We have posted some new photographs here. The last 50 or so are new, and they are from our recent trips to Hamjisan (a local mountain) and Donghwasa (a Buddhist temple). We will write about our trips in a post soon.
Good morning!
-Us
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Hamjisan
The last two mornings, we rose early to hike Hamjisan. We are waiting for the sun to come out this morning before we go for a third visit.On our first expedition, we randomly chose paths and found our way to a small peak with an accompanying small gazebo. This path did an exceptional job of telling us how out of hiking-shape we are. It offered a nice view of Chilgok despite the haze slithering between all the hills and buildings. Chilgok consists mainly of the tall, skinny apartment buildings occupying most of the groundspace in the photographs you see. That is how everyone lives. No one has their own mansion with front and back yard. What do you call that? Overpopulation or space efficiency?
Yesterday's hike was completely different. The sun was shining nice and bright, and we took a different path that climbed to the same elevation but over a much longer distance. Therefore, this hike was not as intense as the previous one. It took us past a fully equipped outdoor weight room to another peak but on the backside of the mountain, offering a nice view of the South Korean mountain-scape sans skyscrapers. There were even some locals doing aerobic stretches on the peak who would occasionally belt a long shout, sending it echoing through the mountains.
On our walk home, we pass a small Buddhist temple. Yesterday, a lady was leaving the temple as we were walking past. She took several steps outside when she turned around, faced us directly, brought her hands together as if to pray, and bowed politely. I took this as an awfully nice gesture and smiled and sort of half-bowed back to her. Then common sense kicked in and I wondered why she would bow to two foreigners minding their own business, walking down the street. I turned to Cordia to question this and a tall concrete structure caught my eyes. Yes, it was Buddha himself, wishing a peaceful journey to those departing the temple. Feeling somewhat wrongfully for intercepting his bow, we just turned and continued walking.
-Us
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Gifts!
We received our first care package! Oh how great it is! Mama Drennan sent us a box full of delightful treats: 2 voltage converters (now Mitch can shave his face again, and Cordia can finally do something with her hair!), socks, incense burner (which we were in dire need of since we have been cooking with kimchi--the pickled cabbage), Emergen-C, vitamin C pills, a headlamp (which will certainly come in useful some day), two sweaters for Mitch that fit him perfectly, lotion, Dayquil, and Chapstick.
So to answer your question: yes, we can, and would love to, receive packages and snail mail at the address to Moon Kkang posted on the previous blog. Just make it to Mitch and Cordia.
So to answer your question: yes, we can, and would love to, receive packages and snail mail at the address to Moon Kkang posted on the previous blog. Just make it to Mitch and Cordia.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
To Downtown We Go
We took a bus with Maggie to downtown Daegu today. Cordia and I had been planning on going, then Maggie walked by our apartment and saw our computer hanging out the window and decided to shout our names. Through some small talk we were able to determine that she was also planning on going downtown to make an exchange and work out a plan for us to make the trip together. She was a wonderful tour guide.
We boarded the pink #2 bus, dropped in our 3000 Won (the combined fare for Cordia and I), and claimed some empty seats. It is about a 25-30 minute bus ride to downtown from our apartment. Upon our arrival, we followed Maggie to American Apparel, and she made her exchange. There are hundreds of clothing stores and hair salons and restaurants and fish spas lining the alleys, but I'll get to that later. She then showed us the way to the massive Kyobo department store which contains the only bookstore in Daegu with a section of English books. This section is around 15 feet long and around 7 shelves high. Yeah. Not quite a Barnes & Noble. I signed up for a membership, Cordia bought a book, and we left Kyobo. Finally, she helped Cordia and I purchase a bus card, which gets us a cheaper bus fare, is re-loadable, and saves the hassle of needing exact change. Maggie decided to go home after that, but we decided to stick around and try to get to know downtown Daegu a little more.
