the friends that we had made the night before. We first walked along the Peace Blvd. where there were so many lights set up. It was really pretty.

Our last day in Hiroshima we went on a guided tour of the Peace Park. It is hard to believe that this picture was taken on Dec.26...it kind of looks like spring. The World Frienship Centre gives tours to guests of Hiroshima. It was really interesting to learn more about the history and background behind all of the monuments.

This is a statue of Sadako with a crane. I remember learning about her story when I was in elementary school.
Here is the a-bomb dome which is a popular site in the park. This was one of the few structures that was still half standing after the bomb was dropped.
Hung on many of the monuments in the park were many paper cranes which symbolize peace. This picture was taken at the monument for all of the Korean people that were killed because of the a-bomb. There were many Koreans working in Hiroshima at that time. The word on the paper says "Pyeong Hwa" in Korean which means peace in English.
After the tour we met an a-bomb surviver who shared with us her experiences from that time. I'd like to say more about this...but it will have to wait until another time.

Christmas in Japan - part 1

2007-12-31T21:32:00.000+09:00

After a long day after commuting we made it to Hiroshma, Japan last Saturday. I was worried about some of the transfers from train to ferry and all of that but we made it. Our ferry was this fancy hydrofoil kind that goes super fast. Because it was pretty windy that day the waves were so big so it was a pretty awful part for me...but I survived.

The next day we were picked up and brought to church by a woman named Michicko. She works at the World Friendship Centre in Hiroshima and knows some of the people at KAC/Connexus so we were connected to her. We didn't understand anything of the service except for the familiar tunes in the Christmas hymns. After the service we stayed for lunch which was followed by some amazing musical performances from some of the people as well as a gift opening. Here is Mark and Michicko. She is a really kind woman. She also organized a tour of the Peace Park for us as well as meeting with an a-bomb surviver.That night we went out for some sushi. The first restaurant we tried we walked in and said "sushi?", the waitress said "no,no" and walked with us for about three blocks to a different restaurant that served sushi. We were pretty impressed...what service. So, at the sushi restuarant we had no idea what to order so we asked our waitress to bring us what she would recommend (we said this in Japanese using our "Lonely Planet" book). After watching them take some fish out of their tank we were brought this plate. Some of it was really good...but some of it also almost made me gag.
The next day, Christmas Eve, we took a ferry to an island just outside of Hiroshima called Miyajima. There were deer walking around every where. I'm pretty proud of myself that I had the courage to pet one.
Here is a famous structure just off of the island. It's on all of the postcards...I forget the name of it.
We hiked up one of the mountains on the island. It was so beautiful and peaceful! Almost no people around which is something we don't experience very often. There was a sign that we shouldn't feed the monkeys...but sadly we didn't see any. The hike was really difficult though...so many stairs! We were pretty exhausted when we got to the top but the view made it so worth it! It was so beautiful!

Connexus/KAC Christmas Party!

2007-12-21T17:37:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was our christmas party at connexus. So now I am totally in holiday mode...but I still have two classes to teach tonight...I will make it. The party consisted of lots of food, lots and lots of students, a silent auction, and some christmas carols. It was a lot of fun but crazy because the place was so packed! Here is a picture with Joel and some of my interview students. They were one of the firsts to arrive and the lasts to leave. I think they are pretty awesome! Mark and I were the MC's of the evening and we didn't really know what we are doing, so here we are a bit confused. It all worked out in the end, just a bit chaotic.
Singing some Christmas carols. Notice Mark playing the ukulele.
Group shot...this is even after some students had left...so many people!
A fancy collage of the pictures that my student took. The Christmas cookies were baked by Heather and Karen and were so tasty!So, that was the party, again, Merry Christmas to you all!

service

2007-12-21T13:31:00.000+09:00

"Service" in Korean means on the house. Its a free little side dish that you get complimentry. Now in Canada this means salt, pepper, ketchup, etc. At a good bar this means peanuts or pretzels, but things on the house are not that common. Its too bad, but thats life.

In Korea they are all about the service. Usually there are more plates of service stuff than there are of regular stuff. The best part is that they are unending, if you eat it all, you can just ask for more.

Here is a picture of the food we ate at a wedding we went to. Now at the wedding the whole meal was free, but the side dishes are plentiful. (Vanessa posted this picture, but redundancy is not always bad)

Here is another picture that was posted before. We only ordered some meat on the grill, the rest were side dishes, all service. We had to move stuff off the table because there was too much stuff that was service (including kim chi, mini octupus, oysters, more kim chi, some egg, corn and other stuff).

Now comes the interesting one. At a bar. Now normally I associate nuts, pretzels, maybe some chips as bar food. But in Korea they have the goods. Bar service is impressive as it almost includes everything from the four food groups. Now its hard to see in this picture but the free food comes along with this meal includes: canned peaches, boiled egg, corn, popcorn, some fried pork, cold mashed potato and this ice cream dessert kinda thing with shaved ice. Crazy. Not the typical bar food that I am used to, but thats just my cultural narrow mindedness.

Thoughts on the Korean Election, of which I only understood a little

2007-12-20T11:59:00.000+09:00

The Korean election was yesterday, and while it was supposed to be a national holiday, us private school teachers had to work. So while everyone was sleeping in and recovering from their previous night of drinking soju, we began our day of work.
Things I learnt from the Korean election:
- each presidential candidate has a number, so on every poster there is a number. This year there were 12 candidates, too many according to my students.
- #8 candidate was a comedian. He said he would give $100 000 to every newly married couple. The colour of his face was also different than the colour of his neck because of all the make up he wore (according to my students)
- #2 won despite huge scandals about his company and tax evasion, he was the former mayor of Seoul and people like his decisiveness.
- voter turn out was the lowest in south Korea's history, which doesn't really surprise me as its a natural progression. As a country becomes more stabilized people realize/think that a president (or prime minister) can not really make that much of a change and they have no motivation to vote.
- #2 won because he is conservative and will supposedly help the economy. The Korea Times headline is "Koreans vote for economy." I think the korean economy has been slower recently and #2 wants to push the economy from 13th largest to 7h largest, which is impressive considering South Korea was impoverished after the war. I think its from the work ethic.

Anyway, thats all i got for now. Its time for lunch.

Merry Christmas!!!!

2007-12-19T10:52:00.000+09:00

It is starting to feel a lot like Christmas…There are many Christmas lights around Seoul as well as Christmas trees. There is one I want to introduce to you…it catches my eye every day as we pass by it on the bus. There is a large wreath hanging at the top of the tree that has the words on it: “Helpy Christmas.” I was really surprised when I first noticed it. What does it mean? Is it a mistake or was it intentional? Does it mean “help others at Christmas” or “have a healthy Christmas?” I’m just not sure. What do you think?
Mark and I are really looking forward to a holiday. We have three more days of work, which includes a Christmas party with staff and students, and then we are off to Japan. We leave on Saturday morning, first we take a subway, then train, then taxi, then ferry, then maybe another bus, then train, and maybe another bus until we get to our hostel in Hiroshima, Japan. It’s going to be a ball! Before we head back to Seoul on the 29th we’re spending two days in Busan (sometimes spelled Pusan), which is in the southern part of Korea.

I wish you all blessings and peace as you celebrate the Christmas season!

My nephew dancing

2007-12-17T14:26:00.000+09:00

While this has nothing to do with life in Korea, my brother and sister sent me this.

