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9/30/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Discount Air Tickets!
Shouldn't this be be illegal: You need to make a trip abroad for a visa run and you open the newspapers and see these ads that say, Fukuoka 210,000 Won! Osaka 250,000 Won!, then when you call them up they quote the price at least 100,000 won higher. Why don't they just lie even more and say "free tickets!"
This is getting frustrating. I just want to fly there, zip! bang! boom! and get it over with, and not monkey around with the train and boat again. I was considering trying to do the whole trip in one day, but doing it that way would involve a great deal of stress if things don't go perfectly. Doing the visa run in that fashion can be risky and fail if there's even a long line at immigration/customs. Anyone done it that way lately? I'm trying to plan this trip for some time next week. Anyone else going then? I'm going to either Fukuoka or Osaka, possibly Taipei, whichever is the cheapest.
Hopefully I won't need to go through this hassle for a year now that I'm getting the E-2 visa again. This is the price I got today at one travel agency I popped into near Songnae Station: 410,000 won to Fukuoka. Add that with 50,000 for the visa, at least 50,000 for a hotel, plus all sorts of miscellaneous fees and that adds up. And I have to pay for it all because even though I'm getting a full time visa, I'm not technically working full time. I wonder how much money I've basically thrown away on these trips. It used to be something to look forward to, now it's just a nuisance.
Update: I booked a ticket for next Thursday for Fukuoka, return on Friday afternoon. They really did have a cheap ticket, but it was on JAL (Japan Airline), which would be fine if the return flight wasn't at 9:00 in the morning. I wouldn't have enough time to pick up my visa and get to the airport.
So I paid 300,000 for an Asiana Air ticket plus a whopping 43,000 airport tax. Oh well, that is about average, I guess. I had planned on about $500 US total for the trip, anyway, and looks like that's about will I'll be paying. If anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to update my Japan page.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/28/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Great Theater, Bad Movies
This theater in Save Zone is great because it's nice and new and never crowded. As you can see, it's empty now. The entire upstairs is always dead, and not just during holidays. That Popeye's Chicken gets a few customers but the Subway Sandwich down the hall is always empty. We're worried it will go out of business. It's the only one around here.
Here's Julie looking over a selection of movie promotional fliers. We were considering seeing a movie last night, but as usual nothing good is playing. I am picky about movies, though.
This may be an old movie because this billboard has been here forever, but this is why I'm picky and don't go to see many movies these days. What is this crap they're making in Hollywood? As I said in the previous post, we ended up getting beer and anju instead.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Songnae Night
Here's a few shots from last night. It's been a pretty slow holiday. After walking around aimlessly for awhile, John, Julie and I did at least go out and have some good food at an anju (food served with beer) bar and a pitcher of ice cold beer. By that time we were sick of taking photos and left the camera at home. Oh well, just imagine the three of us laughing and eating food and drinking beer.
This ajumma and ajushi night club has a lot of lights. When I first saw "7.8F" I thought, wow, they're pretty exact as to where they are in the building. Now I'm guessing that means it's on two floors.
Here it is from another angle. This whole area down the road from us is flooded with lights, music and entertainment.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/27/2004
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Korea Life Blog - On the Roof
Here's a bunch of shots I took up on the roof last night. I've had my Minolta camera for nearly two years now and just finally realized there are night settings on it. I always just thought my camera is a piece of junk that can't take photos at night. I didn't bother to look at the manual (who does?) and I didn't bother to push the setting button with the night icon right there in plain view. Anyway, I still have no idea exactly who to work the settings, but here's what I ended up with:
Julie actually posed for the camera for a change and is only making a meek protest at the moment I type this.
Such an innocent face. Hmm, almost has me fooled too.
Now this is what I came out with on the night setting and with a few brilliant adjustments (pushing random buttons).
After fiddling with the settings even more (more pushing of random buttons and cursing), I took this shot. Not too bad. To think of all the night photos I could have taken over the past years. Oh, well. Better late than never.
I also didn't know I had this trail-effect setting, or maybe I just changed the speed of the shutter...I have no idea but I kind of like the effect.
A artistic shot including the moon above Hyundai Department Store. More on Chuseok (pronounced like Chew-suck) here:
The full harvest moon festival occurs on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, and is similar to the American Thanksgiving holidays. The day before 14th and 16th of the 8th lunar month are also holidays, giving a total of three days off to allow people time to visit their home towns. As the most important of all Korean holidays, during this period people jam the highways to visit their home towns and family members. Similar to the lunar new year holidays, family members pay respect to their living relatives and visit the graves of their ancestors. Family members exchange gifts and play special games.
Though it won't actually be Chuseok until the moon is full, we got a head start yesterday by feasting on Nachos, Cheese-dip and Salsa, and John made up some Spaghetti for dinner.
John and I hung around up there taking pictures for ages and fiddling with the effects and taking bizarre photos such as this one. He had his camera with him, too. Check out his website. He's made a hundred updates in the past two hours.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/26/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Prostitution Crackdown
The government is clamping down once again on prositution. They changed the laws and will no longer prosecute the prositutes themselves, as many of the girls have been forced into the business and have no escape. They had risked being arrested before if they tried to go to the police for help. Now only the brothel operators and the clients will be prosecuted. Hopefully this will enable some of those women who are victims to get out.
I really don't understand prostitution in Korea anyway. It's technically illegal, yet it exists everywhere here in every shape and form and usually the businesses are blatantly obvious about the services they provide. But when they do a crack down on it, you end up with protests such as these. As if the owners of these shady places didn't know what they were doing is illegal. They made the decision to open that kind of business. How can they protest and expect to find any sympathy? I guess they are thinking that the government usually looks the other way, vaguely implying permission, perhaps the police take some bribe money in return, and now suddenly it isn't OK...again. I know I don't feel sorry for these unscrupulous brothel owners.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/24/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Chuseok Gift Set
One of the downsides of having this Friday off (the school is taking the kids on a field trip) is that I didn't get any Chuseok gift sets this year. Not that I would have gotten any for sure, but I have in years past from the parents. Julie had to work today, but she only got one gift and it was from her boss.
