The Last Week

I'm a little disappointed that I will fall short of a blog post for everyday in Korea, but this final week has been all kinds of crazy.

Friday was mostly a regular teaching day, but the morning was peppered with practice time for next weeks open class.

Spent my last weekend packing and cleaning and strategically buying groceries to end with an empty fridge. I did take my bike to Ansan station to get some Vietnamese pho. The migrant worker population has turned Ansan into a real global village -there is literally a map of Ansan's Global Village.

It made me think about those nasty comments I heard in Australia: "Isn't it funny that only white Western countries are the ones getting forced to be multicultural?" That comment echoes it own bigotry. The Pauline Hanson's of the world see their once white Australia becoming mutlicultural and their global scope is only limited to other white countries! Ha! The world was always multicultural! And as everyone integrates more and more this is the future, not just in white Western countries, but everywhere! Seeing Ansan's multicultural area gave me a lot of hope for the world. The workers who made the area what it is are migrant labourers -one of the most hated types of migrant, the so-call job-stealer. BUT! In response to the rise in migrant labourers there was a community that came to support them; cultural restaurants, boutiques, banks specialising in sending remittances, groceries stores, phone companies, translators, and support services. This market sprung up in the heart of all this and gained popularity since it had unique things you couldn't buy in other parts of Korea. So Koreans explore the area just like I would with my friends when we go to the Richmond Night Market. Multiculturalism is great for the community and for the economy, way to go, Ansan!

The Monday I officially sampled said open class to the director where we made the first of so many changes. The parents want nothing more than to see their kids (actually only their kid) speaking freely in English -but how do you prepare for something and make it look natural?

I based my lesson plan off that old Albert Einstein quote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” My class is just that. No one student is brilliant at everything but everyone has 1 or 2 things they are incredible at. So I really wanted to showcase that for the parents.

In a Katimavik-style, I came up with five competencies they would showcase: Writing, Reading, Drawing, Singing, and Speaking. I knew that in each of those areas a different student would shine, so everyone will have something to be proud of.

When I had time, I also had to begin cleaning up my desk and preparing for departure.

The open class ended up going great! I put on my skyride-tour-guide voice and timed everything perfectly. In my welcome I explained the run down of the schedule, and why each element was important. I made special notes of what each student was uniquely good at:

"She has the best writing. She has better writing than most adults!"
"He's very enthusiastic to share his creative stories!"
"She puts so much effort into her drawings, and you will see, they all deserve a frame"
"She always comes up with the most original ideas. If I say 'name some fruits' she won't bother with apples or bananas, she's talking about persimmons and passionfruits!"
"He is such a great reader, he recognises woulds and pronounces them like a native English speaker."
"She is so comfortable speaking in English, and she is so funny! We are always laughing at her jokes."

That was at the beginning. Then throughout the open class each of those students proved my point entirely. The good writer was less nervous about her poor reading skills because everyone could read along with the powerpoint because her writing was so neat. The creative boy told a story about a talking police car, whose best friend is a sword, and basically reached the conclusion that 'crime doesn't pay'.  Our star artist got all the parents whispering and giving her thumbs up for her colourful pictures of unicorns and rabbits. Our clever ideas girl came up with some brilliant ideas for science "a saxophone is a solid, gasoline is a liquid, and a star is a gas"  -wow. Our great reader finished his story in under a minute! Our jokester said this about the Leaning Tower of Pisa "I think the Leaning Tower of Pisa is funny because it is in Italy and pizza is also in Italy so I think it is the Leaning Tower of Pizza and I want to eat it!" -everyone laughed.

It was actually pretty fun!

Afterwards they had their musical English performance, which was just really simple cute versions of Swan Lake and Snow White.

After the kids had taken a bow, the director said some words in Korean and asked me to come to the stage. She handed me a bouquet of flowers and asked me to say some words to the parents and students. I think I said something like "Wow! What an experience this has been. Thank you all. I feel really lucky to get to be involved with teaching these brilliant young English speakers. It has been so much fun and I will miss seeing their smiling faces!" A bit sappy, because Koreans really seem to like that, but also kind of true.

The kids all went home early with their parents and we went to have a farewell lunch at the Chinese restaurant.

After lunch I closed my account at the bank.

Then I had the pizza party for my older elementary students to celebrate their month of perfect vocabulary quizzes. I turns out that class will basically be disbanded following my departure since none of the students could do a Tuesday-Thursday schedule. So now they'll have some positive memories. We just payed some English games and ate pizza -it was great.

The day faded away until is was over. My desk cleared, lights off, footsteps exiting for the last time.

I went over to visit the other two teachers and we talk and drank until the wee hours of the night. It was all part of my elaborate plan to stay up super late, then sleep through most of the day. Then I could take the train in the evening, stay up at the airport, sleep on the the flights and BAM! Canada!

As I write this in the Vancouver Airport waiting for my connection to Victoria I can report that some of that went to plan.

I sold my bike on Saturday. You can't actually sell them back to used bike stores. But I just explained to the guy I bought it from that I was leaving (I actually needed to get it out of the apartment) and I awkward stood there looking at him until he offer me 10,000 won -fine by me.

I wore as many layers as possible since I couldn't stuff my bags with anything more. The walk from the apartment to the train was hell. It was crazy hot in all those layers and I was carrying four huge bags. One backpacking backpack, one regular backpack worn on the front and a duffle in each hand. People looked in horror at me.

I must of scared the living daylight out of a guy when I tried to put my bag on the rack up top. It was the lightest bag but I must've been so tired because it just rolled out of my hand towards his face. Then another guy got up and gave me a hand putting them up.

I was a bit awkward but I'm glad it must've been obvious enough to get people feeling charitable. I met a really nice woman who lives in Incheon. She saw me with my bags and offered to help me. She carried them to a specific door where she knew the train would have a luggage rack. She even offered me water! Once we were on the train we started talking. She's a big fan of Justin Trudeau and wants to go to Canada to meet him, and no, not because of his looks. She google translated to me the words "I think leaders are important". That struck something in me. We were basically talking politics through her google translate app and she ended up asking to add me on facebook. I agreed and she saw my cover photo from the DMZ tour. This is where it gets even more cool! Her job is educating kids and young adults about the future of reunification in Korea! What a cool job!

Meeting her is quite symbolic of my experience in Korea. People have been so nice to me, so unselfishly generous and I could never communicate the words to properly express my thanks. In fact I wonder if I become someone else's funny story about the foreign girl who just nodded and smiled and said a broken thank you over and over. It made me think about the tourists who would wind up at Grouse Mountain and they spoke no English and I kept wondering "how did you get here?" when their trying to ask about how to get to specific hotel downtown. Now, that was me. At least now going forward I can admire the human ingenuity and bravery that goes into travelling with limited language. I think of those bigoted cries of  "Speak English!" that I hear horror stories of in Canada and Australia. Why are we so willing to attack for that and not celebrate for how far someone can go with little language comprehension? That sort of communication is universal, relying on pointing and making mistakes, walking because you can't say the name of where you want to go to a taxi driver. This was actually the experience I wanted from Korea, to survive in a non-English speaking environment -and I did it!

Shanghai had air pollution and I nearly suffocated in my layers. Seattle had an easy customs procedure and a nightmare of a security procedure. My layers showed up as foreign objects on the body scanner and I was felt up every way one can be felt up in public at the airport. The lady asked me if I was a traveller and I said yes "You sure dress like one." I told her I smell too, she said she'd smelled worse. Vancouver was sunny, so I thought I must've been on the wrong plane. I got a Double-Double at Timmies because I haven't even been able to say that with a straight face since July 2015. Disappointment struck when I realised I didn't even get a Roll-Up-The-Rim cup, dude!