Our new friend

2007-12-17T13:16:00.000+09:00

On Saturdays Mark and I have develped a bit of a routine. We usually get breakfast at the bakery we love Paris Baguette or at Issac Toast which is a place that makes sandwiches with toast, eggs, some kind of meat, cabbage a piece of processed cheese, and this really good sweet sauce, sounds pretty appetizing, don't you think? After breakfast we go to our nearby market and buy some fruit. Last week we went to a stand and the woman working there was so nice to us, so this past we decided to go back to the same stand. She was there again and she remembered us. We used our broken Korean and tried to communicate what we wanted. She kept giving us extra fruit and saying “service” which means free...Then she started asking us all these things in Korean. We actually had a semi conversation all in Korean! First she asked if we were American, and I could understand and could use one of the sentences I know in Korean: "I'm Canadian" - which sounds like "kahnahda sarum eeaeoo." Then she pointed at both of us and then linked her fingers together well saying lots of words...we just kind of nodded and I pointed at my ring...Then she asked if we were students...again I could understand!...i was so surprised..and we could say that we were English teachers. Anyways, this woman was so kind and really funny so now we have to go back to this stand. I need to memorize some more sentences before we go back so I can say a bit more.

Jeonghwa's last day

2007-12-17T13:00:00.000+09:00

Our wonderful receptionist at Connexus Jeonghwa had her last day with us on Friday. I will really miss her. She would often hang out with us after work as we would watch episodes of “The Office” and “Arrested Development,” or go out. I am sad…but she says she will come and visit…so I hope this is true.

On her last day a bunch of us went out with her after work. It was really exciting as we were walking through the streets trying to find a place because there were such big flakes coming down. It was so beautiful! Now the snow is all gone already. I hear it's quite different in Canada these days... And a group shot:

Should be working

2007-12-10T12:46:00.001+09:00

Christmas is almost here which means a week vacation. This is nice. It also means that we are going to have a Christmas party next week with students, which means that we wont have classes that night which is a nice break in planning. I am excited to go traveling again, but am going with the knowledge that I will return to an even busier schedule. Since in January and February there are no classes at University, Connexus is really busy as they all go to private schools for extra practice. We will be teaching eight classes. But they have changed the schedule around which means I might be getting off at 9pm on mon,wed,fri instead of 10pm. That will be nice

This weekend was good. Some of the students in my High Basic English class took us (me, ness, joel and heather) out for a night on the town. This consisted of a boat ride down the Han River at night, followed by supper and we ended the night with a Luxury Norae Bong experience (with free ice cream). I took videos but I cant seem to upload them. So here are some pictures instead.

On the boat, it was cold.

Eating supper, it was spicy.

Singing and dancing, it was fun.

I will try to upload the videos. Here's hoping.

last day of semester number 3

2007-12-04T13:45:00.000+09:00

Well, we are now entering the fourth semester. Since semesters are so short they just go by so fast! Here is an overview of my classes from yesterday. In my 4:00 interview class I gave my two students a separate formal "practice" interview and then the three of us went out for italian food.Here is a picture of the pizza we ate. The white circles are squid, and you can see the mussels and the shrimp. I'm not a big seafood fan but I tried everything and it was actually pretty good. I still can't get used to the rubbery texture of squid...maybe someday.
Here is my 6:30pm class. We spent the class eating snacks and playing "Would you rather"...they all had to think of a "would you rather" scenario...they came up with some funny ideas.
My second last class of the evening was a no show. There are only two students in that class and they both didn't show up...so I just took the time and relaxed. My last class of the day is a speaking class. We went out to a coffee shop. Joel teaches the writing class which is right before the speaking class so we all went out together.
That was my day. I guess I should start planning for tonight. Time to work!

Foxy Bar Apartment

2007-12-03T13:32:00.000+09:00

I thought I would give you all a visual of the outside of our apartment. Our apartment is on the very top...that little box that you can see on the top. Beneath us live our landlords, and on the third floor there are two more apartments. On the second floor is the "Foxy Bar"...it is this really classy bar....and has given our apartment the nickname that it has. Then on the first floor there is a restaurant/bar...we think it might be japanese. So, this is home.

Newletter thingy

2007-11-29T18:11:00.000+09:00

I wrote this for some Church newsletters a month ago, if your interested read on, if not, thats quite all right.

“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

I have been teaching English in Seoul now for two months and I have come to the conclusion that I don't know English. Sure I can talk about what I did today, what I will do this weekend, and at least sometimes I can accurately convey my emotions to friends or family, but I really don't think I know English.

In the last two months there have been numerous times when students have asked me “Why is that sentence like that.” I look at the sentence on the board, ponder respectively for a few moments, and find myself at a loss of words and having to say, “It just sounds better that way” or “its more natural this way.”

Its not easy, try explaining (in a simplified way) the difference between “I worked,” “I had worked,” “I was working,” “I had been working,” and “I have been working.” I know the difference instinctively but its hard to explain the grammatical rules surrounding it, especially to English learners who don't have a lot of experience. Even if I could teach perfect grammar, I still have to teach emphasis and intonation, something that I don't think can be taught through explanation but rather through participation and imitation.

So while language learned from a textbook is accurate it can still sound unnatural. A student who writes, “I prepared hastily for my exams,” may be correct but I think, “I crammed for my exams,” sounds more natural (although arguably “prepared hastily” may sound natural in Britain). Most of the students say they study with native speakers because they want to sound like a “natural” speaker. Essentially they are looking for the subtleties of language and these become some of the most important parts of our class. Sarcasm is one example of this. There are no rules for sarcasm (as far as I know) and it can only be taught through examples, through experience and participation.

Grammatical rules of how we should talk indeed help in language learning, but I see participation and experience with others as the true learning experience. Experiencing the language, discovering its subtleties and building relationships are how we learn language. Children learn from example, they are not taught to talk through endless lists of rules explaining prepositions, verb forms and time clauses, but rather through observation and imitation.

I think that language learning could be an informative analogy for how the Church should be. The world is not going to learn what the Church is through long, grammatical descriptions. We can define the Church as Christ's body, but does that have any meaning outside of the Church where the language of competition, selfishness and war dominate? People are not going to experience the love of Christ through grammatical understandings of what it means to be a Christian, where such descriptions can dangerously become exclusive and damaging. Rather experiencing Christ's gift is about participation in the Church through community, liturgy and relationships. Essentially as Christians we must experience Church to learn about it, just as we must participate in language to become fluent.

Maybe in a few months I will have mastered grammatical English and discover that I am completely wrong. Perhaps language can be taught strictly through books and grammatical explanations. But I still cant help but think of how Children are such efficient language learners, not through studying grammar, but simply through observation and imitation. If we can enter the Church as children and learn through participation than we can truly begin to understand what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ.

Church

2007-11-27T14:01:00.000+09:00

I recently had a one-on-one class because some other students did not show up. So instead of going with my plan, I let the conversation go where it led. Soon we were talking about routine, and how in English we use the present tense to describe our routines even though they have all taken place in the past. Ex: I wake up and take a shower, not, I woke up and took a shower. Anyway, so I asked her to describe her Sunday routine to me. I knew she went to Church, but I had no idea how intense it was for her. This is what she described.

She begins church at 9am with worship service. After she teaches the children at children's worship (what I think is our equivalent of Sunday school). After that is lunch, where she sells tea and raises money for missions. After lunch is the youth worship service where she plays piano. After that is Bible study. Than there is supper and after supper she has a volunteer meeting as she helps with the accounting at church. At this point it is about 9 pm. And if this is not enough, on some Sunday evenings she has a youth meeting.

Surprised by this i decided to ask her about her Saturday routine. I also knew from past discussions that she would usually attend church on Saturday as well. While I forget the exact routine for Saturday, it did involve cooking food, handing out to kids on the way home from school, attending another worship service and practicing with the youth worship team. In total Saturdays were usually 9-12 hours of church activities.

I was rather amazed at such energy and time put towards church on her weekends. She told me her weeks are easier than her weekends. You can make your own conclusions. This still amazes me.

