Weather

Before coming to Korea I had been told that the summers are hot and humid and the winters are cold and snowy. Ok, thats cool, I figured it would be just like Virginia weather...not!

It may be humid in Virginia, but at least it cools down at night and the humidity drops. Here it is humid 24 hours a day and the temperature doesn't drop much overnight. Getting up to jog at 7am seems like a good idea until I get outside and feel like I'm swimming through the air. The air is so thick that it hits you like a wall. I have never experienced humidity like this before. The weird part too, is that it may be a nice 75 degrees out, but with the humidity it will feel like 85 and I won't stop sweating. I try to tell myself that it's only 75 degrees and that I must have a sweating problem because this is ridiculous, but then I look around me and realize that even the plants on the side of the street are sweating from the humidity. (it's weird, something I've never seen before)

Along with the humidity, this is also the rainy season. That means that it rains at least four times a week, and when it rains, it pours. I really enjoy it actually...well, when I'm not walking to school that is. The walk from Heathers and my apartment to school is about a 15 minute walk. In the spring time weather it was a wonderful walk in the warm sunshine filled with rose lined sidewalks. Now in July though, it's the walk of death. If it's pouring rain outside and I'm walking to work, by the time I get there just about all of me is wet but my head and shoulders. I think maybe I should get a poncho or something...although, I don't see anyone wearing ponchos here. It is pretty funny to see delivery guys on their mopeds in full rain suits driving through the rain though. (I wonder where I could get a rain suit...) So then on the days that it's not raining, it's just plain humid outside. I have to wear one set of clothes to work, and then change out of those humidity soaked clothes into to a dry set of clothes at work. It's crazy!!! I think I'm just damp all of the time now. Especially in our apartment because all heather and I have between the two of us is one little fan and a window that opens into the back ally where there is no cross breeze whatsoever.

So far it's been a steamy hot and humid summer. At least in a few weeks we will be vacationing on Jeju Island where maybe it will be cooler and if not then at least the ocean can cool us off. Then I will dread August, the worst month of summer in Seoul, where apparently the humidity is unbearable. The Koreans say, 'oh this humidity is nothing, just wait until August!'

Life's dance

It's so great to be able to sit back and look at life on occasion. To just stop and take a moment or even a few hours to just watch life happening around you. So much can be seen and it's kind of like a dance.

Last Sunday, like every Sunday Heather and I headed to Olympic Park. Saturday night we had decided that we couldn't go to the park this week because it was supposed to be rainy and gross out. When we woke up Sunday morning though, it was the most beautiful day we have probably seen in Korea yet. The downpour of rain on Saturday night must have cleared everything up. It was incredible, everything was so clear and sharp, there were puffy white clouds in the blue sky and you could make out every detail on the tree covered mountains surrounding our part of Seoul. So of course off we headed to Olympic Park! We brought our blanket, books and snacks and found the perfect shady spot under a tree out-looking one of the big recreation fields in the park. It was there that I was able to sit and watch the wonderful dance of life happen all around me. So many things were going on. Children played, dogs were walked, lovers basked in the ecstasy of spending time together, families were picnicking, babies were being oogled by young mothers, bikes were ridden, kites were flown, ice-cream was eaten, father and child played soccer, friends gossiped and giggled, birds chirped, clouds passed, breezes blew, and everything was in rhythm. It was beautiful, far too beautiful for me to be able to describe any more than I already have. And that, I realized, is life's dance.

Other than watching the dance of life, I was able to spend some glorious hours reading and chatting with Heather. We were sprawled out on the blanket enjoying the afternoon to the fullest. We talked about life, faith, school, living in Korea, hopes and dreams, and ideas. It was the most perfect afternoon that I have had in a while. I am so grateful for the rain that makes things new and fresh again.

Saturday Night

Sunday was great and relaxing, but Saturday night is a whole other story. It all begins with my Korean friend Do Yeon. He called me up and said that he had VIP tickets to a very well known exclusive club in the part of Seoul that is called the Hollywood of Korea. Do Yeon used to be a model, so he has quite a few connections with the high-life of Seoul. (How I make friends with these kinds of people, I have no idea...) So I tell Do Yeon that I'm interested, but I had plans to hang out with a few other friends. At that he said no worries, I'll try to find tickets for them too. So he found tickets for me and my four friends. 

