Category: Expat Life

Bouncing Off to Busan & Hallows Eve Hookering

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Last I wrote it was pouring rain, and the weather isn’t getting any better.  It’s starting to get absolutely freezing here, and even me, the person who sweats in the rain, is keeping a coat on with the heat blasting in my classroom while teaching a classroom full of hot-bodied elementary school kids. That being said, I am even more afraid of the winter. Eeep!

Two weekends ago a group of us headed out of Seoul for the 2nd time and ventured to Busan for a fireworks festival.  Busan is in the South, on the side closest to Japan.  This trip was quite the bumpy one, but oh well, it’s all a learning experience I suppose.  I think I was really annoyed/in a funk to begin with on Friday night once I realized I needed my passport for the return on KTX (the train that takes 2.5 hours to get from Seoul to Busan).   Katie, Collin and I met at Katie’s to watch “Drive” and gawk at sexy Ryan Gosling, and I planned to head out to HBC to crash at my friend Mark’s that night.  Instead I had to back track to the Dontgogay to get my passport (which I ended up not needing!) and then head out towards Mark’s.  I don’t think I got to his place til almost 1am, but bless his little curly haired heart for leaving me a key so old lady could crash while his young ass got buck in none other than Zen.  The next morning me, him and Abby woke up at the crack (I think they were still drunk) and made our way to Express Bus Station (with a minor detour to Seoul station on accident first.  Oops!) We met Matt, Katie, Heather and Nick at the bus station but ended up missing our 7am bus by like 5 minutes!! We ended up having to rebook our tickets for the 8:20am bus, which actually ended up being far more luxurious (name that movie quotable!).  The seats were like first class airplane seats, and that was the only bomb diggity plus to the 6 f’ing hour bus ride that cost us the same as taking the KTX (always listen to people who know what they’re doing…lesson for the day!)  The bus also dropped us off an hour outside of the center of Busan, so it took us 7 hours to actually get into the city.  Erg! Oh well, lesson learned.

Once we arrived in Busan, none of us with umbrellas (except smart Mark Antony), we were greeted with a downpour of rain.  Welcome to Busan!!!  We got $5 umbrellas/parasols and made our way to the little motel where 5 of us crammed into 1 room.  Erg. The fireworks were right on the water, which was like a 2 minute walk from where we were staying.  The fireworks festival was a competition between 4 countries – Korea, USA, Poland I think and one other.  It was super cool and I got some perty pix!!

That night before going out, I got kind of in a shitty funk, and in true moody Danielle fashion, stormed off out of the motel and wandered down the beach.  I think it was a combo of things getting to me all at once, being irritated, still feeling sick and then really missing sista and my friends at home.  I ended up not going out to the club with everyone that night because I would have just been a bitchy pain in the ass to myself and others, so I sent myself back to the room and talked to my lovers back home for a bit before passing out.  Erg, lame way to spend my one night in Busan but oh well.  Shit happens.

The next day I woke up still in a bit of a funk but I think I snapped out of it soon after we got to the beach and it was gorgeous out.  We went to Gwangalli beach, which isn’t the main one there, but it was so fun.  There were tons of games laid out on the sand and swarms of people and their babies just playing and having a good time. There were also some ridiculous face-painted beach actors roaming around sneaking up on people which was hilarious.  It was also the perfect venue for a creeper like I to take some creepy shots that we all know and love.

Men being children for a day.

Dying from cuteness overload.

Korean businessmen just kickin it on the beach.

Sneak attack!

This is life…beautiful.

Sunday we were supposed to take KTX back at 6:30pm (18:30pm, please keep this in mind). Turns out Mattheu Pierre mistakenly purchased tickets for 6:30am instead of pm.  He was upset, but we ended up re-booking seats for the 10:50pm train that night.  All of us were exhausted, some had to lesson plan, and none of us wanted to get home at 3am, but that’s what happened.  To kill the 4 hours we still had left in Busan, after walking through some seedy alleys, the 7 of us crammed into a DVD bong, which is a place where Korean couples go for some privacy (since they all live at home with their families).  The little man laughed at us when we said we wanted a room to squish 7 of us into, but we made do.  No orgy here.  So we all crammed into the musty room to indulge in some Inglourious Basterds.  None of us used the roll of toilet paper that was strategically placed beside the bed/couch.  All in all, I guess it’s good we all got back in time and didn’t have to call in sick.  I looked like shit the next day, and could have fallen asleep standing up. Eeep!

This catches me up to this past week.  Sorry, I suck at updating in a timely fashion.  Anyways, this past week was lovely.  One of the highlights was my date with my lovely friend Veny.  We were bus mates from the airport to orientation and are both old ladies.  We had a major catch up date filled with gossip over dinner, some lattes and a hard Hello Kitty waffle, at none other than the Hello Kitty Cafe.  It was so f’ing cute.  I also met some street tappers along the way.  Turns out one of them was a trainer for Billy Elliott in Australia, so I’m gonna start taking classes with them next Monday!  Yay!! God bless Korea and their amazing dancers!!!

This weekend was also Halloween (well, today rather). I finally settled on being a Black Swan hooker and I was so pleased with my costume!  I originally bought a black feathered skirt, but my ass is too big and didn’t fit into a large by Korean standards.  I ended up spending an embarrassing amount of money at American Apparel for a leotard and petticoat, then chopped the feathers off the other skirt and used my high school sewing skills to deck the petticoat out in feathers.  I then gave myself a makeup test run Friday night after watching some overly-dramatic Youtube tutorials.  I can say this was the most effort I have ever put into a Halloween costume and I loved it!

Saturday night I went out, but I felt it to be a bit of a bust.  Abby and I trekked from Itaewon to Hongdae for our friend Nick’s birthday party.  Turns out the line was ridic so we didn’t end up going, and hung out in the park drinking Makkeoli with some other peeps and a Silent disco.  It was fun for what it was, and I at least felt like a celebrity when random Koreans came up to me asking for a photo.

Black Swan hooker & Korean school girl lost at Woodstock

With Thing 2 & a Sailor Mooner

Rawr

Sandwiched between naughtiness

In a seedy alley-way in Itaewon. meOW.

