Philippines!!!

This summer vacation, 3 Canadian friends and myself decided to head to the Philippines for a quick 11-day vacation. We stayed 2 nights in Manila and then we stayed 9 nights on Boracay island. Boracay island has been consistently rated the number 1 beach in the world and after staying there for 9 nights I can understand why. The beach was phenomenal! Powdery white sand with gorgeous crystal blue water that was absolutely perfect for swimming, snorkeling or just swimming around in. But, starting from the beginning..

In the Incheon airport we met a dude from Texas who told us he had a house in the Philippines and being the rubes that we are and doing little to no research before we went we asked him where we should stay in Manila. We took his advice and stayed at a hotel on the street in which he claimed to be the best in Manila…

First off, once we got into the taxi in Manila, it was an immediate culture shock… just some of the buildings, some of the living conditions we saw and all of the prostitution and drugs that were offered to us was just a complete culture shock and quite an eye opener.

So Manila was gross and we were able to dodge the Viagra and prostitutes. 2 nights in Manila felt like an eternity but I’m glad we did it just to get the experience. It also really opens your eyes and makes you realize that it’s out there. Growing up in the Midwest you don’t really come across many situations like that. There were also a lot of kids coming out of the woodwork to beg and pester foreigners for change. That’s also quite eye opening. Kids tugging on your arm, wearing tattered clothes asking for change is quite powerful. I also saw a few mothers, as skinny as a bean pole, breastfeeding in public asking for change as well… powerful stuff.

So we headed off to part two of our trip, Boracay Island. It normally is an adventure getting to anyways, but it was raining at the airport we were suppose to land at so we had to land at an airport on the other side of the island and take a bus to the original airport which ended up being about a 2 ½ hr bus ride which was an unfortunate kink in our plan. Just to give you an idea of what we had to do to get there was we had to take a plane from Manila to Caticlan, except it was raining in Caticlan so we were dropped off at a mystery airport on the other side of the island and bussed to Caticlan, after we got to Caticlan we had to take a taxi, which is just a small motorcycle with a makeshift side car, to the port in which we were then brought to Boracay. Once on Boracay we had to take another taxi to the beach where we wanted to stay.

Once we finally got to the place where we wanted to stay we bargained with the lady at the front desk and got her down to the Paso equivalent of $9 a night, per person. Overall Boracay was beautiful! The beach was phenomenal but there were other aspects of the island that were much less plensent like all of the vendors on the island trying to sell you a jet skiing, parasailing or atv’ing experience which got quite annoying but overall the beach and the entire experience was unforgettable !!!

World Cup Fever!

This weekend was the beginning of the world cup… Which is a big soccer tournament for those reading this that are in the states and don’t know what the world cup is! I had a few friends that I went to school with come down for Seoul for the weekend as well so it was nice to have some familiar faces around as well. Even though I’m sure it was probably much more crazy in Seoul than it was in Daegu, Daegu still did well for us! I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life! It was insane! There was a huge celebration complemented by fireworks at the start of South Korea’s first game. The park that we decided to go to was literally packed with people… literally. I’ve never seen that many people packed into that big of an area before. We got there a half hr before the game started and we were WAY too late. I heard of a few people who got there 2 hrs early and still couldn’t find a seat. Looking over the sea of red you notice beer being consumed, kimbob being eaten and red horns that light up on top of heads. It was quite the sight. We had a small hill the we deemed ours but it wasn’t that great of a spot because you couldn’t see the game, so we decided to trek over and try and find a seat closer where you might actually be able to see the game. Unsuccessful. It’s hard to imagine being in a park, with one absolutely enormous projection and two smaller one’s set up on the sides and still not being able to see a thing but that’s literally what was happening. The people on the edges, who couldn’t see, opted to watch on handheld TV’s or find nearby stores, coffee shops or bars that were broadcasting the game, which wasn’t hard to find because any and every bar that had a TV was broadcasting the game.

