This is What I Came Here For

I live for evenings and weekends here because the work week is so stressful. I won't go on about it, because no one wants to hear whining. But suffice it to say, this week was a doozy. So, on Friday night I Googled: Sights to see in Korea and came across Gyeongbokgong Palace. I knew this was a tourist destination I had to see - but was surprised to see how easy it was to get to from Uijeoungbu. The best part is the subway basically takes you right to the palace, so I didn't have to wander around aimlessly trying to figure out which direction to go. Should I probably get better at planning where I actually want to go instead of just Googling things? Yes. I told myself last night - you have about 45 weekends left, not including holidays and weeks off which I will probably spend in neighboring counties. So - plan out those 40 sites to see on weekends.

Interesting building outside of the palace.

FYI this blog post is going to jump around a lot. It is not well constructed and the English major in me is floundering. But, it is 5am here, I woke up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep. So, I'm giving it my best shot.

I thought Palace meant one giant building. Not even close. This site 107 acres with over 140 buildings. Koreans know how to do it up!

Here is a map of the grounds of the palace to give you some perspective. 

One of a bunch of guards in front of the entry to the palace. 

My favourite part of the day is how everything lined up so perfectly. From getting to the subway station and the train coming as I get up the stairs, actually finding a seat on the subway, to getting to the Palace, taking a few pictures, buying a ticket to get in ($3) and finding an English guided walking tour that started 10 mins later included in the entry fee (only running every 3 hours!) I felt so lucky and that the day would be great. At the location, there are also 3 museums: The National Folk Museum, The Korean Children's Museum, and National Palace Museum of Korea. All three were free to get into. So basically, I had a $3 day (not including food) which is right up my alley. I sort of regret that I didn't make it into the Children's Museum, but I was hungry and wanted to leave the area to get lunch. Boy was that interesting . . . .

It's called fashion. Look it up. 

I stumbled across a mixture of things outside of the Palace walls in a giant square. At first it was a stage with some singing going on. But then as I walked further along there was another stage which was used to protest something. I am not sure what they were protesting, but as I got closer is when the masses started to really form. I am guessing it had something to do with North Korea or something politically within South Korea. There were lots of giant photos of people in jail everywhere. And then there were hundreds of police. I mean hundreds.s. All I wanted was to sit down and eat! But all the buildings around the Palace and the square are museums - so many art museums there. I want to go back. Anyways, I kind of cut through the protest when I saw a street of restaurants. There were people handing out yellow pins to mark the protest. I made it across the street, walked around looking for somewhere delicious ( I walked into and out of both KFC and Taco Bell in good judgement before finding Pomodoro Spaghetti which was so delightful. More to come on that later. Sometimes I get nervous and go for the familiar chain restaurant instead of eating something local.)

When I looped back around to find Pomodoro Spaghetti, the crowd started moving. Traffic stopped, and that's when the hundreds of police officers lined the streets to I guess allow the protest to happen peacefully? They held batons, but they looked plastic. I saw one office drop his and it made me laugh because it just looked like a short red light saber. Here is a video of the protest march going in front of me. I don't know what got into me, but none of this phased me. Normally I would be really scared - but it was so organized, I was weirdly comforted by the fact that I had no idea what they were protesting, and there were a bunch of Koreans in nice business suits and high heels walking along side me going for coffee and lunch like nothing was happening. So, I figured if they were fine, I was fine. The funniest part to me was after lunch I had to walk by there again where the protesters had come back to the square. I came across another stage, right beside the protest (where they were still angrily yelling into a microphone) of a Youth Music Festival. Poor teenage boy on stage strumming his guitar to an audience of mostly parents clapping along to music you could barely hear. I know that's probably not actually funny, but it made me laugh because it was so terrible. (FYI, I Googled "Feb 25 protest in Gyeongbokgung but nothing came up except info on old protests. I wanted to take a pic of a sign and use Google translate but I just didn't get the chance/kept telling myself to stop walking into the middle of a protest where you don't know what is happening.)

Back to the Palace tour. I loved it - we had a great tour guide who gave us so much interesting information! All of my favorite bits were about the concubines. But first, some history. Gyeongbokgung Palce was built in 1395 under the Joseon dynasty. There were a bunch of wars in there, some fires, and destruction so most of the buildings were destroyed. In 1867, some were rebuilt, destroyed again in the Korean war, and then rebuilt in the 90's. She mentioned buildings from 1867 a lot which made me feel very Canadian each time.

King's throne. The two little side benches are for the scribes. The ones from the Joseon dynasty are protected by UNESCO.

