One more before we go...

What a week this has been. Some of you may say "C'mon, you can't be that busy!!" but we are, and we are still sick. No, I haven't taken on that cutsey couple thing where if one person has a cold, flu, headache, whatever, it translates to we. We both have been knocked on our asses this week with a flu bug that has been going around and it didn't help that we were around close to 200 kids all week and had to pack on top of that. We are actually at school for a half a day today, which was not supposed to happen but sometimes things are beyond our realm of understanding and we just have to go with the flow for our sanity. We had big ideas for this last post but, as the trend seems to be lately, things just aren't going our way. This past week has left sort of a distorted view of our experience here and right now we just want to go. We will have internet in our hotel in Toronto where we are holding fort for a few days before we get back in action, so perhaps once our rose coloured glasses are back in place we can follow through with a proper update on our last week in Asia's Best Kept Secret. So, we are signing off (from Korea, at least) and we will see you all next year...

A Festivus For The Rest Of Us

We had to do something to celebrate Christmas, so off to Seoul we went. Our plan for Saturday was to do something new, preferably Korean, definitely indoors. We headed to the National Centre for Korean Traditional Performing Arts for a show. Every Saturday they have performance of Korean music and dance and it was absolutely beautiful. Later that night we met up with Stephanie and Malachy for a Christmas Eve dinner at Taj, a fantastic Indian restaurant (real Indian, not a single bit of kimchi to be seen!) and then headed to church. Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral was built in 1898 and is the only pure Gothic-style building in Korea and is meant to have just stunning interior. At least that's what we heard. The church is famous for midnight mass and we were really looking forward to seeing it, we just didn't account for the other million or so people that had the same plan as us. We got to the church around 11:15 and there was a line around the block to get in. We were there just a smidge too late and were hearded into the hall where we got to view the mass on a giant screen. It was in Korean but we still were able to participate by singing a few songs and receiving communion. It wasn't quite the grand Christmas mass we were expecting, but it was still nice.That is pretty much where the festivities stopped. Darin got his horrible cold back and it came full force out of nowhere. Christmas morning we went to a cafe thinking a little caffeine might help and we could carry on with our plans of going to Lotte World and surrounding ourselves with Christmas trees and lights but no such luck. This is how Darin looked the entire hour and a half we were there and pretty much for the rest of the day.The grand finale to the day was getting some Chinese take-out in Seoul and heading home early to get my sick husband all nestled and snug in his bed. It really didn't feel like Christmas at all but we are lucky and get to do it up right in January with all our family and friends, and we are so looking forward to it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!

Does this make me Mrs Claus?

Today we had another grand activity day at school. If you remember the others, you will know that this isn't even worth talking about. The theme of this one was making Christmas cards (which were to be mailed until the genius that planned the day on December 23rd realized that they wouldn't make it to the parents until the new year and then settled on stuffing them in the kids' backpacks.) As usual the kindergartens stole the show with the best of the festivities occuring after hours. If the parents signed up and dropped off a present at the school, Santa would visit them at their homes and wish them a Merry Christmas. Where do you find Santa in Korea, you ask? Well, you don't, you just make the foreign guy don the red suit and off you go ... Darin really was having a good time as Santa, but you would never know it by his miserable look in the pictures. He was happy in at least one photo when he gave Mimi her present - oh no, I guess he wasn't, there's that same scowl under all those whiskers. Mimi wasn't too sure what to make of this Santa, but she still didn't guess it was Darin with his red hair hanging out of the hat. We are off to Seoul for the weekend to find some Christmas cheer. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Yoho Yoho ...