This return to Vancouver was a little different from the previous ones. I guess Vancouver has always felt like the centre of my spiderweb. All the people in my life could at least be loosely connected to Vancouver, or at least Canada. This time I realised that there are so many people who matter to me who have no perception of Vancouver, or even Canada. Those names might as well be synonymous with mine, because that is how limited the influence of a place really is. I am endlessly thankful for my opportunity to experience the centre of someone else's spiderweb. I feel like travel is my way of gradually creating a map of understanding. I'm a hands on learner, I wouldn't have learned as much about the Joseon dynasty if the Seoulmates didn't show me these cultural sites.  I wouldn't be comparing political attitudes in different states without my experiences at Griffith university.

Vancouver has historically been the end of the adventure -which has alway left me with mixed feelings about coming back. But now, I see Vancouver as Go on the monopoly board, collect 200$ and keep going!

The adventures doesn't end, it's just changing shape!

Treasure Hunt

The last part of our trial lesson for the new intake of Kindergarteners was today!

I really wanted them to do something special. Something where the earn a prize and really feel proud.

Taking a suggestion from another teacher I settled on doing a treasure hunt.

These kids are super young, like 3-4 years old. So they aren't capable of anything unguided. In fact today they went with a Korean teacher and their mom. They've learned some animals and some colours. So they get shown a map with animal on it -the first is a frog. Find the frog.

The map will actually show them a room. When they get to the door they see a frog on it! The open the door and there are three cups face down. What colour is the frog? There's a red cup, a blue, on and a green. Flip up the green one and there's a map to the next room,! It repeats with different animals questions and colours until they end up in the directors office where they receive a prize!

I feel like this must be the best lesson yet because there was no crying at all!

I was a bit disappointed since I knew it would make sense for me to go with each kid -I had to stay with the others and stall for time. We had some colouring sheets and a video, things were going quite well and I didn't want to mess up a good routine. Even though we had one or two students try to escape to the play room.

The treasure hunt went off with out a problem and it meant all the mothers got to tour the school a little bit too. A lot of work went into it so I hope they do decide to enrol their kids. When I look at where their at and where the kindergarteners from last year are now, I can tell they will learn so much in a short short time.

The Secret Bird: Part III

Today was the funeral for the two birds found yesterday in the fuse box room.

We would've done it yesterday except the ground is frozen and we had no shovel.

The director called a store to ask about shovels and sent me with money to go buy one. The only guy working there looked me up and down and I made a motion of digging with a shovel. Side note: my charade-game has improved since becoming an English teacher. He knew immediately who I was since the director had only just called, and went to get the shovel.

During, gym class the director and I went to the rooftop garden to bury the birds. The problem was the box was by the fuse box room that could only be accessed through the library. Going to get the box would mean all the kids would see it. Yeah, bad idea.

Thankfully the other teacher had them engaged in a stretching exercise that took most of their attention. As per our standard stretch routine at one point we curl into an egg shape and ask the students what the egg will hatch into (inspired by this lesson for the older elementary students). Well, just as I was leaving, the egg hatched into a bird.

This was one of those "how did I get here?" moments: where something is just so weird that if you isolate that moment in your life you have to wonder  "how did I get here?"

I was on a rooftop in Korea digging a grave for two pigeons as the director gave an informal eulogy.

Huh, high school guidance counsellors could never see this coming.

The Secret Bird: Part II

Today I went to install the bird house in the fuse box room.

I first inspected the tubing that its nest was in. No bird. I'd been checking for weeks and I figure it must be out flying during the day. I cleaned things up a bit and moved in the bird house.

The bird house itself is actually just put together from some old shelves in the storage room. So it's a duplex with two rooms.

After I put it in place over the gap by the ventilation tube I when to attach the insolation sheets to the sides with the staple gun. As I was moving around those sheets, I found the bird.

This is really quite morbid, skip reading this is you don't want to hear the gruesome details. Just skip the whole blog post, and maybe the next one, because it's not really going to get cheerful again.

His head had gotten wrapped up in the broken down insolation and he looked as though he hung himself. The insolation was wrapped around his neck. I came back with gloves and a box coffin only to find that touch the bird caused many parts of him bones to fall apart. As the girl who would cry over dead bird and squirrels all the time, I told myself I must really have grown up to be doing this. I knew no one else could be able to do this if I didn't and the bird deserved some respect.

After the bird was placed in the coffin I still intended to finish the job. I threw out the old insolation before it could harm the next tenant, and that was when I found another bird.

This one was all curled up on the floor frozen to death.

As I unravelled the bird mystery I discovered this:

The bird must've been nesting in the ventilation tubes for sometime now. The first nested closest to the outside. The weight of their nest increase as the lived there. It eventually got so heavy it broke an collapsed into the room, leaving the hole. After that, they must've flown in through the hole, found the where the ventilator tubing was still attached and nested there instead. The would've chose that spot because that's where the hot air exits the school. This cycle of nest, build, break must have repeated at least four times based from where segments of the tubing had fallen. The tubing pulled down the insolation -which strangled one bird. The room itself was freezing without the insolation and now the nest, which had broken from the ventilator tube, was also cold. The whole room was way too cold for them.

So I think I figured out the mystery.

But if my theory is true, then the bird house is useless because the room is too cold.

How they hell do birds even live in Korea? Go South!

So that was my day.

Debate Time

I did my first formal debate with the high school students today.

It was their first debate too, since the class only formed together at the beginning of the year.

I like to time the students to give them motivation to speak freely instead of reading from notes so much. Then we just do regular tips for public speaking, like eye contact and pacing. It's a bit of a stretch to call this public speaking since there are only three students in the class.

My record for the younger grades is over 6 minutes. Today we had scores ranging from 53 seconds to 2 minutes.

It was a good topic too! "Video games do more harm than good"

The proposition team (one student, actually) claimed video games can make people lazy and they will exercise less.

The opposition team (the other two students) brought up how Pokemon Go -recently released in Korea- gets people outside walking and Wii games also require movement.

The proposition responded with how GPS spoofing hacks can be used, no one plays Wii anymore, and Pokemon Go is actually harmful because people get hit by cars.

It was actually really well done for the first debate. Especially for that one student on the proposition team because he did not want to be on the pro team -he loves video games. Still, sign of a good debater that he could argue outside of his own opinion.

Sleepy Sunday!

I ended up not even leaving the house to get groceries. Which I had planned to do.

I had a lot of cleaning to do, and people to Skype. Another weekend passing with lots of emphasis on painting as I plan out my next tattoo!

The day could've gone better since I discovered in the evening that my electric blanket stopped working. The light was on, but it didn't get hot, at all.

I kept waking up because I was so damn cold.

Sheep!

I met up with a friend from uni at the Sheep cafe in Hongdae!

Much like the cat cafes that can be found in most modern cities, this little cafe provides diners with the chance to meet some sheep. I was actually really impressed with the waffles most of all. Banana and strawberry, I crave fruit right now because it's so unavailable here in Winter.

After some hot drinks and a snack we went outside to meet the sheep. There were two out there and the owner had been talking about them to some other people. I feel like sheep mind their business more than cats do actually. It was only when I checked to see how deep the wool goes that I got an unimpressed reaction. Looking back on it, the sheep probably did feel anything else because the wool was so thick.

Unlike the other sheep I have encountered, these ones were quite pampered and actually had a pretty clean coat. That being said, they weren't really friendly.

Or maybe I came on to strong.


