Busan revisited

The weekend of the 16th and 17th, Katie and I wanted to go to Gyeongju, which was the capital of Korea for many centuries. It is rich with history: it has museums and castles and traditional Korean homes and clothing, etc. It's a cool place that we'll definitely have to visit before we leave, but the weather did not cooperate that weekend. It was supposed to rain all weekend so we decided against Gyeongju because Katie wanted to see it on a beautiful day. Faced with the prospect of a third weekend in a row in Tongyeong with the inevitable fourth right behind (due to the wedding), we decided to go back to Busan with the express intent of shopping and staying out of the rain. Both missions were accomplished.

We spent all of Saturday in Centum City, a massive mall unlike any I have ever seen before. I have been to a couple big ones in the states (D.C. and Syracuse), but those were mainly big because they were so widespread. This mall is fourteen stories tall with a few more underground, although the top five stories are a multi-leveled driving range.

Snoopy and Woodstock hangin' out in Centum City. There was a random exhibit devoted to Peanuts that day.

I recognize everyone except for the kid on the right... Linas (sp?) maybe?

A classic Charlie Brown line. I used an internet translator to explain this joke to one of the Korean teachers and I thought that the humor would be lost in the translation or that the work it took to get to the punchline would ruin the joke (as explanations of jokes usually do), but she thought it was hilarious once she understood it.

Oh Linas






Anyone who knows Katie should find this funny. A more realistic sign would read: "Yes, I did take the last cookie, but I bought another box already."






A Lord of the Rings model

On Sunday we ventured to Nampo-dong in search of more places to shop, specifically for a soccer jersey for my brother that we never found. We saw a MLB store, a golf store, and other broader sports stores, but no soccer store. However, we did find a funny store that sold "American" clothes and we accidentally stumbled upon Busan tower in Yong Du Sang Park.

A store that sold "American" clothes. It was interesting and hilarious to see what they think Americans think is fashionable. They were way off.






A huge bell in Yong Du Sang Park. Apparently celebrities go there and help ring the bell on important dates, like Korean Independence Day and the two New Year celebrations (International and Chinese).





A flower clock. They were proud of it because it had a second hand, but I would contend that it would be more impressive with just the hour and minute hands as long as it kept time correctly.





An aerial view of Yong Du Sang Park from the top of Busan Tower. The statue in the middle is of none other than Admiral Yi Sun-Sin again. I told you he was everywhere!





A cool painting






A view of the bay from the tower





The concrete jungle that is Busan





I got hungry and decided to eat a ship, but I bit off more than I could chew





That little guy never stood a chance. He drove right into Katie's mouth








Attached to Busan Tower was a small museum devoted to musical instruments from around the globe. This is a bell tower.









A bamboo saxophone from Bolivia.









A shofar from Israel. My dad tried to play one of those one time.

An Avaga Bell from Ghana. I don't recall seeing any of those, but maybe I just didn't notice.

That was our second trip to Busan in a nutshell. It was a nice mixture of shopping and tourism. If anyone has requests for gifts, say for Christmas or birthdays, the earlier the better. We've found that it's hard to find what you want when you want it here, but given plenty of time you can find anything. Leave a comment with your gift request :D

GEPIK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3jQ12b75us&feature=related

Today (6/4) was my first time teaching English to adults. The class was formed on Tuesday and it consists of the director's daughter, who is in charge of the Korean kindergarten program, the director's sister-in-law, whose daughter is in one of my upper classes, another lady who is high up in the school somehow or other and is either related to or is good friends with the director, and the school receptionist. No pressure... riiiiight. I've only taught them once, but so far I think I like it better than teaching the children because we can get a lot more accomplished and I don't have to deal with behavioral issues or lack of effort. I just wish my audience was a little less related to my boss, haha.

Rediscovering Tongyeong

Despite having spent the previous weekend in Tongyeong, we decided to stay in town the following weekend as well (the 9th and 10th), only this time we resolved to explore parts of the city we hadn't seen yet. We also went back to the sculpture park for a picnic and we ended up staying there for the better part of Saturday because we found a hammock big enough for the two of us. Katie read The Historian and I read The Lord of the Rings.

Katie reading

Koreans can never just relax. Every park has workout equipment, although I'll admit that they do a really good job of making it look like it belongs there. This is supposed to be used for sit-ups but I had other ideas... like napping :P



Katie showing me how to use this one. I'm still confused





A small section of Tongyeong has its walls painted. Apparently a famous painter from Tongyeong started the trend and comes back every now and then to add to what he started. The paintings are well done, but the best part in my opinion is the use of real objects. It's hard to see in this picture, but those are real paint brushes hanging down from the top of the wall, and that's a real bottle of soju on top of the wall.

One section of the painted walls was an underwater scene. I'm pretending to be a blowfish

An old stereo system placed at the end of the painted wire coming from the painted headphones

This is fake Buddhist money that you can buy at Buddhist stores. It's cheaper than offering Buddha real money, I reckon, lol!

This is a "mall" but I think it's more like an indoor market. There's nothing special about this picture. I just thought it would remind Heath and Andy of the outdoor markets in Ghana, with all the tiny stalls on either side of narrow aisles.

This is the entrance to a military compound set up by Admiral Yi Sun-Sin during the Japanese Invasion. It is currently under renovation, so we were only able to see a small portion of it.

Some artwork within the compound. Koreans are big on the lotus flower, and so is Katie!

Yes! Even military compounds have amazing artwork within their walls.

A dragon

The main building in the complex. Katie is using it as her personal yoga room.