... a blogger's life for me. At some point in every blogger's existence in cyberspace, you find yourself writing a blog about why you blog. We all do it. We all question why we spend hours every week, or even every day, writing blog entries. We all ask ourselves, do we really love it or are we just addicted? We all come up with our own personal reasons, but what it comes down to is that we are all storytellers of one sort or another and we all have stories to tell. One aspect of this trip that has given us ample supply of stories to draw from is the kids we teach. Here is something about this blog that would be really magical: We are in Korea teaching kids how to write, speak, listen to, and read English. What if some of these Korean children grow up to become fluent in the language they are studying and one day, while trolling cyberspace, come across this blog; a blog that talks about them and shows pictures of them as they were going through the process of learning English. Not all of it is good stuff, mind you, but it's all truthful and they could see what they were like in school from the teachers' perspectives. Some of these students are really a joy to teach and we will miss some of them. Some not so much. This class, in particular, was Jenn's worst and she often needed consolation from me everytime it rolled around. The classroom can seat eight comfortably, so it wasn't easy walking in when it was crammed with thirteen rugrats who rarely sat still for two minutes and usually all talked at the same time. These are two brothers at our school. The older one is Denny, who I taught, and he was very respectful and studious, although one day he came to school with spots all over his face and we were horrified that a mother sent her child to school with chicken pox. There was no outbreak at the school so it must have been some other skin condition that wasn't contagious. The younger one is Frankie, who was the bane of Jenn's existence for a few months. But he got this contraption on his face about a month ago and he's not quite so bad anymore. We aren't sure what the contraption is for yet; if it's braces, we can't figure out why it goes from his chin to his forehead. This is also the same little guy that was brave enough to wear a ponytail to emulate his favourite Canadian teacher. These are two of my hyper students. Every single day, Shelley (with the glasses) runs up to Jenn and spastically screams at her, "Hello cute girl!!!!" while frantically waving both hands. When we leave here, Jenn's days will feel incomplete without this daily greeting. She has warned me that I will have to do it every so often to ween her off it. We are going to have to get used to not being the centre of attention. But that's more of a relief really.

It Really Is This Cold

So, we see that there are doubters out there in regards to our weather (OK, just one, but still). Here is a link to the Weather Network for those of you that enjoy temperatures or just need proof. BRRRR Keep in mind that this is the weather report for Seoul, it is at least 5 degrees colder where we are in the 'countryside'. Now, I did check the weather for Windsor, Tecumseh and Chatham. It is cold there too, I'm not saying it's not. I have lived there and endured the harsh weather for 26 years, I feel your pain, but, I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS COLD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! I have no idea what the difference is, perhaps Patrick is right and it is the dry cold that we are feeling the effects of but, my God, enough already! Here is our little street as seen from our balcony...

One thing that baffles me is how the kids are sent to school. They rarely have gloves or mittens, scarves are more likely to be seen since they are a fashion accessory, and hats, well don't get me started. Sarah (named for you, Dixon!) was completely freezing when she came into school today. The kids have all started coming to me to rub their hands and ears to warm them. I can't belive how cold they are, no wonder they are miserable half the time these days.
I think Lucy's mom is the only sensible one out there, as she was actually sent to school with a complete set of mittens, scarf and HAT (instead of relying on the hood to keep their ears warm, which never works, as soon as they turn their head, the ears are hanging out!) Joshua's mom did pretty good - no mittens or scarf, but that is darn cute hat.

If more kids wore hats like Liam, I would have nothing to complain about! You all know this is not one of our students, but I just had to share. Too Cute!!

