Yesterday I was in class blabbing incomprehensibly in English like always, when, from the other side of the classroom, there was an unwelcome clatter of kids yapping and chairs sliding around, like always. I directed my attention to the two third-grade boys who were horsing around, play-fighting, and thought, "Great, more distractions." They were swinging their fists and wailing on each other pretty hard and it it took me a second to realize this was actually a fight.
I don't know really how the other 38 kids in the class were reacting because I was so surprised I had a real fight in my class, something exciting for a change. My co-teacher ran over and was yelling at them and trying to make them stop, but they were evidently too determined to keep wailing on each other so I rushed over and got in between them which proved still inadequate to get them to stop hitting each other, so I pushed them apart, sending one to the ground accidentally. I also had to drop my paper and pencil, dammit.
This seemed to get them to stop trying to kill each other temporarily. My co-teacher led them from the classroom into my office which is connected to the classroom by a door in the rear. I foolishly tried to resume my lesson, which was a fun Scattergories-style vocabulary game since my week's intended lesson had bombed due partly to the fact that it sucked, and partly to the fact that it was the last week of school before summer break and the kids probably cared less than I did. My attempt to regain control of the class failed, needless to say. And furthermore, a moment after the two brawlers were led out of my classroom, we all heard the sounds of scuffling in my office, so I had to go see what they were up to in there.
When I got into my office the kids were separated again, but screaming at each other and cursing their brains off, which I knew because I have made a decent survey of Korean swear words, and I could pick out 'ssi-bal!' at least a dozen times, which is the Korean equivalent of 'fuck'. The co-teacher was by now leading them from my office out of the door and into the hallway, with me trailing behind, but before they could make it to the door their curses turned to blows again and the fists started hitting faces. All in all, this was a much more exciting fight than the only other fight I witnessed in Korea, which was in Bucheon, partway between Seoul and Incheon. That fight happened late at night, after some friends and I got out of a norae-bang with some random English-enthusiast Korean kids. That fight was outside of an arcade or something, and the kids were maybe early twenties and were throwing the most rubbery girl-punches I have ever seen, and kicking people like they didn't even care. It was entertaining for sure, and I give them credit for the duration, since they kept starting and stopping, but it was a pretty sissy display of violence.
So by the time I realized that my two students were pounding each other in the face inside of my office door, they had each landed a few punches, and I pulled them apart yet again. My co-teacher led the one she had control of out of the room to who knows where, and I had the kid that was still with me just sit at the little table in my office and cool down. I went back into my classroom where the kids were chattering about the fight, I'm sure, and put on a movie which I just happened to have lurking on my computer for months, a documentary film about an international breakdancing competition called Planet B-Boy, which is a sick film and features two Korean teams. This got the classes attention after the wild interruption.
The film was on for a bit and my co-teacher had returned and I just let the kids watch the film for the last 25 minutes of class rather than trying to get them to do something productive. Watching Planet B-Boy was a good choice, I probably haven't seen so many kids pay attention to something in my classroom ever, or at least not make any noise.
I had previously noticed a few drops of blood on my sleeve, but it wasn't until after class that I noticed there was a splash on my arm too, I guess from the kid who I had kept in my office. His shirt was also bloody and he had a black eye already and the teacher with whom I shared my office had come back to her desk and told me after class the kid said he was ashamed he got hit so much. I guess you could say he was the loser of the fight. He was also the one I had accidentally pushed to the ground when I was first trying to separate them in the classroom. I asked the reason for the fight, and apparently one of the boys had 'playfully' slapped the other one, who had not taken the slap so playfully. "Maybe it's because of the weather," she said, but I have never punched someone in the face because it was humid and hot. "Boys will fight sometimes," she said, and I asked if there was any punishment for them, or if their parents were informed or anything. "No," she said, "because they are good boys," she said, and I mentally added the obligatory "usually".
After the class, when I had removed my shirt to wash it in the sink in my office to try to get as much of the blood out of it as I could, the two boys came to me to apologize. Their faces were red, not from embarrassment, but from getting punched, and they were cheerful and unaccompanied, and comfortable with each other as they are friends apparently. I said it was no problem, and told them to be nice, and they left and that was the end of that.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Summer Blitz
Daegu is supposed to be the hottest city in Korea, which will suck when summer is in full swing. It's already been pretty bad, especially with the humidity. My friend Jeff lived here last year and said that he once simply lay on his bed with a block of ice slowly melting on his chest to cool off. That was only because he had no air conditioning in his apartment, and most people do here. I, however, am not most people and am lacking in such a convenience, so come August I may be laying around with ice melting on me. Another option is going to the beach, which I did today. It's officially summer in Korea when the beaches are officially open, which they are since July 1, and so that means people all of a sudden come out in droves, no matter if it was hot beforehand.
Chilling at the beach was just the most recent thing in a very busy string of events going back the past month. Before I went to the beach this weekend, I caught two shows, one in Daegu, one in Busan, both featuring my friend Dan as The Spookfish, Sighborg whom I had seen once previously, and some Korean-American DJ on a world tour. The weekend also featured much Go/Stop which is good because I was able to win enough money off of Eric for him to pay for my drinks and so on after I ran out of cash.
The previous week also saw me resolve to get a motorcycle since I am now committed to staying in Korea beyond the length of my original contract, celebrating Canada Day after I learned it was actually a holiday, and climbing in the gym after a two-week break.