Click the photo for a full size pic. I'm running out of space again on my blog so I've resorted to using Photobucket again. I guess I'll put the full size pics there for now until I get a bandwidth warning from them. In the meantime I may go through and delete any digital-cam videos that I have on the blog. That should free up a lot of space.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Songnae
Here are some photos of Songnae, where we live. I compressed the quality but left the sizes large. Click on the pics to see them in all their glory. Sorry dial-up users. If you can't see them all, try refreshing your browser a few times.
We almost moved into this office-tel, but we realized it would be pretty noisy next to the subway/bus/taxi station here.
Another shot in front of Songnae subway station. The public transportation system is utterly amazing. The trains come every 3-5 minutes and the busses literally come every 2 minutes. As soon as I jump off the train, I jump right on the bus.
Another shot. Notice the World Cup flower pots still around. There's the 7-1 bus that takes me to my place.
It was a nice day and the threatening clouds were all bark and no bite. Beautiful sky. Notice the omipresent apartment complexes that run into the distance.
This is Hyundai Department store (yes Hyundai, the car maker, also makes department stores here as well as apartment complexes, ships, heavy machinery, and on and on). I'm not sure if there are still departments stores in this style in America, but this building reminds me of one of the old Macy's in Albany, New York from when I was a kid. I like the style.
This is a strip of buildings next to our place. You can see on top of the one to the left the giant crabs and lobsters. Those belong to the restaurant that I posted about here. I'll just mention a few of the other businesses in this strip: a pool hall, several hagwons (private schools), a few banks, some small, specialty hospitals, several restaurants, a convenience store (of course), a huge Samsung Electronics store, a Health Club, and lots more...
One of the many food stands around the area. This one specializes in kyae ran bbang which is some kind of fried bread and egg. I've actually never had it for some reason, but it looks and smells pretty good.
This is the crosswalk on the main road in front of our place. Who says Asian men don't lose their hair...
This road is massive. There's Walmart Korea, and in the backround are three more brand new office-tel buildings. This area is sprouting these places like concrete weeds.
Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, is next week. Walmart is stocked full of gift sets. Other bloggers have posted some pictures of some of the funny sets like Spam, but there are also very nice ones like these. There's a small store near our place that carries unique, traditional gifts.
Two halmoni (grandmothers) carrying Chuseok gift sets walk into the sunset.
At last, home. Here's another shot outside our window of the sun going down beyond the mountains.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/23/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Soju in the City
Rather than continue to post his "brain dumps" on my site, I convinced John to take a couple of minutes and whip up a new blog. Here it is:
Soju in the City
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written by shawn matthews
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9/21/2004
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Korea Life Blog - At the School
I resized and uploaded all these pics last night, which took forever due to malfunctioning software, and then I decided not to do the update, saving it for today. Now I realize that I really don't have a lot to say about these pictures as I already talked about my job a bit and there just shots of the kids. I wish I held off on taking the photos because my assistant and the woman from "the agency" who are both in the pics, stayed after the classes yesterday I left and totally redecorated the classroom. It looks really nice and I have a lot more things to do now with the kids with all the things they put up on the walls. I even got a new green board with a hundred or more velcro objects on it. Today I spent 30 minutes of each class having each kid "give me the (whatever object)," and they went ape.
I really don't like birthday parties. I guess I have to do this once a month, too. It wasn't that bad, just a little silly and basically I had to just kill time until the last 20 minutes when the party would start. This is my first class. Why is it that the little girls are always so cute and innocent and well behaved at this age in Korea. I love those two girls. Some of these boys are a real handful.
Kids blowing out candles with me standing behind them. Later I had to put on that birthday hat while "Bonnie," from the agency, took class pictures. She had her own camera and she took this photo with mine. I changed her English name to protect her secret identity.
This one is kind of funny. Julie said I should delete it, but I think it is a true representation of the nature of that wicked little boy to the front left.
This is my second class and my favorite. These kids are smart, quiet angels -- almost all of them. This is probably because the class is mostly made up of girls. I think there are about 12 girls and 4 boys. There's an extra boy in the picture because he had to leave early so came for this class instead of the third. They do that a lot and it's kind of annoying, since all of the classes use different books.
Here's Bonnie from the agency. She has to do this birthday party routine with every class at seven schools every month. The cake was pretty good for being made in Korea.
One more shot of the second class. Happy birthday September babies. You might not be able to tell from looking at this, but there is a range of ages from 9-13 years old among the kids. Unlike at most hagwons where they group all the kids together based mostly on age, here they did a level test and stuck to the results when placing them. With a few exceptions (some parents insisted their child was smarter than in reality), it has worked out well.
Here's Cathy, my assistant. She was very busy cutting and serving the cake today. Bonnie told me to relax and kept giving me pieces of cake to eat. Poor Cathy has to do all the dirty work.
I copied this idea from a hagwon I worked at. When students do something exceptional, we give them a small sticker. They would then have to go get their folder and put the stickers on a sheet on the inside cover (if they get 30 stickers, they get a prize). Bonnie had the nice idea to have the kids put the stickers on display on the wall. A very logical idea. Therefore she made Cathy make one of these sticker-boards for each class. They never ask me to do anything except teach.
This isn't a great picture, but this girl is so cute and sweet. Her English name is Sarah. A total doll and very smart. I want to kidnap her.
Bonnie asked me to take this picture, I guess for evidence that the kids ate everything.
The third class. These are the smartest kids. There are only 10 kids in this class. Once again, very good children, at least in my opinion. I thought they were great today and we had a really good class. Maybe I've become lenient after working in hagwons where half the kids are out of control, because even when the students here misbehave a little, it doesn't bother me at all. Cathy, on the other hand, a graduate student of education, gets really upset when the kids make even a little noise or a small mess. I was startled today when, after class was over, she held them for 10 minutes, scolding them in Korean, and making them do things like sit down and stand up over and over and over again. I just snuck out and went home. After all, I didn't know what she was saying. Outside, some parents who were waiting asked me where the kids were. I'll have to tell Cathy to relax a little.