Gold dragon on the ceiling

Each building had a specific purpose. We went to the King's living quarters, behind which is the Queen's living quarters (where the concubines also lived - imagine that!), followed by the King's Mother's place, banquet pavilions, cooking area, a tiny building where the King and Queen would drink tea and read, gardens, meeting areas, etc. The King chooses his Queen and then she chooses 2 official concubines, although some Kings had up to 9 unofficially. Imagine your wife choosing your side girls. #awkward

Awesome tour guide

#ThatPalaceLife

A lot of Korean dramas are filmed with this building in it, so I'm basically a famous actress now. 

Water lilies! 

They originally used natural sources for paint, but now they use regular paint and have to repaint every 20-30 years. There's little nets covering the roofs so that birds don't build nests in them and poop on all of us tourists. 

Some neat facts I learned but am vague on the details around dates and dynasties and such:

• Some of the buildings have Chinese characters on the outside instead of characters from the Korean alphabet because back in the day, like hundreds of years ago, the nobility and only very upper class people could read Chinese. Everyone spoke Korean, but they didn't have written Korean yet. So if you wanted to bring forth ideas to the King, you had to write in Chinese and of course no one around him would complain because they had it so good. 
• Most of the palace buildings had little animal figures on the roof or animal statues in front. These are to protect the buildings from evil spirits - the more animals on the roof the more important the building is and the things inside that need to be protected. 
• One of the Kings chose his Queen by asking 2 questions: 1 - What is the deepest thing in the world? Most of the women answered things like the ocean or the inside of a mountain. But the Queen he chose said the human mind because it cannot be measured whereas the depth of an ocean can be measured. 2 - What is the most beautiful flower? Most of the women mentioned roses or peonies, but she mentioned the cotton flower because it can be used to help people  - to make people warm. He liked her wisdom so he chose her. I like that story. 
• If the King is a child when chosen, his mother rules until he is 18. So really, the King's Mother can have more power than him because she's laid the foundation for him before he's reached the throne. 
• The King had 3 learning sessions each day to help him gain more understanding. He would have debates, history lessons, and learn Confucianism to help broaden his mind to make decisions. 
• The King's royal subjects met from 3am-5am each day. After a while one guy complained asking to meet every other day but the King said if you ask such a question like this, you are not suited for the job. Our tour guide pointed out the long history of Koreans working very diligently. This is true - Koreans are very dedicated to their jobs and work long hours. 

Lots of girls were there dressed in these traditional Korean outfits. Our tour guide told us that it's not for any kind of special holiday or performance - it's a new trend where girls wear these outfits to visit national monuments like this.

 I liken it to your toddler wanting to wear her Elsa costume to Disney World. 

Mini Chicago?

Old style traditional Korean home. Now Koreans mostly live in apartments. In fact if you live in a house now you are considered poor. 

Folk Museum

1983 - Year of the Rat. Is this why I love cheese so much?

One exhibit was about colours, so each colour had it's own room. I just wanted photo documentation of going into the Red Room. Very 50 Shades of me.

Bet she's wearing sweat pants under there. 

 These pics were showing a boy and a girl in their rooms. I like it when kids choose non-gender specific toys or go against the grain. 

In fact this week my female students decided to play with dinosaurs one day while the boys played with blocks and it made me so happy I snapped a few pics. 

I really loved the tour and couldn't believe Everything inside of that palace, including the museums was only $3. What a deal!

When I left for lunch I stumbled across Pomodoro Spaghetti. I wanted to go in but there was a line out front (most Korean restaurants are very small - this place probably had about 12 tables) and I had spaghetti the night before. But, I circled the area about 4 times and decided that spaghetti two days in a row is awesome and if there's a line of Koreans out front, it must be good because there were dozens of other restaurants around with no line. And I was right - it was so delicious. One thing I find so funny here is that everywhere you eat they bring you pickles. No matter what kind of food. If you order pizza, there's a little container of pickles in your box. Spaghetti? - pickles to start. I ordered penne pomodoro with mushrooms, eggplant, and mozzarella. It was delicious and I was so happy!

I went into Pie Face for two reasons: Did they have lunch pies? (no) Is it an awesome name? (yes)

I am not said that I am one year too early for the Olympics. 

It's already busy enough here on the subway.

I went back into the palace grounds for a while longer but then headed home on the subway because I was so tired. Altogether a great Saturday. I kept thinking to myself: This is what you came here for. 

I'm not lying when I say a real highlight for me was this bathroom stall in one of the museums. It's for a mom and her kids to go in together. 

This coming Wednesday, March 1 is a national holiday so we have it off. Some of us teachers plan on going to the DMZ. So, if I haven't told you I love you in case I die - I love you. 

