Sinchon

Hi all! Well, we have been here for over three weeks and we can definately say it has flown by. While we are still getting used to living in Korea we have had some great experiences so far (meeting new friends, eating Korean food, having our own apartment, and even teaching!)

As you can see in the slideshow Ian and I have visited a restaurant and shopping district called Sinchon. Sinchon is an area where thousands of young Koreans come to shop, eat and drink coffee. This area is exactly what I imaged Seoul to be like. It is crowded, has lots of street vendors, neon lights, and hundreds of restaurants. Fortunately, Sinchon is either a 3 minute bus ride or a 15 minute walk from the apartment, so getting there is extremely easy! Plus it has the Korean version of Walmart, called Grandmart! It has a grocery section on the bottom 2 floors and every possible household necessity on the remaining 5 floors. You may notice by looking at the pictures that you see VERY few foreigners. The funny thing is this part of Seoul is considered to have a larger population of foreigners, since there are a few international schools here. Well, Ian and I have found that a "large" foreign population in Korea means you see about 3 foreigners a day, if you're lucky. Now we know how it feels to be the minority!

Another restaurant and shopping district, which is in the opposite direction of Sinchon, is called Hungdai. This is also about a 5 minute bus/taxi ride. We went there last weekend and met up with some friends of Dan (who is Ian's friend from UP). Ian and I stayed out until 2:30 AM while the rest of the group was going to the next bar! The next day we heard they stayed out until 4:30 AM. Staying up late is something they do very well here. Even at 2:30 AM restaurants were busy!

This upcoming weekend we hope to visit a section of Seoul call Insadong. This area is know for its tea shops. Unfortunately, getting tea here is extremely expensive, so we are hoping that the tea in Insadong is little more reasonable. Who would have guessed that an Asian country would sell ridiculously high priced tea! We also want to take the treck to Seoul Tower, which is basically the Korean version of Seattle's Space Needle. You can see the entire city from the top. We just hope the weather works out!

Our next post is going to be about the food we have loved and dispised! Pictures are soon to come...

Slideshow

We finally figured out how to make a slideshow! What you need to do in order to view the slideshow in a bigger size is...

1. Click on the picture below the title "Slideshow", this will link you to Flickr
2. On the right side of the slideshow you will see a box that says "9 items." If you click on the picture of a projector below the "9 items" it will link you to the slideshow. It should then play for you.

If this doesn't work or you can't figure out how to view the slideshow, just email Ian and we will work out the kinks!

A Run to Costco

This last Sunday Leslie and I took the subway across the Han River on the first of probably many ritual pilgrimages to that gastronomical mecca we hold so dear to our hearts: Costco! We were very excited but still nervous. Would the Korean Costco be the same as its American counterpart?, or would it just be full of 2 gallon barrels of kimchi and endless vats of pickled radishes? Well, it turned out to be a little of both.

Costco Korea definitely had its bulky share of seaweed drums, floor mats, and shoe racks, but it also had plenty of what we were looking for. Cheese by the pound, rows of bagels, Tabasco, deli meat, and an assortment of snack foods. Unfortunately, we could only take back what we could carry, so we had to be quite scrupulous in what we left with.

Also, as it turned out, leaving was a challenging matter of its own. As I mentioned before, we went on a Sunday, which we will never do again! The place was packed to the gills, with hundreds, if not thousands of shoppers wielding oversize shopping carts through the narrow winding spaces between other Costco-ers, all on the personal vendetta to get what they came for and escape alive.

It was a complete zoo! The food kiosk looked like the feed lot at the Chicago slaughter pens. People packed shoulder to shoulder, 20 deep, all jostling for get their pizza or hot dog (which were quite tasty in fact, just like back home) There were no open seats and half-a-dozen diners would begin to encircle those on the benches who were finishing their meal. Every person sitting down had someone slowly inching closer to them in a desperate attempt to grab the open seat when they left. People were literally standing right next to diners as they ate.

Leslie and I decided it would be best (and safest) to stand unobtrusively in a corner and match the battle unfold. And it was entertaining to say the least. No one seemed to mind all the people crowding around them as they ate, it must be a normal occurrence at Costco. On a side note, the chopped onions at the condiment station were immensely popular. People would load up an entire plate of them, and put them on everything, and sometimes mix them with ketchup and mustard. Some people would even take the remaining onions home in a bag. Costco even had grinders for people to grind their own onions because they probably couldn't restock the onion tray fast enough, which incidentally made them quite fresh and delicious.

After lunch Leslie and I braved the horde of shoppers and managed to escape with some precious cargo: sharp cheese, Cheerios, pancake mix, olive oil, and salami. It was very exciting. Now we can make sandwiches!

I'm sure we will head back to Costco soon for more things, just not on a Sunday. What a rookie mistake. We heard afterwards that mid week is much calmer. We will put up another post about school and other things soon, so don't go anywhere!

Moved In!

Well, we have moved into our actual apartment! It is basically one large room with a small kitchenett and bathroom. It's not a lot of room but we are happy with it. What's really nice is that it has a washing machine! Thank god we don't have to go searching for a laundry mat. Another nice aspect is being in the same apartment complex as most of the other teachers. This makes getting together really convenient.

Ian started teaching on Monday and had a pretty successful first day. He said the younger students (around 8-10 year olds) are all very eager to learn and participate. The teenagers, on the other hand, aren't as vocal and take a lot more coaxing. I started teaching today. My first class has about 12 ten year olds. They are all really cute but a little more shy. But once you get them relaxed they are a lot more willing to participate. For the next five weeks Ian and I are going to have different working schedules. He works at night and I work in the morning. That has taken some time getting used to but we are just happy to have jobs!

