Kaviya

Got a letter from a former Grade 3 student from Scarborough. It made my week. (Can you tell?) A big thanks to Cheryl for making that happen. Malvern: The place to be!

I added it to my wall of happiness. (It's the one on the bottom left.)

Cute little thing even tried to write in Spanish.

Gyeongju

Last Wednesday, the teachers at school went on a day trip to nearby Gyeongju. I didn't quite understand the logic, seeing how the purpose of the trip was to see the cherry blossoms, but the cherry blossoms were all long gone by then. Nonetheless, I was happy to finally check Gyeongju off my to-do list--even if it a very brief visit. I'm sure I'm going go back at one point, because there are some royal tombs among other things I really want to see there.

We left school at 3:00. I rode with my main co-teacher and two Grade 3 teachers. Of course I didn't say much during the ride, because the 3rd grade teachers speak next to no English, and between the three of them, there was rarely a moment of silence to get a word in. Every time I find myself in that situation, my heart goes out to my Art, who has had to endure this with my family for years now.

Once we got to Gyeongju, we met up with a couple other teachers and went for a walk around a man-made lake, and we followed that up with a lengthy stop in Starbucks. Though they're rare, I always enjoy our teacher outings because I get a chance to interact with teachers I rarely get to see at school. In Starbucks, one of the teachers started asking me (in English!) questions about Canada, and I was both surprised and impressed with her English skills. I told her that people walking by must be wondering how that lucky foreigner found himself surrounded by half a dozen beautiful Korean women.

Down in front! You're ruining the shot!

Much better.

Hello, Mr. Tree. 

POW-POW-POWER WHEELS!

This was set up in the plaza where we had Starbucks. It was a photo booth type of thing where people could pose in front of Van Gogh's The Bedroom for some reason.

After Starbucks, we hopped back in the car and headed to a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere--it was literally surrounded by farmland--to meet up with the rest of the staff for dinner. It turned out to be quite possibly the best dinner I've had during my time in Korea. As we were driving to the restaurant, my co-teacher tried to describe it as "pumpkin duck," which of course left me clueless. Turns out, she was completely right--the server brought out a small pumpkin cut up with a pile of pieces of cut up duck meat stacked in the middle. The duck was so tender and juicy, especially with some spicy sauce. Apparently Ulsan doesn't have a restaurant that serves that meal, but I would gladly drive out to the middle of nowhere in Gyeongju to have that meal again. If only I had a car...

At one point, the Vice Principal got up and told everybody to switch seats so that they're sitting with different teachers. I somehow ended up sitting beside the boss man himself. He whipped out his phone to show off his cherry blossom photos on his phone, but then the teacher laughed at him and said, "But where are all the people?! There are no people in your pictures! Here, look, these are pictures!" She pulled out her own phone and shoved it in his face. I laughed and put a reassuring hand on the Principal's shoulder. "Don't worry," I said, "I do it all the time too." He nodded and smiled, hopefully understanding my joke. That was probably the second or third thing I've ever said to the Principal since arriving here (he never leaves his office, and he knows no English at all), so I was happy to make him smile.

The highlight of my night was speaking to the woman seated directly across from me. I knew she understood English because she once told my co-teacher during lunch that I am a very good older brother after I had just finished telling a story about Doris, however I had no idea she could speak decent fluent English.

She basically teaches the Korean equivalent of the Home-School Program. For my non-teacher readers, I taught HSP for a year and a half at Malvern; it's a Special Education class. Students spend their morning in HSP learning English and Math, and then they go to their regular classrooms after Lunch. I was curious as to whether the job was as demanding in Korea as it is back home, so I asked if they had to write up any legal documents outlining a student's individual curriculum expectations. (Back home this is called an Individual Education Plan.) I tried wording it in a simple way to get her to understand what I was trying to ask about, and I shocked to hear her ask, "Do you mean an IEP?" I wasn't surprised that they were required to write IEP's, but I was surprised to hear them referred to the same way. We understood each other's pain. It was weird to think back to all of those hours sitting in front of the computer monitor at Malvern; it felt like a lifetime ago.