Oh Canada

Hey, you hosers, this is a tribute to the Great White North, our home and native land, the true north strong and free. We stand on guard for thee with two jumbo maple leaves. (As a side note, has anyone noticed that we say "maple leaves on a tree" which is grammatically correct, of course, but never do we say the Toronto Maple Leaves. It just sounds silly. Our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs seem to be pardonned from grammar rules. There is a legitimate reason behind it, but I forget, I'll have to look it up when I get home.) It's no secret that the whole world thinks Canada is the coldest place on Earth. The majority of people think that the North Pole and Canada are synonomous. It's practially impossible to convince people that Canada has four seasons (Summer? What do you mean Canada has summer??) But I've never been so cold as I've been in Korea. I'm not one to keep temperature readings, I just know when I'm cold, and I don't need a number to tell me exactly how cold it is. And here it's freezing - you know when your whole face is shrouded behind scarves and hats, except for a slit to see out of, and even then your eyeballs are so frozen that they resonate coldness through your whole body. That's Korean cold. But the people here don't seem to mind. They must be much more warm-blooded then us thin-skinned Canadians. We normally walk around town with our coats zipped up to our noses and our toques (or wooly hats for you Irish out there) pulled down to our eyebrows. For the most part, Koreans walk around with spring coats and hatless. While we are frozen to the bone, only a handful of school kids wear their thick coats, most just walk around with their school uniform blazer. It's mind boggling. And to make matters worse, the school is often freezing too, but very few people mind. It doesn't bother anyone that the heat doesn't kick in until after 2:30 in the afternoon. They don't mind that the hall windows are open in the dead of winter. Here we are typing on the computer while wearing gloves and they act like a school that is colder than an igloo is normal. And to top it off, when the heat does kick in, the students start complaining that it's too hot. Quit complaining you little warm-blooded snakes, my wife and I are trying to thaw out here!! I've asked around and it isn't only our school. It's a common theme in schools to put us through this torture. I don't know if it's to save money or to save energy. Whatever the reason may be, it's not a good enough one, but they aren't about to change anything.





















We get our warmth fix from soup. One of our favourite dishes is bulgogi soup. Since it's been cold, we go for lunch at a Korean diner at least four times a week to get our soup. Not only does it come to the table in a boiling cauldron, but it is full of tiny green peppers that explode in your mouth. When it comes to food, Koreans take temperature-hotness and spicy-hotness to an extreme. Maybe that's what adds to their warm-bloodedness. This series of pictures also demonstrates a few points: (1) We are not totally inept with chopsticks, although not totally skilled either, since you can see noodles falling in mid air from my chopsticks to bowl. (2) This is an example of what we look like when we wear our "couples jackets" that the students like to point out are for lovers.

Cookin' with the Cooks

Never expected to see a Broadway show in Korea, but this weekend we ended up at the theatre(the real theatre with flesh and blood actors, not the cinema). We were on own way to finish seeing The Palace of Shining Happiness, but it was sooo cold that we were more likely to become frigidly grumpy than shiningly happy as we walked around the palace grounds, so the weather drove us to deviate from our original plans and look for some indoor activity. But never fear, because Seoul has endless possibilities. Some Korean brochures have quite a way with words; they usually make more sense than the shirt captions we listed in the fashion post a few days ago, but are sometimes just as funny. Apparently the show we picked to see is "more fun than anyone should legally be allowed." I wouldn't say we should be arrested for the fun we had, but there was far more laughing, clapping, and cheering than I expected at a musical in a foriegn country. The show is purely a Korean creation and it is called Nanta (which translates to "Crazy Beat"). It has been shown in 23 countries, including the real Broadway in New York, and the rest of the world knows it as Cookin'. It is billed as a non-verbal performance, and aside from a few strategically-placed English words, it is simply a musical production of funky rhythms. Picture if you will, an entire musical performance created with kitchen utensils, everything from pots, knifes, chopsticks, brooms, cutting boards, whisks, microwaves, and plastic water jugs. And there was plenty of food thrown in as well. There was a whole segment with cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, and onions flying all over the stage. Think of a more domestic and kitcheny version of Stomp. The brochure introduces it in this way: "What do you get when you cross Jackie Chan with Benihana gone berserk? Four crazy chefs in a high energy percussive symphony of flying food and flashing blades, fighting and juggling their way to a glorious wedding banquet."