Previous to that was a 5-day trip to Japan with mom. We continued our nonstop tour of tourist hotspots that began when she arrived in Korea and we went to Gyeongju and Seoul on the weekends prior to Japan. Never in two and a half weeks have I before seen so many temples, museums, castles, shrines, or tame deer.
Chilling at the beach was just the most recent thing in a very busy string of events going back the past month. Before I went to the beach this weekend, I caught two shows, one in Daegu, one in Busan, both featuring my friend Dan as The Spookfish, Sighborg whom I had seen once previously, and some Korean-American DJ on a world tour. The weekend also featured much Go/Stop which is good because I was able to win enough money off of Eric for him to pay for my drinks and so on after I ran out of cash.
The previous week also saw me resolve to get a motorcycle since I am now committed to staying in Korea beyond the length of my original contract, celebrating Canada Day after I learned it was actually a holiday, and climbing in the gym after a two-week break.
Previous to that was a 5-day trip to Japan with mom. We continued our nonstop tour of tourist hotspots that began when she arrived in Korea and we went to Gyeongju and Seoul on the weekends prior to Japan. Never in two and a half weeks have I before seen so many temples, museums, castles, shrines, or tame deer.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Go/Stop
Recently, I've been playing a lot of a card game called Go/Stop. It's a Korean game played with a special deck of cards that looks like this:
A Korean friend named Jinju tried to teach me and some friends one night at a bar when I wasn't in a learning mood. That, combined with the fact that her English isn't quite good enough to explain the intricacies of game, which there are many of, didn't really result in me learning anything, or wanting to learn anything.
A few months later a different Korean friend named Amanda taught me successfully because her English is so good that I thought she was Korean-American when I first met her, thus giving her an adequate grasp of the language needed to properly explain the game. Also, it was a rainy weekend day and we had a ton of time downtown because we were on what I think was a date, even though I didn't really want to be on a date, so that doing something as innocuous as sitting in a coffee shop learning how to play a card game seemed like a good idea.
Like I said, I've been playing a lot lately: with my friends Eric and Paul on Thursdays in a cafe in my neighborhood for 200 won per point (which can add up if you have a good night like Eric did two weeks ago, that bastard) or with my girlfriend or with random Korean bartenders who are amused that a foreigner can play a Korean game until I win money off of them to pay for my drinks at their bar.
I've taught a few other foreigners, and have wanted to put together a set of instructions that detail the gameplay and scoring as simply as possible, which is difficult because I am lazy and there are a lot of rules and ins and outs to the game. What I've written so far is pasted below. Please note it is by no means complete. It totally leaves out the explanation behind the part of the game from which it gets its name: Going or Stopping. Also, I just pasted this from a text document I have in which I've added pictures of specific cards or sets of cards to help explain things. There are no pictures down below, as you can see, because those pictures don't copy into this blog's text input boxes. Oh well. Try to figure it out if you can...
A Korean friend named Jinju tried to teach me and some friends one night at a bar when I wasn't in a learning mood. That, combined with the fact that her English isn't quite good enough to explain the intricacies of game, which there are many of, didn't really result in me learning anything, or wanting to learn anything.
A few months later a different Korean friend named Amanda taught me successfully because her English is so good that I thought she was Korean-American when I first met her, thus giving her an adequate grasp of the language needed to properly explain the game. Also, it was a rainy weekend day and we had a ton of time downtown because we were on what I think was a date, even though I didn't really want to be on a date, so that doing something as innocuous as sitting in a coffee shop learning how to play a card game seemed like a good idea.
Like I said, I've been playing a lot lately: with my friends Eric and Paul on Thursdays in a cafe in my neighborhood for 200 won per point (which can add up if you have a good night like Eric did two weeks ago, that bastard) or with my girlfriend or with random Korean bartenders who are amused that a foreigner can play a Korean game until I win money off of them to pay for my drinks at their bar.
I've taught a few other foreigners, and have wanted to put together a set of instructions that detail the gameplay and scoring as simply as possible, which is difficult because I am lazy and there are a lot of rules and ins and outs to the game. What I've written so far is pasted below. Please note it is by no means complete. It totally leaves out the explanation behind the part of the game from which it gets its name: Going or Stopping. Also, I just pasted this from a text document I have in which I've added pictures of specific cards or sets of cards to help explain things. There are no pictures down below, as you can see, because those pictures don't copy into this blog's text input boxes. Oh well. Try to figure it out if you can...
Go/Stop
Objective
The point of the game is to score points. Once you hit a certain number of points (7 in a two-player game, 3 in a 3-player game), you have the option to Go (continue playing the game to accrue more points) or to Stop (end the game and collect your points).
The Deck
A standard Go/Stop deck has 48 cards in it. Unlike a deck of regular playing cards, which has four suits of 13 cards each, a Go/Stop deck has 12 “suits” of four cards each. Each “suit” in a Go/Stop deck corresponds to month of the year. Each month is represented by different flower.
Card Categories
In order to score points, you have to collect cards, which are then organized into one of four categories:
1. Gwang (Cards with a Chinese character in a circle on them, there are a total of 5 – although some Gwang have animals on them, they can NOT be counted in the Animal category.)
2. Animals (Self explanatory, although a couple of them – the one with the blue flower and yellow reeds from May, and the the one with the yellow and red flower and the Chinese character on the red leaf from September – don't exactly look like animals.)
3. Ribbons (There are 10 cards with ribbons on them – three red ribbons with writing, four blank red ribbons, and three blue ribbons.)
