Learning languages

I've been making an effort to learn Korean this past couple of weeks and the teachers and students at school seem very impressed that I want to learn. They've been really helpful, too. One of the teachers makes me learn a few new words every day and helps me sort out my pronunciation. I can get to my apartment and a few other places I know by cab without any trouble and I know enough 'polite' Korean to say things like 'hello', 'good-bye', 'I don't understand', and 'thank you' in shops and markets. I need to figure out the numbers now so that I can ask how much things are and learn to haggle in the market.

Ironically, I may sign up for some French courses while I'm here. The Alliance Francaise is a few doors down from my school and they offer courses regularly. They told me that since I already know basic French I should be able to do the courses even though they're not taught in English. The language used in classes is mostly French, kinda like me teaching Korean kids English I guess. If I can find a German course here I may sign up for that, too. The language skills get rusty pretty quickly when you don't use them and if I plan to travel and teach they'll come in handy.

Koreans can sleep *ANYWHERE*!

Maybe it's because I've been in a sort of sleep adjustment phase the past couple of weeks, I dunno, but I've really been noticing how easily Koreans can sleep practically anywhere. I wish I had been sleeping that well.

I see them asleep on the subway, I think they just magically wake up at their stop. Shopkeepers in the underground shopping malls (and elsewhere) asleep on cots behind their counters or even on the customer seating. My Korean co-teachers have caught naps between classes sitting at their desks. Then again, I've been found asleep in a room full of screaming youngsters at home on occasion. Maybe I'm part Korean?

Apologies

My apologies to anyone who's been checking the blog. This past week involved a fair bit of running around and sleeping a lot (the timezone shift finally caught up with me and knocked me over, I'm feeling a lot more rested now.) I've been pretty busy running around the markets at night shopping for household stuff so my apartment feels more like something I can live in.

I still don't have internet access at home so I check my mail at work and here, at a PC bang (room) near Busan Station. It's the first time in about 10 years that I haven't had seamless internet access. It's kind of a shock to be this disconnected; not that I can't get access from cafes but I'm not used to having it at my fingertips whenever I want. Next week I get my alien resident card and I'll be able to get my internet and satellite TV hooked up (DVDs are pretty cheap here but not cheap enough to watch all the time, satellite TV is $20/month or so and apparently it has a lot of English language programming.)

I have a bunch of photos and a list of posts to make (I've been keeping notes in my journal.) I'll try and post more often so that people don't have to imagine what horrible fate has befallen me. I still haven't gotten to the Canadian Consulate in Busan to register, first I had to find out what my street address was and get it translated into English, get my phone and now I have to trek out to another district to find the place (it's in the parking lot of a chemical plant or something, go figure.)

Juergen Ming will have my phone number and contact info should anyone need it.

If you meet the Buddha on the road...

I wandered the back alley markets again tonight looking at the vast array of plastic junk and mounds of fruit. This powerfully suggestive smell of fried chicken kept me moving down the street. This chicken was being fried in oil that looked like it dated back to the Korean war. The cook was this middle-aged balding (no hair net) guy smoking one of these ridiculously long, thin cigarettes while he shuffled chicken in and out of the vats. Of course I bought some! The batter was really thin, just a coating really, and was lightly spiced with chili (the only spices I've seen here are salt, pepper and chili, garlic doesn't count because there's enough of it in the food to make it an ingredient.) This chicken was probably the best thing I've ever tasted, spicy, crispy and surprisingly ungreasy. I think I'll avoid eating it too often though.

Tonight I also went on another late-night shopping spree at Homeplus, the 24 hr department store. My apartment still needs a few more things to make it home-like instead of something like a flophouse. I picked up a lamp, some clothes hangers and a little potted ivy plant as household improvement items. I also bought a new digital camera, my old Canon Powershot has taken more than a few knocks in my wanderings and the zoom control is a bit wonky (yes, I know, I totally am trying to justify it :P) and a couple of DVDs (Korean TV is very odd so I haven't bothered much with it.)

When I went outside to get a cab they were all being boarded, so I flagged one down. The driver spoke pretty good English and we had a chat about the usual stuff, where I'm from, what I'm doing, etc. He mentioned that he only drives a cab as a part-time job and pulled off his hat to reveal a shaved head. "I am monk, I study at Buddhist College..." Blink. I had no idea that monks were allowed to drive a cab, but I guess student monks are? He was an amiable guy and he even gave me a discount on the fare, he also said that he would pray for me to have happy dreams. I wished him a safe night's journey.

