Later

So my seven month ESL saga in Korea is coming to an end.  I'm current sitting in the Incheon airport by my gate waiting for a flight to China (Guangzhou to be precise).  One neat thing about the Incheon airport is the free wifi in the place... makes spending time here not terrible.  Also, I found some Engrish in the bathroom.

Anyway, I'll probably be mentally processing everything during my very long flight that will supplant the Greyhound trip of Evil as the longest time traveling I've ever had.  If everything runs on time it will be something like 33-34 hours of time in planes and airports.  Thanks to the magic of time zones I believe I'll actually arrive in Tampa before I left Korea (assuming things run on time).  Incheon to Guangzhou to Los Angeles (my first time in California actually, second time in China if you count a night in Hong Kong) to Houston to Tampa.  I get the feeling it will be weird for me to be among so many... non-Asians again. I guess one perk is that people won't assume I speak a language that I don't... they'll assume I speak a language that I do indeed speak.

But yeah, it was fun.  Korea is an interesting place.  Has it ups and downs, plenty of cool people, plenty of not so cool people. So... kinda like every other place in that regard.  I've sat looking at the last two sentences for a few minutes and I can't think of anything else to say.  My brain isn't really working at normal capacity right now.  The only sleep I've gotten in the past 28-29 hours or so was a few minutes on the bus here.

Speaking of buses, I enjoyed a bizarre pseudo-car chase while I was getting to the bus.  I was being driven to the airport bus stop in the neighborhood but was a little late to make it at that stop... so we followed the bus to its next stop so I could get on there.  It was interesting... kinda amusing.  I'm pretty sleepy.  But hey, I have a billion hours on planes to sleep... by billion I mean like 25 or so over the course of my voyage.

I just got a great idea... going to look through some pictures and post random ones that I like and I'll ramble about something that might be loosely related to it.  Let's go!

So the one to the left is Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) Palace in northern Seoul.  A friend suggested I go there and told me that it's rarely open at night so being there then was fairly special.  Some of my pictures didn't turn out too badly given that I was taking low light pictures without a tripod.  Tried going there once before but it was closing so I guess it's neat that I managed to go.

The dude in question.

Also saw this dude:

He's King Sejeong (세정... I think).  That's within easy walking distance of Gyeongbokgung Palace and he's famous for... well... besides being a king... inventing Hangeul, the Korean writing system.  Coincidentally I went by his statue on... Hangeul Day... is that it's name?  That day Google also changed their main page to feature... Justin Bieber.  Not really... the Google logo was changed to feature the company's name written in Hangeul.

Gugeul.

Pretty neat... well... sure... yeah.... word... something.

Anyway, this went from me talking about leaving Korea to... me just writing stuff.  I think I'll watch something on my computer while I wait for this flight that's running late.  I wonder if Guangzhou has free wifi... I suspect LAX won't because... it's 'Merica.  Not really, it's just America.  Soooo... yeah... I might write something else for this when I get the chance... or I might not.  Who knows... I certainly don't.

So how was NARPI?

It was pretty fun actually.

For those outside the know, NARPI is the Northeast Asian Regional Peacebuilding Institute.  If the name isn't a hint, NARPI does pretty much the same thing I studied.

People from, mostly NE Asia came.  In no particular order, the represented countries were: South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Canada, the US, India, and Russia.

This one didn't come out well....

I ended up taking the month of August off from teaching to work on NARPI stuff.  That NARPI stuff ended up being collecting flight information, helping people get to and from the airport, photography, and some media work.  Some of the photography can be found here and here (albums labelled "NARPI" are mine).  I say "some" because I took 2,968 photos over 14 days for an average of 212 photos a day.  If you include photos I took of Howard Zehr's lecture the weekend prior to NARPI, it's 3,005 pictures.  Of course some of the photos suck...

This could soooo be on a brochure.

Others were, if I say so myself, pretty awesome from a "this can go on a brochure!" perspective....

I love the shadow in this.

Meanwhile, others appeal to my amateurish artistic sense....  Trying to format this is getting a bit obnoxious.

Before anyone decides to be annoying about spelling... very few people at NARPI, staff included, were operating in their native language.  That is to say, English was often the second language for people who might not have had many chances to practice... or their third language.  So don't sweat the small stuff kids.

In the full-size picture you can pretty easily see the threads.

Some were of a spider outside the building I was staying in... I especially like the ones from when I saw a bug fly into its web...

Other pictures, were pretty amusing.  Though I think there might be some people who might hire some international assassin to come kill me if I post them so... I won't.  You know who you are.  Bwahahahahahahahaha.  I'm not sure if an evil cackle works when you already say you won't post take advantage of the leverage.  So... STAND IN THE WAY OF MY WORLD DOMINATION AND ALL SHALL KNOW OF YOUR DEEDS!  ... or something.