4. Pi (Pronounced “pee” - or simply called “Junk” - these cards have no special designs on them beyond their month's flower design. Basically, if there is no ribbon, animal, or Gwang symbol on the card, it is Pi. There are a few “special Pi” which are worth two pi, including the weird, not-so-obvious animals cards listed above.)
Dealing: The games first deal:
Two Player: One player shuffles the deck, and the other player cuts. The dealer places four cards face-down in the middle of the two players. Then the other player gets dealt five cards face down, then the dealer deals him or herself five cards. Four more cards are then dealt face-down in the middle, five more go to the other player, then five more to the dealer. In the end, there should be eight cards face-down in between the two players, and each player should have ten cards in their hands. To determine who goes first, each player flips over a card in the middle, and whoever flips over the card that represents the latest month goes first.
Three Player: Similar to the two player style, but with different amounts of cards. After the deck is cut, the dealer puts three cards face down in the middle, then each player is dealt four cards, then three more go down in the middle, then each player gets an additional three cards. In the end, there should be six cards face down in the middle and each player should have seven cards in their hands. To determine who goes first, each player flips over a card in the middle, and whoever flips over the card that represents the latest month goes first.
Dealing: After the first game:
Dealing after the first game is done by the winner of the previous game. The winner also has the advantage of going first.
Game Play
Once the cards are dealt, the dealer goes first, and play goes counter-clockwise. Two things are always done on each turn. FIRST, the player tries to match a card from his hand to a card that's been dealt face-up in the middle. If there are no matches, he must discard one of his cards into the pile. SECOND, the same player flips one card from the top of the deck. If it matches nothing, the player must leave it in the middle pile. However, if the player matches any cards in the middle from either his hand or from the deck, then he takes those cards and arranges them on the table in front of him. Cards that have been matched are eligible to score points, whereas cards that haven't been matched and are still in the player's hand are not eligible. Basically, you have to match cards in order to score points with them.
However, if a player is taking his turn and he matches a card from his hand to a card in the pile, then flips a card from the deck over which matches the pair he just put together, then those three cards remain on the table until someone plays the fourth card that matches. You can ONLY take cards away in pairs or quads. When someone takes that pile with the fourth card, the other player(s) must give him one Pi card as a bonus. Also, if you have three of the same suit in your hand and the remaining match is in the middle, you can play all three at once, and again, you get a bonus card from the other player(s). If you do manage to play all three cards at once, you can take up to two turns where you don't discard from your hand, you just go straight to the deck and flip a card.
If a player cannot match a card from his hand, then discards one of his cards into the center pile, then flips a card that matches the card he just put down, this is called a Kiss, and the other players must give him one Pi in this situation.
Also, if at any time a player clears all the center cards, either by making two matches or by a Kiss, the player will one Pi from the other players.
Once you match cards and can score with them, you need to arrange them into the four categories listed from above. There are many different ways to score points, so it's important to organize your cards correctly.
Jokers
Each deck comes with six jokers, but games are usually played with only two. A joker is worth two Pi cards. If you are dealt a joker, you can play it, giving you two more Pi, and then you simply draw a card to replace it, and then start your turn over. Jokers can NOT be used to match cards that are on the table, they are simply used to give you another card. Once you play the joker and take your card, you must then play a card from your hand and then flip a card just like a regular turn.
If you flip a joker from the deck, you simply take that joker and flip one more card.
Scoring
Pi – to score with Pi, you must have at least 10 Pi cards. Once you have ten, you receive 1 point. Each additional Pi is worth 1 additional point. REMEMBER: there are four cards that are 'special' Pi cards, and that are worth two Pi each. See above. You might notice that two of them are also in the animal category. These two cards can be EITHER one animal or two Pi. If you collect either of these two cards, you can put them in the animal category first, and then opt to move them to the Pi category afterwards, but you cannot move them the other way.
Animals – to score with animals, you need at least 5. Each additional animal is worth 1 point. There is a special case with birds. You will receive 5 points if you collect the bird cards from February, April, and August.
The other card with a bird on it from December, does NOT count. However, if you collect the three correct bird cards, and two more animals, you will receive 6 points (5 points for the birds + 1 point for having 5 animal cards). Again, each additional animal card is an additional point.
Gwang – You need at least 3 Gwang cards to score points. If you have 3 Gwang cards, then you will have 3 points UNLESS one of the three is the one from December.
If you have three Gwang cards including the one from December, you only get 2 points. However, if you have any four Gwang cards, you get four points. If you get all five Gwang cards, you get 15 points.
Ribbons – Any combination of five ribbons gives you one point, with each additional ribbon giving you an additional point. However, if you can match a set of ribbons (3 blue with writing, 3 red with writing, or 3 red without writing) then you will get 3 points. However, if one of three blank red ribbons is the ribbon from December, you do NOT get points for collecting the set. You may get 4 points for having all four blank red ribbons, or 3 points for having the three blank red ribbons that are NOT from December. So, for example, if you have all three blue ribbons, plus two blank red ribbons, you will have 4 points (3 points for the set + 1 point for having a total of five ribbons).
Friday, April 10, 2009
Phrasal Konglish #1
From wikipedia:
I find the phrases and sentences that are printed on Korean stationary hilarious. Because they are actual phrases and sentences, and not single words, I don't think they quite fit the above definition of Konglish. More often than not, there are few or no technical mistakes in these sentences, but they are hilarious nonetheless. They're often unnecessarily dramatic and sappy and way out of place on stationary.