Birthday & Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T17:12:00.000+09:00

I am now one year older. My birthday has come and gone. It was really good and I felt really loved as I received phone calls, emails and facebook messages. I also felt loved by the people I know in Korea. At Connexus it is tradition, well at least since we have been here, that when a person has a birthday we "surprise" them with a cake. What we do is we all huddle in the kitchen here at the office and turn off the lights and then one person gets the birthday person and we all yell surprise as they enter the room. This usually happens after lunch or after the afternoon classes. Well, it was around 5:00 and my afternoon class had just ended so I was sitting at my desk pretending I didn't know what was going to happen. I noticed some people whispering behind me and some shuffling in the kitchen. But then, as I was sitting at my desk I heard a bang..and the happy birthday song began. This was the first time that we had the birthday cake in the office...so I was truly surprised...
After work some of us went out to this european pub. Thus concludes my birthday.

Once a month we have a Connexus/KAS community meal. This usually means we go out some where. This month we decided to have a Thanksgiving meal made by us and since today is actually American Thanksgiving we decided to have it today. I kind of feel like I have celebrated Thanksgiving over and over...with Choesok in September when we had our holiday, and then when we went to Chuncheon with our church...and now again, but this was the first time that we actually ate thanksgiving food. So, Mark, Karen, and myself made the meal. The chicken was bought already cooked but we did the rest (sadly we couldn't find turkey). I enjoyed making mashed potatoes...it brought me back to my days in Germany. Kyung Jung's (on the very right) wife baked a pumpkin pie that he brought with him to work. It was very delicious.
These pictures are taken in our kitchen/dining room/lounge where we eat lunch and usually supper everyday.
Anyway, that's all. Happy Thanksgiving to my american readers and thanks again for all of the birthday wishes.

The Doctor

2007-11-21T13:23:00.000+09:00

We had to go to the doctor yesterday for a check up. As far as I understand it, its a mandatory thing for employees every two years. There is the chest x-ray, eye check, ear check, dental pictures, height, weight, urine test, blood test and blood pressure. Its quite the system they got going on there. They tell us whats wrong with our mouths (usually that we should floss more, like every good dentist would say), give us our ph levels in our urine, our blood pressure, etc.

Supposedly in a few weeks we will receive some mail from the hospital. It will contain a health score out of 100. Last year when other Connexus teachers went they were told they were over or under weight, or other helpful things like that.

I'm curious what my score will be. There's no real reason for this post. It was just an interesting experience. They have a whole system set up where you take your form from one room to another and have another thing checked. It was rather efficient, with one exception. The urine test was rather weird, we had to take a cup to the washroom and after we filled it up, we had to walk through the waiting room, where others are waiting for their check ups. No lid or anything with full potential to slip and urine everywhere. Luckily it didn't happen.

Snow!!!!!

2007-11-20T17:39:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I was teaching my last class of the day and was having a nice chat with my two students. Suddenly we heard people yelling outside and commotion going on in the other classes. We thought everyone was crazy and continued on in our discussion and then I happened to look out the window and noticed it was snowing. We soon joined the others in the excitment and went outside to see the flakes. Here is a group of students and staff posing by our Connexus sign in the snow. (we are proud of this sign since we only put it up last week...we need more students!)The two women standing to the left of me are my students. It's funny that the snow didn't actually turn up in the picture...but it really was snowing! A few minutes after this picture was taken it did stop and turned to a kind of freezing rain...which made the streets wet and slippery. Luckly our wonderful boss Jae Young gave us a ride home after our class. He lives really close to us. Today there is no proof that it snowed...it has come and gone.

Long Time no play

2007-11-15T16:39:00.000+09:00

It was a cool fall day. Leaves of reds, greens, yellows and oranges blew across the pitch. After a much too intense game of pick up, we started the game, of which all hope rested.

It was a showdown between a conglomerate of Christian peace NGO's (and associated churches) versus a Buddhist human rights NGO. It was set up to be one of the most passive games of soccer ever played. But true to the almost perfect nature of soccer, it was both competitive and fun, aggressive yet friendly and was way too tiring. So much so that my body hurt for the next two days. I have to run more!

It ended with fellowship over a super of Kimbop (kinda like sushi), where the different groups talked a little about what they did and somehow each group ended up singing songs.

It was a lot of fun to play soccer again and it was particularly agreeable about the shape the game took. All the different organizations involved are somehow or another involved in peace work and it was fun to join together over a game of soccer. The setting was also quite aesthetically pleasing. I like the picture of a soccer pitch surrounded by trees in fall colours and above those trees are countless highrises. Its a rather foreign concept to me and makes me think of New York, or well, Seoul.

Anyway, here are a few pictures.

The fans were also quite exceptional. A lot of singing and chanting things I didn't understand.

Our team with their fans.

Sunday

2007-11-14T17:31:00.000+09:00

I thought I would post a picture of me and two of my old students. They are now in Mark's class because they moved up a level. On Sunday we met at Olympic Park and had a nice time walking around. They really loved taking pictures..and more pictures. Here is one of the few. I often see Koreans making a peace sign when in a picture, well I thought it was a peace sign... I have heard that it actually means victory. I'm making a peace sign in this picture.

Future and Present

2007-11-08T12:44:00.000+09:00

Over Christmas we have a week off and we have been thinking about it a lot lately because we just bought tickets to Japan! We are really looking forward to it. We found a cheap ticket with the train and ferry. We will travel from Seoul to Pusan (second largest city in South Korea) with the train, then take the ferry to Fukuoka/Hakata in Japan, then take the train to Hiroshima where we will spend about four days. Then we will do the same trip back but stay in Pusan for a couple of days before heading back to Seoul. There is the rundown of it all. Yeah for holidays!

Back to the present...We have just begun semester #3 here at Connexus. There are a few new names to remember as well as a few people who have left. At first I found it so difficult to remember my students Korean names but it is getting easier. In some ways it is nice to have short semesters because it keeps things fresh but on the other hand it kind of breaks the groove of the last semester. Most of my classes are pretty small this month with 2-3 students each and they are all feeling like good groups. One of my classes is specifically in preparation for the interview to be a flight attendant. I think it should be interesting. Anyway, I'm feeling good about the month.

Mark and I, along with Karen, another teacher from Connexus, have been taking Korean lessons twice a week. Our teacher is volunteering her time to teach us which is so kind. She is actually a student at Connexus. So, Korean is difficult! For some reason it is so hard for me to retain it all. But it is getting exciting as I can sort of communicate with the workers at the corner store across the street from our apartment or with the women at "Paris Baguette" which is a backery where we are frequent visitors.

Time to get to work. Have a good day everyone!

Weekend - Part 3

2007-11-05T14:03:00.000+09:00

After the palace we went to Insadong, toursity place right by the palace, and found this really nice Indian restaurant. This woman is holding a sign that says "Free Hugs". At the time I wasn't sure about the story behind holding these signs but since then I have heard from a friend the history behind it. It began with this guy in Australia who was really depressed and his friends didn't know what to do so they suggested he do this almost as a joke. So he went to a mall and after hugging tons of random people he felt a lot better, and now it has spread over the world! I think it's pretty awesome. Here is Mark giving her a hug. :)
I think this guy is making a rice paste. It's called dahk which is formed into rice cakes. I'm not that crazy about it but it is a very common snack in Korea.
This concludes my weekend posts. I hope you all had a good weekend wherever you are.

Cheers.

Weekend - Part 2

2007-11-05T13:44:00.001+09:00

After Olympic Park we took the subway to Changdeokgong Palace. On our way we passed by this store which makes traditional Korean clothing. There were many shops like this in the area. I haven't seen Korean's wearing the traditional clothing except at the wedding we went to and at the touris attractions...our tour guides are usually wearing these clothes. This is part of the palace. I liked the blue roof.
This part of the palace grounds is called the Secret Gardens. I loved it here. It was so beautiful!

Weekend - Part 1

2007-11-05T12:08:00.001+09:00

This weekend was really nice. We spent a lot of time walking and exploring new areas and the weather was beautiful.