Here's my extra room. The kids play in here while waiting for class to begin. I can also read stories to them or play games in here if I want.
These pictures are not in any real order, I see. This is the door to the playroom.
And finally, in dramatic conclusion, here is the amazing door to my classroom.
At the end of the day I found out I have Friday off as well as all of next week for Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, except next Friday. Not that I'm complaining, but does it make any sense to have this Friday off and all of next week except Friday. Only in Korea.
That's it. Come back tomorrow for an update a lot of pics from around my area.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - John's Update 2
Yeturday shawn and i went to visit his friend in Gwanghwamun. Its about 30 mins outside Seoul on the subway and is home to the Blue House the Korean White House. Its a very rich are carved into the side of a mountain. It'a very beautiful and everybody has a Lexus a BMW and a Mercedes. Its lots of very twisting and turning roads that carve their way in and out of beautiful abstract and modern homes that cost millions of dollars. there are also many budhist temples where you can stop for a break. At one temple we stopped and got some fresh spring water and observed a monk ring the enormous bell. The temple was small but beautiful and also had a garage with a hyundia in it? Guru, Shawn's British friend has 2 Daelim scooters that we zipped around on for hours in the mountains up and down hills some with an almost immpassible grade nearing 40 degrees. After our fun on the hills we headed back to Guru's house. His girlfriend served us salami, and olives anice imported treat that Guru had brought home on his last trip out of the country. We sat on his second floor patio and enjoyed the sun and spectacualr scenery of the mountains and shear rock peaks surrounding his beautiful home. It is so close to Seoul but so far from the city. It is truly a scerene and beautiful place. Worthy of retirement. Soon after we enjoyed some fresh Sangria and a pizza from Costco that was pretty darn good I might add for a frozen pizza. Pizza is really hit or miss here. Sometimes it has canned tuna and corn on it, other times its made with ketchup. Go figure. At about 9pm Shawn and i decide we should head back since its about an hour journey with all the connections. We got back to Yeokgok had a beer then shawn went on his way back home. Today i really didn't do much, i went into maximum oversleep last night and awoke at 2:30 this afternoon. I went to the pc bang, applied for some jobs, ate a pig on a stick, and met shawn for dinner and a beer. More kimbap and some kimchi stew. After we had a beer and i went home to study my korean a little more. I have an interview with a recruiter in Kangnam tommorow so we'll see what he may have for me. other than that i'm gonna have a little soju and call it a night.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/20/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Change of Seasons
The weather has turned cold here today. I rushed out for work with a short sleeve button-up shirt and realized I should have taken a jacket. Rainy and cool, almost cold. I was practically shivering tonight on the way home.
The weather couldn't have been any nicer on Sunday. John wanted to relax and stay in his cave-gwan and rest, but I coaxed him to go with me to Jongnoguru's home in Pyung Chang Dong where we ate salami and olives, frozen pizza (yes, Jongnoguru even has an oven that he's been toting around for 4-5 years), and drove around in the hills on scooters for over an hour, then relaxed on the patio and chatted over some ice cold Sangria Wine. As usual, everyone had a really nice time. Jognoguru and his girlfriend are wonderful hosts. I guess most Korean and British people are, and I guess Swiss James would be, too - if he didn't live in a motel. But he tries his best. Last time I went to his room, he picked up some nice $5 vodka and orange juice at a Family Mart, and everyone drank Screwdrivers while he stood on his head and juggled his collection of limited edition MC Hammer B-side CDs.
Back to today. Nothing too much to say about the job. It's going very well and despite having a larger number of students than in a hagwon, the kids are well behaved for the most part (of course there are always a few little twerps you want to throw out the window). Having a lot of teaching experience, I know it's important to establish myself in the beginning. I put up a short list of simple rules on the wall and made them repeat them over and over. I also have been teaching them classroom language everyday (come here, sit down, pay attention, clean up, and so on). The classes are running smoothly and my assistant hasn't had to do much besides make coffee and copies and call the parents when a kid is absent.
The biggest difference, though, has been starting the year together with these students, unlike working in a hagwon in which you are hired at a random time in the year and kids are constantly coming and going anyway. Also, I teach these kids everyday. That really helps. In a hagwon you may only see the kids once, twice or three times a week. I suppose another important factor is that I'm teaching them in a public school and not a hagwon. This must give me a little more legitimacy as a teacher in their eyes. I'm not sitting there in a goofy kiddie hagwon wearing shorts, sandals and a rock T-shirt with kids names after WWF wrestlers. Not that I did that before, either, but I've seen others dress like that. I don't wear a suit and tie every day, but I at least dress decently.
One of these days I'll take my camera with me. Maybe I'll put it in my bag now. OK, done. The agency is coming in tomorrow to throw a monthly birthday party for the kids. That will make a good excuse to take photos.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/18/2004
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Korea Life Blog - They Killed and Ate Their Boss's Dog
Here's a scary and bizarre story from Friday's Korea Times:
Dog Meat Lovers Face 80-Million-Won Lawsuit
*80 million won is about 70,000 US dollars.
As a meat eater it's hard for me to say with any credibility that eating dog is wrong. I disagree with the inhumane treatment of any animal, but simple saying that is easy. Though I have stopped eating fast food for the time being (after reading Fast Food Nation), I blindly and zealously devour Kalbi, Sam Gyeop Sal and other meats without really considering how the meat ended up on my plate. Without doing anything to stop cruelty to animals, and by continuing to eat all sorts of meat, I'm just part of the problem, I know.
However, I can say with a clear conscience that it's wrong to steal a person's pet and eat it. That's just sick. Since the police don't care, I hope the bastards who did this are forced to pay up in court.
For anyone who may be interested in learning more about the tradition (and it's not only Korea, of course) of eating dogs and the inherent cruelty that goes with it, click here.(don't click here if you want to avoid seeing animal cruelty.)