We walked around Hongdae for a bit and got some fried chicken and beer before parting ways. Note to everyone: don't leave Korea without trying the fried chicken.

More Testing, More Word Searches

After the monthly tests, the elementary students get another surprise test to see if their ability matches what class they're placed in.

These tests are usually a bit more difficult since they test them on material not necessarily covered in class. The January test scores for my older elementary class showed that one of my students got perfect, another only one wrong, and after that only five wrong -which is really impressive. I'm wondering if the next level would even be challenging enough for them. The student who got perfect already moved into my class at the beginning of the semester since he'd performed so well on his last test of abilities. If he goes much higher he's gonna be with highschoolers!

That class was eager to take the test. They got straight into it. Usually I mark journals during the test, but I was all done. I didn't have any work to do that I could take with me tot the class room. So in between their rare questions I worked on one of the crosswords I had printed off for students who finished early.

They worked so hard on the writing that none of them finished early. But still this keen bunch asked if they could each take a word search home because they still wanted to do it!

What great students.

Wild Animals

The kindergarten prep class when well! We had way less crying than last week.

The masks were a success. We had a lion, a frog, an elephant, two tigers, a monkey, and two cats.

We even kind of got the kids to pose so their mom's could take a photo. What I liked best was how enthusiastic the kids were to put on the mask and become the animal. If I could graph it, the youngest kids may have the least vocabulary but the most engery to learn, as they get older if feels as though those things reverse.

So many of the older students get so shy around speaking, where the kindergartners even test to see if they can make up words and they'll make sense in English. That's bold.

Preparing for Preparatory

The next preparatory lesson for our newest intake of kindergartners will be tomorrow.

We did gym last week, which I believed was a bit messy. They learned animals, colours, and maybe some letters. Tomorrow is supposed to be an art class.

The first proposed art projet was to be making animals from tracing out hands. The kids learned bear, so I tried an example bear. The result is far too creepy to ever be seen by children.

 

Stay bear aware.

Also, this bear has an Adam's apple because of my weird thumb thing. 

Doing the example I noticed soe problems with the project. For kids with barely any pencil control, tracing their hands will be a disaster. On top of that, their hands will be small, meaning hopes of any distinguishing factors, just to help identify what animal it is supposed to be, are gone. I needed a new idea.

Masks. Then they are making something that can segway into a better understanding of the animal. So I printed off templates for the animal masks for tomorrows big event. Here's hoping no one wants an obsure animal!

Mr. Wolf!

I introduced the game "What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?" to the first-time-english speaker class today.

I started by drawing a wolf on the board, Pictionary style. One kid guessed it in English! Then I let that image of the wold simmer in the background as I brought out a clock I made in the break out of a pipe cleaner and a plastic plate. The pipe cleaner twisted at the back of the paper plate to move the hand (there was only an hour hand).

"What time is it?"

They knew the numbers, it was more a matter of getting them to say o'clock.

Then I wrote the question on the board, since they've been practicing reading.

"Waaaaht tiiime iiizzzz iiiittt?"

"Mr. Wolf!" I pointed to the picture.

Then I showed a youtube clip I found of an ESL class playing the game, so they completely understood it.

From there we went to the gym and played. It was successful for everyone. For me, it was the most speaking I go them to do in gym class ever, since they had to keep repeating the question and counting their steps. For them it's been the longest game we have consistently played, no one got bored or distracted!

Although I think the word "lunchtime" might mean something else to them now.

Heavy Monday

We having been going over heavy and light with the kindergartners.

It's important to distinguish it from size so I like to use examples like "three coins, or a balloon? Which one is heavier?". Then they start to really get that the concept is weight. If we just kept going with elephants and mice we might never get anywhere.

The end result of the lesson was the the children each got to draw one light thing and one heavy thing. Then I will show the pictures -with the answer covered- and the kids have to guess if it's light or heavy. It's a really easy game, and it doesn't even depend on them being that good artists since a little seesaw in the picture tells you which is heavy and which is light.

I swear though, this one kid, he's trying to make a Yo Mamma joke:

I asked him about it, and it's actually his mom. So.

A Very Kimbap Sunday

I was planning on going out on my bike today, but it was a mix of extreme wind chill and air pollution.

I stayed in and did some paintings.

My only escape was to go and get some kimbap for an early dinner. I was pretty gross outside and there were not many people out. Even though the restaurant is close, I took my bike to be safe.

Seoulmate - 12th Tour

Wow, what a day!

I was the most late I have ever been to a Seoulmate tour. That was the result of spending way to long looking for my mask because there's quite a bit of pollution in the air today -and I didn't even find it!

The tour i chose was Buchon Hanok Village, because it was actually my first tour with Seoulmate back in September. Every 4 tours you receive a gift. One my fourth was a special coin purse, and on my eight was a Korean figure, and now for my twelfth, wow... take a look:

It's a book professionally printed with photos from every tour! I was so happy to receive this, it will be the ultimate memory of Korea. The Seoulmates have been so wonderfully kind to me, and they always make my Saturdays fun. I'm really thankful for my time spent with them. 

I usually talk with the other participants and we agree that there is nothing like this in our home cities. There maybe be free tours, but they expect a tip, or something! As long as I have been hanging out with Seoulmate they have never asked for anything other than covering your own admission or share of the food. Just give, give, give. 

This is totally what the world needs. These university student volunteer thir time to give free tours to foreign friends, and they really mean friends. They are building the sort of friendships that combat notions of otherness. 

I feel like locals sometimes express that tourists are somehow a nuissance, and inconvenience on their lives. Here in Seoul you've got something special, a group of people dedicated to making friends, and sharing culture. It might seem strange but really it is an action that transcends any countable value. Thank you Seoulmat!

We had a great tour going around Buchon, especially with some new Seoulmates who were doing their first tour! Personally I was able to tie a lot of the pieces together since I didn't really know that much about Korea on my first tour.

For instance, we started at the secondary palace where we were asked to identify a building. I didn't speak my guess out loud but I figured it would be the library because the library at Gyeongbukgong is at the same location. And it was! Then the explain that the library was burned down during the Japanese invasion.

On my first tour it would've felt like "Hmm, the Japanese came here and burn a library, that's harsh." But after the other tours you realize the Japanese did so much more than that.

The historic high school we visited was the site of a famous Korean drama. I had no reference for dramas on my first tour. Now I know that is 도깨비, also known as Korean Goblin. And, get this, it had some scenes filmed in Quebec City! Des Escalier Casse-Cou was right next to where I volunteered for Red Bull Crashed Ice.

I understood what I was looking at when we were by the the look out points. Suddenly, big Seoul felt kind of managable and familiar. It was a nice feeling.

We moved to Insa-dong market to have some drinks at the cafe before wrapping up the tour.

After that I just took the train back to Ansan. I looked over the book twice again since I got home.

I love Seoulmate!

Let's Not Call Them Bribes

We had some tasty treats dropped off for us at the school today.

One parent brought in these yummy walnut pies. They are the size of a timbit and made with pancake batter. On the inside is a walnut and a mix of sweet red been paste. It's funny because I really enjoy teaching their kids, like they are super keen learners who love Pokemon.  always said that I feel like I'm part of their family even if I'm not. Now this, shucks.

Less than a half hour later another parent showed up with Baskin Robbins ice cream cups!

I do love that they do this. It reminds me of when the teachers were on strike and I brought them donuts on my bike so that I wouldn't have to go to school. Except these parents are bring us goodies so that their kids do go to school.

It's a funny world.

