February in Korea

Notes on the month of February

Quiet work weeks, and weekends spent away. Overall, a pretty nice few weeks. After finishing January with a Ski trip, the next weekend I went with a meetup travel group to YongPyong Ski Resort. YongPyong is a much larger ski resort with a gondola and everything! But still, there was almost no real snow on the ground The mountain it was on would actually count as a mountain, but the ski hill seems like really inefficient use of space. They have these really long runs along ridges, but where a ski resort in Canada would have numerous steep, narrow double black runs off the edge of these ridges. The weather was great and the snow was really well made. They did have a few steep runs, which allowed me to ski fast, so overall it was a fantastic weekend.

Then, the next weekend I went on ANOTHER trip. This trip was also with the meetup group. It’s a really interesting social dynamic. Almost all the people on these trips are foreigners who’ve left everything behind to come and teach in Korea for a year. This results in there being a lot of outgoing people, who, due to their time spend working with children, have a slight tendency to behave like them. Consequently, it’s really fun.

This second trip was to Busan, a southern port city with a beautiful beach, and to Jeju Island. Jeju is one of Korea's most popular tourist attraction, and is advertised as almost a tropical destination. Our main purpose of going to Jeju Island was to hike Mt. Halasan, the highest peak in Korea. There was still snow on the mountain, so we had to have ‘Cramp-ons’ to get any grip on the icy path.

It was cold, but the snow probably made the hike more beautiful, because we were in an isolated winter wonderland. I was hiking by myself for a little while, and at one point I stopped, and just enjoyed the Silence. It’s not often in Korea that you get to stand somewhere and hear no people, no cars, and no k-pop. This trip involved two overnight ferries, and though both ferries had the infrastructure for big parties, they didn’t seem to have the people or budget for them, so I mostly sat around and played cards.



Finally, I made it to the fourth weekend in February and it was quiet. Friday night involved pizza and drinks in Sinchon, the closest neighbourhood of seoul with good nightlife. Saturday night was my grade 5 graduating students special dinner party. It was supposed to be at OUTBACK steak house, but was (in my opinion) downgraded to Bennigans, another foreign food restaurant in my neighbourhood.



That work week was a strange one. It was the end of the semester, so we were finishing our text books and winding down our classes by showing movies and doing the best of the best talent show. Hurray for six year olds who can play the piano pieces that I learned in Grade 9.



I have decided that I don’t like children’s magic shows. Especially when it’s all about the kids awkwardly doing tricks with fancy toys that their parents bought them. There were a couple students with pretty good slight of hand, but they were few and far between. You really can’t compare the kid with a trick paper bag to the kid who practices violin for an hour everyday even though they’re 7 years old. And still, I’m surprised at how evident talent is at that age. You can tell the kids who are playing the notes on the page, versus those who actually feel the music.



The final trip of the month was to Geomundo Island. A friend found this trip on Adventure Korea, a website for a travel company targeted almost entirely towards foreigners living in Korea, knowing that most of the foreigners living in South Korea are teachers interested in sightseeing, experiencing culture, and not spending a lot of money. This trip involved an overnight bus for 6 hours, an early morning ferry, checking into a hotel, having some time to explore the island, and provided meals. Day two on the island was more structured, with a boat tour out to an area called Bokdo and a group hike along the coast to a lighthouse. Overall, island life was really relaxing. Something about the waves on the beach, and the salt in the air just makes everything slow down.

Day three was supposed to be a ferry back to the Korean main land, a trip to a Korean traditional culture folk village and a bus back to Seoul by 9pm. Day three did not happen as planned. Our 10 o’clock ferry back to the mainland was cancelled due to poor weather, and right away, we were informed that our prospects of making it back to Seoul that day was not good. And that was the end of relaxing island life. I, like 95% of the teachers on our trip, was required to be at work on Tuesday. This would be the first day of the new school year, so that means new students, new staff, and a lot of disorganization which I didn’t want to contribute to. Unfortunately, with no ferry, bridge or way of swimming back to shore, we were stuck on the island, and we all had to call in ‘stranded’ to work. And so, my school had to deal with one less teacher, and the weather was pretty poor so I spent my extra vacation day waiting in the rain, and sitting in the only café on the island, wondering if I’d get to work in time for my last class. At 4 pm we found out that the last ferry was cancelled, but we still had our hotel rooms and there was plenty of beer to treat our worries.

Surprisingly, I did arrive back in Ilsan on Tuesday just in time to jump into a classroom and teach one block of grade 3. It seems I’d missed the most stressful day of the school year. But, the world didn’t end and I didn’t get fired, so that’s good news.



And now, we’ve arrived at March. Perhaps I’ll write that post sometime in April!

January!

Blog update: January

So I started writing this blog in January, but then I just never got around to posting it. Apparently being in Korea hasn’t made me any more proactive.



Snow!



I came back from the Philippines to discover that Seoul had had a record snow fall. The city also has no snow removal capabilities. Seriously, their way to deal with the situation was call out thousands of military reserves, policemen, and any government employee to hit the streets with shovels and sometimes, literally hit the streets with pieces of wood. Ajimas, who are the powerful overbearing mothers of Korean society, could also be seen on the streets, sweeping away the ice with their brooms.



The first weekend back I went to this great sports and games bar near my apartment called “In Toos” or something like that. I was pretty happy as I met a girl foreigner who was taking a martial art class in my neighbourhood. I got the instructions and that Monday I went to observe my first MMA class. I am interested in kick boxing, so MMA, or mixed martial arts was the closest I could find. I was hopeful when the sign on the door said Muay Thai, but a bit intimidated by the class, when I walked in. There was a Korean American or two who explained to me about the classes and gym hours, but he took off and I was left in a chair to observe. The class started with about 30 Korean males standing in a big circle. Some were 14, some were older, and they all stood and listened to the teacher, a larger male in his late 20s, who talked in Korean for 10 minutes. Then, they did a quick warm up, stretched, turned up the music and proceeded to do 30 minutes of circuit training. AKA I watched a bunch of Korean men run around shirtless, grunt a lot and throw big weights in the air.



I went back on Wednesday and had my first class on Friday. It started off with group warm up, and then we were training in two groups. I was brought to the striking side, and made to stand right in front of the mirror, right next to the instructor. He would take turns talking to the Koreans for several minutes, then turn to me, push his hand forward through the air and say, “Uh, Jab?” And so I’d comply. Eventually we partnered off and I took turns punching and catching jabs with my bare hands. No gloves or hand wraps here. I luckily was paired with a guy who could count in English, so we jabbed “1,2...1...1,2,1...2..2..” and shadow boxed. Overall, it was a fun class, and I was happy because I got to hit things. And the super intimidating shirtless, grunting, non-English speaking men seemed to be quite nice and friendly.





In January I also went to Itaewon - a neighbourhood in Seoul near the big army base where there are a lot of foreigner services. I got a couple books at the English used book store and some cookie dough at a foreign food market.

The month ended with a ski trip to OakValley ski resort, some three hours south west of Ilsan. This was the smallest ski resort I’ve ever been to, but considered a good size for Korea. There were 4 chairlifts on a mountain probably smaller than baldy. There wasn’t even snow on the ground off the ski runs. Literally, the hills were all brown, and I think the golf course may have even been open. The resort itself was really nice. There were two very large buildings right on the mountain, and I assume these had hundreds of very nice guest rooms. The rest of the resort was a large cafeteria, a star bucks (of course), a grocery store, a few other nice restaurants, and a beautiful indoor swimming pool with massaging water jet chairs of different styles around the edge of the water. Koreans sure know how relax.