And now it’s Monday morning, Halloween, and it’s Sports Day at school.  This means classes are all cancelled and the kids are doing crazy dances and sports outside.  I was supposed to have a Halloween party in my afterschool class today so I brought a crapton of candy that I spent way too much money on at Costco last night.  I guess that means Halloween continues tomorrow and Wednesday because I am not keeping all this candy for myself.   Now I’m about to go back out and watch the kiddies because they are so damn cute.  I keep thinking I can’t even fathom how it must feel to be a mother, because I keep taking a bagillion photos of these kids and they’re not even mine.  Yikes.  Well, off I go to watch more of the cuteness and let my heart burst even more.

Oh, and Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday to my Adam Reff (if you read this).  Love you tons!!!!



So I Was A Huge Fatty.

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So I was a huge fatass this past weekend and I thought I’d share that with all of you. The food was just that good that I felt I needed to urgently (or not so urgently since I saved this as a draft and am just now getting to posting it) report back about my indulgent weekend. Nom nom nom bitches.

This past week was Canadian Thanksgiving, and as many of you know I have met an over-abundance of Canadians in the past 2 months.  And I am of course thankful for them because they are the freakin nicest people ever. No joke! This was the 2nd Thanksgiving dinner that another group of friends of friends had this week, so of course when the invitation was extended to the American, I came.  I love food and good company and any excuse to gather with people for the holidays.  Plus, I’ve been feeling like crap for the past few weekends, and being all the way out in f’ing Dontgogay, I’ve been feeling a wee bit of anti-social Danielle creeping in. To top it off it was pouring rain on Saturday with thunder and lightening, the whole shebang. Anyways, after not going to the Expat Festival I decided to pack a bag and make the hour trek in the rain to Canadian Thanksgiving in Hae Bon Chong (HBC). There was mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, broccoli and cheese, rice, squash, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and cheesecake and some chicken filling in for the turkeybird. Not to mention, lots of wine, something I haven’t had much of since arriving.  I never see it, and if you do it’s really expensive.  Hell, a $5 bottle of Yellowtail at home apparently costs $20 here!

All in all, twas delectable and just what I needed.  It just reminded me that my absolute favorite time of the year is finally upon us.  It also made me think of how much I miss all my friends from home and that I won’t be spending the holidays with them this year 😦 Needless to say, it was really nice to be in a warm apartment with a bunch of people cooking, drinking and just enjoying each others company. I couldn’t help but reminisce and get a little homesick for all of my friends.  I miss weekend and holiday brunches at Club Charnock and KP Hizzy.   Love you guys.

Heaps of nomz.

That night was the celebration of 2 of my friend’s births.  My Aussie friend Jason and my precious plane buddy Casey.  It was at a freakin flashy club called Eden.  Apparently it’s the top 7 club in Seoul.  Whatever.  Anyways, Abby and I carted our bloated and scantily-clad selves all the way to the Ritz Carlton in Gangnam for the flashy affair.  The club was nothing spectacular to me, but twas a birthday and we had fun. We watched our friends spend a lot of money for a table, fended off handsy Koreans and then watched a sea of Koreans stand and video tape the apparent celebrity DJ, instead of dancing to the music.  Interesting experience to say the least.

Back to the food.  Abby and I headed back to the HBC after Eden, but made a pit stop in Itaewon for a monster Egyptian sandwich.  It was not necessary but our taste buds really wanted it, so we indulged.  It’s basically a kabob on a roll.  Chicken or beef, onions, delicious sauce and who knows what else.  Here’s the fat happy man preparing our 3am meal on the side of the street.

Abby and I cuddled that night until my alarm startled us both in the morning beckoning me to rise and make my way to my temple food date with the music teacher from my school.  Her name is Choi Jung Soon and she is so sweet. She is taking me under her wing to teach me about Korean culture, and in return I’m going to help her with her English (which is already so good!) and help her read Mary Poppins, and also teach her how to make latkes.

I briskly made my way through the 3 subway transfers from HBC to where the temple was near Insadong, which is a very holy area in Seoul.  The temple we went to, the name which is slipping me, is the most famous Buddhist temple in Seoul.  Across from the temple is a Buddhist center and on the 5th floor there is a restaurant serving temple food, which essentially is delicious vegetarian food.  The Schaeff fam would enjoy this! I ended up arriving about 15 minutes late after getting slightly lost, but it wasn’t all my fault!  She apologized to me because she gave me incorrect directions after coming out of the subway station.  Nonetheless, we found each other, and I plopped off my backpack and sat against a wall because my whole back was sweating like a disgusting man.  I debated ducking into a bathroom somewhere to change to my top from the night before because I felt so gross and sweaty.  It went from thunder, lightning one day to scorching hot the next.  I did not pack appropriately! Whoa is me! I decided to suck it up and let my back dry through lunch lol. Sexy, I know.  From gross to delicious (pardon me), check out some of the delicious food we ate during our 10 course meal and my best effort at descriptions!

Our 10 course menu!

Potato and vegetable pancakes, salad in a very fresh and tasty dressing, vegetable dumplings, tofu, rice wrapped in lettuce with spicy sauce and my fave radish kimchi.

Cold taro root soup. Mom and Michael, I guess this is the root your fave taro frozen yogurt is made from!

Fried mushrooms and peppers in a super spicy sauce!

The most delicious rice.  Boiled in a lotus leaf and stuffed with dates, pine nuts and jujubes.

The rice with some tofu and seaweed soup.  Sort of like miso.  By this course I was stuffed!

Bibimbap fixins which I didn’t eat because I was already so full. Except for the kimchi, because I love it!

Dried root vegetable, orange and seaweed chips.  Lotus root, sweet potato and potato.

So yea, I ate a crapton last weekend.  The Koreans don’t mess around.  It was lovely though.  I’m glad to have all these cool new cuisine experiences. Last night Katie, Abby and I also had a ladies night in Hyewa with some soul-warming pho followed by a decadent dessert at Beard Papas.  They are Japanese massive cream puffs.  I first tried Beard Papas in LA because some of the Japanese dancers used to bring them in for us at bloc.  They can be filled with strawberry, chocolate, vanilla cream, etc.  The one I had last night was chocolate filled with what I think was green tea cream or custard.  It hit the spot, along with the nomtastic hot cocoa and a tiramisu type dessert Abby got.