Will and Ana, Mennonite Church Canada workers from Chunchoeon, stayed over at our place on Friday night. On Saturday we explored some of Seoul together. We first went to this market that is a two minute walk from our apartment. You can buy fruit and vegetables, lots of different kinds of rice cakes, fish and more fish and lots of other things as well. The people working at the booths seemed pretty pumped that I was taking pictures. Well, they were saying something to me and smiling, so who knows.
Fish! Some tables even have some fish displayed that have a slit down their middle so all of their guts are pouring out....very appetizing.
Then we walked to Olympic park and walked around. Mark and I went back yesterday to and went for a walk after church...I actually went again today on my way to work. I can't get enough of it!

sorry

2007-11-02T20:41:00.001+09:00

again another mistake.

I forgot another zero on 75000, it should be 750, 000 words in the English language. But this is a fairly subjective stat.

You can post

2007-11-02T19:35:00.000+09:00

Just to let you all know, anyone can post comments on our blog (you no longer need a blog to post, anyone can, this means you Jess). We welcome comments.

correction

2007-10-31T18:20:00.000+09:00

4500 - number of words that the average native English speaker knows

This should be 45000

See below

Sorry

Olympic Park

2007-10-31T14:04:00.000+09:00

Fall is really beautiful here. I love looking at the trees every day! I am so happy that we live so close to a big and beautiful park where I can enjoy the season. This morning Mark and I went for a nice walk through this park, it's called Olympic Park. The olympics were held in this park in '88. About one third of the park is covered with large stadiums but the rest of it has nice walking paths and places where you can fly kites and throw frisbees...which makes me so happy. Here are some pictures of the park that were actually taken a couple of weeks ago. I forgot the camera this morning, I was disapointed about that...anyway this first one is of the big gate, we see it everyone morning as we pass by it on the bus. As I said...I love the trees!

Today as we were walking we noticed this interesting looking squirrel with really long ears. It kind of looked like a squirrel/rabbit. Anyway, then we noticed a school class, or maybe it was a kindergarten class all watching the squirrel...they were really cute in their matching sweatsuites. As we walked a number of the kids looked up at us and said hello. Kids often seem excited to see us and wave and say hello as if we are celebrities...it feels kind of strange at times.
I was also really happy to see this big open space. I hope to go here this weekend with Mark and throw the frisbee.
Here is the gate again. The trees were a lot more colorful today. I have noticed that some Koreans wear face masks, like doctor masks, the kind that cover your nose and mouth. I'm not quite sure why but I guess it is because they don't want to breath in all of the pollution or maybe just because the air often stinks. Today I saw a really interesting one in the park, it kind of looked like a beak. I just typed something trying to explain it but it doesn't make sense so deleted it...I will leave it up to your imagination. Here we are so happy at the park. :)

Professional Devlopment

2007-10-31T13:35:00.001+09:00

I dont really consider myself a professional, but nevertheless this weekend we attended the 15th KOTESOL International Conference. KOTESOL = Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. It was interesting. I have never really been to a professional development conference before and it made me feel somewhat important. There were a lot of different seminars on different topics that were aimed to help us teach. Some were sponsored by different publishers so the seminars were more of a sales pitch (trying to sell their textbooks) than actual help, but they gave us free stuff and I got to wear a spiffy name tag which made me feel swell.

Some of the conference wasn't helpful and some of it was. It made me much more aware of things I should be aware of while I am preparing for my classes. They were things I knew, but it was a good reminder and made me more conscious.

Some of the lectures were more academic, looking at linguistic analysis or discussions surrounding understanding English as a Lingua Franca. These were super interesting but not too practical for me in my everyday work.

Some facts for you that I found interesting:

75000 - number of words in the English Language
7500 - number of words needed to make a speaker fluent
4500 - number of words that the average native English speaker knows
2500 - number of words that are used 80% of the time when speaking English
These stats were taken from a publisher selling a new dictionary that includes "core words," it highlights the most important words used in the English language

6912 - number of living languages in the world
80% - Percentage of people who speak English that are Non-Native English Speakers (In other words, only 20% of the people who speak English are native English speakers, wow)
12 - Number of verb tenses in the English language

I found these interesting, hope you did too.

Yelling on the streets

2007-10-30T16:58:00.000+09:00

As I am sitting at my desk I can hear a faint voice coming from a microphone. I often here this voice and it makes me wonder...what is this man saying? I know he is probably standing by a stand on the street where he is selling stuff...sometimes it sounds like "oh johnny! oh johnny!"

Sometimes as I am about to go to sleep I again hear someone yelling on the streets...this time there is no microphone and I'm pretty sure nothing is being sold...but what is he saying and why does he continue to yell out at 1am?

I wish I understood Korean!

the smells of commuting

2007-10-24T14:37:00.000+09:00

This is a short description about my commute and the smells i encounter.

As I leave our apartment building, I am always reminded how I am no longer in Canada as "the nast" smell (as Heather P. would say) of Seoul sets in. Its not a pretty smell, some days are better than others, but reality is that Seoul is not the cleanest city I have lived in. There is a dirty smell to it and as I am walking to the bus stop thinking I am used to it, I usually get a whiff of something else to remind me that I wont be able to get used to the dirty smell.

We enter the bus, and depending if the bus is full or not, we encounter different smells. If its full, well you guessed it, it smells like a hot bus full of people, something not necessarily unique to Seoul. If its empty, than its fine. As we get off the bus and enter the subway station, we encounter a nostalgic smell of an older lady selling walnuts, squid tentacles and corn that are roasting on some coals. The smell of coals reminds me of a campfire, good memories that are associated with fresh air. The memory is quickly forgotten as we pass the coals and smell Seoul's smell again. (On a side note about sounds, another older lady on the opposite side of the stairs sells random stuff including Q-tips, toys, umbrellas and alarm clocks. She seems to think that having the alarm clock beeping all day will help attract customers, I personally am more inclined to visit the other kiosks that do not remind me of that obnoxious sound that wakes me from happy sleep time).

Subways, are subways, and have their own unique smell. And because this is already getting long I will just say that the rest of our trip to and from work involves the smell of stink from Seoul and the smell of fishes and spices from restaurants. But one last smell which intrigues me every night as we walk to our apartment. We smell something sweet, something cake or cookie like each night. Its a beautiful smell and warms our noses as it masks the smell of 10 million people living in a small area. Much to our astonishment it comes from the fried chicken places along our street. We cant explain it, how can fried chicken smell so sweet? But its there, another mystery of the world that will never be answered.

spelling mistake

2007-10-22T15:21:00.000+09:00

Sorry, in the last post i spelled "propaganda" wrong by spelling it "propaghanda". I apologize for this and admit its because of the band "Propaghandi" which causes me to always misspell propaganda. Them's the breaks i guess.

"De"-Militarized Zone

2007-10-22T12:08:00.000+09:00

We went to the DMZ this weekend with some of the other Connexus teachers. Interesting.

We went to the Joint Security Area where they hold discussions between the two countries. We went to the third tunnel where North Korea dug a hole into South Korea. Its 150m deep and about 1600m long. Fairly impressive. We also went to an observatory where we could look into North Korea, into "Propaghanda Village" as it is named by southern forces. Ironically naming the village propaganda is a form of propaganda itself. Interesting point: The flag that you see flying in this picture weighs 600 pounds when dry (its huge), it was a windy day on saturday.

The JSA was the most interesting place. After signing a contract that we would not make any type of gesture whatsoever to the north koreans, we saw the buildings where they meet for military talks. So technically we got to enter North Korea because when we went inside the building we crossed over the border. After observing a number of soldiers I was impelled to ask our soldier tour guide "If this is a demilitarized zone, why is it so militarized?" I felt that demilitarized would mean lack of soldiers with guns, lack of guard towers, etc. The soldier responded with, "To tell you the truth man, I dont have an answer for that. Its really one of the most heavily miiltarized zones in the world." This is one of the building we entered. Here is a South Korean soldier closest in the picture. They stand half of their bodies exposed to look and half of their bodies covered by the building in case they are shot upon.