Lots of Tears

We are having trial lessons this month every Thursday to prepare a newest intake of kindergartners for immersion education. The trial lessons run for 40mins every Thursday and give the parents and opportunity to decide if they want to go through with enrolment. Which is a big pressure for me, the teacher. All the parents will come in and watch and help for the lessons.

For the first lesson, we did a gym class. We went to the library and tried to do anything.

Of the nine kids, probably only three didn't cry at all. It was really hard to get them to participate, even with a Korean teacher translating. So some of the games were a bit dull.

I actually thought the whole thing had gone pretty poorly. Children were erupting like volcanoes, maybe 5 English words were spoken the whole time, and the parents looked so unimpressed.

But I was wrong. The parents were actually ecstatic about the lesson, and were really crushed to know I wouldn't be the teacher. They actually came up to me afterwars to express how much they enjoyed the lesson and wished I could be the teacher. Which is a real honor, considering I thought it was a mess!

Next week were doing an art class which should be less hectic. My plan is simple, we're gonna review the animals we talked about this Thursday and just trace our hands and colour them in as an animal. Then we'll have a simple coloring sheet where they'll have to color the one color for one letter and another color for another. The mom's should be there in full force to help.

A Morbid Story Intended For Children

My highlight of this Wednesday back at school had to be reading with the younger elemtary class.

The read these Korean Folktales which seem to just be common stories told with a Korean theme. We had one that was basically Cinderella. There is a darker side to the original, but the beginning is basically Cinderella. Then there was the Gold and Silver Axes, which I'm quite certain is an Aesop tale about why you shouldn't lie. They're all about being a good person.

This one though, woah, took it to the next level.

There's a mommy frog and a baby frog. The baby frog is a total brat. He does the opposite of whatever his mom asks. She says "let's swim in the East pond." he goes to swim in the West pond. "Let's catch flies at the bootom of the mountain", he goes to the top of the mountain. She goes "repeat after me, ribbit, ribbit" and this smart-ass baby frog goes "tibbir, tibbir." Then mom tells him to hibernate for the winter, and what does this little jerk do? He goes and swims in the lake until it gets too cold.

So mom starts worrying, "What if my little frog never learns to be a good frog?!" she feels flushed and asks him to bring her some cool water. He brings her a pot of boiling water.

Then she starts to get really sick, like really really sick. He starts to notice he's an asshole around the time she's about to die. She knows this little punk is gonna do the opposite of whatever she says, so her dying request is to be buried by the river, and not on the mountain.

She dies, and the baby frog turns over and new leaf and finally listens to her. Wow, little late now. So, he buries her by the river. Later it starts to rain and rain and the river rises, putting the grave at risk of being washed away. Then the baby frog starts crying, an calling out "ribbit!".

Dark right? So the moral is, really, listen to your parents before it's too late. Which is crazy intense, so the more these guys get to understanding the story the more uncomfortable they get. Uggghhhh, what a downer.

Sorry, mum. I know this was me.
Mum: See, this says dr-
Niki: Yeah, but in kid-language it says galoof, so

National Pension Service Office in Ansan

Today's blog entry should partly serve to advise any other Ansan-based English teachers as to how to claim their pension.

I didn't have all the documents printed off, so I went to the Ansan Media Library by bike. The second floor is all English! It seems to be for the purpose of people studying to take English examinations. Those helpful people directed me to the third floor where I found the printers. One of the library works helped me to sign into the computer. From there I got the documents up on the computer and went to print them. It asks for a pin number which is actually one you just decide yourself. Take that pin to the printer, it asks you to pay, maybe 50 won per page, and then it prints. Easy.

Ansan Media Library there at the bottom.

The office itself is not where the city of Ansan English website says it is -5th floor Ocean Building 529-2 Gojan-dong Danwon-gu Ansan City. It is however, where the NPS website says it is -2th Floor, Samsung Fire Bldg.,Gwangdeok-daero 259 , Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do. That location is actually pretty easy to get to. I rode my bike from the media library but you could:

• take exit 1 from Jungang station, turn left and keep walking along the main road until you reach a large intersection with a boulevard, and take a right up to the Samsung Fire Building which will be on the left hand side of the road.

         or

• take exit 1 from Gojan station turn right and keep walking along the main road until you reach the large intersection, take a left and the Samsung Fire Building will be on the left hand side of the road.

The building is quite clear and you can see Samsung written in Korean. The website specifies that "You can find Ansan city hall and find Samsung Fire Building on your left across the Nonghyup Building. We are in the Samsung Fire Building on 2nd floor."

The office is on your right when you exit the elevator. It has no front desk so it helps to know why your there. To the left of the door when you enter is a table with forms for the lump-sum payment. Careful though, because the forms there are actually country specific. I filled mine for Uzbekistan, it turns out they keep Canada behind the counter. There are two cubicals with the word "foreigner" in English. You just kind of loiter around until their free -or return from lunch in my case. There's no line or take a number, but it's really not busy.

The woman who helped me spoke perfect English. I was curious if the money could be sent to my Canadian account or if it had to go to my Korean. I suspect the reason why some people never recieve their lump payments is because they put in their foreign bank but don't provide adequate information. I was equipped with more than enough info, thanks to my wonderful Mum being a bank manager. It's probably more guaranteed to go into a Korean account though, since the process is also less complicated. The form will also ask what currency to receive the payment in, I chose USD on the wise advice of my Mum. Since all currency converts through USD anyways, you loose the least on this.

You will need that banking information, your passport, your ARC, and a flight ticket proving that you are leaving the country within 30 days. The lump sum takes between 1 and 2 months to process after having left Korea. If you don't leave Korea, or you come back before it's paid, the application falls through.

Here's hoping mine survived.

Geumsunsa: Part II

Sure enough the sounds of chimes began to wake me up at 4:30am. I was not going to miss the meditation at 5am so I did my best to get ready. I did account for the slow climb down the stairs, which is a result of the pain in my knees from the 108 prostrations from the day before.

The morning meditation is the best because your mind is so ready to go right back to sleep. After the monk's guided meditation, I stayed to do some more before breakfast.

Breakfast was another vegetarian treat, this one a bit more quiet and relaxing than the previous night's dinner.

Then we had some time to clean up the room. Cooperative labor is a big part of Buddhist living. Originally it had been proposed to work together to clear the snow from the trail, but only a few were needed since the had been some melting this morning when the sun came out.

 

After tidying, we met with the monk for a sort of tea-time chat. She spoke about Buddhism and answered questions as we enjoyed cups of fresh green tea. The manner of drink the tea is unique since it is so much more than just drinking. First, the cup is held from the bottom with your hands wrapped around it to feel the full extent of its warmth. Next, it to smell and look at you tea before tasting it. Tea, like everything it Buddhism, is meant to be enjoyed with the full extent of one's senses.

Next, we made some Buddhist prayer beads and wrapped up for the day. We returned the comfy clothes and shoes, and passed back through the gate to enter the real world again.

I will miss that tranquil feeling.

I took the bus with my new translator friend to get some lunch and souvenirs in Insa-dong market. She was picking up her favourite Korean things to bring back to Germany, and I've been hunting down my last few things I wanted for my family and my travel board.

She introduced me to this really cool candy. I've never seen anything like this. You can hear my dumbfounded reaction in this video. It's a chunk of hard opaque honey. First he sprays some water on it and hits it against the counter to show that it's hard. Then he makes a little hole in the middle. Occasionally dusting the honey with corn starch he begins to stretch it out and loop it over itself. One loop, then two, then four -all the while he does the math on it! Finally he's left with 60,000 strings, almost like hair, that gets wrapped around some nuts. Watch the video and see for yourself!