I didn't tell him that I'm a monk, but I think he guessed that. He didn't say that he was gregarious, but that was pretty obvious, too. I would have taken his picture but it would have spoiled the moment I think.

People have been asking me when I think I'll get homesick; I don't think I will. I feel at home no matter where I am. I'll always miss my dark, wet rock in the Atlantic, but it's been there a long time and it'll be there a while yet. It's a bit like Buckaroo Banzai said, "No matter where you go, there you are."

monk

PC Bang

I'm posting from a PC bang ('room'), I'd like to write a long post but there's so much video game racket that I can barely hear myself think. These places are everywhere and you can use a PC for about $1US/hr.

I've been shopping my ass off, trying to figure out how much is too much for groceries and stuff. In many stores the price on the tag is only the opener. I bought a new waterproof-breathable coat for about $130 even though the tag said $330 and when you buy a certain amount of stuff they give you "service" (free gifts).

I bought stuff in a department store grocery section last night, only to find out that I could buy some of the things in my neighbourhood market for less. The difference was slight and some people prefer to go to the big stores to avoid the walking around but I enjoy the adventure of hunting through the narrow streets and alleys. There are bowls of fruit, pallets of fish, live octopus in pans, pretty much anything you could imagine. I like meeting the people and haggling over prices a bit. Knowing a microscopic amount of Korean and Konglish combined with gestures allows you to communicate a lot more than I thought it would. Heaps of fun, it's almost more enjoyable because I don't know enough Korean. Sometimes if I use a Korean word properly the listener still doesn't understand because they're expecting me to say it the wrong way. That happened last night with the lady who runs the late night store around the corner from my apartment. I said "rice?" in Korean and she couldn't figure out what I was asking for, when I found it she said "oooohh, sal!" (ohhhhh, rice!) Doh!

It's the dry season here right now; the rainy season is in mid-summer. Last night there was a rain storm so strong that it had all the sidewalks flooded to a depth of an inch or so. I started to walk home then bolted for the subway. My new coat was prefectly dry but my pants and shoes were soaked in about a minute. On the way to find the department store I discovered that there's an underground mall almost 1.5 km long partway between my neighbourhood (Jungang-dong) and the old downtown market district (Nampo-dong), that'll come in handy next time it rains.

Okay, I've written too much now and the noise is getting to me. Time to head back to the cloister. It really is a cloister too, when I post pics of my apartment you'll see what I mean. It's basically a bedroom with a kitchen in it (the kitchen is a little bigger than what I had back home!) I have a huge-ass air conditioner for my place that should be able to easily keep the place like a meat locker when the temperature hits 35+ celsius this summer (I've heard figures like 50 celsius in the open summer sun here.) The apartment also has a small, energy efficient washing machine and a fridge about the size of two bar fridges that makes almost no noise. The heat is built into the floor and it's pretty sweet.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Too much stuff crammed into my head from the past few days of wandering without writing. Pics will follow when my internet is connected.

This weekend is Lunar New Year (long weekend!) and the staff from my school are taking me out drinking on Friday. Any posts on Saturday may be brief and surly. ;)

monk

Temporary Delay

I'll be posting a little less than usual for a few days until my internet installed. This is contingent on figuring out what my street address is, getting my Alien Resident Card (I love the way that sounds!) and opening a Korean Bank account.

I'm living in my own place now, just been exploring my neighbourhood, mostly at night. Pics to follow.

monk

Shopping/Eating Spree

Ginseng Chicken Soup
Originally uploaded by gregarious_monk.

Went out yesterday and did a bunch of shopping at Mega Mart. It was a bit insane because it was Saturday but we managed to escape relatively unscathed. Mega Mart is another gigantic multi-floor department store with a decent selection of stuff.

I got pretty much all the basics to finish outfitting my apartment for living. Pots, pans, bedsheets, etc.

We ate out a couple of times yesterday, the first place was for sam gyup sal, grilled Korean pork belly. Maybe not really healthy but definitely excellent food. Later in the evening we went to a place in Seomyeon (the new downtown) and had Korean Ginseng Chicken soup. Big earthenware bowls containing a whole chicken stuffed with rice, chestnuts, ginseng and Chinese dates were brought to the table at a rolling boil. The soup was delicious and I actually felt a lot healthier after eating it. Maybe the healthy feeling was my imagination, but it was definitely good food.