It's important that I point out that Korea is making advancements toward the better treatment of animals, though there is still a long way to go for those involved in the crusade. Here is just one website devoted to the cause: Korean Society for the Protection of Animals
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - New Search Engine: A9.com
After reading this article in PC World, I tested out this new search site by Amazon.com:
A9.com
Though it's still "enhanced" by Google, it's got a lot of unique features that I like. If you click on "site info" under the links you can see a bunch of stats and, in the tradition of Amazon's user interface, see what other pages people who click on those links visit. You can also see the "traffic rating" for a site (the lower the number the better). For example, my site has a ranking of 348, and Swiss James' Lost Seouls has a ranking of 5,402,786. I'm not making this up.
Nice! I wonder if Google will add some similar features too.
The only thing I don't like about A9.com is that it displays "sponsered links" on top of search results. I like how Google does away with that and puts the advertising way off to the right.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/17/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Singing Room
Be sure to stop by and check out James' site for a brief rundown of last night, a few pics, and to read his plugs for my book.
Here's James last night singing "Beat It" by Michael Jackson again...
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - John's Update
John saw a request from a reader to keep my readers posted on his progress in Korea. John took it to heart and spent the last few hours writing this. He was on such a roll that he never even bothered to hit enter for a paragraph break. He also included his notes from yesterday too.
Hi Everyone,
Today is day four here and I'm still not over my jet lag. I woke up at 5am here and forced myself to sleep until about 8am then I got up grabbed a fresh peach at Yeokgok Outdoor Market and headed over to Yongsan Electronic Market. Yongsan has every gadget and gizmo you could ever need in about 5 large 3-6 story building and all surrounding streets. Video games, telephones, camera's, computers and accesories. You want it and almost everyshop here has got it. If you walk slow they will suck you in and try and sell you something. I ended up getting an 256MB LG Ultra High Speed Compact Flash Card for my new Canon S410 camera. I also had to get an adapter for the charger so I can plug it in here so I brought that with me. After saying the word adapter about 50 times in my head in Korean on the way of course I forgot when I arrived. So...I just pretended to plug my charger into the wall...biffed myself on the forehead and said "Babo" which means dummy in Korean. After laughing he got the point and gave me one for free. After going the wrong way on the subway on the way home I finally made it back to Yeokgok where I hade more Kimbab. You can't beat the price of less than a dollar for a full meal! I heard back today from one of my recruiters "Jennifer" that always attaches "from Korea" to the end of her introduction. She said she still has a job starting October 1st if I'm interested but I forgot the details and asked "Jennifer from Korea" to send them to me. "John from Korea" will keep you posted. Earlier while I was waiting for the train I had one sided ten minute conversation with an ajuma (older korean woman). I kept telling her I don't speak Korean but she persisted untill eventually she ran out of things to say. Other than that not much new. I'm going to try and call my friend Bin Kim later on. It's about 6:45 pm here (5:45 am EST) I think she works till around 8pm, can't remember, and i'm not sure how to use the phone in my room, or if i get charged for local calls? I guess i should try and figure out how to ask the guy that owns the place if there is a phone number, and if its free. He's a really nice guy. Poor guy and his wife actually live there in the office. They sleep on the floor Ondol style. They have all their clothes on shelves and even have a shower and head in there, but its about half the size of my room. Life for Koreans isn't grand for all I guess. Its nice to be a westerner here. Well with all that said. I'm freakin starving! I need to grab a bite to eat before I fall asleep at the keyboard like the guy next to me.
Let me get my notes so I can actually remember what i did...ok. Unfortunately nobody in my little hotel speaks even a word of English so when i need something i have to put together the sentences in advance and prepare some back up answers and responses based on their response. Needless to say it can be difficult at times to get things done here when you don't even know how its done. For example one of my recruiters asked me to fax her a copy of my diploma yesterday. That was a half day project. There is no such thing as a kinkos in korea so if you don't own a fax how do you send one? After wandering around Yeokgok for a few hours looking for some clue I gave up and went back to my room. I picked up my trusty Berlitz Korean phrase book and looked for something about fax machines and low and behold it told me I needed to go the post office to send a fax, Hoping this was true I taught myself how to say I need to send one document by fax and prayed they wouldn't laugh at me if they didn't send faxes from the post office. After sitting for a few moments what appeared to be the young lady qualified to send faxes came out. It seems that in Korea everyone has their purpose at their job and it was clear that the women I first spoke with was not the "faxer." Once the faxer arrived everything went fairly smooth and for 300 won or about 25 cents my fax was sent. I decided against Kimbab for lunch and got mandu guk or dumpling soup. it was yummy and if I ever get a chance to upload my photos I'll show you all the pics I'm taking. Later on that day I met up with Bin which I'll get to eventually. I met Bin online about 7 months ago. I'm not sure how exactly but we have been chatting ever since and we decided to meet up and grab a bite to eat. She had asked me as a favor to get her some Godiva choclates before I left the states. I searched boston and finally found a store at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall. Now lets jump ahead to my 3rd hour of my flight on Korean Air. In the third hour it is duty free shopping time and of course what are they selling? Godiva Choclates! Early that day I figured I should try to get some of my dirty laundry done. I spent 15 minutes teaching myself how to ask the ajuma's where the washing machine was and she brought me into the closet and showed me a ladder. I'm not sure exactly why she thought I may need a ladder in my room for but eventually she realized I wanted to wash some clothes but insisted that the "ajuma" do it for me. Hesitantly I wondered as to why this old lady wanted to wash my stinky socks and underwear but she seemed very please to do it for me. I went back to my room, collected my dirty things and handed them to her and she scurried away with a smile. After I went for a walk in Yeokgok Market. It was about 5pm and at that time of day everything is bustling. Most of the students are out of school by then parading throught the streets. Echoes of "Hello" and "Hi, how are you?" fill the air and many of the young students are thrilled to pieces when I simply respond "Hi." Their friends seem more impressed that I can speak English and respond to me "Wow! pretty good." After my walk I called Bin. She was just getting off work and suggested we meet up. She told me to go to Yeongdeongpo Station and meet her there. Of course