Beard Papas!

Oozey goodness

My new fave pic and sweater.  Thanks Abneetika!

That concludes the food portion of this post! I am off to Busan for the weekend on Saturday.  There is a fireworks festival going on so a bunch of us are making the journey down south.  I am so excited to go to Busan, I’ve heard nothing but awesome things about the place.  It’s on the beach and on the side closest to Japan.  I’m sure there will be lots to report back next week.  And now I’m off to fetch me a Halloween costume.  Ciao ciao lovers! ❤

 

Drugs, Discos and Other Decadencies

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Pardon my excessive delay and the length of this post. But I know for many of you this blog is the sunshine in your life, so I promise it is filled with lots of eye goodies. Do enjoy the recent happs!

I must admit the last couple weekends I’ve been pretty lame because I’ve felt like a pile of crapola. But, you will be happy to hear that I took myself to the doctor to get some drugs like a mature (pronounced like matour) a-dult.  Back at home I was pretty bad about taking care of myself, mostly because I didn’t have insurance for a while (UGH), lived crappy paycheck to crappy paycheck, and tried to refrain from the already incessant credit card usage.  Therefore,  I would just let the fake smoker’s cough grow and grow and I’d slowly die at my desk in my thick cloud of Mucinex.  Well, you will be pleased to know that I will be taking care of myself over yonder because 1. I’m terrified of getting sick here, especially when it starts to snow, and 2. it is SOO freakin cheap! This jew likey!

My co-teacher Leni took me to the “hospital” (as they call the doctor here) down the street from my work on Monday.  It’s a bit like Urgent Care back home where you can just walk in anywhere and they will see you.  All I have to do is show them my ARC (Alien card) and it covers as insurance.  So, we left work early at 4 because apparently if we got there after 4:30 we’d have to wait for 1 hour.  I walked in, they took my temperature right in the waiting room, which I thought was hilarious, then I sat down and waited 5 minutes to see the doc. I walk in, sit down and he just looks at me.  I was expecting to need translation and just use big hand gestures, but once I started speaking a little slow he was like “yes yes, elaborate” and I was so excited to see he spoke damn good English.  I told him the usual symptoms, I coughed to show him how gross it is, he squeezed my glands to prove they were swollen (which hurt) and then did a lot of talking in Korean to Leni who then relayed all the info to me. The doctor was super nice and asked me where I was from.  When I told him LA he got excited and asked “where in LA? My-uh parents lives-uh in Las-uh Virgeneees.” Well isn’t that a small world. I told him my family is from Agoura Hills and he was vaguely familiar with the suburb. That made me feel a wee bit more at home.  We then said goodbye and thanks, I paid the measly 3,000won (about $3) to see the doctor and then walked next door to get my drugs. For 7,000won (about $7ish), I got a bottle of Nasonex, and 3 days worth of a cocktail of pills (I have no clue what I’m taking). I literally lept to pay and sign and then told the pharmacists (who also spoke English!) that a bottle of that same nasal spray (or one similar) back at home cost me a whopping $150 fat ones! Screw you American medicine.  Given the cheapness factor, I’m also highly considering getting Lasik done while I’m here.  Total it’ll probs cost be a little over $1k for both eyes.  Nice-uhh.  This is how my drugs came prepared for me. Silly Asians and their silly ways.  And yes, that’s and outdated copy Elle of Justin and Mila in the background. Nom. Girl needs her eye candy.

Moving on to the things that I HAVE been doing despite my glorious sickness. A couple weekends ago was a long weekend here, I think it was for the independence or creation of Korea.  One of the two. What that meant for us teachers was long weekend!  I got Monday and Tuesday off (all my other friends only got Monday off), so it was very very nice.  This was the weekend I began feeling not too hott, so I stayed in that Friday and Saturday night like a responsible adult in hopes of getting better.  However, I did decide to go on a rigorous hike on Saturday with my lady loves.  I don’t really know what I was thinking given the fact that I’m not a big hike lover to begin with, but I never want to miss out on an exploration opportunity so I just suck it up and go because I know I’m gonna want to see that amazing view from the top.  So, I went with Katie, Abby, Steph and Liz to hike Dobongson mountain, which is actually fairly close to where I like in NorKo.  What started out as an almost vertical incline at the base (UGH) turned out to be more like rock climbing as we got deeper.  That was fun, though I’m such a freakin girl when it comes to getting my hands dirty.  I kept commenting on how every time I place my hand down I’m looking for the least dirty spot, and then I always dust my hands off immediately after hoisting myself up. I am actually really glad though that it was more rock and rope climbing because it’s way more fun, even though I’m way more scared of climbing up things than jumping off them.  Normal right? Anyways, we trekked thru but didn’t end up making it all the way to the top.  We met a sweet little Korean man who befriended us and told us we should probably consider making our way down because we still had a little ways to go and wouldn’t want to get stuck up there when it got darker.  So we made our way down the very tricky trail.  We insisted our new friend come to dinner with us, to which he found us a little bibimbap place, ordered 2 bibimbaps for the 5 of us girls and thought that would fill us up. No no little Korean man.  We are North American women who like to eat and didn’t pack lunches for our hike. He ordered us 3 more with the most shocked look on his face, and then sat and watched us eat.  He later told us he wanted a hamburger.  Go figure.  Here’s some pictorals of the beautiful hike, view of Seoul, and the gorgeous temple we saw along the way.

God I love long weekends. That Monday a bunch of us met up for a day in Olympic Park.  It was such a gorgeous day out.  Twas super chill and just nice to hang out with good peeps and drink the Makkali (sp?).  Makkali is this milky soju alcohol that is sort of fizzy and weird.  But it’s aight. My lovely recruiter Dia, who I LOVE came as well, so that fulfilled the Korean quotient.  Some friends played soccer with the cutest little Korean baby, some lounged and read like scholars, some listened to music and drank to happy times, and all gazed up at the phallic statue towards the sky. It was a lovely lovely day had by all.  Take a gander will ya.