Once we were done stuffing ourselves with duck, we headed out to Anapji Pond, another man-made body of water in Gyeongju National Park that dates back to the ancient Silla dynasty. The night view was rather beautiful, but I was surprised to see how packed the place was so late on a Wednesday; and all the visitors were students! I felt like I was back home in Toronto during Nuit Blanche; that's how crowded it was. Apparently they were all there to honour Buddha's upcoming birthday. We stayed long enough to take a casual stroll around the pond before heading home.

All in all, a great evening; I just wish our staff would do more things together. It seems like my friends go out to teacher dinners much more often than I do. (Or maybe the teachers just aren't telling me about the teacher dinners....Nah.....)

Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

Spring is finally here! And it couldn't have come at a better time, since the seam along the sleeve of my jacket mysteriously tore wide open last week. I didn't even notice until I got home and took the jacket off. "Sonofabitch," I said to absolutely nobody.

Canada, I hope the arrival of April has finally brought an end to the relentless downpour of snow and frigid it-hurts-to-breathe temperatures. Congrats to those who survived the winter apocalypse with all their extremities intact.

Here in Korea, the first week of April has brought an explosion of cherry blossoms. Of course, as with everything else in Korea, this is cause for a festival. Waygooks and Koreans alike packed into buses and cars this weekend and headed out to see the purrty flowers. Gyeongju and Jinhae were some of the big spots around here, so off I went to Jinhae.

While waiting for the bus, I met Tony, a fellow Ontarian. When we got to Jinhae, we were both starving, and he mentioned that his landlord had highly recommended a Chinese restaurant just around the corner from where we got dropped off.

We found the place easily and were eventually led to the crappiest table in the entire establishment, shoved in the corner right next to some furnace-looking contraption. On top of that, the menu was a bit out of our budget, so we quickly skedaddled outta there.

We resorted to street food: a deep fried corn dog. Sadly, this too was a flop, as the corn dog was an abomination. You're probably thinking, "Uri, how does one mess up a corn dog? That's impossible." Wrong. The breaded part was delicious; the 'dog' itself, however, was completely frozen. We threw them out as soon as we found the first garbage can, which as usual in Korea, turned into a bit of a hunt. It wasn't the best start to the day. I just wanted some damn food.

We had no idea where anything was, so Tony and I sort of just meandered about. After a bit, we bumped into Jeremy and his peoples. They seemed to know where they were going, so we tagged along. The group seemed to be in a bit of a rush to get somewhere, though, and they navigated through the ocean of people--young couples taking selfies, families walking at a snail's pace, and just about anybody with a camera or a map in their hands--with remarkable ease. They were on a mission.

Rushing seemed a bit counter-productive to me in this case, though. I mean, we were there to see flowers; they weren't going anywhere, and in fact, they were all around us. If anything, people should have been slowing down to appreciate the scenery around them--the petals fluttering down to the ground and blowing across the streets, the markets and carnival games, and the people. (Who doesn't love a bit of people watching from time to time?)

Jeremy's friend, Adrienne, had the right idea. She was madly scrambling to take pictures of everything around her. The infinite amount of visual stimulation was overwhelming, and she tried her best to capture it all.

Everything.

Needless to say, we lost the group pretty quickly, and Tony, Jeremy, Adrienne, and I were left to our own devices. With nothing else to do, we just wandered through the streets in no particular direction, but hoping to stumble upon some magical bridge we'd heard about.

We found ourselves in the midst of a carnival, so Tony and I decided to try our luck with some carny games. We split on a ring toss and didn't even come close. (I seem to be rusty; in my heyday, I won my fair share of prizes at Wonderland. My one regret is never completing the Animaniacs set; Dot evaded me and she haunts me to this day.) Tony, however, put in a hell of a performance at darts and won himself an Angry Bird. My stomach, meanwhile, was finally rewarded with a desperately needed (and cooked) snack: chicken pops.

Not chicken pops.

The look of concentration.