I also stopped into a PC-bang, like an internet cafe for gaming computers, and printed some information for claiming my pension -which is tomorrow's adventure.

Geumsunsa: Part I

I wanted to leave with lots of extra time to get lost on my way to Geumsunsa temple. All my adventures, except one, have been on train or on foot. I trust the train, in the immortal words of Etienne, my Katimavik project leader, "If you get lost on the metro I will judge you" this was in regards to my biggest apprehension to working at Eco-Quartier was getting there using the metro and the bus -the metro is easy. Like the metro in Montreal, the trains in Seoul are very logical, there's lots of signs in multiple languages and maps everywhere. The bus has always been, once you're on it, better hope you got the right one. Or worse in Brisbane, unless you know exactly where your going you might not even know what stop it is since the stops are no visually displayed or called out. You can tell I put a lot of thought into this.

So here I am an hour early confident I have the right station and the right bus will come. I went into one of these multi-floor coffee shops that I love so much. I skyped to Michelle and Sarah over a green tea latte as the snow fell on the street outside.

When I finally decided now would be the time I got on the 7212 and crossed my fingers.
Good news:

• The payment system was easy, same card as the train
• The next stop was visually displayed and spoken out loud in Korean and English
• I got a seat

Bad news:

• The streets were basically empty so I wasn't confident about the estimate of my stop after 20 minutes
• The English and the Korean name of the stop was just slightly different from what I wrote down, but I go off anyways

I followed the signs up to the temple. First on the main road, and then on a smaller mountain path. No mum, you wouldn't want to come with me, because you wouldn't have made it, there was snow ice and huge rocky steps.

Odds are this trail is enchanted.

Eventually I got to the arch that, I now know, separates the human world from Buddha's world. Welcome to Geumsunsa temple.

That is snow, not rain.

Every step forward I expected to explain myself until I eventually met the man in charge of the temple stay program. He lead me to a room where I could relax until the programming started. Yes, even after hanging out at the coffee shop I was still about an hour early. There were also three dogs acting as a welcoming party.

HELLO!

When the programming did start, I was the only foreigner. I got little translation after the Korean, but I was feeling like a bit of an inconvenience. We got given special shoes and clothes to wear and we were guided to our rooms. At first it was just two of us in the room but over the next 30 minutes my room became four of us. I'm so happy that actually everyone spoke some English and really included me in everything we did.

I was particularly lucky since one woman was actually an English translator and even though she was just a participant she agreed to translate the explanations for me!

The clothes were super comfy! Basically a padded vest and padded pants.

More and more people arrived, most likely delayed by the snow, and now I wasn't the only foreigner! A family from Mexico came to the temple as they travelled Korea to visit with their sun who was working in Malaysia. It's a globalising world when a Korean monk speaks a Korean (who has been living in Germany) translates to English for a Canadian and three Mexicans (one living in Malaysia) and one of the Mexicans turns to another to translate that into Spanish! 

I felt really lucky to be there during the snow, it was incredibly beautiful. Like nothing I have ever seen. The temple in the snow was just a gift for your eyes to unwrap as you walked around.

Included in the programming was a tour where we learned some history of the temple. It's from before the Joseon Dynasty so were looking at early-mid 14th century. The Buddhism here is distinct as it has been blended with cultural Korean spiritualism. Even one temple on the sight has other gods from the original religious deities in Korea. At the far North end there's a mountain spring where you can drink directly from it! ..and it is the most delicious water I have had since I left Vancouver.

We each got an opportunity to ring the large ceremonial bell. Bells in Korean culture are a bit different (or we're different). Instead of having hanging metal inside to clang against the inner wall, a suspended log swings into it from the outside. The result is a deeper drum sound the hums long as a opposed to a more harsh metal sound. I think people would be less inclined to complain about Korean bells.

We had a wonderful vegetarian dinner with plenty of mushrooms! People who know me probably know I love mushrooms. In Canada and Australia you're pretty limited on what kind of mushrooms you can buy. Most supermarkets have the conventional button mushroom, and if their really daring maybe a portabello. If you've found anything else you are probably in an Asian grocery store. Oh rambling me, these mushrooms are delicious, that's what I'm trying to say.

Everyone does their own dishes, cause it's a Buddhist temple, you gotta pull your weight.

In the evening we got a chance to humble ourselves. That is to practice the 108 prostrations. A prostration is a full bow. Hands touching as if you've stopped mid-clap in front of your chest. Bowing down at the waist. Bringing your knees to the floor. Then hands out on the floor and head down to the floor. Hands turned up as if to offer everything you have, raise them, bring them back to the floor. Then get up and do the whole thing another 107 times. The purpose of the prostrations is really to humble yourself in front of Buddha.

I felt great after the whole thing. I did however feel a lot of pain in my knees later.

Later on we did some meditation. I had actually started down twenty minutes of meditation every morning from September to early December. Originally leaving my physical body idle left my mind to work twice as hard.

"Oh! You know what you should do after you're done sitting. Because that's all you're doing, sitting. How about catching up on your blog, hmm? Or learning some Korean already?? Hey, you, if you're done sitting how about figuring out where the jjimjilbang in Ansan is?"

or worse,

"Remember when you said that thing that was offensive and someone called you out on it? Hmm, yeah it was like five years ago, but everyone remembers. And they even call each other like every other week and laugh about it. Yeah, you messed up."

I got better with time. The whole purpose of meditation is rest. They reminded us that there is no goal to meditation, meditation is the goal -if done properly, you finish relaxed. It's all about living in the present, not like a Carpe Diem thing, but a this very second. Not once I've finished meditating, and certainly not in the past, but now, right now. My favourite trick is to think of what are some simple things I find please to each sense. Watching water flow. The smell of cedar. The sound of a crackling fire. The feeling of walking on soft sand. The taste of really cold water. I rotate through them if I'm stuck on a thought that is not in the present. I don't know how long it went for but the meditation was really effective. I was super mellow afterwards.

Before going to bed I went with my new translator friend to drink that cold mountain water. I am going to crave that taste of no taste. Water like that is just refreshing, no flavour.

Before going to bed we shared some real green tea, easily the best I've ever had. It was an incredibly memorable and powerful day.

Inside-urday

It was freezing cold and the streets were empty.

Usually I hear all the cars as they drive by, but today there was almost none. All the way down the long main roads of a city with over a million people, and only a couple of cars.

It was really eerie.

I took Saturday to be productive and get a real head start on.... nah, I played Pokemon.

I played Pokemon Sun under the cover of my electric blanket sipping on the stew I made yesterday.

It was heaven.

Stew Friday

My first day of the long weekend, so naturally it was lazy.

It's not like there was a lot I could do. The city is basically deserted because of the holiday.

The only thing I left the house for was to get some groceries. I was told they would be closed, so I was very relieved to find out they were still open. I bought all the ingredients for a stew that should feed me for the coming days.

So really, staying in and making stew was my day.

Seollal: Lunar New Year

It's the year of the rooster! Although that seems to be interpreted as year of the chicken here...

The morning was dedicated to a New Years party for the kindergarteners. Everyone got dress up in the traditional Hanbok -myself included- and we played some traditional games.

Most important is the game of tug-o-war. As I had experienced at Chuseok, you can't let them win, in fact we probably can't win. I speak of course on teachers vs students. You wouldn't think it, but collectively they can over power us -but it was close.

Similar to Chinese New Year, Korean Seollal has a tradition of lucky pouches. These are those special red envelopes given by the elder to the younger. So this time I was on the giving side. Better yet, I got to be the mean teacher. When everyone else was giving them candy, I gave the a pencil.