Then Tuesday rolled around, and I had been planning to venture into Hyehwa to show myself around the artsy part of Seoul since I had the day off and I had been dying to go there.  The day turned into a full on walking tour with a British lad.  He lives 2 stops away from Hyehwa,  so we met at his exit and walked there.  There wasn’t much going on since it was during the day, but I got an idea of the area and decided I needed to come back at night.  We then walked further to Dongdaemun, which is what I would compare to the Fashion District in Downtown LA, but with a huge temple in the center.  We walked along the river (at quite the brisk pace because he walks too fast) where there was some religious group performing on the river stage (interesting), and then got caught in the huge textile building that we thought was going to be a mall.  Holy hell was it hot and clusterfuckish in there.  Moving on, we made our way back through Myeong-dong, which is hardcore for the shopper.  My feet were killing me but it was a pretty awesome day, and the company wasn’t too shabby either. Shockingly, I snoozed on the photo taking, but here’s a couple of the ones I took.

Random street in Hyehwa

Love this!

Dongdaemun Palace

I did end up going back to Hyehwa at night, which I will get to in a bit.  Before that though, I would like to say that I can check off going to a silent disco from my bucket list.  God bless you Hongdae Park and your random happenings.  This past Saturday night I was about to send myself home early after a long day of voice-overing (saving that for another post) because I was feeling like crap again.  But thank god I didn’t.  The silent disco cost 3,000won for the headphones and it was just a party in the park and freaks all over the place.  I think you can imagine what it was like, so here’s some pictorals.

Back to Hyehwa! I went back Tuesday night after my plans to go to a soccer game got changed.  I went back with that British lad  for dinner and then a jazz bar.  I must say, it has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and just never did.  This one was called Jazz Story.  It was so cool and I’m glad it was my first. Twas delightful company, the ambiance was gorgeous inside (I kept thinking their interior decorator did a bomb job lol), and the band was divine.  It was an all Korean band but they sang pretty much all English songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s with a few Korean jams thrown in.  I think I really got off on the right foot when the first song they sang was the theme from “Grease” (aka my favorite movie ever). They also sang some Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and some Hotel California amongst others. LOVED. IT.  This is their sign which I just love.  It’s made from car headlights!

I know this was an intensive course in the past couple weeks, sorry, but I hope you enjoyed the visuals 🙂 Today and tomorrow my 5th and 6th graders are gone at some Halloween/Talent show camp so I’ve got my days wide open which is an awesome and welcomed break.  I got to Skype with Kayla and Mama, Papa and Brotha Schaeff and show them all my classroom too.  I will leave this post with 3 different images.  One that will leave a disgusting taste in your mouth (or eyeballs), and two that will make you giggle.  Enjoy until next time. Mwah!

Just some innards of a fish being sold on the street. nbd.

Drunk, passed out Korean man occupying a few too many seats on the subway, and oblivious business man.

This is what my parents look like when they Skype with me. Love you 🙂

My Little Hoishis!!!

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So another week has come and gone, and I’ve passed my 1 month mark living in South Korea. Holy crap! Homesickness hasn’t really kicked in yet because I seem to talk to sista and mama Schaeff on the phone or by email daily, same with most of you other hoodrats.  I blame YOU for wanting to fall asleep standing up while I’m teaching sometimes. Bad combo of me being a night owl social butterfly and needing to stay up to speed on the happs with my lovers back state side.  The only time I’ve really gotten homesick is whenever I get a picture or video of the puppies. I almost cried watching a video of Cilla just jump around and lick Jacquie’s hand the other day. I probably watched it 50 times.  I’m also sad I missed sista’s big 25 😦

In other news, teaching is going amazingly well. I already have my favorites and I just want to squeeze them and steal them and not tell their parents I have stolen them. But I won’t do that because I’m a nice person.  Before coming here, I totally thought my favorites would be the girls and the littlest ones, but that is not true.  While I do love my 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders, my absolute favorites are my 6th graders followed, almost tied, with my 5th graders right behind. I’ve noticed that while they are on the brink of their teenage bratty years, they are also starting to form their personalities and I freakin LOVE it. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not all sunny and sweet 24/7, because there are definitely the little shits, for lack of a better description.  I have one girl who punches the boy who sits in front of her, but I saw her after school once and told her I think she has a crush on that boy.  She instantly started giggling and yelling “NO TEACHA! NO!!!!!” There is also one boy who likes to mimick every stupid silly sound I make (and you know I make a lot of those).  I actually think he’s funny, but he’s such a little brat! He also makes silly faces back at me while he mimicks my voice. Then there are the select few who just don’t give a shit and sit there with their head down until you call on them and they give you a blank stare. CAUGHT YA. It’s funny being in the teacher’s seat, because I remember quite vividly falling asleep in Mrs. Bitch Goldstein’s 8th grade Social Studies class, only to be awoken by her awful voice calling on me to no available answer from my noggin. That was the only time I fell asleep in class because I was such a good student. HA!

I also found out that I will be getting the vacation time off that I want so that Cori and I can go gallavant around Thailand and make some interesting decisions and see a few sights along the way.  When I get back from Thailand I’ll begin teaching 3 weeks of winter camps beginning January 2nd.  I brought up teaching tap to the students and my co-teacher Leni flipped for it, so I will be leading English Tap classes come this winter! AH!  I have also made friends with the music teacher at my school who is so sweet.  We had a wonderful conversation yesterday and got to know each other, and then every Thursday going forward we will be reading Mary Poppins.  She loves the movies and would like to learn the book 🙂  She also wants to take me hiking and teach me how to make kimchi.  I told her I’d show her the way of the Jew and teach her how to make latkes and matzah ball soup 🙂 I might need someone to ship me some matzah meal in the near future.

And now time for the cute shit.  Let your heart melt with these cute little Korean Hoishis (thanks Papa Schaeff for that).

These 3 boys are my favorite 5th grade little peaches.  From left to right, there’s Jinho, Arthur (!!) and Max.

This is Konan and he is pint sized. I want to stuff him in my pocket. He’s also so smart and only in 3rd grade.

These are my 1st and 2nd after school kids.  Ariel is a DOLL, I forget the one in the middle’s name, and then Daniel is adorbz.  We were playing cats cradle 🙂

Lando, Lando, Lando. He is in 3rd grade and practically fluent.  Everything I teach him is too easy and he lets me and the whole class know. I still love the little pudge anyways.