T-shirts and sweatshirts also sport very strange sayings, and these are far more apt to be riddled with vulgarity and grammatical wormholes. You can understand what they say, you just don't understand how you understand. I'm going to start posting collections of these bizarre and entertaining sentences and phrases here, and for the sake of convenience, I am taking the liberty of creating a name for them - Phrasal Konglish.
I could possibly be responsible for any spelling/grammar mistakes you notice, but more often than not, what I copy down here will be exactly how it's printed (quotation marks [" "] added to set apart the "title" of the notebook/page when applicable).
On my (Barunson brand) notepad:
On a bunch of students' English notebooks:
Konglish (Korean: 콩글리시) is the use of English words (or words derived from English words) in a Korean context. The words, having initially been taken from English language, are either actual English words in Korean context, or are made from a combination of Korean and English words.
I find the phrases and sentences that are printed on Korean stationary hilarious. Because they are actual phrases and sentences, and not single words, I don't think they quite fit the above definition of Konglish. More often than not, there are few or no technical mistakes in these sentences, but they are hilarious nonetheless. They're often unnecessarily dramatic and sappy and way out of place on stationary.
T-shirts and sweatshirts also sport very strange sayings, and these are far more apt to be riddled with vulgarity and grammatical wormholes. You can understand what they say, you just don't understand how you understand. I'm going to start posting collections of these bizarre and entertaining sentences and phrases here, and for the sake of convenience, I am taking the liberty of creating a name for them - Phrasal Konglish.
I could possibly be responsible for any spelling/grammar mistakes you notice, but more often than not, what I copy down here will be exactly how it's printed (quotation marks [" "] added to set apart the "title" of the notebook/page when applicable).
On my (Barunson brand) notepad:
"Haroo's city night"
"TREASURE OF MEMORY"
ALL THE MEMORIES ARE SHINING IN THOSE OLD DAYS.
A happy world is made up of happy hearts.
We invite you to the joyful world of Barunson.
Refresh your happiness with us everyday.
Upgrade your happiness, Barunson.
I always think of the goreous city night
with your wonderful smile.
It was an American dreaming time.
On a bunch of students' English notebooks:
"plain living"
Living leisurely is wonderful.
A simple life makes our mind rich.
You're gonna make yourself proficient step by if you do your best.
"Travel all over Europe"
I'd like to try taking a trip to whatever places my fancy leads me.
"Avenue of memories"
There are few things that are more
important for the happiness of life than to
form a habit of taking a cheerful
view of the circumstances
in which one is placed.
Be of practical use
"Greentea"
TAKE A RESTTIME WITH GREENTEA
"S"
It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly;
what is essential is
invisible to the eye.
SOMETHING THAT IS BLUE IS THE COLOUR OF THE SKY ON A SUNNY DAY.
THERE ARE WERE SWALLOWS IN THE CLOUDLESS BLUE SKY.
"Make a Sketch of the World"
My heart throbbed with joy.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Free Fridge Art Revised
There has been a significant change to the direction in which my proposed free fridge art will take. For awhile now, I have been taking all the flyers that I get stuck on my door, which I have previously just stuck on my fridge, and been stripping them of their magnets and staples, and then cutting the hell out of them until they are in tiny pieces. These pieces I keep in a bag.
I don't really remember what gave me the idea for this, but I plan on taking all of these tiny pieces and making a large colorful mosaic on a piece of white paper I bought and cut to fit exactly underneath my glass kitchen tabletop.
I had to do something similar, though on a much smaller scale, for an art class I took in college when I was studying in Utah. I recreated a picture I had taken of the Sydney Opera House, which I later wound up giving to Alissa for a birthday present since we had gone to said opera house together.
Whatever gave me the idea for this, probably just boredom, once I thought of the idea I knew I would be a total pussy if I didn't at least attempt to do it. So far I have half-filled that bag on my table, and I don't even think I'm half-way through cutting up my flyers. I usually cut them up when I am watching a movie on my computer, or playing poker online or something like that. If I made any point to dedicate time to this, I'm sure I would've finished by now, but I just wind up doing it now and again. I plan to start the actual creation of the mosaic once I am done cutting up the flyers. I may just be setting a goal for myself that I can't reach, but we'll see.
As for the actual design of the mosaic, right now I am leaning towards making a Korean flag, for lack of anything better to do. The design is simple, using only red, white, blue, and black, but having each aspect of the flag made up of tiny pieces of delivery menus will surely add a whole new dimension to the otherwise straightforward flag.
Thinking about what it will be like when it is finished, I realized that pretty much any piece of art that takes a ridiculous amount of time to create, especially when the creation involves hours of a repetitive mind-numbing procedure, is impressive and admirable simply for the fact that some human or group of humans put such effort and time into menial and dull groundwork for the sake of turning mountains worth of that very dull groundwork into something exceptional and remarkable. John Funchion's hollow ball of hundreds of sanded woodscraps comes to mind. All the stuff that Yayoi Kusama made with thousands of dots comes to mind too.
I learned about her from a program I watched on TV in a minbak on Jeju-do during the first night of my cycling trip there. That was during the short time between cycling and and conking out. I'm sure there is an endless amount of other examples to this sort of art. I don't know if there is a term for it. Maybe obsessive, or accumulative, or OCD art. Those all seem like they would fit. I think it's the artistic equivalent of turning lead to gold.
I don't really remember what gave me the idea for this, but I plan on taking all of these tiny pieces and making a large colorful mosaic on a piece of white paper I bought and cut to fit exactly underneath my glass kitchen tabletop.