Another interesting thing is that in the pictures below you can see that all the mountains are bare. I was skeptical of this at first when I first heard about this, was that the mountains in North Korea are bare because they cut down all the trees for fire wood and did not replace them. Every mountain i saw was bare. It might be difficult to see from these pictures, but its true.

Thats it.

DMZ and me and dress code

2007-10-19T15:14:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow we are going for a "tour" of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Its a little weird to me that a military area is a tourist site. But I'm going anyway, despite my hesitancy to buy into the touristic enterprise of war.

We are going with the United Service Organizations which promotes activities for its soldiers overseas. Because its with the military and whatnot, they are rather strict, check out this dress code which we must follow to go on this tour.

DRESS CODE

SUBJECT: Clothing Policy for Participants in the Commander, United Nations Command (UNC) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Education and Orientation Program – Joint Security Area (JSA)

APPLICABILITY: This policy applies to all personnel in JSA except those at Enclosure A.
All visitors to the JSA must display a neat and presentable appearance. To meet this requirement the following standards apply:

Active duty military personnel have the option of wearing their service equivalent to the Army Class A or B uniforms or appropriate civilian attire as described below. In accordance with Armistice requirements, battle dress, utility, fatigue, dungaree, or flight suit-type working uniforms cannot be worn by visitors to the JSA.
Informal civilian clothes commonly viewed as acceptable in equivalent public settings are normally acceptable. For example, clean jeans without fraying or tearing and a clean t-shirt lettered with profanity, and flip-flop sandals would be deemed unacceptable. Visitors wearing clothing deemed faddish, extreme, torn, tattered, frayed, overly provocative, or otherwise inappropriate by the UNCSB-JSA guides will not be allowed to enter the DMZ. The following attire/appearance is specifically prohibited:

Shirts/tops without sleeves or that expose the midriff and tank tops. Also shirts/tops with insulting, profane, provocative or demeaning representations.
Frayed cutoff shorts, gym shorts and shorts that expose the buttocks.
Any items of outer clothing of a sheer variety.
Sports uniforms or athletic clothing of any kind including track pants or other stretch pants or warm-ups.
Shower and “flip-flops” shoes. No sandals/open toed shoes.
Items of military clothing not worn as an integral part of a prescribed service uniform.
Oversize clothing, commonly referred to as “gangster” clothes, including oversize baggy/long pants, t-shirts, or sweatshirts, and “biker” dress such as leather vests and leather riding chaps.

This document is not meant to cover every possible clothing/appearance situation. In all cases not otherwise specifically covered by this policy, the UNCSB-JSA guide will make a decision on acceptability of appearance. In the case where a visitor disputes the guide’s determination, the UNC Military Armistice Commission representative will make final determination. The UNC is not responsible to provide appropriate clothing for improperly dressed visitors to wear on the tour and maintains no resources to do so. Visitors who arrive at Camp Bonifas in inappropriate attire will be allowed to receive the UNC DMZ Education and Orientation Brief but will not be allowed to enter the UNCMACHA.
This policy supersedes the previous memorandum dated 15 August 2005. Requests for exceptions to this policy are not encouraged but will be considered when necessary by the undersigned. POC is 724-3434

pens and capatilism and teaching

2007-10-17T16:47:00.000+09:00

Today is a good day, I used my pen until it was completely empty. Its not often that I accomplish this and I find it rather exciting. Too often I replace things before they completely die. Its sad that I do that and that kind of mentality is rather troublesome, so I thought I would celebrate the long and useful life of my pen. To all those pens that have properly ran out of ink!

In other news, I have decided that my uneasiness with understanding my students derives from teaching English in a private institute. It goes like this. I am concerned what my students think for a number of reasons: A) I want them to enjoy class because if they enjoy class, I will enjoy it and everyone will be happier B) I want them to learn English, if my students enjoy the class, it will create a more relaxed environment and hopefully they can learn English easier, and since learning English is the telos of my job, it is good if they learn a lot of English C) I want them to feel like they are getting their money's worth so they stay at Connexus.

This is the problem, I want them to feel like their money is well spent. Privatized education. I don't know how I feel about this yet. Besides the fact that it makes learning English a privilege of the rich, it creates an interesting power dynamic and understanding. Teaching and learning are reduced to dollar amounts and in Korea this is more than just giving schools enough money to operate. With so many language schools here, its a matter of fierce capitalistic competition. And while the Realist side of me says thats just how it is (how else could it work), I cant help but feel a little uncomfortable with teaching as a capitalistic enterprise.

I don't really know what I think, but if any of you have any ideas, let me know.

Weekend in Chunchon

2007-10-17T12:29:00.000+09:00

This last weekend we went back to Chunchon along with our church and most of the teachers from Connexus. With our church (Grace and Peace Church) we celebrated Thanksgiving with Jesus Village Church (we had already visited this church over our holiday a couple of weeks ago). We arrived on Saturday evening and had a barbeque outside then sat around a fire singing songs. We slept at this hunting lodge located in the mountains around Chunchon. It was a beautiful area. I think I appreciate being in nature so much more after living in Seoul. Sometimes I feel kind of nature deprived.
After the camp fire a bunch of the Connexus people hung out in one of our rooms. You'll notice us sitting on some mats and there are no mattresses in the room. This was exactly like our hotel in Sokcho. This is Korean style although many Koreans do sleep on western style beds. Sleeping on the floor is a bit too hard for my liking but again it saves on space. In the morning we cleaned up all of the bedding and stuck it all in the closet, this way we could fit a lot of people in one room and all eat breakfast together sitting on the floor.
After breakfast we drove into Chunchon and had a joint Thanksgiving church service in a park. On our drive in we ran into a whole bunch of rollerbladers. They were actually all participating in a marathon. In Canada I think it is pretty common that the streets would have be blocked off for something like this. This was not the case here. There were people directing the traffic but there were times when people were rollerblading right in front of our vehicle. It was entertaining to watch.
It was such a beautiful day and setting for a church service.

Take care to everyone reading!

Top Ten

2007-10-16T11:17:00.000+09:00

Top Ten Things About Our New Apartment:

10: There are not only men in suits around. There are people in everyday clothes (by saying that I do realize that for some people suits are the everyday clothes)

9: We have a 45 minute commute to work. You think this is a joke, but its not. I like it and its refreshing to get away from the area we work. Since our life here is work and our apartment, its nice to have some separation between the two. It also provides me the opportunity to read the newspaper on a very regular basis.

8: We don't have to stand on our bed to put bread into the toaster.

7: We will be there until we leave Korea. I have moved a lot this last year and it will be nice to be in one place for at least a few months.

6: We live by a large traditional market where we can buy fresh fruits (if in season) as well as vegetables and fish if we need some.

5: We have a balcony and it goes around 2.5 sides of our apartment.

4: Olympic Park: A huge park, kinda like Central Park but not quite, is a five minute walk from our apartment. Its really nice to be able to go there on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon for a walk and escape the buildings.

3: Children: There are children around. In fact, the building next to us is an elementary school and supposedly in the morning they often sing and it can be heard from our apartment.

2: Aesthetics: Its not the most aesthetic picture, but the number of red fluorescent church steeples that can be seen from our balcony is an interesting and attractive aesthetic. It reminds me of the opening scenes of Romeo and Juliet (the leo version) when they focus on the city landscape and show the church steeples. Except that here in Seoul, its modernized in an uncomfortable but admiring way.

1: Bikes. There are people with bikes around our apartment. What a refreshing sight.

New Apartment in Dunchon-dong

2007-10-15T12:37:00.001+09:00

Last Thursday we moved into a new apartment...and it is wonderful! It feels so great to have more space. We have already made it feel like home a bit and have finally unpacked one of our suitcases which held our belongings for the last three months. I think it is good we first lived in the small apartment because it really makes us appreciate this one so much more. Here are a couple of photos of our place. The picture of the street is taken from our balcony...I love it that we have a balcony!
The area that we are now in is about a 45 minute commute from Connexus which isn't ideal but worth it when we see the apartment. We have enjoyed exploring our new neighborhood and it is nice to see children on the streets and people biking. I hadn't noticed until now that I never saw kids around at our last place, only men in business suits and women in high heals.