This is my 6th grader Zidane.  He was reading about his Chuseok vacation.  He is also the boy who likes to tell out “TEACHA! I LOVE YOU! TEACHA’S SISTA JACQUIE IS BEAUTIFUL!”  Heartbreaker this one.

I will now conclude this post about the little Korean babes that I have come to love with a piece of art work.  Eat your heart out.  Or don’t. I know I won’t.

Nom?

Heart & Seoul Tower

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In my last post I said the next post would feature a drawing by one of my students about eating dogmeat and how it’s SOOOO delicious.  Well, this is trumping that for the time being and I’ll show you that disturbing drawing in an upcoming post about how much I freakin love my students and teaching them English while slowly losing all my brain cells 🙂

The place that trumps dogmeat is Namsan Tower, also known as Seoul Tower.  On Friday night Katie and I slept over at Abby’s (again) in the HBC (Hae Bong Chung – AKA the super cool and hip foreigner dwelling area near Itaewon). She lives at the base of Seoul Tower, so hiking up to the top seemed like an awesome plan to kick our hangovers come Saturday morning.  Our lovely friend Steph came over to Abby’s where we all lounged for quite some time before making the journey to the top.  Here is a tale of the 3 really awesome things about Seoul Tower.

First is the gorgeous hike to the top.  For those who know me quite well, I’m not very agile on my footsies when it comes to hikes, or anything outdoorsy for that matter (eh hem Jtart lol), but this one wasn’t bad at all, as we did NOT go off-trailing 😉 Along the hike we got to see glimpses of Seoul below us.  I must say this city is so gorgeous when you get up and see it from above. Another silly thing about the Koreans is that they love their outdoor exercise machines.  We stopped at the little gym about half way up to test them out.  Unfortch no photos though (shocking, I know).  Next time.  I’m sure it will only be a brief time before I stumble upon another outdoor gym.

Second, and most awesome thing about Seoul Tower is that once you get to the top, you kind of get overwhelmed with love, as lametard as that sounds.  But, once you get up there, there are thousands upon thousands of love locks secured to trees shaped like Christmas trees, and all along the outer edges overlooking the city.  It’s a place where couples, and I’m sure friends, come to leave a lock as a token of their love for each other.  It really is so beautiful when you see it. It made me think about a lot of things.  My first love, all of my friends who I love so dearly back home, and of course hopefully coming back here with a new lover someday to leave a lock of my own.  But, for the time being, I was atop this gorgeous tower surrounded by so much love and conversation and 3 girls who I am very fortunate to have met and call my Seoul sistas (again with the lametardness, but shut up).

The third awesome thing about Seoul Tower is that it is the geographical center of Seoul.  So, of course, just like tourists (hello, still in tourist mode!), we all took our turn standing on the mound that is the center of the city.  Then we all attempted to hop on it together.  That was funny.

As if I wasn’t already in love with this city and my choice to move here, coming to Seoul Tower really made me even more happier about my decision.

And last but certainly not least, a post wouldn’t be complete without a creeper shot of an adorable Korean baby (or two….or three if you count the one above). I CAN’T HANDLE THE CUTENESS.

PPS: Though not from my day at Seoul Tower, this felt suiting given the theme of love.  For all my asian lovers in the states, this is just for you.  I learned this from the best ❤

PPPS: For those who aren’t in the know, I finally got an iPhone like a real human being.  Let me know if you didn’t get my digits and I shall send them to you so we can Kakao or WhatsApp again!

 

Weekend Jaunt to Muuido Island

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I took my first mini-vacation this past weekend for the long Chuseok holiday, which is Korean Thanksgiving.  We have 5 days off so a bunch of pals and I ventured to Muuido Island, which is off the west coast of Incheon (on the China side).  Katie, Liz and I all slumber partied at Abby’s Friday night, and woke up at the crack to take turns showering and then make the long and epic journey to the island.  From Itaewon it took us about 2.5-3 hours, which was a bit absurd, but it was an awesome journey with my 3 new Seoul sistas 🙂

After about 50 subway transfers, 2 buses and a 4 minute ferry ride, we made it to the shore where we snagged a cozy little hut-for-four right on the water.  We immediately threw our backbacks (and pillows, and towels, and sweatshirts – eh hem Liz) down, made a quick change from our typhoon attire, which had us scorching hot, and ran off to meet the rest of the crew who made it much earlier than us.  We ate lots of sodium-filled spicy ramen noodles and mystery flavored chips, imbibed lots of 1,000won bottles of soju and Powerade, played some silly animal games and took lots of awesome photos.  It felt so great to be enjoying myself with such a fun and sweet ass group of new pallios on a little island in the far east.

The amazingness struck at sunset, when the tide drew back about a mile, exposing the softest mud (and some glow in the dark penis fish).  The 4 of us, with soju bottles in hand,  literally ran out like we were running to the edge of the world, and shared what I would like to say was the best, most happy moment of my life.  It was yet another one of those “I’m so happy I’m in Korea” moments.  Certain people and times popped into my head, and I realized that even while not present, they still have such an impact on where I am today, whether I like it or not.  And all I could be was happy.  Ch-ch-check out the videos below to see the most gorgeous sunset of life, and some ugly (what we think are) penis fish (and cute little Korean boys!)

I love taking photos, of course you all are aware of that since you love when I take awful photos of you (love you), but being in this place, this weekend, with the people I was with, just made me want to snap snap snap and do lots and lots of reflecting.  It was just so breaktakingly beautiful.

Hope you enjoy these little nuggets of beauty, because next post will be some bomb diggity drawings of me by some of my very creative students, and one of them involves eating dog meat.  Enjoy the beauts!


Mini Internal Freakout Take 1!

