Womens pants and me.

Uneventful weekend, nice weather.

After celebrating Buddhas birthday I ended up with a slight hangover Friday, so I was quite happy that all day we had scheduled "reading tests" - so basically I was to just sit there smiling at the kids I like and scowling at the ones I don't while they completed their tests. These 'tests' were supposed to take the whole hour so I was pissed when the kids would finish them in 15 minutes and I was instructed by the baffled Korean teachers to play an English game with them (no spin-the-bottle or pin-the-tail-on-the-giggling-teacher) for the remaining time.

I played Bingo with them instead.

Friday night I grabbed some food with a co-worker and ended up drinking SoJu and Beer in front of my building with several other foreigners - something that happens a fair bit I'm told when its warm (I've seen them out there when its freezing though, so I think the whole temperature excuse is crap).

Anyways, I managed to feel quite sick the next day (Soju!) but Keith and Gabrielle were coming into my area to visit Kangsan Travel so I ended up spending a fair bit of Saturday with them. Gabe bought shoes that I liked so I bought them today hoping she will be my twin (my real twin just wears Zellers hushpuppies all the time). The beach had a ton of white people on it, mostly soldiers I believe from the way their haircuts were and how they kept shooting at each other for fun. Later on I met up with Kevin and after dinner we went to a DVD Bahng to watch Casino Royale. Kevin will never be a Bond girl with his attitude.

And today (Sunday) I didn't wake up until noon - so after wondering whether or not I should just call it a day and go back to sleep I ended up walking around to try to do some shopping. I hated shopping in Toronto because I didn't know what to wear, didn't like to spend money and hated the employees of stores hovering over me - here its exactly the same except they speak in Korean (while the other store employees mostly snicker). But the worst part is that there is very little direction in how the stores are split up between men and women. I didn't know, nor did they tell me, that I had managed to select 3 pairs of womens jeans (it probably didn't help that I was also holding a skirt I was going to possibly buy for Sophia).

Sure the pants felt quite snug and I could've pulled them off had I a nice blouse and my voice just the slightest bit higher - but I put them away, quite dejected. And yes I did have to walk out of the change room into the main store to see myself in the mirror not trusting my instincts and no, I didn't take any pictures (sorry Alistair).

After that I headed down towards the beach and ran smack into a gigantic Christian festival with thousands and thousands of people - it was insane how busy it was.

So I accomplished nothing this weekend - only 7 more months to shape up before I ship out!

Buddhas Birthday!

Just a quick update today.

The week has been pretty uneventful - Kevin's sweet-16 birthday was Wednesday evening so we went to the Outback Restaurant and had steak and beer, afterwards we hit a bar and then the beach. The next day, after only a few beers I felt quite hungover and useless but I had the day off as it was Buddhas birthday! (What is he, like 38 years old now?)

So I stayed in and did a whole lot of nothing until about 4pm when I ventured outside and stood aimlessly on a street corner trying to think of something to do. Just as I had turned around to go get an umbrella (and maybe grab another nap) I heard 2 of my co-workers across the street yelling my name, so I ended up grabbing some food with them and spending about 3 hours in one of Busans happiest places: SfunZ (sounds just like how you would attempt to pronounce it).

SfunZ is an 8-story building devoted to making Koreans and the occasional whitey happy. There is a movie theater on the top 3 floors (with 7 of 10 theaters showing Pirates 3) restaurants and clothing stores and bookstores on the remaining floors and the 4th floor is this place called UPara which is a big games place. Basically you buy a card for either an hour, 3-hours or the whole day and after having to high-five the clerk on the way in (everyone has to) you can go bowling, play ping-pong, shoot pool, play arcade games (stupid ones), or enjoy one of the dozens of super-massage chairs. We did all of this and enjoyed our 3 hours throughly. I was dripping sweat though as it was insanely hot inside, and ping pong was more difficult than I remembered, but the massage chairs turned this 'sore' loser into a relaxed one.

Afterwards I went home and thought about you.

So today is Friday and I have the whole weekend! I wish it could be Buddhas birthday every week.

GnB Fun-Day!

The retarded looking guy in the center wearing the red is the official GnB cameraman, the retarded guy in the white t-shirt off to the far left is me.


I've tried to write this blog three times now, but I've either been too tired or too drunk (sorry ma, but its true - and yes Dad, its true!).