It turns out they loved them, which kind of spoiled my plan. I was hoping they would use them at school since these pencil have erasers and theirs at school do not. So much classtime is taken up by "'Raysssser, please!!!!", Then they get all ashamed because everyone knows they made a mistake. These pencils have sneaky little erasers on them! But, now they're probably decoratively sitting at home.

Oh well, maybe next year.

Monthly Test Day!

An Easy day for me, but not so much for them, is a monthly test day.

I mostly just distribute the test and answer the odd question. The questions I most often receive are things like:

"'similar' is what?"

"the same"

"oh! okay"


"'college' is what?"

"that's a vocabulary word, you need to know that"

*long hopeful stare that I will tell them anyways*


"'Mark' is what?"

"A name"

"..."

"From the story we read"

"...ahhhh!"


"How many sentences?"

"Well the other class wrote ten, and you are older, so I'm hoping you can do more than ten."

*look of fierce determination*


I think one of my students actually got perfect. What a day!

Bun Island

We started the day with an incredibly simple art project. The idea is that this bun on a plate is somehow an island in a sea -it takes some imagination. Then our job is to make a little flag to plant in our island.

It's basically a practical course in colonisation for children.

Make a flag, plant that flag, the island is now yours.

It's basically how they got Dok-do.

I made a mash up of the Canadian flag and the Korean flag. The kids mostly did something similar. One student made a flag with Korea on  one side and China on the other (symbolic of trade relations, clearly). Then one girl made a flag for "West Korea" after the video we watched showed the flags of North Korea and South Korea. Like that's what we need in this country, more social divisions?? C'mon. Then one just made like a green version of a Canadian flag (must be a young legalisation activist). I enjoyed this craft the most.

I also did some new posters in the afternoon with my older elementary class. They were supposed to be informational posters about our school, I did one about Griffith as an example. It's very childish, but I think it has some charm to it.

Cute, right?

Gotta Catch 'em All

As with most of my Sundays, I spent this one in Ansan.

I Skyped the family in the morning (love you) and went out on my bike in the afternoon. My sole intention was to get a small stuffed Bulbasuar to go with my Charmander and Squirtle. That's Pokemon, Grandma and Grandpa. Twenty years later and I'm still going on about Pokemon.

I went to Jungang were I visited over 10 different claw machine arcades. First I found one with Amber's favourite Pokemon, Sylveon.

I managed to use the claw to just knock one into the hole, then I used the grabbed on another one, which failed. I did the same thing later which one me a Cubone with my last 1000 won. That lady behind me nearly screamed.

I also found another game nearby with Bulbasaurs. I went to win one, but three tumbled into the hole, so I guess I have three.

Seoulmate: Sacrifice For the Independence - Seodaemun Prison Tour

This kind of marks me doing every Seoulmate tour. The exception being the some of the special event tours and ones that aren't offered anymore.

Today's tour was all about the Korean patriots who fought for independence during Japanese colonial rule. The prison was where far too many of them wound up, and some even died in there. It's almost like a Korean Auschwitz.

Here's the veiew from inside the complex. The snow definitely made it seem eerier.

Prisons lived could be confinded to cells the size of closets. The regular cells were not much bigger. The toilet was basically just a hole that drained to the outside like so.

When it came time for outdoor exercise, the prison keepers were not kind. The area is divided so that prisoner can not talk to each other. Because actually they were never allowed to speak.

They could all be watched from on elevated platform.

The work inside the prisons was a similar story to other prisons. They made bricks. It reminded first of touring the old colonial prisons in Tasmania. The prisoners in both stamped the bricks to symbolise the owner of their labor. Oddly enough it also reminded me of seeing the museum in Singapore where Australian troops held as P.O.W. worked making bricks. In a symbol of resistence they stamped bricks with the symbol for the Queen. Which is also kind of ironic because they're Australian. Here's the symbol of the capital city, stamped on each brick.

Unlike the Australian prisons, men and women were both kept in this facility. There were a lot of women in the prison to. Some were directly involved in the movement, others arrested for cooking for their husband and his friends who were part of the movement. If you needed a hero it would be Yu Gwansun. She's known as Korea's Joan of Arc. She was only 16 when she got arrested for her involvement in trying to overthrow the colonial government. A year after she was arrested, her and the other women in her cell began yelling slogans for an independent Korea. Remember of course that no one was speaking at this prison.  So, like Joan of Arc, she was killed.

The excution area is probably the most heart wrenching. The walls are so high that the area is always dark. Two trees were planted on either side of the wall at the same time. So one got less sunlight, you can easily tell which on is the "sad tree".

That tree has seen things.

The execution area was intense, but no as intense as the torture area. This is where that whole Auschwitz comparison can come in. The were many forms of torture. Being with interrogation you could hear the people in isolation screaming in nearby rooms. They did waterboarding, but worse, sewage and hot pepper was added to the water. Needles jammed under finger nails. A box with sharpened wooden needles jutting out from the walls, and then it was shaken. Closets, like a tight fit coffin, where you would have no room to move. Experimenting and worse. All modern day war crimes and human rights violations.

The difference being that trials were held to keep perpetrators accountable, and punish them accordingly. Here, that didn't happen. In fact most Korean's will tell you Japan never apologized to Korea for these atrocities. Some will tell you the Japan denies wrong doing and even tries to cover up historical records on the abuses.

Dark, dark history.

Putting the tours together you can appreciate that now is the best period of living in Korea. There were warring kingdoms, that then unified under the Joseon dynasty -that fought off further attacks. Then came the Japanese occupation, and the resulting independence movement only stoked a civil war. Ironically, Koreans will tell you colonial Japan modernised Korea, but Korea hold the title for most modernised country in North Asia. 

Now is the best time to be in Korea.

Friday Snowfall

I really stared blankly out the window on Friday morning. I was beyond my comprehension that it had snowed over night. It had dusted snow a couple of times, but this was proper snow -like lots of it.

I thought to myself "hmm, streets haven't been plowed yet," then "do they get plowed".

Answer: Pretty sure they don't. Or at least not this time.

The car drove over the busiest roads so much that the snow turned to black slush.

The sidewalks were different. In North Van we have something like 24 hours after to snowfall to shovel the sidewalk in front of our houses. Here it felt kind of optional. That and the existence of snowshovels could also be debated. That being said, I didn't see anyone using shovels. Instead their were sweeping. Yeah. With brooms.

Culture shock.

Girl Teacher?

This week the kindergartners have been learning about forces, pushing and pulling, in science.

The experiment today was to loop a rope through a gift bag filled with small items, then loop that rope around the back of two chairs facing away from each other creating a pulley system.

Students had to experiment by pushing the rope away, and pulling the rope towards them. The goal was to see which is faster.

It's kind of interesting since I wasn't exactly sure what the outcome would be. Intially I thought pulling might be faster, but then isn't the power pretty much the same, so could they just be the same?

I didn't account for three things:

1. The backs of the chairs didn't have a gap to string rope through
2. Our rope was three karate belts tied together, the knots kept getting stuck
3. Some students didn't know how to push the rope away, so the push took longer because I had to stop them from pulling

One student had a birthday party today since his mom had purchased a large cake to share with his class. Basically every student noticed and ask why they didn't get a cake on their birthday.

I heard one student, in the first time English speaker class, had been speaking to his mom about our school. She wanted to get a feel for how he was doing. She asked him if he was having fun and he said he liked Niki Teacher's class the best! Yay!

