My first holiday

Last Saturday, I found myself leaving for my first Korean jaunt with four lads from the Village who also felt they needed to escape the Bubble for a bit. We were up at the crack of dawn to catch the early bus to Seoul. Once in the city we had to cross it by subway to the Express Bus Terminal, and from there, we could catch an express bus to Jeonju, a town in the southwest of the country in a province called Jeollabuk-do. We bought tickets for the soonest available bus and were duly standing in the queue at the appropriate gate 10 minutes before time. It was quickly apparent, however, that the queue was not boarding, and more than that, a man had just walked past the queue and gotten on the bus. Uneasy mumblings began. Then the driver jumped down from the bus and started calling something out in Korean. He worked his way down the queue checking tickets until he reached mine, when he grabbed the ticket, started waving it about and packed out laughing, talking to onlookers in Korean until they were all finding it very funny too. It turned out the queue was for the next bus; our bus was ready to leave and had been only waiting for the last five passengers to board... Well, at least we boarded amid the pleasant sounds of laughter. The bus turned out to be a luxury one, with only three seats in each row, and each seat a wide, leather-covered, reclining heaven. The 3 hours to Jeonju sped by.

Once in Jeonju, we split into two taxis for the drive to the Hanok Maeul - Hanok Village - a small village in the heart of the town with immaculately preserved traditional Korean houses, and the biggest reason to visit Jeonju. I'm not sure why, but I sat in the front of the taxi, with Shawn, who speaks some Korean, in the back. Our driver for some reason got quite animated and interspersed his mumblings and (I guess) speeches (entirely in Korean) with sudden whacks on my thigh, presumably to stress his point... The moment I saw the grey sign of the Tourist Information booth in the village I shouted "Yogiyo! Here!" and out we jumped. There was still a bit of a walk to where the others were meeting us, but it was a lovely walk through the centre of the maeul. The hanok village here is the best preserved in Korea, and other cities are only now starting to imitate them in their policy of preserve or restore. There were a number of new hanoks being built too, all with traditional methods and materials. It's a shame most of these beautiful homes were destroyed in Korea's manic rush for American-style modern prosperity. Once our group was together again, we decided the most important thing was lunch, and so we found a little restaurant, tucked our legs under the table and ordered Jeonju Bibimbap. Bibimbap is a popular food all over Korea, but Jeonju is famous for its specialisation. Normally a pile of vegetables on a bed of rice with red pepper sauce and an egg cracked over the top, in Jeonju they take pride in adding extra unique ingredients, such as pine kernels or bluebell roots :) It was delicious! We were also served about 15 extra side dishes, one of which I loved - a small, long, thin fish, curried. It was quite a job pulling the meat off the thousand spindly bones with chopsticks, I tell you.

We also went to a traditional tearoom - Jeonju is famous for teas as well as bibimbap. Our first tearoom was a pea-sized establishment squished in between a leather workshop and a ginseng shop, and when I say squished, I mean for you to have a picture in your mind of a room wide enough for a 2-person square table, and long enough for just four such tables. It had a name bigger than the premises - "Moonbirds think only of the Moon" - a rather lovely name! Squeezing our way in past a group of 4 Koreans we were greeted enthusiastically by the hostess who showed us to the back table, putting out an extra chair for me which effectively blocked the way to the kitchen entirely. We sat with our bags stuffed under chairs and had a look at the menu - beautifully written on a piece of wood. In Korean. Shawn - he of the little-bit-o'-Korean - managed to find each of us something we thought we might like and ordered. The tea came in gorgeous local ceramic mugs, green-glazed, with tiny leaves in place of handles - a good idea, considering the thinness of Jeonju ceramics, to wait for the tea to cool down a little. When I finally got to drink mine, it was delicious - a "5 tastes" tea - Shawn had the same, and we managed between us to identify sweet, sour and bitter. Later we found a shop crammed full of Jeonju ceramics, beautiful, unique, imaginative ceramics - long bowls and little pots, fruit baskets, oil lamps, and tea sets - and the tea sets came in different types too: standard teapots, teapots with panhandles on the side, teapots big enough for an espresso and no more, teapots with animals crawling up the sides. With my teeth gritted, I was just able to resist the temptation, and restricted myself to one small birthday present for my Robyn - now, if I can just avoid sending it to her until October....