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the show itself, but here is a link to the website http://www.nanta.co.kr. It doesn't have an English portion, but there are pictures of the actors in action, if anyone is interested. Before the show, we found an English-speaking Korean at a tourist information booth who helped us make reservations. When we gave our last name to book the reservation, he thought it was very funny. What could be more hilarious than a couple called Cook going to see a play called Cookin'. He even said, "You have very unusual names in Canada." We could say the same for Korean names. And I don't think we've mentioned our experiences with motels yet. On Saturday we stayed over night in Seoul. There are three levels of hotel in Korea. At the high end are the Marriotts & Sheratons of the world. At the low end are seedier motels known as "love" motels that can be rented for the night (or by the hour) for late-night activities. And then in the middle, between $50-70, are the best option for any tourists. They are very clean and luxurious, and typically provide every convenience you need for an overnight stay: shampoo, Q-tips, cologne, tootpaste, shaving cream, loofahs, hair gel, bottled water, iced coffee, juice, hair dryer ... and it goes on. In this particular case, the bathroom had an enormous jacuzzi, a steam shower, and one of those go-go gadget toilet seats that Jenn was able to successfully defend herself against without any further attacks. There was also a computer with free internet and a giant flat screen TV. Check out this setup, for crying out loud. Have you ever seen such a big TV in a hotel room? There were even a few English stations. This puts our wedding-night, Austin-Powers room at the Ramada Inn to shame. Who needs a revolving, circular bed with a TV in the head board when you can have this?

Evidence!

Yes, I read the trash, and I will admit it. I got hooked while working at Chapters where we had our pick of magazines to take into the breakroom for lunch. They were free then, but I will gladly pay for this stuff to get my fill every once in awhile (just not here where they are ten bucks a pop - thank you mom and Dana for keeping me 'in the know' through mail!). What Darin won't tell you is when his nose isn't in Utne or Outpost (The most acceptable of all magazines), it is in my Hollywood trash.
This isn't the trashiest of the trash, and I know many who take People for gospel, but I know that in Darin's book this is just awful - yet he reads it, and enjoys it. As his wife, is it my duty to be ashamed for him??

Fashion Do's and Don'ts

My wife is not ashamed to admit that she reads Hollywood trash magazines. (Is it my duty as a husband to be ashamed for her?) She is quite familiar with the fashion lists of do's and don'ts that movie stars are judged by and we have been making our own list in Korea.

DO'S
1. Burberry. Anything by Burberry, anything by Burberry. Even pants.

2. High heels for women. Especially if they are very high and very difficult to walk in. Short skirts with high heels are preferred, but jeans or track pants do not exclude a women from wearing them.

3. Any arrangement of English words on a shirt. The words do not have to make any sense, be grammatically correct, or be in any proper order. Any arrangement of English words will do. Here is a quote from a book I read that is a spot-on observation linking the English language and Korean fashion. "English has many uses. One of them is a fashion accessory - a language whose function is glamour. It doesn't matter if the glamour carries little or no semantic meaning; the mere atmosphere of English is message enough. The language acts like a brand name." For instance, here is a short selection of shirts we have seen (There are more of these to come, and some of you can look forward to a few souvenir shirts coming your way. Whether these shirts will fit or not is another story. We got the largest sizes possible, but large clothing in Korean doesn't always fit even an average Canadian.)

I ONLY NEED JUICY

CATCH THE FLATFOOTED

THE DIFFERENT AND NAIVE VINTAGE BOHEMIAN RETOUCH

WOOD FRIENDS PARTY FOR YOUR HAPPINESS

BEAUTIFUL TIME PARTNER

4. Couple jackets. Everytime Jenn and I wear our grey Columbia fleecies at the same time, the kids all comment with a sly twinkle in their eyes, "Oh teacher, couple jackets." It is quite common for a man and woman who are romantically involved to buy matching jackets. So I guess we fit right in. On a similar note, some of the students have figured out that we are a couple by asking me the question, "Jennifer Teacher, I love you?" I think this means, "Do you love Jennifer Teacher?" And when I say yes, the kids all squeal with laughter. I'm not sure why it's so hilarious, so maybe I'm interpreting the question incorrectly. Other kids have taken to humming the wedding march when they see us together (Da dum da dum ...)