Our first stop was Herbal Medicine Alley, an alley for which Daegu is famous. Just a walk down this street through all the smells of the herbs seeping through the cracks between the doors and their sills is enough to cure your stuffy nose or sore throat. We didn't know what anything was or what anything said, but it sure looked like an interesting place. We meandered through a very small alley structured like a might market that only sold fresh vegetables, nuts, fish, and an occasional blanket. Once through, we headed towards all the trendy clothing stores. This mostly included a lot of browsing and window-shopping for two main reasons: we won't receive our first paycheck until the end of January, and Korean salespersons function in a very close proximity manner. When you walk in a store, they usually bow as they say "hello" in Korean, then simply follow you around keeping you within arms reach just so they can catch you looking at a particular product for more than 5 or 6 seconds and proceed to tell you how wonderful it would look on you. I don't want to use the word annoying, but, hmm, I'll just have to get used to it. Besides all of the clothing stores, there are hair salons, jewelry stores, restaurants galore, bars, coffee/wine houses, and even a Dr. Fish Spa where small fish take up the task of nibbling the dead skin off your feet while you relax in a... well it doesn't really matter. What could be more relaxing than having fish eat your feet?
The diner of choice for us was called Burnham's Burgers. They served burgers. Cordia and I have loved the Korean food so far, but after nearly a month outside of the U.S., one of Burnham's burgers sounded very delicious. And it was decent. We decided we've had better, but it satisfied our craving.
Oh yes. And tonight we saw more foreigners (non-Koreans) than we have seen since we arrived. I would think it would make one feel a little more comfortable, seeing so many faces so similar to my own, but that wasn't the case. The Koreans have been so hospitable and accepting that seeing so many foreigners tonight just made me feel a little less special than I do in Chilgok.
I should go to bed. We have plans to hike Hamjisan tomorrow. Or, later today since it is currently 2:45am. Hamjisan is a mountain just outside of the hustle-and-bustle of Chilgok that offers a wonderful view of the city so I hear. Maybe we'll get some new photographs.
Good afternoon!
We boarded the pink #2 bus, dropped in our 3000 Won (the combined fare for Cordia and I), and claimed some empty seats. It is about a 25-30 minute bus ride to downtown from our apartment. Upon our arrival, we followed Maggie to American Apparel, and she made her exchange. There are hundreds of clothing stores and hair salons and restaurants and fish spas lining the alleys, but I'll get to that later. She then showed us the way to the massive Kyobo department store which contains the only bookstore in Daegu with a section of English books. This section is around 15 feet long and around 7 shelves high. Yeah. Not quite a Barnes & Noble. I signed up for a membership, Cordia bought a book, and we left Kyobo. Finally, she helped Cordia and I purchase a bus card, which gets us a cheaper bus fare, is re-loadable, and saves the hassle of needing exact change. Maggie decided to go home after that, but we decided to stick around and try to get to know downtown Daegu a little more.
Our first stop was Herbal Medicine Alley, an alley for which Daegu is famous. Just a walk down this street through all the smells of the herbs seeping through the cracks between the doors and their sills is enough to cure your stuffy nose or sore throat. We didn't know what anything was or what anything said, but it sure looked like an interesting place. We meandered through a very small alley structured like a might market that only sold fresh vegetables, nuts, fish, and an occasional blanket. Once through, we headed towards all the trendy clothing stores. This mostly included a lot of browsing and window-shopping for two main reasons: we won't receive our first paycheck until the end of January, and Korean salespersons function in a very close proximity manner. When you walk in a store, they usually bow as they say "hello" in Korean, then simply follow you around keeping you within arms reach just so they can catch you looking at a particular product for more than 5 or 6 seconds and proceed to tell you how wonderful it would look on you. I don't want to use the word annoying, but, hmm, I'll just have to get used to it. Besides all of the clothing stores, there are hair salons, jewelry stores, restaurants galore, bars, coffee/wine houses, and even a Dr. Fish Spa where small fish take up the task of nibbling the dead skin off your feet while you relax in a... well it doesn't really matter. What could be more relaxing than having fish eat your feet?
The diner of choice for us was called Burnham's Burgers. They served burgers. Cordia and I have loved the Korean food so far, but after nearly a month outside of the U.S., one of Burnham's burgers sounded very delicious. And it was decent. We decided we've had better, but it satisfied our craving.
Oh yes. And tonight we saw more foreigners (non-Koreans) than we have seen since we arrived. I would think it would make one feel a little more comfortable, seeing so many faces so similar to my own, but that wasn't the case. The Koreans have been so hospitable and accepting that seeing so many foreigners tonight just made me feel a little less special than I do in Chilgok.
I should go to bed. We have plans to hike Hamjisan tomorrow. Or, later today since it is currently 2:45am. Hamjisan is a mountain just outside of the hustle-and-bustle of Chilgok that offers a wonderful view of the city so I hear. Maybe we'll get some new photographs.