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My co-teacher, Leni, asked me last week if I wanted to join the “Nowon Club” at my school.  Basically, it’s all of the teachers and school people getting together over Korean BBQ and lots of soju with a side of cider (the equivalent of Sprite) a few times a month after school. I said of course I would join since I think it’d be fun to hang out with all of them even though I need a translator 24/7.  But, they’re all so freakin funny so I don’t mind being the odd ball out. You know me 🙂

So I’m sitting there, the sides come out, the drinks come out, the coals come out, and then the plate of meat comes out.  On the drive over Jin told me it was probably going to be pork, so I already had in my mind that I’d be eating iceberg salad, kimchi, and turnips for dinner (and would just fill up on brie later at Jason’s cheese/housewarming-ish gathering).  But, when the meat came out, there were two different types, so I asked Jin and Leni what they were.  They said pork and what I thought to be DOG.  I instantly went into internal freakout-wanting-to-vomit mode.  This was THE cultural moment I have greatly feared since before coming here.  Jin started placing the meat on the BBQ and I just kept thinking omgomgomg this is what cooked dog smells like and I kept thinking of my little Presley and Cilla back home.  They asked me if I had ever tried it before and I said “Noooooo. It’s too weird for me. I just think about my baby puppies at home. It’s just too weird. Sorrrrrry!” Apparently this didn’t translate though, and they nodded like they understood it was weird for me.  The meat keeps cooking, and then Leni asked me if I wanted to try LOL and I repeated again how it’s too weird and how I just think about my puppies. To which she goes “It’s DOCK! DOCK! Swim in the water!”  I instantly lost my shit and let out the biggest sigh of relief.  Between the 3 of us we couldn’t stop laughing allllll throughout dinner.  They asked me AGAIN  if I wanted to try DUCK (since it clearly wasn’t DOG), and I’m sorry judgemental Mama Schaeff and Jacq, but I tried it.  I had never tried it before, and for those who know me, I used to be a vegetarian, so I’m pretty finiky with meat.  But, I know duck is like a delicacy in a lot of Asian cultures so I gave it a whirl, and was actually quite pleasantly surprised.  It actually tasted pretty good, however I smelled like shit the entire rest of the evening at Jason’s.  I showered that night, and when I was on the bus this morning I smelled the stench again and realized it was my purse that still stunk! AHHHHH! DOCK DOCK! QUACK QUACK! STINK STINK!

After quite the hearty meal (these Korean’s like to EAT), the soju imbibing carried on, and my Principal poured me a shot and then said something to Leni in Korean to translate to me, along the lines of “I think you will be a great teacher and wish you lots of good blessings and luck.”  I poured him one in return and we took our shots. Twas a lovely evening, but I had to cut it short to go help Jason and friends dig into the big wheel of brie that he bought.  I said “ahn-yang-haseyo” to everyone, and then the Principal asked Leni if it was ok for him to hug me goodbye LOL.  Apparently this act is very rare.  We hugged, and everyoneeeee cheered and screamed and applauded.  They like me! They really like me!

On top of them all liking me, and successfully completing my first full week of teaching, I received my ARC card in the mail, so I’m officially a resident of Korea!!! Today Leni took me to open a bank account in Nowon, and we attempted to get me an iPhone, but they wanted me to buy the phone up front for 800won which is absurd, so I will be getting an iPhone in Itaewon on Wednesday after the Chuseok holiday.  They hook it up for foreigners there in terms of 2 year phone contracts and just paying for the phone as part of your monthly bill.  So, all you pesterers, you will be able to WhatsApp and KakaoTalk me as of Wednesday of next week.  Hold your horsies.

Now, I nap.  I’m going to have a slumber party with Katie, Abby and Liz tonight at Abby’s since we’re getting up at the crack to catch a bus to Muuido Island for the long holiday.

 

 

 

 

A Real Teacher! Jnet&Carmen! And the Aquarium!

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I have completed more than half a week of officially being an English teacher…and it’s three things….fun, repetitive, and EXHAUSTING! I honestly always underestimated what it takes to be a teacher, because after teaching 5 regular classes and 1 after school class to 1st and 2nd graders, I was as pooped as they come, and my feet were throbbing from standing in slippers all day! This whole week has been about me introducing myself (over and over again) to each class of students.  I made a powerpoint with lots of pictures of me and my life back home, which the kids really seemed to love.  Their favorite is this picture of me eating a fried twinkie at the rodeo in Texas, but I just tell them it’s a hot dog, it’s easier to explain haha.

I also feel like a celebrity walking the halls which has pretty much been my dream since I could talk. You know this if you know me. Attention whore. Well, South Korea is giving me the attention I desire.  Little 5th grade boys yell out in class “I LOVE YOU TEACHER!” and stop in their tracks and stare at me.  I showed them a picture of sista too and she’s a mini celeb as well. “Teacher’s sister Ja-kwee is BEAUTIFUL!”  They don’t get how to say her name (Jacquie). They also now refer to my brother as Michael Jackson since his name is Michael 🙂

I must say these kids are damn cute, and their English names are so freakin hilarious.  On Monday I had 3rd graders who were named King Kong, Vanilla, Boss, Money, Albert Einstein and a little boy named Rainbow. I also had some other kids named Good, Nice, Percy Jackson and Obama. How creative these youngins are. I often find it hard to keep a straight face when calling on some of them (you know me!) I also received my first penpal letter from my student normal-named student, Olivia. If my memory serves me, she’s in one of my 4th grade classes.  Here is a letter she wrote me 🙂

As far as classes go, all of my classes are taught with one of my two co-teachers, Leni and Jin.  During my normal school hour classes we do a lot of stuff out of the book and CD-ROMs that go with them.  I’m assuming as I get more well-versed in teaching I’ll help get more creative with them.  I also have 3 after school classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Mondays and Tuesdays are 40 minutes each and with the baby 1st and 2nd graders who don’t speak a lick of English. I want to squeeze them and put them in my pocket. Instead of being a creep, I pat their backs and let them give me big hugs, and then I let the little girls pretend they are putting my earrings on as they press them again their cute little faces lol. I also started teaching them the ABCs. I was pretty nervous for these after school classes because they’re entirely open and up to me.  I started playing them songs, did some matching games and had them create name tags with their English names which was fun. With the 3rd and 4th graders, it’s an 80 minute class once a week.  I told them about my summer vacation and what I did, and then had them all write or draw me postcards of what they did.  They then had to get up and tell me about their trip.  I’m going to take some pictures of the really good ones tomorrow so I’ll post for you! I’ve got some budding artists on my hands! All in all, the first half of my first week has gone amazingly well which I’m so relieved about.  Maybe I am a good teacher after all 🙂