Making it look so easy.

The rain started coming down in fat juicy drops and we were slowly losing hope that we'd find this damn bridge. Thankfully, we asked a police officer, and he pointed us in the right direction. As luck would have it, we just happened to be walking in the right direction all along. We walked underneath a tunnel, and magically, as soon as we arrived on the other side, the rain stopped, the sun was out, and I even heard a couple birds chirping. It was a good sign of things to come.

Soon enough, we found ourselves at the "Romance Bridge." Unfortunately, there was an insane amount of people gathered around the bridge snapping pictures. I couldn't really tell what the big deal was. In fact, when we first laid eyes on the bridge, I couldn't believe this was what we'd been searching for all this time. Then I climbed the steps and looked across the bridge for myself and I shut up.

If I could whistle, I would.

See what I mean? I pulled out my camera, and joined the crowd. I raised my arms above my head and snapped a couple, hoping for the best.

Now if you've been keeping up with the blog, you've noticed that I somehow have this remarkable talent for screwing up. If I'm not missing my bus, I'm losing my camera or mixing up the times for an event. This week, in the Misadventures of Uri, I forgot my camera's memory card in my laptop. All the lovely pictures I'd been taking all morning vanished as soon as I pulled the trigger. Sonofabitch.

Note: Many pictures (all the pretty ones) in this post come courtesy of the talented Jeremy and Adrienne.

At least I had my phone.

We strolled along the bridge for a while, snapping a thousand and one pictures, before eventually turning around and heading back where we came from in search of a massive flight of stairs.

But not before getting in some more snacks and enjoying the sights.

Ernie and Bert as cigarettes? 

He looks pretty alone to me.

What's with the kid yanking on the elephant's tail?  Korean graffiti is whack, yo.

Somebody was watching us from the shadows.

Can you spot us?!

Cue the Rocky music:

Many people opted to wait for the monorail that took people up the stairs, but the line looked pretty brutal, so we chose to conquer every single one of the 365 steps ourselves. If the ajimas could do it, then so could we!

Tony was born ready.

This awaited us at the top:

Make it rain, bitches! 

Along with more stairs and an even better view.

After a long afternoon of walking, we were all ready for a hearty sit-down meal of delicious pork and beef, followed by some sweets for dessert.

Oreo omnomnomnomnom

A great day with great company.

Teaching highlights from the week of March 31 - April 4

- On Monday, I was asked to teach a quick lesson on sports around the world, so rather than stick to the textbook and go on about soccer and baseball, which they're already experts at, I focused on three sports the kids aren't usually exposed to: American football, hockey, and Ultimate Frisbee.

One of my favourite parts was showing them clips of girls kicking ass at Ultimate and hockey, which blew their minds. One kid in particular laughed hysterically when he saw a picture of Shannon Szabados, goaltender for Canada's Olympic gold medal women's hockey team from the Vancouver Games, making a killer glove save; but that quickly changed to an impressive look of disbelief and awe after he saw a couple clips of her making some unbelievable saves.

The other awesome part was showing shot after shot of the Packers destroying the Bears. Here's just a sample from the lesson: That's Jay Cutler--he's the quarterback. Remember, the quarterback is the one who throws the ball. Jay Cutler plays for the Bears. Mr. Mendoza doesn't like the Bears. That's Clay Matthews. His job is to hunt down Jay Cutler and tackle him. When you tackle the quarterback, that's called a sack. As you can see from the picture, Clay Matthews likes to sack Jay Cutler. Now when we watch the video, everybody cheer with Mr. Mendoza when Jay Cutler gets sacked.

It was also a lot of fun to see their reactions to the Barry Sanders highlights I showed them. Every time he shed a tackle (or five) or spun away from a defender, they let out a roar of awe and disbelief.

- On Tuesday, I was asked to teach the Grade 3's about the differences between Rock, Paper, Scissors and the Korean equivalent, Kawi Bawi Bo. I couldn't teach them about RPS without talking about the RPS World Championship held in Toronto every year. Their heads hit the ceiling when I mentioned the $10, 000 grand prize. I'm slowly but surely convincing every child at Samsan Elementary to move to Toronto, grade by grade.

