Farewell Party

We had my farewell party at work last Friday. You know what that means...only 9 more days of teaching and I am finished! Wow sometimes I can't believe the year is already up!

We went out to a Korean restaurant and had Shabba Shabba. This was also the first meal I had with my staff soon after I arrived so I guess it was fitting :) Basically it is just thin strips of meat boiled in some water with vegetables in it. Its pretty apetizing despite the description but man it gets hot when you are sitting in a closed room with 3 pots of boiling water in front of you. The soju makes things even worse!

back: Jeremy, Andy, Eric, Sinatra
mid: Ben, Sue
front: Elly, Shani and Paul


Afterwards we headed off to a noraebang to sing some karaoke. I always forget how great a singer I am until I go there and recieve applause after everyone of my songs (what? they are clapping that it is over? oh I see.) Well after a year in Korea I was able to sing 3 Korean songs - not well mind you. I can read their characters fast enough now that I can handle it for the most part and a lot of old style Korean songs sound the same so its easy to pick up on how it should sound. Its really fun to do that ~ sing in another language and have no idea what the words mean~ I could have been singing "I love to eat dog and kill white people" for all I know ;0

Mt. Dobongsan

We had Tuesday off so Martha, Laila, Alex, Gu won and I decided to climb Mount Dobongsan which is in a National Park just north of Seoul. I think it is the most visited park in Korea and I can attest to that. All the way up the trail are hundreds and hundreds of people. However we actually were able to take a little side path and escape them. Overall it was the most enjoyable hike Ive done in Korea. It was not really steep at any point and we took a leisurely pace and it was nice to take our way to the top rather than rushing there like on tours.

A cool place for a picnic!


The views from the top were pretty nice too. It wasn't too smoggy so you could see Seoul in the front of the mountain and wilderness in the back. It was neat to see all of the apartment buildings in Seoul that were exactly the same height and color. Not much variety. I think they look like dominoes and if you knocked one over, they all might go.

A rare sight in Korea - no buildings in sight!


Dominoes


On the way back down, Tess and I stopped for a dip in the stream that went along the side of the hiking path. The water was cool but it was definately very refreshing after the long hike up the mountain in the heat and humidity. As we were swimming we noticed a sign beside the pool. Some rudimentary Korean translation told us that it meant swimming was prohibited and could result in a $200 fine. Ah well!





Afterwards we went to a restaurant nearby. This place was really cool. It was on the side of the mountain and everything was outside. It was sort of like a BBQ back home, with campires burning everywhere and there was even a band playing music. The food was good but the atmosphere was amazing. It was hard to believe we were only 10 minutes from the big city.

BBQ Zone

Canada Day

A few of got up on Sunday, put on our red and white and went to a Canada Day party they had in Seoul. It was held in a riverbank park and they had a BBQ, games and some Canadian bands playing. The weather sort of sucked with it sprinkling rain for most of the day but we still managed to have a good time. We got our faces painted (I got a beaver) and drank a lot of Mooshead beer. There was also a big mud pit in front of the stage and a lot of people were sliding in the mud but I managed to keep fairly clean.

Tess and I


In front of the stage


What are the chances they had a tipi at the entrance to the campground?


Afterwards, we headed to Rocky Mountain Tavern in Itaewon (the foreigner district). The place was packed to the rafters and their air conditioner wasn't able to keep up but this is where the real fun started.

Going to the Grey Cup!

Boat Cruise

June21 016, originally uploaded by clark.barr.

I went on a boat cruise down the Han River with a few friends last Sunday. It was about an hour trip start to finish and just cruised along from one point in Seoul to another. Not too exciting and not too much to see. I think it is definately better at night because all the buildings are lit up but we went at dusk when all you can see is just a bunch of apartment buildings lining the riverbank. Its still nice to be out on the water though.

What else have I been up to? Not much! I have been trying to go rollerblading or jogging most mornings. Ive been doing fairly well at going out everyday but now the rainy season has started and I am definately not that committed!

Konglish!

Well for those of you who don't know, there is a special variety of English that is alive and well in Korea....KONGLISH. It is the Korean take on English words. It is quite helpful to know these. For instance when you are shopping and you want two similiar items you should say "same-same." If you settled on just using one "same" there would be no way that would be understood. Also you must add an 'uh' or an 'ee' sound to the end of most words. For instance if you want to trade seats with somebody on the bus you would just look at them and say "changee' while making the appropriate hand gestures. Furthmore, despite the fact that they know we have a little bigger bodies it is still important to specify "largee sizuh" when buying t-shirts and the like. It is all quite simple once you get the hang of it.