We began the night meeting at Do Yeon's friend's bar. There I met up with my friends, Do Yeon, his sister, and a few of his Korean friends, one of which is an up and coming Korean movie star. (haha?!?!) So we got some drinks, met everyone and socialized before hitting up Club Circle. Finally we headed to the club. 

While I thought that everyone in our group was dressed pretty nice and looked good, I was in for a shocker at the club. Never in one place have I seen so many incredibly beautiful people. I couldn't stop staring! Not only were there beautiful Koreans, but there were beautiful foreigners from all over the world. Once I got over the shock of all the amazing looking people I was able to get into the scene. There was a stage with a DJ pumping away some awesome house/techno'ish tunes, a dance floor, and a circle bar surrounded by tables and couches that were littered with beautiful people and lots of liquor. 

After I got a drink I wandered over to the dance floor and danced for a good long time. I finally realized that I should probably find the group that I came with so I headed back towards the bar. On my way, a group of good looking Japanese people asked me to join them at their table in celebration for one of their birthdays. So I did for a while, had some fun, and then continued on to find my group. When I found them, the group had grown. They were at a table with some couches and tons more Korean's had become a part of the group by this point. So I jumped right in with meeting people, socializing and dancing. It was one of the best times that I've had in Korea so far...and come the end of the night I realized that a lot of the people I was socializing with were Korean celebrities and bar owners, hahaha! Crazy Korea.

We have this saying called T-I-K...kind of like 'when in Rome' but for Korea. It means This Is Korea and while we're here we're going to do it all and experience it all. :)

Good News!

Yay, good news with school finally. So regarding pension and health insurance I emailed the recruiter that Heather and I came through and explained everything to him. I told him that our school was not honoring our contract and that I didn't know what to do. I told him maybe he should just help us find a better school. At that, he contacted the director of our school and talked some sense into him. I don't know what he said, or how he said it but it worked. We now have pension and health insurance. We are waiting for our health insurance cards to come in the mail and we won't know for sure about pension until our next pay day in about two weeks, but at least we feel better about the whole situation. Now we can stop stressing and stop looking into other schools. This whole situation has given us a good idea though of the other schools that are out there. Now when it comes to the end of our contract we'll know which types of schools to apply to next and in which areas of the city. Anyway, it's an amazing relief to have this worked out.

On another note, yesterday Heather and I booked our tickets to Jeju Island!! We have a week long summer break in the end of July so we figured it was time to take a trip. Originally we were planning on going to Mongolia, staying in a yert, and riding some camels...but alas, we opted for the cheaper route since we'll probably go to Thailand or Cambodia for Christmas. So Jeju Island it is! Jeju is called the 'Hawaii' of South Korea and is located off the tip of Korea. There are plenty of beaches, mountains, waterfalls and hiking so it should be a great vacation. I can't wait! :)

This last Sunday Heather, me and a bunch of other English teachers went to the North Korea vs. South Korea soccer game at world cup stadium. The soccer games there are always packed out and tons of fun. The fans dress up and go crazy. Everyone drinks beer and eats an array of food. The 'wave' is done by the crowd and is by far more amazing than any 'crowd wave' I have ever seen. We were really excited about this game though because it was against North Korea. We expected it to be an insane game. So here I am sitting high up in the bleachers squished between two New Zealand guys. It was pretty crazy because these guys were really into their cheering, their beer, and going crazy. Just the fun attitudes of these New Zealand friends of mine made the game worth while. In the end, neither of the teams ended up scoring and it wasn't that great of a game. We had a theory that North Korea and South Korea made a deal before playing the game. The deal being: no scoring, no nukes. Sounds pretty good to me. No matter what happens in the games we see there though, I always have a good time. :)

So the teaching life continues in sunny Songpa, South Korea. I am really quite content here. :)

Lots o stuff...

Wow, it's been a while. I keep meaning to write here, but then I feel drained and I'll put it off until the next day. I guess that 'next day' lasted two weeks. Ooops.