Korea defeats Greece 2-0! The scene was wild in downtown Daegu as well. There were people driving cars slowly, packed with people, front back and most of the cars had the trunk open with 2-3 people sitting in back, chanting the Korean equivalent of (U! S! A!). The USA team played England that night as well, but with the time difference it wasn’t being aired till 3:30 in the morning Korean time so needless to say ALL of the brits and many American’s conjugated to a place downtown that was big enough to fit everyone. There was quite a bit of shit talking before during and after the game but in the end it was a draw, another exciting game of soccer… but the comradery was great and everyone was there for a good time so it was a blast! All in all, besides a few breaks for food, we were out and about from 5 in the afternoon till 6 in the morning! It was a bit disheartening walking out of the bar at 5:30 in the morning and seeing the sun. Never a good feeling. Anyways, the weekend was a blast and I think my friends had a great time as well!

Buddha's B-Day and New Co Teacher.

Thursday afternoon we headed to the bus station after work, we had Friday off because of Buddha’s birthday so we decided to take a little trip and get away for a while. Some 13 friends and I decided to head to Sunyudo Island off the west coast of Korea. It was phenomenal! We had a private ferry from Gunsan to Sunyudo as well as transportation from Gunsan to the ferry which of course was not free but still very convenient, much more convenient than if we had taken the public route.

Friday was gorgeous. Partly cloudy and about 74 when we arrived on what looked like was a half deserted island. It seemed fairly barren and there was only one undersized, family ran convenience store near our beach house, which sold the essentials, and what we lived on for the next two days – Hite beer, and ramen noodles. The ‘downtown’ was composed of about a dozen stores and a couple restaurants scattered in the middle. Despite the tiny population of the island it had some of the best and most picturesque natural beauty I had ever seen. Like I said, it was unpopulated and despite the pedestrian paths, a handful of shops and a few restrooms scattered throughout, it was relatively undeveloped – it was exactly what you would think a traditional Korean island might look like.

Once we threw our bags down and claimed our rooms we decided to rent some bikes and explore the island. The bike rental place rented out single and double seater bikes as well as some small mopeds. $9 per bike for the entire day and needless to say I had to hop on a double seater to start the day! It was intense. I was seated on the back and I was controlling more of the bike than the person steering which turned out to be an adventure. We almost died about a handful of times, which ended up foreshadowing an event to come… But it was difficult to control because the roads were so curvy and Koreans ride bike significantly slower than I was used to. Anyways, once we got to the ‘downtown’ area, which was conveniently located near where you access the beach, we threw our bikes down and headed out to explore. As we were biking down to the beach access area we were passing by Korean families and westerners alike grilling and drinking beer along the beachside and underneath some hard to come by shade. It was beautiful and a well needed getaway from the busy workweek. There was a rocky area that leaded to another VERY small island which besides the small hiking path connecting one end of the other and a few empty beers bottles, it looked like we were the first people to ever step foot on the island. After we hung out on the tiny island for a bit longer and had a couple more beers we decided we needed some food.

On our way back to the main island there were small pods of Koreans, hovering around small patches of the beach shouting like they were watching a horse race. As we got closer, we noticed they were pulling back areas of the beach with a deformed shovel that exposed numerous small holes hidden underneath. At first glance they looked like tiny little holes that would never excite anybody, but after we watched for a bit we noticed they were pouring salt from a small Dixie cup on top of these holes, waiting a few seconds and grabbing what looked to be another life form popping up from underground. It was intense! And a team effort as well. One person was controlling the shovel, while one person had the salt and there were maybe two or three people plucking because the window of opportunity to grab these slimy little bastards was quite small. I’m ashamed to say it, but it was quite scary. The first time I tried to grab one, it slipped through my fingers and as it did I took a quick three steps back and screamed like a little girl. It was weird; I knew I wasn’t going to catch it. I was thinking in my head, “I know I’m not going to catch this and it’s going to scare the shit out of me!” I think my anticipation of being scared made me more scared and it just kind of blew up all at once. It was actually quite embarrassing. I take a look around and ALL of my friends are grabbing them like it’s their job and I’m literally the only one who hadn’t caught one yet. So, I give it another try, crack the shell, and then throw it in the bucket where the rest of the snails were being kept. Apparently it’s worthless if the shell is cracked but I threw it in anyways and hung up my snail catching jersey for the day. I THINK it was a snail anyways. It was a long and narrow (about the size of 2 new pencils put next to each other). It was quite strange.

