I've been here over six months now. This will probably turn out to be the longest-running full-time gig I've had. I guess I'm passing for a grown-up more and more with every passing day...and did I mention that I even pay my bills on time? Quick, someone get me the fountain of youth!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunset at the Edge of Everything I'd So Far Known
Yesterday I began riding my trusty bike into the great unknown. It wasn't long before I ran across an intersection I'd been starting to recognize after all my (lost) excursions.
I decided to take the road I'd not been down before, and at some point I stumbled into the public market. Just beyond that lay a set of rails and a forbidden road, blocked off to cars due to construction.
I picked up my bike and carried it across the tracks to see where the fresh asphalt led.
A curiously massive rock loomed in the middle of the construction, flanked by monolithic towers soaked in gold:
Behind me lay the market, the city, and the sun.
It was a beautiful adventure, and by the time I came back to cross the sea of newborn blacktop, it was dark. There were no lights compared to other places in the city, but it was a smooth and unhinderable ride across the deep. The peace and calm were beautiful, and the night air was amazing.
Sometimes words and pictures aren't enough to express the wonder in a place.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Strange Constructions
One of my kindergarten students, perhaps already famous to you for her other cute expressions, often uses an atrociously adorable (but very incorrect) sentence structure when she speaks to me. She also cannot focus to save her life, so she will constantly interrupt the class to volunteer bizarre but cute little gems like this:
"Teacher, my house is yes baby!"
Translation: Teacher, there is a baby at my house!
Another frequent construction in my kindergarten class, this one applied by nearly all my students, is more often expressed as a complaint to rat their classmates out, rather than a spontaneous expression of joy or pride.
"Teacher, [rattee] is my kicking!"
Translation: Teacher, [rattee] is kicking me!
Or: "Teacher, [rattee] is bathroom play!"
Translation: Teacher, [rattee] is playing in the bathroom!
This brings up another interesting mistake my older students make a lot:
"Yesterday I played my friend at the playground."
When they say this I demonstrate an air violin and ask, "Really? You played your friend at the playground?" It's cute to me the things they always forget to say.
Then there are the long and complicated errors. I had one student write on his test once that he ate "a rope of bread." A rope? In Korean the R and L sounds are made by the same letter, and there is no F sound, so it is often replaced by the P sound when converted. So he knew the word was "loaf," but in his mind he remembered it the way he mispronounces it a lot. And how do you spell rope? R-O-P-E, of course. I found it hilarious, and it's way more palatable, as far as mistakes go, than eating "balls of lice."
"Teacher, my house is yes baby!"
Translation: Teacher, there is a baby at my house!
Another frequent construction in my kindergarten class, this one applied by nearly all my students, is more often expressed as a complaint to rat their classmates out, rather than a spontaneous expression of joy or pride.
"Teacher, [rattee] is my kicking!"
Translation: Teacher, [rattee] is kicking me!
Or: "Teacher, [rattee] is bathroom play!"
Translation: Teacher, [rattee] is playing in the bathroom!
This brings up another interesting mistake my older students make a lot:
"Yesterday I played my friend at the playground."
When they say this I demonstrate an air violin and ask, "Really? You played your friend at the playground?" It's cute to me the things they always forget to say.
Then there are the long and complicated errors. I had one student write on his test once that he ate "a rope of bread." A rope? In Korean the R and L sounds are made by the same letter, and there is no F sound, so it is often replaced by the P sound when converted. So he knew the word was "loaf," but in his mind he remembered it the way he mispronounces it a lot. And how do you spell rope? R-O-P-E, of course. I found it hilarious, and it's way more palatable, as far as mistakes go, than eating "balls of lice."
Monday, August 22, 2011
Yeha Guest House
While I was in Jeju, I stayed at an incredibly wonderful place called Yeha Guest House. Just a few blocks from the bus terminal in Jeju City, you can access the whole island easily, and they rent bikes out at 5,000￦ a day if cycling's more your thing.
The staff is multi-lingual, offering services in Korean, English, and Chinese, and they are more than helpful with both big and little things. They keep a book of menus and a collection of those restaurants' coupons on hand so you can get food delivered to the place, and they volunteer to call the order in for you.
I hadn't booked my passage home until after I'd climbed Hallasan, and the kind woman on staff actually called and made my ferry reservation for me. It saved me loads of trouble, as I can't speak Korean, and her timely call got me the last slot on the ship.