DON'TS
1. I don't know if this category really applies. I don' t think there is any pattern matching, colour coordination, or fabric mixing that Koreans won't try. They'll wear anything!!

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

In our little family, birthdays are big. One day is just not enough to celebrate. (Does this surprise you? Just think back 7 months - remember how long the wedding celebration lasted?) Darin's birthday technically started 2 weeks ago when he got his presents. He picked out a briefcase for himself and I was so shocked that he asked for something other than books that I bought it on the spot. I managed to get out on my own and find stuff to fill it with, so part of the gift was a surprise. The briefcase lasted a week hidden in the apartment before I finally gave in to his daily pleas of "Can please I have it now?" The jackpot was that I found a book Darin had never heard of and he loved it. I have to let this be known to the world because I was quite proud of myself and the probability of it ever happening again is slim to none.

This weekend we went out for our ritual Friday night dinner with our friends but this time Darin was the guest of honour. We went for dinner at the Hot Pig (sounds yummy, doesn't it) and then to Q'z for drinks and a surprise cake. Stephanie and I ran out with the excuse of getting snacks and got the cake so I wouldn't have to hear cries of protest from Darin. We gave the cake box to the bartender and he knew exactly what to do. Five minutes later the "Congratulations" song was blaring throughout the bar, everyone stood up clapping, and the bartender headed to our table with a glittering birthday cake. It was great!









(Note from Darin: For everyone who hates having themselves singled out in a restaurant with the staff singing and bringing a sparkly cake to your table, let it be known that it is far worse in a foriegn country when all the other patrons of the restaurant are clapping and chanting at you in words that are incomprehensible. As always it was slightly embarassing, but hey, I'll never see these people again.) After this we (actually, Darin) decided to embarass ourselves again at the noraebang. We started with 2 hours and then added another, and then another. Completely hilarious!! Somehow we got coaxed into doing Stayin' Alive.
We even had a guest singer this time. We pressured the owner, who was sporting a lovely yellow party cardigan, to join us in our room and give us a Korean song. He showed us how it was really done with the microphone and we just danced around like idiots. Four hours later we were all hoarse, but we finished the night just like last time by having a group effort to sing November Rain. I have no idea who keeps picking that song! I thought it would have ended just perfect with the second last song Bohemian Rhapsody!The actual birthday was Saturday and Darin set the agenda for the day. All he wanted was dinner and a movie in Seoul. After last night with several mishaps of people losing their balance during Kung Fu Fighting, this sounded like a perfect plan to me. When we got to the theater there was some weird event going on where they we showing movies all night long. Normally we would turn this into a movie marathon but we had bus tickets home for 10:00. The Brothers Grimm was the first choice but they had no showings until 11:00. Harry Potter was next but Darin wasn't completely sold on seeing it. There were a few chick flicks that looked good to me, but again, not what he was looking forward to. So, we had an early dinner first at Uno's Chicago Bar and Grill and had some deep dish pizza. This surprised me, as I thought Darin would opt for The Outback. Then we headed to a different theatre, so the man could see something he would enjoy on his birthday. We settled on a movie called Just Like Heaven - a romantic comedy, but not completely sappy. The selling point for Darin admitting it wasn't horrible was that the actor who played Napoleon Dynamite was in it (minus the curly fro and moonboots).

On Sunday, I let Darin chose our destiny again. He picked Everland, which is the Korean version of Disneyworld. This is a massive amusement park and we couldn't do everything in one day, so we got tickets for the portion known as Caribbean Bay. This is an indoor water park with slides, lazy rivers, tube rides, wave pools, hot tubs, saunas and pirates. We had very much fun on the double-tube ride, where we could go down together on a long, fast, winding slide. And the hot tubs were as relaxing as could be, so relaxing in fact, that we were exhausted on the bus ride home and each dowsed off a few times, which isn't all that easy to do with the maniacs who drive the buses. Not only is the ride normally jerky and bumpy, but the horn is their favourite part of the bus.