Hmm... what are some of the highlights of NARPI?  Went to the House of Sharing, a home for victims of sexual slavery during WWII.  That was, well... depressing.  That's a pretty blunt way of putting it but I can't say I can think of many positive ways to describe learning about that kind of stuff.  Maybe informative, educational, uhh... a thing we did.  We met three of the women who live there.  They were pretty interesting people.  One was quite vocal on her experience, another enjoyed the singing of NARPI participants (she also happened to know... I think 4 languages), and the last one to join us didn't really say much.

We also went to an observatory that was just inside the DMZ.  I still don't full understand the whole rule against taking pictures of North Korea.  Especially considering the presentation the soldiers at the observatory gave us featured a live feed from cameras a floor below us.  I won't post any pictures from there... mostly because we weren't really allowed to take pictures of anything interesting (North Korea).  Not that North Korea was really that interesting unless you just want a landscape picture.  The lens on my camera isn't nearly strong enough to take anything more detailed than that.

We also went into a tunnel the North built under the border.  Apparently South Korea managed to detect the tunnel and dug one of their own to intercept it.  The North Korean tunnel was pretty crude, according to our guide it was dug by explosive blasting.  South Korea's intercepting tunnel using some German drill and was comparatively more... well... tube-like.  But this was outside the tunnel....

The South is so protective of it's territory they even labelled it!

Hmm... a crazy Russian dude also stripped down to his briefs and went swimming in a river.  That was... well... unexpected.

Oh yeah... the first week was in Yeongdeung-po, an area of Seoul.  It was at the Hi Seoul! Youth Hostel, a city government ran hostel that was more like a hotel.  Minus the rotating groups of kiddies it was pretty nice.  First time in awhile I had sheets to sleep on.  But the other place, a venue just outside a village called Inje, was pretty epic.  It's the Korea DMZ Peace-Life Valley Education and Training Center.

It deserves a larger picture even if the formatting is messed up.

Except for the need to hand wash laundry it was absolutely perfect.

What else can I say?  The people that came to NARPI were pretty cool (Otna eallyra... ustja iddingka!).  Yes, I did just do that.

Seriously my brain isn't really doing much right now.  Any questions?

So... vacation plans

Fighting zombies, hopefully, will not be something I will be doing.

I may or may not have a vacation plan for my week of vacation.  This is next week mind you... the week of August 3.  So I was wondering... with no promises of actually doing something suggested, what are some things you, my handful of known and anonymous readers, would like me to do?  This can be something specific (ex: eat 50 hotdogs) or a vague goal (ex: eat hotdogs).  Please leave your comments below.

P.S. Keep it PG.

So... it's been awhile....

Yes I know it's been a long time.  By long time I mean almost three months.  Geez I hope my blog's popularity hasn't dropped.  Can't afford to lose my Iranian readers... or something.

Here's some quick updates... went to the DMZ, at least an observatory on the South Korean side of it, not inside.  Bought a souvenir turtle (made of stone) there.  Named the souvenir turtle (made of stone), Deemz.  Deemz the souvenir turtle (made of stone) is currently sitting above my desk.

iPod picture so the quality isn't that great.

I've also gone to Namsan Tower which, if you've been to other similar towers, is remarkably similar to that.  One of the beliefs associated with Namsan is that if you and your beau or belle lock a... lock... to the fence there your relationship will be eternal.  Fittingly, you see a lot of couples there.  Ironically, a decent number of locks are combination locks.

Hmm... what else have happened.  New teachers are at the 학원 now.  With two teachers leaving next month we have the full teaching staff for the X amount of time until our contracts end.  Between those departures and the transition of a long-term part-time teacher/part-time NGO worker to full-time latter, I'll become the most senior of the teachers.  That's kinda scary isn't it?


This past weekend there was the Boryeong Mud Festival.  Boryeong is here:

View Larger Map

There will be mud.

It was pretty fun.  The mud attractions covered about an acre of space... not enough for the however many people were there.  Tons of GIs.  Certainly pretty foreigner heavy, but there were still a decent number of Koreans there.  The thing in the background of that picture is a slide.  There was also the beach, which was similarly crowded.


I went there with the hagwon where I've started Korean lessons (Hi CLS, Jiyeon, Amy, Eun Young, Hyo Jung, and the various Noonas).  My class, B, is the second _______________ (fill in the blank: lowest OR highest OR antidisestablishmentarianism) class at CLS.  My hagwon (the one I work at), has 5 teachers learning Korean there.  Go figure.


Interestingly, Firefox's dictionary tells me "antidisestablishmentarianism" is spelled incorrectly.