We haven't seen too much of the Korean night life yet. We went to a bar last Saturday with some of the other teachers. It was fun but since we left too late we ended up at a "Foreign Bar." This is basically a bar for all the Americans who are teaching english. I must say it was really suprising walking in and seeing so many people that looked like us! Fortunately, we are in between two universities, so finding a restaurant and or a bar is very easy.

Earlier today we were able to buy a bed! This may not sound too exciting but after sleeping on floor mats for close to a week we are very excited! Unfortunately, we don't have sheets or blankets yet. But those will come soon (hopefully)! We were also able to buy a few items (lamp, t.v, pots) from the girl who lived in our apartment previously. It will probably take a couple of weeks to actually set up our apartment since we don't know where to buy anything!

That's the news from Seodaemun-gu! We will post pictures of the apartment later tonight.

Training

Well, we did it. We passed training and are now officially Chungdahm Institute instructors. And it feels great! Training, on the otherhand, did not feel great. In fact, it was pretty horrible. Currently, the raw burning memory of our training program is still fresh in our minds, and we do not have the strength to talk much about it. Perhaps one day, with the healing efforts of time, we might be able to enlighten you on our week long adventure to hell and back.

But on a lighter note, we have made it to our branch in beautiful Seodaemun-gu, and it seems great. All the staff and instructors are very nice and welcoming. It looks like a great place to work. Everyone seems very happy there, even most of the students.

I start my first day of teaching on Monday and Leslie starts on Wednesday. We will get a post up soon to tell you how it goes!

Korean Characteristics

After being in Korea for almost a week now, we wanted to share with you all some insights we've gained about this lovely country. Based on our limited experience so far, these twelve observations represent a solid piece of the Korean portrait we have drawn for ourselves. Enjoy!


1. The sidewalk is a vastly under-rated area for both parking and driving.

2. Pringles potatoe chips are a universally tasty food. I have yet to meet a culture that does not worship their deliciousness.

3. The term "mild" is an unknown word in the Korean mind.

4. Pizza Hut is quite a swanky and respectable eating establishment, with a salad bar to boot, which happens to be saladless.

5. Flat Screens TVs are everywhere, I mean everywhere; public buses, bathrooms, and divey restaurants.

6. Every meal has two staples. No not green tea and white rice, but kimchi and pickled yellow beets. And when i say every meal, I mean every meal.

7. While few people seem to speak it, English is everywhere. Its on restaurant menus, advertisements, clothing, and roads signs. Sometimes entire businesses and advertisements are in English, with Korean characters crammed unobtrusively into the margins.

8. Tea is expensive, much more so than in the U.S. Iced Tea is the splurge item on coffee shop menus and our hotel lobby charges $7.50 for it.

9. In Korea, rain jackets are for the fashionably unsensible or the financially unsupportable. Umbrellas are definitely the cool way to go. Everyone has one.

10. Hoegaarden is the new Bud. Nearly every convenience store we've seen, including 7-11, sells this relatively illusive and pricey European wheat beer, and for a reasonable price.

11. The way to get lunch in Seoul is by motorcycle delivery man. These delivery guys are more common than Portland bicyclists, McDonald's even has their own fleet of them. They ride on every navicable surface disobeying most traffic laws.

12. Korea is a homogeneous culture, at least in the area where we are staying. Leslie and I could count the number of westerners we've seen since we've been here on our fingers. But nearly everyone has been both kind and gracious to us.

Made It!

We finally made it to Seoul after having been up for over 24 hours! Even though we were exhausted after finding our way to the hotel, we could not give up the chance for our first bite of Korean food. Our table was filled with several side dishes, kimchi included, and a main dish of short ribs. While the short ribs were delicious the kimchi was a little fishy. But all in all it was a great meal. Fortunately, we have seen several American food joints throughout the city, including KFC, The Coffee Bean, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robins, Hooters (Yep, they have Hooters!), On the Boarder, TGIF, and of course McDonalds.

The next day we had to take a medical exam at the National Medical Center. Unlike the hospitals in the U.S., this one is pretty dismal and dirty. But after having our weight, blood pressure, eyes, teeth, urine, and chest checked we were thankfully released!

We have done a little exploring of the city. Yesterday we took our first city bus ride! It only cost 1,000 Won (about $.72) and was not too difficult to navigate. We are going to explore the subway system today, so hopefully we don't get lost! Fortunately our hotel is really nice. Ian thinks a little too nice, suspecting it MUST be headquarters of the Korean Mob :)

Well that's all the news from Seoul. Check back in a week to hear about our wonderful adventures of training...

Headed to the Eastside

So we're leaving for Seoul in mid August. Oh wait!, I mean July 11th, no July 3rd! No, sorry, its July 7th. Yes, that's it, July 7th!

After four date changes and two changed plane tickets we are finally about to embark for Korea on, yes that's right, Tuesday the 7th, assuming the date doesn't change yet again. Leslie and I were never quite sure if this whole thing would work out, but miraculously it has, and we are more excited than ever to go.

We fly from Salt Lake to San Francisco, and then on to Seoul a 12 hour direct flight. When we arrive we are staying in a hotel until the 13th when our training officially begins. During this time we have to pass a government health inspection so we can qualify for health insurance (and so the proper authorities can make sure we are not biological terrorists or ignorant transporters of the swine flu).

We have a week of training starting on the 13th, and then we start work at the institute; Chungdahm Institute, Seodaemun Branch to be exact. We hope to get a posting up a few days after we arrive, assuming we can get internet access, which shouldn't be hard considering Korea is the most wired country on earth.

Looking foward to posting again from Seoul!