- On Tuesday I started receiving some of my Grade 5 and 6 pen pal letters that I'll be sending home to the wonderful kids at Malvern Junior Public School. My absolute very line that had me in stitches: "PS: My sister Olivia traveled to Canada. Do you know her?" They're so damn adorable.

- On Wednesday, I played a game of Connect Four with the Grade 6's to teach them about the weather. It was girls versus boys. At first, they were just intrigued by the display on the screen; but as the chips fell with every correct answer and they saw the strategy involved in the game, things started to heat up. Boys started to argue from across the room over which spot to pick next; girls pointed at the screen with eyes bulged open and screamed what I can only assume was "We can't choose spot 26, because then they get win! Look, you stupid girl!" Boys and girls cursed and screamed at each other when they were blocked by the opposing team.

What made this scene absolutely hysterical was that this particular bunch of sixth graders are usually so quiet, calm, and reserved. This was a whole other side I'd never seen before. My co-teacher and I just looked at each other in disbelief at the pandemonium erupting before our very eyes. It was beautiful.

It was a pretty exciting game; both sides had ample opportunities to win it all. The girls came away with the win in the end, though. Just as the bell rang, the boys missed a diagonal the girls had set up. As soon as one of the boys called out 16 instead of 14, the girls realized the game was theirs; they raised their arms and let out a cheer that nearly blew out all the windows in the classroom.

- On Friday, a girl came up to me and said, "Teacher, we have 4 tests on April two-two (22nd)--Math, Science, History, Social Studies. We play game today?" In my head I screamed, "You're goddamn right we're going to play a game today!" However the words that actually came out of my mouth were, "Of course we're going to play a game! It will be very fun!" She clapped and smiled and ran to her seat.

Afterwards, she came up to me exhausted and out of breath, grinning from ear to ear, and thanked me for a very fun game. That, as far as I'm concerned, is my job as a Native English Teacher here in Korea. At my school, I'm not allowed to reprimand students for misbehaviour, so class management isn't really of my concern; I don't mark or assign homework; I don't deal with parents or homeroom teachers; and I don't really lesson plan because I'm just told by my co-teacher which pages or sections I'm going to be teaching from the textbook the next day. I have next to no creative input in my job.

On top of all that, having over 600 kids whose names I don't know and who I only see once a week, it's very difficult to get to know the students and form a genuine relationship. The most I can get out of a kid is what they did on the weekend, what movie they recently watched, how they did in their soccer game, how hungry they are, or how much homework they did last night. That's it. And they see me for 40 minutes a week.

Yet, when I walk into the door, they go crazy with excitement--not because I'm a great teacher (though I hope I am), but because I'm their entertainment. I'm the guy with the fun games, the guy who makes funny faces, the guy who laughs at everything and gives them a high five, the goof who dances a jig during the excruciating "Story Chant." I'm here to make them smile, bring them some fun, and help them, if only for the twenty minutes I'm in front of the class, take off the overwhelming academic responsibilities that weigh on their shoulders. If they happen to learn some English in the process, well all the better.

A $130 Bus Ride

So this weekend, I was pretty excited to be heading to Jindo on the southern tip of Korea for the Sea Parting Festival. As the name suggests, for one night, the tides do some funny things, and as if straight out of the Bible itself, a 40-60 metre wide path is cleared from the shore straight out to Modo Island almost three kilometres out.

The story, as I learned, was that long ago, a family had fled from Jindo on a raft to Modo Island due to a high population of killer tigers in the area. Unfortunately, they left poor sweet old Grandma Ppong behind, like a geriatric Kevin McCallister. Grandma missed her family dearly, so she prayed to the Dragon King of the Sea to help reunite her with her family. Eventually, the Dragon King appeared to her in a dream and told her to cross the water on the rainbow road that he would provide for her. Grandma Ppong managed to make it all the way out to the island on her own, but sadly, the journey proved to be too much for her, and she died just as she was reunited with her family. Not exactly the happiest ending ever, but that's how the story goes.