I had to do something similar, though on a much smaller scale, for an art class I took in college when I was studying in Utah. I recreated a picture I had taken of the Sydney Opera House, which I later wound up giving to Alissa for a birthday present since we had gone to said opera house together.
Whatever gave me the idea for this, probably just boredom, once I thought of the idea I knew I would be a total pussy if I didn't at least attempt to do it. So far I have half-filled that bag on my table, and I don't even think I'm half-way through cutting up my flyers. I usually cut them up when I am watching a movie on my computer, or playing poker online or something like that. If I made any point to dedicate time to this, I'm sure I would've finished by now, but I just wind up doing it now and again. I plan to start the actual creation of the mosaic once I am done cutting up the flyers. I may just be setting a goal for myself that I can't reach, but we'll see.
As for the actual design of the mosaic, right now I am leaning towards making a Korean flag, for lack of anything better to do. The design is simple, using only red, white, blue, and black, but having each aspect of the flag made up of tiny pieces of delivery menus will surely add a whole new dimension to the otherwise straightforward flag.
Thinking about what it will be like when it is finished, I realized that pretty much any piece of art that takes a ridiculous amount of time to create, especially when the creation involves hours of a repetitive mind-numbing procedure, is impressive and admirable simply for the fact that some human or group of humans put such effort and time into menial and dull groundwork for the sake of turning mountains worth of that very dull groundwork into something exceptional and remarkable. John Funchion's hollow ball of hundreds of sanded woodscraps comes to mind. All the stuff that Yayoi Kusama made with thousands of dots comes to mind too.
I learned about her from a program I watched on TV in a minbak on Jeju-do during the first night of my cycling trip there. That was during the short time between cycling and and conking out. I'm sure there is an endless amount of other examples to this sort of art. I don't know if there is a term for it. Maybe obsessive, or accumulative, or OCD art. Those all seem like they would fit. I think it's the artistic equivalent of turning lead to gold.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yellow Dust
Spring has come early to Daegu. The weather has been super warm, maybe the low 70's. It's unseasonably warm for this time apparently. Along with the warm weather though, the Yellow Dust/Asian Dust has come. Every year in the spring, the prevailing winds in this part of the world shift and Korea gets covered (I've actually been told it can accumulate on the ground, like the dust on top of your TV) with a fine dull yellow dust blown from the Chinese and Mongolian deserts. The 'hwangsa' sometimes can be really bad, devastating air quality and causing serious problems for kids and the elderly. Fortunately I am young and healthy and indestructible. According to a Korean weather website, when the hwangsa density gets too high(400㎛/㎡ for over 2 hours), it's a bad idea to exercise outdoors, and if it goes even higher (800㎛/㎡ for over 2 hours)then
It hasn't been bad yet, in fact it's been very low for Daegu, especially since this weekend was rainy. It reminds of living in Salt Lake City, when the stagnant air would get trapped in the valley from a lack of weather blowing in from the west to clear it out. They called it 'inversion'. I called it disgusting. There would be a phlegm-colored cloud hanging over the city, even completely obscuring the ground if you were up on a mountain looking down on it from above. One day when I was working at Litza's Pizza, making pies while staring out of the plate glass window towards downtown, I couldn't even see the skyscrapers six blocks away. That was gross, I hope this Yellow Dust clears out before it gets that bad here.
The old, the young, and those with respiratory diseases are prohibited from going outside.
· Kindergarden and elementary school students are prohibited from outdoor activities and their class should be dismissed
· Everybody is prohibited from outdoor activities.
· Outdoor sports event should be rescheduled.
It hasn't been bad yet, in fact it's been very low for Daegu, especially since this weekend was rainy. It reminds of living in Salt Lake City, when the stagnant air would get trapped in the valley from a lack of weather blowing in from the west to clear it out. They called it 'inversion'. I called it disgusting. There would be a phlegm-colored cloud hanging over the city, even completely obscuring the ground if you were up on a mountain looking down on it from above. One day when I was working at Litza's Pizza, making pies while staring out of the plate glass window towards downtown, I couldn't even see the skyscrapers six blocks away. That was gross, I hope this Yellow Dust clears out before it gets that bad here.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Spring Break
Winter break ended the day after I got back from the Philippines. I went to school on Monday and taught classes for three days before they had the graduation and school closing ceremonies on Thursday and Friday. The graduation ceremony consisted of the third grade students sitting in their classrooms with parents and family crowded in the backs of the rooms and outside, watching through the open doors while the ceremony itself was broadcast on the class TVs from elsewhere in the school.
The students are usually really shy, beyond shouting "mahTEEN HI" and giggling, but the third grade students were clearly excited to be graduating, and a lot asked me to take their picture when they saw I had my camera. I didn't really know any of them since I taught only the first and second grade students. Easily the funniest part of the day was when I went up to the fifth floor, where there are only third grade classrooms. The smell of egg and vinegar and flour was instantly noticeable. Throwing this concoction on each other is one of their pranks I guess, and I was pretty impressed how the girls covered in it weren't freaking out that they had egg yolk smearing their hair, or fussing over all the flour on their clothes.
I was told that they didn't hold the ceremony communally in the gym because people complained it was too cold last year or something like that, which seemed like a lame reason to put everyone in classrooms, but I guess that's what you get for complaining. The year closing ceremony consisted of a farewell thing for the teachers that were leaving after that semester, about fifteen of them. In Korea, teachers must transfer schools every four years, no exceptions. Both days were really half days with some random cleaning and so forth in addition to the ceremonies.
