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.