I was there in about 10 mins and Bin in about oh say 60 mins. I managed to catch the express train and Bin rightfully figured it would take me longer since it would usually take about 30-40 mins plus add on for lack of experience using the subway. Eventually we met up in front of a Pizza Hut then decided to get some sam gyuep sal, basically grilled pork with lots of little side dishes and some sauces. You grill the onions pork and garlic right in front of you on the table and then wrap everything up into a nice little lettuce or persimon leave package pop it in your mouth as gracefully as possible and chew. Very yummy. After dinner we went down the street and had some beksoju, a traditional Korean wine, with some Kimchi Bokum, wich is stirfried kimchi with pork and steamed tofu on the side. Neither of us were hungry but in many of the more traditional places they force you to buy food with drinks but I'm glad they did because it was the best kimchi bokum I've had yet. Ah yes I forgot to mention Bin also got me a gift as well. She baught me a cool book "The way Koreans talk" that teaches you idioms and and funny phrases that Koreans use to get the point across. Bin and I had a good time but I had to catch the last train home soon enough. I arrived home and flicked throught the channels and found a Korean movie that had just started on MBC movies. The movie was Nabun Namja, a sort of love story set in the backdrop of the darker side of Korea's sex trade. It was moving, shocking, disturbing and upsetting. It was very well made and you don't need to understand Korean to know exactly what is going on in the movie. I'll try and get a copy to send home, it's definitelly worth seeing again. I fell asleep and missed the ending cuz I think I had a wee bit too much soju. The next day I did little but meet up with shawn, julkie and james later on. James is from Britain and works here at the airport in incheon. Shawn stopped by Yeogkok and we weent on to Songnae where he had to pick up his bill of health from the doctors office. His job required that he have a full physical to prove his health and he's gonna make it another day it seems. After we grabbed a pitcher of beer at a chicken restaurant and waited for julie to arrive. We ate anju (complimentary snacks) and drank beer untill Julie arrived then went to the Toona department store to meet James. Once together we went to a great Kalbi (beef) place. Similar idea to the sam gyuep sal but with beef on a wood fired grill that is in the middle of your table, and we were outside. The food was delicious and the company was great. After many bottles of soju we headed of to a norebang (kareoke room.) Being a westerner and born ina country that shuns public displays of bad singing I was a little nervous but Shawn reassured me it was nothing a shot of soju couldn't fix. After my first song I loosened up but realized that I suck at singing and shawn kept getting scores in the mid 90's while I was getting 70's. Next time Shawn...next time... I also forgot to mention that we played one of Koreas great tension tamer games that are on the side of the street. Koreans like to beat the crap out of machines to show how macho they are. I thought this was very silly to start but then realized how fun no addicting it can be. The three of us kicked the crap out of a socker ball and again shawn beat me by 4 points...damn. Later we walked by the same game and these little Korean kids were kicking it harder than all us big western guys. Damn Koreans and thier taekwondo...lol. Made us look silly. Next time. After the three of us were thouroghly drunk julie put us all in cabs and sent us back to our homes. Julie is the designated driver even though we always walking. I guess what I'm trying to say is since she doesn't drink she makes sure we are all safe and happy and that everyone gets home ok. She's a really nice girl and patient to put up with us three drunken monkeys. Thanks Julie! This morning Bin awoke me from my hangover coma at oh sometime just before 9am. It was wierd to hear the phone ring but refreshing as well. I watched a few movies then ended up here at the pc bang. just a few mins ago I heard my name and shawn walked in to the bang. He went over to my room looking for me figuring I would be sleeping, but i was here. I managed to lose my battery from my camera while i was running across the street. It popped ouit of my pocket fell out in the road and i didn't notice. Now I need to go back to Yongsan to buy another if I get in the mood. Thats all for now....
ttyl John
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written by shawn matthews
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9/16/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Good News!
One of the requirements of working at a public school in Korea is the submission of a doctor's examination which includes a physical and blood tests. This, of course, is to ensure you don't have any contagious viruses that you may pass on to the children, which is understandable. However, it seems a little strange to me at this point seeing as I already started teaching the kids almost two weeks ago. Anyway, I received all the results back and I am in good health. My lungs look fine, my urine didn't turn up anything, my blood pressure is normal and I don't have diabetes (not sure why this test was included), hepatitis B or syphilis. Whoo hoo!
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written by shawn matthews
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9/14/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Groceries!
We got a huge bag of Poki Kimchi, 4kgs of rice, some eggs, some Ziploc containers (Poopy ruined our other ones), some Australian Camembert cheese which came with 10 clices of fondue cheese for free, a bottle of beer and a can of black olives (Walmart was sold-out of regular olives...all the foreigners around here must be buying them up). Tonight we are going to eat the salami John gave us with some cheeses, mustard and the black olives and a little beer. Yum! I can't wait!
I stopped by yesterday and checked on John at the yeogwan. We were able to find an adapter for his notebook computer. I feel kind of bad for him staying in that yeogwan, but it's not that bad and it is a convenient location anyway. The only real downside in that area is the mosquito trucks that go by and spray that chemical smoke in the air like they used to do in the states years and years ago. I've never seen them do it in any other area in Korea except Yeokgok.
I've been meaning to take my camera with me to the school and get some pictures but my camera is kind of big, and with all the teacher's books and materials I've been bringing home, I haven't wanted to lug the camera along just yet. Today I taught the Thanksgiving theme. It went better than I thought. I had the kids compare and contrast Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) with American Thanksgiving.
My assistant was pretty helpful again. She made copies of a big Thanksgiving turkey wearing pilgrims' clothes for the kids to color. And get this, the agency also included a Thanksgiving word search puzzle that ended up taking the older kids over half the period to finish. It was printed off the same site I used to get my puzzles from when I lived in Nowhere-dong.
Tomorrow it will be back to using their books: English Time. It's been the first time I've used this series and I really like it. Thursday I will teach the story books again, then Friday is song/game day. We have several children's' music CDs and a while file full of game ideas. I have so many things to do with the kids and have been really enjoying the job. I wish every teaching job could be so good.