They have a kitchen you can use at any time and they give you eggs, bread, cheese, and jam for free so you can cook things for your breakfast. Trying to make eggs here gave me the confidence to make good omelets here at home.
They give you everything you need. All you have to do are dishes.
They have an awesome common area where you can hang and chat with other guests. I got to practice my old German skills on boarders there from Deutschland, and I met my hiking partner there, as well as many other fascinating people.
There are books you can read, movies you can watch, and a guitar you can pick up and play...
...not to mention copious amounts of games to try!
They have computers and Wi-Fi there for free, and you can even make free long-distance calls to a fair amount of countries.
There's a wall with money from around the world and a ranking system so you can see what other travelers did and what they liked the most.
I had a cell phone and wasn't interested in tours, but they can set you up with cell phone rentals and give you discounts on affiliated tours.
They also sell all kinds of handy/useful things like postcards, postage, raincoats, etc. You can check out sunhats and umbrellas, and there's a little thrift shop where you can buy old travelers' excess things (shampoo, etc.) to use. All proceeds go to charity and when you leave you can donate back to the little front desk shop.
They have maps all over to help you plan your days and can give you lots of information about how to get around.
They also gave out complimentary Jeju chocolates and Jeju oranges (things Jeju is known for). Some of these things are available at the guest house for lower prices than you might find other places.
I stayed in a dorm-style room with bunks and other female boarders but it was incredibly pleasant. At $25 a night during peak season it really wasn't bad at all, and booking through their site - also multilingual - was actually a breeze.
If you ever visit Jeju Island, I definitely recommend them. Check them out for yourself if you'd like:
www.yehaguesthouse.com
Sunday, August 21, 2011
One of the Most Scenic Places to Ride Around: Gunsan's Industrial Zone
The last two days have felt like fall, so today I decided to go ride my bike up by the industrial zone. It's beautiful up there, as you can see:
Saturday, August 20, 2011
My Spaghetti Has a Secret Ingredient
Or, well, at least that's my suspicion.
I washed the pot and lid before I used them, then let them dry for a while, then dried them off myself with tissues. Then I boiled water and dumped in my spaghetti sticks.
A while later I glanced at the pot and was immediately alarmed - there were suds piling up under the lid!
Maybe this is natural, but maybe I didn't rinse my cookware thoroughly enough or didn't let it sit to air dry long enough. My noodles felt slick and oily without any oil, and I'll admit I was a little wary about eating them.
But I had some with some import sauce and they tasted fine to me. I guess time will tell, though, if I've ingested any lethal doses of dishwashing detergent...heh?
I washed the pot and lid before I used them, then let them dry for a while, then dried them off myself with tissues. Then I boiled water and dumped in my spaghetti sticks.
A while later I glanced at the pot and was immediately alarmed - there were suds piling up under the lid!
Maybe this is natural, but maybe I didn't rinse my cookware thoroughly enough or didn't let it sit to air dry long enough. My noodles felt slick and oily without any oil, and I'll admit I was a little wary about eating them.
But I had some with some import sauce and they tasted fine to me. I guess time will tell, though, if I've ingested any lethal doses of dishwashing detergent...heh?
More Culinary Exploits
Maybe not as impressive as the omelet, but awfully delicious:
Grilled cheese and cereal with sliced banana. Yum!
Grilled cheese and cereal with sliced banana. Yum!
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I Must Be a Real Grown-Up Now
...'cause I made myself a perfect omelet, and my breakfast includes a healthy apple that no one told me I should eat!
Ladies and gentlemen, I have arrived.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have arrived.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Radioactive Rain: 1. Umbrella: 0.
Today the rain was coming hard again, so I agreed to take a cab with my coworker instead of cycling to school. It had been called for us already, so we were waiting by the door of our apartment building, eager to be neither wet nor late.
As soon as it pulled up, I pointed my umbrella out the door and pressed the button to unfurl it.
The head of my umbrella shot into the rain, unopened, and hit the ground outside. It had popped straight off of the umbrella shaft.
We weren't about to miss our taxi or be late for work, so I dashed into the rain and picked it up. I managed to open it and hold it like an upside-down flower over my head, but once inside the cab I had a revelation with some horror: normally to close my umbrella I'd just pull it down the shaft. But now...there was nothing but the flimsy flap.
Realizing I was letting rain into our taxi, and not immediately recognizing any better options, I yanked it in and crushed it with my arms.
Needless to say, the ride to work was interesting, and not entirely lacking in comic relief for our taxi driver.