I decided to take a nap slightly earlier than the people I was with, so I stole a single seater bike and headed back to the beach house. On my way back on the narrow, curved and ever so crowded road I took a bit of a spill. I was flying past families because everyone rides a bicycle in Korea like they had literally just taken training wheels off yesterday. It was so slow I couldn’t handle it. So I’m flying past families, children, old people and as I’m heading down a fairly steep decline I see a family coming around the bend so I, for some reason, decided to only slam on one break instead of easing into the break or ideally, using both breaks… remember, I had been drinking, I wanted to get out of the sun and I could feel that nap a mile away. ANYWAYS, the right handles break turns out to control the front break instead of the back break, which is how bikes are designed back home. Soooo, the front tire locks up and I superman over the handle bars, but don’t worry, my face and entire left side of my body, which was being protected by an ultra thin basketball jersey, broke my fall. I remember my face hitting the pavement and the next thing I remember is that Korean family, whom I was trying to avoid, is now up in my face, I think asking me if I’m okay in Korean. I get away from the concerned mob, bike the 3 minutes back to the beach house and take the most painful shower of my life. That was Friday; I still had to tough it out for Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday which turned out to be the most terrible two and a half days ever because I couldn’t sleep because of my arm and every shirt I put on would be instantly ruined because of the light yellow ooze coming from my arm.

It was actually quite fascinating how little I knew about first aid after this debacle, and how much everyone else thought they knew. “You need to wash it Mayo, it’s gonna get infected if you don’t” says person number 1. “You can’t put water on it, that just makes the yellow stuff come out and increases chances of infection” says person number 2. I didn’t really know what to do so I just kind of humored everyone and took the least painful routs of everyone’s advice. Surprisingly it didn’t get infected and I never had to amputate my arm so all is well. I thought I got stares before this accident for being a foreigner … now I had a black and blue eye and yellow ooze coming from my arm… people are literally terrified of me!

Back in school all is well and not much new… I’m actually getting a new co teacher, which I’m pretty bummed about because I get along really well with the one I have now and she has really helped me out with a lot of documentation crap that needs to be done seemingly every week. She also speaks really good English and I can communicate with her really well, much better than any other teacher at my school. Anyways, the teacher that I’ve been kind of tutoring every now and then is a head teacher which basically means she’s an important homeroom teacher that has to do more paperwork than regular teachers. I don’t think there many perks. Anyways, I was joking with her about who we were going to hire next as an English teacher… I explained to her that we had two check marks… young, and pretty. She explained to me that these were recent graduates from the Korean Education University so they were already young; we just had a question mark in the pretty category. I was of course kidding but I think this was one of the ‘lost in translation’ moments and she jokingly said she was going to call her and ask her if she was pretty. I sarcastically said, “Okay Sister Kim, that’s a really good idea.” Annnd she proceeded to actually pull out a list of all the teachers that had graduated recently grabbed her phone number off the sheet and started punching her number in. I was terrified. I don’t know what she actually said but I heard my name in there a few times and I of course got up and was walking around the room for fear of her handing me the phone… I spent the next twenty minutes of my lesson explaining to her what sarcasm is…