So heres how the weekend went down. Friday, after a full day at work I went home and got a few hours of sleep before waking up just before 3am to meet everyone from my work to take a few taxis to our big bus, parked somewhere far far away in this, the land of the morning calm.



Deciding that my baggy blue pants might not be as appreciated here as they are in Canada, and knowing that I had to wear khakis to look like I belonged to my team (people have yet to notice that I am not Korean) I over-packed for my one day trip substantially. I can still recall the mocking laughs when I pulled out 2 sweatshirts and a sports jacket. Since the bus went from hot to cold the girls did appreciate having sweatshirts (and sports jackets) to wear, even though I got stuck with using my balled up extra pair of jeans as a pillow (you never know when you may crap yourself!).



So the bus was quite wide and the seats substantially bigger than most other buses I've ridden on (usually the small yellow ones with other like-minded folk named Corky and Georgie) so I managed to curl into the fetal position and fall asleep for a few hours. We left Busan at around 3:30am and arrived somewhere far north by 10:15am or so. This yearly event is only for the company-owned schools, and not the dirty franchisees (about 25 schools are company and 1,800 are private).

Half-way there, this particualr rest stop had the most beautiful bathrooms I've ever peed in (there were large fish like you see in the Mandarin restaurants happily swimming inside right near the flower-scented urinals)


One of only 7 white people there I was immediately approached by a Korean guy handing out name tags and given the sticker "James" to proudly wear on my red jersey. I guess the Korean guy felt the name "Ken" was more Korean than James, and being the only white guy (so far) to arrive I was given this new name. Obviously I didn't understand what the nametag meant (I thought his name was James and this would identify him as my Captain or something). It took the heavy "Oh Ken, what have you done now?" sighs of my co-workers to realize my error. They kindly escorted me back to my area (as I had wandered off) like I was a lost 6-year old and got me the correct name tag.

This is Yulienna, 'nuff said.


We were separated into 4 teams (Green, Blue, Red, and light Blue) and started off by doing a warm up taught by some hired cheerleaders who looked hungover and not happy to be spending the day with us. Since they didn't think a translation for so few non-Koreans was necessary I just watched everyone else, not understanding a word. This non-translation thing was difficult during certain games - like when you listened to a question (from the MC who I am sure was funny) and had to run to either a 'yes' or a 'no' side. I miraculously stayed on for a long time by running with others until I felt the questions were becoming trick ones and would stay away from the majority. I eventually lost on a question that went something like, "If a woman has extensive plastic surgery to her face does she have to pay for a new drivers license?." I believe the correct answer was "No."

These mountains surrounded us


Another game we played was my team versus the blue team (than the winner from our match would play the other winner) where you started at opposite ends of the soccer field we were playing on and had to make a mad dash for the center where there were red or blue plates (plastic ones, not dinner plates). Though the instructions seemed simple in theory (we were red, so basically we had to make sure there were more red plates than blue facing up when the timer went). It took 2 Korean girls yelling "Anio!!!" at me to realize I was flipping over the wrong ones in my excitement at team-building. We lost. The other team kept cheating though, so my team was angry at them (quickly forgetting my little significant error).

There were other games like tug of war, soccer, and running events (I elected not to run, still scarred from my devastating and humiliating attempt at the 100 meter dash in grade 7). In one game where you had to spin around 3 times, piggy-back a randomly chosen partner to a balloon, blow up the balloon where she would then use a plastic hammer to pop it (while you sat on it), finally piggy-backing her to the end of the field where she had to eat some Korean slop without using her hands - my partner and I got stuck at the balloons where after she yelled angrily "Blow! Blow!" in my ear (just in case I tried to eat it instead) I couldn't tie the balloon due to my innocent, child-like fingers. So instead I just held onto it while she managed to miss the balloon several times with the hard plastic hammer hitting me in the back and now bloody child-like hands. We lost.

The prizes they were offering were pretty nuts. First prize for MVP (there was no prize for the LVP - Least Valuable Player) was a large plasma screen TV, 2nd prize was a trip to Singapore, 3rd prize was something electronic, etc. I didn't win anything. At one point after lunch (fatty bacon and rice wine) there was a big "find-a-piece-of-GnB-paper-and-win-a-prize" where I was sure to win something. So there I was for an hour scouring the surrounding garbage-littered field (opening up old soggy cigarette packs, lifting old pieces of mildewed wood and shrieking loudly after a frog jumped on my leg) feeling very much like Charlie looking for his golden ticket (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Charlie though, unlike me, knew when there was only 1 ticket left - for due to my lack of Korean, I continued to search by myself long after the tickets were found and prizes distributed. I was up in a tree when someone finally noticed me all disheveled (holding my pet frog and eating old cigarette butts) and rescued me.