Aside from the work ish, Jnettybear and Carmennnn came to visit me in Seoul this past weekend! It was AMAZING and I’m so excited that some of my friends from home got to see my new life and meet my new friends and fall in love just like I have 🙂 I love when new friends meet old friends and begin a love affair. It was also so nice having them here because it gave me an excuse (other than living here) to go out and explore my neighborhood of Danggogae (Dontgogay), which I like to refer to as North Korea since I’m so far North in Seoul.  We met a precious little Korean woman who served us noodles (Jnet, picture please!) a couple doggies who we have fallen in love with, especially Mr. Kim Chi, and we dined out at a lovely establishment across from me called “Chicken The +”  with Cricket Mr. Name Awesome.  We also found some cute boutiques which could prove to be danger on the dance floor.  As far as the nightlife goes, we ended up staying out later than I have ever stayed out in a ridiculously long time because I’m old and get tired by 2am. We partied like we were Katie’s age (aka in college again. Love you).  We stayed out til 5am both Friday and Saturday night and I honestly can’t believe it.  They also had to book it by 7am on Sunday morning.  Apparently Jnet had a fun trip to the airport.

Sunday a group of us made like kiddies and went on a field trip to the COEX Aquarium which is south of the Han River.  It took about an hour for me to get there for NorKo. It was a really nice aquarium and some of the things really made me laugh. For example, they had some sort of rodent there running in a wheel as part of an exhibit, weird, and some of the fish tanks had Korean style temples in their tanks so we knew they were Korean fish, and the foreign fish from Holland got to swim thru windmills.  How thoughtful to make the fishies feel right at home.  The coolest part I thought was the shark tank, obviously. There was a moving sidewalk that went alongside and under the whole shark tank. Bomb diggity.  Check out some pictorals below!

Here is a photo of a cute Korean baby to meet my creep quota for the day.  Enjoy!

An I’m So Happy I’m In Korea Moment

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There have been a couple times so far since arriving in Korea where I had an “I’m so happy I’m in Korea moment.” The first was during orientation when we were at the folk village.  We were watching dancers do a native dance where they had these crazy streamers on their heads and it was like they were dancing with their heads, but they were also jumping and playing drums. It was just so cool.

Last night I had another one of these totally feel-good-about-my-decision moments.  It was my Vice Principal’s last day at my school and all the teachers went out to a Korean BBQ dinner at a super fancy restaurant close to school. My 2 co-teachers felt awful because I don’t eat pork and that’s what we were eating, so they ordered me this cold noodle dish in a super spicy red sauce. I completely forget what it’s called, but I thought it was bomb.  And their version of spicy is not comparable to mine.  I want more spicy!  We also ate probably the 100th different type of kimchi I’ve tried since coming to Korea, salad, raw onions in this soyish type of sauce, and some other dish which I have no idea what it was and neither do they.  It seemed sushi-ish and was tasty, but I’m clueless. For dessert we had this rice cake type cake that none of them liked, but I thought it tasted like bread so I enjoyed it haha.  The dinner was awesome because I got to actually hang out with my co-teachers and meet some of the other younger teachers.  Many of them don’t really like to speak English because they are nervous about the language, but they were speaking with me, so I felt quite happy about making them feel comfortable enough to talk to me. The night went on, we ate, talked, and drank. And drank. And drank. At one point I looked over and saw my Principal downing shot after shot of soju with some of the other teachers.  I think he kind of looks like my 5th grade teacher Mr. Miyamoto. Only I never saw Mr. Miyamoto taking shots.

Here are some pictures of the food and of my 2 co-teachers and some of the others. Leni is the girl on the left making a peace sign, and then Jin is the one in the picture with me 🙂

THEN the fun continued.  To those of you who don’t know what a Norebang is, it’s karaoke, but in your own private room.  The Koreans are nuts about this shit!  SO, you have about 15 happy drunk Koreans and lil ol’ American Danielle piled into a room, tambourines are handed out, water and more drinks are brought in on a tray, and the book of songs is opened for people to pick their song. I never karaoke.  As many of you know, you probably don’t want to hear me sing because I am that god awful. But no, I was forced to sing. And I was forced to sing a duet, in English, to a song I’ve never in my life heard before…with my Principal (who doesn’t speak a lick of English, but knew this random song).  He was dancing like a little Asian man and I was dancing and singing and laughing the entire time. OMG it was fun. Everyone has to sing, and Mr. Principal was not letting me get off the hook by only singing with him.  I had to sing again.  This time I sang with my adorable co-teacher Leni.  OMG she is so cute and loves to sing, and she’s super teeny so she was super drunk! We sang a song by Lenka that she chose because I didn’t feel comfortable enough yet to whip out some Bieber Fever.  In due time it shall come.

This brings me to the moment I had that “I’m so happy I’m here” feeling.  After everyone sang, we all stood in a circle in this little tiny room filled with tambourines and disco lights and held hands.  Principal sang a song in Korean which I had no idea what he was saying, but I could just feel it was a happy/sad song.  The Vice Principal then went around the circle and gave everyone hugs and cried a bit.  I only met her a few times but she was so sweet.  It was amazing how I didn’t even know the words, or really her for that matter but I really did feel overwhelmed, but maybe just because I was so happy in that moment to be there.  The teachers are all so kind and sweet to me, and I love watching them bow whenever they say hello or goodbye.  I used to think it was a little weird and awkward, well, I still kind of do, but it just comes off as so respectful and you can just tell they’re all such nice people. Anyways, I had my moment and it was awesome.

I’m sure I’m going to have many “get me the hell out of here” moments too (like when the little 3rd grader with severe ADHD came and took over my classroom yesterday), but it’s nice to know that these ones just pop up out of no where 🙂

Now I shall leave you with a video of my amazing duet with my beautiful co-teacher Leni.  Enjoy the norebang (before my memory card space ran out) and my super sexy singing voice!

My First Real Week in Korea

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Since my last post I have successfully ridden the bus to and from school and got off and on at my correct stops and transfers, I’ve figured out the heating system so I have taken many a hot shower in my smelly bathroom, I figured out how to open my washing machine after washing one load twice because I can’t read the Korean on the machine, I’ve gone grocery shopping for some necessities, and even cooked myself dinner last night and breakfast this morning. Looks like I’m settling in.  Here are some pix of my new digs and my new friend Marky Mark as the model.