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......

Alli 

Seoul Tower

On Sunday my buddy, James, and I took the subway into Seoul to go on a little adventure to Seoul Tower which is the tallest building in Seoul. To get up there you can hike up the mountain (no thank you) or take a cable car, which we did. It was his first time in anything like that so that was cool. As I'm afraid of heights, I was a bit nervous. It didn't help that some people on board kept screaming with ever little jolt the cable car made. When they would scream I would say: I don't like this! Meanwhile he just kept saying: I feel normal. I feel fine.

Out-take

When you get up to the tower there's lots to take in. They have one of those places for you and your lover to put a lock on to show your undying love for each other.

There's lots of restaurants and things to see. I guess we should have thought it through more, but being up there was quite windy! I wish I had brought a toque - he wished he had brought mittens. Together we had one well dressed person. My face is red in most pictures because I got wind burn!

There's an arcade, a teddy bear museum, and some 3-D shows to take in. But really, the best part is the view of Seoul. Its' a huge city full of buildings. But, I kept reminding myself that pretty much everyone lives in an apartment, so it looks like it has way more business towers than it does.

Watching the 3D experience!

It probably looks nicer in spring or fall when everything isn't dead.

Koreans love cartoonish things. There's little cartoon animals wherever you go. Seoul tower is no exception.

We came back to Uijeongbu craving pizza. We hit up pizza hut where you can order pizza but also has a little salad bar, which I was happy about because I find it difficult to eat vegetables here. There's just so much meat all the time! This salad bar was the weirdest mix of things I've seen: Little discs of corn on the cob, lettuce, multiple types of what I assume was potato salad, yogurt, mayonnaise, french fries, and still semi frozen bits of cut up fruit. Either way, I had some lettuce which made me feel good as I wolfed down some pepperoni slices.

I'm really looking forward to this week at school because there are some positive changes happening in my classroom. (I say this tentatively because I don't know if I trust that they will happen yet.) I'm about to head into work now.

Lots of Love,

Alli

Counting Carb . . . . references in my blog posts

I had an amazing weekend. I feel like my brain is firing so many synapses! I did so many new things I can't believe myself sometimes. I was saying to my Mom and Dad yesterday in a video chat, on a daily basis I find myself stopping and saying in my head: Is this really my life? Am I really eating a cheese bread stick in a French cafe in Korea? Am I really making toast in a frying pan for breakfast while I hang my underwear to dry on a rack? Yes. I am. And it's wonderful. (Am I referencing carbohydrates too much? Should I be referencing underwear less?)

On Friday night 5 of us English teachers walked to a Korean place for dinner. It was packed and they told us it would be a 20 minute wait. For 5 exhausted, hungry teachers, this is not an option! So, we went for Indian food at Durga. I. Am. Telling. You. . . . . When that giant garlic naan was placed in front of my face I shed a small tear of happiness. (Reference 3 so far and I'm 20 sentences in.)

On Saturday I woke up and walked in the complete opposite direction of where I should have been going. I was trying to get to Home Plus (similar to Walmart). 2 English teachers told me directions and I did the opposite of what they told me. I have a defiant sub-conscience. So, when I realized I was lost, I sat in a cafe, had some breakfast and talked to Mom and Dad. Then I got into a cab where he drove me to the other side of the city. At first I thought he misunderstood what I wanted and was terrified that he was taking me out of town - because I thought I was near Home Plus. Turns out no, the local Korean knows where Home Plus is. I bought some groceries and then took a cab back home because I bought too much stuff to carry! Luckily cabs are pretty cheap here. Both rides total was $10.

On Saturday afternoon I met a guy named Paul for a date. He is in the American military. I'm not going to say much more because I don't want to jinx it. But . . . . it was awesome. He is way better looking in person than in his pictures - which is the complete opposite of how it normally goes with tinder. I was so pleasantly surprised I kept saying to myself in my head: Is this really happening? He bought me tacos. Then we went to a cafe to talk and he bought me tea. He wanted to buy me cake but I was too full. But let me just say anyone who wants to buy me tacos and cake is a winner in my books. Before the date I was texting Gaby, my 13 year old friend back home. Here is her wise dating advice for me. Also Gaby told me she is my #1 blog fan and checks it regularly for updates. So, the rest of you can eat it on being my #1 fan.