Things have been somewhat crazy with the school again. As I had mentioned before our school was not giving us pension or health insurance. Both of which are in Korea law that they must be given to foreign teachers. So we fought it a while ago and finally our director said, ok we'll give you pension and health insurance. Our next pay day came and still pension and health insurance didn't show up on our pay sheet. So Heather and I went to talk to our director. Now talking to your elders in a place of employment is a bit of an art here. You must be very respectful and act like you are so grateful to everything that they are doing. If you need something, in order to get it you must present it as a favor. Like they would be doing you a favor and you will return the favor to them eventually. It's all very twisted and complicated, but thats how the Korean culture is. So after talking with our director in this manner he said, ok give me two weeks and I will have your health insurance and pension. We talked to the other foreign teachers after that meeting and they said that our director said the same thing to them and it just ended up dragging out for the whole year with them never receiving health insurance or pension. Uggg!!

So in the last two weeks while we've been waiting for our director to get us health insurance and pension we have been exploring other possibilities. We've begun applying to other schools and checking out our options. Yesterday I had an interview at a huge hogwan (private school) chain. It went well, but the school is so much more rigid than my school and they are only interested in placing me outside of Seoul...no go on that one. So the search continues. In this whole searching process Heather and I have learned that in order to leave our school and start work at another school, our school must release our visa. If our school is mad that we are leaving they can refuse to release the visa and that would cause huge problems. If they do release the visa though, we have to go through the whole visa process again which will be a headache to do while not in the US. Either way we go, there is bound to be problems so we're unsure of what to do at this point. We could stay at our school with no pension an health insurance, but we think our school is being audited for fraud on taxes and pension so it could get shut down and then we'd really be screwed. Or, we could find another job and go through the whole headache of re-applying for a visa and starting all over again after three months. It's all been so frustrating, but also an adventure at the same time. I had no idea what to expect when coming here but so far it's been a great learning experience and I know that whatever works out in the end will be what is best.

On another note, the rainy season has begun and wow does it rain here!! The first day of the rainy season it down-poured all day long, never letting up once. By the time I had walked to school under my umbrella I was still soaked. My school also decided that it would be a good day for a teachers lunch out. So all of the teachers trekked out into the rainy streets to find some traditional korean food. Once we got to the restaurant we were all wet, but sitting on the warm floor and eating hot kimchi tofu soup was the perfect thing for a rainy day.

My students have given me a Korean name now. It's kim-ellie. They seemed to think that it was important for me to have a Korean name since they had to have english names. I'm loving my students more and more. Each day I get to know them a bit better and I feel that a lot of them are truly learning better english from my teaching methods. Some days though, I look at myself and can't believe that I am a teacher, what a privilege.

Mountain adventure

First of all I would like to say that I am all cured of my bird flu, or whatever it was. It took a good week and a half for me to get over it, but I think the majority of it is gone now. I've never been overly huge on cleanliness, but now I think I will be a crazy hand washer at least so that I don't get sick like that again. It was like the sickness literally took a bat to my body and wiped me out of life for a while. Ugg, but alas I am cured!

This weekend was a three day weekend and me with my recent desire for cleanliness decided that I needed to leave the pollution filled city and give my lungs some clean mountain air. After a tiny bit of research Heather and I found a cheap, yet cool looking hostel in the mountains on the east coast about three hours from Seoul. We decided that was where we would spend our weekend. 

Since we had Friday off we slept in, took our time getting ready and were finally at the bus station in East Seoul at about 2pm. We semi-figured out where we would need to go, bought our bus tickets and then realized that the bus didn't leave for another three and a half hours. Since we were already there, we figured there was no point in going back home so we found some chairs and camped out near our bus for the next few hours. After many people staring at us and a few men even trying to speak English to us we boarded our bus. As the bus left Seoul it immediately started climbing into some misty mountains. I already felt like I could breathe easier and soon I was in the deepest sleep that I've been in for a long time. 