I’ve also noticed a few things that didn’t really catch my eye as a new teacher and more importantly, a foreigner. I’m reaching the 100% sure mark that there’s a kid that has uncontrollable turrets syndrome in one of my classes. He just sort of sits in the corner and shakes and nobody really pays any attention to him, it’s absolutely bizarre. There’s also a student I believe should be on some sort of suicide watch. He sits near the back and stares out of corners of his eyes towards the window and never says a word to anyone. He doesn’t seem to get along with any of his classmates and every time my co teacher or I try and get him to participate it’s literally like he can’t even hear us. I’m actually terrified of the kid now and am more reluctant to get him to participate. That bothered me at first but when you see as many students as I do in a day you start to realize that not every student is going to participate all the time. If you can get a 9/10 of the class participating and having fun, that’s a victory in my book. They don’t have special ed. classes here so there are disabled kids sprinkled into my classes, which makes for some interesting classes. There’s this one kid in one of my grade five classes that brings a plastic zip lock bag to class, lays it out as flat as it could possibly be on his desk. He spends the first 10 minutes of class flattening this bag to his desk. My co teacher and I will peel it off his desk and put it back in his bag but as soon as we turn our backs it’s back on the desk being flattened perfectly so there are no air bubbles underneath. After he’s satisfied with how flat it gets to his desk, he peels it off, and blows it up. Once it’s blown up, he uses both hands and rubs it back and forth on the top of his head, making his hair hilariously static and a bit electric as well. The rest of the class, and occasionally my co teacher and I will find it absolutely hilarious, but come on! This is in the middle of class. Anyways, after he’s done experimenting with the friction and static of his plastic bag he gets up and starts to wonder around the room. We’ll be in the middle of a lesson and he will stand up, walk to the corner of the classroom where we have giant picture books, sit in the corner and entertain himself until my co teacher or myself physically grab him and put him back in his seat. As hilarious as it is, this kid really needs to be in a special education program. He’s not learning in my class and if anything he’s just disrupting other classmates. But that’s dynamic Korea I suppose.

Another event I think is worth noting is the hike I took with my principal and a few other teachers. It was my principal, the head teacher, a first grade teacher and the office secretary who went with. We first went into this Buddhist temple, which was not as magical as I was expecting. I don’t really know what I was expecting but it just didn’t capture me like I thought it would. Anyways, we’re heading up this enormous hill and I’m quite unprepared. I was told we were going ‘hiking’ and not mountain climbing. We ended up climbing 1084 meters or 3,556 feet and the view was spectacular. I of course didn’t bring my camera because I figured we were going hiking, not mountain climbing. My legs were literally trembling by the time we got back down to the bottom. It was actually really cool being on top of this mountain. Apparently it’s the highest mountain in Daegu and you can literally see forever. I actually felt a bit of accomplishment reaching the top of the mountain… of the seven people we went there with only 3 made it to the top. I couldn’t be too excited though because I was competing with a 60-year-old man and a 50 something woman, so I played it cool. Except once you reach the top you realize you have to trek back down, which is a pretty depressing realization.

My principal decided to start a walking class before school. I actually wouldn’t really call it a walking class as much as I would call it, ‘before school recess.’ These kids get no time to actually play and ‘be kids,’ and that’s why I think more students participate in this walking before school than I had originally thought. The average elementary student will be at school from 8:30 (without walking class) to 4:30 and then head to a hagwon (more school) for at least another 4 hours. It doesn’t seem too awful but remember, these are elementary students, aging from 7-11 years old; their schedules consist of school, school and more school from elementary all the way to high school where it gets much more intense and time consuming. They also go to school every other Saturday; Saturdays that they have off they are referred to as ‘holidays’ instead of weekends.

So, on days it’s not raining, the students have the option of coming to school before classes start to walk in circles around the playground and listen to music. It doesn’t sound too thrilling but let me tell you, it’s as entertaining as anything you’ll find on TV. During one of our teachers meetings, the principal suggested that I come early and walk around with them… at first this sounded pretty awful because getting up early and exercising isn’t really my thing, but after I did the walk a few times I really started to enjoy it. Everyday that I’m early enough to wal, how everything unfolds is like clockwork; once I’m close enough to the playground where kids start to realize that there’s a way-guk (foreigner) the, “Mayo Teacher” starts spreading through the playground like a damn wildfire. Most of the kids running up to me just come up and say, “Hello Mayo Teacher” and then scatter off, but some of the older kids who can actually formulate sentences will ask where I live, for candy or even ask for money. There is this grade 2 girl, whom I don’t have in class because I don’t teach grade 2, who literally hangs on me while I walk around the playground in the morning.