The next day, after a restful night on the floor, in traditional Korean style (much like a futon), we went for a walk up a little hill on the edge of the village to Omokdae, Provincial Monument No. 16 (yes, Korea numbers its "tangible cultural assets" - as well as some intangible (usually human) ones). Removing our shoes on the steps, we climbed up to the shrine, raised to the memory of a 14th century king who slept there after defeating Japanese invaders. It was decorated in the reds, greens and blues of other temples and shrines I've seen here, with dragons stretching between the walls and the eaves, and writing (not Korean - Japanese I assume, from the timescale) up pillars. With our little feet shivering on the wooden floors, we could look out over the whole town - quite a view, with the ubiquitous high rise apartment buildings in the distance and a medieval village at our feet!Our final act of the morning, on our way to the bus station, was to stop at a street stall to buy a bagful of these yummy breads:
















A naan-like bread, filled with a sweet syrup, lovely and warm, and the perfect thing to fill up a cold belly in Korea! :)


I must apologise for how long this took me to write, but on the return bus to Seoul, I took my camera out of my bag and put it on my seat next to me. Most of you will know what happens next. Yep, I left it there, only realising when we were on the bus to Paju... I mentioned it to a Korean co-teacher who immediately pulled out her phone and called the bus company, and this is where my voice starts to squeak in South African disbelief: it had been handed in! I went this morning to Seoul to collect it :) Hooray for the honest Koreans!

My night in Seoul

On Saturday, Leigh, Caitlin and I ventured out to Seoul. We were supposed to be meeting some other people there, but then bumped into one of them in the Village - they'd been and returned already! Feeling adventurous and brave, and discovering that Leigh had been out there once before, we decided to go anyway, so off to the bus stop we went. The bus ride was a nightmare, as on the first four stops we picked up most of the local population, then as we hit the express section of the journey on the highway, we also hit traffic, and sat on the overheated bus for ages in a stop-start nightmare. Apparently nobody gives up seats here either - if you're lucky enough to get one you must deserve it - and Leigh had to persuade a mother with a sleeping child to take hers...

Arriving in Seoul, we walked down to a place called Hongdae - an abbreviation of Hongik Daehakgyo, or Hongik University - and therefore achingly hip and full of students as well as a huge contingent of foreigners who go there because Itaewon, the other nightspot, has too many foreigners... yes, it's a bit of a catch 22. We descended beneath the street to our first bar, Zen Bar, which turned out to be a gorgeous den with a big rectangular bar in the centre, deep comfy bar stools on the edges, and low tables by the walls. A massive flat screen TV showed hip-hop music videos and one wall was covered in a mural depicting Buddha as a black hip-hop DJ :) Very interesting! It wasn't long before the girls sitting next to us started talking to Leigh about their university courses, and a lad from the table behind us approached Cait and I clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels and a tot glass - to practise his English. After a couple of shots, I'm not sure my English was a good thing for an English learner to be listening to! Also, the level of English in Korea is fairly low compared to other countries I've been to, and the lack of attention paid to pronouns, articles and l's and r's means that it takes a while to tune the ear to Korean English. Hard work for a Saturday night. :D

After meeting so many Koreans, I was a little disappointed when other foreigners started turning up, but we ended up following them to a couple of other places to dance, none as pleasant as Zen Bar :)

It also started to rain, a freezing, hard rain, and as none of us had brought coats or umbrellas, the locals were treated to the sight of three foreign girls running screaming from shelter to shelter. What can I say, we're representing South Africa here in Korea... We ended up looking rather drowned - hence this picture:

Public transport is difficult to use to get to Paju between midnight and 6am so at 3am when we wanted to go home, we had to wave down a taxi. It amazes me that you can use a taxi to get somewhere it takes a bus 1 hour 45 minutes to reach... but the driver seemed amenable and we all bundled inside. Now, I'm not sure what happened exactly, I think I may have dozed a little, but the next thing I knew, Caitlin was gesticulating wildly and trying to communicate in a mixture of mime and broken English with the driver, and I didn't recognise any of the landscape outside the window... yes, we were lost. The driver stopped in the middle of a 4 lane highway (road rules are optional in Korea at the best of times, so at 4am there's really no rules at all) to ask a police officer for directions, which meant we three had to all sit up straight and look professional and sober, but even the policeman's directions couldn't get us home. We drove around for about half an hour, none of us recognising any major sites (unsurprising as we've only been to the edge of Paju town itself once since arriving), until finally somebody gave us directions that led us.... around the corner to the Village gate. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we had been driving around aimlessly for close to 45 minutes less than two blocks away from the Village. Three cheers for the clueless foreigners.

However, there is a silver lining: I am absolutely determined to (a) get a good map, and (b) learn at least basic Korean very soon....

My First Week

Sunday: After meeting two other teachers from my SA agency at Incheon Airport, we make our way to the English Village north of Seoul, arriving just as the sun sets. My apartment is tiny but very neat and space-conscious, and there's a thoughtful present of noodles and loo roll on my bed. It's equipped with internet (hooray for high-speed first-world internet!), TV, heater, LOTS of storage, and a little kitchen + accessories. I also have my own bathroom. We're taken out for dinner at a local restaurant and already I can see I'm going to like the people here, Korean and otherwise :) Jet lag allows me to sleep till midnight, but gently prods me awake after that, and I spend the early hours of Monday morning watching K-pop (local music) on TV.

The photo is of my residence. I'm the window on the left at the top.

Monday: First day on the job! The two other new teachers (Ross from Zim and Caitlin from SA) and I are taken down to the teachers' room for the Monday meeting, and then it's straight out to the entrance of English Village (EV from now on), where, underneath an enormous Stonehenge, we rollcall our students with our shadow teachers. Mine is Park, a Korean guy who looks about 20 but is actually 32. My class doesn't understand a word I say and packs out laughing every time I say a name, so Park takes over. We drop them off at their "hotels" to unpack, and collect them 20 minutes later for an "opening ceremony" where two teachers (Korean and American) give a great show, enthusiastically taking the piss out of the 350+ students (nicknames are popular to avoid having to learn any names!) and listing the unbreakable rules (Speak English! Listen To Teachers! Don't Sleep In Class!). I sit in a sea of black-haired students who stare shamelessly at me and the other non-Korean teachers. Finally it's time for classes, and the rest of the day passes in a blur.

Tuesday: I lose half my class as they run screaming around a corner after a young guy in army fatigues. Park tells me with his usual affable smile that there is an actor shooting scenes from a popular Korean soap in the main street of the Village and goes striding after the lost girls and boys... Apparently the streets of EV are often closed down for the sole use of directors, and the local pub's walls are lined with autographs. My fellow teachers seem less excited. Probably because it's hard to explain to the teacher you're delivering a class to that you haven't a clue where the other fifteen children are.

Later, we're taken out for shabu-shabu at a local restaurant - the owner drives to EV to fetch us! This is a Japanese meal and is pretty special.


How to eat shabu-shabu:

1. Pull up a cushion and sit at the low table, where a potjie pot full of soup and vegetables is bubbling away above the built in gas flame. Fill up your bowl with the ladle - the professional way to do this is to slop it everywhere, including on yourself, and then admire the reddish stains. I'm happy to say I was immediately successful at this.
2. Ask the hostess for the meat - brought to you in about 20 rolled up very thin slices. Plunge a piece into the soup when you're ready and swish it about, waiting for it to cook. Shabu-shabu apparently means "swish swish". I can't comment on this part - vegetarians skip to the next step:
3. Pull up an enormous bowl of fresh white noodles and tip into the potjie pot. When cooked, spend half an hour attempting to transfer to your bowl using the ladle and your friends' chopsticks. Once in your bowl, attempt to eat with chopsticks. Drop slippery noodles around the table to great amusement of Koreanised teachers. Admit defeat when the hostess comes hurrying anxiously across with a fork. (The two other newbies laughed at me, but I notice they didn't attempt the noodles themselves...)
4. The hostess will remove the last bits of soup from the pot (these are put aside for take away) and then packs in a mix of uncooked rice and vegetables and a bit of leftover soup, pressing it down hard around the pot. Leave to cook over the flame for a couple of minutes, then scrape off the pot so that the black crunchy bits are mixed up, and pat it down again to cook some more. When it's to your taste, enjoy - this is the easiest part of the meal to actually eat and is surprisingly delicious.
5. Unfold your legs from underneath the table and attempt to stand up - it's alright to take a few wobbly attempts at this - after all, it has been an hour and a half of sitting on the floor...