I also received my E-2 visa letter last week and will be going to Japan once again in the near future. I may try to go to Osaka this time rather than Fukuoka. I've been to both cities at least 3-4 times each. There are good things about each city. I can't wait to do some more exploration, practice my Japanese and have some more sushi there! I hope the weather is nice.
I'm not exactly sure when I will be heading off. I have to pay for the trip myself, though they are paying me for the time off. My current visa doesn't expire until mid-October, so I may try to stall until then. The confirmation letter is valid for 90 days. Maybe I can hold off and John and I can go over together. He's looking for a job now.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/13/2004
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Korea Life Blog - John from Boston
One of my long time readers, John, from Boston, arrived on Saturday. We started to chat on messenger one night after one of my posts and basically had kept in contact every day for the past 6 months. We have very similar backgrounds and a lot in common. He had been planning to come here to teach after having visited here for a few weeks before and he finally got here.
He flew from Boston to San Francisco and to Seoul. With the traffic, the layovers, etc., it took him over a full day. Julie and I met him at the airport on Saturday and it was raining hard outside. We brought him back to our place and the bus stopped too close to our building to take a taxi, and we had to carry his bags down the street in the pouring rain. It rained all weekend so he ended up staying with us until this morning. Today I brought him over to that yeogwan in Yeokgok and the ajushi gave him the same deal he gave me, a decent room for a month for only 350,000 won (about $300). See this post. John plans to stay for at least a year and learn Korean and teach English.
The only thing we don't have in common is size. The guy is beefy like Ah-nold.
We were trying to use his nice new Canon digital camera, but obviously we haven't figured out how to use it right yet.
Another shot with his camera. I kind of like this one. That's my foot there. Julie cooked up this mandu snack for us on Sunday afternoon. I made poor John watch Rocky 1, but he genuinely liked it. Everyone should see that movie again (and again and again). He was just as surprised as I was when I re-watched it for the first time.
He showed us some pictures like this one of his last meals before he came to Korea. I miss meatball subs like this. Fortunately, John loves Korean food just as much as me, if not more. He kept buying bags of dried squid from the convenience stores here.
Here are John's expensive bags. I guess thats another difference we have. He's a man of high-class style and I'm absolutely not. He brought a lot of stuff including pillows and a blanket and a nice new IBM laptop and even that huge framed photo someone gave him at the last minute and he was forced to bring here. I feel kind of bad for him staying in that small yeogwan with all of this, but you can't beat that deal. Plus he's right near the subway, which will make it very convenient for him to go out and look for a job.
He asked me what I needed from the states and I had him bring me some necessities such as these two logs of salami and pepperoni. All of us munched on the salami already. Julie just loves it. She's never had it before (except when JongnoGuru gave us some after his trip to California). I wish they had a nice Italian grocery shop somewhere in Korea. By the way, I took this with my camera. Not bad for a Minolta.
In other news: I had a great day at work. I still can't believe what a good job I have. My "secretary" makes me coffee and does all the paper work (calling the parents, writing down my daily lessons for the school, etc.). She even jumps in to give me good ideas while I'm teaching. These ideas are always very helpful, not intrusive. The kids are amazingly well behaved and have taken to the class already. I feel like I'm a real teacher for the first time in ages. This is the first time I've ever enjoyed my job, actually. More on this soon.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/11/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Charles Jenkins
Isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on this sort ot thing? I think it's incredibly ridiculous to attempt to prosecute this 64 year old man for army desertion almost 40 years after it happened. It's my opinion that the US government has no other motive except to use Jenkins for what he may be able to reveal about North Korea. What do you think?
On a side note, out of curiosity I looked up "statue of limitations" on Google and it's amazing how many people have spelled it that way.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Book Review
A review of my book can be found here: Trenchman.com
By the way, the third and final edition is now complete. The story itself is exactly the same, but the text has been edited by my friend at On-Time Office Solutions, Ltd., Seoul Korea. There are no more grammatical errors (let's hope!) and certain sentences, paragraphs, and word choices have been fixed up considerably. My apologies to those who have already purchased the first or second edition, but rest assured nothing major has changed with the plot. This has all been a valuable learning experience for me. Note to self: have next book edited BEFORE publishing.
Here is the link to the new edition: http://www.lulu.com/content/74463
To those who have already linked or put banners ads for my book on your site, don't worry, that link will be directed to this one.
One downside to this is that the book reviews don't transfer when you create a new edition. Three people took the time to leave a review of the second edition. To those people: thanks and my apologies. If you could login to Lulu and rewrite your reviews, I'd appreciate it. If not, no big deal and don't worry about it. Also, my sales ranking goes back to the bottom for now...I had gotten up to the top 200 range from the first sale when I stood at 5000. Oh, well.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Bye Bye, Poopy
Julie put an ad for the dog online, and at 9:30 this morning a guy called. He came and picked the dog up at 11:00. He says he has a house and a yard and two other dogs. I hope he does, but for all we know he saw a free dog and took it so he can re-sell it or whatever. I thought he was kind of rude. We brought the dog to him in the rain over by Hyundai Department store and the guy jumped out of the car, swooped up the dog, took the bag of food, pet shampoo, and toys we bought, said thank-you, hopped back in the car, zip, zoom, and that was that. Oh, well. We did our best for little Poopy (a fitting, temporary name, trust me) by rescuing him from the street and taking him to the vet for shots, giving him a total scrubbing, and just taking care of him. We spent a total of 100,000 won ($80) all together, but we don't feel bad. We learned a lesson, though. No dog bigger than a cat should live in an apartment.
Here are a few last photos of Poopy:
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written by shawn matthews
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9/10/2004
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Korea Life Blog - More Foreigners Arrested on Drug Charges
I can never get over how stupid some foreigners are here. Another large group has been arrested (including several English teachers and a British professor) for buying and/or using marijuana. The Korea Herald had a better article about it in the paper a few days ago. They don't have it posted on their website, though. This is the only other reference I could find, and it's a very short one.