I also picked up a Korean cellphone last night. I didn't get one of the itty-bitty folding, sliding, flipping phones. I wanted something one-piece and big enough to actually be able to dial a number without pressing 3 keys. I got the Samsung SPH-V9900, 6.9mm thick and 66 grams.

Korean Snacks

Korean Snacks 008
Originally uploaded by gregarious_monk.

The cellphone that my recruiter loaned to me had a dead battery and I didn't have a charger. I found out from the secretary at school that convenience stores will quick-charge your cellphone for 1000 won.

As I waited for the phone to charge I perused the incredible array of snacks and beverages that a Busan convenience store has to offer. They had pantyhose, whisky, socks, beer, soju and every kind of snack you can imagine. Well, more than you can imagine, really. There are a few photos on the photostream in the 'Food' set.

Pictured here is a bag of onion rings that are a little like the ones we used to have in Canada. Not the sour cream and onion rings we get now. These are smooth and brown, but not as onion-y as the old ones we used to get. I'll have to add what the others taste like as I try them. I tried the onion rings and the 'Jerkey Jerkey', which tasted like something between old shoe leather, fish and corn twists. Yum. The others look a little less likely to disappoint.

You can also get a strange array of beverages here, including vitamin enriched soft drinks. I've been dosing myself with vitamin C, B12 and something else on the subway ride from work every day.

Gotta run, I'm off to do some shopping for a cellphone and various household doodads I need for my apartment.

Friday Comes at Last

Man, it's been a long week.

I have a lot to learn about kids and teaching, not a surprise. Two of the kids in my kindergarten class ran amok yesterday and soon the whole class was crazy. I managed to get most of them under control and deported the rest to the hallway for the Korean teachers to deal with.

I've given up begging the school director for the things I was told would be in my apartment when I got here. I've managed to get a bed and a clothes rack out of them, the apartment comes with a washing machine, hotplate and refrigerator, good enough. I still need pots and dishes, bedsheets and that sort of thing, I should have all that straightened away by the end of the weekend. As long as the school doesn't mess around with my paycheque everything else is fine.

If you decide to teach in Korea, get them to send you pictures of your accommodations. Unless you enjoy surprises and haggling with your boss. A Korean teaching contract is more like a guideline for the employer than a legal document.

I've been back and forth to Homeplus several times and this weekend I hope to get some shopping done in the older markets. I bought bags of candy as bribes for the students. I'm told it works really well with a minimum of candy (or stickers.)

One of the Korean teachers had a birthday yesterday. It's interesting trying to eat birthday cake with chopsticks. They sang a Korean birthday song, but I couldn't pick out the words (except 'hamnida', which seems to form a part of many polite sentences.)

The Korean women I work with are all 25 years old and all seem to be planning to attend mission school. Since I work at the YMCA it's not surprising that most of the teachers are devout Christians. A couple of the girls have asked me about church, one of them said she wants me to visit her church. I've told them that I didn't feel it necessary to go to church to believe in God or to have faith in something, they find the concept interesting but don't seem to get it. Koreans are very family and community oriented and Christian churches are usually about community, so church is a natural thing for them.

I went 'on promotion' twice this week. Basically we stand around at school gates and hand out promotional material for the YMCA language school. I'm kind of like an attraction for the school, a real foreign teacher. The competition between schools is pretty fierce I think and there are thousands of schools.

Tomorrow is shopping and lunch with Chris, Tanya and Susan. I should touch base with the foreign teachers I was hanging out with last week, too.

Off to grab a bite before heading to school.

Korean shopping

Last night I went to the Homeplus, a giant department store chain here. The store is 3 or four floors of stuff. Groceries, housewares, clothing, sports, but not much of a hardware section. Tanya tells me that Koreans aren't really into DIY. I guess Princess Auto would weep alone in her tower over here.

I just wanted to see what it was like shopping here with no help (well, not a lot of help.) I got the directions to the place from the subway stop and set off (twice, I doubled back thinking I had missed it.) I needed a small bag to carry my crap around in (camera, notebooks, etc.), my overcoat pockets are about ready to burst.

I figured out that Korean sizes are metric and are a lot smaller than western sized clothing. I also figured out that I should only use English when speaking to store clerks, after saying a few words of Korean they naturally assumed I was fully fluent, oops. The customer service was excellent and the clerks went out of their way to make sure I got what I was looking for. It's funny how little language you need to ask for t-shirts and underwear.

My first (Korean) haircut

I meant to get a haircut before I left Canada but just couldn't get the time to do it. I asked Tanya about it and she mentioned that a popular (and cheap!) place for men was "Blue Club". There happens to be one just down the hill from their apartment, so I decided I'd get a haircut on my way to work.