Saturday evening I was sitting in my pajamas walking Netflix when Jessica, a fellow teacher. asked in our group chat if anyone wanted to grab a drink and go to a noraebang (karaoke). Uumm.. yes! I promptly threw my jeans on and met her at the bottom floor of our building. I drank a tequila sunrise in a tiny Korean bar while she drank a Long Island iced tea. Then we went for karaoke which was in this tiny room for no more than 3 people. I sang Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse, Spice Girls, and Outkast. She wrapped some Eminem and sang Alicia Keys. It was great!

Please know that the microphone is auto-tuned and I am a horrible singer. 

Today (Sunday) I wanted to go into Itaewon because everyone told me I would love it there. It's full of foreigners and lots of foreign shops. Parts of it feels like you're walking in Europe, then America, then Korea. It's a cool mix. I walked by a little international shop and bought a box of Kraft Dinner and a can of Campbell's soup. Haven't seen that here yet. Was it way over priced? Yes. Because it's imported. But it will taste so good going down. Basically if a 5 year likes to eat it, then I like to eat it.

First solo subway ride in a foreign country by myself. 

As I got off the subway and was going up the platform a guy stopped me and asked me where I was going. Normally I would do something rude like walk by him and just say "no thank you" because I can be a real bitch sometimes. I have this slight fear of men approaching me. But I decided to have a conversation with him. I told him I was here to look around and see the sights. He told me his name is James and asked if I wanted to go to KFC with him and his friends. I said no, I want a juicy burger and fries from a pub. We exchanged info and said maybe we would meet up later. I walked around for a bit and then ate a nice juicy burger and fries at a pub. I like a good follow through on a plan.

I walked around, went into an English book store and bought some things for my classroom. Then I went to a coffee shop to sit for a bit and charge my phone. James texted me asking if we could meet up. I told him I was at a coffee shop and he could meet me there so he did. We sat and talked for a bit. You are probably reading this thinking this is completely normal. That's probably true for a normal person but not for me. I DO NOT TALK TO STRANGERS. Like ever. Like this is the first time I ever let this happen to me. I wish I were lying. We talked about our jobs here, our home countries (he's from Ghana), what we like about Korea so far (he's been here 4 months), and he showed me pictures of the orphanage his family runs back home. I showed him pics of Autumn Rose, because she's the cutest thing on my phone! We walked around Itaewon some more, I bought some silly socks for friends back home and then we caught the subway back. He lives one town away from me so it was handy to have a friend with me. He offered to carry my shopping bag so many times but I told him no. He said he just wants to be nice, but my trust issues got the best of me. Baby steps.

I saw this sweater in store today and laughed so hard. Who would wear this? Someone who is trying to distract people from looking at their acne by looking down at their acne sweater? 

This is the first day I've felt like a tourist here. For the most part I just feel like someone working in another country. But today I loved seeing new things and walking around. I stumbled on some mini international festival about the size of one square block with people singing and some flags hanging up singing the Korean lyrics to "This World is Made for You and Me." Itaweon is full of international restaurants. I saw Turkish, American, Canadian, Bulgarian. food. I saw so many halal restaurants. It's only an hour away from here, I can see myself going there a lot over the next year!

Lots of love,

Alli 

She Blinded Me With Science!

First off, have you noticed how the majority of my blog posts have been song or movie titles/lyrics/references?

A lot of you have been asking how teaching is going. I haven't written about it yet for a few reasons.
1) When I'm doing it all day long, I usually don't want to think about it. Because . . .
2) It's very different than what I expected. And  . . . .
3) I'm having a hard time with it. Although I should say I WAS having a hard time with it, but this week has been much better.
4) Also the noise level. Can we talk about the noise level of 10 5-year olds? It used to annoy me when the person in the cubicle next to me played the radio a decibel too loud. Now I dream of hearing I Will Always Love You at a soft 18 from an easy listening radio station.

Everything in Korea is later than in North America. Business (even restaurants or cafes) don't open until 9 and when I go to the cafe (on the weekends) right at 9 I think the guy hates me so much. I am usually the only one there for about an hour. Lots of stores don't open until about 10 or 11 but they stay open until midnight. So school starts at 9:50 and goes until 7:20. But, I only teach from 9:50-4:20. Well, that is until last Friday when at 4:29 I was approached and told that I was to teach a class at 4:30 until 7:20. Science to 7 year olds. I had no idea of their names, what I was teaching, or how to do it. Awesome! I fumbled my way through it and left to go eat tacos with the other English teachers. It's a Monday/Wednesday/Friday class and another teacher does the lesson plans and teachers the M/W and I do the F. (pun intended) It's a tough time because these are students who go to school all day at Korean school and then come in for 3 hours to do English . . . on a Friday.