I just thought I'd send out a warning again to any users considering coming here: it's a good idea to leave your old habits at home. If you even have anything in your system, let alone have drugs on you, you can still get into big trouble. We're talking 30 days in a Korean jail, sharing a small cell with a gang of Korean felons, and then deported. And that's the penalty for simply failing a drug test. It doesn't matter if you used the drugs in Korea or before you came. Now imagine the penalty for actually having drugs on you. Forget seeing the sun for a long, long time. Now, on the other hand, if you like to get drunk out of your mind, then enjoy your stay in Korea.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Free Dog
Julie rescued an abandoned Alaskan Malamute puppy that was sitting helplessly in the middle of a busy street the other day. As a matter of fact, it was the same day I read in the paper how Koreans are ditching their pets in record numbers due to the recent economic downturn. Apparently man's best friend turns into man's expendable nuisance when money is little tight.
See this article: click here!
Here he is. The little guy had bad diarrhea for a few days, so we brought him to the Walmart vet (yes, Walmart has a vet here) and had him looked over. The doggy-doctor gave him a couple of shots and some medicine. The diarrhea has already stopped. He's in good health and he has a great personality. Very easy going. He doesn't get overly excited or jump in your face. While he's playful, he is also calm and will just sit by your side for hours on end. He's smart, too. We've already taught him to shake hands and sit. I haven't even trained Julie to do that yet!
One more shot. Very good looking dog. Though he's already grown on us quite a bit, we realize an office-tel is no place for a dog. Especially for one that is going to grow so big. We're willing to give him away for free. If you're interested, please send me an e-mail with your phone number. We really don't know what to do with him and we're rapidly becoming attached. However, we want the dog to have a family who can take care of him better than we can. Hopefully someone with a big heart and a big home will take him in.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/8/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Sick
The joys of teaching are beginning already. Whether it is a result of the change of seasons or of shaking hands with all the kids last Friday or a combination, I'm sick and I feel awful. It started with that sore throat on Monday and now it's progressed into something terrible. I just woke up from a two hour nap and will probably go back to sleep again soon. That 70's Show is on. I guess I'll watch it with Julie before going to back to bed. Note to self: Don't shake hands with germ infested kids.
Upsate: I took some medicine and feel quite a bit better (as if the whole world has been waiting to hear about my condition). Julie's been cleaning the apartment for the last few hours, the doll. I tend to pick things up and clean a little day to day. Julie likes to be a slob then suddenly clean everything all at once. (Shh, let's not interrupt her.) I'm going to lay back down and read. Current book: Don't Know Much About History. I've read this before and I still don't know very much about history. Maybe I should read a book about how to retain more of what I've read. I'm also reading Hitler's War (borrowed from JongnoGuru). It's very insightful and revealing but also very long and tedious. That's why I'm alternating between the two. Note to self: Pick up some new books. Any suggestions anyone?
Check out the donation page. Somebody donated today and also sent me a nice letter which I posted there.
The genorosity of people who support me and my website never ceases to astound me. I'm not just talking about people who make donations or people have bought my book either. That goes up and beyond all expectations. I read everyone's comments and e-mails and always appreciate when people take the time to share their thoughts. I make it a point to respond to everyone's e-mail, though it's not really easy to do the same in the comments part.
The letter and donation from CS, who lives in Besal, Swizerland, made my evening tonight. Time for sleep now, though. I'm beat. Maybe I'll bring my camera to work tomorrow and do a much-needed, genuine update (with photos) soon.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/7/2004
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Korea Life Blog - The Job...
Woke up with a sore throat and made my way the 75 minute trek (bus, subway, then another bus) to my job through a torrential downpour that eased off moments after I entered the classroom, drenched.
Later, I had some miscommunication with my assistant who I realize can't speak English all that well. Basically she went to the agency's office and they piled a load of paperwork on her and she relayed it to me after showing up minutes before class. And she didn't really know how to explain it all to me. Then she hands me some huge Thanksgiving theme packet I was supposed to teach today, I guess, but I already made a plan and the packet was made for kids in America...there was not a chance any of these kids would understand anything she gave me (all text information about the history of American Thanksgiving, a long, long text that must have been cut and pasted into the plan).
After that, she asked if I could come in the morning tomorrow (several hours before class) to make a monthly plan, and I said, "No, thanks." They pay me by the hour, which means I won't get paid if the kids don't have class. That is fine, but I won't be going in hours early to do paperwork off the clock. It'd be one thing if it was right across the street, but it's a hike. I told her I'd do it at home and to give me the file on disk so I can fill in the forms by typing. It's just for the school's records, not something I need to really follow to a T. They agreed - no big deal.
The rest of the day was fine. I figure once this first week is over, there'll be nothing to worry about. The only real downside is the travel distance. I get paid for the transportation, but the long hike, especially home when all the seats are taken, is more tiring than I anticipated...
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written by shawn matthews
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9/4/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Fondue in the City
Kind of an odd name for "choco fondue." In the City. Could that be a subtle reference to Sex In the City, maybe? Looks like it. Who are these girls on the cover? I picked up a box just because it looked so funny. Look at that description. Are they telling me how they make the snack or telling me how to?
It says: "Combine sweetened cream of cocunut and 12 ounces chocolate in heavy large saucepan, Stir mixture over very low heat until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth." Thanks for the tip!
The packaging is too funny. Look, there in the sky! It's Choco Fondue!
They don't look like much, but they are surprisingly delicious. I guess I shouldn't make fun of the packaging and the name, since that's what caused me to make the purchase. Now I like the snack and will probably by more. Who's the dummy here?
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Terminal
We're going to see this to see this movie later. Hope it's good.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/3/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Off to Work
Feel a little odd in this shirt and tie today. Haven't had to dress like this since, well, since I came to Korea. See you later with a full report on the new job.
Update: I really lucked out with this job. The school is surprisingly nice for the area it's in, very big and new. I have my own classroom AND a large playroom next door where the kids can hang out if they're early or if I finish class a bit early. I was really surprised to find out that both of these rooms will only be used by me, my Korean assistant (graduate student majoring in English Education) and my students. I can decorate them as I please, though the agency will be doing this for me to begin with.