You'll notice in the last picture how the showers are a bit different here. We just stand right in front of the sink and hold the shower head. The entire bathroom gets pretty wet but it sure saves on space. This is why I am wearing the lovely green flip flops. Most bathrooms (in homes) have sandals sitting outside of them so that if the floor is wet people don't get their feet wet. Pretty smart I guess.

Holiday every day

2007-10-11T17:36:00.000+09:00

I have had a number of jobs that involve me starting/finishing at times either late in the evening or early in the morning. Usually these jobs involve a fairly quiet and solitary trip to work. In Winnipeg I would often bike to work and I always enjoyed the bike ride. I would bike down Portage ave and find traffic limited. These were peaceful journeys that helped me relax before and after work. The one exception was when there were holidays, and only holidays of a special kind. New Years Eve is the only holiday I can remember where I left work at Midnight and there was still some activity on the streets.

I am still not used to the amount of people. Our last class finishes at around 10pm and we usually leave work between 10 and 11. After a long day of work I still anticipate a quiet and solitary walk home with my head down pondering over the day's events, but I step out of the building and I am a little surprised at the activity. This is why every day is a holiday here, I always feel like all the activity on the streets at 11pm must mean a special day. But no, I am wrong. Its just a normal day and my walk home at night involves walking with my head up, dodging people on the sidewalk, being tempted by the street vendors selling food, shoes, clothes, dvd's, cell phone things and other random junk.

Its fun and its different and every day when I step outside, I still get a tinge of excitement that there is some festivity planned that I can observe on my travels home.

Can - Men

2007-10-10T17:09:00.000+09:00

Check out the current issue of the Canadian Mennonite, there is an article that talks about our church here in Seoul, Grace and Peace Mennonite Church.

Crash and Burn

2007-10-10T13:23:00.000+09:00

Well it has to happen every once in awhile and while its not fun, hopefully I can learn from it. I had my discussion class yesterday, a class that is set up to practice English by having discussions on specific topics. Well I planned my class on the topic of advertising. We started by looking at some different Korean tourism ads and than talked about advertising in Korea (there are signs everywhere here) and finished with a small discussion on "adbusting." But no matter what I asked, the class said nothing. It felt like the whole class was one long awkward silence. Oh well, I suppose i need to learn from it and move on. I think thats my biggest challenge here, learning not to worry about one bad class but using those crash and burn times as learning times.
Here is one of the pictures I talked about with my class. The Corporate American Flag. I think it is rather clever and makes a strong point through subtle humour. My students thought so as well.

Side Dishes

2007-10-09T14:36:00.001+09:00

I have noticed how Koreans love side dishes. When we go out for a meal the table is usually covered in side dishes like kimchi (pickled cabbage with lots of hot spices), pickled radishs, some type of greens, cooked or pickled onions, little fish (totally in their fish shape, eyes and all), and the list goes on. Sometimes the table is so full as you will notice in the second picture that we had to put the lettuce on the railing. I should also say that all of the side dishes are free! You pay for the main dish and without saying anything all of the side dishes come to the table. This first picture was taken at the wedding that we went to on Saturday. We all had our own bowl of soup and the side dishes were free for all. Everyone just sticks their chopsticks in whatever dish and eats away. No worries about germs here.
The first dish on the right is of rice cakes. I am not a big fan of these...they are very chewy..maybe they will grow on me soon. But I love the dish on the left in the front. They are like mini pankcakes with lots of eggs and vegetables...so good!
At this restaurant we had galbi (which is ribs). They hadn't brought our meat to the table when I took this picture...the table was already over flowing. They fry up the meat on the table on the black grill. Lish is on the right. She is one of the head -teachers here at Connexus. Jodi and Joe are on the left. We are moving into their apartment this Thursday. We went out for supper after they gave us a tour of the area where we will soon be living. We love the apartment and the area so are really looking forward to the move!

Freestyle

2007-10-08T15:35:00.001+09:00

Its kind off a running joke here that Connexus does stuff "freestyle." Our boss, Jae Young, is always talking about doing stuff freestyle. Basically this means we have to be flexible and whatnot, which i think is rather important when working in an international workplace. It reminds me of my time in Germany. During my year in Germany we had Canadians, Americans, Paraguayans, Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Kasack's and Uzbek's all working in the same office. At different times many differences would become apparent and while it took me some time to get used to it all, I think I eventually enjoyed that. Although if I stayed longer than one year maybe it would have been more difficult for me to let things go.
Here in Korea its not quite so extreme, but "freestyle" is still important to me, especially with teaching. It is hard to understand what my students really want from class because I don't entirely know their language background and I cant really read my students yet (body language, facial expressions, etc). Although I am learning slowly, its still challenging and I have to be careful not to assume I know what they want based on what I would want. This makes things especially difficult when I am trying to evaluate my own classes because my only criteria is what I think. So any kind of critical thought is rooted in my own opinions and assumptions. How can i be critical of my classes while not making assumptions? Well at least we have class surveys once a month which should help.
Anyway, this was going to be a blog entry talking about our church here, but rants are always fun. Freestyle, right? Shalom,

New Semester

2007-10-05T12:21:00.001+09:00

So, we have begun semester #2. I can't believe we have already been here a month! Time flies! Semesters are only a month long which I feel is really short but kind of nice because it keeps things fresh. The last class of every semester is a fun class which means we play games or go out. For some reason I can't cut and paste the pictures so the first picture is of my students and I right before we went out for some fancy yogart concoctions.

This semester I am teaching a class that is specifically for people about to take an interview in English. I have two students, one who is preparing for an interview for a university exchange program and the other is preparing for an interview with an airline. I think it should be a good class, something different from my other classes. I will also be teaching six other classes. This month is going to be busy! Last month we only had five classes, they like to start us off light....so here we go....

I am now the "birthday co-ordinator" here at Connexus which means I have to make sure that a cake is bought when some one has a birthday here. We always get cakes from "Paris Baguette" and they are so tasty! It's fun eating the cake with chopsticks. So today I went to go buy a cake since someone has a birthday tomorrow (on Saturday), so I went, forgetting my "Korean Phrasebook." There were three employees trying to talk to me...our conversation consisted mostly of pointing and awkward laughs...story of my life!

The second picture we took last night after our evening classes. This will be the group of teachers for the year minus Lish and Cheryl (who are the head teachers and had already gone home when we took it). From left to right: Mark, Joel, Marvin, me, Heather, and Karen. Karen just arrived here this week. It feels like a good group!

The last picture we are eating come cookies brought to us from Canada ...yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada!!!!!!

blue shiny day

2007-10-05T11:11:00.000+09:00

Well its a blue sky kinda day here in Seoul, which is nice since I don't feel we get those very often around here. Too much smog and rain and stuff. Its also Friday here which is also very good. Tomorrow is the weekend and I like that. Tomorrow we are going to a Korean wedding, which should be good but maybe a little awkward. You see, we have never actually met the people who are getting married. She is a friend of another worker here at Connexus and a bunch of us are going. We got an invitation and stuff, but its still a bit wierd.
In other news, the Korean English media seems to talk positively about the North-South Korean summit. So that is good. Here is a quote from the Korean Herald:
"In a landmark joint declaration signed yesterday, leaders of the two Koreas agreed to create a peace zone in the west sea, and to advance multi-national efforts to formally end the Korean War."
There was also discussion surrounding joint economic projects in the North which may help North Korea's economy. So this sounds very positive. I just cant help but include a picture of Kim Jung Ill. He is just a funny looking guy.