Good afternoon!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Dog Soup
This morning when the alarm clock went off at 8:31, it said "8:31am, negative 66 degrees fahrenheight." After the hitting the snooze, it went off again 10 minutes later saying "8:41am, 111 degrees fahrenheight." It's funny to wake up to that.
Here's a few observations we've made since being here:
1. Couples dress alike. Many couples wear identical coats, shirts, jeans, shoes, and backpacks.
2. If you think your wardrobe is uncool in America, don't come here hoping to be a trend-setter. People here are very trendy. Even the elementary students that I teach dress cooler than I (Cordia) do.
3. Dog is an item on some resaurant menus, but it is not common. We haven't had it, but a Korean girl we work with told us she knows of a good place to get it. This girl has never had it because she loves dogs. I think that it's generally served as Dog Meat Soup. And I think that these dogs are raised on dog farms (much like a pig farm or chicken farm), so they're not just stray dogs.
4. They really don't have deodorant or tampons. We buy our groceries at a huge store called Home Plus (like a Super Walmart), and neither of those items can be found. They don't sell women's shaving gel either, which is only an issue for those of us with especially sensitive skin.
5. If you get caught putting out unsorted trash, you will be fined 500,000won (about $400). The trash must be sorted into recyclables, food, and garbage (non recyclable).
6. It smells normal here. Just like any other big city might smell.
7. People are very affectionate with one another (peers and family).
8. A favorite food here is Kimchi: pickled cabbage with red pepper paste. It's very delicious. We looked up a recipe to make it, but it requires an entire day and big bowls (like sweet pickles!).
9. There are not many whole wheat products in the grocery store. The bread section is a quarter of Sunray's Thriftway bread section, and there is only a small package that looks like wheat.
10. Rice is sold in dog-food sized bags.
I apologize if you were under the impression from the title that you were going to be reading about our experiences dining on canine.
-Mostly Cordia
Here's a few observations we've made since being here:
1. Couples dress alike. Many couples wear identical coats, shirts, jeans, shoes, and backpacks.
2. If you think your wardrobe is uncool in America, don't come here hoping to be a trend-setter. People here are very trendy. Even the elementary students that I teach dress cooler than I (Cordia) do.
3. Dog is an item on some resaurant menus, but it is not common. We haven't had it, but a Korean girl we work with told us she knows of a good place to get it. This girl has never had it because she loves dogs. I think that it's generally served as Dog Meat Soup. And I think that these dogs are raised on dog farms (much like a pig farm or chicken farm), so they're not just stray dogs.
4. They really don't have deodorant or tampons. We buy our groceries at a huge store called Home Plus (like a Super Walmart), and neither of those items can be found. They don't sell women's shaving gel either, which is only an issue for those of us with especially sensitive skin.
5. If you get caught putting out unsorted trash, you will be fined 500,000won (about $400). The trash must be sorted into recyclables, food, and garbage (non recyclable).
6. It smells normal here. Just like any other big city might smell.
7. People are very affectionate with one another (peers and family).
8. A favorite food here is Kimchi: pickled cabbage with red pepper paste. It's very delicious. We looked up a recipe to make it, but it requires an entire day and big bowls (like sweet pickles!).
9. There are not many whole wheat products in the grocery store. The bread section is a quarter of Sunray's Thriftway bread section, and there is only a small package that looks like wheat.
10. Rice is sold in dog-food sized bags.
I apologize if you were under the impression from the title that you were going to be reading about our experiences dining on canine.
-Mostly Cordia
Monday, January 12, 2009
Explorations and Cookies
Our alarm clock is funny. It's one of those that when the alarm goes off, it tells you the time and temperature. The first few times we used it, it seemed to be fairly accurate with the temperature, but for the past few mornings it has been saying that the temperature is "negative 66 degrees Fahrenheit". Ha! that's cold! But then when we hit the snooze button and it goes off ten minutes later, it will say "78 degrees Fahrenheit".