That's me and most of the other English teachers, two of whom, including my main co-teacher, left. It was a pretty light week to deal with before I got another two weeks free for spring break, before the new school year started up in March. I considered going on another trip abroad, checking out Japan, China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan if I could find a cheap flight, but I only looked into it half-assed. The five day wait for a Chinese visa didn't really entice me to put much effort into it either. I wound up coming up with a plan to fly to Jeju-do for four days during the second week of spring break, the last week of February. The idea was to rent a bike and ride a loop around the island, a distance listed in my guidebook as 250 kilometers, and estimated by my friend Jeff, who moved there specifically to train for triathalons, and thus bikes around the island frequently, as slightly less.
I got into Jeju-si on Tuesday at 9AM after a one-hour flight from Daegu. I was at the bike shop recommended to me by Jeff by 9:30. The sign said it didn't open until 10AM so I sat down to wait as the owner was getting to the shop. He let me in right away and had a bike prepared for me since one of my co-teachers called to inquire about bikes the day before. It was 20K per day, which was more expensive than the places listed in my guidebook as renting bikes for between 5K and 8K per day, but I figured since Jeff takes his shit real seriously, and of all the bike shops on the island, and this was the one he told me to go to, they would hook me up with a good bike. It was a good bike, too. A Cannondale mountain bike frame with road tires put on, as per my request. Turns out it was the owners personal bike even, and he was renting it to me because the other frames would've been too small for me at 17 inches. I packed up the spare tube and whatnot he gave me and took off.
It was a gray day in the morning, but the sun came out for a bit mid-day only to disappear again in the afternoon. It took me some time to work my way out of the city and to find the 1132 (listed as the 12 on the above map). On my way there I tried to take some coastal roads once I got towards the coast, and wound up getting turned around like three times and performing such poor shifting techniques on some hills that my chain came off a couple times, leading me to believe I had some shitty gear at my feet. I eventually got on the right road and was able to detour off the bike path that runs alongside it onto smaller and less-trafficked coastal roads that, as the name implies, hug the coast for the most part. I stopped to eat some kimbap at a beach which turned out to be covered by a tarp above the high tide line. My only guess is that this prevents any of the beautiful white sand from washing away during the off-season.
The strip of sand that wasn't tarped over contrasted nicely with the jet black volcanic rock that the island is made out of, and the light green water. It looked like it could've been a tropical beach despite the fact that the air was chilly and the wind was blowing strong and steady. Probably the coolest local distinction on Jeju are the rock walls that crisscross the farmland and surround the houses. It's all made from chunks of the same black porous volcanic rock that stick out on the beaches, and almost none of the walls use cement. Some are just kinda thrown together leaving holes here and there that you can see through, and others are placed so tightly that they look solid and pretty much have dead flat tops.
I finished the first day around 4:30 at Sungsan Ilchubong, or Sunrise Peak listed above on the map. The owner of the bike shop said it was only a two-hour ride but that estimate must assume that you are in shape and know where you are going. I was pretty beat and had been planning on hunting down a jimjjilbang to stay in for cheap, but as I was rolling through the little town below the little mountain an ajumma kinda pulled me into her minbak, and I took the private room there instead of having to find a jimjjilbang and sleep in an open room with a bunch of strangers. Plus the minbak was right below the mountain and I figured I could do a sunrise hike the next morning since it was called Sunrise Peak. I couldn't even finish a bottle of beer that night I was so beat. I woke up at 5:30 to make sure I caught the sunrise. I hiked through the darkness up to the top of the peak, which isn't really so much a peak as one part of the rim of a raised crater made by volcanic activity about 5,000 years ago. It was misty and windy and there was no visibility whatsoever. I was the first one up there but a few other people came up for the sunrise which was noticeable only due to the mist and fog getting lighter. No beautiful colors creeping over the horizon like I was hoping for but oh well.
Day two I rode from about 9 to 6, with a nice lunch break to gorge myself on pizza and relax in a PC room in Seogwipo in the middle of the southern coast. My ass was killing at this point. When I tested the bike out I didn't realize how uncomfortable the seat would be after extended riding. I felt like my ass was fully bruised and sunburned, and I was sitting on a two by four. I must've made it 80 kilometers that day, from Sunrise Peak in the east to Sanbangsan in the southwest. I made a few stops along the coast to take in some nice views of the rugged coast line, and only got a little lost once trying to follow a coastal road. I wound up having to ride up this steep-ass hill with a switchback or two towards the end of the day when I was pretty beat, and at one point I had to get off and walk the bike up for about ten minutes, which I thought was pretty lame but better than killing myself. The good part about that was just before I got some pretty killer photos of the sun dipping in the sky over some coastal farm land.