In other news I have changed my email address. Hotmail changed their layout and that was the last straw. I have been looking for a reason to leave hotmail and this was it. My new email address is mcwiehler@gmail.com. But i will be checking my old email address as well and emailing anyone who emails me from the new one. Hope all is well wherever you are, shalom,

Two Koreas

2007-10-01T13:47:00.000+09:00

From October 2-4 there is the second summit meeting between North and South Korea. It will begin by the South Korean President walking across the border (which is the first time for a South Korean Head of state). The summit is taking in place in Pyongyang (North Korea's capital). While the agenda items are not released yet, there is alot of hope that it will be one of the first steps to bring peninsular peace. Hopefully it could lead to the official end of the Korean war as the countries are at a cease fire and still officially at war with each other. Please remember the Korean Peninsula in your thoughts during this week and hope that healthy steps towards peace will be taken. Shalom,

Again, more pictures

2007-09-28T18:24:00.000+09:00

This is my method of procrastination. Posting pictures, oh well, maybe someone will find it interesting.

Yet another cute toilet sign. I personally think this is a good idea. What better way to light up a trip to the washroom than with a cute sign. Maybe we should lobby the Canadian government.

Picture of a Buddhist temple with a monk. Self-explanatory.

Another one.

And this is a Buhdda. It was big.

Well, its time to work again. Two more classes and we are finished for the weekend. Shalom,

More pics and stuff

2007-09-28T18:10:00.001+09:00

So I wanted to add another Mini-Bike video, but alas it did not work. I dont know why it did not work, but thats life sometimes. So here are some pictures that I like. Just raw, unedited photography.

More Mini-Bike, how I love these things.

These are foot things that appear at different places. They are different shaped rocks that you walk along. This one was fairly long, probably about 500m. It hurts at times, but I guess the idea is to get blood flowing. I'm convinced.

This was a clothing store. Hamburger: makes me think of dresses.

Vikings = Pirates, at least on this ride. I guess they both use boats.

Probably the cutest toilet sign I have ever seen. It was at a Buddhist temple.

There are more, I will have to post again. Shalom,

Video's of the trip

2007-09-27T13:07:00.001+09:00

I realize Vanessa already wrote a bit about the trip, so I thought I would post some sweet videos I took and elaborate on a few things. The first one is of the Noraebong, here is some singing; enough told.

This one is of the excersize park at the top of the mountain. They have these in a lot of places in Korea. Its interesting all of the different equipment they have.

Here is a video of the minibikes we rented. Probably the sweetest experience I have had. It was only $5 for 30 minutes. There were no limits on where we could go, no rules they told us, just let it ride. I thought that was nice, too often when you rent things like this in Canada its A: too expensive and B: has too many rules. Here we could race, drive on the sidewalk/street, ride through parks, anywhere really and we could take them across town. I might have to go back so I can try it again.

Well thats all for now. It took a long time to upload these videos, but its fun so maybe more will come. Shalom,

Holiday!!!

2007-09-27T11:38:00.000+09:00

We just got back from our wonderful holiday! It was really nice to have a break from the busy life of Seoul. And now we are back at work after three days off...and I can't do any work on my computer because I broke it! Last Friday evening I accidentally knocked it over...and now it won't work...I feel really terrible about it! I hope it can be fixed! My boss is on the phone right now about it...I'm crossing my fingers.

So, our trip....First we (Mark, and I, Joel, Heather, and Kevin) went to Chuncheon on Saturday where we met Ana and Will. We met them at a conference in Manitoba in July so they are also new in Korea. They are working for Jesus Village Church in Chuncheon also with Mennonite Church Canada Witness. So, first we climbed up a mountain which had a beautiful view of the city. At the top of the mountain there was this work out centre. We had fun hulahooping and testing out the equipment. I think Canada should invest in some gyms and put them in the forest. It is a nicer atmosphere to work out in!
Mark, Kevin, and I stayed with Kyoung Jung (he works here at KAC) and his family. His wife had lived in Canada for many years so they made us good Canadian breakfasts! On Sunday morning we went to the church service at Jesus Village Church which is the other Anabaptist/Mennonite church in Korea. It was interesting because most of us sat on the floor on cushions. I don't know how everyone does it for so long! I got so sore! It was still nice to be there. They were really welcoming to us.
For the rest of the day we all explored Chuncheon. It began with renting paddle boats that were in the shape of swans, then driving around the big lake that Chuncheon is located on. It is a beautiful area. Lots of mountains which were covered in trees, much smaller than the rockies. In the evening we went to a Norabong which is a Korean singing room. It is really popular in Korea. It is like karaoke but you get your own room!
Monday morning the 7 of us left for Sokcho which is on the east coast. We found our hotel that had a big plastic castle on the roof! It was pretty cool. We had quite the time trying to communicate with the owner...it was pretty funny. We had a Korean style room...which means you sleep on the floor. So, the first day we just explored, hung out at the beach, etc...
On Tuesday we hoped on a bus and went to Seorksan National Park, it was about 10 min bus ride. We saw a big Buddha statue, a cool temple, took a gondola ride up a mountain, hiked to some waterfalls, and tried some larva (which is gross!!!...people just sell them on the street!)
In the evening we all rented these little motorbikes! It was so much fun!!!!!...and really funny!!
The next day we hung out at the beach again and watched Mark and Joel swim in the waves! It was a beautiful day! It was a great trip! The end.

Trees and Chuseok

2007-09-21T18:56:00.000+09:00

I am so happy!!! I had heard from some of the teachers that there was a park close to Connexus and only today did I take my first venture to the wonderful spot. It is a Seoul city park so nothing like Assinaboin Park. There was no grass but lots of big trees and benches...enough to make me very happy!

Since next week is Thanksgiving here in Korea we have a holiday! So tomorrow Mark and I (along with Heather, Joel and Kevin) will leave Seoul (for the first time since we arrived on Aug.24) and travel to the cities of Chunchon and Sokcho. This is very exciting! We will be gone until Wednesday evening. We hear the traffic can be pretty bad during this time because most Koreans go to their hometowns to see their families...so I anticipate the travel to be quite interesting.
Happy Chuseok!

To p FI ve Thin Gs About K O R E A thus far

2007-09-21T17:53:00.001+09:00

Number Five: This is lame, but i will say it anyway, its a new and different country. Its always fun to experience new cultures and, well, this is one of them.

Number Four: Students journals/emails/text messages. I believe its important to approach learning a language in a lighthearted manner. When I was learning German I had to laugh at myself and all the awckward moments it created. One time i spent about 10 minutes trying to explain to a grade two class (and the teacher) how to play a game. But instead of saying "sagen" (say), i said "sehen" (see) and continually repeated this for ten minutes wondering what they were not understanding. Anyway, I think the same is here at Connexus, its important to have fun with translation and a lot of the messages and notes that students give us are rather humourous. I'm sure now you all want some examples of this, well its not going to happen. This is called a teaser. It just wouldnt be funny without context, sorry.

Number Three: Yes, this is basically the same as Number Five. I like being in an "Eastern" country, whatever that means. The difference being that when I was in Germany, my friends and I knew the same history. Greece-Rome-Karl der Grosse/Charlemagne-Napoleon-yada, yada, yada. Here in my English Classes I cant assume that if I mention a western historical figure my students will know who that is. I find this refreshing and challenges me on assumptions that I too easily make.

Number Two: Its exciting to learn about the Korean Anabaptist Church that is emerging. I don't know the entire history yet, I am supposed to go out for coffee with someone who will tell me a bit about Christianity and Anabaptism in Korea. But the church is an exciting and inspirational place. With it being so small, it almost reminds me of the radical reformation when the Anabaptist churches were full of people who "converted" to Anabaptism rather than grew up in Anabaptism. Please don't misunderstand me, I am so very thankful that I grew up in a Mennonite home and had the opportunity to participate in different Mennonite organizations. But I find it really interesting to see this community emerge and to see how they will develop Anabaptism in the Korean context where no significant tradition of Anabaptism is present.