The plans for this weekend looked quite a bit more romantic than the actual weekend played out. Before work on Friday, we planned to have a fairly quiet night so that we could get up early on Saturday and go explore Chilgok. For some reason, we have been setting our alarm for 8:30 every morning, but we're too exhausted to get up that early (which isn't early at all). So Friday night was very quiet. We ate cheese and crackers while we played cards. Then we watched a few episodes of Seinfeld and were asleep by midnight. But when our alarm went off at 8:31, we could not drag ourselves out of bed. Our eyes wouldn't even open. We slept until 9:30, got up, ate breakfast, sat down on the couch to read and study Korean, and took a nice hour or so long nap. We're thinking that maybe we're not sleeping very well at night, and that's why we can't get up in the mornings. Needless to say, we didn't get out of the house until 2:45 to go exploring, and when we walked outside it was freezing! And windy! We walked around for a while...a couple hours at least...and took a few videos and pictures. Exploring in a foreign country is different than exploring San Francisco or Austin. We walked around and didn't know what an opened the bag to find not candied nuts, but small, donut-hole like treats but without any glaze. They were quite delicious, and we enjoyed these mystery treats as we "exploredything was that we were walking past. We did buy a small bag of candy from a sidewalk vendor. When we walked past the first time, the smell and the look of the sign indicated candied nuts. So after one trip past the small portable candy shack, I decided to turn around and make a purchase. I handed the lady my 1000 won and she asked which one I wanted (I think). This was a surprise because I didn't even know there were two varieties of the product she was selling. So, I looked at the bags she had ready and just pointed to one. She smiled and handed me that one, and we were on our merry way. I" Chilgok.
Saturday night we cooked a hodge-podge meal, consisting of fried potatoes, shredded beef with tomatoes and mushrooms, and scrambled eggs. Weird, I know. We were super hungry and didn't really want leftovers, so we just had to cook something. Potatoes, beef, and eggs were the result. It was not too bad, except Korean ketchup tastes a little funnier than American ketchup (assuming American ketchup is even funny). But this small obstacle didn't stop us from devouring a full plate and thoroughly enjoying it. After dinner, we started talking about all the desserts we loved and how we couldn't have them now because we don't have a full-size oven, only a large convection toaster oven. Even if we had a full-size oven, finding the proper ingredients at the grocery store would prove to be a larger problem. After several proclamations about how much we loved and missed chocolate chip cookies, we decided to make a trip to Home Plus to see if we could sniff out all the required ingredients. So, we arrived at Home Plus and walked to the aisle that we thought would contain the flour. As we were walking
down this aisle I happened to look up and see a bag of (my favorite) Hershey's Dark Chocolate Chips. Success! Then we began searching for everything else we needed: flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Praise to be Home Plus for designating a 10 foot section of Aisle 3 strictly to making chocolate chip cookies. We found everything we needed right there! The vanilla was in powder form and labelled "vanilla flavor," but that was OK. We rounded up these ingredients plus a few others and headed home, eager to experiment with toaster oven cookies.
On the walk home we realized that we didn't have a mixing bowl, so we decided to cut the recipe in half and use the teflon bowl that goes in the rice cooker. It worked like a champ! We also don't have any small measuring utensils, so we had to guess at all the Ts/ts measurements which can make or break chocolate chip cookies. We made it home and immediately began mixing up the dough. After combining and mixing all the ingredients, the dough looked pleasingly normal. Now the next challenge was deciphering all the Korean symbols on the toaster oven to determine which was the right se
tting for baking cookies... Well, we didn't have any luck with that and just ended up just picking a setting with a picture. We popped the cookies in and let them bake! Or maybe it was broil, or roast, or toast. I'm not certain. Whatever it was, the cookies turned out decent, and we had a nice dessert before bed. We saved most of the dough to cook the next day.
~
It is Sunday now, and I didn't get out of bed until 11am. WHY?! Oh yeah, I stayed up until after 3am eating cereal and trying to decipher the back of our orange juice carton. That may be why. Today we must clean out our shower drain. It has been having difficulties draining all the water from our showers, and sometimes it even gives a little back accompanied by bubbles and gurgling sounds. We've been told the only way to do this is to dig in and remove all the small furry animals causing the clog. Rubber gloves? Something we forgot to pick up at Home Plus last night.