ANYWAYS, here I am, sitting at my desk, doing what they like to call “desk warming.”  Basically, this whole first week I’m doing nothing.  My 2 co-teachers teach their classes English lessons for the week while I kinda grab my bearings, though I must admit, I’m still completely lost about where to begin.  I haven’t observed any classes, but I’ve perused the teacher’s manual from a couple years ago because it’s all in English, but I haven’t really seen a class book or anything.  However, it wouldn’t make a difference because their English books are in Korean.  It’s weird, but I guess it works for them?  Thankfully the previous English teacher left tons of powerpoints and lesson plans to go off of.  Thank you Shana!

Now let me recap the past week or so since I’ve lagged hardcore on the updation (yes I made that word up) of this here bloggy blog. This past weekend was my first official weekend out on my own in this big city. Luckily some of my friends live within a few subway stops from me, so we all met up at Nowon Station (2 subway stops from most of us) and then headed out to Hongdae on Friday night.  It took us a little under an hour to get there.  We started with dinner, where I got mad at Jason (my Aussie friend) because I really wanted Korean bbq, but he just hopped up, pointed at the concoction on the next table over’s table and said “We’ll have THAT!”  Turns out it’s soldier’s soup and it has something like cut up hot dogs, Spam and ramen noodles and it’s in a spicy broth. I did not eat this because I don’t do the pork sitch.  We did however also order some bbq so that satisfied my craving.  Between 5 of us, we downed 4 bottles of soju and went on our merry way to the bar Zen. This was a fun night for all, and an interesting night for some boys who cry in alley ways. It ended up being a 35,000 won cab ride back to North Korea (aka Danggogae aka my apartment), and luckily I had a homeless friend to split it with me.  We couldn’t take the subway because it doesn’t open til 4am and we were pooped.

The next day my new friend Mark, who might be one of my new favorite people, played tour guide.  He was here 2 years ago, so he knows a thing or two about a thing or two. We went to see the huge golden statue of King Sejong which lies in front of Gyeong Buk Do Palace. It was so breathtaking to see, because I really have always looked at Asian palaces in textbooks and could only imagine the magnitude and intricacies of the structures, but now I was standing in it. Pretty sweet. Here are some shots of me and some of my new seoul sistas in front of the statue and then in this gorgeous and serene (and humid) palace.

Later that day we went to a Canadian bar in Itaewon, and turns out my new friend Liz had a friend who was going to the same party as my friend-thru-the-Dicecca’s, Andrew.  I don’t know if she met her friend because we were literally there for maybe an hour, but I finally met Andrew in person for like 5 minutes and then we were off.  Hopefully I’ll get to hang out with him more before he leaves (he’s been here for 3 years!) We ended up meeting up with a bunch of other people from orientation, went to some Korean BBQ and then went out to the most ghetto bar ever. It was super weird and had quite the poopoo platter of people. Itaewon at night kind of reminds me of Hollywood Blvd.  Super dirty and kinda grimy.  But it was awesome during the day!  But I was in a funk that night and my feet felt like I had rocks in them and I just wanted to bounce.  So after some super spicy schwarma we bounced on back to North Korea.

Now for the reason I am living here!!  My school! I have such an amazing classroom that these pictures don’t even do it justice.  One of my co-teachers told me that my English room is the best in Bukbu.  So much for the name “Nowon” because apparently they spent Lotsowon on this room.  Check it out!

I have 2 co-teachers and their names are Chan Young (or Leni) and Jin.  Leni is 27 and Jin is 29 and they are both single and both super sweet pretty girls. I’m so excited to get to work with them! In the classroom the students are supposed to call us Miss Danielle, Miss Leni and Miss Jin.  This is different because everyone else tells me that the students say your name and then teacher, so Danielle teacher.  I think that’s more fun, but whatevz.  Since I haven’t been teaching, the students are still super curious about me.  During their breaks they poke their heads in my room and yell “HELLO TEACHER! WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”  Some ask how old I am, most stand and giggle and stare, some come in and run around the room and play tag, and one little boy already told me he loves me. Aw shucks.

I took a break from Facebooking for the day on Monday when Leni and Jin took me on the long haul down to the Immigration office to get my Alien Registration Card (ARC).  I don’t know how I would have done it without them since I don’t think the people there speak English.  I also probably would have gotten stuck making the trek back 2 weeks later, but Leni told me to pay 4,000 won so I will get it mailed to the school within the week!  Then I can get a cell phone and open a bank account. AHH!!  Aside from me getting to be a real person in Korea, it was a great trip because we had lots of girl-talk, figured out that Jin and I are both obsessed with Dexter, and even talked about our blood types.  In Korea, asking someone “what is your blood type?” is like asking someone “what is your sign” in America.  Blood type tells a lot about you apparently.  I’m O+ which according to Korean culture is very desirable and means I’m outgoing, trustworthy, loved by all, and will never get passed over because apparently I stand out very much.  Well, blood type, thanks for the ego boost!

Now it’s Wednesday, I’m still sitting at my desk keeping it warm and attempting to figure out how to put together a lesson plan.  I think I know what to do but I feel like I don’t have a jumping off point.  I’ve also been working on my About Me power point for when I officially start teaching next Monday.  Tonight I’ll be going to dinner with the other teachers since it’s my Vice Principal’s last day. I’m sad because she has been so sweet to me in just the few times we’ve met. My co-teacher even told me I didn’t need to come tonight because they will be eating pork and they know I don’t eat that (proving to be quite difficult!). I told them I don’t want that to be a reason I don’t come to things and she was so excited and told me I’m awesome 🙂 So, I will be eating rice and kimchi for dinner. Tomorrow I will also be broadcast to the entire school and introduce myself to them. The school has a fancy broadcast room and I sit at a big chair behind a huge desk.  I feel like I look like FDR having a fireside chat or something.  I will be doing this every 2nd 4th and 5th Monday of the month.  I guess I’m supposed to tell 5 minute stories and play true/false games to get the kids excited about learning English.  Wish me luck!

Well, I’m off to go try and do some work.  Hopefully the next post will be sooner and not as long.  Sorry, I’ve just been running around like a mad woman. Oh, and Jeanette is coming to visit me this weekend! AHHHHH!!!

Ok, PEACE!