After what seemed no time at all we arrived in Sukcho, a city in the mountains on the east coast of Korea. It was dark and about 9:30pm. When we stepped out of the bus we soon discovered that we had no idea how to find our hostel. We knew the name of the hostel and we knew that it was off in the mountains somewhere. We also had a phone number but it didn't seem to be working. So Heather and I found ourselves in a situation that we often somehow find ourselves in when traveling...we were lost and had no idea how to get to our destination. Right then as we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk looking into space hoping an answer would come to us, it did! A drunk man almost hit us on his bicycle and in the process screamed a bunch of Korean words at us. (profanities I'm sure) So this onlooker came over to us and in good English said, 'don't worry about him, he's a crazy man'. First we were shocked by his English and then we asked him if he knew how we could get to our unknown hostel in the middle of nowhere. He had no idea, but said he would try calling the number for us. After a few tries, he realized that we were dialing the number wrong (haha, oops!) and was able to dial it right and get through. He still didn't know where we were supposed to go, but got us a taxi and after much arguing with the taxi driver in Korean we were off. 

Once the taxi driver started driving he asked me for my phone so that he could talk to the people at the hostel and get directions. This was all in Korean of course, so that was just what I was guessing was going on. After the taxi driver talked, and argued and talked and argued on my phone we were officially off and driving out of the city. The time was quickly getting later and Heather and I now found ourselves in some random taxi driving out into the dark mountains where there were no other cars. Most other people probably would have been freaked out, but Heather and I just exchanged glances and shrugged our shoulders. I began thinking 'and all of this for some fresh air, geesh...'. So after about 20 minutes into the dark mountains, the taxi driver slows down, then speeds up again. Then once again, he slows, pulls onto the shoulder of the road, then pulls back onto the road and speeds up. By this time Heather and I are freaking out thinking ok, is he going to rape and kill us or not?!? Finally he takes an exit off of the highway, pulls into a parking lot and asks for my phone. I shakily give him my phone, he calls the hostel again (at least thats what I think he's doing) and then gives me my phone back and drives down the road. Soon he slows down, hesitates and then turns down a little dirt road. By this time Heather and I are doing everything that we can not to desperately hold each other for dear life in the back seat of the taxi. After going down the dirt road for a little while he pulls into this lit up parking lot and Heather and I realize that it's our hostel!! We just about jumped out of the taxi and hugged the people waiting for us at the hostel. Phew man, I haven't been that scared in a while. :)

So the hostel ended up being really out there, but it was a great place. Heather and I were given our own mud cabin complete with a kitchen, a bathroom and an extra bedroom which is way more room than we even have in our tiny one room apartment in Seoul. We spent our days exploring, enjoying the river, reading in hammocks, taking in the fresh mountain air and just relaxing to the fullest after our little adventure getting there. It was definitely worth it!

When it came time to come home we realized that the little fishing village near by actually had a bus stop where we could catch the bus straight back to Seoul. It was so much easier to get back to Seoul. Unfortunately though, the little girl who sat behind us puked her guts out the whole three and half hour ride back. Ick.

what wrong with me??

I just can't seem to get better. At first I thought I had the flu, then I thought the flu had turned into a cold where I lost my voice, then the cold turned into a horrifying cough that keeps me up all night long, I've had a temperature everyday, and now my eyes have turned red and glassy. (these are all the symptoms of bird flu by the way.)

It's been a week since all of this has started so I decided it was finally time to go to the doctor. Since my school has not yet gotten me health insurance, my director took me to the doctor so that he could pay for it. (thank goodness! Now for sure he'll get me health insurance.) So we went  to the doctor, I sat in a large dentist like chair, he asked me some questions in broken English, poked around in my mouth and ears, looked in my eyes with a very confused look on his face and finally said, it's probably just a cold. He wrote me a prescription and then set me in front of this tube and told me to breathe for few minutes. I put my mouth over the tube and breathed the steam for a few minutes, blew my nose and we were finished. It was an interesting experience. My director then went to pick up my prescription. Later I got my prescription. It ended up being ear drops?? and morning, afternoon, and evening pill packs of about five pills each for three days. I was expecting maybe one pill. Nope! It's a whole pill regimen that I have to follow, but only for three days. So far it has helped my runny nose but nothing else. My cough is still keeping me up at night, I still have a low fever, and my eyes are still a horrifying glassy red. I seriously don't know what's wrong with my eyes. At first I thought pink eye, but my eyes don't itch and ooze stuff. Then I thought allergies, but once again they don't itch. So who knows whats up with my eyes. I don't think the doctor even knows because he didn't prescribe me any sort of eye drops. I guess I will just wait it out and see what happens. My eyes have started freaking my students out though. It's kind of humorous because now they keep their distance from me instead of hang all over me. I'm pretty sure they think I have a disease. ...I still think it's the bird flu.