-Us
The plans for this weekend looked quite a bit more romantic than the actual weekend played out. Before work on Friday, we planned to have a fairly quiet night so that we could get up early on Saturday and go explore Chilgok. For some reason, we have been setting our alarm for 8:30 every morning, but we're too exhausted to get up that early (which isn't early at all). So Friday night was very quiet. We ate cheese and crackers while we played cards. Then we watched a few episodes of Seinfeld and were asleep by midnight. But when our alarm went off at 8:31, we could not drag ourselves out of bed. Our eyes wouldn't even open. We slept until 9:30, got up, ate breakfast, sat down on the couch to read and study Korean, and took a nice hour or so long nap. We're thinking that maybe we're not sleeping very well at night, and that's why we can't get up in the mornings. Needless to say, we didn't get out of the house until 2:45 to go exploring, and when we walked outside it was freezing! And windy! We walked around for a while...a couple hours at least...and took a few videos and pictures. Exploring in a foreign country is different than exploring San Francisco or Austin. We walked around and didn't know what an opened the bag to find not candied nuts, but small, donut-hole like treats but without any glaze. They were quite delicious, and we enjoyed these mystery treats as we "exploredything was that we were walking past. We did buy a small bag of candy from a sidewalk vendor. When we walked past the first time, the smell and the look of the sign indicated candied nuts. So after one trip past the small portable candy shack, I decided to turn around and make a purchase. I handed the lady my 1000 won and she asked which one I wanted (I think). This was a surprise because I didn't even know there were two varieties of the product she was selling. So, I looked at the bags she had ready and just pointed to one. She smiled and handed me that one, and we were on our merry way. I" Chilgok.
Saturday night we cooked a hodge-podge meal, consisting of fried potatoes, shredded beef with tomatoes and mushrooms, and scrambled eggs. Weird, I know. We were super hungry and didn't really want leftovers, so we just had to cook something. Potatoes, beef, and eggs were the result. It was not too bad, except Korean ketchup tastes a little funnier than American ketchup (assuming American ketchup is even funny). But this small obstacle didn't stop us from devouring a full plate and thoroughly enjoying it. After dinner, we started talking about all the desserts we loved and how we couldn't have them now because we don't have a full-size oven, only a large convection toaster oven. Even if we had a full-size oven, finding the proper ingredients at the grocery store would prove to be a larger problem. After several proclamations about how much we loved and missed chocolate chip cookies, we decided to make a trip to Home Plus to see if we could sniff out all the required ingredients. So, we arrived at Home Plus and walked to the aisle that we thought would contain the flour. As we were walking
down this aisle I happened to look up and see a bag of (my favorite) Hershey's Dark Chocolate Chips. Success! Then we began searching for everything else we needed: flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Praise to be Home Plus for designating a 10 foot section of Aisle 3 strictly to making chocolate chip cookies. We found everything we needed right there! The vanilla was in powder form and labelled "vanilla flavor," but that was OK. We rounded up these ingredients plus a few others and headed home, eager to experiment with toaster oven cookies.On the walk home we realized that we didn't have a mixing bowl, so we decided to cut the recipe in half and use the teflon bowl that goes in the rice cooker. It worked like a champ! We also don't have any small measuring utensils, so we had to guess at all the Ts/ts measurements which can make or break chocolate chip cookies. We made it home and immediately began mixing up the dough. After combining and mixing all the ingredients, the dough looked pleasingly normal. Now the next challenge was deciphering all the Korean symbols on the toaster oven to determine which was the right se
tting for baking cookies... Well, we didn't have any luck with that and just ended up just picking a setting with a picture. We popped the cookies in and let them bake! Or maybe it was broil, or roast, or toast. I'm not certain. Whatever it was, the cookies turned out decent, and we had a nice dessert before bed. We saved most of the dough to cook the next day.~
It is Sunday now, and I didn't get out of bed until 11am. WHY?! Oh yeah, I stayed up until after 3am eating cereal and trying to decipher the back of our orange juice carton. That may be why. Today we must clean out our shower drain. It has been having difficulties draining all the water from our showers, and sometimes it even gives a little back accompanied by bubbles and gurgling sounds. We've been told the only way to do this is to dig in and remove all the small furry animals causing the clog. Rubber gloves? Something we forgot to pick up at Home Plus last night.
-Us
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Week 2
I think that it's safe to say that this week of teaching was fifty times better than our first two days. We're beginning to feel more comfortable in a classroom, and we've been talking about what we think our role in the classroom is. Since this is not the children's main school, we are not responsible for shaping them into uplifted citizens of the community. Our job is to teach them English only. This idea makes teaching some of the out of control students a little easier. Below is a picture of our school building, which looks like a typical Korean business building. On the 2nd floor is Espresso Bar Felice, on the 5th floor is a virtual driving range/golf course, and MoonKkang is on the 3rd and 4th floors. The blue sign with white Korean symbols on the far left edge of the image says "MoonKkang Language Academy."