I’ve learned to keep my laptop bag on my person because I’ve brought a backpack to school before and this girl had actually taken it and hidden it on the other side of the school. While she thought it was HILLARIOUS, I didn’t quite see the same humor in it as she did… It took me about ten minutes just to get close enough to her without her breaking out in laughter to figure out where it was. It was quite a show. I would think following me around in circles might get boring after a while, but she seems like she can’t get enough of it. There are literally about 10-15 students surrounding me at any point during my walk. I wish I could get a picture of this. I tried pulling out my camera this morning but it was pointless because I had no arms to snap a picture, the kids had hijacked my arms and were using them as their personal human jungle gym. Sangwon keeps some pretty intense video footage surround the school (they probably have about 10 cameras outside the school) - I’ll check the tapes and see if they have a camera on the playground because it’s literally like a paparazzi surrounding me every morning and I really need to get some footage of this. Most of them are just following me, trying to hold my hand, jump on my back, tackle me, ask me to run, to race someone or asking me where I live for the one hundredth time.

It’s pretty fascinating how entertaining they find me. I’ve been here for two months now and they still act as if seeing me everyday is some sort of miracle. I don’t know if they’re expecting me to bounce out of this country everyday or if I just hand out the most candy in class but something is sparking these kids into a frenzy every time I’m spotted. Well that’s all for now, I did my best to take pictures today during the walking sessions and the after lunch recess. Like I said, it’s difficult to snap pictures in the morning because they hadn’t seen me in a whole 16 hrs so I’m pretty tied-up, but I did my best to take some pictures during recess. Some of the kids get shy when cameras come out and some go frickin’ nuts, you’ll see…

The Hike...

I had wanted to climb a mountain since I’ve been in Korea. Actually probably before I arrived, because I remember watching a YouTube video of some guy climbing Mt. Apsan which is the biggest mountain around Daegu, and I just remember it looking like something I really wanted do once I got here. Well I finally ended up going this weekend and it was actually pretty cool. Not quite as intense as I thought it was going to be, but for a Sunday afternoon, after a long weekend, it was just about perfect in the struggle category. Not an intense where you couldn’t feel your legs, but I certainly had to stop and take a break every twenty minutes or so. I went with my co-teacher and her husband. We had lunch (their lunch, my breakfast) in the park before we headed up the mountain and then went and drank some mokolii (rice wine) afterwards, which was much better than the rice wine I had had earlier by the way. There were still rice chunks in it, but not to the same extent as the previous experience.

On our way up the mountain, about ¾ of the way up, at a particularly challenging part of the hike, my co-teacher stops, looks at me and says, “This is a test for me.” I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but I was thought to myself, “maybe she’s challenging herself to be more active, I mean, she did tell me a few weeks ago she’s trying to loose weight.” She probably weighs 120 lbs. soaking wet and she’s worried about loosing weight… anyways, her husband is leading us up this mountain and he’s a good 20 yards ahead of us and we had only taken one break at this point so we were getting pretty exhausted.. Nevertheless, I stop and ask her, “What do you mean?” I was really curious what test she was referring to, or if she had just misused the word “test”. She responds, “My husband is making me skinny, because in Korea, men do not want fat wives.” I was taken back a bit by her bluntness, but at the same time it didn’t surprise me as much as it would have a month ago. I actually found it hilarious and I’m pretty sure I laughed out loud after she told me. I explained, “Actually, I think it’s similar in the U.S., but I can’t speak for everyone I guess.” She laughed and continued up the mountain. I tried to explain to her that she’s not fat and that she shouldn’t be worried about her weight being as skinny as she is but I don’t think it registered as she shrugged off the topic… She nodded and carried on the hike, we actually ended up climbing to the top which was more hiking than I was planning on doing on the Sunday afternoon. My co-teacher also kept reminding her husband and I that, “we work tomorrow, we mustn’t climb too far.” Which I was actually opposed to because I had never been up a mountain and I just really wanted to keep climbing even though I could tell she really didn’t. I couldn’t really tell what her husband was thinking. He would crack jokes every once and a while but for the most part he didn’t smile much and seemed to take life a littler more seriously than his wife…