I've been debating this identity question.  One of my possible pursuits in Korea that I envisioned was a search for my birth parents but I've started the question whether I care about answering it.  Will it change anything about me?  I doubt it.  Will it give me more insight into who I am?  I'm going to say no.  Will I learn more about where I'm from?  Probably.  But do I care about that?  Meh.  Considering how much I've changed in the past 5 years I don't imagine what my birth parents were/are like is relevant to who I am.  Besides, I tend to dwell on the past enough as it is... I don't really care to pointlessly worry about something else about my past.


Speaking of possible pursuits... perhaps graduate school?  Who knows.  There are some programs taught in English here and tuition here seems to be lower than in the US... though cost of living might be an issue.  Research will have to be done.


Anyway, I'll cya in three months.


I'm kidding.  Maybe.

Now that we can all stop worrying about terrorism...

... we should move on to the important issues.  Like fan death.  A fairly common belief in Korea is the existence of this phenomenon where having a fan on, in a room where the door(s) and window(s) are closed, while sleeping can lead to death.

This isn't a picture of a fan in my apartment (I've been forgetting to take a picture of it) but fans in Korea tend to come with these timers so you can set it before you go to sleep so you will reduce the likelihood of death by fan.

This isn't a belief held by a few people, but a widely held fact.  Some of my students, when I've mentioned I've slept with a room while just asking for fan death and have obviously survived (unless of course I'm Bruce Willis and everyone else is Haley Joel Osmont) they have been fairly surprised.

Here is a Korean news report on a fan death incident... obviously it's in Korean so... yeah.  I think you'll understand who the alleged murderer is when the camera acts like it's hiding from the killer.


Those brave reporters tempted the wrath of the dreaded fan.  From what I've heard, especially in the summer, there will be several stories on the news about the death of someone caused by a fan.  Korea can build smart phones, ships, cars, and various other pieces of technology but still reports on the physically impossible phenomenon of fan death.

I also found a video taken by an expat who talks to a few Koreans on the subject.


A Wikipedia article on the subject identifies some odd explanations for fan death.  These range from changes in air pressure to hypothermia to the cutting of oxygen molecules.

Does anyone know of any other strange widely held beliefs, from anywhere, that are hugely illogical?

So I guess I'm doing requests now? Sort of? Let's end sentences with question marks?

So a fan was wondering what the eats are like.

Generally I eat lunch, during the week, at work where people volunteer to cook lunch for the staff.  So has ranged from a Texas Chainsaw Massacred Denver Omelet (a.k.a. scrambled eggs with stuff in it) and fried potatoes (I promise nobody died when I cooked) to Kimchi Jjigae (김치찌개, a kimchi soup) to Burritos.  It was actually pretty amusing to see Koreans make Burritos... one of my roommates just balled it all up, and told us not to look when people noticed.

In the Gangnam area, where I work, there's a decent amount of food that fits a Western palate.  Like... Popeye's Chicken, Subway, Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger Hunter, Taco Rico, Dublin (a pub/restaurant) and some others.  Korean food, while it has a deserved reputation for spice, has a pretty solid array of foods that lack it.  Donkass (똔깟?) is fried pork, Bossam (보쌈) is steamed pork, and Samgyubsal (삼겹살) is grilled pork.  Donkass is actually Japanese but seems to have endeared itself in Korea.  And yes Koreans do love pork.


Pork aside, there's a decent array of food and I don't imagine it would be terribly hard for someone to find stuff he or she likes here.  Though, it doesn't seem to take very long until you're a bit numb to spice.  I had something with Tabasco in the sauce... it was tangy.  I guess it could be that there just wasn't much in it.


Street food is kinda interesting.  Go to 3:45.





The first item, which he mispronounces, can be romanized Tteokbokki (떡볶이) was voted the most popular street food by expats in a recent-ish survey.  Sundae (순대) isn't too bad... but it's still blood sausage.  I had a somewhat humorous encounter in a class with Sundae.  Myself and another teacher were playing a take on Pictionary and one of the words, Sundae as in ice cream, was misinterpreted as blood sausage.

A street food staple not found in the video is Odeng (오뎅), it's... kinda like Spam but fish instead of ham.  I can't say it's my favorite food but it's not terrible.  I don't think I need to discuss Bundaegi anymore.


For someone in search of something pretty benign there's always Kimbap (김밥).  Think California Rolls with some fish (cooked) or some other meat.  It comes in a pretty wide range so yeah.  There's also the standard fare that people are usually aware of, Bibimbap (비빔밥), and Bulgogi (불고기).  I'm kinda tired of listing foods already.

So...

For the picky ex-roommate there's a bit of news I know you'd appreciate... pretty much every restaurant will either place a jug of filtered water on your table or have some self-service filtered water.

Pictures!

So I posted some pictures of my life in Seoul on Facebook.  If you can't see them it can be discussed.  I'm hesitant to use my Picasa for it because of the limited storage space.