My pre-kindergarten class is from 9:50-2:20 (with an hour lunch break from 12-1). All of the classes are named after animals so I teach Nemo class. The other teacher of pre-K has Dory class. The kids call me Allison Teacher (although mostly they say something like "Awawin Teacher." So I mumble their names back at them just to be a dick.

That was a joke.

At 3:00-4:20 I teach ESL. For about a week I had 1 student who is a girl from my morning class. Personally, I feel this is too much for someone that age, especially because we do a lot of the same things (talking about weather, calendar, feelings) and she is usually so tired or hyper active because it's so much structure for a little one. We get through it by me singing at her a lot. I'd love it if she'd sing with me, but baby steps. For now you can catch me performing a solo act at the local night club. The set list includes "What's the weather?", "If you're happy and you know it," and "Days of the week." Stick around for "Twinkle Twinkle" to close the night.

I like to sing/read to 5 year olds about old women who die. It's comforting. 

Randomly this week a boy named Gun joined my class. His Korean name is something-Gun so they decided to just use Gun as his Canadian name. Today his parents announced that Gun isn't a real name (which I told them on Monday) and so now I should call him Dave. No wonder he looks at me like I'm a lunatic. I can't wait until the end of the school year when I package his portfolio together and a few pages have the word Gun written at the top.

Most of the kids at the school have chosen English names that we would consider "normal." But yesterday I heard of a kid named "Rookie" pronounce "Roo-key" (rhymes with roofie) The teachers tried to tell the parents that isn't a real name and it means someone who is an amateur at sports, but they wanted to stick with Rookie. I kind of love it because I like when things are weird.

The school provides them with lunch and snack each day. It is my favorite part of the day because the noise level drops significantly. 

The biggest shock from Canadian school to this Korean school is the total lack of organization. I mean total. I came in the day before the new school year started. It was a Thursday before a 4 day weekend and the new school year started on Tuesday. I had one day to set up a new classroom for the new school year, make EVERYTHING on my own including every picture of the days of the week, months, weather, etc. Craft/activity supplies need to be ordered on the 15th of the month, so I missed January 15 and can't order anything until February 15. Luckily, the teacher of Dory class ordered two of everything so I can use what she has. But you'd think they would have ordered me some basic things like white board markers or a stapler, etc so I could have those. But no - a new teacher coming in has nothing to start with. Cool.

I didn't even have a class list until 5 mins before they walked in. We are two weeks into the school year and we still don't know our school holidays coming up. There are national holidays, but we don't get all of them off. We get one week in winter and one in summer. Those are yet to be determined. Makes it hard to plan for travelling on time off.

Another thing that makes it hard is that Korea doesn't really recognize mental disabilities. I for sure have one kid in my class who is on the autism spectrum. There is another in the Friday class who is the same. But, there is no support for that because it's kind of just a shrug your shoulders and ignore it kind of thing. I worry for these kids when they are teens and adults - how will they function? Anyways, the one in my class just runs around and ruins everything, screams, and cries. It was so difficult that my Korean teacher quit after the first day because he was so demanding on her. The Korean teacher is supposed to help me get the kids involved by speaking Korean to them and then learning the English words. She also helps me order supplies and communicate to the parents. But, she's just keep him from running around so the other kids miss out. The other kids can't learn when he's in there because it's such a disruption. Then there's another that cries all the time for her mom. Like all the time. We finally got her to stop crying all day long but now she cries when the Korean teacher leaves the room. It's hard because they've likely never seen a white person before so they just aren't used to me. I am pretty proud of myself for stepping up and saying something but I finally went with my Korean teacher to the Director of the school and told him that the boy can't be in my class until he is ready to learn. The other kids totally react to him and are so rowdy when he's around. And, because no one knows how to deal with children like this because it's ignored, everyone is just left floundering. For now, someone takes him out and does activities with him one on one and then he returns for snacks and lunch. The harmony in the classroom is so much better. It feels totally different!

Luckily the kids are stinkin' cute. They wear little green uniforms. Here are some pics.

I'm starting to get a handle on how things happen at school. The other English teachers are amazingly helpful. We are all in the same boat so we just go with the attitude of - we are all in this together.

I said this the other day to some friends back at my old job: Can you believe that this is what I do now? I used to assess diplomas and degrees from foreign countries to see if applicants met the requirements to get into a post-secondary institution and now I help 5 year olds make alligators out of the letter A. How is this my life?

I'm off to the dog cafe with a couple of the teachers. This is a dog cafe where you pet dogs and drink hot beverages, not eat dogs. Just some clarification for Amy B who said, "You never know - you're in an Asian country." I'll post pics of this soon!

Love,

Awawin Teacher