Things are actually starting to feel surprisingly normal here. We have met a number of other foreigners who are friendly and helpful. I'm getting more used to the fact that we cannot read a single sign on the street or understand when the worker at Home Plus tries to ex
plain the difference between two kinds of rice. It's not a comfortable feeling that I have in this situation...more of just an acceptance. It is also motivation to learn Korean. Mitch and I have been studying the alphabet a little every day, but we're finding that things are still hard to translate even if we know the letters. I have thought that translating was an interesting concept for some time now because it relies so heavily on the perception of the translator. No language can be truely translated into another language. I have a different appreciation for that concept now. Mitch had a time trying to translate the three words on our rice cooker this morning; Anyone who sits down to translate ancient transcripts or the Bible is awfully brave. Certainly our lives are different now than they were just weeks before, but we still tell silly jokes, we still listen to Sam Cooke while we cook, we still make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for late night snacks, and we still dance like dorks when we're all alone. Plus, the internet makes the world seem so much smaller than it looks on a map! The first week we were here, I missed home so badly that I felt as though I could cry at any point throughout the week at the snap of a finger. I hated not being able to hear familiar voices or even see the the words "Good morning sweetie pie" (from my mom) in an email. With the internet, I can call home and talk to Mom and Lindsey on Skype like we live right down the street from one another. If anyone else has Skype, you should add Mitch and I as friends so that we can hang out! (cordia.ferguson, mitchell.drennan)
We have a mailing address. It is not to our apartment because we don't really have a mail box here. Rather, it is to our school:
Moon Kkang English School
905-3 JangWon Building, 3rd & 4th Floor
DongChonDong, BukGu
Daegu, South Korea
702 886
We would love to get letters! We have a few letters to mail out, but we haven't found the post office yet.
And, we posted some new pictures here.
-Us
Things are actually starting to feel surprisingly normal here. We have met a number of other foreigners who are friendly and helpful. I'm getting more used to the fact that we cannot read a single sign on the street or understand when the worker at Home Plus tries to ex
plain the difference between two kinds of rice. It's not a comfortable feeling that I have in this situation...more of just an acceptance. It is also motivation to learn Korean. Mitch and I have been studying the alphabet a little every day, but we're finding that things are still hard to translate even if we know the letters. I have thought that translating was an interesting concept for some time now because it relies so heavily on the perception of the translator. No language can be truely translated into another language. I have a different appreciation for that concept now. Mitch had a time trying to translate the three words on our rice cooker this morning; Anyone who sits down to translate ancient transcripts or the Bible is awfully brave. Certainly our lives are different now than they were just weeks before, but we still tell silly jokes, we still listen to Sam Cooke while we cook, we still make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for late night snacks, and we still dance like dorks when we're all alone. Plus, the internet makes the world seem so much smaller than it looks on a map! The first week we were here, I missed home so badly that I felt as though I could cry at any point throughout the week at the snap of a finger. I hated not being able to hear familiar voices or even see the the words "Good morning sweetie pie" (from my mom) in an email. With the internet, I can call home and talk to Mom and Lindsey on Skype like we live right down the street from one another. If anyone else has Skype, you should add Mitch and I as friends so that we can hang out! (cordia.ferguson, mitchell.drennan)We have a mailing address. It is not to our apartment because we don't really have a mail box here. Rather, it is to our school:
Moon Kkang English School
905-3 JangWon Building, 3rd & 4th Floor
DongChonDong, BukGu
Daegu, South Korea
702 886
We would love to get letters! We have a few letters to mail out, but we haven't found the post office yet.
And, we posted some new pictures here.
-Us
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Week 1
We had an exceptionally chill weekend. The week started out ridiculously crazy and confusing and awkward, but on Thursday we were able to move our stuff into our permanent apartment in Chilgok. We began teaching our classes on Thursday. With the exception of a few instances, I think our classes went pretty well. Mitch teaches upper level students who are around the ages of 13 to 16. Those students are much more quiet, and some of them have attitudes...much like teens in the States. I teach mostly younger students around the ages of 8 to 11. These students are pretty rowdy and cute. The first two days of teaching were definitely challenging for both of us (as it probably is for most beginning teachers). "Teacher! you are so little!", "Teacher! you have big eyes!", "Teacher! You have big nose!" were some of the comments that the jokesters directed towards me. "Teacher! You have big ears...like monkey!" is what Mitch heard. We got quite a chuckle out of these comments...they are pretty much right on!