By the time the dance contest rolled around our team (Team Haeundae) was quite drunk and cheering everyone (especially the old lady/ajumma who kept bringing us more rice wine). We were the frat party of the day, which was nice. Our director Brian was hammered by the time we got up to do our dance - and since we were the 10th of the 15 teams to go up, people had grown tired of the dancing but were not yet drunk enough to cheer anyways - so we kind of got the bad lull in the middle. We still did good though.



After that we got right back on the bus where the suicidal driver got us back home fast, many times speeding past 150km/h (there is a safety 'beep beep' that alerts him to his excessive speed, but I guess only I could hear it). Since Kyle and I were the only ones awake at this point, we prayed together for our safe arrival. I guess the bus driver wanted to get home too, as he managed to turn a 7 hour bus ride into a 4 1/2 hour one.

I may be entirely wrong how far away we were from Seoul, but I know we were North of it.


So thats that. I get this Thursday off. Hurrah!

Greased Lightning!

Today I had my second dance practice at work, my 4 years of jazz training didn't help me a bit. For one particular dance sequence though, I can honestly say that I miss the firm snug hold of my XXS dance-belt.

Oh, why are we dancing you ask? Because we're Korean! You know when companies have those big "play-days" when all of the separate branches get together and do various team-building activities? Well every year GnB (my company) gets about 150 schools together to spend an entire Saturday doing these games during the day before having a big dance-off and then getting drunk at night and returning home feeling nauseous but special. Since this is my first and only year being here I was slightly disappointed to hear that it is usually only the Korean teachers that attend it - but after some whining from another Canadian teacher we all get to come now.

The dance is something that each school does (and practices obsessively) as 1st prize is $500 to take the staff out for dinner, drinks, and noraebahng - but I think its just for bragging rights really. My school has decided to imitate this extremely popular dance video that was all the craze here a few years ago - like the Macarena was in Canada, but I assume much much cooler. I hope so at least. Since Blake isn't coming on the trip, and Nicole dropped out of the dance - Kyle and I remain the only "whiteys", so as to not completely mess up their great choreography I convinced them to let Kyle and I act as stupid funny people who basically stand at the side of the stage grinning like goons before we do a brief dance as the song changes (they have mixed 3 songs together). The Korean sense of humor is that the stupider you look the funnier it is, which is why we will all be wearing afros (for some reason I will be wearing the one afro which is 'half-bald' as well). ha ha?

We are leaving Saturday at 3am and taking a bus for 7 hours + all the way up to the North-East coast. Busan is on the South-East coast, so we are basically as far away as they can come. Once we arrive we will do the "play-day", the dance contest, eat and drink, and get right back on the bus again for the multiple-hour journey back down to Busan. So its sleep all day Sunday and back to work Monday.

I'll let you know how it goes on Sunday.

PS- Don't eat a Big Mac combo plus a McChicken sandwich right before you go to sleep like I have tonight. I feel fat and gross.

My New couch

So my no-drinking rule lasted all of 5 days - which I am told is a new record in Korea. The past weekend was generally uneventful, so don't expect a surprise ending.

Friday night we (Kevin and I) grabbed some dinner at my favorite Galbi house. Galbi is basically this marinated beef that you cut up with a pair of scissors after letting it cook for a while on your grill. You then dunk it into this onion-mixture, grab a piece of lettuce that looks like a large leaf and whatever else you feel like tossing in (kimchi, garlic, etc.), wrap it like you're a McDonalds employee wrapping a delicious Big Mac and shove it in your mouth.