When we arrived, I held my failing flower like a hat over my head again, but it was clearly useless. One of the desk teachers immediately cried out, “Teacher!” and a whole slew of other things (but in Korean) upon seeing me, apparently astounded by my hilarious predicament. Observing the futility of my attempts to beat my bad umbrella down, she took it from me and threw it on the floor, then began slamming her foot down on it until she had stomped it into submission.
Then, just as suddenly, she took both it and the shaft that I'd been holding and vanished into a back room with them.
I wasn't sure if they were coming back, and decided not to get as bent out of shape about it as my umbrella had just been.
Later, I found out from my coworker that she had caught a glimpse of it stuffed into a trash bag.
I didn't mourn for long. In fact, I bought a replacement for it tonight. We'll see how long the new one can survive...
As soon as it pulled up, I pointed my umbrella out the door and pressed the button to unfurl it.
The head of my umbrella shot into the rain, unopened, and hit the ground outside. It had popped straight off of the umbrella shaft.
We weren't about to miss our taxi or be late for work, so I dashed into the rain and picked it up. I managed to open it and hold it like an upside-down flower over my head, but once inside the cab I had a revelation with some horror: normally to close my umbrella I'd just pull it down the shaft. But now...there was nothing but the flimsy flap.
Realizing I was letting rain into our taxi, and not immediately recognizing any better options, I yanked it in and crushed it with my arms.
Needless to say, the ride to work was interesting, and not entirely lacking in comic relief for our taxi driver.
When we arrived, I held my failing flower like a hat over my head again, but it was clearly useless. One of the desk teachers immediately cried out, “Teacher!” and a whole slew of other things (but in Korean) upon seeing me, apparently astounded by my hilarious predicament. Observing the futility of my attempts to beat my bad umbrella down, she took it from me and threw it on the floor, then began slamming her foot down on it until she had stomped it into submission.
Then, just as suddenly, she took both it and the shaft that I'd been holding and vanished into a back room with them.
I wasn't sure if they were coming back, and decided not to get as bent out of shape about it as my umbrella had just been.
Later, I found out from my coworker that she had caught a glimpse of it stuffed into a trash bag.
I didn't mourn for long. In fact, I bought a replacement for it tonight. We'll see how long the new one can survive...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Steamin' Noodles (or: Mop This Up!)
My kindergarten class is rarely capable of coloring their pictures nicely in the morning before class without dashing into the teachers' room to harass me with their drama. Usually the urgent matter at hand is spawned by one or more children's obsessive need to rat out their fellow classmates. As such, usually their very important, pressing complaints go something like this:
Student: “Teacher!”
Me: “Go finish coloring.”
Student: “Teacher! [Name of most-likely-innocent rattee] is Korean!”
Why, yes...aren't they all?
Me: “Go finish coloring.”
Student: “Teacher! [Rattee] is 똥!”
똥 (ddong) is most frequently translated into English by my Korean co-teachers as “dung,” which sounds almost the same, so I usually remember it means poop.
Usually my students are not calling someone dung, but are informing me that someone has said this word out loud. (As I'm sure many of you know, the topic of poop has been an almost infinite source of humor among children for generations, no matter where you go.)
So today when my students rushed into the teachers' lounge with that pained look of urgency and dire importance on their faces, I just assumed it was because someone, somewhere, dredged up the age-old humor trump card in Korean, the infamous word 똥.
Little did I know.
When I went in, there was a heap of oozing, glistening worms on the floor. Or at least that's what it looked like to me.
In fact, it was a pile of undigested ramen, freshly liberated from my student's gastric acids.
As if this weren't already gross enough, there was no easy recourse for us teachers. We had no kitty litter. No handy contraption to suck it up so that we wouldn't have to. Alas, all we had were what all mouths were wiped and all messes cleaned with: our trusty box of Kleenex tissues.
So, what did we do? We heaped a huge percentage of the box's contents on the kinderspew and picked it up by hand - no gloves - and dumped it in the nearby trash.
I have to say that I'm relieved I don't have children of my own heaving in my living room just yet. But by that time I trust I'll have made sure to have an ample stock of kitty litter saved.
Student: “Teacher!”
Me: “Go finish coloring.”
Student: “Teacher! [Name of most-likely-innocent rattee] is Korean!”
Why, yes...aren't they all?
Me: “Go finish coloring.”
Student: “Teacher! [Rattee] is 똥!”