Then mom asked if Niki Teacher was a girl teacher or a boy teacher. Fair question, Niki is a pretty gender neutral name. Apparently he responded with "I don't know." I actually thought it was kind of funny.

One of the kindergartners asked me a couple months ago if I was a girl. It sounded kind of mean the way she asked but when I said yes she smiled and said quietly "me too." It was like it was a secret or something -I guess it is to some of them.

Good Sportsmanship

We decided to add shaking hands to the gym routine.

The students had it show up in a lesson and it occured to me that they had never seen it before -afterall shaking hands isn't even that common here. But since everyone seems to think these North American traditions are kind of cute we figured it would be a welcomed addition.

That and my class gets very invested in who wins and who loses. For the students, the biggest insult you can throw at anyone is threatening to not play with them. Almost every class, someone ends up crying because their team lost. It's getting way out of hand.

So we awkwardly lined up the two teams and had them shake hands. Next week I want to get them to start saying "good game" to each other. It should curb some of the post-game attitude.

If I Was A Teacher...

I recall taking medicine as a kid and tell mum I would grow up and become a scientist and invent medicine that doesn't taste bad.

I aslo recall saying if I was going to be a teacher I wouldn't be strict at all.

One of my classes today (I only teach them one subject, two classes a week) had the word strict as a vocabulary word. It was even used in the context of a teacher. Since we usually talk about the word to gain the understanding I had them  rank their teachers from most strict to least strict.

Guess who was the least strict? The teacher who marks their books with pictures of Pokemon if they are well behaved.

Debate?

I love teaching debate. It's probably tied with social studies for my favourite subject to teach.

It's a bit weird with the highschool students in the evening because for a whole bunch of weird reason we only have one student in each class. Debate really doesn't work with one person. The textbook is actually looking for at least six, so...

And no, that whole argue against the teacher thing is a disaster.

We're just going through building arguments so it doesn't matter yet, but until we get a proper class together we can't really have a debate.

Someday...

Charmander

I had several wonderful Skype calls on Sunday. It was a good way to pass a cold day, since almost no sane person would leve the house.

It addition to the calls I did leave the house because I'm insane. I had intended to buy grocery but ended up going itno an arcade and winning two stuffed Charmander. Next weekend I'm going to go find me a Bulbasaur.

Seoulmate: Walking Along the King's Road - Gyeongbokgung Tour

It was a private tour today!

Temperatures plumetted this weekend to minus 16. So most people didn't even leave there house. The streets were almost empty and there were lots of free seats on the train.

It was so cold that the other people didn't even come for the tour!

Haha, no loss for me, it gave me a chance to ask all sorts of extra questions.

This is the third time I'm been to the palace but the first proper tour I've had of the whole place.

Same with the palace museum. I didn't really check it out too much since they didn't off the English tour during the Chuseok holiday.

So here's some highlights..

This it the entrance exam to become a Korean bureaucrat. It's all in Chinese because Chinese writing was seen as the more traditional writing, while Korean writing was for commoners. Stranger still because the language is Korean, not Chinese, but it's written using Chinese characters. Sort of like using the English alphabet to write Arabic words. It can be done, but it's not as accurate or culturally unique.

This is the throne for the King of the Joseon Dynasty. The king's name tells you a little bit about him. A king's name ending in "jo" took power, probably violently. A "jong" inherited his royality from his dad. A 'gun' had the throne stolen from him (probably by one of those 'jo's). So if someone goes to steal your throne he might just be jo-king. Get it?

This is, I think, the room where the king meets with his advisors. I do know for sure that this is one of the only rooms that has not been resore. You can see the original paint -it's faded a bit over time.

This site is where parties would be held for foreign dignitaries. The water around it follows a theme of lets-make-sure-this-does-not-burn. There were two statues of water dragons sunken in there believed to portect the place from burning. There are also two four-footed dragons at the palace gate, protecting it from fire. And most buildings have two gaint blue water containers incase of, you got it, fire. All this preparation for fire, and they lost it to Japanese invasion.

It's hard to even think about fire when it's so damn cold.

Speaking of Japanese invasion, this is the site where the queen was killed, or kidnapped, pretty sure killed. My memory is far from perfect on this.

The Joseon Dynasty last from the late 1300s right up until Japanese colonisation of the late 1800s. Sadly, Korea's history has been very chaotic. When the Japanese came, they tried to destroy every aspect of Korean culture. What survived the occupation was again put at risk during the civil war. Now today's Korea puts so much effort into restoring and maintaining its history.

After the tour I got some of my favourite spicy tofu soup with the Seoulmates.

I quickly rushed home to find it was less that 10 degrees inside my apartment.

I turned the heating on, and the electric blanket.

Hagwons: Gotta Attend 'em All

My older elemnetary class has started a new unit this week and it's all about comparing schools in other countries. This group of students is particularily bright and we can usually just converse about a lot of the new topics that come up, but this one was most interesting to me since I'm so curious about their school life.

These students only come three days a week, I'm their only teacher at our school, but how many schools do they go to?

Our reading came to a section on going to school after school. In my life these are known as after school programs if I think really hard I did:
-Art
-Swimming
-Skating
-Circus trampoline
-Aerial silks
-Roller hockey
-T-ball
-Soccer
-Girl Guides
-Guitar lessons
-Extra help with reading
-Extra help with French

But that was spaced out over the course of twelve years. I don't think I ever did more than three at once.

When I ask what other after school programs they go to the first answer was a lugh followed by "All."

All the students, except one, had a standard set of Piano, English, Taekwondo, Swimming, Soccer, Math, and personal tutoring. Then there were some special one. Painting class, robotics school, some even sound fun right? So basically they go to school and after school they have three or four schools to go to after. The girl who said all told me that she would go home after our class, which finishes at 5:45pm, and have an hour of private tutoring before going to bed. Two of the other students said they were jealous of that since they keep going until 9:30pm. 10pm is the legal cut-off, there are no classes to be taught after 10pm.

This story is actually a really common one here. Writing about this is like writing that milk is white, "yeah, we know." But it occurs to me that my outside-of-Korea audience might find this interesting.

Check out this article. 83% of five year olds are going to academies, and even children as young as two are getting tutoring. It's basically the opposite of Finland's education.

Sledding and Chinese Food

The morning was spent on a field trip to do some "snow sledding".

When we asked what the plan for the fieldtrip was the director had asked if we had heard of snow sledding before. Sensing it could be a Korea-moment and not be what I'm familar with I asked for clarification. Yup, it's sledding. I just figured the snow was implied.

I used my new snowpants again (they' paid themselves off now), and joined the students on the hill. It was a unique experience.

The tow was actually a large conveyor belt at an incline (almost like a flat escalator). At the top there were designated lanes for sledding. The sleds were plastic-bottomed inner tubes. So really, I guess it was snow tubing?

Once everyone was ready to go they would actually blow a whistle and all lanes would go at once, and the next set could not go until the bottom was clear. It was very ... structured. A bit off putting if I had been a kid there. I love the freedom of  free ranged tobogganing at Kilmer Park, no line ups or whistles, and maybe even a jump or two.

But still, I had three good runs with some students. I thought they might be scared to go alone (some were) but actually most just realized you go faster with the teacher.

The kids however did love it.

We breaked for a snack and headed back to the school exhausted. So exhausted that we turned on movies for the kids after lunch instead of teacher to the regular schedule, so that everyone could relax a bit.

It meant I actually only taught three lessons that day. Debate, which is fun, social studies, which is fun, and the last class of my day is really just structured play time in English, so fun.