Now moving on....

There is an abundance of signs and especially clothing in Korea that really shows Konglish at its best. One of my favourite shirts that I bought near my house is as follows, front: "I LOVE ROCK AND ROLE", back: "i like you. when the world is mine, you death shall be quick and painless." This isn't exactly the best example but it still demonstrates the total obscurity of some of them. Most people don't know what the thing says so you can see some real doozies being worn. Do you actually think the girl wearing the t-shirt that said "My step-parents are dearer to me than my real mother and father" had any idea what it meant? My friend Tess saw that gem when she was on the subway coming to my house... Or what about the 50 year old woman by my house who was wearing a t-shirt that said "I see you've me the twins" emblazoned across her chest. That made me chuckle a little, especially considering Korean endowments... ;)

Last but not least, I will leave you with a few pictures of some funny things I have seen and taken photos of with my cell phone...

"100% Happy Virus"...wow, I must buy this notepad. It really sounds nice and it will definately go with my Beautiful Infection totebag.

Hmmm....one has to wonder what sort of things take place in the MATE Testing room....

Why thank you. You enjoy your "Rice Day" too.

I should also mention that there are many other things which I have come across which are much less family friendly....

Lantern Festival

I went to a Lantern Festival a few weekends ago. It was held in honour of Buddha's Birthday, a national holiday in Korea. This year marked the 2545th year since the Buddha's birth. I'm not sure how long he actually lived for but I doubt it was too long considering how heavy that little guy was. He definitely died of heart trouble or possibly it was complications arising from diabetes



The highlight of the festival was a street parade in downtown Seoul. Pretty well everyone in the parade displayed some sort of lantern. I was wondering why the parade started at 7pm but once I got there it all made sense. The lanterns in the night made a pretty nice display and they also had some typical parade floats that were lit up like lanterns.

The procession of lantern holders like this went on forever:

My friends and I had the best seats in the house for the parade....on the side of the street there was a 6 foot high electrical transformer that we were able to climb onto (don't worry grandmas it was 100% safe). We managed to get 5 of us up there including lanterns and beer so it made for a fun time!

This was the area around the temple...sure was purrty:

A weird thing happened too because out of the thousands of Koreans streaming past as part of the parade, I met eyes with one of them who just happened to be the secretary of our school. She is one of my favorite Koreans. A definate sweetheart. I talked to her afterwards and she told me how her family was Buddhist and how she always participates in the parade. Considering how big Seoul is and how many people live here, I am always amazed when I have these weird encounters....

Who likes lanterns??? Me.

Til next time,

Clark

PS: Happy Birthday Mama!

A video of the parade as it passed. The quality's poor because it was dark out...

Korean Robots

I read an article the other day in the paper about Korea's plans to be the leader in the field of robotics. They are investing a lot of money to increase their technology so that one day they can be the world's premiere supplier of robots. What the Koreans don't realize is that they are already churning out robots at an alarming rate....the robots being their children.

Man do the majority of these people ever lack a personality!!! There are about 5 new teachers at work. Of those, 3 of them are definitely socially retarded. The others aren't exactly fireballs either. A lot of the children are the same. I have a girl in one of my classes who I have to check for a pulse every few minutes because I fear she may have died in class.

Look at all that black hair. The subway:

I think another big problem with the children and why they are so dead so much of the time is the serious lack of sleep that they are getting. I wonder just how much it impairs their development to get so little sleep. Today one of my students told me that she wanted to sleep in class and I asked why she was so tired. Her response was that she had went to bed at 2:30 and was just a little tired. So I did a poll of the class and out of 9 students, only one had got 8 hours of sleep. The rest of them were average about 5 hours each and this was just a typical day for them. These are 10 and 11 year old kids. I guess I can appreciate my mom making me go to bed so early now that I see these kids. One kid, Ralph, told me that one time during summer vacation he slept for 15 hours. I couldn't help but say "Good for you." Its so sad too when I am out on weekends and see parents out with their toddlers at 1 or 2 in the morning. I can't help but think that they are just training them for their days to come.

Late night buddy??? This was at about 6pm on a Thursday evening on the subway:

A lot of people have made predictions about robots taking over the world one day. Well just the same, Koreans and Asians with their incessant studying and 14 hour workdays may one day control the economic world. I say let them have it. They may make more money than us one day but you have to remember quality of life. I know I never want to be a robot. At what point does it cease to be life anymore?