I had nearly made it to Jeff's town of Museolpo, in fact I could see it from the temple on Sanbangsan, but I decided to just get another minbak below the temple and meet up with him the next morning. Thanks to my lack of functional Korean, it took me three tries to get a place. It's much easier when ajummas are standing out on the street waiting to give you a room like the night before. Anyway, I found a place, and the owner gave me some mandarin oranges, which are a big crop on Jeju, and I got some dinner and slept a solid eleven hours. In the morning Jeff and I met up by the temple on Sanbangsan and he brought me north up the west coast of the island. It was good to have someone who knows the island show me around because we went on some tiny roads I would've missed on my own. He's pretty much the only foreigner in his little corner of the island and so he just trains all the time so I know he was grateful for having someone to talk to too. He was on his mountain bike, with much bigger tires than I had, and was having a leisurely tour with me as a break from training, but I still had to push myself to keep up with him. I guess that's what happens when you ride bikes every day. Previous to leaving for Jeju, he recommended I tour the island clockwise with hopes of getting a tailwind for the final leg. That didn't happen though. For the first part of the day we were pushing right into the wind which didn't make things easier. Fortunately, my legs were in decent shape. I had been expecting them to be sore as hell after the first day, but they weren't. Then I thought for sure they would be sore after the second day, but they still weren't, so I was pretty happy about that. My knees were a bit achy though, with the cold wet wind on them all day as I was pedaling, but that's a small price to pay I suppose. We made it within a half hour of Jeju-si where Jeff and I parted ways, Jeff going back home, and me going on to the city to see if I could get an earlier flight back home since I had looped the island with one full day to spare. I rode straight to the airport, which turns out to be pretty sketchy on a bike since I was riding on the access and approach roads, but I made it alive and got a flight for the following morning, Friday, instead of my original flight on Saturday morning. Next I had to get out of the airport, which was just as sketchy as getting in, but I made it all right and went back to the bike shop to return everything and get my unused rental fee for Friday back. I went downtown, ate some Mexican food after spending fifteen minutes in a drizzle looking for the restaurant and asking confused Koreans where it was until some foreign girl saw I was clearly clueless and pointed me in the right direction. I threw some darts in an empty bar after eating, and then went to a jimjjilbang for the night. It was great soaking in the hottubs and getting all clean and fresh, but trying to sleep was miserable as there were kids running around and giggling all night long and one room was too cold and another was too smoky, and there were old dudes snoring all over. Should've brought ear plugs.
I got home at 10:30AM Friday, leaving me the whole weekend to relax which was nice since it would've sucked to go to school exhausted on Monday. My legs finally got sore at this point, making walking up and down stairs a dreadful event. My last significant event of spring break was shaving my beard. It was a big decision, since that is one of the only ways my students recognize me from other white people, and because beards are awesome and I had a pretty good one, but I thought it would be fun to mess with them by getting my hair cut (the previous week) and shaving. Also, no Korean girls would dance with me last time I was out at club, probably cause I looked too much like Jesus. Also, it was just time for some change.
I only kept the mustache for a few minutes to take the picture, but it's pretty badass, so maybe I'll grow one for real.
The students are usually really shy, beyond shouting "mahTEEN HI" and giggling, but the third grade students were clearly excited to be graduating, and a lot asked me to take their picture when they saw I had my camera. I didn't really know any of them since I taught only the first and second grade students. Easily the funniest part of the day was when I went up to the fifth floor, where there are only third grade classrooms. The smell of egg and vinegar and flour was instantly noticeable. Throwing this concoction on each other is one of their pranks I guess, and I was pretty impressed how the girls covered in it weren't freaking out that they had egg yolk smearing their hair, or fussing over all the flour on their clothes.
I was told that they didn't hold the ceremony communally in the gym because people complained it was too cold last year or something like that, which seemed like a lame reason to put everyone in classrooms, but I guess that's what you get for complaining. The year closing ceremony consisted of a farewell thing for the teachers that were leaving after that semester, about fifteen of them. In Korea, teachers must transfer schools every four years, no exceptions. Both days were really half days with some random cleaning and so forth in addition to the ceremonies.
That's me and most of the other English teachers, two of whom, including my main co-teacher, left. It was a pretty light week to deal with before I got another two weeks free for spring break, before the new school year started up in March. I considered going on another trip abroad, checking out Japan, China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan if I could find a cheap flight, but I only looked into it half-assed. The five day wait for a Chinese visa didn't really entice me to put much effort into it either. I wound up coming up with a plan to fly to Jeju-do for four days during the second week of spring break, the last week of February. The idea was to rent a bike and ride a loop around the island, a distance listed in my guidebook as 250 kilometers, and estimated by my friend Jeff, who moved there specifically to train for triathalons, and thus bikes around the island frequently, as slightly less.
I got into Jeju-si on Tuesday at 9AM after a one-hour flight from Daegu. I was at the bike shop recommended to me by Jeff by 9:30. The sign said it didn't open until 10AM so I sat down to wait as the owner was getting to the shop. He let me in right away and had a bike prepared for me since one of my co-teachers called to inquire about bikes the day before. It was 20K per day, which was more expensive than the places listed in my guidebook as renting bikes for between 5K and 8K per day, but I figured since Jeff takes his shit real seriously, and of all the bike shops on the island, and this was the one he told me to go to, they would hook me up with a good bike. It was a good bike, too. A Cannondale mountain bike frame with road tires put on, as per my request. Turns out it was the owners personal bike even, and he was renting it to me because the other frames would've been too small for me at 17 inches. I packed up the spare tube and whatnot he gave me and took off.
It was a gray day in the morning, but the sun came out for a bit mid-day only to disappear again in the afternoon. It took me some time to work my way out of the city and to find the 1132 (listed as the 12 on the above map). On my way there I tried to take some coastal roads once I got towards the coast, and wound up getting turned around like three times and performing such poor shifting techniques on some hills that my chain came off a couple times, leading me to believe I had some shitty gear at my feet. I eventually got on the right road and was able to detour off the bike path that runs alongside it onto smaller and less-trafficked coastal roads that, as the name implies, hug the coast for the most part. I stopped to eat some kimbap at a beach which turned out to be covered by a tarp above the high tide line. My only guess is that this prevents any of the beautiful white sand from washing away during the off-season.