Wednesday: I have been assigned to the science section of the school, which means Invention, Science and Exploration classes, I think - and Robotics! Which is awesome, cause I always wanted a robot. Teachers are encouraged to try out projects before teaching them :) I get confused when being introduced to the class, as there is a short question-and-answer time every new class you take (although you are the Home Room teacher for one class for their whole week here, you also teach other classes through the day). During the Q&A I keep asking the students their ages, and every single one is 15. I understand that all babies start life as 1 year old on the day they're born, so all Koreans are a year older than we are. I now discover that at Chinese New Year, everyone turns a year older, which means that it doesn't matter which month you are born in, you are the same age from New Year to New Year. A child born the night before New Year will turn 2 the following day. So despite being 4 months from my 28th birthday, I am actually already 29 in Korea. I have started giving this age to students that ask: they ask so that they can mentally place you in the classroom's hierarchy - age is everything in Korea. The older I am, the more respect I get from the kids! Also, apparently I have "small face, teacher!", which I'm told is a good thing here :)

Thursday: Ross, Caitlin and I were taken to the local hospital for our medical exams. Everyone at EV has to do this once they arrive, and it's pretty comprehensive and in-depth. Basically, if you've smoked a joint in the last month, or are taking anything stronger than paracetamol without a prescription, you will fail, and you will be escorted from the country immediately... pretty terrifying! The hospital is amazing, absolutely spotless with huge potted palms and ferns lining the corridor and tiny, neat little nurses in bonnets. Nobody speaks much English, which meant that when standing on the height/weight machine, I was not prepared for a plastic thing to wallop me on the head while checking my height, and the nurse thought I was a real idiot when I couldn't complete the hearing test first time... Then, just to make sure you're really weirded out, you are given a cup and told to go get a urine sample. The bathroom is right down at the other end of the corridor, which means that you walk back to the exam room with an open cup of wee, past all the incoming patients in the foyer, who are already craning their necks to see you because you're foreign and interesting. Awesome. Blood test, eye test, blood pressure, medical history.... They delve deep. Or at least they attempt to, but without any Korean on my part and no English on their part, I'm not really sure how much history they got from my mime.

Friday: Hooray! Friday at last! I'm exhausted - and most of the teachers have been doing this for a straight ten days thanks to an anomaly in the Korean school term & exams... Morning class is Invention, in which the kids make "rainbow juice" from a mix of coloured juices and soda water. Afterwards, in Home Room, everyone writes postcards to their favourite teacher to round off. I get a satisfying little bundle :) The afternoon is filled with meetings and introductions, but we're given little bundles of rice cakes ("deok") by a teacher who's just been married - beautifully wrapped and boxed, they're not like the dry Western rice cakes, but thick, gooey rolls of (I assume) mashed rice, with bits and pieces mixed in - chocolate chips, black beans, and I'm not sure what the pink one is.... Deok is a very auspicious food, served on lots of important occasions.

On Friday night three of us head for Ilsan to do some shopping - this is the nearest big town to EV, about 20 minutes on the shuttle and then 5 minutes taxi to an enormous shopping street/mall. It seems like the entire town is lit up - Earth Day needn't bother with the rest of the world, just getting Korea to switch off for the day would stop global warming all on its own! The buildings are covered in electrical signs for the shops and offices inside, all flashing and doing their own little things. Think Times Square on steroids...