Attack of the yellow dust!!

Friday morning I woke up still feeling a bit sick, but since I didn't have a fever decided it was best to go to work anyway. Before getting dressed I checked the weather on weather.com as I usually do. Something different appeared though, it was weather that I had never seen before. The weather said 75 degrees and 'dusty'. Dusty...I wondered about that for a second, forgot about it and went about my morning routine. When I finally left to walk to work something seemed really weird. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was weird about the day. When I finally came into a clearing where I can normally see the mountain behind my school I realized there was no mountain there. Then it hit me what was wrong. Everything was tinted light yellow. The air and everything I saw was thickly tinted light yellow. It was like living on some alien planet where stuff is only yellow. Thus weather.com's 'dust' type of weather.

Once at school, the day was pretty normal. It was Friday and I had six classes in a row to teach. By my second class though, I began losing my voice. By my fourth class I had lost it almost completely. I could squeak out a few words but it was painful. Being an English teacher, your most important teaching tool is your voice and without my voice I'm just a funny white mime. The students may enjoy it, but I don't. My last few classes were a challenge to teach that ended up in word search puzzles and uno games. It is currently Sunday evening now and I have some of my voice back, I just hope that I wake up tomorrow with my full voice booming and ready to go!

Because of all this yellow dust I have lost my voice and now gained some allergies. My nose and eyes have been running like crazy this whole weekend. It's been pretty miserable actually. I never get allergies, I never lose my voice, and I never get sick, but now within the last few days I've had all of those things happen to me. So I tried the usual drinking lots of water, getting lost of rest, steamy hot showers and what not, but none of it has really helped. Saturday afternoon I finally ventured out to the pharmacy to find some allergy medicine. I mimed to the lady what was wrong with me and she finally figured it out, got really happy, yelled antihistamines!, threw her hands up in the air and with such a pleased look marched off to fine me some. After taking those I began to feel much better which I was thankful for because Heather and I were off to see a soccer game.

The soccer game was a world cup qualifying match against Korea and Jordan. It was quite the experience too. When we arrived at the stadium it was swarming with red and people wearing devil horns. Heather and I waited in a long line and finally got in with our online tickets. The game had started right about when we found our seats. It was interesting, people didn't stand up for the national anthem. The stadium was packed out and the fans were wild crazy. The game was really interesting but after a while Heather and I began to notice the people around us. Everyone had food, it was like a picnic! There was the normal beer and pizza, but then there were bags of kimchi being passed around families, meat, seafood, hamburgers, chips. All sorts of food everywhere. Then a vendor walked by selling large pieces of dried squid. (bet the ball game vendors in the US would be shocked by that one!) So we decided we had to have food too. After finding some food we were set to join the rest of the Koreans in cheering, watching and eating. Some of the Korean cheers were even pretty sounding, like songs. At one point the whole stadium did the wave and it was the best wave that I have ever experienced in my life. Everyone participated and it continued around the stadium about five times. The game ended 2-2, a tie. It was a great game and an awesome experience to have while living in Seoul.

Tonight we had pot-luck dinner with our New Zealand neighbors, some other foreign friends and a Korean couple. It was fun to have the Korean's join us and I'm sure it was quite the experience for them as well. For pot-luck I baked banana bread in the microwave since none of the Korean apartments have ovens in them. It was completely experimental, but it turned out great. I can't wait to try other baking recipes in the microwave now!

On an ending note, a word from the wise...don't ever take anti-diarrhea medicine unless you don't want to poop for over a week. Uggg, next time I get diarrhea, I will just deal with it...in fact I will welcome it!