The classroom has an air conditioner, a standup fan, a new whiteboard, a nice TV/VCR combo, a stereo with a tape/CD player, and loads and loads of teaching materials. The playroom also has a virtual library of English resources in reserve, storage shelves and a matted floor (as if for wrestling) for the kids. Some of the materials at my disposal: videos (including a stack of Wallace and Gromit and Sesame Street), a thousand flash-cards, bags full of velcro puppets (clothes, fruits/vegetables, objects, numbers, letters, etc.) games, crayons, glue, boxes of pencils, scissors, rulers, stacks of colored paper, puppets, ESL posters of every kind, story/song books and tapes, and shelves of different teaching books/workbooks. And all of this stuff is there for only for me.
The students are mostly kids whose parents can't afford to send them to pricey hagwons. Little do those parents know how much better their children will learn in this kind of environment, and they only have to pay less than half of the cost (60,000 won, about $50, per month vs. anywhere from 150,000 won on up.) The downside is that these kids have studied English very little and it shows. With only a few exceptions, most of the kids were clueless when I did the oral placement test today. This is good though, as I can start off with the basics and see progress. As to be expected, there were a couple of exceptions. One girl studied English in Beijing at an international school, and talking to her was like talking to an American kid, and one other boy, who, when asked, "Can you say the alphabet?" replied, "Do you want me to say it or sing it?" (Most kids just looked at me and said, huh? duh? eh? molla! until I started saying A, B... and then they would break into the alphabet song).
The assistant, "Kathy," is very nice. She has a meeting twice a week at the agency office and has to develop the curriculum and lesson plans for me to use, though the boss said I can do whatever I want. The plans will serve as a basic guide for me to follow. Kathy's responsible for all the paperwork, calling the parents, recording grades, etc. (My first secretary?) She's also there to explain directions to the kids if they don't understand me, and basically tell the kids to shut-up and listen.
All of this is a big relief. I was really on the verge of accepting another crummy hagwon job, and in this area, that would have meant 8 hours/day. Now I'll be making just a little less money and I'll only be working three hours and in a much more professional setting. This is the first time I've ever been excited about teaching.
I hope I continue to feel this way. As long as I get paid on time, I can't forsee any major problems. But then again, anything can happen in Korea. Crossing my fingers...
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written by shawn matthews
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9/2/2004
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Korea Life Blog - Stats Counter
I had been wondering why I had been unable to login to bStats, the stat recorder for my blog. It has been discontinued for now. I found some free services and have added a regular hit counter to the bottom right of this page. I kind of wish I did that to begin with. Looks like a pretty unpopular blog with 1 lonely hit. But now everyone can see how many people are clicking on the main page and archives. The other pages aren't counted.
I've excluded my IP address from the counting to prevent the temptation to make myself feel more popular. I also added a regular stat counter to record referrer addresses, unique visitors, etc.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - New Job
I start my new job tomorrow. All that waiting finally paid off. I was at the point where I was considering teaching 8 classes/day for basic pay at a hagwon just to start working again. Finally, at the last minute, I got the offer I was looking for.
Basically it's similar to the deal with those shady goons: working at a public elementary school for the new after-school program. The differences between agencies are astounding. I'll be working for just about the same pay (just 50,000 won less), yet I'll only be working 1-4PM, no meetings, no extra duties, no dubious clauses in the contract about firing me without notice and keeping my pay, no unpaid week-long orientation period, no teaching sample lessons in front of the staff, and on and on. Now I'll only have 3 classes, cut and dry, with a Korean assistant and they give me all the lesson plans. I'll also have permission from the employer to teach elsewhere.
The only downside is I have to pay most of the cost for my visa trip, but that's why they raised the pay. The woman has also offered to pay 50,000 won/month for travel (about 45 minutes from here) as well as 70,000 toward the visa, to my surprise, and also she's going to pay me a full day for working tomorrow, which is basically a placement test day and all I have to do is stand around and smile. I couldn't believe the difference between this agency and the other one. The woman I met was very professional and, in my opinion (at least so far), trustworthy.
I signed the contract, now it's just a matter of getting my official transcripts. I've always used the unofficial copies in the past without a problem, but apparently the laws have changed. I called my university to pay for the transcripts, and they managed to pull up a campus parking ticket I never paid from 1996. In order to get the transcripts, I'd have to send payment to the campus parking office. When I explained that I'm in Korea and this is an emergency, the woman explained that it wasn't an emergency for me to pay the ticket...ouch! I explained it was emergency for me to pay the $25,000(and that's without all the grants I had!) to go to college there for four years, but that didn't assuage her.
The agency is now trying to get around the official transcripts, seeing as the government issued me three working visas in the past without them. If she can't, I'll just have to pay that mysterious ticket (this is the first I've heard of it, thought I may very well have gotten it and forgotten by now)...wait, hold the phone! The woman from the agency just called Julie and informed us the unofficial copies will be fine! Great news. Now I don't have to waste money on an 8 year-old parking ticket. Note to self: never donate money to my prior university, never, ever, never, ever.
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written by shawn matthews
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9/1/2004
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Korea Life Blog - The Delivery
I heard from three people who have received Island of Fantasy and all three have sent me very nice compliments. AT (his initials) included three webcam shots:
The box. When I first saw this picture I flipped out thinking this was the book and the cover wasn't there or something.
Ah, there it is. Looks pretty decent. Nice packaging, too.
A happy customer. Here's what he had to say after reading it in only two sittings: Thanks for the great book. The last 10 pages or so I really laughed out loud, too. Hopefully I can get you to sign my copy while I am in Korea :)
Another person, Chris Garson, wrote this:
The book is very nice quality. The paper is very nice as well as the letter printing. The letters are big and very easy to read. As soon as I get my camera up and running, I will try my best to send you a picture.
I just finished reading it. It was a great book by all means. It completely made me laugh out loud as well as feel sorry for you and for your friend Choi. Very much an interesting experience. I'm left speechless. It wouldn't make a bad movie now that I think about it! Good job and I'm looking forward to a follow-up.
Thanks, Chris and the other two people who have left a review on the Lulu page for my book.
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written by shawn matthews
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