After our first day of work, one of the guys we work with (Nick from Wisconsin) was eager to introduce us to a few of his friends and a cool place to eat. His friends, Maggie and Noah (also both from Wisconsin) live just a hop, skip, and a jump away from us. The place we went to eat at is called "orange" by the foreigners. I'm not sure what it's real name is. I'm guessing it's called "orange" by the foreigners because it has an orange sign. Nick, Noah, and Maggie were great to have with us at a restaurant because for the first time in several days, we had translators. They read the menu to us and explained what a few of the plates were. We decided on bibimbap and bulgogi. They were delicious. The food here is very spicy--a different kind of spicy than even Texans are used to. It's very good though...well...the few dishes that we've tried have been good.
The next day, Nick, Noah, and Maggie took us to Home Plus. It's about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, and I would say it's the equivalent to Walmart back home. Once again, it was nice to have translators there because every item was written in Korean, few had English subtitles. We picked up some milk and cereal, bread, tea, oranges, peanut butter, jam, and a few other odds and ends and trekked home.
Aaah, the weekend. What a nice time. We finally unpacked our suitcases and got settled in our apartment. Maggie called us and invited us on a trip to downtown Daegu that night, but we opted not to go since we still had some things to straighten up and we were pretty exhausted. We had a lovely night, cooked spaghetti, had tea, and watched several episodes of Seinfeld. Sunday, we talked to our friends and families for quite a while (with the computer hanging out of the window) and took some pictures of the apartment to put online (we posted the link below).
After our first day of work, one of the guys we work with (Nick from Wisconsin) was eager to introduce us to a few of his friends and a cool place to eat. His friends, Maggie and Noah (also both from Wisconsin) live just a hop, skip, and a jump away from us. The place we went to eat at is called "orange" by the foreigners. I'm not sure what it's real name is. I'm guessing it's called "orange" by the foreigners because it has an orange sign. Nick, Noah, and Maggie were great to have with us at a restaurant because for the first time in several days, we had translators. They read the menu to us and explained what a few of the plates were. We decided on bibimbap and bulgogi. They were delicious. The food here is very spicy--a different kind of spicy than even Texans are used to. It's very good though...well...the few dishes that we've tried have been good.
The next day, Nick, Noah, and Maggie took us to Home Plus. It's about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, and I would say it's the equivalent to Walmart back home. Once again, it was nice to have translators there because every item was written in Korean, few had English subtitles. We picked up some milk and cereal, bread, tea, oranges, peanut butter, jam, and a few other odds and ends and trekked home.
Aaah, the weekend. What a nice time. We finally unpacked our suitcases and got settled in our apartment. Maggie called us and invited us on a trip to downtown Daegu that night, but we opted not to go since we still had some things to straighten up and we were pretty exhausted. We had a lovely night, cooked spaghetti, had tea, and watched several episodes of Seinfeld. Sunday, we talked to our friends and families for quite a while (with the computer hanging out of the window) and took some pictures of the apartment to put online (we posted the link below).
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Update!
We're here! We've been here for almost a week, but we've had a very limited time with the internet. We won't have a stable connection to the world until the end of January. We have to wait to get our Alien Registration Cards before we can get internet, cell phones, or bank accounts. It takes 15 business days to get the ARCs, and they haven't sent off for them yet. We're able to get internet tonight by opening our window and holding our computer outside. It's freezing outside, so it's not really an ideal way to get the internet. We miss everyone though! And are so excited to get to tell you that we're here, and we're okay!
This week has been a bit of a whirlwind! We left Dallas at 9am on Saturday morning and followed the sun all the way to Seoul, arriving at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. From there, we flew to Daegu, where we were picked up by Tae Won who took us to our temporary apartment. He left us there with a sack of breakfast foods: pancake newtons (which we vowed never to eat again), bananas, almond cereal, orange juice, water, and milk (that was soured when we opened it). The apartment wasn't really equipt for guests. No toiletpaper(luckily I had thrown a roll in my bag before we boarded the plane), no dishes or silverware (which would have really made it interesting to eat our cereal, had the milk not been soured), and no address or map or any way to tell where the heck we were.