I peered around the corner of the doorframe trying to figure out which one of the shops was the barbershop. Young Korean woman came to the door and waved me in. I motinoned to my hair and said "Cut? Short?" She nearly laughed her ass off of course and nodded and called to someone in the back as she sat me in a chair. A young guy with a toolbelt full of scissors and combs came out and starts to cut my hair with the clippers. Now back home a haircut like I usually get takes about 10 or 15 minutes, sheared like a sheep and out the door. This experience felt more like I had given my head to an experienced woodcarver who was crafting a sculpture. All told it took about 35 minutes and he washed my hair after the haircut and it felt like a wet skull massage. Well worth the 7000W ($8) I paid.

On my way to school I stopped in the centre of town, Seomyeon, and bought some strudel-like pastries. While I was standing there eating, a police officer appeared in the door of the nearby police hut, motioned me inside and offered me a seat. There were two police watching television and they just saw me standing and eating and wanted me to sit. Very kind of them.

Update on the job

Just to put some questions to rest:

The yeogwan was actually pretty decent according to Tanya, the windows were crappy but everything else was pretty standard.

My apartment is single occupant as per the contract.

The job hours are as stated in my contract, only the first day was different.

Most of my minor worries have been dealt with, the only outstanding issue now is the furnishing of my new micro-pad. Should be all done this week.

Comment posting changed

I just realised that some of you don't have Google accounts and have to sign up to be able to post. I've changed the posting settings so that now you just have to verify a word in a picture in order to post.

In the past this has led to weird ads and junk getting posted, so I'll see how it works out this time.

Friday night out

Haven't posted the past couple of days due to a flurry of activity.

Friday night I went out with my recruiter and a few other foreign teachers to "Soul Trane." A foreigner bar up near Pusan National University. Before Soul Trane we stopped into a small Korean bar for food and drinks. I drank a heap of dongdongju, a milky white rice liquor and some soju, a clear liquor made from rice or sweet potato. On Saturday I felt like a train had run over my head!

The people I met were great and I had a lot of fun even though I was pretty wiped from jetlag and getting used to the place. Ian, one of the guys who was out with us, is taking us hiking somewhere today.

Yesterday I got my new apartment. It's about the size of a western bedroom but it's big enough for what I'll need. Pics to follow. The apartment is in Jungang-dong on a little back alley off the main street, the alley is an interesting jumble of shops and more alleys.

Apologies to anyone waiting for pictures of the new apartment, I haven't actually gone back since Saturday. The complete lack of furnishings or cooking equipment was a bit of a deterrent. I've been sleeping on a yo (thin sleeping pad) in Chris and Tanya's apartment in Gaegum. I should have my bed by Tuesday and hopefully I can get the director to have all the other stuff by then as well.

Ian took us to Beomeosa to walk around the Buddhist temple (see photos on flickr) and then we went out for galbi . After the ladies went home Ian and I took a stroll around Nampo-dong and the Jagalchi fish market in the old downtown area of Busan. All kinds of Korean street food was available but we were too stuffed to eat anything else. The fish market was really cool, if you can find it in the ocean somewhere you can probably buy it in Jagalchi Market. I can't wait to go back and get a load of shellfish once I move into my new place. I looked at a new DSLR in a camera shop in Nampo-dong, but I'll have to wait for a week or two before I commit to the purchase. The camera is the Samsung GX10 aka Pentax K10D and it looks like a great camera, plus it'll take my old Pentax lenses.

Rod-Teacher

Yesterday was my first day at work. It was a longish day, I had no schedule, no teaching materials or lesson plans and not a clue. It went okay for something so disorganised, hopefully today will be more organised and I'll learn more as I go along.

I got a few complaints that I speak too fast with the children, but I guess that's to be expected for someone who's never taught kids before, let alone in an ESL setting. I have one adult student and I think I'll find the adults a bit easier.

I discussed the apartment situation with my recruiter (Kim 'n' Joe Recruiting) and they dealt with it as much as they could on their end. Normally a recruiter will only be involved until the job begins and then you're on your own. These folks actually make sure that the whole deal is good for you too. So, anyway, I'm moving into my own studio apartuh on Saturday, not sure where or what yet. Post and pics will be sometime Saturday evening.

I'm off to Pusan National University area tonight with the recruiter and a bunch of other foreign teachers, should be fun. I just hope I have enough energy to enjoy it by the end of the day.