똥 (ddong) is most frequently translated into English by my Korean co-teachers as “dung,” which sounds almost the same, so I usually remember it means poop.
Usually my students are not calling someone dung, but are informing me that someone has said this word out loud. (As I'm sure many of you know, the topic of poop has been an almost infinite source of humor among children for generations, no matter where you go.)
So today when my students rushed into the teachers' lounge with that pained look of urgency and dire importance on their faces, I just assumed it was because someone, somewhere, dredged up the age-old humor trump card in Korean, the infamous word 똥.
Little did I know.
When I went in, there was a heap of oozing, glistening worms on the floor. Or at least that's what it looked like to me.
In fact, it was a pile of undigested ramen, freshly liberated from my student's gastric acids.
As if this weren't already gross enough, there was no easy recourse for us teachers. We had no kitty litter. No handy contraption to suck it up so that we wouldn't have to. Alas, all we had were what all mouths were wiped and all messes cleaned with: our trusty box of Kleenex tissues.
So, what did we do? We heaped a huge percentage of the box's contents on the kinderspew and picked it up by hand - no gloves - and dumped it in the nearby trash.
I have to say that I'm relieved I don't have children of my own heaving in my living room just yet. But by that time I trust I'll have made sure to have an ample stock of kitty litter saved.
Cucumbers on Subs
The Subway in Gunsan finally reopened. I loved going there when I first came but then it closed indefinitely, rumors hinting that the owner had temporarily shut it down so he could battle cancer. I think I first saw its doors were shut in March or maybe early April.
In a country where salads aren't particularly prevalent, and where much of your vegetable intake is either pickled or from the same stack of leaves you eat your pork and beef with, a place with fresh, crisp lettuce of the variety I'm used to brings quite a refreshing taste to the table.
As I've mentioned on this blog before, I'm a notoriously picky eater, and I'll admit that the vegetable deficiencies in my diet are 90% my fault alone. But since coming to Korea, I've discovered I like cucumber, which I had never really been able to eat successfully back home. Whatever the cause of my new tastes, I'm thoroughly enjoying them. Tonight I ordered cucumber on my honey-oatbread sub, and did it ever hit the spot. I plan on crunching down fresh cucumbers more often from now on.
In a country where salads aren't particularly prevalent, and where much of your vegetable intake is either pickled or from the same stack of leaves you eat your pork and beef with, a place with fresh, crisp lettuce of the variety I'm used to brings quite a refreshing taste to the table.
As I've mentioned on this blog before, I'm a notoriously picky eater, and I'll admit that the vegetable deficiencies in my diet are 90% my fault alone. But since coming to Korea, I've discovered I like cucumber, which I had never really been able to eat successfully back home. Whatever the cause of my new tastes, I'm thoroughly enjoying them. Tonight I ordered cucumber on my honey-oatbread sub, and did it ever hit the spot. I plan on crunching down fresh cucumbers more often from now on.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Jinpo Maritime Theme Park
Today I went to the Inner Harbor of my “hometown” in Korea, Gunsan. There was an interesting park there with military vehicles on display.
At the entrance there was a long line of flags.
Between the UN flag and the South Korean flag there was this plaque. I don't know what it says except for the last line.
I got to climb up on and in some of these fascinating things:
There was a cool decommissioned Coast Guard ship I got to climb all over and explore.
It had a pretty heavy-duty gun on board. I spun it all around and moved it up and down, trying to catch things in its crosshairs.
The ship also afforded a great view of the whole park itself.
From the top I could see the lush green field that had grown over the three sets of - apparently extinct - traintracks I'd crossed coming in.
And the military lamp post...
They closed while I was there, so I didn't get to explore the other cool things on display. But the whole park was free, and not too far by bike, so I think it's safe to assume that eventually I will go back and finish what I started.
At the entrance there was a long line of flags.
Between the UN flag and the South Korean flag there was this plaque. I don't know what it says except for the last line.
I got to climb up on and in some of these fascinating things:
There was a cool decommissioned Coast Guard ship I got to climb all over and explore.
It had a pretty heavy-duty gun on board. I spun it all around and moved it up and down, trying to catch things in its crosshairs.
The ship also afforded a great view of the whole park itself.
From the top I could see the lush green field that had grown over the three sets of - apparently extinct - traintracks I'd crossed coming in.
And the military lamp post...
They closed while I was there, so I didn't get to explore the other cool things on display. But the whole park was free, and not too far by bike, so I think it's safe to assume that eventually I will go back and finish what I started.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)