Speaking of jokes, my co-teacher ended up inviting me to her house that evening for supper as sort of a thank you for talking with her in English a few times a week. She will call me, about three o’ clock everyday, Monday thru Friday and ask that I come upstairs and teach her English. This normally consists of me complaining about something, or her talking about how she “doesn’t understand” why one of her kids studies so hard but doesn’t get good grades… it’s seriously the same thing every week. But I don’t mind, it’s good to get out of my office and feels good to help her with something even though it normally turns into her helping me with something, i.e. figuring out when I get vacation days, figuring out my pay schedule or making sure that I get an air conditioner in my apartment before it starts getting ridiculously hot out. Supposedly Daegu has similar weather patterns to Minnesota, with the super cold, dry winters and the hot, humid summers… fantastic. Anyways, I meet her son’s at the corner of a bank near my house and they walk me to their home. She lives door-to-door, about a 7-8 minute walk, so it was pretty convenient. I walk inside and it’s a pretty big/nice apartment, at least compared to the apartments I had been in before, which just consisted of my fellow EPIK teachers. I told her she had a beautiful house and that I was surprised that it was so clean, because I usually make fun of her for having such a messy office. Her oldest son assured me that it’s not normally this clean and that they had spent most of the afternoon cleaning and preparing for my arrival. Which actually made me feel a little bit guilty because I wasn’t that excited to go there. I had just spent about three hours with her climbing a mountain and I see her everyday at work so the weekends are a nice getaway normally. But in the end it was actually very nice. She cooked a bunch of beef that she always assumes is my favorite because I’m an American and a bunch of side dishes. It was delicious. Her husband busted out some whisky which they also assumed I like because I’m American, and we sipped on some Scottish whisky for the remainder of dinner.

What I was going to say about jokes though was that her son wanted to hear an American joke… he had just explained to me a Korean joke which I didn’t understand at all but faked a laugh, to make it seem like I at least pretended to understand. But he sort of put me on the spot, he just said, “Tell me an American joke.” My mind went blank; I don’t know any American jokes… I thought for a while saying, “ummmmm”… to make sure he knew I was thinking. I had just started up watching ‘The Office’ again so the only thing I could think of was “That’s what she said” jokes… I thought to myself, “great! I can use one of these!”, forgetting that the only way to explain them to a foreigner was to explain something sexual. So I’m sitting there, on a pad on the floor as usual, sweating because their house was 100 degrees and I had just drank a few shots of whisky and an entire Korean family is staring at me, really expecting me to say something that will really tickle their funny-bone. They have this idea in their heads that all American’s are comedians… and fat. But anyways, they’re all staring at me, I’m sweating, thinking of a way to explain “That’s what she said” jokes without being sexually inappropriate and am just drawing blanks left and right. I begin to explain, “That’s what she said” and come to dead-end every time. I try about three different ones but when I realize they’re starting to get sexual again I stop and just kind of awkwardly laugh it off as if to say, “I forfeit this American joke thing, I can’t think of anything you would consider funny, and the only joke I can think of is referencing to out of context, sexual innuendos.”

I finally end up changing the subject and explain to them that maybe we have different senses of humor and that I couldn’t think of anything right then. Well we finished supper and my co teacher’s youngest son actually has a friend of mine that I met at orientation for an English teacher at his middle school. I introduce the family to facebook and show pictures of his English teacher, myself, friends from college and high school. I also show them a picture of my sister because the two boys really wanted to see what my sister looks like. I get to her profile picture and they both go, “Ohhh beaufiul.” I replied, “ I know! Right?” And then the youngest son says, “She looks Asian.” So I don’t know if their judgment was off or what because she most definitely doesn’t look Asian… unless most Asian’s have blond hair and blue eyes. It was pretty funny and I know Brittany will appreciate this story. Well, that’s all I have for now. I hope this finds everyone well and that I can continue to update you whenever something interesting happens!

Explaining the pictures.

The pictures are from my trip to Seoul the other weekend. the first one is of me and a few friends in front of the hostel we stayed at called "Mr. Sea"

The next picture is of us decided which delicious selection of street meet to invest in.

Th 3rd picture is of myself in front of Seoul soccer stadium. We never actually went inside but it was pretty enormous.

The 4th picture is of a few friends any myself in front of a traditional Korean castle.

The last picture is of the super complicated subway map of Seoul. Daegu has 2 lines...