This is the same building as in the picture above. It is where Admiral Yi Sun-Sin met with his commanders. It looks like it has no walls or windows, but there are big wooden planks that swing down and partially enclose a small section of the building.

Part of the complex being renovated. It looks really nice from what we could see of it

We found this new restaurant on its opening day. We were taking a shortcut on the way home and we noticed it and didn't remember seeing it before so we checked it out and we were glad we did. Besides the food being really good, we impressed our co-workers by knowing of a new restaurant in town before they did :D

This is not the new restaurant (we had salads there). This is the first picture from Sunday the 10th. Every Sunday that we find ourselves in Tongyeong, we eat pizza at Mr. Song's. It's not quite like the pizza back home, but it's close enough. The key differences are the absence of tomato sauce and the addition of unorthodox toppings like corn. Also, pickles come on the side because pickles come on the side with everything in Korea.

A cool area of Tongyeong we hadn't seen before. We found it on the way to Yi Sun-Sin Park (if Yi Sun-Sin is beginning to look familiar to you, it's because we see him everywhere we go: he is the most famous Korean, especially in the southeastern province where the naval battles that he is famous for were fought).

silly

Admiral Yi's Park - we had to trudge through a rundown industrial area of town to get there, but it was well worth it.

I forgot to mention that the park is right on the water. There are some rocky areas that are fun to walk around on. The receding tide created some pools of water trapped among the rocks where a few little fish and crabs dwelt.

Katie doing her best Yi impression

Later on we went to the Tongyeong History Museum. We saw a few cool things including some paper currency that has since been relegated to coinage as inflation sometimes dictates over the years. The coolest thing, though, were these rice cake stamps, haha. The only English in the place was on the signs, so we knew what we were looking at but we couldn't read the explanation of anything in the museum. I would like to know if these stamps were used by businesses as logos, or if people just enjoyed decorating their rice cakes.

We had a lot of fun in our little Korean town. I think we can safely say that we have now been to all of its major attractions, but as we found out at the sculpture park, return visits are sometimes more satisfying than the original.

GEPIK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG3O0YzQgiw&feature=related

Cool kids, part 1

here's a fun, exciting, riveting explanation of our classes (as promised):

so basically there are two kindergarten programs in maple college (the private school where we teach): first, there's the regular kindergarten. it's taught almost completely in korean and by korean teachers but for 30 minutes every day, one of the english teachers comes in and sings a few songs, teaches a little vocab, and teaches the little kids the basics of english (brian teaches several of these classes...but i don't have one. bwahaha). there are several kindergarten classes which are split up by age; the smallest kids are about 2 years old (wayyy too young to be in school at all, in my opinion) and the oldest are 6.

then there's the maple kindergarten program. parents spend a lot more money to get their kids into this program because these kids get almost an hour and a half a day with english teachers. there are 2 classes of 5 year olds and 3 classes of 6 year olds. i teach three of these classes ( both 5 year old classes and one 6 year old class) for 40 minutes every day, while brian teaches one class of 6 year olds every day as well. each maple kindergarten class also has one science, one cooking, and one art class over a span of two weeks, which we teach as well. i think i speak for both of us when i say we both have a newfound respect for kindergarten teachers in the states...those kids can wear you out!

the kindergarten schedule starts at 10 am and goes to 3:20 pm. starting at 3:30 we have the maple elementary program, which is full of kids who have already attended their respective elementary schools during the day and get to spend another couple hours at our school. lucky! these kids range in age from 7-12 and are divided into classes depending on their age / english level. these classes tend to be a lot smaller than the kindergarten classes, which is a relief, but they are also a lot more drama-filled. i have a class full of 8 year old girls who get into fights almost every day (a couple times they tried to punch each other...i had to break them up). it's ridiculous!

aside from the elementary program, i also started teaching writing to a 16 year old boy who is moving to LA in august as an exchange student. his speaking is ok but his writing is terrrrible...i have to get his writing good enough for american high schools in just under 2 months. augh! no pressure there. it's a nice change of pace to have an older student after hours of pipsqueaks during the day, though, so i'm not complaining.

work hours: brian and i usually get to work around 9 or 9:30 and leave at either 5:30 or 6:30 depending on the day.

if any of that didn't make sense, i'm sorry. it's late and i'm tired, so i'm going to leave you with some pictures of our cute-but-crazy kids. enjoy!

laura - her front teeth grew in before she lost any of her other baby teeth. cuuuute!

me flipping the peace sign with jane, laura, mia, dennis, and richard (lurking in the background)


brian and gerard with laura, richard, dennis, and little mia



my 6 year old class, pretending to be calm. they're usually super rambunctious but they're still my favorites...

...here's why! paul, andy, and brian being silly...

...and the whole class getting in on it! from the left it's mike, tony, alice, paul, andy, brian, sally, ben, and fiona. not pictured: betty (better known as the crazy-eyes girl from my facebook picture)

tony, the boy on the left laying on the table has professed his love for me several times this year! he won't even acknowledge brian's presence :)

Brian's class of 6 year olds

From left to right: Ray, Eric, Max, Donna, Pablo, Alex, Jade, Kate, and Kelly. Not pictured: Ellen(Brian's favorite)

me instructing mia in the art of cooking. ha. if only she knew...

also pictured: selina and lucy from one of brian's classes

making hawaiian pizzas!

cooking class.

everyone take a minute to laugh at brian's super-girly pink apron :)

adam and simon, the twin 12 year olds i teach twice a week. they're also the best english speakers in our school (besides the teachers, of course).