After that we grabbed a couple of pints and went off to a DVD Bahng - my first time in one of these places. Basically you walk in and ignore the puzzled look of the Korean DVD-Bahng owner whose usual clientel are horny Korean teenagers getting away from their parents strict eyes for 2 hours to do, well, whatever I didn't do much of in my teens (and adulthood). You pick a movie from the selection they have and are led to one of several private rooms where there is a couch and a giant TV that basically is wall to wall (depending I assume on how many people you have.) You can bring in whatever you want from chips to beer to donuts from the Dunkin Donuts one floor below. They also conveniently have a big box of tissue should 'jelly shoot out of the donut and miss the mouth' - teenagers can be so messy!. Kevin and I chose to watch the Chronicles of Narnia and only brought in beer so no tissues were needed.

Saturday we met up for Naked. Fun. Spa. Time. and went out for sushi and beer afterwards. Uneventful day, but a naked one at least.

Sunday I decided to go for a small walk which turned into a 4 1/2 hour long trek along the coast of Busan - where after walking along some well-used train tracks I stumbled upon the third of the 3 Busan beaches - SeongJong. I walked around this nice part of the city for a long time until I finally felt too sunburnt and hopped on a bus (something I had yet to do) to make my way back into Haeundae. I wanted to go and see the movie 28 Weeks Later - but I don't think its opened here yet.

Later in the evening I agreed to meet up with Kevin in the PNU area at 7pm in the "waiting area" of that subway stop. Not 2 minutes after sitting down on the bench an old guy who reeked of booze sidled up to me and after inquiring where I was from and learning Canada he took my hand and began stroking it affectionately against his own cheek, like he was adopted by a Canadian soldier as a young puppy in the Korean war and mistook me for his owner. In my usual un-tactful way I laughed nervously while quickly getting up, thanked him in Korean (only words that I know in Korean aside from "How much") and hid in the bathroom hoping that as Kevin had yet to arrive he would sit next to the affectionate old coot and receive the same treatment (alas, no happy ending to this story).

We soon ended up back on the Mountain we got lost coming down from only a few months ago and after I 'saved' Kevins life (he stumbled off a rock and was only saved by my heroic yet ultimately useless grasp of his arm - as we both fell down and I cut myself). We grabbed some dinner (saving lives makes one hungry) at a crappy kebab place and parted ways.

I had to wait inside my apartment all morning and afternoon today (Monday) so I wouldn't miss the people who were delivering my couch. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to buy a couch after I lost 300 grand at the casino, but I lie to myself all the time - so I expect it from myself and don't feel disappointed.

My If-I-were-a-Korean-bride Glamor shot

Anio!

I've been finding it very hard to write anything lately. At first when I arrived, I had so many stories to share - from having strange Asian diarrhea for 3 days to eating authentic Mr.Noodles to bathing with Kevin and 200 other Korean men of all ages, shapes, sizes, and uh...other sizes. I also photoshopped my head into a lot of pictures.

But after 4 1/2 months I've found that things pretty much run the way they do when you have a normal job - regardless of where you are. I get up when I can (it's still very difficult to get up at 7:30am when you don't have to work until 2pm). I eat some breakfast while checking my constantly-empty inbox and talking for a bit on the phone. After, I try to pump myself up to write something - whether it be one of the many TV shows that exist only in my head (and only the opening credits at that), commercials that I think would be creative (people dressed as condoms at a party), or a Pixar film that seems to be a total knock-off of Monsters Inc. and Toy Story mixed together.

Thinking about the future (me releasing an album) takes up about an hour, so by then I feel a little stir-crazy and head off to exercise, where within about 5 minutes I am approached by a trainer who never actually helps me with my workout but will just point out obvious observations so he can practice his English. Today it was, "You are wearing headphones while you exercise." (I was wearing my Ipod). Not wanting to be rude I then explained in great detail (with hand gestures) everything I've done in Korea up to that moment he started to bug me (including the lonely Xmas diarrhea fiasco). Since he never seems to get sick of the story, I'll continue to tell him.

After that I come right home, take a shower and choose one of my standard t-shirts and jeans (look at any photo of mine and you'll see the same shirts ALL the TIME just in different places). I need to buy new clothes I know, but I was reluctant to do it in Toronto (because I felt pressured to do the whole metrosexual thing even though I had neither the style nor the money nor the 'sexual') and am even more hesitant here as I don't understand the sizes and because I am a lazy lazy lazy person.

So I go to work - stifle panic attacks - come home while trying to avoid the many foreigners drinking beer outside of the local convenience store (I am currently on a no-booze stint- 3 days and holding!) watch something on TV and go to sleep. I am also reading a book right now (Anna Karenina) which I manage to read for about 30 seconds before falling asleep and dreaming of myself in a lavish Russian gown (hows that for Metrosexual?).