The next afternoon, Tae Won picked us up to take us to our first day of training. It was fun. We met several people who were very nice. The company that we are working for is going to be great. Many of the teachers who work for MoonKkang have been with them for several years (which is unusual in a job like this). After training, we were starving because the only meal we had had was breakfast, so we asked Tae Won where we should go to eat. He pointed out a place that was close to our apartment and told us what we should order -- Wang-Galbi (Korean barbecued pork). As soon as he dropped us off, we walked there, not really thinking about what it would be like...not really thinkng about how monumental this experience would be to our trip. Our first Korean restaurant experience...
We walked up to the entrance and saw a shoe rack just outside the door with about 6 or 7 pairs of shoes on it. So, we removed our shoes and added them to the collection. Once we did this we realized it was a traditional Korean restaurant with the short tables and no chairs. Very neat. A waitress approached us and spoke to us something in Korean. We didn't know whether she was telling us to leave or asking us where we wanted to sit. Luckily, she was only asking us where we wanted to sit. I think. We sat, and she brought us a large bottle of water and two cups. Then she started speaking to us again in Korean, asking us what we wanted to eat. Cordia and I looked at each other, confused, and kind of mumbled "Wang-Galbi?" It seemed like she knew what we wanted without even having to tell her. Apparently this is a popular meal with the foreigners. Soon she brought out some raw pork and threw it on the grill in the middle of the table. She also sat about 13 or 14 side dishes down in front of us. Once the meat was cooked she tried to show us how to properly eat it by wrapping it in a leaf of lettuce along with some rice and gimchi (pickled cabbage, a traditional Korean food) with little success. So she just grabbed Cordia's hand, placed a piece of lettuce in it, then the galbi and some gimchi. She even wrapped it in the lettuce and then motioned "eat it!" We did, and it was delicious. Since that night we've had galbi twice more.
That is all for now. A lot more has happened, but we're pretty tired, so expect another update soon!
-Cordia and Mitch
This week has been a bit of a whirlwind! We left Dallas at 9am on Saturday morning and followed the sun all the way to Seoul, arriving at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. From there, we flew to Daegu, where we were picked up by Tae Won who took us to our temporary apartment. He left us there with a sack of breakfast foods: pancake newtons (which we vowed never to eat again), bananas, almond cereal, orange juice, water, and milk (that was soured when we opened it). The apartment wasn't really equipt for guests. No toiletpaper(luckily I had thrown a roll in my bag before we boarded the plane), no dishes or silverware (which would have really made it interesting to eat our cereal, had the milk not been soured), and no address or map or any way to tell where the heck we were.
The next afternoon, Tae Won picked us up to take us to our first day of training. It was fun. We met several people who were very nice. The company that we are working for is going to be great. Many of the teachers who work for MoonKkang have been with them for several years (which is unusual in a job like this). After training, we were starving because the only meal we had had was breakfast, so we asked Tae Won where we should go to eat. He pointed out a place that was close to our apartment and told us what we should order -- Wang-Galbi (Korean barbecued pork). As soon as he dropped us off, we walked there, not really thinking about what it would be like...not really thinkng about how monumental this experience would be to our trip. Our first Korean restaurant experience...
We walked up to the entrance and saw a shoe rack just outside the door with about 6 or 7 pairs of shoes on it. So, we removed our shoes and added them to the collection. Once we did this we realized it was a traditional Korean restaurant with the short tables and no chairs. Very neat. A waitress approached us and spoke to us something in Korean. We didn't know whether she was telling us to leave or asking us where we wanted to sit. Luckily, she was only asking us where we wanted to sit. I think. We sat, and she brought us a large bottle of water and two cups. Then she started speaking to us again in Korean, asking us what we wanted to eat. Cordia and I looked at each other, confused, and kind of mumbled "Wang-Galbi?" It seemed like she knew what we wanted without even having to tell her. Apparently this is a popular meal with the foreigners. Soon she brought out some raw pork and threw it on the grill in the middle of the table. She also sat about 13 or 14 side dishes down in front of us. Once the meat was cooked she tried to show us how to properly eat it by wrapping it in a leaf of lettuce along with some rice and gimchi (pickled cabbage, a traditional Korean food) with little success. So she just grabbed Cordia's hand, placed a piece of lettuce in it, then the galbi and some gimchi. She even wrapped it in the lettuce and then motioned "eat it!" We did, and it was delicious. Since that night we've had galbi twice more.
That is all for now. A lot more has happened, but we're pretty tired, so expect another update soon!
-Cordia and Mitch
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