Anyway, since the tour bus was set to leave for Jindo from Busan at seven in the bloody morning on Saturday, I headed over to my favourite Korean city on Friday night to meet yet two other awesome Californians in Nate and Kirsten, along with their crew, which included Scott, the birthday boy. After a rousing round of Cards Against Humanity, we headed out for a night on the town.

At midnight, I told Nate and Kirsten that I'd only be out for one more hour, since I had to be up at six to get to Seomyeon Station on time to catch the bus. In return, they suggested that I just try to stay up the whole night and sleep on the way to Jindo, since it would be a long five hour bus ride. Seemed like sound logic to me at the time. As always, a grand ol' time was had whilst dancing to noise.

We didn't quite make it through to the whole night, though, and at 5:15--a measly 45 minutes until I had planned departure time--my head hit the pillow for what I told myself would be just a little resting of the eyes, but the next time I opened them it was 8:00. I had missed my bus. Sadly, it was not the first time this happened to me. You'd think I'd learn my lesson.

After calling the 1330 tourist helpline, I found out that I could get to Jindo on my own and it would only cost $30. Considering that I already spent $100 on the tour, I wasn't about to head home just yet. I bid Kirsten and Nate a goodbye and headed out with my conciliatory bottle of soju.

Several hours later, I arrived in Jindo and caught up with my group, having missed a dog show that I wasn't really keen on seeing anyway, along with a traditional Korean performance of some kind. We got to our hostel, were assigned our rooms, and went down for dinner. This was also breakfast for me, as the only thing I'd had to eat all day was an apple that a roommate in the hostel had offered me shortly before dinner.

Afterwards, we went back to our room to commence with the drinking. One of the girls pointed out that it sort of felt like camp--we were sticking to a strict schedule that was assigned to us, eating dinner in a giant mess hall, and bunking with a group of people.

After a while, the music outside was calling us, and we made our way down to enjoy the festivities. It was basically just five Korean dudes dancing onstage like your typical boy band. We met the most awesome elderly couple while we were down there, though; they were totally feeling the music, and the guy was getting his groove on with the pretty young ladies.

Another highlight of that part of the night was the unexpected sighting of schwarma! I was in Heaven.

We eventually made our way back up to the room to wile away more time until the sea parting, which was set to take place at 5:00. (It looked like another sleepless night lay ahead.) After a while, though, I got antsy and made my way downstairs to see who else was milling about. I basically spent the rest of the night mingling here and there.

Eventually, I found myself in the lobby of our hostel with a guy who called himself the gatekeeper. We were joined by two others, and things quickly escalated to tomfoolery and drunken pictures until somebody came out to tell us we were being too loud.

At that point, I wandered off with another friend and, long story short, we ended up getting the times confused for when we were supposed to meet up with everybody else for the festivities. Crap.

I found some solace the following morning in hearing that the tide actually wasn't that low, and nobody had been able to make it out to the island because the tide was waist-high. Some turned back only a third of the way there.

Still, I imagine the sight of a mass exodus of people carrying torches as they marched out to the sea must have been one hell of a sight at five in the morning. I'm going to regret that one for a long time.

There was a bit of a morning-after festival going on Sunday morning, so we meandered about, listening to live music and buying things to nibble on along the way. We strolled through the streets as we waited for the parade to kick off. The parade ended at a gorgeous amphitheatre that was situated with the sea as its backdrop. Viewers sat on benches up on a massive hill and took in one hell of a view. It was probably the most beautiful concert venue I've ever seen in my life. The highlight of the entire weekend turned out to be a drum performance immediately following the parade in the amphitheatre. At least I got something for my money.

Very colourful afros?

It's Grandma Ppong!

No words...

Jammin to some pan flute action.

I would kill to see Metallica or the Foo Fighters here. The sea is right there!

The balloons represent wishes. Unfortunately, some balloons got caught in the trees. Sucks for those people.

Just look at this venue!