Happy 35th, Darin!!

Merry HoHo, Part Deux

It seems we pulled off a big scam on ya'll. Because we are over here, separated from ya'll back home, we keep celebrating Christmas over and over as we get gifts sent to us on a random basis throughout the month of December. We got another package in the mail today, this time from the Iorio clan. The customs slip on the package indicated there was vittles inside and we couldn't very well let it sit in there until December 25th, so once again we prematurely dove into our Christmas presents. (For the reading pleasure of ya'll, I've started talking with a Texan drawl. I'm only doing this because since we've met our friends from Ireland, I've noticed Jenn has altered her accent to sound a bit more Irish; I'm following suit by taking on the accent of our other friend from Texas.)









This is the Christmas corner of our apartment. Other bloggers in the family have been saying that stockings are the best part, well, we now have three stockings between the two of us. The iPod is our tree and our mantle. We don't exactly have a roaring fire, but the floor is heated and keeping our tushes warm as we open our presents. Even though we aren't eating them, we often pass vendors roasting chestnuts on an open fire in the streets like this:

This is what our "tree" looked like after Jenn wrapped the gifts we bought, the ones that are on their way to Canada as we speak. Just to prove we aren't incapable of imposing double standards on the world, we expect ya'll to wait until Christmas day to open your gifts from us. Or just do whatever ya'll want.
So Merry Christmas, and stay tuned, we may be doing this again next week. And if ya'll can stand it, we'll do it all over again in January with less gifts and more family and friends.

Just Our Luck

We had a moderately low-key weekend. We had two things on the agenda: one we completed successfully, the other started out beautifully, but will have to be repeated at a later date to get the full effect. First, on Saturday we went to Seoul and set out for Gyeongbok-gung which translates to "The Palace of Shining Happiness." With a great English name like that, we just had to see it!! This is a huge sprawling estate that was the royal residence of the Joseon Dynasty kings from approximately 1400-1600. The palace was burned to the ground near 1600 during the Japanese invasions and abandonned as burnt rubble until it was reconstructed in the late 1800s. It is quite impressive. When we walked off the subway and caught our first glimpse of the mountain in the background of the front gate, Jenn actually gasped aloud. But this front gate is all we saw for the time being. This is where our bad luck comes in. The palace was closing at 4:00 and we got there at 3:45. There are about 200 buildings inside the gates and the walls, so we will return to get more pictures and learn more history. This was mostly our own fault because we left late to get to Seoul and lingered over our lattes and muffins at Starbucks, but we've had other bad luck on this trip that hasn't been our fault. If you remember when we visited Seoul Tower, we couldn't go to the top because it was under construction. Same for the Jogyesa Temple last weekend: there was full access for tourists but we couldn't see what the outside of the temple looked like because it was covered in scaffolding. Same for the DLI63 building from last weekend: although we were able to take a nice picture of the outside of this 63-storey building, the top 60 floors were unavailable to tourists due to renovations. This meant that the observation deck on floor 63 which apparently has a nice view of Seoul had been temporarily relocated to the lobby. And the view from the lobby just wasn't the same. I suspect South Korea is just one of those countries always under construction, at least it appears so this year. On Sunday, although it was bitterly cold, we were determined to walk around the pottery section of Yeoju. Our town is actually sited in the guidebooks as being world famous for its pottery and it holds annual ceramics festivals. We went into several ceramics stores and Jenn found exactly what she was looking for: A nice ceramic tea set crafted in our own little town and sold in a store owned by the parents of one of her kindergarten students. So that was successful. But as for the inside of this lovely palace, it will have to wait.