I need to start planning little trips out of the city which I was so reluctant to do back in Ontario (haven't you ever just woken up one morning and just thought to yourself, "You know what? I bet Thunder Bay looks so beautiful right now!"). It would probably help me battle my crazy homesickness.

I had 2 small kids classes today where the material I was to teach them involved them being very loud. The commands were stuff like, "Jump - Hop - Roll - Run" - which was absurd in our tiny classrooms but I managed to do anyways by letting the kids just cry it out after running and rolling into sharp desks. The main lesson was to teach them, and then play, "London Bridge is falling down". It was messy to say the least and the kids wouldn't let me join in.

Just on a whim I brought some stickers to my next class of 10 (same book, same lesson - London Bridge...) and was delighted to discover that I could control them by waving these little jewels in their faces and giving one sporadically to the quiet kid (the one whose English is so limited that they just stare motionless at their desks like they've crapped themselves mere moments before- kind of like how I looked when taking an adult computer class at George Brown to 'increase' my hireability). Anyways, they look incredibly sweet when you give them a sticker and downright mean and cruel when you won't give them a 2nd one. One kid even told me they hated me after refusing to give them a 3rd sticker. I was proud she used English, but 'hate'? Maybe Profoundly Dislike, but not hate.

After work I was walking to the grocery store and happened upon a foreigner who was arguing with 2 Korean men. I said "How are you?" to him and he explained how he had just been in an accident after the other guy (angry Korean man) ran a red light and hit him off his motorcycle with his car. The other younger Korean guy who like me was just walking by was trying to mediate the situation before the police arrived (they don;t really have a 911 system here, they most often just flag down a police officer when they drive by - once every 4 hours). The foreigner guy, who wasn't badly hurt (just some scrapes and likely a sore back) wanted to leave but the other guy wouldn't let him. This was most likely due to the fact that he had no health insurance and no motorcycle papers, no license, etc. Eager to help break the law while making a new friend I urged to leave (understanding the problems he could get into), but our plan was foiled by the angry Korean man who then attempted to grab his keys. This quickly escalated into a yelling match where I (urinating myself as usual in a conflict) kept saying, "Anio!" (which means 'No!') over and over again until everyone stopped arguing and looked at me as if to say, "Why do you keep saying no?". When the other angry Korean man walked away to cool down the guy asked me quietly if he should just drive off, and after I nodded he bolted and left me with the 2 guys asking for my information and why was I such a willing accomplice?

With "Anio" as my only defense they eventually realized my complete uselessness and let me on my merry way. This wasn't the first time my utter uselessness has gotten me out of (and into) some weird situations, and definitely won't be the last.

Which means that I'll need to buy some NEW pants to urinate into!

quick hello...

So whats new?

Every month we get a new schedule where they throw in a few classes you haven't had and keep you with classes you hate (or hate you). Usually its the kids who hate me, so its like elementary school all over again. Aside from getting a whole bunch of young classes, I also got stuck with that young class I had a while ago where pencils were thrown at me (with the "No! No! No!" kid). There is this horrible boy named Robert in the class as well who either tries to stab other kids with pencils or fight them (punching them in the face, kicking them). The 2 other teachers who have had this class have asked repeatedly to have the kid removed, but he is money (with the personality of a young psychotic). I had to physically lift him out of class 9 times, so 50 minutes later when the class was over I was drenched with sweat.

So aside from my usual hatred of some classes - last Wednesday was great because the whole day I was a judge in the annual speech contest alongside the other foreign teachers. Sure it got a little tiresome after you heard the same zero-inflected speech concerning strawberries 100 times, but its better than my usual Wednesdays (crying in the kitchen in between classes while).

What else happened this week? uhhhh....

Well aside from getting over that vicious cold I had over the last weekend I went out to this packed foreigner bar this weekend and went to Spiderman 3 tonight (good, but not great).

Sorry for the boring update, but I'm pretty bored too. Mail me something!

Oh yeah - I finally found cheese. So thats nice.

DMZ Blog up

There, I finally finished my little blog on the DMZ. It turned out way longer than I expected and is probably far more boring than I would like.

Oh well.

Click to the link off to your right "The Virgin Traveler's Travels"