Number One: Well this isnt really a top five, I was just a little bored and felt like writing some things down and sharing them with you. Hope thats ok. Shalom,

Newsworthy Points

2007-09-20T13:26:00.000+09:00

Lunch Menu for Tuesday: Deep fried Squid, Deep fried Hard Boiled Egg

Weather: Yesterday we got the leftovers from the typhoon that hit China. The storm was downgraded to a tropical storm, which meant it rained alot but not alot of wind. Today's weather: hot and humid.

Two more days to Korean thanksgiving holiday, five days of now work = yeah.

Purchasing: My friends at Connexus walk by "The Beautiful Store" everyday on their way to work. Its a thrift store and they picked this up for me, only $2. Good buy.

Because i feel like adding more pictures to spice things up, here is a picture of my desk. Interesting eh?

That is all, shalom,

Experiences at the doctor

2007-09-19T16:58:00.000+09:00

I have to share about my experiences with the Korean medical system. First I think it is pretty amazing. This afternoon I went to the doctor for my second time, but now at a different clinic. (I have this bad cough that I can't kick) First, I was amazed because at both clinics I didn't have to wait to see a doctor. In Canada this is unheard of...at least with my past experiences. Eun Kyong has been my translator at both of these visits; she is the receptionist for Connexus in the mornings and works for KAC in the afternoon. Today we didn't see one doctor but two, one specialized in more western medical practices and the other in eastern practices. So, I sat there in front of these two doctors as they spoke in Korean to Eun Kyong about my health. I wish I could understand!Eun Kyong was very helpful though and gave me the info...I might have minor bronchitis. Anyway, then I went into the hall where they did this treatment and I had to breath in this stuff (smelled kind of like Vicks products) for 10 minutes. Then we had to wait for a bit..I didn't totally understand..but because we were waiting the receptionist gave us this cool coffee drink! What nice service. Anyway, we left the doctors office and went to the pharmacy, and again I have all of these pills to take and this liquid to drink! Feels kind of funny because I don't really know what the pills are...In Korea the doctor usually only prescribes medicine for three days, seems short to me. I just hope they make me better!

Good news

2007-09-19T13:50:00.000+09:00

As i understand it (which is not always an accurate understanding), the issue of Conscientious Objection is a hot topic in Korea. Right now every healthy male is required to serve in the military for 24 months (this will be reduced to 18 months in 2014). Technically South Korea is still at war with North Korea and there is only a cease fire. Anyway. Today on the front page of the newspaper there is an article discussing how, and i quote, "The government decided Tuesday to allow conscientious objectors against mandatory military service to undertake alternative services such as caring for the disabled, instead of imprisoning them."
Up until this point any male who did not want to serve in the military was sent to prison. This is an important step for the government as they move to legally implement alternative services. In one of my discussion classes we discussed this issue and the class was not all in agreement and it remains a hot topic. Please remember Korea as this issue is not solved, and there are still many discussions to come.
Shalom,

Lesson Learned

2007-09-18T11:17:00.000+09:00

Note to self: When its raining really hard and walking to work on a major street, dont walk near the street where large puddles form and cars driving fast go over them. Ooops. I guess its going to be a wet day.

Teaching

2007-09-17T11:40:00.000+09:00

It's hard to believe that we have been teaching for two weeks already. I think the nervousness that I was feeling before my first few classes has died down a bit. Most of my students are at basic level. The classes are going fairly well and I'm enjoying getting to know my students. I love just comparing our different cultures... sometimes we can really get off topic in class...but as long as we continue in the English language it is all good practice. It's really funny because a lot of the students giggle all of the time for no real reason, particularly laughter follows a word or two of English. I don't really see the humor all of the time but it makes it fun.

Two of Mark's students offered to show us around Seoul so yesterday afternoon we met them and had a really great time. They are in one of the first level classes so the one guy had his electronic dictionary which was very helpful. They taught us some Korean as well! They took us to this area called Insadong, where a lot of tourists go because the traditional Korean shops and buildings. We went to a traditional tea house which was probably a highlight for us. Most of the seating was on the floor on pretty cushions. It was called the Bird Tea House because there were actually little birds flying around the place...and it was a pretty small place. I think a couple of birds almost touched our heads a few times. It was quite the experience.

Have a nice week and I hope who ever is reading this is doing well! Pyonghwa! (this means peace)

three things

2007-09-14T13:25:00.000+09:00

here are a few things i want to s h a r e,

1) C h u r c h - We started attending Grace and Peace Mennonite Church in Seoul.
Its fun and different from my regular church experience. The congergation is Vanessa and myself, The pastor and his wife, a couple with four kids, Jae Young (our boss) and Joel and Heather (other Connexus workers). 4 people only speak english (that would be the connexus teachers), and the rest speak English and Korean. The church welcomed us and its fun to be part of such a small and intimate community. Sunday morning consists of church service, lunch together, bible study. From about 11am - 3pm.
Will write more later on this later.

2)C o m m e n t s - Being a westerner in an Eastern country, people often will try to talk to us when we are on the subway, or walking down the street. Sometimes its a quick "Hello", but the other day we were on the subway and i was looking at a map. A young man about my age comes up to me and asks, "do you need help?", I replied politely with "No thanks, i know where i'm going." The next thing he said to me was, "You very handsome i think." He then continued to comment on Vanessa's beauty, to which i agreed, and we continued talking for a bit. I've never really been complimented like that, it was nice.

3)B o s s - I have decided that our boss, Jae Young, may possibly be the funniest boss ever. I dont know what it is exactly, but 90% of what he says makes us laugh. Its nice to have a boss like that.
Here is a picture of the KAC/Connexus community. Jae Sung, one of the guys in the middle, left yesterday for America. He found a job in the States and moved there. So we took a picture before he left.

Its Friday here in Korea, I like the weekend. Tomorrow Vanessa and I will be meeting some of my students who are going to take us sightseeing. Hope you have a good weekend,
Shalom,

Confessions of a Western Imperialist

2007-09-10T14:51:00.000+09:00

I like to think of myself as a "worldly" person, whatever that means. Open to new things, alternative understandings, different traditions, etc. I have enjoyed learning different languages as a means to understand cultural idiosyncrasies and perhaps most importantly I am uncomfortable with the mass export of American/Western culture throughout the world. I didn't like seeing McDonalds and Pizza Hut throughout Europe and I see the same influence in Seoul. Perhaps even more so in Seoul where on almost every sign there is some English phrase. Anyway, this is all to say that I confess to thee today that I enjoyed going to Subway last week, the North American sandwich chain. I have really enjoyed the Korean food thus far, but it was a welcome break to enjoy a filling footlong sub. Korean food is spicy, which i enjoy, but sometimes the smell of seafood at 9am is not the most welcoming since for breakfast I prefer cereal or toast to eel or kimchi. Its not that bad, it will take a bit of time to get used to, but I thought I would share this anyway.
On a related note, because of the influence of English here in Korea, i have decided to start documenting English signs that i find interesting . Here is the beginning of my research.
More to come, hopefully,
Shalom,

Heavy Metal & Ultimate

2007-09-10T11:23:00.000+09:00

On Saturday night we had the pleasure of attending a concert. Jae Sung, many of you may know him from CMU (he works at Connexus...well only until next Thursday and then he is moving to the states, we will miss him!), anyway he invited us to the show because his band performed. He played drums in this heavy metal cover band. Three other bands played as well. It was not really my style of music but it was still a lot of fun to be there.

The Subway was super full on the way back.....

Here are some pictures of Ultimate in Korea....it was such a clear day and it was lovely to see the sky and the mountains! (this was yesterday afternoon)

Gyeongbokgung

2007-09-10T11:12:00.000+09:00

Our first weekend in Seoul we went to this really cool palace called Gyeongbokgung and we never got around to posting any pictures so...
In this structure there was the National Folk Museum which we also explored.