The strip of sand that wasn't tarped over contrasted nicely with the jet black volcanic rock that the island is made out of, and the light green water. It looked like it could've been a tropical beach despite the fact that the air was chilly and the wind was blowing strong and steady. Probably the coolest local distinction on Jeju are the rock walls that crisscross the farmland and surround the houses. It's all made from chunks of the same black porous volcanic rock that stick out on the beaches, and almost none of the walls use cement. Some are just kinda thrown together leaving holes here and there that you can see through, and others are placed so tightly that they look solid and pretty much have dead flat tops.
I finished the first day around 4:30 at Sungsan Ilchubong, or Sunrise Peak listed above on the map. The owner of the bike shop said it was only a two-hour ride but that estimate must assume that you are in shape and know where you are going. I was pretty beat and had been planning on hunting down a jimjjilbang to stay in for cheap, but as I was rolling through the little town below the little mountain an ajumma kinda pulled me into her minbak, and I took the private room there instead of having to find a jimjjilbang and sleep in an open room with a bunch of strangers. Plus the minbak was right below the mountain and I figured I could do a sunrise hike the next morning since it was called Sunrise Peak. I couldn't even finish a bottle of beer that night I was so beat. I woke up at 5:30 to make sure I caught the sunrise. I hiked through the darkness up to the top of the peak, which isn't really so much a peak as one part of the rim of a raised crater made by volcanic activity about 5,000 years ago. It was misty and windy and there was no visibility whatsoever. I was the first one up there but a few other people came up for the sunrise which was noticeable only due to the mist and fog getting lighter. No beautiful colors creeping over the horizon like I was hoping for but oh well.
Day two I rode from about 9 to 6, with a nice lunch break to gorge myself on pizza and relax in a PC room in Seogwipo in the middle of the southern coast. My ass was killing at this point. When I tested the bike out I didn't realize how uncomfortable the seat would be after extended riding. I felt like my ass was fully bruised and sunburned, and I was sitting on a two by four. I must've made it 80 kilometers that day, from Sunrise Peak in the east to Sanbangsan in the southwest. I made a few stops along the coast to take in some nice views of the rugged coast line, and only got a little lost once trying to follow a coastal road. I wound up having to ride up this steep-ass hill with a switchback or two towards the end of the day when I was pretty beat, and at one point I had to get off and walk the bike up for about ten minutes, which I thought was pretty lame but better than killing myself. The good part about that was just before I got some pretty killer photos of the sun dipping in the sky over some coastal farm land.
I had nearly made it to Jeff's town of Museolpo, in fact I could see it from the temple on Sanbangsan, but I decided to just get another minbak below the temple and meet up with him the next morning. Thanks to my lack of functional Korean, it took me three tries to get a place. It's much easier when ajummas are standing out on the street waiting to give you a room like the night before. Anyway, I found a place, and the owner gave me some mandarin oranges, which are a big crop on Jeju, and I got some dinner and slept a solid eleven hours. In the morning Jeff and I met up by the temple on Sanbangsan and he brought me north up the west coast of the island. It was good to have someone who knows the island show me around because we went on some tiny roads I would've missed on my own. He's pretty much the only foreigner in his little corner of the island and so he just trains all the time so I know he was grateful for having someone to talk to too. He was on his mountain bike, with much bigger tires than I had, and was having a leisurely tour with me as a break from training, but I still had to push myself to keep up with him. I guess that's what happens when you ride bikes every day. Previous to leaving for Jeju, he recommended I tour the island clockwise with hopes of getting a tailwind for the final leg. That didn't happen though. For the first part of the day we were pushing right into the wind which didn't make things easier. Fortunately, my legs were in decent shape. I had been expecting them to be sore as hell after the first day, but they weren't. Then I thought for sure they would be sore after the second day, but they still weren't, so I was pretty happy about that. My knees were a bit achy though, with the cold wet wind on them all day as I was pedaling, but that's a small price to pay I suppose. We made it within a half hour of Jeju-si where Jeff and I parted ways, Jeff going back home, and me going on to the city to see if I could get an earlier flight back home since I had looped the island with one full day to spare. I rode straight to the airport, which turns out to be pretty sketchy on a bike since I was riding on the access and approach roads, but I made it alive and got a flight for the following morning, Friday, instead of my original flight on Saturday morning. Next I had to get out of the airport, which was just as sketchy as getting in, but I made it all right and went back to the bike shop to return everything and get my unused rental fee for Friday back. I went downtown, ate some Mexican food after spending fifteen minutes in a drizzle looking for the restaurant and asking confused Koreans where it was until some foreign girl saw I was clearly clueless and pointed me in the right direction. I threw some darts in an empty bar after eating, and then went to a jimjjilbang for the night. It was great soaking in the hottubs and getting all clean and fresh, but trying to sleep was miserable as there were kids running around and giggling all night long and one room was too cold and another was too smoky, and there were old dudes snoring all over. Should've brought ear plugs.
I got home at 10:30AM Friday, leaving me the whole weekend to relax which was nice since it would've sucked to go to school exhausted on Monday. My legs finally got sore at this point, making walking up and down stairs a dreadful event. My last significant event of spring break was shaving my beard. It was a big decision, since that is one of the only ways my students recognize me from other white people, and because beards are awesome and I had a pretty good one, but I thought it would be fun to mess with them by getting my hair cut (the previous week) and shaving. Also, no Korean girls would dance with me last time I was out at club, probably cause I looked too much like Jesus. Also, it was just time for some change.
I only kept the mustache for a few minutes to take the picture, but it's pretty badass, so maybe I'll grow one for real.
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