After work we welcomed a new Korean teacher with a delicious meal of Chinese food. Tasty black bean noodles, sweet and sour pork, and even a dish with jelly fish in it! I felt a little unethical eating the jellyfish since my friends know I make a real effort to befriend the jellies as I suspect they could one-day be our overlords or just in charge of the afterlife.

Phonics Focus

I've been so wrapped up in the whole Michelle leaving thing that I forgot to mention how well my classes did on their December monthly test!

My younger elementary student classs: 96%, 92%, 92%, 85%, and 85%. I was so proud of them.

I had actually seen how bad their phonics scores were (and all their scores really), back in October and I said thought, let's start with getting phonics up. They were doing long and short a sounds and we talked about them all the time. But the test came and used words we hadn't gone over.

So the next month I made practice sheets using the words from the book and we practiced s blends; st, sl, sw, sh, sp. Then sure enough they scored really high on the test.

So during December I tried to get that across for all the subjects, and bam, good results.

Wednesdays are phonics days and they've quickly become a favourite since everyone feels really confident with them. Here we go with long and short 'o' sounds!

Social Studies Class

Every Tuesday and Thursday I teach social studies -which is one of my favourite classes to teach.

I'm told a lot of the students also say it's their favourite class.

The textbook we use is as American as apple pie. Todays lesson touched on national heros and celebrating them, examples included Martin Luther King and George Washington.

I wanted to give the students a little more background information since they used the word "colonization" without really explaining it. Since I had previous given them country themed nicknames we used them to discuss who colonised who.

The boy who was England used to be in charge of some other students, like the girl who was the US and the girl who was Canada. The girl who was Japan did the same to the boy who was Korea. The boy who was France also did the same to the girl who was Canada.

They found this quite funny.

To get more international-relations-y with it, we went over attitudes inclaiming independence. The girl playing US acted out a little skit like "You're not the boss of me! I'm the boss of me! Hmmph!", then the Canada girl was like, "France, England, I think I can do this by myself, still friends, right?", then the South Korea boy was more like "Go away!!" to the Japan girl. They had lots of fun with it.

The girl who played the US told me she wanted to do it again where she could have the colonies. I told her that the US did have colonies, and still does have some! She was really interested and asked me to show them to her on the map.

I love that these kids are gonna be geography geeks by the time I'm through with them.

More map enthusiasts like us, right grandpa?

A Blur and A Shell

I had to say "see you later" to Michelle this morning. Her flight was a 4pm, but I started work at 9am. I couldn't give her enough hugs and kisses to satistfy either of us. We were sort of lingering around the door of my apartment. Then I got in the elevator.

The rest of the day feels like a bit of a blur.

I was so exhausted from all the tears. I just kept my head down and my desk until it was time to go to the classroom. This was my first day I really didn't want to teach. I also didn't want to go back to the apartment where everything would remind me that Michelle has left.

I was just a shell of my regular self. I apolgized to the director since I admitted to feeling so out of it. Lucky for me, for their own reason, the other teachers mostly felt the same way.

I just keep trying to distract myself with everything at my disposal, but I just feel a rock in my stomach about this whole thing.

Even now, I know that the blog is my distraction. I really just hope I can wake up feeling better.

Michelle's Last Day

I think you ought to know I cried. Not all day, but just periodically.

It was really a continuation of Saturday, we didn't leave the house, we just got things in order.

I feel really lucky to have had Michelle come here. All the fun I've had in Korea up until her arrival I just couldn't shake the feeling that I wanted her to see this and experience this. I had jokes ready that only she would get, I want to do things that would be best done with her, it felt incomplete this out my partner in crime.

When she got her I immediately started to see Korea as a totally different place. I felt renergised to do things and to get out and see more of the city. I felt welcome in more places, and I felt happier returning to places I'd already been with Michelle. She is my dream travel companion. 

I feel content with my time in Korea now that I have experienced it with Michelle. I wish I could keep her here, but she does still have two semesters of university to go.

I just keep thinking to myself...

But, I'm also going to cry some more.

Snooze

As you could guess we spent most of Saturday sleeping off the night before.

I don't think I even left the apartment, but I still had over 18,000 steps on my fitbit.

We watched movies and cuddled. The theme of these last few days is to appreciate one another's company as much as possible.

But also some packing and cleaning.

A Gay Night Out

I apologize to any family members reading this where it makes you at all uncomfortable, but I think this is important to write about.

After work Michelle and I took the train to Hongdae, a notorious party district. We were aiming to go to one of Seoul's actual women-only lesbian bars. It's quite unique since South Korea is split pretty much 50-50 on whether or not homosexuality is completely morally wrong, and here there are actual women-only spaces. Stranger still, that countries with good stance on queer right usually don't have places like this -possibly because they want people to feel welcome at any bar. I also feel as though my generation of lesbians is more inclined to do away with the gender binary altogether, so admitting only women would reinforce structuring society are concepts of gender. But we wanted to see this first hand, since it might just become a relic of the past, or remain as a place made possible out of both pride and shame.

We first went to Paul's Kitchen. I have been once before. It's more of a pub style, good food and drinks. It's owned by two women who named the place after their dog. We ate there as to not arrive to early to the bar -since Koreans love to be out late, late, late.

It was really had to find, as most places are. This one had an added level of secrecy since they probably wanted to shy away from any signs indicating their clientel. It's accessible by elevator on the 8th floor of a pretty non-descript retail building on a main road.We arrived at ten. The lady at the desk asked for our IDs. Reflecting on this, we determined it was probably more to see if we were government certified women, and not really bothering with the drinking age.

When we got in it just looked like a plane bunker with a big DJ podium, a raised area full of reserved tables, a dance floor in the middle and a bar opposite the DJ podium. Oh and five people cause "Fridays are slow." We were advised to come back around midnight.

Leaving the club, we went to do what comes more naturally. We might not be night-life kind of people, but we certainly know are way around arcades. SO we toured four different arcades in the area before coming back just after midnight.

In the elevator we talked to a woman who expressed how she was thankful to find some English speakers. Michelle asked where she was from and the woman replied with Sweden, and just like that we all abandoned English for a bit.

Sure enough, it was packed. I then understood why they were checking IDs at the door, so many Korean lesbians just appeared as young boys. There were also plenty of people smoking inside, which didn't surprise me too much.

I could go into great detail with all the people we met, and how we moved around the venue, and whatever, but it's not really too important. What did strike me was how people we so excited about me and Michelle. Not for being foreign (we got a bit of that), but for being together. They wanted to know how we met, how long we've been together, who confessed their love frst (Koreans are dramatic like that), everything. One particulary drunk girl was sort of crying out to the universe asking for a relationship like ours before we helped her into a cab.

The whole experience made me thankful first of all, for Michelle. I am incredibly fortunate to find a person who has all the same interess as me, and a perfectly compatible life and attitude. But I was also thankful for my safety. I mean, I wouldn't call Australia queer-friendly by any means, but it's only the strange few who would go out of their way to make you feel rotten about yourself. In Korea, that's the majority of people, and the historically and culturally dominant opinion. I like that I could tell people that my mum met Michelle when she came to my graduation. They would be shocked, and then blissful that a world exists whee you can be out and accepted just like that. Thanks mum, you're a star.

We stuck around the bar until about 4am, they closed at 5am, but our aim was to get the first train heading back home. We hungout in a 24 hour cafe to warm up and wait for the subway. They don't run all night, the first on departs just after 5am.

On the train my morning alarm went off and it occured to me that I had been awake now for over 24 hours. Wow.

There was something surreal about passing by the school as the sun came up and going to bed after my second wake-up alarm.